CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

I left a note for Hattie saying I’d be working from home. Jessie came to my house, and I gave her a Tupperware of bobotie ostrich burgers and roosterkoek to take with her.

I worked through my pile of letters. Young people and old people, wanting help and ideas. I looked up some recipes in my mother’s book, Kook en Geniet. That book has remedies for most things, I tell you.

Then I ate a salad, and a small piece of malva pudding with cream, for lunch. When the shadows got long, I worked in the garden. My straw hat kept the late sun out of my eyes as I picked snails off the pumpkin leaves and threw them on the grass. The chickens ignored them, but a hadeda came down from the eucalyptus tree and gobbled them up.

The phone rang and kept ringing, so I went inside and answered it with sandy hands. It was Henk.

‘Maria,’ he said. His voice was warm like a lullaby.

‘Henk.’ The shape of his name made my mouth smile.

‘I thought you were out.’

‘I was in the garden with the pumpkins.’

‘I can’t come tonight. I must work late.’

‘I went to the police station this morning.’

‘Ja. You did the right thing.’

‘Sounds like Ricus will need to be the one to lay a charge.’

‘We can’t make him. But now at least we have the incident on record.’

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow night?’

‘I’ll be back late, but come for pudding. I think I’ll make pumpkin fritters.’

‘You going out?’

‘To my therapy group.’

‘You’re not serious? After what happened on Tuesday night? It’s not safe.’

I was going to tell him about how most of our group had guns, but then thought that might not be the kind of news to stop him worrying.

‘Henk, the meetings have really been helping me. You know that.’

‘Yes, but that was before this nonsense. These guys could be dangerous.’

‘They won’t be coming back.’

‘How can you be sure of that?’

I didn’t answer. One of my chickens had hopped up onto the stoep and was making soft noises with questions marks at the end. Henk’s voice was quite different. ‘Maria, you are not to go to that meeting.’

‘Henk, you can’t tell me what to do.’

He put down the phone.

I went outside and threw a handful of mielies onto the lawn for the chickens. I made myself an early dinner of Welsh rarebit, which I ate on the stoep, as I watched the sun change the colours of the clouds and hills and veld. The ground looked hard and stony between the bushes and trees. Welsh rarebit reminds me of my father, because it was one of his favourite dishes. That is half the reason I make it. The other half is to do with the creamy mustard sauce. I heard the jackal calling. It got no response from its mate.

I shut the chickens into their hok, and when I got back into the house, the phone rang. I felt the ringing inside my heart. A small part of me didn’t want to answer the phone, but most of me did.

But it wasn’t Henk; it was Jessie.

‘Tannie Maria,’ she said. ‘I wanted you to know the results of your awesome burgers and roosterkoek.’

‘Ja?’

‘The old woman’s name is Geraldine Klappers. She’s a medicine woman. Ystervark says he doesn’t know where she is, but I’m not sure I believe him. He seems sure that she is safe.’

‘Did she have any disagreement with Slimkat?’

‘Slimkat’s uncle said that she and Slimkat worked together closely. He held up two fingers next to each other, “like this”, he said.’

‘On the court case?’

‘Ja. But she was also his teacher; he was training to be a shaman.’

‘Jess . . . have you heard stories about Bushmen . . . turning into animals?’

‘Ja, when they go into a trance, or they do the dance of a certain animal.’

‘So a shaman can turn into a kudu or something?’

‘Not literally, no. They get possessed by the spirit of an animal.’

‘Henk wonders if it was maybe a muti-related killing.’

‘He thinks Geraldine’s a bad witch who used poison herbs?’

‘Not necessarily, but he says that kind of thing does happen.’

‘Why would she kill someone she worked closely with? Ask Detective Henk that.’

I didn’t tell Jess that, right now, Henk and I weren’t talking to each other.

I ate some hot malva pudding at the kitchen table while I listened to the phone not ringing. I heard that lonely jackal calling again. Thick cream melted onto the warm sticky pudding and filled my mouth and mind and belly. When I had finished, the phone did ring.

‘I am sorry,’ he said.

I didn’t know what to say, but a part of my chest went softer, which made me realise it had been tight.

‘You are right,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you what to do.’

‘No,’ I agreed.

‘I know the group’s been helping you. But I worry.’

‘Yes.’

‘I want to come with you to your meeting tomorrow.’

‘You can’t just do that.’

‘I want to watch that nothing happens, that those criminals don’t come back.’

‘We meet outside, in the veld,’ I said. ‘I’ll check with Ricus. And if he agrees—’

‘Ricus, Ricus. He should be grateful for some police protection.’

‘I’ll ask him. But you’d need to stay away from the group. People won’t want a policeman listening to their stories.’

Would I ever tell this policeman my own story? I wondered.