A few minutes passed. “Got them,” she called from the kitchen. She came back to the lounge and placed the deck down on a small glass table. Then she sat, palms against the glass, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, while Maria felt a rising prickle of irritation. “Think of a question for the cards.”
“Like, what should I eat for supper?” It hit her then that she’d left Lionel, and she wanted to weep with the loss of him; instead, she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, her teeth pressing into the flesh.
“Don’t be silly, Maria – a real question. You don’t fool around with the cards.”
Alright, then, a question: would she return to Lionel? And what about a child – would she remain childless for the rest of her life? More than one question. Claudia dealt and shuffled, lining up the images in neat rows. Maria observed the force of Claudia’s belief in her magic tricks, the way the cards energised and interested her in a way Maria never had, either as a child or now. Bizarrely, it was the only time that her mother seemed ordered and reasonable. At intervals, upon command, Maria selected a card at random, closing her eyes in a pretence of concentration to please Claudia.
Maria doesn’t recall much of the tarot reading. Her mind was too much with Lionel, and the physical ache of missing him. She remembers the brightness of the cards, the archaic images of devils and magicians. Near the conclusion of what felt like an endless reading, Maria’s eyelids growing heavy from the drink, she definitely drew the Tower: lightning smashing into a high stone turret, two figures hurtling headfirst towards the ground. Claudia must have noticed how the card resonated with her daughter, because she leaned across the table and gripped her hand, her fingers dry and foreign, embarrassing Maria. It was the part of the afternoon she remembered most strongly, her last vivid memory of her mother: not the card itself, but Claudia’s uncharacteristic behaviour. It had been rare for her to show her daughter any kind of physical affection, and Maria had always craved more. When the intimacy of her mother’s fingers became unbearable, Maria pulled her fingers free as Claudia leaned in and said: “This time, I promise, I’ll be here for you.”
Four
It has been five days since Kristof spoke with Maria on the phone. Now he is behind the wheel, whistling in heavy traffic on the coastal road. At twenty kilometres an hour, he passes the stone mansions of St James on his right. To his left is the light-blue sea, as playful as a toddler.
The third car in front of him, a black Pajero, contains Maria and a man called Lionel Lightly. Interesting: Lightly, the feisty politician, expert at playing up his rural roots with funny, apparently straight-talking sound bites for journalists. He had been in the news only a few days before, responding to the opposition party’s criticism of affirmative action: “When we give the people opportunities, it’s unfair. When you shot them with rubber bullets and hit them with sjamboks, that was justice, as I recall. To me it sounds like you’ve got it the wrong way round. But I only got a coloured education, so maybe I’m being stupid, hey?”
Earlier this morning, after Lionel had parked outside Maria’s house and gone in, Kristof left his car – which was further up the street – and peeked into the Pajero. A red-bordered letter on the passenger seat indicated that Lionel owed nine thousand rand to the South African Revenue Service. Then Kristof returned to his car to keep watch. When Lionel and Maria emerged from the front gate, he opened the car door for her and stood aside with exaggerated courtesy. He had the intimate animosity of an ex-lover. One possibility: were they off for a Saturday morning reconciliation outing? Lionel’s Pajero pulled away just after nine, and Kristof followed it at a careful distance. After a while, he found himself driving along the coastal road towards Kalk Bay. It was a long time since he had gone this way.
At their destination, Maria and Lionel park near the pier and walk towards it. As long as they’re sauntering on that bare white concrete strip jutting into the sea, he can’t follow them without being noticed. Kristof sits in his car, parked some distance from the Pajero. He watches the pier for a while, observing the pair from behind; they are taking their time. Then he looks over to the main road, finds a particular shop and studies it. He closes his eyes, takes several slow breaths. The decision is not made easily. Finally he reaches into the cubbyhole, retrieves a pair of sunglasses, puts them on and looks at himself in the rear-view mirror. He opens the car door and heads over to the shop. Above the door is a sign, Bobbejaan Books, burned with a poker into a long plank. Kristof enters, and at first there is no one to be seen.
He browses among the shelves, observing the books through his dark glasses. There is a section on Politics, with memoirs by Boer War generals, men of the National Party and a host of ex-political prisoners, now in government. Beneath it is Classic Erotica, a collection arranged chronologically, from lewd Roman poets to a set of novels from the Weimar Republic bound in white calfskin. Kristof passes his finger along one of these shelves, lightly touching the books as he reads their spines.
“May I help?” asks a woman in a black sweater. She is standing behind a dark varnished desk containing a phone and a set of volumes. While he was examining the books she must have entered quietly from a back room. She has blonde hair, tied back in a ponytail, and is in her mid-fifties. Her sweater is snug on her slender body, and her manner is friendly.
“Just looking,” Kristof says. His voice has changed, not his usual pleasant baritone but a deeper register.
“Ask if you need anything,” she replies, and turns back to her volumes. Her fingers, their nails glinting with red polish, turn the pages efficiently.
Kristof moves through the shop. On a table display – Foreign Languages – is a water-stained volume with a helmeted soldier on the cover, looking into the distance with implacable resolve. It is a German illustrated work about the campaigns of the Wehrmacht, published in 1942. He turns the brown-spotted pages, observing pictures of men huddled together over their mess tins or marching up winding mountain paths, smiling at the camera: “Frankreich 1940”, “Griechenland 1941”. The album has an awful charm.
There are still no other customers in the shop. Kristof straightens up and watches the woman until she looks up from her desk at him, her primitive sense alerted to his stare. Then, with his gaze still fixed on her, he picks up the book and walks slowly to the exit with the volume in his hand. Finally he opens the door.
“Excuse me,” says the woman, coming out from behind her desk and taking a step towards him. “I think you’ve forgotten to pay for that book.”
Kristof turns towards her. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry,” she says. “The book – you’ve forgotten to pay.”
There are moments in which everyday interactions dissolve into something elemental, and one sees other people in their anxious and defiant nakedness. She feels it too, and stands her ground.
“I haven’t forgotten to pay,” Kristof says, still in his deep voice.
“What?” But surely, in her blood, she knows what he means.
“Let’s suppose,” he continues, “that I am stealing this book. I’m violating your ownership. But this is an abstract way to put it. I’m insulting you; I’m saying that what is yours, I will take. I’m not just flouting morality, but showing contempt for you. So I understand your anger, your humiliation.”
She opens her mouth, but says nothing.
“Think about this: what will happen if you make trouble for me now; if you scream for help, or call the police? What will happen?”
Still facing him, she moves slowly backwards towards the desk.
Kristof puts his hand to his heart. It is clear that she has no idea what he means: such