Deon Meyer - Dead at Daybreak

He made me sit down and told the sergeant behind the desk to keep an eye on me. And came back minutes later with a detective.

He was a big man. Big hands, thick eyebrows, and a nose that had known adversity.

“What’s your name?” the big man asked.

“Zatopek, sir.”

“Come with me, Zatopek.”

I followed him to his office, a gray room filled with civil service furniture and piles of files and memorandums arranged in chaotic stacks.

“Sit down,” he said.

He sat on the edge of the desk with the constable’s statements in his hand.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen, sir.”

“Where do you live?”

“Stilfontein, sir.”

“Eleventh grade?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stilfontein High School?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You stole books.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Louis L’Amours.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How often have you stolen books?”

“This was the first time, sir.”

“What have you stolen before?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Nothing?”

“I…once I stole Günther Krause’s ruler in class, sir, but it was more of a joke, sir. I’ll give it back to him, sir.”

“Why did you steal the books?”

“It was wrong, sir.”

“I know it was wrong. I want to know why.”

“I…I wanted them so badly, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because I like them so much, sir.”

“Have you read Flint ?”

“Yes, sir.” Somewhat surprised.

“Kilkenny ?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lando ?”

“No, sir.”

“Catlow ?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Cherokee Trail ?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The Empty Land ?”

“No, sir.”

He sighed and got up, walked round, and sat down at his big desk.

“Did any of the good guys in any L’Amour steal, Zatopek?”

“No, sir.”

“What will your father do – how will he feel if I phone him now to tell him his son’s a thief?”

Hope, a faint spark. If I …not when I phone him . “My father’s dead, sir.”

“And your mother?”

“She’ll be very unhappy, sir.”

“I have a suspicion you have a gift for euphemism, Zatopek. Your mother will be heartbroken. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“No, sir.”

“You’re the only one she’s got?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re stealing.”

“It was wrong, sir.”

“Says he now. Now that it’s too late. Where’s your mother?”

I told him about the movie plans and that my mother would fetch us at five o’clock, after the movie.

He looked at me. For a long time and in silence. Then he got up. “Wait here, Zatopek. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

He walked out and closed the door. I was alone with my fear and my humiliation and my sprig of hope.

He came back after a lifetime and sat on the edge of the desk again.

“There’s an empty cell down here, Zatopek. I’m going to lock you into it. It’s a dirty place. It stinks. People have vomited and shat and pissed and bled and sweated in it. But it’s paradise in comparison with what happens to thieves if they go to jail…I’m going to put you in the cell, Zatopek. So that you can think about all these things. I want you to try and picture, while you’re sitting there, what it would be like to spend the rest of your life like that. Only much worse. Among other thieves and murderers and confidence men and rapists and all the other scum of the earth. Men who’ll cut your throat for fifty cents. Guys who’ll think a young man like you is just the thing to…to…kiss, if you get my drift.”

I didn’t really but I nodded enthusiastically.

“I’ve just spoken to the CNA on the phone. They say they have a great deal of theft taking place there. They want me to make an example of you. They want you to be in court, in front of the magistrate, with your poor mother weeping, so that everyone can see there’s no point in stealing from the CNA. They want the people of the Klerksdorp Record to write about you so that the nonthieving youth of South Africa will be deterred. Do you understand?”

I couldn’t speak, merely allowed my head to indicate agreement.

“I argued with them, Zatopek. I told them I was sure it was the first time, because I’m stupid enough to believe you. I begged them because someone who likes Louis L’Amour can’t be all bad. They told me I was wasting my time because someone who steals once will steal again. But I talked them round, Zatopek.”

“Sir?”

“We reached an agreement. I’ll lock you up until half past four because you’re a guilty little bugger. And then I’ll take you to the cinema and you’ll tell your mother it was a nice movie because breaking her heart isn’t a good idea. She didn’t steal.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you ever steal again, Zatopek, I’ll fetch you and give you such a hell of a hiding, all use you’ll ever have for your backside is to hang a pair of pants on, and I’ll lock you up with guys who’ll suck out your eyeballs before cutting off your other balls with a blunt knife simply because they’re bored. Have you got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Everyone has the right to one chance in life, Zatopek. We don’t all get it, but we deserve it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Use yours.”

“Yes, sir.”

He got up. “Come along.”

“Sir…”

“What?”

“Thank you, sir.” And then I cried until my entire body shook and the big man tucked his arm around me and pulled me close to him and held me until I had stopped.

Then he went and locked me up.

∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧

15

He shaved at five in the morning, rain in the dark cold outside, and saw himself. It caused a sudden shudder, the unexpectedness of it. He saw his whole body in the mirror: he saw his face, not the yellowing blue of the swollen eye, but himself, the heavy eyebrows, the nose with its slight arch, not quite straight; he saw the gray at his temples, saw that his shoulders weren’t as broad as they had been; saw the slight roundness of his belly and hips, a softness; saw his legs, the long muscles less defined, saw the toll of the years, saw himself.

He focused on the shaving cream, dipped the razor in water, allowed the rhythm, the ritual, to divert him, let the body disappear in the steam of the earlier shower, rinsed the washbasin, dried his face carefully with the towel, put on the tracksuit. He didn’t want to listen to music – Hope Beneke, who had listened to his music and said, “You’re an odd man, Van Heerden.” There was a time when the contradiction of a cop who listened to Mozart had defined him, but no longer. He switched off the living room’s light and opened the curtain, looked through the rain at the big house, felt the cold. There would be snow on the mountains. His mother’s veranda light was burning. For him. As usual.

His mother. Who had never once said, “Get your act together.”

She should have said it, a thousand times by now, each day she should’ve told him but all he got was her love, her eyes that told him she understood, even if she didn’t know, even if she knew fuck-all, only two people who knew, only two.

He and…

He looked across. His mother’s big house over there, his little cottage here, his refuge, his jail.

He jerked the curtain to, switched on the light, sat in the chair, rain against the window, leaned back, and closed his eyes. He had been awake since two, that feverish, insubstantial, artificial euphoria of insomnia had come visiting again because he had gone to bed sober, and today he had to…

His heart beat faster.