MY ALARM CLOCK woke me before sunrise. The sun was just coming up on the horizon as I checked to see whether there was anybody sleeping at the bus stop. It was a reflexive habit from the days when the enigma of my husband’s pencil drawing of a girl at a bus stop preoccupied me. Now Simone, the girl in the sketch, was fast asleep in her bedroom just down the passage from mine, but she was still not safe. The early-morning jog I’d set out on one desperate morning after Daniel’s disappearance had turned out to be unexpectedly addictive – just me pounding the pavement, the neighbourhood birds giving their wake-up calls from the trees, and the occasional dawn encounter with another runner on a back road.
Simone’s interrogation of Igor, the conversation with the headmistress, and then with Simone, looping over and over again, the daylight world still half asleep, I directed my hunched body into the Camps Bay wind with its sea-coast odours mingled with vestiges of alcohol and restaurant meals from the previous night’s revelry. Lost in thought, I found myself on an unfamiliar stretch of narrow road with towering white walls that blocked off the first glimmers of light and warmth and crowded me out. I slowed to a stop, unsure of myself, and in the sudden silence a loud crackle of gravel underfoot somewhere behind me startled me. I swung around, peering into the predawn darkness, running through my options. A silvery four-legged shade appeared from behind a row of tall, spotlit conifers. A hunting friend of my father’s had once owned a Weimaraner. I slowed down, uncertain of how this intimidating dog with its sleek, muscled body would react. It came right up to me, the eerie light eyes taking my measure, before it moved on.
I didn’t see my assailant until he was right on top of me and I was lying face down on the hard ground, my hands being tied behind my back with a cable tie. Fear ripped through me, liquid and black, my brain a maelstrom of broken thoughts. Big-gloved hands felt me all over until they found my mobile phone and pocketed it. Then he turned me over unceremoniously and a truncated scream left my mouth as I registered the balaclava, but before it could actually rise and be heard, he grabbed a handful of pine needles and dirt and stuffed it into my mouth. Terror engulfed me as I gagged on the rough muck, trying to force it upward away from my windpipe, struggling against the big hand that plugged my mouth. I saw him pause and listen, and then he waved a knife at me and stuck it under my chin, and it was clear he wanted me to stand up and be silent, but I couldn’t. All I could do was fall on my knees and regurgitate earth and pine needles, spitting the filth out, my breath coming in quick relieved pants, my silent screams resonating within my head.
I knew that across the tarmac was a green-belt area where people walked their dogs and that once he got me there I wouldn’t stand a chance because it was a deserted no man’s land at this time of the day. As the knife pressed deeper and his other hand yanked me up, forcing me to my feet, I thought I could feel blood trickling down my neck. I pretended to be injured, whimpering that I’d twisted my ankle, trying to buy time. Suddenly the knife was gone and I was left standing unsteadily on my own. Someone had pulled my attacker off me. I sank to the ground. Lights went off. Lights came on. A car screeched to a stop next to me, and a uniformed security guard helped me up and asked if I was hurt. Nobody came out from behind the walls but I sensed curtains and blinds moving everywhere, fear fluttering in the breeze. The guard handed me my water bottle that he’d found on the ground, and after I’d rinsed my mouth out and drunk a little, I felt better. More cars arrived and now there was a blue police light flashing and loud voices and a clanging noise. Once it was ascertained that I was just bruised and unnerved and that neither an ambulance nor the 24-hour clinic were necessary (‘I’m not in shock, see my hand isn’t trembling’) and I’d given my details, my phone was handed back to me and it was agreed that the security guard who’d first arrived would give me a lift home. In the car he said conversationally that I should carry an electric cattle prod when I was out there alone; sometimes the criminals hid in the green-belt areas behind the trees and bushes.
I thanked him for getting my attacker off me so quickly, and he gave me a sideways look, and said it wasn’t him. Somebody got there before him; the perpetrator was handcuffed to a gate with his own cable ties. The house owners called the incident centre to say somebody had rung their intercom about a man handcuffed to their gate. That would be the perpetrator, the security officer explained. The same somebody who rescued me kicked my assailant in his balls so he wasn’t able to stand when they found him.
The guard chatted on. At least this time he hadn’t had to climb over anyone’s wall because some damn cat set off the alarm.
‘You can’t help thinking what if there’s three or four guys inside,’ he mused, ‘and it’s only me against them …’
I asked if he was always alone on call-outs and he said yes, that’s what they were trained for; the bosses thought a bulletproof vest and a handgun were enough against criminals. He could radio in and ask for backup assistance but sometimes the criminals didn’t wait. So far it was just the dog bites he had to worry about. His wife wanted him to become a driver for the MyCiTi buses, a nice safe job with a steady income.
‘What will happen to him now, the man who attacked me?’ I asked when he stopped in front of our apartment block.
I received another one of those sideways looks. ‘Right now, he’s in a police van on his way to Groote Schuur hospital. Whoever rescued you was sure effective − I’d like to meet him.’ He gave a short harsh laugh. ‘Your attacker was coughing up blood last time I saw him. He’s not going to be bothering any lady joggers for a very long time.’
I stumble into the apartment and head for the fridge. I grew up with a mother who put her faith in red Mercurochrome, cod liver oil and Dettol. Outpatients at the closest hospital was a last resort. God helps those who help themselves, she’d pronounce grimly as she drove me halfway across town in case I had concussion from one of my frequent falls. I learnt to be more careful just so I could avoid those guilt-inducing trips in the car with her.
I look in on Simone to reassure myself. She’s doing backstroke in her sleep, one arm flung high and then the other.
Her eyes miss nothing as I walk stiffly into the kitchen for breakfast. The ice pack helped but I’m not a pretty picture. The treatment with the pine needles and sand has left my mouth swollen and tender, and my throat feels like sandpaper. The vegetal smell of pine needles and earth is in my nose. I can’t stop thinking about the cruelty of that hand, and what he would have done to me.
Her cereal hand stops in mid-air. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I went out for a jog and I got mugged,’ keeping my hoarse voice steady. ‘I was lucky that a security guard was passing by in his patrol car.’ Better not to talk about a phantom rescuer.
Her eyes are wide and panicked. ‘Did he hurt you? You’re so bruised.’
‘I’m fine, poppet, really. It was just bad luck. Apparently they’ve had other attacks in that area lately. I’ll have to carry a spray or something.’
‘They want me. If I go with them, everything will go back to how it was.’
Then you wouldn’t be in our kitchen eating cereal.
‘Listen to me, Simone. Those people in their black cloaks on the corner are just religious quacks. They have nothing to do with the Sarrazins. Yesterday they were standing there in the downpour and they looked like what they are, foolish humans pursuing some stupid idea of heavenly salvation. They’re harmless−’
‘How can you say that? You’re blind, just like the rest of them!’ She knocks the cereal box off the counter with maximum force, grabs her school bag and sprints out the door. Once I’ve negotiated the sea of Coco Pops I follow her but she’s already halfway down the fire escape, her long legs clanging their ungainly angry way down.
I decide to eat some cereal myself. There’s nothing like cereal on the balcony to straighten out a skew world. Who the hell rescued me? My first thought is Nathan, but I discard this idea. It’s something he would have done in the old days, to keep an eye on me, but with Elijah gone, he’s stayed away from me. So who then?