The Sunday Hangman

14

Despite all Zondi’s attempts to jog the memories of the women by the river, the white tramp had remained a total mystery. The witch doctor, however, had been immediately identified from his photograph with some cries of amazement. He was that old rogue Msusengi Shezi, the women had said, better known by his nickname of Izimu-and it had been years since anyone had last seen him.

From that moment on, Zondi had felt certain he was earning his keep: Izimu was Zulu for “cannibal.” Dozens of slanderous stories had then been told to him about Izimu, but he’d begged off after hearing one about a child who had gone missing, and now, in order to have the same story from a more reliable source, he was making for the kraal of the local headman. The upward path was steep, and loose pebbles caused it to be slippery in parts.

“Hau, rat,” he said vindictively, correcting a stumble. “This is not going to be a good day for you, which gives me much pleasure.”

Then he turned his attention to the cattle being herded on the slopes above him, picked out the finest beast, and memorized its characteristics. Higher up, the young herdboys were practicing two-stick fighting, prancing about with a fine show of aggression, yet pulling their head blows rather clumsily; soon someone would get more than a bump to rub if they weren’t more careful. The pasture was fair to poor, he noticed.

Absalom Mkuzi proved to be a headman of the old school. Although none too well off, to judge by the patched raincoat he wore without a shirt, his hospitality was as carefully observed as the dignity of his position. After an exchange of compliments lasting several minutes, he summoned his wives to the squatting place outside his hut and ordered them to bring refreshments for the visitor. The sour milk was excellent, having curdled to just the right thickness, and Zondi was most grateful for it after his walk.

By way of getting down to business, a certain brindle cow was mentioned. Zondi confessed to having never seen a finer animal, and-so that the headman would be able to seek it out for his own eye’s delight-he went into the finer detail of its haunches, its horns, its broad belly, and its left foreleg, which was marvelously marked. And when the headman admitted, with all due modesty, his ownership of the beast, Zondi gasped enviously. This rigmarole, in which the deceit involved was understood by both sides and welcomed for its civility, brought the inviting pause that begged the visitor to speak his mind.

“I have heard it said, my father,” Zondi began, taking a little snuff from the proffered gramophone-needle tin, “that there was once a witch doctor in these parts known to your people as Izimu. It is also said that he stole children to take their fat. These are matters which concern me.”

Mkuzi’s rheumy eyes narrowed as they tried to see him better. “You are police?”

Zondi said nothing. He sniffed up his snuff.

“They come and they shout at me,” Mkuzi said angrily. “They pull open my door, they grab my youngest wife. They say they will shoot my dog if it does not cease barking. Hau! And what is the reason?”

After a moment’s thought, Zondi still said nothing.

“The reason is that they want me to report any stranger to them. There has been a farmhouse broken into, they say, and the white boss is very angry. Is this a thing to come and tell me in the middle of the night?”

Mkuzi took the sour milk and drank deeply from the pot.

“Luthuli and two Xhosa baboons from Brandspruit did this to me,” he added, wiping his lips. “They gave me these orders.”

A smugness sweetened the old man’s wrinkled face, and Zondi knew that had six Zulu regiments been discovered lurking about Witklip and the reserve, not a word of this would have reached the appropriate authorities.

“You ask about Izimu,” said Mkuzi, settling down comfortably on his haunches again, and passing the pot back. “He was a fool, that one. He could not give you a medicine to take without making false claims about it-or, if they were not false, then he was encouraging you to imagine terrible things about himself. I, of course, would never use his medicines; instead I have always gone to the nuns’ clinic and to Jafini Bhengu, a very fine witch doctor to the south.”

“Was it child’s fat that he spoke of?” Zondi inquired.

“Never spoke, young man; with Izimu it was always the words he did not say-they rang loudest in the ear. He would lead you to form these words on your own lips, as when an old crone is becoming tedious with her tales and you know, when she stammers, what is to come next. But with a name such as the people gave him, need I say more? How proud he was of it, too, for it undoubtedly gave him more power and influence among the stupider types. Then came the time when he wished to be known as Izimu no longer.”

“This is of great interest, my father.”

“There was a woman living in these parts who was called Mama Buza. A widow woman, whose husband had been killed in the mines, who had five small children. One day the youngest of these children, a boy of some six months, was taken from his sleeping place during the afternoon. Mama Buza had gone to borrow from a neighbor some article-I cannot remember what. For a long time, she thought that maybe the older children were playing a trick on her, and so she waited and listened for its cries. The neighbor came and was told of this curious happening, yet still nobody could believe that a baby had been taken, like a pumpkin from the hut roof. It must also be said that Mama Buza was not a very good mother to her children, and jokes were whispered that she had left him lying somewhere, perhaps beside the river. I know that many people were surprised by how very distressed she became.”

“Did you, my father, play a part in this?” Zondi prompted, shifting his weight off his heels as a cramp threatened.

“I was asked to take charge very soon after that. We began a search of every hut and granary and chicken house around there. When the sun started to grow red, I went to the village and spoke to Mr. Botha, the good man in the trading store. Then Mr. Botha told Police Chief Jonkers and a big, big search began. All the white bosses said to us, ‘Not to worry.’ ”

Zondi chuckled at this unexpected mimicry.

“Do you know, my son, for four days we looked for that child? But long before this, the rumors concerning Izimu were already on everyone’s lips. On the fifth day, God came to help us.”

“Hau! You found the child?”

“Dorothy Jele was led to it. She is the chief servant girl up at Mr. Jackson’s farm, which is on a hill with many trees around it. These trees come close up behind the servants’ quarters, right near to her room-or so those who have worked there say. This was the fifth morning, as I have told you, and these were the trees where we were going to look that day. Mr. Jackson was very kind, and said we may cross his whole farm, look anywhere we liked. It was not necessary because, just after the dawn, Dorothy heard the cry of a baby. She is a brave woman, that! She took up the wood ax and went towards the trees. For just a short moment, Dorothy says, she saw a figure running away, and that it looked very like Izimu to her from behind. The baby was wrapped up in an old sack and so dirty and hungry she washed it straight away. She also gave it food and a small blanket, then she woke Mrs. Jackson to tell her.”

“Izimu had become frightened of the police search, not thinking Mama Buza would worry to tell them, and he’d left the baby to be found?”

Mkuzi nodded, and fondled his yellow dog’s tattered ear. “Such is my belief,” he said, “but others think Izimu was attempting to escape that way when Dorothy Jele gave him a fright. The trouble was that she is a true Christian woman: she told the police she could not swear by God’s holy name it was definitely the witch doctor she had seen.”

“And what about Izimu himself, my father?”

“Oh, they did not trouble with him long,” sighed Mkuzi. “How could it be proved? He said he had been far away collecting herbs that day. We beat him also, three or four times, yet he stayed just as stubborn. Then, when his mother died of shame, and his wife fled to Nongoma, he suddenly went from us overnight, saying no farewells. I cannot tell you where he is now, although it is probably a great distance from here!” Then Mkuzi added politely: “Do you know, perhaps?”

“I know. It is a very, very great distance.”

“That is good. Have I told you what you wish to hear?”

“Indeed you have, my father! Believe me when I say that your words have brought great joy to my heart,” said Zondi, rising confident in the knowledge that the Lieutenant would feel the same way about the theft of Mama Buza’s baby.

Alone in the gloom of the station commander’s office, which was darkened by the approach of the four o’clock thunderstorm, Kramer sat hunched over the desk and glowered at some jottings he had made on the case. Only with an effort did he drag his mind back from worrying about what had become of Zondi-who was now several hours overdue-to the present state of the investigation.

The night before everything had been there, slotting together as snugly as anyone could wish: farm-party-uncle-hangman. But now, like alkalis added to acids, the words guest farm and barbecue party and Italian uncle had neutralized the whole process of deduction.

“Buggeration,” he said, losing concentration. “Come on, Mick! Let’s get out of here, man!” There was anxiety in his voice as well.

He doodled a noose and wrote Erasmus underneath it. He drew another to go above Ringo. The ballpoint dithered, trying to find a way of connecting them. The telephone rang.

“Tromp?” said Colonel Muller. “How goes it, man?”

“I’m getting Ferreira disease,” Kramer replied with a crooked grin, pathetically pleased to hear the old bastard’s voice. “I’m sure there’s a couple of-”

“The lead wasn’t any good?”

Mamabola looked in, holding out a large brown envelope.

“Hold on a sec, please, Colonel.”

Kramer opened the envelope and unfolded a huge wad of Telex. The DS had gone to town with a vengeance: it looked as though the screeds of figures might even include the hangman’s inside leg after all. Such a mass of mumbo jumbo was strangely comforting, if only as something to grasp onto when all else had gone to pot, and Kramer thought for a moment of the Bible in Tollie’s dead hand.

“The lead was fine,” he said, “but it led us nowhere, as I’ll explain.” Very briefly, he went over the main points.

“This uncle could have been-” the Colonel began to say.

“Looked like his sister, plus he had a passport. And wouldn’t old man Vasari have known a blood relative?”

“You made other checks, just in case?”

“Put it this way, sir: I’m quite satisfied there’s no bloody Italian anywhere near this place. All we’ve done is double-prove what we knew already. I don’t see this ex-POW as a suspect any longer either: paying the money was one thing, but carrying out a murder a whole year later doesn’t sound right anymore. A man like that wouldn’t take such a high risk, not in his position.”

The Colonel said carefully, “Now-er-what if I suggested we brought in some more men on the job, and made sure you were right on that last-er-business? I hear you told Marais he could get back on the scissors case, which leaves only you and your Bantu.”

“If you like,” Kramer sighed, leafing through the folios of Strydom’s message. Then he froze. On the last page was a postscript:

PLSE DNT FORGET MEMO REQD

B/SGT M. ZONDI MONDAY. C.S

“But what’s the matter, sir? Have you lost faith in the efficiency of your subordinates? We sweat our guts out and-”

“It’s not-”

“Jesus, that’s what it sounds like!” Kramer snapped, goading the old sod, yet knowing he’d have to give in afterward.

There was a shocked silence, then Colonel Muller spoke sternly and very coldly: “You do realize, Lieutenant Kramer, that your attitude is not necessarily in the best interests of the department?”

“Uh huh,” acknowledged Kramer, making the most of this while it lasted, and remembering Strydom’s exact words. “It could have far-reaching effects.”

“First you agree to a full-scale operation, and now you’re behaving like this? What’s going on, hey? You tell me!”

“Ach, something’s just come in to change my mind.”

“You bastard!” Colonel Muller laughed, with a warmth that surprised Kramer. “You bloody devious old bastard! For a while you were really giving me a bad time there; I thought you’d cracked. One day I’ll get you back, hey? That’s a promise! But you’d best get weaving now. Good luck!”

And the line went dead, dropping a weight of trust on Kramer’s shoulders that made it impossible for him to lift the receiver again and call his own bluff.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said.

The light from outside became dimmer. He went over to the door to thumb the switch, nearly asked after Zondi, but returned to the desk and picked up the Telex. A subheading caught his eye: JUDICIAL HANGING AS SUICIDE.

He slumped down and began to skim the annoying capitals.

FM T NEW YORK TIMES O 6TH APRIL 1926. T ROOM WAS ABT 35FT HIGH, 25FT LONG AND 25FT WIDE. T WALLS WR PAINTED A LT GREEN. TWO HIGH-POWERED ELECTRIC LIGHTS WR SUSPENDED FM T CEILING AND ANOTHER BRILLIANT LT WAS ON T WALL. IN T FAR CORNER STOOD WARDEN SCOTT. BENEATH HIS FOOT WAS A PLUNGER SIMILAR TO THOSE ATTACHED TO GONGS ON T FRONT PLATFORMS O STREETCARS. (MISS A BIT. C.S.) IMMEDIATELY ON HIS RIGHT AS HE ENTERED IS A CLOSET WH CONTAINS T DEATH MECHANISM USED BY T STATE O CONNECTICUT IN HER EXECUTIONS. TO ONE END O T SOFT ROPE, WH GOES UP THRU A HOLE IN T CEILING, IS A WT CAREFULLY BALANCED, IN THIS CASE, AGST T 135LB O CHAPMAN’S FRAIL BODY. ON T OTHER END, INSIDE T DEATH CHAMBER, WAS T NOOSE, WH WAS HELD BY A HOOK IN T WALL AND, AS IT WAS BEHIND CHAPMAN AS HE ENTERED THE ROOM, IT WAS PROBABLY NOT SEEN BY HIM. T WT IS HELD 3FT ABOVE T FLOOR LEVEL (VARIES O COURSE. C.S.) AND IS CONNECTED BY A STEEL ROD TO T PLUNGER AT T POINT WHERE T WARDEN STANDS.

WHEN IT WAS FIRST INSTALLED T CONDEMNED MAN UPON ENTERING T CHAMBER STOOD UPON A SMALL TRAP IN T FLOOR. HIS WT RELEASED A QUANTITY OF BUCKSHOT WH ROLLED SLOWLY DOWN A SLIGHT INCLINE UNTIL THEIR WT RELEASED T TRIGGER WH HELD T WEIGHT. IT WAS DECIDED, HOWEVER, TT THIS METHOD O EXECUTION WAS ILLEGAL, AS IT VIRTUALLY COMPELLED T PRISONER TO COMMIT SUICIDE, AND IT WAS ABANDONED FOR T PRESENT APPARATUS. FIFTEEN SECONDS AFTER CHAPMAN ENTERED T ROOM THERE WAS A SUDDEN CLICK AS T TRIGGER RELEASED T WEIGHT AND HIS BODY SHOT UPWARD. SAVE FOR T CLICK THERE WAS NOT A SOUND. T BODY HUNG SUSPENDED AT A HT OF 12FT. T NECK VERTEBRAE HAD SNAPPED AND DEATH HD BEEN PRACTICALLY INSTANTANEOUS.

(IN WHAT WAY IS THIS DIFFERENT TO A MAN WHO TAKES T FIRST STEP TOWARD MURDERING HIS FELLOW BEING ANYWHERE? DOES NOT BUCKSHOT START TO ROLL FOR HIM TOO? I PUT THIS IN SO YOU CAN TELL HANS WHAT YOU THINK. C.S.)

What Kramer thought as he finished the last page would not have pleased either of them, and came nowhere near touching on the philosophical point which Strydom had raised. Yet once his indignation had passed, and he’d rescued the crumpled sheets from the wastebin, he realized that the Doc had, however inadvertently, given him a nudge in a new direction. This brief description of an execution had evoked in him a sense of the cold, impersonal part played by the man with his foot on the plunger. He began to visualize a hangman, to dismiss the notion of revenge, and see that the role might be a form of fascination with power.

Willie Boshoff looked up from the crate in the old storeroom and watched Ferreira returning in an apparent fury from the hotel across the yard.

“What did I tell you?” the hotel manager stormed. “It was him! Him making bloody snide allegations. I’ll sue the bastard if he ever tries that again!”

“Lieutenant Kramer?”

“Who else? Didn’t I say he’d gone all po-faced when I told him about the wops this morning? Didn’t I say that the next thing would be him accusing me of bloody lying?”

“Take it easy, hey?” soothed Willie, lifting out a stack of old 78’s in their paper covers. “Sarge Jonkers let it slip that this investigation, whatever it’s about, is pretty big.”

“Then why the hell pick on me?” Ferreira demanded.

“True, he must be getting a little desperate,” Willie joked-and then checked anxiously to see if he’d pushed his new-found friendship too far.

But Ferreira was already intent on hurling everything out of a dusty washstand slumped in the corner. Metal mousetraps, light fittings, shoe boxes filled with brownish snapshots, two lampshades, a cigarette-card album, and a pile of piano music-half-eaten by termites-hit the floor.

“I am going to find that register,” Ferreira muttered, tugging savagely at a pile of moldy rugs, trying to get at the squashed cardboard cartons beneath them. “I’m going to find it and stuff it right in his gob.”

“Did you tell him we’d been looking for it?”

“Why should I’ve?”

“Well, I mean.…”

“Huh! Then he’d have thought that he really had me on the bloody run! No, let him sweat a bit,”

“Then maybe I-”

“So you only came down here to rook a free lunch out of me?” cut in Ferreira, very sarcastically. “I’ll not forget that in a hurry the next time you offer to lend me a helping hand.”

Then he gestured with two fingers, to show he didn’t mean what he’d just said, and calmed down. It was difficult, once you had got to know him better, to understand why he and Jonkers were such big pals: not only could he be quite witty, but he was a nice, generous bloke as well.

Willie gave him a menthol king-size and they lit up.

“What did the Lieutenant actually say, Piet?”

“I didn’t give him much of a chance to say anything, my friend. All he got out was some crack about me doing favors for him ‘and who else?’ by remembering the woman. How do you like that?”

“Ah,” said Willie. “I see. Still, he’s got to check every point, I suppose. You mustn’t take it personal.”

They continued the search. When you had a suitable excuse for it, there were few things more interesting than rummaging about among other people’s belongings, and the ones they’d forgotten all about made the best goodie mines of the lot. There was also a sense of history and heritage to be found amid the cobwebs and mildew that made you envious of anyone with a heap of rubbish in their yard. Willie’s sole relic of his own past was an elastic belt with a twisted-snake clasp, now barely big enough to fit round his thigh, never mind his waist, with which he’d been presented one Christmas at Underbrook Boys’ Home.

“I think I’ve got it!” Ferreira announced triumphantly, upsetting a box of dented Ping-Pong balls as he pulled at something on top of the tool cupboard. “It’s in with all the old invoices in this sodding ruddy case under this pile of crap here.” He heaved at the case’s handle and it snapped off.

“Need some help, Piet?”

“Ta, but I’ll manage, thanks.”

Willie reached back into the bottom of the crate and took another look at the small magazines he had just uncovered there. They were called Lilliput, after some kids’ story he had heard about in General Knowledge, and yet didn’t seem very childish when you tried to read the English they were written in. He flicked through a less buckled copy, searching for cartoons without captions, and was startled by the sight of a naked woman who had allowed herself to be photographed. She was beautiful.

“Come on, Willie, I’ve got the book open,” Ferreira called to him. “Let’s see what their names were, and show that clever bugger how to investigate.”

So beautiful it scared him so that he trembled. Then Constable Willie Boshoff did a terrible thing.

Distracted by the suddenness and ferocity of the storm lashing Witklip, Kramer abandoned his ruminations, rose from the desk, and went through into the charge office to borrow a match-a pretext, he knew, for asking again if there was any news of Zondi. Perhaps he should have sent someone out to look for him, yet it had seemed a course of action fraught with unpleasant possibilities, whether or not the little idiot had got himself into trouble.

“Sergeant Zondi is coming,” Mamabola informed him, turning from a window steamed up by the fug of police, public, and a goat.

“About bloody time! Is the young boss with him?”

Mamabola flinched as lightning struck close by. “No, sir. Goodluck suggests he may be at the hotel and has been captured there by the floodwaters. Hau, this is happening so quickly!”

“Ja, at least God doesn’t bugger around,” said Kramer, all too aware of the time that had been wasted that day.

He opened the door and stepped out onto the verandah, goose-pimpling in the hail-chilled air, and catching his breath as another fork of lightning blazed and banged. The raindrops were falling so hard they misted the lawn with splashes and the dirt pathway danced pink. Anything more than twenty yards away was lost in a luminous, swaying grayness, while water sheeted from the glutted gutter overhead, obscuring his view of the gate.

Walking through all this, really taking his time and soaked to the skin, came Zondi.

“Run, you fool!” bellowed Kramer.

Then, having moved to where he could see better, the truth of the situation came home to him. Mickey was dragging that leg a pace at a time, shuddering uncontrollably as his weight came upon it, clenching his fists tighter, and coming on. He staggered.

Kramer flicked his cigarette aside. “Wait, Mickey!”

“No, boss; men would see.”

As faint as these words were, a hiss in the hissing of the rain, they halted Kramer like a shout.

He backed away from the verandah’s edge. Zondi veered to the left, cutting across the grass beneath the flagpole, missing the path to the steps by miles. Then his faltering course made sense: he was trying to avoid the window.

His collapse came just as he reached to pull himself up by one of the posts supporting the verandah roof. But he didn’t fall: Kramer grabbed the outstretched hands and swung him up, let go and altered his hold, cradling the poor bloody idiot in his arms.

“Mick?”

Zondi murmured, “No, boss.…”

Kramer took a step toward the door with him. Then he retreated to where Zondi had tried to climb up, and laid his burden down very gently beside a puddle on the verandah floor. After dabbing away the blood from a bite mark on the lower lip, he went inside.

“Hey, you two!” he said, beckoning to Mamabola and Luthuli. “Something is the matter with Sergeant Zondi-you’d best fetch him into my office. He’s lying out there like a drunk.”

They carried him in and Luthuli clucked gravely.

“Where we put a boy in here?” he asked.

“On those dagga sacks,” Kramer directed, pointing to the bulky marijuana haul lying labeled in the corner. “Have you got any brandy?”

Mamabola nearly had his supercilious smile punched off him, but came up with the answer nonetheless. “Sergeant Jonkers usually procures it from that drawer, sir.”

“Get me a mug.”

While the tin cup was being fetched, Luthuli fussed about, arranging Zondi comfortably on the bags of dried leaf. The patient seemed not too bad; it was always difficult to gauge the color.

“Here,” Kramer ordered presently, handing half a cup of Oude Meester to Luthuli. “Start getting that down him.”

Zondi choked and sat up, pressing the cup away.

“Drink it, Sergeant!” said Kramer from behind the desk.

So Zondi drank it, coughed, beat his chest with one hand, and subsided. He thanked the men for their help, and added, as they withdrew, some Zulu witticism with un-Zulu squeaks in it.

“What makes that noise?” Kramer asked.

“Igundane.”

“Never heard of it. But tell me, what in God’s name happened to you today, old son?” Kramer asked as he went over and half knelt by the dagga sacks.

“Much happened, boss,” Zondi replied drowsily, his eyes closing. “Today I established that Izimu the witch doctor had committed a capital offense right here in.…”

“Witklip? Who was involved?”

“A baby. He stole the child of Mama Buza.”

“Sleep, you old drunkard,” growled Kramer. “That is more than enough for now.”

Then he rose and damn nearly danced for joy.