A third chap, Chainman, has in the meantime got up and also come over to Karl’s table. (What’s going on here, is he being surrounded? What if they dragged him out of here and beat the shit out of him? Nobody would even know.)
‘Bertus of Holfontein,’ the man introduces himself. (Do these people have codenames or what?)
Bertus is likewise large of stature. Gold chain around the neck. (Isn’t that a bit ostentatious?) He’s wearing glasses with pink-tinted lenses (pink!) and the skin on his face has reddish blotches. His arms don’t look too great either – freckly and scabby. Skin must be exceptionally light-sensitive.
Behind Bertus stands a fourth chap. He’s the one who’s said least. He’s leaner than the others and his eyes in particular strike Karl – an unusual pale-green, and sorrowful, the saddest bloody eyes Karl has seen in a long time. The man extends his hand and says: Johan. The only one of the four who doesn’t have a crazy code name.
*
Johan’s father was a science teacher. He had something going with the PT teacher at school, she had bandy legs and blonde hair on her legs. His mother was always very merry, nothing bothered her, and then she had a stroke, must have been shock about his father and the PT teacher. After that she couldn’t talk or walk, his father had to care for her. She sat in a wheelchair, her puny legs were thin and hairy, she sometimes had a ribbon in her hair. Her pretty, tanned skin turned a pale yellowish-brown. So one Christmas she shot herself with the gun from the built-in cupboard in the guest room. He was twelve years old at the time. He always had a little fox terrier. He taught the dog tricks, like jumping through a hoop. The day his mother died, he knew that he would feel like an orphan for the rest of his life.
*
‘Can we buy you a beer?’ Hercules of Senekal nevertheless asks. (Menacingly?)
‘I’m on my way, thanks,’ says Karl, ‘my people are expecting me by early afternoon.’
‘See you at the national management meeting,’ says Ollie of Steynsrus.
Again he brings his head closer. ‘They mustn’t think we’re going to put up with being mown down. We have news for them. Or what am I saying?!’
The three men shake his hand before turning round and returning to their table. Ollie gives him a firm (encouraging?) slap on the back, but turns back halfway to the other table to say something else to Karl. He once again brings up his head conspiratorially to Karl’s and says: ‘You’re informed, aren’t you? You know that the time is approaching, don’t you? You know that the prophecies are going to be fulfilled in these days, don’t you? It’s more important than ever to be prepared, check your emergency provisions carefully, never stop praying for your country and your family. It’s not only Siener who predicted it all, it’s also Johanna Brandt. It’s Johanna Brandt in particular. We can all recognise the signs of the times; I’m just mentioning it. A man doesn’t want to feel later that he may have neglected his duty.’ He gives Karl another encouraging slap on the shoulder and before turning round performs some kind of salute that seems hideously suspect to Karl. Far from kosher.
Once more Ollie of Steynsrus turns round and says: ‘Your wife’s name wouldn’t be Suné by any chance, would it?’
But before Karl can reply, Hercules of Senekal gives Ollie of Steynsrus an almighty slap between the shoulder blades and says: ‘You’re thinking of Bertie of Henneman’s wife, you cunt!’ One of the others adds something inaudible, which the others laugh at raucously. Two of the others, not the Johan chap. (Party’s getting out of hand. He must get out of here.)
Karl abandons his half-eaten plate of food just like that; he can’t get into his car and drive away quickly enough. Before they discover their mistake and pot him on the trot as well. But not before he’s washed his hands thoroughly in the bathroom. Slap me with a wet fish, he thinks – uhuru. And what the hell did Johanna Brandt see? He’ll google her sometime.
When he walks past the four-by-four outside with OLLIE prominent on the number plate, a black dog inside the vehicle suddenly starts barking furiously. Karl half shits himself with fright. Why does the man have a black dog, shouldn’t he by rights have a white dog? A white wolfhound.
*
On his way to Colesberg he is phoned again, this time not by Josias Brandt, but by someone else. Where is he headed? asks the person, he has something for him from his brother. Should he believe the guy? How did the man find his number? Is he being watched? He’s headed for Colesberg, he says. Well, then he must travel via Bethulie, says the man, the parcel is there. When does he expect to be there? He can’t say with any certainty, Karl says cautiously. In that case he’ll just leave the parcel for him at the Total Garage on your right as you come in. In the Seven Eleven shop at the counter. (Eleven is not a good number, but fortunately the seven neutralises it.) Ask for Milos. What’s in the parcel? Karl asks cautiously. No, how the hell must he know, says the man. He was just asked to drop off the parcel. Who asked him? asks Karl. Man, says the man impatiently, he doesn’t know. Somebody. (Ignatius’s name hasn’t been mentioned once.) Somebody, okay? says the man and disconnects.
Karl considers ignoring the whole story, but there on his right as he enters Bethulie is the Total Garage and there is the Seven Eleven, and what the hell, let him collect the parcel and have done. Provided there is a parcel and it’s not some plot to bump him off.
Behind the counter is a woman wearing a cap at a jaunty angle. She’s chewing gum.
Karl asks to speak to Milos.
Without replying, the woman turns to the open door and shouts for Milos.
Milos appears from the back. He looks like the picture of King Francis I of France that Karl pasted into his history book in Standard Two.
Somebody left a parcel for him here, says Karl. His hands feel sweaty.
Milos in his turn says not a word, turns round, and reappears with a small parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
Before touching it, Karl inspects it closely. His name is written on the parcel, and the handwriting is indeed Iggy’s. Unlikely to be a letter bomb.
He picks the package up warily by the string, because one corner looks rather greasy, and places it on the back seat of his car. He’ll open it later.
Before leaving, he buys a packet of small Jiffy sandwich bags from the Spar.
He decides to overnight in Colesberg. The hotels look like cheap joints (cockroaches and dirty baths; although nothing could ever beat the sulphur fumes of the bathroom in Bilbao). He checks into a guest house that looks acceptable enough. Diagonally across the street is an eating place and bar, explains the hostess. She looks like a game girl, but he is wary of this type – she looks like the kind of person who’ll turn out to have odd notions, such as that the fillings in her teeth are poisoning her whole body. Scrupulously he avoids her inquisitive gaze; she feels like chatting, he does not.
The place across the way fronts straight onto the street. There’s a small stoep with wooden railings in front and a few tables and chairs. Inside, the whole place glows like the interior of one of those lamps constructed from a big shell: both the dining room (where Karl eats a tough chop) and the smallish bar, and the little courtyard with its coloured lights. (Recollecting the scene later, he can’t remember whether he noticed the source of the pink glow – the red table cloths or perhaps the red walls in the dining room? The apricot-pink walls in the bar?)
After eating (so much for the celebrated Karoo mutton), he has a drink in the bar. Here there is a motley display. There are several mounted antelope heads as well as a warthog head on the wall, a baboon skull and a stuffed baby ostrich on a shelf, several draped flags (among which a Sharks flag – in the Karoo?), a Harley Davidson T-shirt against the wall, and many posters. The ceiling, floors and door are made of wood. A chandelier in the centre of the ceiling.
Outside, in the small courtyard, a group of men are sitting. One of the people in the bar informs him that they have just attended the heavy metal festival at