Be My Victim and other Strange Tales from the Cape (4 page)

She holds her
mouth close to his head and whisper in his ear: “Have a nice life,
Nasim...remember that I am waiting on you on the other side. So
don’t pray for death, whatever they do to you.”

He feels
ashamed as he involuntarily pisses himself. He knows now that Hell
came to him and that it is payback time.

Forever...

The last hill
of the day is at the same time the easiest and the most difficult.
When Mason reaches the top of the hill with his Avalance 21 speed
Conqueror mountain bike, he knows he has just enough energy left to
reach the nearest village. He had been cycling the whole day.

This was the
holiday that he planned since he was in standard five.

A holiday where
he would just cycle. So far he had cycled over 800 kilometres.
Cycling from village to village. He would sleep in the last village
of the day and the next day explore it and converse with the
inhabitants, thus at the same time learning about the area.

He knows it is
all the way downhill now, straight to the village, at the bottom of
the hill, where he will spend the night.

He pulls the
the little sun visor tighter over his eyes as he now looks straight
into the setting sun. He really hates it to cycle or even to drive
while looking into the late afternoon sun, but he has no
choice.

He goes off the
main road onto a route of about ten kilometres of what seems to be
an old farm road snaking through tall and very dense trees. The
road is tarred, but one can see that it is used very seldom
nowadays, because it is full of potholes and there are even grass
growing from cracks in the ancient tar.

Despite the
trees, the sun still shines straight into his eyes through the
tunnel that the trees make. He sees on his right hand side what
looks like an abandoned farm house. He simply loves old buildings
and is already studying it as he approaches, because he would like
to take some photos of it.

Then it
happens…

From
concentrating on the house he rides straight into the biggest
pothole in the road, his momentum making him shoot straight over
the handle bars and coming hard down onto the tar. Luckily his echo
is hurt more than his body. He had been riding bike since he was
seven years old and can count on the fingers of one hand the times
that he really fell from a bike.

The bike is
damaged though, and he sees immediately that he won't be able to
ride with the buckled front wheel. Luckily the accident happened
right in front of the abandoned farmhouse and he can get assistance
from there.

He turns to
look at the house and...

...straight
into the most horrible face he had ever seen in his life. It is a
young boy, about ten or eleven years old. The boy is not actually
ugly, but has the most horrible wound in his face. The wound fills
the one half of his face and seems to be struggling to heal, giving
the boy a short of zombie look.

The boy must
have stood behind him, just outside the gate of the farmhouse, the
whole time, but he didn't see him in the shadows. The ugly black,
red and blue scar runs down the left side of his face. It looks
like a wild animal or something tried to take a huge bite out of
his face.

"Hello, boy,"
Mason greets the youngster, hoping the boy didn't see how he
startled him.

"Hi." the boys
says in a very matter of fact manner. So as if he is not really
interested in Mason or the dramatic accident he just witnessed
right in front of him.

"Do you live in
this house?" Mason asks the boy as he points at the house.

"Yes", the boy
answers in his cold manner, which seems to be his natural way of
conversing with someone. He just stands where Mason saw him the
first time and doesn't even make an effort to come closer.

Mason moves
closer to the youngster and asks him: "Have you got a phone?"

"No, we never
had one." The boy looks straight up at Mason, and this makes the
scar even more pronounced and ugly, so as if the one eye wants to
jump out of the face.

"Are your
parents home...is there anyone here who can give me a lift to the
village?"

"No, mother
died a years ago and Father is away. There's really no-one
here."

Mason sees as
the last orange rays of the sun sinks away behind the mountains in
the distance. Although the glow is still there, the area is
instantly filled with a chill that even brings up a light mist from
the ground. Light is systematically sucked away and dusk makes
everything into a barely visible form.

"Well, I won't
be able to ride with this buckled wheel tonight and there is no
other civilization close by. Can I stay over at your house tonight,
I will pay you well...” he asks the boy.

"Makes no
difference to me..." the boy states in his usual pragmatic
manner.

With his
backpack on his back, Mason pushes the limping bike towards the
gate.

"Come open the
gate for me." he asks the boy.

"Open it
yourself." the boy, who still stands in the same spot, tells
him.

Although the
boy's words sounds harsh, Mason notes that there is no malice in
the boy's tone. It is just said in his usual matter-of-fact
manner.

Through his
travels, Mason had noted that the peoples of the rural areas of the
country is very warm and friendly. They are mostly very poor and
always very interested in Mason and his bike and everything
surrounding him. But this boy is an exception. He is answering all
Mason's question and doesn't seem to be unfriendly at all. He is
just cold and really uninterested.

Mason struggles
to open the rusty latch of the gate. Once the gate is unlatched it
is still hard to open it and it takes a while before it turns
inwards on its two rusted hinges.

Once on the
footpath on his way to the front of the farmhouse, Mason sees for
the first time how dilapidated and run down the whole place is in
reality. He couldn't see this from the road.

What must once
have been a very beautiful garden is now overgrown with weeds, with
here and there a flower still struggling against the weeds. Some of
the vegetables that must have been planted there in the hey-day of
the place, is now growing wild and pumpkins and squashes are all
over the place. The trees stands like giant guardians over
everything. Weeds are also growing all over the concrete footpath
where he is walking towards the huge stoep.

On the big
stoep it is even worst. Many of the plant pots have fallen down and
are broken with their contents still growing to the best of their
ability in the little soil still left. The few pieces of wooden
furniture on the stoep is weathered to such an extent that some are
beyond any hope of repair. Spider webs are everywhere. It is clear
that no one takes any care of what he saw of the premises so
far.

"For how long
has your father been away?" he asks the boy who is now behind him
as he parks his bike against the stoep railing.

"Father is gone
for quite some time now."

"Are you alone
here?"

"No, my sister
is also here."

Then for the
first time, Mason sees the little girl in the shadows of slightly
ajar front door. Never in his life had he seen a little girl that
looks so sad. She is about four or five years old with a neat
little dress and a dolly in her hand. She looks up at Mason and
before he can talk to her, she runs towards her brother and go
stand behind him, holding onto his shirt.

"Who takes care
of you, then?"

"I take care of
us." the boy says bravely as his sister peeps at Mason from behind
her brother.

Mason
immediately decides to inform the authorities about the two
children when he goes down to the little village the next morning.
He can't understand how their father could just leave them here on
their own, although the boy looks very capable, he is still very
young and won't be able to do everything even if he wanted to.

Despite the
derelict look of the place, both children are very neat and clean.
Ok, clean as a child will be after a day of hard play.

"Where can I
sleep tonight?"

The boy leads
him into the house, followed by the little girl, who is still
holding onto the back of his shirt.

Inside the
house there is an odd damp smell, as if the house is never aired.
The mouldiness has seeped into every crevice and hole of the house
and it seems to have driven out all life and whatever was good in
the place. How the children can live in such a dank place is
anybody's guess.

They walk down
a gloomy passage and then the boy enters a room which he point out
to Mason as where he can sleep for the night.

The bedroom
seems even worse than the rest of the house. There is a bed against
the one wall, closest to the door, neatly made up. He knows that
these rural people always have a guess room, and this must be it.
There is a big table and cupboard against the other wall. He throws
his backpack on the bed and then tries to open the window to let
the damp, musty air out, but the window is stuck as if it is glued
shut.

The children
doesn't offer any assistance and just stand in the doorway looking
at him. In the gloominess of the house the boy's ugly face is even
a little disconcerting.

Mason takes his
smaller cooler bag out of his backpack and ask the boy where the
kitchen is.

The children
take him there. As it is getting dark outside, it is even darker
inside the house and since no one seems to be in a hurry to switch
on the lights, Mason asks:

"Have you got
electricity?"

"No, we never
had any electricity in the house."

Mason takes out
his All Weather electric lantern and switches it on. The bright
light immediately fills every gloomy corner of that dank kitchen
with light.

He takes out
his food, which consists of cold meats, bread-rolls, some tomato
salad still left over after his hard ride and some cool-drink. He
puts everything on three plastic plates and invite the children to
come eat with him.

"No, thanks, we
had already eaten." the boys says very politely, but still with the
usual coldness in his voice.

Mason finds
this very strange. Never in his whole life had he met any child who
wouldn't eat anything at any time whether he had just eaten or not.
Even the little girl, who still peeks out from behind her brother
seems disinterested in the food, whose nice smell now takes over in
the kitchen that seems to not have been used in ages.

Mason starts
eating the food on his plate, leaving the other two plates there
for if they change their minds later. The two children once again
just stand there watching him.

The little girl
stays behind the boy, with just a part of her face visible, looking
at Mason. Mason smiles at her, but she just look back at him with
that enigmatic, sad look on her little face.

Seeing the way
the house is and the fact that almost nothing in it works he asks
the boy" "Aren't you afraid to be alone at home, while your father
is away. Is there no-one who takes care of you?"

"No, we are
used to being alone at home. I must stay here to look after my
sister and protect the house against the Kaffirs." he says in that
pragmatic tone that seems to be his trademark. This one will make a
good lawyer or politician one day, Mason thinks to himself.

It is also very
strange to hear the taboo word - Kaffir - flowing so easily over
the boy's lips. For many years now this has been a forbidden word
and he didn't even know that youngsters knew the word anymore.

The Blacks have
taken over control of the country in 1994 and since then black
criminals have been systematically murdering people who live in the
rural areas. This is the first and foremost reason why the rural
areas have become mostly deserted. There are even claims that these
criminals are sponsored by the government, because they are very
well equipped and will mostly commit the most horrible murders and
not even take something from the house.

But how would
the boy protect the property against these blacks, who usually
comes in groups and are well armed.

"How will you
protect the place against these Blacks if they attack you?" he asks
the boy as he bites into a roll.

For the first
time the boy smiles and with that deep gash in his cheek, it is
definitely not a beautiful sight. Even the little girl seems to be
smiling, in a short of malevolent way now.

"OH, I have my
ways and they will find out if they ever come this way again...”
His eyes seem to glow as he says this.

Mason knows it
is not polite to simply asks, and maybe the boy won't like it, but
he just have to try: "What happened to your face?"

"We don't talk
about that." The boy doesn't seem to be insulted by the question
and Mason decides to just leave it at that. When he informs the
social workers tomorrow, they can investigate this matter.

Mason washes
his dish in the sink with the water coming out in a trickle from
the ancient tap.

When he is
done, he goes outside to the stoep to see if he can make any
repairs to his buckled front wheel, so that he can be mobile the
next morning. He just need to bend it more or less back in shape
again, so that he can at least reach the village. The village is
way too far to walk to.

The children
sit on the steps looking up at him where he works on the spokes of
the wheel. The little girl sits on a step lower, just behind her
brother.

"You know,
people say that this place is haunted..."

Mason takes
note of the fact that it is the first time - since he met the boy -
that he speaks out of own accord. He usually just answered the
questions Mason asked him.