Black Magic Woman (24 page)

Apartheid disappeared in 1994, but the townships did not. The charitable referred to them as suburbs. The realists, who had seen them, called them slums.

The first two people Sergeant Shemba asked for directions just shrugged and walked away. But then he found a boy, aged about ten, who told them how to find the house of Miles Nshonge. The boy had not yet learned to hate and fear the police. In time, he probably would.

The boy's information proved accurate, and a few minutes later they pulled up in front of the mudbrick house that had been the home of the Nshonge family. Only Miles Nshonge lived there now, which was why the two policemen had come to see him.

Once they were out of the car, Sergeant Shemba popped the hood and raised it. Using a rag to avoid burning his fingers, he removed the distributor cap from the engine, wrapped it in the rag, and stowed it in a pocket of his khaki uniform. The poverty and desperation in most of the townships was such that no unattended car was safe, even one belonging to the police. As it was, the two men would still keep an eye in it, lest they come back to find it stripped down to the bare metal.

Detective First Class Van Dreenan and Sergeant Shemba had been partners for just over three years. Van Dreenan valued Shemba's insight, courage, integrity, and the fact that the big man spoke four of the tribal languages, including Xhosa, which was the dominant tongue in Thokoza.

The two men positioned themselves on either side of the house's front door before knocking. People in the townships sometimes shot right through the door if they did not know it was the police outside—and sometimes even when they did.

Following Sergeant Shemba's vigorous knocking, a male voice inside called out something in Xhosa. Sergeant Shemba answered, in a tone that brooked no nonsense.

A few moments later, the door was opened by a narrow-shouldered, very thin man of about forty with a sad, careworn face. Sergeant Shemba asked a question that contained the name "Miles Nshonge" in it. The sad-faced man answered, then stepped back to allow his visitors entry.

The house's large main room was sparsely furnished but spotlessly clean. The principal decoration was a large framed photograph on one wall showing Nelson Mandela being sworn in as President of the Republic of South Africa. Nshonge waved the two policemen into mismatched wooden armchairs with thin, frayed cushions on the seats; he sat facing them on an ornately carved wooden bench about the size of a European loveseat.

Van Dreenan said to Sergeant Shemba, who would act as translator, "Please give him our condolences on the deaths of his wife and children."

After Shemba spoke, Nshonge nodded his acknowledgment, but said nothing.

"Tell him we appreciate his being willing to talk to us today."

Nshonge replied briefly, shaking his head as he did so.

"He says it does not matter, because he is a dead man already."

"Ask him to explain that."

"He says that the same curse that killed his family will soon take him, also."

"Ask about the curse."

Nshonge spent some time looking at the floor without saying anything. Then, without raising his head, he began to talk. He spoke at length, as if he were letting something out that he had kept inside him for a very long time. Sergeant Shemba translated after every few sentences.

"He says he liked to gamble: cards and betting on horses. He has a good job as a carpenter, but the last five years, he had been gambling more and more. He lost much money playing cards with his friends. And he would go to the racetrack sometimes, but it is far away and hard to get to. So most of the time he placed his bets with a local broker."

Shemba looked at Van Dreenan. "I believe by this he means what we would call a 'bookie.'"

"Right," Van Dreenan said. "Ask him to go on."

"He says the broker would extend to him credit, to let him keep betting even when he owed money. But the day came when the broker said there would be no more credit, and wanted the debt paid. He says at that time he owed the broker almost eight hundred rand."

"I bet I know what happened next," Van Dreenan muttered.

Shemba turned to him again. "Sorry?"

"Nothing, never mind," Van Dreenan told him. "Please continue."

"He says the broker has some big, tough men who work for him. Threats were made—against him, and against his family. He says he became quite desperate. He says he tried to borrow the money he owed, but none would loan it to him, even the moneylenders who charge very high interest. So, out of fear for his family, he went to a
tagati.
"

"Sweet Christ," Van Dreenan said softly. A
tagati
is a witch, of either gender. Unlike the
sangomas,
who practice benign folk medicine, the
tagati
deal in one thing only: black magic. They were notorious for being utterly ruthless, and people who did business with them usually ended up getting hurt, in one way or another.

"He says the
tagati
listened to his tale very closely, very carefully. When he finished, the
tagati
asked him how much money he wanted—not how much he owed, but how much he wanted. He said he would like twelve hundred rand. That would pay his gambling debt and allow him some left over for his family.

"He says the
tagati
then asked him if he would swear a High Oath, in return for the money."

"High Oath? What's that mean?"

For the first time since they had arrived, Sergeant Shemba showed signs of distress. Being a disciplined police officer, he was not obvious about it, but Van Dreenan knew something was wrong.

"The High Oath," Shemba said, "is something that can be invoked by only the most powerful of
tagati.
If you swear the High Oath, you are bound to the sorcerer until he releases you, and to make the bond, you give him your soul. You belong to him. Or to her."

Superstitious claptrap
was Van Dreenan's reaction, but he kept it to himself. He liked the Sergeant too much to show disrespect for tribal beliefs, some of which Shemba still bought into, despite being nominally a Methodist. He said to Shemba, "Ask him if he took this High Oath."

The Sergeant did so. After listening to Nshonge's response, he said, "Yes, he did. He says that he was desperate, that he had no other choice. In return for the money, he pledged to perform any service that the
tagati
might demand of him in the future."

"So, the
tagati
just gave him twelve hundred rand?"

"He says no. Instead, the
tagati
instructed him to wait two days, and on the third day to bet on the daily number, with five-three-five as his choice."

Van Dreenan nodded. The local numbers syndicates had their counterparts worldwide, and were always more popular among the poor than the legal state lotteries.

"He says he did as the
tagati
told him, and five-three-five was the winning number that day. He was the only winner in the township. The pay-out was exactly twelve hundred rand."

Van Dreenan raised his eyebrows at that, but said nothing, as Nshonge continued speaking.

"He says all was well, then, for almost two years. He paid his debts for gambling, and gambled no more after that. He became a different man, he says. Then the
tagati
came to him in a dream, demanding payment. The
tagati
wanted Mr. Nshonge's eldest child, a boy of seven years. He says the
tagati
told him to deliver the boy to a certain crossroads, at midnight, on the first night of the next full moon."

"In a dream, eh?"

"Yes, but you must remember, that dreams are very important among these people. They are considered a means of communicating with the spirit world, with their ancestors, and so on."

Van Dreenan nodded. "Ask him what he did about this dream he had."

"He says in the dream he refused. He acknowledged his debt to the
tagati,
but said that repayment take some other form. He would not give up one of his children. He says the
tagati
was insistent, reminding him of the High Oath he had taken, and told him that he would have the boy, one way or another."

"I think we may be about to get to the heart of the matter, and about time," Van Dreenan said. "Ask him what happened then."

"He says the moon became full three nights later. He was very vigilant the first night and stayed awake until dawn to keep watch, lest the
tagati
send minions to take the boy by stealth or by force. He borrowed a shotgun from a neighbor, and kept it close to his chair. But the night passed without incident. However, when he went to wake his family, he found the eldest boy having convulsions. He says blood was coming from the boy's mouth, his nose, his bumhole, and his ears, and they could not stop it. He sent for the local
sangoma,
who came at once, but the boy was dead by the time he arrived."

"Ask him if he notified the police."

"He says 'no.'"

"What about the Health Service?"

"Also 'no.'"

"Then ask him
why the bloody hell not!"

Once the question was translated, Van Dreenan saw Nshonge gesture helplessly before answering.

"He says the boy was already dead," Shemba said. "There was nothing for the police or the white doctors to do. He says they buried the boy in the local graveyard, with due ceremony."

Van Dreenan shook his head in disgust at the man's abysmal ignorance. The boy could have been carrying an infectious disease that might have wiped out the whole township, and beyond, if left untreated.

Except that nobody else had died. Apart from the rest of Nshonge's family.

"Ask him what happened to his other two children, and his wife."

Shemba spoke to Nshonge, then listened in return. He turned to Van Dreenan. "He says before he speaks of that, there are two other things we must know.

"He says that the day after the boy's funeral, Mr. Nshonge's wife went to the grave, to pray that her ancestors would receive the boy's spirit in welcome.

"He says that when she got there, she found that the grave had been dug up, and the boy's body removed."

Van Dreenan frowned. "Animals?"

Sergeant Shemba translated the question.

"He says it could not be. The grave had been dug deeply, to keep animals away. And there were marks in the earth of hands, human hands."

"His poor mother, it must have broken her heart," Van Dreenan said softly. Then to Shemba: "He said there were two things. What's the other one?"

"He says the
tagati
came to him again in a dream. The
tagati
was very angry, saying that the High Oath had been broken. He said that Nshonge would watch his remaining two children die, then his wife, before he, too, would succumb to the
tagati's
power."

"Ask him to give us the rest of it. Briefly, if possible."

"He says the next full moon, the same happened, This time it was his middle child, who was found dead in her bed, in a pool of her own blood. After the funeral, he hired guards for her grave. But the next morning, the guards were found in a deep sleep, from which it was hard to rouse them. The grave of his daughter was empty."

"Someone drugged the guards?"

"He says the guards swore not. They ate and drank only that which they had brought with them, and saw no one, the whole night long."

"They would have said that, anyway," Van Dreenan muttered. "All right, get to the end of it."

According to Sergeant Shemba's translation, Nshonge said that he had sought the help of the most powerful
sangomas
he could find. They had sold him all manner of charms, amulets, ointments, and potions to protect his last child from the
tagati's
vengeance, but to no avail. The first night of the next full moon, the girl had died, in the same manner as her siblings.

Nshonge had again hired guards for the child's grave, but this time he had accompanied them himself, bringing a large thermos of strong tea that he had brewed himself, to help everyone stay awake. But, after sunrise, he had awakened, groggy, from a dreamless slumber, to find the guards also asleep and the grave once again plundered.

When the time of the next full moon approached, Nshonge said, he had urged his wife to leave for a few days, perhaps to visit relatives in a distant village. However, she had insisted that her proper place was with him, and had refused to go. The two of them vowed they would both stay awake all night, to keep the
tagati
from coming in their sleep. They had made tea, so strong that was almost undrinkable, kept the radio on all night, and played cards (not for money) to pass the time.

Although he had been determined not to assume any posture that would permit sleep, Nshonge awoke in the morning sitting at the table where he and his wife had been playing a variation of gin rummy. His head had been pillowed on his folded arms, which were resting on the table.