for days on end. I would have tortured you slowly, bit by bit. I wish I could. But now I can’t even shoot you. Because, pathetic human being that you are, I feel sorry for you.”
“You!” he spits out the word. “You and Carli. You act as if you weren’t willing, as if you were victims. But we know better, don’t we, Anna? You two were asking for it, with your little shorts and skirts, the shirts that barely covered your breasts.”
I hear my mother drawing a sharp breath, but do not look at her. “I was eight.”
He just laughs, with a sneer on his lips.
“Did you know?” I ask my mother without looking at her.
“He is my husband.”
“We were your children.”
She does not argue with that.
He slowly lowers his hands, still sneering. Presses down awkwardly with his palms on the floor tiles in an effort to stand up. Turns his back to me. He knows I don’t have the nerve to pull the trigger. Because he has seen my hands shaking.
“You enjoyed it,” he says, still on his hands and knees. “You wanted it just as much as I did. Every time I touched you, you were dripping wet. I could feel you were ready for it.”
My hands stop shaking.
I do it slowly. Taking my time.
I raise the pistol, indicate with it that my mother must stand to one side, and aim it at the back of his head, more or less between the ears.
“You will never do that to anyone ever again.”
I pull the trigger. I see him fall forward, hear my mother’s long drawn-out scream.
“Never again.” I pull the trigger for the last time.
I don’t have to go in there. I don’t have to give myself up. The 9 mm hardly made a sound, thanks to the silencer.
My mother will talk. I know she will. She never stood up for us, never protected us, why would she do so now? She will definitely talk. But: it’s her word against mine.
No, they will catch me anyway. The time for running away, hiding away is over. For ever.
My legs are shaking, I must hold on to the railing to climb the badly lit stairs up to the charge office. Up. To the top.
Am I doing the right thing? Life consists of choices. This is my choice. And my responsibility.
The door is open and I walk in. It’s quiet in the charge office, only one police officer behind the high brown counter. A large woman talking to him in a hoarse voice.
“I’m telling you, Jimmy, if you don’t do something to stop him, I will.”
“Yes, Auntie.”
“And it’s not going to be pretty, Jimmy, not pretty, I’m telling you.”
“Yes, Auntie.”
The officer looks up briefly as I come up to the counter, then carries on listening to the woman’s tirade.
As she stops to take a breath she glances sideways at me, takes a few horrified steps back. “My God, Jimmy, help the woman, she’s bleeding!”
Only then does he look properly at me. At my blood-spattered clothes, at my hands covered in drying blood, at the pistol I put down on the counter.
“I shot him. Danie du Toit. I had to do it, I had to. For myself. For Carli. I shot him.”
Another officer appears behind the counter – he must have been sitting somewhere I could not see – and asks: “Address?”
I tell him.
He writes it down, slides the slip of paper over to Jimmy. Then he comes round to my side of the counter. He takes me by the arm and leads me through a door. Down a passage, up a set of stairs, into an office right at the end of another passage.
He offers me a chair. “I’ll call someone. Sit down, ma’am.”
“I’m not a ma’am.”
He just nods, shuts the door behind him with a firm click.
Alone, I inhale the office smells. Paper, ink, cigarette smoke. Musty smells. Look around the office, deliberately keep moving my eyes – left, right, upwards. Everywhere so that I do not look down and see the blood on my hands.
I suddenly become aware of how tired I am. Eight hours behind the wheel of a car. The time before; the time after. My eyes feel scratchy, like sandpaper, when I blink. And my bladder is hurting. Why didn’t I go to the toilet first? What time is it? Could it already be five o’clock?
At least I’m not shaking so much any more. But my heart is pounding, my breathing is shallow, my eyes want to close out of sheer exhaustion. If only I could sleep, only rest a bit, only empty my bladder. I saw a toilet down the passage, on the door there was a picture of a lady holding an umbrella. Do I dare? I’ll be quick, I’ll be back before anyone misses me.
I stand up slowly, carefully from the chair, as if I can no longer entirely trust my limbs. Hold on to the table for support. Shuffle towards the door. Listen carefully before I open the door: the passage is quiet.
After I’ve emptied my bladder I start shivering again. My body shakes uncontrollably. I stand in front of the basin, staring at the strange woman in the mirror. She looks like me; she is wearing my clothes. But I know it’s not me. That woman in the mirror is another Anna. Maybe she is the real Anna. The one without the mask.
I shut my eyes so that she does not look at me like that. This strange Anna.
I hear the shots again, my mother’s terrified screams. See the blood. She wants to step towards him. No, I stop her, go to your room. I have one bullet left; don’t make me use it on you. I threaten my mother, aim the pistol at her. Until she listens and turns around.
As I bend over him, I slip in the blood that’s flowing out of him. I fall down next to him, feel the dampness seep through my jeans onto my legs. Stick to my hands. I struggle to my knees, press my hand to his throat. No pulse.
He is dead. Thank God.
When I open my eyes, I see the blood on my hands. In the mirror it looks almost black. I suddenly shudder at the sight. Because it’s his blood.
I open the hot tap, look around for soap. Nothing. I let the steaming water run over my hands. See how the water turns red. See the blood wash away. On and on and on.
I jump as a hand falls on my shoulder. I never heard the door open.
“You’re not allowed to wash your hands!” the police officer says, aghast.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
“Superintendent Webber is going to be furious!” he says, more to himself than to me. “Come.”
2
