Deon Meyer - Blood Safari

She seemed lifeless and fragile, pale and forlorn. They had shaved off her hair. There were bandages around her head and chest, wires connected to her, a drip in her arm, monitors and machines making soft electronic noises. Her left hand lay on top of the bedlinen, very still. I wanted to reach out and touch it.

I sat beside her on the bed. I didn’t want to look at her. I looked through the glass on the other side of her. Eleanor Taljaard stood out there watching me. She nodded at me. I nodded back. I looked at Emma.

‘I’m sorry,’ but it was too quiet, she wouldn’t be able to hear me. I cleared my throat. ‘Emma, I’m so sorry.’

Only the electronics of her life functions answered me.

What should I say to her?

‘I, urn, the doctor said you can hear me.’

The whole day? Impossible. Where could I get a book? A magazine? A woman’s magazine might be the solution.

‘They say you are a little better this morning. They say there’s a good chance you will recover. You must vasbyt …’

Vasbyt. What kind of fucking word was that? How could I tell someone in a coma to hang in there? I’m a moron.

‘Emma, they said I must talk to you because you know my voice.’

Tell her what you need to say.

‘It was my fault, Emma. I should have believed you. That was the mistake I made. I’m so sorry. I thought I was smart. Thought I knew people, thought I knew you. I was wrong.’

She just lay there.

‘I’ll fix it. I promise I’ll fix it.’

How? How was I going to fix it?

‘I don’t know how yet, but I will.’

Then I sat back and was quiet.

I looked up at the glass window. Dr Taljaard was gone. Emma and I were alone. I could see the slow movement of her chest, breathing in and out.

I gathered my thoughts slowly and carefully and said, ‘I have to keep talking. You know I’m not good at this. The thing is, I don’t know what else to say to you. They didn’t give me any time to think. I hope you understand. I’ll go and buy a magazine in a while. What do you read? I wonder. There’s such a choice nowadays … It rained again this morning. Not thunderstorms like the other night, only soft rain. I was outside just now. The first time since we … It’s not so hot now.’

Could I go out to buy a magazine?

‘Dr Eleanor Taljaard seems to know what she’s doing. She’s about fifty. Her husband also works here. His name is Koos. They are an interesting couple. He’s shorter than she is. They seem to get along very well.’

Say something.

‘I will tell Jeanette Louw to refund you your money.’

Don’t talk about the injury.

What do women like?

‘Remember when I said I was a builder? There at Wolhuter’s place? I was trying to be clever, but it wasn’t a complete lie. I’m busy doing up my own house. At Loxton.’

This was the right topic.

‘It’s an old house. No one is really sure when it was built. I think it must be between ninety and a hundred years old. It’s the last house on the left as you drive out to the town dam. The previous owner was a Muslim. He was the electrician in town for a year or two. The people nicknamed it the AI Qaeda house. You know, tongue in cheek. But there wasn’t enough work there and he left. Maybe he didn’t feel at home without his own people. Now they talk about Lemmer’s house. It’s kind of ironic because it is my first house. I had a flat in Seapoint before. Before that I always rented, because we were six months in Pretoria and six months in Cape Town when I worked for the minister.

‘In any case, I’m busy renovating my house. It wasn’t in a bad state. There were a few cracks in the walls and the garden was very neglected, because the Muslim had been away for two years when I moved in. But the layout is peculiar. All the old houses in Loxton are built with the kitchen and bathroom side by side at the back. When you want a bath you have to walk from the bedroom down the passage and through the kitchen. They didn’t build showers at all. I don’t know why, water is so scarce in the Karoo. The old folk only built baths.

‘At the moment I’m breaking down the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen. I’ve converted one of the smaller bedrooms into a bathroom. It was quite a job 1 had to move all the pipes and plumbing. It took me about a year between working jobs for Jeanette. I think the new bathroom looks good now. I’ve got ceramic tiles on the floor and a big shower and basin and a toilet behind a little wall that I built.

‘In? … I learned bricklaying previously. Perhaps I should tell …

‘Maybe later. Anyway, I rebuilt the wall three times before it was right.

‘When the new bathroom was ready, I started on the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom. I want to make one big room including the small bedroom beside the kitchen. A kind of big living space for eating and cooking and entertaining. Not that I can actually cook … Or do much entertaining. But in Loxton the people are different. They knock on your door and say, “We’ve come for coffee.” And then you chat.

‘There’s an old Aga stove in the kitchen. It’s lovely and warm in winter. When I have finished taking down the walls, it will be one big room with the stove in the centre.

‘There’s a coloured woman who is teaching me to cook. Her name is Agatha. She says the stove is in her name. She comes twice a week to clean and wash and iron clothes and then she shows me what to do with a leg of lamb or ribs in the oven. The meat that comes out of that Aga melts in your mouth and the delicious aroma fills the whole house. Sometimes she brings her grandson along. He’s three. His name is Ryno. She says he’s named after a character in 7de Loan , the Afrikaans soap opera. Do you ever watch it? I started watching it with Agatha. She gets personally involved in that soapie.

‘I must be boring you a lot.

‘When I worked for the government there was never time for TV. I have a satellite dish now. It was just for the rugby to start with. But you know how poor the rugby was …

‘Life is very boring in Loxton. But that’s what I want. That’s why I moved there. But that’s another story.

‘In any case, the old sitting room at the front is my bedroom now, with the new bathroom alongside. The house has a veranda facing the street. There are no houses across the street. Just the commonage. Karoo veld. Koppies. The commonage is ten thousand hectares. Can you believe that? Some people keep sheep on the commonage. Oom Joe van Wyk said I should get myself some sheep. He said I mustn’t worry about the slaughtering, there is a butcher in town again for the first time in seven years. And a restaurant and a coffee shop … the Rooi Granaat. You should taste the fig liqueur that Tannie Nita makes, Emma, it’s better than any wine.

‘I’ve got the garden going too. There is still irrigation by water furrow in Loxton. My turn is on Tuesdays at three o’clock. When I’m not there Agatha or Antjie Barnard leads the water from the water furrows. There’s an old pear tree in the garden. I pruned it back and it bears well. I planted a saltbush hedge all around the boundary fence, and three peach trees and an apricot. Agatha said I should plant a fig tree, because it’s best suited to the Karoo and she could make jam. I planted four close to the kitchen. The rest is lawn and a few flower beds.

‘I enjoy the gardening.’

I looked at my watch. A quarter to eight in the morning.

The whole day.

I looked at her hand. The shape of the slender wrist and fingers.

‘Emma, I don’t know what else to tell you.’

Outside, behind the glass, a nurse walked past.

‘I want to start a herb garden too. And a vegetable garden. The soil is good. Oom Wessel van der Walt has a vegetable garden on both his plots and the plots in Loxton are big, seldom smaller than a thousand square metres. Oom Wessel bought two plots long ago. When he retired he built on one. A lot of people in town are retired, but more and more of them are from Cape Town or Johannesburg. To get away. From whatever. They came and opened guest houses and a restaurant. There’s a couple who do freelance writing for magazines and a guy who designs websites. And a few holiday houses.’