Deon Meyer - Blood Safari

Emma nodded.

‘I’m not saying that what happened was wrong. It was inevitable, it was evolution. But it had enormous implications. The academics say the place we first began to farm was in the Middle East, the fertile crescent of Iraq in the East, through Syria and Israel to Turkey. Go and see what it looks like today and it’s hard to believe they call it the Fertile Crescent. It’s just desert. But ten thousand years ago it wasn’t desert. It was grassland and trees, a temperate climate, good soil. Most people believe that the climate changed and that’s why there’s nothing there today. Oddly, the climate is just about the same. It became desert because people and their agriculture exhausted the Middle East. Overgrazed, over-farmed and over-utilised. Because of that urge to utilise abundance fully, there might never be a tomorrow …’

Moller wasn’t the natural evangelical speaker that Donnie Branca was. His voice was softer, the tone infinitely courteous, but his belief in what he said was equally immovable. Emma sat transfixed.

‘We can’t change history. We can’t wish away all the technology and agriculture and we certainly can’t change human nature. The peacock with the longest, most colourful tail has the best chance to get a mate; whereas we rely on the number of cattle in our kraal, or the name of the car in our garage. That’s why money controls everything. People are not truly capable of conservation, though they make all the right noises. It’s just not in our nature. Whether we’re talking about pumping oil or chopping down trees for firewood, the environment will be the loser. The only way to keep a proper ecological balance today is to keep the people out. Completely. The entire concept of public game reserves is failing, regardless of whether they are national, provincial or private game parks. Do you know how many rhino have been shot for their horns in game parks this year?’

Emma shook her head.

‘Twenty-six. Twenty of them were in Kruger. They arrested two game rangers – the very people who are supposed to be protecting them. In KwaZulu two white men drove into the Umfolozi Game Reserve in broad daylight, shot two rhino, cut off the horns and drove out. Everybody knows there are rhino there. That’s why I lock my gates. The less they know, the greater the chance that my animals will survive.’

‘I understand.’

‘That’s why I don’t want tourists here. Once that starts, it gets harder to control. The accommodation in Kruger is insufficient, the demand continues to grow. Now they are going to build more. Where does it stop? Who decides? Certainly not the ecology, that’s for sure. The pressure is political and financial. Tourism has become the lifeblood of our country, a bigger industry than our gold mines. It creates jobs, brings in foreign currency, it’s become a monster that we must keep on feeding. That monster will consume us, one day. Only the places like Heuningklip will remain. But not for ever. Nothing can stand in the path of man.’

15

In the Aventura Badplaas holiday resort’s barbecue restaurant we waited for the manager to track down Melanie Lettering’s current place of work.

I ate a plate of vegetables and salad, which was all that I could tolerate after all the biltong I’d eaten at Moller’s. Emma ordered fish and salad. Halfway through our meal the manager returned with a scrap of paper in his hand.

‘She still works for Aventura at the Bela-Bela resort. They also have a spa.’ He gave the note to Emma. ‘She’s married now, her surname is Posthumus. These are the numbers.’

Emma thanked him.

‘She was very good with the guests. I was sorry to see her go.’

‘What sort of work did she do?’

‘Beauty therapist. You know, herbal baths, massage, thalasso treatments, full-body mud wraps …’

‘When did she leave?’

‘Jislaaik , let me think … about three years ago.’

‘How far away is Bela-Bela?’

‘Quite a way. Just over three hundred kilos. The shortest route is via Groblersdal and Marble Hall.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

He excused himself and Emma took out her cell phone and began to call Bela-Bela.

When we left it was already dark.

‘This is going to be a long day, Lemmer, I hope you don’t mind,’ said Emma. She sounded weary.

‘I don’t mind.’

‘I could drive if you like …’

‘That’s not necessary.’

‘We can sleep late tomorrow. There’s nothing more I can do.’

And then what? I wanted to ask her. Would she go back to Cape Town and wait until Cobie de Villiers came out of hiding? Did she hope someone like Wolhuter would keep her informed?

She switched on the roof light, took out the sheet of paper again and made notes. Then she turned the light off and leaned back in her seat. She sat silent for so long that I thought she was asleep. But then I saw that her eyes were open. She was staring out at the pitch-black night and the bright beam of the halogen lights ahead.

Melanie Posthumus sat on the couch of the staff house in the Bela-Bela resort with a child on her lap.

‘This is Jolanie. She’s two,’ she said happily when Emma enquired.

‘That’s an unusual name,’ said Emma.

‘We made an anagram with my hubby’s name and mine. His name is Johan; he’s got a function on tonight. He’s the catering manager and it’s that time of the year, you know. But we call her Jollie, she’s so full of sunshine, see.’

At first glance Melanie was pretty – black hair, blue eyes and a flawless complexion. The sweet Cupid’s bow of her red lips was like a constant invitation. She spoke in the accent of Johannesburg’s Afrikaans suburbia, with the exaggerated inflection that turned an ‘a’ into an ‘ô’. Her use of ‘anagram’ was not a good sign either.

‘I’ll make us something to drink in a sec. First I’ve got to get Jollie to sleep, she’s lekker tired and if it gets past her bedtime she gets her second wind and, as Johan always says, then it’s pyjama drill on the gravy yard shift.’

‘I know this isn’t a good time,’ said Emma.

‘No, don’t worry about that, you’ve come so far and I’m very curious. How do you know Cobie? I was very cross with him for ages, but you can’t stay cross for ever. You have to get closure and go on with your life, you must follow your destiny.’ She nodded at the sleepy-eyed child on her lap. ‘It’s like Brad and Angelina. They had to wait before they found each other.’

‘It’s a long story. I knew Cobie many years ago.’

‘Like in boyfriend and girlfriend?’

‘No, no, as in family.’

‘I was just about to say, not you too …’

‘I’m trying to trace him.’

‘Family? That’s funny, you know, he told me he was an orphan, that he didn’t have any family.’

‘Maybe it’s not the same Cobie that I knew. That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ Emma said with extreme patience. I wondered how disappointed she felt that her ‘brother’ might have been in love with this little bird of a woman.

‘Oh, OK, I was just saying …’

‘I’m trying to talk to everyone that knew him. I need to know for sure.’

‘Like closure.’ Melanie nodded her head sympathetically. ‘I understand completely.’

Suddenly Emma’s phone rang shrilly. The baby’s eyes opened and her face crumpled in dismay. ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Emma and pressed the button to turn it off.

Jollie-Jolanie’s eyes drooped slowly shut.

‘You got to know him when he was working at Heuningklip?’ Emma asked in a low voice as she replaced the cell phone in her bag.

‘Jo. That was serenity if there ever was. I was coming from Carolina way. I had a little white Volkswagen Golf, and its name was Dolfie. It never gave me any trouble. Never. So then I felt something wasn’t lekker and I stopped and it was a flat tyre. Man, I couldn’t even remember where the spare wheel was. Cobie came past, he’d been to the co-op to fetch some stuff with his pick-up and all he saw was this girl with her hands on her hips looking at the flat tyre, and he stopped. Now isn’t that serenity?’