Circus. Irma Venter
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the waitress has left, he produces a gift-wrapped box from his pocket. “Did you think I’d forgotten?” He hands it to me, leans over and kisses my cheek. “I hope this will be a wonderful year for you.”
“That was delicious.” Oom Tiny raises his glass. “To Adriana.”
“To Adriana,” Daisy echoes.
Oom Tiny gives a broad smile. “You look lovely. I can’t believe you’re eighteen. Feels like yesterday that your dad first dropped you at the gym. How old were you? Eleven?”
“Nine.”
“Nine? Good grief!”
“Yes, all right,” Daisy laughs. “You’re giving your own age away.” She clinks glasses with me and my dad.
She looks happy. The Dutchman looks happy. They make me happy, but I don’t want to say it out loud. It feels short-lived and out of control. Dangerous, almost, to be so happy because others are happy.
The first lingering notes of Miles Davis’s “Blue in Green” sound from the stage. The droning voices die down. The grey-haired trumpeter with thick-rimmed glasses closes his eyes. Plays as if we don’t matter, as if he’s forgotten about us. As if this country and its violence don’t exist.
Suddenly I feel like leaving. Maybe the moment will last for ever if I’m not here when the music stops.
I sit back in my chair, breathe in the perfume I dabbed on in the ladies’ room. Chanel. The Dutchman didn’t choose it for the scent, he said, but for the strong, flamboyant woman it was named after. I’m like her, he said.
I feel his eyes on me. He seems to know what I’m thinking. He motions with his chin towards the door, raising his eyebrows. I nod. As soon as Miles has finished.
Daisy leans over, whispers: “I’m going to the ladies’ room. Are you leaving?”
“Soon.”
“Then I’ll say goodbye. You know how long the queues can be.” She squeezes my hand and blows my dad a kiss.
Outside Roxy’s the streets are slick with rain and oil, coating the tarmac. The air smells of wet concrete and soil.
I link my arm through my dad’s. “Thanks for a lovely evening.”
We cross the street to where the car is parked.
I hear the footsteps before I see anyone, the sharp sound of leather-soled shoes. A man appears from between two parked cars ahead of us and walks swiftly in our direction, his hands in the pockets of his lightweight overcoat.
There’s no one else in the street. Somewhere I hear a woman’s laughter. It’s the kind of laughter I have often heard in Hillbrow – too high-pitched and too animated, as if she is being paid to laugh.
The man looks up as we approach him, smiles as if in greeting.
Again the woman laughs. I turn to see if I can spot her, but notice no one. When I turn back, there’s a pistol in the man’s hand.
My dad stops in his tracks, his body tense. With one arm, he shoves me behind him.
“Wait, just wait …” he says soothingly, and searches in his trouser pocket. “Just a moment … my wallet.”
The man steps closer, raises the pistol. I turn ice cold.
My dad pushes me away. “Run, Adriana!”
I try to grab him. “No …”
“Run! Now!”
A loud thud.
My dad drops on the tar.
The man with the pistol is on top of him, searching his pockets.
Without thinking, I jump on his back, strike out at his neck, his head. “What are you doing? Leave him!” I scream.
He shakes me off.
I fall, taste blood in my mouth. Crawl towards my dad.
“Dad? Dad!” I hear myself scream.
The man curses, grabs a few notes from the wallet, throws it aside and runs.
I struggle to turn my dad over. His chest is soaked in blood, the red stain on his shirt growing bigger and bigger.
ADRIANA
1
Johannesburg, present
It’s unnaturally quiet in the reeds. A handful of weavers cling to the green stalks waving in a hot, dry breeze. They don’t move, just stare at me.
I stand ankle-deep in grey mud and debris from the polluted Jukskei River that winds its way through Johannesburg. If the two cops don’t shoot me, I’ll probably be eaten alive by E. coli.
My breathing has calmed down. I listen. Turn my head like the birds, in search of movement, footsteps. Hear the traffic higher up, towards Marlboro Road. Excited voices.
I take out the bottle of water I always carry in my handbag, pour some in my cupped hand and wash the blood from my ear and neck. Thankfully the bleeding seems to have stopped. I drink the rest of the water and throw the bottle back in the bag. Feel if my phone is still safe between my breasts. Then I grip the remaining knife and put my lipstick in my bra, next to the phone. I drop the handbag. Nothing inside would be of any use.
Where are the cops? Are they waiting for me to emerge from the reeds? Do they think I’ll try to outwait them, run for the Gautrain station? It’s only three, four hundred metres away.
Or I could dash to the right through the reeds. Run until I reach Woodmead and the busy M1 highway.
I’ll have to be quick; reinforcements are no doubt on their way.
I consider my options. To my right is a small section of marshland and then a stretch of burnt grassland. Too little shelter, so no to option 2. Option 1 wouldn’t work either. The train station is too obvious a choice.
No. I’ll hunt rather than be hunted. It’s how I have come to prefer it, anyway.
Strange how things change. How people change.
A weaver flutters up, flies away. My eyes search for where it was perched, but see nothing.
I crouch down and look towards the highway again. I don’t see any flashing lights, but I hear sirens: the urgent wail of ambulances and the shorter, shrill sound of police vehicles. If those two men aren’t real cops they’ll have to get out of here or they’ll be in trouble.
Another weaver flies up. Then I hear it, over the sirens and the rustling of reeds in the wind: footsteps in mud. No shoes being sucked in. Bare feet?
I close my eyes. Try to track the sound. Is it the older man or the younger one with the shoulder wound?
The footsteps are coming from the right, from the direction of the burnt veld. Someone has taken his time, circling round the marshland, avoiding the police and curious bystanders.
The sirens must have forced the men to make a move.
More weavers flee before the measured, cautious steps.
I crouch lower in the reeds, search for his location.
There. A white shirt. A third man?
No, it’s the older man. He’s got rid of his police shirt and boots and is wearing a white T-shirt. He looks like a mad security guard, pistol in hand, barefoot.
I gauge the distance between us. Twenty, twenty-five metres.
His eyes are searching as he walks; he hasn’t seen me yet.
I hold the knife ready, between thumb and forefinger. Where is the younger man? Did I hurt him badly enough to force him to seek help?
I keep my eyes on the white shirt in the reeds.
Come