Devil's Peak (10 page)

14.

B
arkhuizen, the doctor with the thick spectacles, his long hair in a cheeky plait this time, came around again the next morning after Griessel had swallowed his breakfast without enthusiasm or appetite.
“I’m glad you’re eating,” he said. “How do you feel?”
Griessel made a gesture that said it didn’t matter.
“Finding it hard to eat?”
He nodded.
“Are you nauseous?”
“A bit.”
The doctor shone a light in his eyes.
“Headache?”
“Yes.”
He put a stethoscope to his chest and listened, finger on Griessel’s pulse.
“I have found you a place to stay.”
Griessel said nothing.
“You have a heart like a horse, my friend.” He took the stethoscope away, put it in the pocket of his white coat and sat down. “It’s not much. Bachelor flat in Gardens, kitchen and living room below, wooden stairs up to a bedroom. Shower, basin and toilet. One two per month. The building is old but clean.”
Griessel looked away to the opposite wall.
“Do you want it?”
“I don’t know.”
“How’s that, Benny?”
“Just now I was angry, Doc. Now I don’t give a fuck.”
“Angry with whom?”
“Everyone. My wife. Myself. You.”
“Don’t forget it’s a process of mourning you are going through because your friend the bottle is dead. The first reaction is anger at someone because of that. There are people who get stuck in the anger stage for years. You can hear them at the AA, going off at everyone and everything, shouting and swearing. But it doesn’t help. Then there is the depression. That goes hand in hand with withdrawal. And the listlessness and fatigue. You have to get through it; you have to come out the other side of withdrawal, past the rage to resignation and acceptance. You must go on with your life.”
“What fucking life?”
“The one you must make for yourself. You have to find something to replace drink. You need leisure, a hobby, exercise. But first one day at a time, Benny. And we have just been talking about tomorrow.”
“I have fuck-all. I’ve got suitcases of clothes, that’s all.”
“Your wife is having a bed delivered to the flat, if you want the place.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“I did. She wants to help, Benny.”
“Why hasn’t she been here?”
“She said she believed too easily last time. She said this time she must stick to her decision. She will only see you when you are completely dry. I think that is the right thing.”
“You have all worked this out fucking beautifully, haven’t you?”
“The
Rooi Komplot,
the great conspiracy. Everyone is against you. Against you and your bottle. It’s hard, I know, but you’re a tough guy, Benny. You can take it.”
Griessel just stared at him.
“Let’s talk about your medication,” said Barkhuizen. “The stuff I want to prescribe . . .”
“Why do you do it, Doc?”
“Because the drugs will help you.”
“No, Doc, why do you get involved? How old are you?”
“Sixty-nine.”
“Fuck, Doc, that’s retirement age.”
Barkhuizen smiled and the eyes screwed up behind the thick lenses. “I have a beach house at Witsand. We were retired there for three months. By then the garden was lovely and the house was right and the neighbors met. Then I began to want the bottle. I realized that was not what I should do.”
“So you came back.”
“To make life difficult for people like you.”
Griessel watched him for a long time. Then he said: “The medication, Doc.”
“Naltrexone. The trade name is ReVia, don’t ask me why. It works. It makes withdrawal easier and there are no serious contraindications, as long as you stick to the prescription. But there is a condition. You must see me once a week for the first three months and you must go to the AA regularly. That is not negotiable. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition.”
“I’ll take it.” He had no hesitation.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, Doc, I am certain. But I want to tell you something, so you know what you are letting yourself in for,” he said, and he tapped an index finger on his temple.
“Tell me, then.”
“It’s about the screaming, Doc. I want to know if the medication will help for the screaming.”

* * *

The minister’s children came to say goodnight. They knocked softly on the door and he hesitated at first. “Excuse me, please,” he said to her and then called, “Come in.” Two teenage boys disguised their curiosity about her with great difficulty. The older one was maybe seventeen. He was tall, like his father, and his youthful body was strong. His lightning glance assessed her chest measurement and her legs as she sat there. He spotted the tissue in her hand and there was an attentiveness about him that she recognized.
“G’night, Dad,” they said one after another and kissed him.
“Night, boys. Sleep well.”
“G’night, ma’am,” said the younger one.
“G’night,” said the other, and when his back was turned to his father, he looked into her eyes with undisguised interest. She knew he saw her hurt instinctively and the opportunities that offered, like a dog on a blood spoor.
She was annoyed. “Goodnight,” she said and turned her eyes away, unavailable.
They closed the door behind them.
“Richard will be head boy next year,” said the minister with a certain pride.
“You have these two boys?” A mechanical question.
“They are a handful,” he said.
“I can imagine.”
“Do you need anything? More tea?”
“I should go and powder my nose.”
“Of course. Down the passage, second door on the left.”
She stood up. Smoothed down her skirt, front and back. “Excuse me,” she said as she opened the door and walked down the passage. She found the toilet, switched on the light and sat down to urinate.
She was still annoyed with the boy. She was always aware that she gave off a scent that said to men, “Try me.” Some combination of her appearance and her personality, as if they knew . . . But even here? This little twerp. A minister’s son?
She became conscious of the loud noise of her urine stream in the stillness of the house.
Didn’t these people play music? Watch television?
She was sick of it. She didn’t want to smell like that anymore. She wanted to smell like the woman of this house, the faithful wife: an I-want-to-love-you woman. She had always wanted to.
She finished, wiped, flushed, opened the door and put off the light. She walked back to the study. The minister was not there. She stood in front of the bookshelf, looking at the bookends packed thick and thin beside each other—some old and hardbacked and others new and bright; all about God or the Bible.
So many books. Why did they have to write so much about God? Why was it necessary? Why couldn’t He just come down and say, “Here I am, don’t worry.”
Then He could explain to her why He had given her this scent. Not just the scent, but the weakness and the trouble. And why He had never tested Missus Fucking Prude here with her sensible frock and able hands? Why was she spared? Why did she get a dependable carthorse for a husband? What would she do if the elders of the church came sniffing around her with those hungry eyes that said, “My brain is in my penis”?
Probably catch her breath in righteous indignation and hand out tracts all round. The scene playing out in her head made her laugh out loud, just one short, unladylike laugh. She put her hand over her mouth, but too late. The minister was standing behind her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded and kept her back turned until she had control.

* * *

The extent of it nearly overwhelmed Thobela.
The girl with the earrings first gave him a basic lesson on the workings of the Internet, and then she let him click the mouse on the screen. He battled because the coordination between his hand and the mouse and the little arrow on the screen was clumsy. He improved steadily, however. She showed him connections and Web addresses, boxes he could type words in and the big “Back” arrow if he got lost.
When at last she was satisfied he could manage on his own and he had solemnly handed over the agreed amount, he began his search.
“
Die Burger
and IOL have the best online archives,” she said, and wrote down the www-references for him. He typed in his key words and systematically refined his search. Then came the flood.
At least 40 per cent of all cases of child rape can be ascribed to the myth that it cures AIDS.
People who exploit children for sex in many parts of the world are more likely to be local residents looking for a “good-luck charm” or a cure for AIDS than a pedophile or sexual tourist, rights activists told a UN conference on Thursday.
Thousands of schoolgirls in South Africa and the Western Cape are daily exposed to sexual violence and harassment at schools.
From April 1997 to March this year, 1,124 children who had been physically and sexually abused were treated by the TygerBear Social Welfare Unit for Traumatized Children at Tygerberg Hospital. This is only children who were brought to the hospital: the actual number is much greater.
Sexual molestation and the abuse of young children is reaching epidemic proportions in Valhalla Park, Bonteheuwel and Mitchells Plain. A spokesperson reports that 945 cases of sexual molestation and child abuse have been reported to their office.
Children as young as three years old watch social workers at the TygerBear Unit of the Tygerberg Hospital with wary eyes. Barely out of nappies, these victims of sexual assault have already learned that adults are not to be trusted.
The two domestic violence units on the Peninsula are working on more than 3,200 cases, of which the majority are complaints of serious sexual and other crimes against children.
Of every 100 cases of child abuse in the Western Cape, only 15 are reported to the police, and in 83 per cent of these cases the offender is known to the child.
Once an offender has been diagnosed as a “confirmed pedophile,” there will always be a chance that he will express his pedophilic tendencies again, said Professor David Ackerman, clinical psychologist at the University of Cape Town.
One report after another, a never-ending stream of crimes against children. Murder, rape, maltreatment, harassment, assault, abuse. After an hour he had had enough, but he forced himself to continue.
A three-year-old girl was locked in a cage while her grandparents allegedly sexually assaulted her and failed to provide for even her most basic needs, Mpumalanga police said on Wednesday. Sergeant Anelda Fischer said police recently received a tip-off from a traveling pastor that a child was being incarcerated in a compound outside White River.
Fischer said that when police went to investigate they found the girl had already been removed from the cage. However, she said there was evidence the child had been battered with sticks or other weapons and had been sexually assaulted. It also seemed the child had no clothes of her own and had to beg naked for food. She slept on bits of plastic in the cage.
Colin Pretorius, the owner and head of a crčche in Parow, is being charged on the grounds that he sexually assaulted eleven boys between the ages of six and nine years over a period of four years. He was released on bail of R10,000.
At last he stood and walked unsteadily to the desk to pay for his use of the Internet.

* * *

Viljoen and she had three months together before he blew his brains out.
“At first I was just angry with him. Not heartbroken—that came later, because I truly loved him. And I was scared. He left me with the pregnancy and I didn’t know what to do or where to go. But I was dreadfully angry because he was such a coward. It happened a week after I told him I was pregnant, on a Monday night. I took him to the Spur and told him there was something I had to tell him and then I told him and he just sat there and said nothing. So then I said to him he didn’t have to marry me, just help me, because I didn’t know what to do.
“Then he said: ‘Jissis, Christine, I’m no good as a father—I am a fuck-up, a drunken golfer with the yips.’
“I said he didn’t have to be a father, I didn’t want to be a mother yet, I just didn’t know what to do. I was a student. I had a crazy father. If he had to find out about the baby, he would go off the deep end. He would lock me up or something.
“Then he said let him think about it, make a plan, and the whole week he didn’t phone, and Friday night, just before I had to go to work, I decided I would phone him one last time and if he still tried to avoid me, well, then, fuck him, excuse me, but it was a very difficult time. And then they said there had been an accident, he was dead, but it wasn’t an accident. He had locked the pro shop and sat down at a little table and put a revolver against his head.
“It took me two years to stop being angry and remember that those three months with Viljoen were good. It was when I began to wonder what I would tell my child about her father. Sometime she would want to know and—”
“You have a child?” asked the minister; for the first time he was taken aback.
“. . . and I would have to decide what to tell her. He didn’t even leave a note. Didn’t even write anything for her. He didn’t even say he was sorry, it was depression, or he didn’t have the guts or anything. So I decided I would tell her about those three months, because they were the best of my life.”
She was quiet then and sighed deeply. After a pause the minister asked, “What is her name?”
“Sonia.”
“Where is she?
“That is what my story is about,” she said.

15.

G
riessel almost missed it. Two nurses came around early in the morning with the meal trolley, when he was already dressed and packed and ready to be discharged. His mind was elsewhere and he was not listening to their chatter as they approached his hospital room.
“. . . so then when she found out it was an old trick of his, he confessed. She says he had worked out that all the middle-aged girls go and buy comfort food at the Pick and Pay on Friday nights because they will be sitting in front of the TV all evening and that’s when he pushes his trolley down the aisles and picks the prettiest one to chat up. That’s how he got Emmarentia. Oh, hallo, Sarge, up already? Cheese omelet this morning, everyone’s favorite.”
“No thank you,” he said, taking his suitcase and heading for the door. But he stopped and asked, “Friday nights?”
“Sarge?”
“Say that again about Emmarentia and Pick and Pay?”
“Hey, Sarge, you don’t have to be so desperate, you’re not bad looking,” said one.
“There’s something of the Russian noble in you,” said the other. “Such sexy Slavic features.”
“No, that’s not—”
“Maybe sometimes a bad hair day, but that can be fixed.”
“Anyway, that’s a wedding band I see, isn’t it?”
“Wait, wait, wait.” He held up his hands. “I’m not interested in women . . .”
“Sarge! We could have sworn you were hetero.”
He was starting to get cross, but he looked hard at their faces and saw their deliberate mischief. He laughed helplessly with them, from his belly. The door opened and his daughter Carla stood there in her school uniform. She was momentarily confused by the scene—then relieved. She embraced her father.
“I hope that’s his child,” one nurse said.
“Can’t be, he’s queer as a three-rand note.”
“Or his boyfriend in drag?”
They had Carla laughing with her head on his chest and eventually she said, “Hallo, Pa.”
“You will be late for school.”
“I wanted to know if you were alright.”
“I’m alright, my child.”
The nurses were leaving and he asked them to explain again about Emmarentia.
“Why do you want to know, Sarge?”
“I’m working on this case. We can’t work out how the victims are selected.”
“So the sarge wants to consult us?”
“I do.”
They sketched a verbal picture as an alternating duet. Jimmy Fortuin picked up an occasional score at the Pick and Pay on a Friday afternoon, because by then it was crawling with single women.
“But middle-aged. The young ones still have the guts to fly solo in the clubs, or they gang up, strength in numbers.”
“They buy food for Friday night and the weekend: treats, you know, to spoil themselves a bit. Comfort food.”
“Between five and seven, that’s hunting season for Jimmy, ’cause they’re all on the way home from work. Easy pickings, because Jimmy is a motor mouth, a charmer.”
“Just at Pick and Pay?”
“That’s just
his
convenience store, but Checkers would also work.”
“There’s something about a supermarket . . .”
“Kind of hopeless . . .”
“Desperation . . .”
“The Lonely Hearts Shopping Club.”
“Last stand at the OK Bazaars.”
“Sleepless in the Seven-Eleven.”
“You know?”
Laughing, he said he understood, thanked them and left.
He dropped Carla off at school with the car that Joubert had left for him.
“We miss you, Daddy,” she said as they stopped at the school gates.
“Not as much as I miss all of you.”
“Mommy told us about the flat.”
“It’s just temporary, my child.” He took her hand and pressed it. “This is my third sober day today,” he said.
“You know I love you, Daddy.”
“And I love you.”
“Fritz too.”
“Did he say that?”
“He didn’t have to say it.” She hurriedly opened her case. “I brought you this, Daddy.”
She took out an envelope and gave it to him. “You could pick us up at school sometimes. We won’t tell Mommy.” She grabbed him around the neck and hugged him. Then she opened her door.
“ ’Bye, Daddy,” she said with a serious face.
“ ’Bye, my child.”
He watched her hurry up the steps. His daughter with the dark hair and strange eyes that she had inherited from him.
He opened the envelope. There were photographs in it, the family picture they had taken two years ago at the school bazaar. Anna’s smile was forced. His was lopsided—not quite sober that night. But there were all four of them, together.
He turned the picture over.
I love you, Daddy.
In Carla’s pretty, curving handwriting, followed by a tiny heart.