The Quarry (6 page)

The next week there were forty people there for the service and the week after that almost sixty. They could not all fit in and they jammed up the doorway and peered in through the holes in the
bricks.

It was a huge bonfire and it had been burning for an hour in the middle of the vacant lot next to the house. There was a white heat at its centre. They had thrown into it the
minister’s letters, his identity book and the other things they couldn’t use. Valentine had picked up the minister’s clothes and he was about to consign these too to the flames
when three policemen appeared suddenly out of the darkness. They had approached quite silently. One of them had his gun drawn. They were all in uniform and the light of the fire made their buttons
shine redly like eyes. Small and Valentine stood staring at them and time changed shape as it does in instants of extremity.

Valentine was wearing the cassock. He had taken to wearing it lately at night or while he was in the house. It billowed around him as he walked and he felt that it somehow enlarged him. He
dropped what he was holding. Now he leaped in the airy black garment and by the time he knew he had moved he had passed through the centre of the fire and was on the other side running.

Small was behind him. His feet were light and frantic and he emitted a high, keening scream. Valentine had heard a rabbit scream once with a cry not unlike this cry. He ducked to one side, as
much to escape his brother as the pursuers of them both. He ran through the grass and there were rocks and holes in the ground and once he fell on a piece of twisted metal but he was up before he
knew he had fallen. He ran. Though the fire was far behind him it cast long flickering shadows and the outlines of men in motion were around him and he ran without destination.

There was a log, a fence. He jumped. He landed on his feet and stumbled and ran on. Now he heard oaths from somewhere, and shouting. There was a shot. He was on ground that sloped away gently
and he ran down, following the slope. He could hear feet behind him and the sound of breath and he knew that he couldn’t get away. He stopped and turned. He held up his hands although it was
dark and they couldn’t be seen. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Here. It’s me.’

His hands were cuffed behind him. He walked back slowly with the policeman holding his arms. His cassock ballooned around him. It had holes burned in it from when he had jumped through the fire.
When they got back Captain Mong was standing there, waiting. He looked bored. He glanced at Valentine and turned away, sucking on his moustache.

The other policemen came back. They were panting. Small wasn’t with them.

‘Where’s he?’

‘
Ek weet nie, Kaptein.
He got away.’

‘Where’s he?’ the Captain said to Valentine.

‘I don’t know,’ Valentine said.

‘We’ll get him later. Let’s take this one down to the station.’

The plaza wasn’t far. They made him walk. Two of them stayed behind to go through the house and Captain Mong came walking behind him.

‘What’s your name?’ he said.

‘Valentine.’

‘Valentine who?’

‘Valentine April.’

‘Valentine April,’ Captain Mong said.

‘What do you want with me, Captain?’

‘I don’t know,’ Captain Mong said. ‘Maybe you stole some things out of a car.’

‘I don’t steal,’ said Valentine.

‘Nice dress,’ Captain Mong said.

They came to the police-station. Inside there was a cell made out of steel with a concrete floor. They locked Valentine in it. There was a bed against one wall and a high barred window and a
toilet in the corner with no seat. The cell was painted green and over the years people had scratched their names into it and the dates when they had been there.

Then Valentine was alone.

Then Captain Mong came back. He was carrying the clothes that the minister had been wearing, with the bloodstains on them.

‘What’s this?’

‘Captain?’

‘What’s this?’

Valentine looked at the blood. ‘I don’t know, Captain,’ he said.

Then Valentine was alone again for the rest of the night. He slept for a few hours on the bed, then got up and walked around. There was a light on in the corridor that shone into the cell. He
shat and stood leaning against the door for a while and went back to bed and slept again. When he woke up it was day already and a shaft of sunlight was coming in through the window. The shaft
moved slowly along as time went by and he could hear the sounds of voices coming in from the plaza outside. He could hear feet walking past.

Captain Mong outside the door in the sunlight. Smoking a cigarette with his eyes slitted, one hand hooked into his belt. When the minister came to the door he tossed a black
bundle to him and said from the corner of his mouth:

‘That it?’

The minister unfolded the cassock. He held it up, looking at it.

‘Yes.’

‘Come with me.’

He folded the cassock over his arm and followed the policeman across the plaza. They went in past the sandbags and the red motorbike and down a passage round a corner to a door. The door had
bars in it that cut the world into vertical strips and in the square room on the far side was a man, lying on the bed.

Captain Mong kicked the door with his boot. ‘
Kom hier, doos
,’ he said.

Valentine came to the door.

‘That him?’ Captain Mong said.

‘Yes.’

‘
Ag,
give me a cigarette, Captain.’

The Captain gave him a cigarette. He lit it for him through the bars.

‘Remember this man?’ he said.

‘What man?’ Valentine said.

‘This one.’

The two men looked at each other through the intervening iron. The face of one was scarified with scars and the face of the other was smooth.

‘I did nothing,’ Valentine said.

‘Come on.’

‘A few clothes. It’s nothing.’

‘Come,’ Captain Mong said.

The minister turned and walked after the policeman. Valentine called down the passage.

‘I saw the flower,’ he said.

In Captain Mong’s office the goldfish was swimming in its bowl. There was a newspaper open on the desk with a crossword half finished in it. There was a large pile of clothes on the
floor.

‘Those them?’ Captain Mong said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

‘You can have them back. Just sign this form for me.’

‘How did you find him?’

The policeman pulled his ear. ‘I hear things,’ he said. ‘I know things.’

The minister signed the form. He knelt down by the clothes and started arranging them neatly. There was a silence for a while, then he said:

‘What happens now?’

‘To who?’

‘To him.’

The policeman shrugged. ‘He stays here. There’s a circuit court that comes every few months. He can wait till the next one.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

There were too many clothes to be carried across in one trip. The policeman made no offer to help him. The man took an armload of clothes and went out and across the plaza to the house. When he
came back the Captain was sitting behind the desk, staring at the crossword. He glanced up idly.

‘Those yours?’ he said.

He was pointing to the blood-stained clothes that the minister had been wearing.

The man looked at them. ‘No,’ he said.

‘No,’ the Captain said. ‘They weren’t with your things. I just thought.’

He went on with his crossword.

The man made another trip. Out of the station, across the plaza to the house. When he came back the Captain had filled in two words in the puzzle. He said, ‘Do I know you?’

He stopped. ‘What do you mean?’

The Captain looked up. ‘Do I know you? From before you came here.’

‘No,’ the man said.

‘Oh.’ The Captain looked down. ‘It feels like I saw you before.’

He took another armload of clothes. He went and came back again. He gathered up the last load and was about to go out. The Captain tapped his teeth with a pencil.

‘“The evil leader is after flesh,”’ he said, ‘“and there’s no escape.”’

There was silence for a moment.

‘Fate,’ said the man.

He went out.

Captain Mong finished the crossword. He folded up the paper and threw it into the bin behind him. Then he sat for a time at his desk staring ahead at nothing, sucking on his
moustache.

It was a hot, clear day. Sunlight slanted into the office in long transverse beams and motes of dust were visible going past. He got up. He went to the cupboard that stood against one wall and
opened it. He took out a box and took from it a pinch of colourless flakes which he sprinkled on the water in the bowl. The goldfish rose hungrily to eat.

He put away the fish-food and from the same cupboard he removed a black plastic bag with something wadded inside it. He held it for a moment meditatively. Then he closed the cupboard and went
out of the office, closing that door behind him. He was a meticulous man.

On the way he leaned into a room and gave a peremptory grunt. Two black policemen came out and followed him. Their uniforms and expressions were identical. All three of them went down the
passage to the cell. Captain Mong unlocked it and they went inside and closed that door behind them too.

Valentine stood up when he saw them. He had been lying on the bed with his hands behind his head, looking up at the roof. His shoes were on the floor. He moved away to a corner, his eyes fixed
on the three men and an expression on his face of increasing unease, as if a thought was troubling his mind.

‘I think…’ he said. ‘I think…’

But he didn’t finish.

‘Valentine April,’ said the Captain. His tone was amused and remote.

He sat on the edge of the bed. The two black policemen stayed standing, formal and correct, on either side of the door. The light that came in through the window was diffused by the grid of
metal and fell in daubs and slivers on the floor, the walls.

‘It’s funny in here,’ said the Captain. ‘It’s funny to be in this room.’

Valentine said nothing.

‘The world doesn’t look normal from in here. When you try to look out, the bars, they make things look funny.’

Valentine was in the corner now, his back pressed to the wall.

‘You don’t want to be in here.’

‘No,’ Valentine said.

‘Me also, I don’t want you in here. I have to watch you, give you food. You give me trouble.’

Valentine didn’t move. Only his eyes were blinking.

‘Also you tell me lies. You tell me you’re not a thief. You say you don’t know where the blood on your clothes came from. You say you don’t know where your brother is
hiding.’

‘I don’t know,’ Valentine said, his voice rising shrilly now. ‘But I don’t know.’

‘Valentine April,’ said the Captain musingly. ‘Valentine, Valentine April.’

He was shaking his head. Smiling tenderly as an uncle, he opened the black plastic bag that he had taken from his cupboard. He took out a handful of leaves and ran his fingers gently through
them. They released a scent that was vivid and distinct in the room. He looked into Valentine’s eyes.

‘And this, Valentine. And this.’

‘I don’t know,’ Valentine said.

‘Maybe you like this room. Maybe you want to stay in this room.’

‘No,’ Valentine said.

‘Where do you grow this?’

‘I don’t grow it.’

‘It was picked two, three days ago.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Where does it come from?’

‘I don’t know.’

Captain Mong turned to the policemen. He made a gesture. One of the men went out. The other one waited at the door, rolling up his sleeves.

Captain Mong glanced around idly. He had that amused, disdainful look again. ‘Have you written your name on the wall yet?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘But you must. It’s a
tradition
.’

‘Where’s he gone?’

‘He’ll come back.’

The policeman came in. He had an assortment of things that he threw down on the floor. It was hard to make them out but there was what appeared to be a tube and a sack of some rubbery material.
There was something made out of metal.

‘Where are you going?’

Captain Mong turned at the door. ‘If you remember where your garden is, maybe I’ll come back.’

‘But I –’ Valentine said.

Captain Mong went out and back to his office. He got a rag and a tin of polish and went out again and into the plaza. The sentry greeted him and he called back cheerily. The red motorbike stood
beyond the wall of sandbags. It was large and fat and dramatic. He took off his shirt and set to work with the rag, rubbing the polish into the planes of steel until his face was uncovered in them.
His back, his shoulders hurt.

Later his sister came to visit. She drove up in her yellow Triumph and parked. They sat in the sun on the rampart of sandbags and drank beer which she had brought with her. Her name was Miems.
She was married to the minister of the white church in the town and she was fond of her brother.

She looked across the plaza to the church. ‘They’ve got a new minister,’ she said.

‘How do you know?’

‘He stopped to ask me the way.’

‘Oh,
ja
,’ he said. ‘This beer is warm.’

She kissed him goodbye. ‘Come and visit,’ she said.

‘
Ja.
’

‘
Liefie,
’ she called. ‘
Kom, liefie.’

She went nowhere without her white dog.

He stood at the edge of the plaza and waved as her car disappeared. Then there was only dust and the plaza was empty and immense. His motorbike stood tilted to one side, giving off light like a
sun. Behind his eyes he felt the shimmer of a headache. He started to put on his shirt.

‘Captain!’

He turned. It was one of the policemen he had left in the cell, his broad face shiny with sweat. He was smiling. As he looked at him Captain Mong tasted something in his mouth that had a faintly
sourish flavour to it.

‘He remembered.’

Small spent the night lying face-down in a ditch. He emerged when it was light again, his arms wrapped around himself, trembling. He wandered through the streets in which other
people were also afoot, looking for something that might console him. He went near to the house once but there was a policeman sittng on the back step smoking and he walked hastily away.