Yes, Ntombi wanted to scream, but she shook her head.
‘I was hijacked some years ago,’ Portia continued. ‘The hijackers grabbed me at gunpoint and took me with them. They made me drive for half an hour before they let me out by the side of the highway. I was unharmed, but for a long time afterwards I found myself acting like you did. Outbursts of temper for no reason. The counsellor I visited said it is a common reaction to trauma. Are you sure you have not been traumatised, my dear?’
Now Portia looked more carefully at Ntombi, her expression quizzical and her brown eyes wide with concern.
‘I have not,’ Ntombi whispered, but even she could hear the lie.
‘Well, if you say so …’ Having transferred most of the groceries to the carry bag, Portia picked up a plastic grocery bag, bent down, and carefully lifted the broken maize package, together with its remaining contents, inside. Another small stream of maize poured out as she did this. ‘Do you know, I was given a good piece of advice by a friend after that incident, advice that I wish I had taken.’
‘What is that advice?’
‘My friend told me that, if you are hijacked and forced by the criminals
to drive, you should make sure your seatbelt is as tight as possible and you should crash the car.’
‘Crash the car?’ Ntombi echoed incredulously.
‘Absolutely. Look for something solid to drive into and smash into it as hard as you can. Have you ever known a hijacker to wear a seatbelt? Mine did not!’ Portia laughed. ‘If I’d done that they would have gone straight through the windscreen.’
‘But wouldn’t you be killed as well?’
‘A luxury car such as the ones we drive will protect its passengers with seatbelts in place. You may be injured, yes, of course. But injured is better than dead, or gang-raped, is it not, sister?’
Ntombi didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to remember how it had felt to drive the frightening man around; the one with death in his eyes.
‘Here. Pass me another of those empty plastic bags and let me see how much of this I can clean up.’
Ntombi knelt down next to Portia on the garage floor, which smelled faintly of rubber and engine oil. She scooped the gritty maize meal into her hands, even though the feel of it nauseated her, and poured the double handful into the rustling plastic bag.
‘We were not always wealthy people,’ Portia told Ntombi. ‘I grew up eating this maize meal every night, and so did my husband. We made a promise that once a week, we would remember our roots. That our children would grow up knowing how to cook and eat a simple dish of maize meal, perhaps with some chicken and gravy or perhaps just with tomato-and-onion sauce. So once a month I buy a small bag of maize meal, and every weekend we enjoy it together.’
Ntombi began to cry, sobbing so violently she could hardly get the words out.
‘One year ago, I made a promise, too. I promised that for twelve months, myself and my son would eat no maize meal; that every single dish I made for my family would be prepared by myself, from cookbooks and recipes. For breakfast, lunch and supper I would make food that could be served and eaten in a restaurant, because that was my dream. To leave the farming community where we lived and to find work in a town or a city as a chef.’
‘There, there. Don’t cry so hard. Tell me what happened.’ She found
herself in Portia’s warm embrace, the two of them kneeling on the gritty maize as she held onto her and buried her wet face in the silky fabric of her blouse. Gently Portia rubbed Ntombi’s back. She knew she shouldn’t spill her story out; that telling it once had already landed her in the situation she was in now and that telling it again could only do more damage. But she had to share a part of it; she had to share her grief.
‘For most of that year my husband worked weekdays and weekends. Sometimes he brought home food, sometimes money to buy the food. Occasionally he brought home utensils as well. Every morning and every afternoon I cooked on my small stove making breakfasts, lunches, dinners. Roasts and omelettes; cakes and breads; dishes from Italy and Asia and Argentina. There was always enough for two, sometimes for three, when my husband was home, but not always. He believed in me. He told me I had a talent; he used to joke that soon he would be able to retire when I opened my restaurant.’
‘Where is your husband now?’ Portia’s voice was soft.
Walking tiredly into the front room of the tiny prefab house … wiping his hand over his mouth then tossing a cob into the kitchen bin …‘The harvest’s finished,’ he told her.
‘He’s gone,’ Ntombi sobbed. ‘He’s gone.’
She couldn’t say ‘dead’. It sounded too final. But she knew that Portia understood, because the other woman held her even more tightly as she sobbed and wailed her grief away.
While Jade was driving back down the seemingly endless minor road leading to the highway she noticed the signpost for a hospital on the right-hand side, about ten or twelve kilometres before the highway turn-off itself.
It was then that she saw a lame man hauling himself along with the help of an old-fashioned wooden crutch. When he saw Jade indicating right, the grey-haired man leaned on his crutch and stuck out his thumb to ask for a lift.
Jade didn’t have time to stop to help him. She knew that it was already going to be well after dark when she got home and, before it got too late, she wanted to try to locate Sonet’s sister, Zelda, if she could find an address for her in Randburg.
Then, at the last minute, she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t drive past, staring straight ahead, leaving him to make his slow and painful way to the hospital, his damaged leg twisting awkwardly with every step he took and the crutch chafing the worn armpit of his shabby woollen jumper.
She pulled over, having to brake so hard the Fiat almost skidded. The man limped over and climbed inside, manoeuvring his crutch into the cramped space with some difficulty.
‘Dankie,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ He stared at her for a moment and she saw that while one eye was bright and sharp, the pupil of the other was milky and unseeing. Then he looked down at his gnarled and work-worn hands. As she indicated to pull back onto the road, checking her wing mirror, Jade was alerted by a sudden movement. She looked round hurriedly and tensed as she saw that another man, in ragged jeans and a dark puffer jacket, had appeared out of nowhere and was running in the direction of her car. To her surprise and relief, he ran right past the vehicle without a second glance, and veered left off the road and down a stony path that was obviously a short cut to somewhere.
Get a grip, Jade told herself. Stop being so damn jumpy. You’re giving an old man with a limp a lift. This is not a potential ambush situation.
A few minutes later, Jade and her passenger were heading along a narrow road that crisscrossed its way over bridges spanning a deep, rocky gorge. Despite the badly potholed tarmac and the fact that the crash barriers, where they existed at all, were buckled and flimsy, the few other vehicles on the road – including a white Isuzu truck that had been tailgating her ever since she’d turned off the main road and which was followed by an ancient red minibus taxi – were all driving at high speed. With nowhere for her to pull over and a solid white line in the middle of the road, she had to keep her foot flat on the accelerator in order to prevent them from attempting seemingly suicidal overtaking manoeuvres.
Her overriding impression was that the hospital was in an odd location. Although she could make out a small informal settlement nestled
in the hills to the left, there was no other development nearby. No town, no industrial centre, no hub of agricultural activity. Just endless miles of land subjected to the constant punishment of the westerly wind.
Who had built it here, she wondered. And why? Perhaps a lack of planning had played a part in its isolated location. Or maybe the hospital had been originally intended to form part of a node of development which, due to apathy on the part of the local authorities and/or the mysterious disappearance of the necessary funding, had never been completed.
Slowing down where the road petered out, she saw a group of patients clustered in the shelter of two shrunken-looking thorn trees close to the entrance of the modest, low-roofed building that was the hospital.
Two cars were parked in the lightly patterned shade of a third, bigger tree. Jade parked close by and waited for the old man to extract himself from the Fiat before locking it and making her way over to the entrance. Behind her, she heard the distinctive sound of a diesel engine as the Isuzu that had been behind her on the road pulled in and parked a few metres away. The driver, a white man, had his safari-suited elbow on the window frame and was talking into his cellphone, while his black passenger busied himself with watching the two women who had just got out of the taxi.
Jade walked towards the hospital entrance. She could tell that talking to a doctor today was going to be difficult. It was mid-afternoon and there were still about thirty people waiting to be seen. Some were coughing, gaunt, listless. A few of the women had brought their children along. One wide-hipped lady had four children in tow, the oldest of whom couldn’t have been more than six years old. Presumably only one needed to see the doctor, but Jade supposed that all the others had had to come along simply because the woman had no people at home to look after them in her absence.
The older two were playing a noisy game, jumping and shouting, tugging at the trailing tree branches and kicking up dust. The youngest one was wrapped tightly against his mother’s back in the woollen embrace of a large colourful shawl. He was fast asleep, while the other was dozing in her arms.
Wondering if perhaps one of these people had any knowledge about the disappearing community, Jade quietly asked each one if they had
heard of a man called Khumalo or of the Siyabonga community. Due to the language barrier in this rural area, the exercise was not as easy as she had hoped, because many of the patients waiting understood only rudimentary English, and to her shame, Jade’s knowledge of the local language was nonexistent. She ended up speaking the relevant words ‘Khumalo’ and ‘Siyabonga’ and watching for a reaction, but as she passed down the line, looking with some concern into face after tired face, there was none. No sign of recognition at the names nor, almost as importantly, any sign of fear. She was convinced that none of them were withholding information, and equally certain that nobody knew the Khumalo she was asking about.
Finally, she walked into the hospital itself.
In sharp contrast to the outside chill, inside the hospital it was warm. Noisy, too. Trolleys clattered across the uneven linoleum; the wind rattled a loose section of asbestos sheeting; and a chaos of voices emanated from behind flimsy partitions.
There was no sign of a receptionist, only a harassed-looking nursing sister hefting a laundry basket crammed with stained sheets. She directed Jade to a small office containing an old wooden desk and three plastic chairs. Rather than sit on one of the decidedly grubby-looking chairs, Jade chose to stand. She waited, patiently at first and then less so. After a while she was ready to leave the room and go on a hunt for someone who could help her. All that stopped her from doing this was the thought of the patients outside, all of whom had been waiting far longer than her and for far more pressing reasons.
David, of course, would have passed the time by pacing back and forth relentlessly, a habit that she considered a complete waste of energy. Instead, she reviewed the case information she’d jotted down in her notebook, rewrote everything more neatly on a new page, and added a summary of the conversation she’d had with the rider earlier in the afternoon.
Jade de Jong – role model for time-efficient behaviour.
She had just started going through her voicemail and text messages when a white-coated young woman passed by. She glanced into the room and, seeing Jade, she stopped and stuck her head through the doorway.
‘Can I help?’ she asked.
She wore a stethoscope round her neck and had blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. Jade guessed she was in her mid-twenties, although the dark circles under her eyes and the gauntness of her face made her look older. The badge above her breast pocket read ‘Dr Harper’.
‘I came to find out about a patient who was treated here. A man called Khumalo.’
A frown creased the doctor’s brow. ‘Khumalo? Do you have any other details? We see so many people every day …’
‘Not many, but I do know he was from the Siyabonga community in Doringplaas.’
Was it Jade’s imagination, or did her words elicit a flicker of a reaction from the doctor?
‘Siyabonga? Yes, I think I remember that name. Do you know when he was treated?’
‘It would have been around a couple of months ago.’
‘So, fairly recently, then.’ The doctor looked down at her watch, which hung bangle-like from her sinewy wrist. She seemed harassed, as if she wished she hadn’t stopped to ask Jade what she needed.
‘What do you want to know?’
Thinking fast, Jade offered: ‘I’m trying to contact his wife. I understand Khumalo was terminally ill. He did piece work for me every so often and I have some money for her for some late sales. I’d like to get it to her, if I can.’
The doctor’s expression softened slightly. ‘I understand. The problem is our patient information is confidential. I can’t pass it on to you.’
‘But his records are here?’
As she spoke, Jade watched the doctor carefully. Sure enough, the mention of records made the doctor’s eyes flick to the right.
‘They should be, yes. Sister Baloyi deals with patient records but unfortunately she’s off sick.’
‘Would you be able to pass on my details to Mrs Khumalo if you do find her husband’s records?’
The doctor sighed. ‘I could do that, assuming there is a contact number for her. Leave your number on the desk. I’m really not sure when I’ll be able to get around to it though, because we’re snowed under right now, and as I said, Sister Baloyi is ill. If you could leave your details, please,
and write down what information you need,’ she repeated, indicating the barren surface of the desk.