The World Unseen Read online

  With as little warning as they had begun, the noises stopped. In the profound quiet that followed, a tap was turned on in the kitchen, and Miriam listened as she fought to control her sobs. She heard the water drumming on her iron sink, and when De Witt returned his face was damp, and his blond hair darker now that it was wet, and he looked calmer. Stewart had waited without speaking, or even moving, except for the chewing motion of his jaw, but he looked up now.

  “You’ll never find them,” Miriam repeated, softly, and De Witt ignored her, although she knew he had heard by the tensing of the muscles in his neck.

  Miriam recognised the low throb of the bus before they did but she made no sign, only prayed for some miracle to keep her children away from the shop, but the moment they caught the diesel shudder of the engine, the two men raised their heads in unison, like coyotes scenting a corpse. De Witt even managed a smile.

  “Home from school!” he said, cheerfully. “How nice.”

  “I won’t let you talk to them,” said Miriam, her voice raising.

  “Don’t panic, lady. You don’t have anything to do with it. We’re going to take them with us and talk to them at the station.”

  “You can’t take them . . .”

  Stewart turned to her.

  “We can,” he informed her. “They may be holding valuable information about someone who is willfully breaking the law.”

  “No!” she ran forward, still holding the baby, but a firm hand grabbed her shoulder and pushed her back with no more effort than if it had been swatting a fly. The men walked out to the porch where they stood waiting for the children. They came tumbling off the bus as they always did, running up towards the shop, but they saw the policemen as they reached the porch steps and they stopped, looking up at them expectantly.

  “Hello,” Stewart said to them.

  “Where’s my mummy?” demanded Alisha, regarding them with much suspicion.

  “No manners. Just like her bloody mother,” muttered De Witt, under his breath. He turned and called to Miriam over his shoulder. She came out, and beckoned to her children to come in. They ran up the porch steps, but could not find a way past the huge legs of the policemen that blocked the doorway to the shop.

  “Let them in please,” Miriam said.

  There was no reply, except that each man took hold of one child, De Witt grabbing Sam and swinging him up over his shoulder.

  “Ever been to a police station, young man?” he asked. Miriam watched her son, saw the mixture of fear and uncertainty in his eyes, saw the man’s smiling white teeth in her son’s face. In the meantime, Stewart was pushing her daughter towards the car.

  “Mummy,” Alisha cried, tears in her voice. “Mummy, come with us. Where are we going, Mummy?”

  Robert appeared at last and took the baby and Miriam started down the steps but De Witt pushed her back.

  “We’ll bring them back later, or tomorrow. Whenever we get time. ”

  Sam was also crying now, and she heard the slam of a car door. Her daughter stared tearfully out at her, shouting for her mother to come and help her.

  “Stop it,” Miriam said. “Stop it, please! I’ll tell you where they are, I’ll tell you everything, just bring them back. Please, bring them back.”

  De Witt almost threw Sam into the back of the car.

  “Shut up!” he screamed. “You want me to whip you?” his hand went threateningly to his belt. The crying stopped.

  Stewart was looking at Miriam.

  “I’ll tell you,” she said, holding his glance. “Please. Give me back my children. Please.”

  Stewart turned and spoke to his partner. She could not hear the low undertones of his voice, but she heard De Witt’s reply.

  “She’s lying, the bitch! Anyway, we’ll teach her a lesson. Come on.”

  Now Stewart’s voice raised. “How much more time do you want to waste? Let’s hear what she has to say.” He opened the car door, and motioned the children out, but held them firmly before him.

  “Don’t move,” he said, looking at Miriam. “So where are they?” he asked.

  Miriam could not speak.

  He grasped Alisha’s arm harder.

  “They’re in Pretoria,” she called out.

  “You know if you are lying to us, I’ll beat you and your children and the baby?” De Witt said evenly.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Where? At a hotel?”

  Miriam shook her head and felt tears escaping from her eyes. “At my brother-in-law’s. In Boom Street.”

  He watched her closely. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said, her eyes fixed on her children. Stewart examined Miriam closely for a few moments more then turned and nodded to De Witt.

  “Dammit, I should have known . . .” shouted De Witt.

  “How would we know?” asked Stewart, frowning. “That bitch of all people should have been telling the truth.”

  Miriam listened, confused, waiting, waiting for them to release the children.

  De Witt kicked the porch post with his boot, leaving a splintered crack in the wood. He glowered at his partner, but Stewart was looking at Miriam.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “You’ve been very helpful.” He touched his cap, the epitome of good manners now, and then he stood aside, allowing the children to escape. They ran into her arms where she held them briefly before pulling them into the shop. Robert stood holding the baby, and they all stood together in silence.

  “See if they’ve gone,” she said. The boy went to the window and peered out. The car had all but disappeared, leaving a faint stir of dust behind it.

  “They are gone, Madam,” he said.

  Miriam moved straight through the shop and back out onto the porch.

  “Where are you going, Madam?” asked Robert, alarmed. She was moving now as she hadn’t moved in days, quickly and with purpose. She ran down the porch steps, stopping only to call to him to give the children something to eat and to lock the doors. She ran, stumbling in her slippers, through the grass, ignoring the pathway because that was a longer route to the Weston farm and the nearest telephone, and as she went she felt the tears falling and her heart crashing in her chest, and she hoped that Rehmat would not hate her for what she had done.

  Chapter Twelve

  “You sent us on a wild goose chase,” said Officer De Witt.

  There was an air of permanence about his stance, feet apart and firm, his arms crossed, and he made sure to carefully enunciate each word that he spoke. Farah swallowed hard. As her husband had discovered very soon after he had married her, she was a woman capable of responding to anyone’s bad mood with one of her own that was ten times worse, but she instinctively understood that she had met her match with the policeman who stood before her. He was tall and blond and good-looking, or so she had once thought—but there was nothing pleasant or flirtatious in his face or tone now.

  Farah turned away.

  “What did she tell you?” she asked.

  “The truth,” he replied, with irony. “I trust her more than I trust you. She may be a plas-jappe, living out there in the sticks, but that kind doesn’t even know how to lie. She told me that bitch was here. All along she was here.”

  “She told you?”

  “Ja.”

  Farah was surprised at Miriam. She had expected her to be more honourable for Rehmat’s sake—she was the type. Her surprise evaporated, however, under the pressure of the problem she was now facing. She had no idea where Rehmat was at this moment, and now she was in trouble with the very people she had been trying to assist. She considered her options and, in accordance with her usual custom, decided that aggression might help her more than submissive compliance.

  “She was here,” she said, turning defiantly to the two men. “So what? What did you want me to do? Tell you right there and then, when you came the first time?”

  “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do,” De Witt said. “You called us here, remembe
r?”

  “In front of my husband? He was standing right next to me. He would have killed me. Was I supposed to tell you while she could hear me? Hiding upstairs? It’s your fault, you should have looked harder. What kind of state police don’t even search the house properly?”

  In the next moment she was aware of nothing but a searing pain as her arm was gripped and twisted. De Witt held her look until her eyes dropped to the ground.

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been out shopping all afternoon.” She indicated the sacks of groceries that lay scattered on the floor. “She wasn’t here when I got back.”

  “And if the plas-jappe warned her, she won’t be back at all.” De Witt dropped her arm and pushed her away. He looked at his partner.

  “Check upstairs,” he said.

  Amina Harjan was in the small, plainly furnished room she kept behind the café. She was lying on her bed, positioned directly before the orange glow cast by the setting sun, and she was sleeping. It was her habit to take a nap on afternoons when business was quiet in the café, and more so on the weekend, when she kept the place open for business well into the night and long after Jacob had finished for the day. That was why Jacob politely asked the breathless woman who ran wildly into the café to come back a little later if she must see Miss Harjan, as Miss Harjan could not be disturbed. He had not known quite what to do though, when the woman had watched him as though his speech were incomprehensible to her and had then run past him towards Amina’s room.

  The hasty knock on the door roused Amina, but she thought she must be dreaming still when she saw Rehmat’s face leaning over her as she lay there in her bed.

  “Can you help me?” Rehmat asked, her face drawn and pale.

  Amina rubbed hand over her eyes, and pushed back her mass of curly hair. She smiled at Rehmat, appearing to find nothing incongruous in the situation.

  “What is it you need?”

  “They know where I am, and they are coming after me.”

  Amina’s smile disappeared as she watched Rehmat’s eyes fill with tears. “The police?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “They could arrive at any moment. They’re bound to search the whole area and people must have seen me . . .”

  “Don’t say a word,” said Amina. “And don’t cry.”

  Rehmat hardly saw the girl leave her bed, but she felt herself moving, propelled by a guiding hand on her arm, and moments later she heard a door click behind her and she was plunged into darkness.

  Officer De Witt left Farah with a narrow glance and strode into the kitchen. He squinted against the light of the setting sun that spread in through the high windows and skylight. The room was small and held few potential hiding places. He opened a few cupboards half-heartedly and then turned and glimpsed the narrow passage that led to Jehan’s room. Farah called after him as he walked along it.

  “Don’t wake her,” she said, but he was already gone, and she finished her sentence muttering discontentedly to herself. Despite her enduring rancour towards Rehmat, she was now beginning to regret involving the police. She should have thought of another way to vent her hatred. She heard Jehan laugh, a sudden, demonic sound that elicited an oath of surprise from the policeman, and she knew that her usual two hours of peace, the freedom she obtained from her crazy sister-in-law while she slept, had been curtailed for that afternoon. She heard doors slamming upstairs and in a few moments, Stewart had come back down. De Witt emerged from Jehan’s room, his sparse blond eyebrows raised in silent query.

  “Nothing,” Stewart said. “Some nice clothes, though. Labels are French.”

  De Witt looked at Farah. “We’ll find her, don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “You should be, because when we’re finished with her, you’ll be the next into the jailhouse for helping her.”

  “I never wanted to help her,” she said bitterly.

  “Then help us.”

  “But I don’t know where she went. Why don’t you try her husband’s hotel?”

  “He checked out days ago. He keeps moving around. He’s not stupid,” said Stewart.

  They watched each other. The sun was setting quickly, casting the lower half of the room into shadow. Officer De Witt slammed his fist hard onto the counter and Farah jumped. The sound vibrated in the small room but Stewart waited calmly, and without a sound, his jaw moving continuously beneath his beard.

  “Where . . . is . . . she?”

  Farah opened her mouth to speak, but all they heard was a scream from Jehan’s room, a long controlled sound that slowly lengthened and rose in pitch like an orchestrated bar of music, building to a crescendo and exploding finally into a long, hearty peal of manic laughter.

  “Quickly, quickly, QUICKLY!” Jehan screamed. “THEY ARE COMING SAID MIRIAM, THEY ARE COMING. MIRIAM SAID SO, MIRIAM SAID SO.”

  The three people in the kitchen stared at the wall to Jehan’s room as though the plaster itself were forming the sounds.

  “THEY ARE COMING!” Jehan yelled. “WHERE SHALL I GO? HELP ME, JEHAN, WHERE SHALL I GO, WHERE SHALL I GO?”

  There was a silence. De Witt moved to go to the room, but Farah shook her head and he remained still. Jehan’s speech had lowered in volume and was now a stream of indistinct muttering. They strained to listen.

  “I can’t believe it. How did they know? They are coming, Miriam said so, Miriam said so. Miriam phoned. WHERE SHALL I GO, JEHAN, WHERE SHALL I GO.” The recommencement of the shouting startled them all, and the voice had a desperate choke in it as though in exact imitation of the words it was repeating.

  “TO THE HARJAN GIRL. THE HARJAN GIRL, THE HARJAN GIRL.” Jehan laughed delightedly. She had evidently found a series of lilting syllables that pleased her, because she continued to recite them in a singsong voice. “THE HARJAN GIRL, THE HARJAN GIRL, THE HARJAN GIRL,” she sang blithely. “The Harjan girl, the Harjan girl. Miriam said so,” she added, suddenly, soberly. “They are coming. Miriam said so.”

  “The Harjan girl?” asked De Witt, frowning. His partner nodded.

  “The Bazaar café,” he said. “You remember. Amina Harjan and Jacob Williams.”

  Both men looked at Farah. Her smile was slight, but her eyes held an excited look of triumph.

  “What are you waiting for?” she asked them.

  “Nothing,” said De Witt and they walked out of the house.

  It took a few moments for the policemen’s presence to be noticed by all the occupants of the café—and there were many, early on this Saturday evening—but one by one, the people at each table noticed the uniformed men standing inside the door, and they stopped chewing, waiting silently, eyes averted, to see what might happen. De Witt looked around the room, but nobody met his eyes. Jacob remained behind the counter, busying his hands with whatever work presented itself, his face impassive and clear of expression. There had been a time when the police had come here regularly to speak to Amina. They had even searched her room and the café a couple of times before, once looking for a black woman that Amina was rumoured to have been involved with, but they found nothing. Jacob was an honest man, but one who could hide his emotions well, and easily. It gave him a relaxed air, as though nothing that might occur in his vicinity, be it a hysterical woman or a pair of impatient police officers, would ever shake his composed exterior. The policemen’s arrival had caused a knot in his stomach, but he continued his work as though removing the water spots from his glasses were the only concern on his mind.

  The two officers approached him, Stewart walking ahead now.

  “Jacob,” he said, nodding.

  Jacob nodded back.

  “We’re looking for someone. A woman.”

  Jacob came out from behind the counter, a box of matches in his hand, and walked slowly to one of the paraffin lamps that hung at intervals around the walls of the dining area. He struck a match and held it patiently to the wick, watching as the p
araffin drew up the lamp and cast a warm glow on the table beneath. He shook out the match and moved slowly to the next lamp.

  “What woman?” he said, his tone politely interested.

  Stewart followed him, and watched the next lamp being lit as he spoke. “An Indian woman. Well-dressed, probably. Have you seen her?”

  Another match was struck, hissing briefly into the gloom.

  “Indians is all we get in here. Why don’t you have a look around?” Jacob said. De Witt rolled his eyes at his partner, but they carefully looked over every table anyway. There were no women at all. The café looked inviting now, with the tongues of lamplight licking into the corners and reflecting off the rough polish of the wooden floors and tables.

  “Where’s Amina?” asked Stewart. The final lamp flared into life, and Jacob returned to his place behind the counter. A low hum of talk began to spread around the room, as people began to eat again. Jacob’s methodical lamp-lighting, his apparent lack of concern at the police officers, his measured movements, had reassured them in some way.

  “Miss Harjan is asleep.”

  De Witt looked impatiently at his watch. “A little early, isn’t it?”

  “She’ll be getting up to work soon,” Jacob replied. “She works late on Saturday nights. Why don’t you have a seat and wait for her?” He saw the irritation on their faces and he added quickly, “Or I can go and wake her.”

  “She lives here?” De Witt asked his partner.

  “She has a room out the back.” Stewart looked at Jacob. “If it’s okay with you, we’ll just go and speak to her.”

  Jacob said nothing, knowing that it would be okay if they wanted it to be so, and he watched helplessly as the men strode past him, through the kitchen and out to Amina’s room.