The Lion Seeker (48 page)

—Don't touch me.

—Ach man. Make it okay. Finish the bad blood off.

—I said don't touch me.

—Uhkay, sorry, sorry.

—You come to tell me you learned your lesson.

Oberholzer looks at him a while then nods.

—Say it.

—I learn my lesson.

—Good.

Moving slowly, he shakes the hand. Oberholzer doesn't try to squeeze. He's always going to have that scarring on the one side, like Mame.

—Oright so it's over, Isaac says.

—Ja man, Oberholzer says. There's too much wars going on in the world as is. It's a blerry shame, not so?

—Ja oright, Isaac says, letting go. Is finished. Is klaar.

—Ja man, I buy you nice whisky.

—That's ukay.

—No man, we will have the drink.

They are talking softly, standing away from the others out of the street lights and in close to the garage wall. Oberholzer goes into a rambling story about his cousin from Witbank and how he ended up getting divorced all because he wouldn't say sorry, and how, no, his own father taught him a real man is a man who can say he is sorry. Meanwhile Labuschagne has come out and everyone moves off with him, heading for the pub. Oberholzer starts telling what could be a joke about three men stranded in the desert; it goes on and on. Eventually Isaac has to interrupt him, and they start off for the Great Britain Hotel also, Oberholzer walking slowly and talking ceaselessly in a flat dead voice. Once, Isaac looks back. —Hey where's your china?

—Hey?

—Charlie. He not coming?

—Oh ja. Prolly just went for smoke or the paper.

At the bar, Oberholzer finds them a quiet corner away from the others. As he buys Isaac a second triple whisky, Charlie appears. —Howzit ouens. Lekker to see everyone matey-mates again. All lekker like a cracker, hu hu. He touches Isaac's back, that irritating habit. When he moves away as Isaac sips, he gets a sudden fluttery feeling, his jacket swinging out. He puts down his drink, pats himself, his pockets.

—You oright?

He feels his wallet, his keys. —Ja, no. Fine.

—Cheers hey, Oberholzer says, turning with the drinks. Here is to happy future on us all.

—Ja, Isaac says, uneasy. Ja. Oright. Cheers.

They clink and drink. Isaac's feet shift, he looks down. —Listen man, Magnus. About your wife hey, what I said like . . . 

Oberholzer looks at the bar. —Lez not talk about it.

—Nothing happened, ay, I made it all up.

Oberholzer says nothing.

—Got those underwears from somewhere else. So like, I want you to know, she would never even look at me, ukay?

Oberholzer nods without looking up, lifts his glass. They make another cheers; but Oberholzer still won't look him in the eyes. A press of feeling rises thick in Isaac's throat. They talk some more, then the big man wanders off to join the others while Isaac drinks on with Charlie.

 

At home the house is dark and everyone is out and at first he's unsure why before he remembers it's Rosh Hashanah today, Jewish New Year, and his parents and Rively have probably gone to the Altmans' for the special supper. Tutte's given up on asking him to take off work or come to shul for holidays, but Isaac's fairly sure at some point he'll get the annual lecture about the Days of Awe, the sacred time between the New Year and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, now coming up soon. Ja, Days of Awe: when you have to cry and say you really really sorry to God and other people for all the sins you've done in the year, while you still can. Before your fate gets sealed on Yom Kippur.

That night a fearful dream wakes him on his cot. He's in a stone chamber with water pouring in, green and cold; he has a giant stone key and there are slots for it in the ceiling. He keeps trying to fit this heavy key into one of the impossible slots with the cold green water rising. Then from behind a hand pushes his head down. The more he struggles the more someone giggles, bubbling, off to the side.

In the morning he goes to work and there is something very wrong.

WHEN ISAAC WALKS INTO THE SHOP
he hits a motionless silence that stops him cold. The White workers in their clean tan overalls are all standing in a clump by the office over on the far side of the workshop to his left; the Black staff are lined along the rear wall. At first Isaac thinks something terrible to do with the war has happened, but no, not in this silence with the wireless off. As he walks across he sees that all of the dozen journeymen panel beaters are there, including Jack Miller plus the other apprentice, Vernon. He sees Bliksy the parts guy and Rustas the glass man, Eddie Tops the upholstery king, even Mornay Pienaar the paint man. When he reaches them and starts to say something, Miller tells him to be quiet, to wait.

Labuschagne's office door is open and he is behind the desk there, murmuring quietly into his telephone, writing with his free hand. After about five minutes he looks up and lifts his voice, wanting to know if everyone is here now. Voices tell him ja. He comes out and his face under the bowl cut is clumped and mottled.

—Never thought in all my life it could ever happen here to me. Okes, the kitty, she is gone. Some bastard went and diefed the kitty from its place must have been last night. Gone.

It's like the negative of a bomb going off, an implosion of silence in which Isaac can feel all of their attention sucked down to the tiny point of Labuschagne's mouth and what it will say next.

—Was full up too. Now it's stolen and gone. Twenty-five years in the game I never had nothing to touch this. I'm ganna tell you right here, it has to be someone of us who done this. Because they knew how the kitty works and exactly where to go.

—In the safe in there your office right? says George Kazy.

Labuschagne spits on the ground, scratches under his chin. —Spose if I say right now it makes not a difference. Where it was . . . Rustas, gimme that.

He takes the steel bucket that Rustas extends with his golden hands, carries it to the wall behind where he turns it down and steps up. The electric clock on the wall comes into reach: he shifts it aside to show an uneven hole in the bricks, a hollow behind. —Hu! says Rustas.

—Crafty bladey bugger, says someone close behind Isaac.

Labuschagne lets the clock swing back, steps down. —If it was a stranger they woulda gone for the safe in the office, ja. But nothing else was even touched. Only kitty was taken . . . 

—But no one but you even knew, says Dean van der Westhuizen, panel beater.

Labuschagne makes a fist and presses it to the palm until knuckles crack. —Look, he says. This is what can happen here. I am ganna bell the cops. They'll come and start with all the investigator shit what they do. But lemme tell you ouens, I do that and it's never ganna be the same. But I will do it. Unless a man wants to be a man. And you sticks your hand up. Says it was me, Franzie, I did it. Oright hey. Says you sorry and you can walk out. And know what? You can even keep the kitty.

—Hey hey hey whoah, says Rustas.

—No ways man! shouts Keith Chambers.

Labuschagne's palms are up. —No, no. That kitty can be the stuff-off pay. Take it for severance and go. I'm not saying nothing. You own up. You sez sorry and you fok off. That's it. I just want you out and then we go back to like it was. Even if you go to another shop for a job I won't even say what you did for a reference.

I'm not even ganna tell the owners, but that's only if you talk right now. Your chance to be a man. Own up and walk out. Otherwise it's the cops coming here and they go through all our lives. And lemme tell you, when we do hook the oke—and we will—he is not ganna walk outta here to go to jail neither. We ganna sort him our own way first. Sort him solid. So better for him to talk up right now.

He faces the Blacks. In Afrikaans: You hear me when I speak. You men all fokken get me?

They nod, some mumble ja bass. They keep back against the wall, as if they'd like to go farther but can't.

Dez Malcolmson calls out, —How would they know?

Labuschagne folds an ear forward. —How say?

—How could anyone know it was there? It's only you that locks up.

Labuschagne grimaces. —There's it, ay. There's it exactly.

He points up. A grimed skylight above him: a part of the shop Isaac's eyes have moved over hundreds or thousands of times but his mind has never noticed.

—Some clever monkey, he went up. And I know he came down through there cos it was all spiderwebs and all that's gone. He musta watched down on me, putting the kitty.

Rustas: —So could be anyone?

Labuschagne is shaking his head. —Had to be someone who knowed when it was time for me to stick the kitty in. A coupla minutes on a Thursday. He waits up there and sees, looking down. Then comes down and gyps it.

—Crafty bastard!

There's movement amongst them now, men looking sideways at other men. Then Jan Veld steps forward. —What the bladey hell, Franzie? How can you stand there and make an accusing against us man? Go fucken talk to
them
.

He means the Blacks flat against the wall. Their eyes start rocking and now the men are edging towards them. Chambers picks up a jack handle and goes out ahead.

—Moer the lot a them till they give it back, says Eddie Tops.

—Make them tell.

—Lez get these boogs.

There's a bang, very loud. Isaac turns back and Labuschagne kicks the steel bucket again, crunching it against the wall. —Hey! Nobody does one bladey thing! You stand still! Everyone! Get back here. Dez, you. Jan. Keith. Eddie. I am telling you all I will bliksem the first oke touches anyone. This is my shop and I'm boss. Get over here.

He starts pacing, his face shining red now. One of his plate hands scratches at his chest, the other is on his hip.

—I ganna be the first one in line if it's one of the boys done it. You okes know I don't take no shit from any a them for a second. But fair is fair. I'm not having one of my boys buggered up by you ouens for no reason. I tell you straight, first one to start with gets fired. Uhkay. Uhkay Keith?

Chambers mutters.

—Hey! I'm talking a you.

—Oright.

—Now I'm ganna be honest with youse all. I know my boys. Most a been with us since the beginning. Before I lock up, they all go home. They got trains they got and they can't miss em, if they in town after dark they get picked up by the cops. That's why I always let them go by five, so they have time and they don't disappear in jail for six months. Now it woulda been a helluva job for one a them to come back and wait here. And then what, hide all night? And if it was one of the boys, why just the kitty hey? Why not anything else he could get his hands on not nailed down?

There's a silence.

—You see it? says Labuschagne in his animal pacing. Plus everyone here knows we got watchman patrol what sticks some dogs in here and the yard and leaves em overnight. Now I been on the line with Ricardo the barkeeper already this morning, and he remembers good who he served last night and he remembers every one of us was there. Every one.

—So then how could it be us? says Rustas.

—This's what I'm working out, says Labuschagne. What I reckon it was, when you ouens was all outside waiting for me, someone climbs up outside onto the roof and watches down through here, seeing what I does. When I leave, he climbs down and grabs it. Then he climbs back out and goes to the bar like nothing.

—Bladey sly bastard!

Now the Whites are looking at each other again. One or two fools grinning like it's all a joke. But the grins soon slide away from the hard looks of the others, turning sickly.

—Had to be someone small hey, a voice says.

Labuschagne stops his pacing. Looks back to the electric clock. —We got work to do today. So I'm giving the oke who done it, giving him . . . two minutes. Two minutes more from right now. Be a man or I go in the office and bell the cops. And when they do find out it's you, God help you. That is all I can say. God help you. And they
will
catch you.

Silence. The second hand on the big electric clock face drops a quarter turn, then another. Men glancing to their left and right. Watching their feet. Other men with folded arms biting at their bottom lips. Isaac like Labuschagne puts his hands on his hips. He is thinking he'd like to get his hands on the one who did it, thinking who was it, who could it be? Who's the most monkey-like, to clamber down from that skylight? Feeling more secretly a slight admiration for the audacity and enterprise of this burglar . . . 

—Boss. Franzie.

A vast scarred hand is in the air. The silence folds in on him.

—Ek het iets, he says. I have something. He swallows, his pale throat moving, goes on in the same Afrikaans: I don't want to throw an accusation. I only want to help for everyone. But I did see something last night.

—Wat het jy gesien? asks Labuschagne.

I saw . . . ach, I don't know if it's right to say. I don't have proof of anything.

Tell us.

And also, because of what's happened . . . with him. This looks bad. Like I am looking for revenge. But I am not a revenge looker. I only want to tell the truth.

What are you prattling for? Say your piece.

—Gister aand, he starts, then in English repeats: —Last night. Last night I seen him.

Isaac's scalp has shrivelled; his chest goes cold.

—I seen him going around. Isaac.

They look at him now. Be calm, Isaac says in himself.

Labuschagne: —What you mean going around?

Oberholzer points. —Down by that way. Where you can go by the alley there. You could climb up . . . 

—You saw him go round?

—Ja, I seen it. Look, I only saying. I don't know nuffing. Is only what I did see. Sorry, Isaac.

—Bullshit, Isaac says. You bladey full of stinking bullshit.