The Real Page 8
I’ll just have to go there and see.
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The next morning Ndlela and Isabeau went farther up the coast than usual for their beach-combing. Neither of them felt comfortable in sight of the circus buildings. The change turned out to be a good idea as they found a treasure trove of sand-scoured glass and even an entire ornate glass bottle, misty and full of damp sand. This was lucky because they could trade these items directly with their closest neighbour, Crosshatch, instead of having to carry them all the way home for Noor to take in to the Kaapstadt market.
As they dragged their clinking bundles across the sand to Crosshatch’s place they heard a rumbling in the distance. Isabeau looked questioningly at Ndlela and he knew the same thought was in her mind. Bike engines. Those people at the circus.
The sounds did not come any closer and they soon relaxed.
Crosshatch lived not far from the children’s ruined hotel, some distance inland but still within sight of the sea. He’d constructed his dwelling—you couldn’t really call it a house, Ndlela thought—in a curve of dunes overgrown with bushes and stunted milkwood trees.
The area must once have been a jumble of broken houses and cracked concrete but Crosshatch had painstakingly cleared it and used every bit of rubble for his own purposes. The dune had been hollowed out to reveal the remains of a small building almost completely buried in the sand. Crosshatch had reinforced the facade with bricks and driftwood, and had used the same materials to construct a number of enclosures for his goats and pigs. From the times he’d been inside the dune-house Ndlela knew that Crosshatch used it mostly for storage. The living area was out in front, a yard roofed with a patchwork of canvas, plastic sheets, and netting all held up with poles.
As they came slogging through the soft sand they saw Crosshatch standing on one of the dunes, shading his eyes and staring in the direction of the now faintly buzzing bikes.
“Hello!” shouted Ndlela, dropping his bag with relief. The sun was already high in the sky and he wiped the sweat from his eyes.
Crosshatch didn’t respond until the engines had completely died away. Then he came stalking down the dune, his face screwed into a frown, talking to himself in a breathy mutter. “No respect. Respect! No understanding.”
He looked from Ndlela to Isabeau and then down to the bags on the ground.
“Hello,” said Isabeau. “Did you see them? The bikers?”
“Tearing up the beach with their machines. They were right there by the oystercatchers.” Crosshatch thrust out his jaw. “Even if the birds aren’t nesting right now, it still scares them.”
He bent to pull open Ndlela’s bag and grunted at the sight of the beach glass. “Not bad.” He inspected Isabeau’s bag as well, then lifted both with no apparent effort. “I’ll go weigh these. Want something to drink? Some food?”
“Yes, please,” said Isabeau.
They went to wait on a bench under one of the awnings. Ndlela looked around with satisfaction. He loved Crosshatch’s place. It smelled strongly of goat and pig but there was always something interesting to see. Jewel-bright sunbirds flitted around the sugar-water bottles that hung suspended from the awning. A mob of sparrows perched in chattering rows or clung, squabbling, to the many bird feeders. A jade-and-rose rooster strutted in the yard, ignored by his plump wives who scratched industriously in the dirt.
Ndlela averted his eyes from the dried-out rat carcases that hung here and there in macabre bouquets. The seed from the bird feeders attracted more than the normal number of rats, and Crosshatch waged a never-ending war on them. He believed that the dead rats acted as a deterrent to the live rats, but Ndlela had never seen any evidence that this worked. At best the rat bodies just added an unpleasant undertone to the already complex smell of the place.
Crosshatch came backing out of his dune house, carrying several promising bundles. Ndlela and Isabeau went to help him.
“Cheese,” he said to Isabeau’s enquiring look. “And some fresh bread.” He handed them each a bottle of water. “Where shall we sit?”
They chose a wide trestle table, covered in bits of dismantled machinery—something with prominent metal teeth.
“Another rat trap?” Ndlela wiped his mouth after a long drink of water from the bottle.
“I’m trying a new design,” said Crosshatch. “But the trigger is far too light.” He held up a hand, dark as shoe leather, with a pattern of bruises across the palm. “Keeps catching me.”
“How you going to keep the birds from going in?” said Isabeau. This, as both children knew, was the puzzle that fascinated Crosshatch. Constructing a rat trap that would not lure and kill the birds he loved.
“I’m making a sort of cover for it.” Crosshatch pointed. “With a long pipe as the entrance. Rats go sniffing down it, birds won’t dare go in. Should work.”
Ndlela took a large bite of bread and washed it down with some more water. It wasn’t really bread, more a sort of cake made of pressed-together seaweed, seeds, egg, and bacon-grease. It was filling and even tasty, if you ate it as soon as it came out of the oven.
“Do you know anything about those people, Crosshatch?” Isabeau said, swallowing down a mouthful of bread. “Those bikers.”
Crosshatch shook his head. “Never seen them before. I’d remember those bikes.” His scarred forehead wrinkled into a frown. “Why?”
Isabeau shrugged. “Just wondering.”
“Better you stay away from them. I’m sure I heard shots the other night. Bad news.”
Ndlela waited for Isabeau to tell the old man about their night’s adventure but instead she turned the conversation to the Samurai Dog and spent the rest of their visit speculating whether the rumours were true, and if so, where the gardag was and what she wanted.
“To be left alone,” said Crosshatch, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “She wants to be left alone.”
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When they’d finished eating, Ndlela packed the blocks of cheese into his bag. It was fair payment for a morning’s work. Crosshatch always needed bits of beach-glass and other oddments for his projects and paid for them in goat’s milk cheese, bacon, or lessons. Over the years, Crosshatch had taught all three the children how to use and maintain tools, how to fix things, and how to look after his goats, chickens, and pigs. He’d also showed them many of the secrets of the Muara.
Now, Isabeau asked Crosshatch whether they could leave via what she called the “underground way.”
“Just for fun,” she said, swinging her now empty bag onto her shoulder.
“You know the rules,” said Crosshatch. “Just walk on through. Don’t touch anything. Don’t take anything away. You hear me?”
“Yes! We promise.” Isabeau gave a happy wave. “Come on, let’s go, Ndlela.”
Crosshatch had shown them this route some years ago. Little was left of the neighbourhood that had once covered the Muara. The buildings that had been closer to the sea were now a knee-high network of ruined walls and tipped-up slabs of concrete. But further inland, especially in the area around Crosshatch’s house it was the sand rather than the waves that had conquered the buildings.
If you knew where to look, you could find entire rows of houses sunk to the chimneys in the sand. At some point somebody—Ndlela and Isabeau both assumed that it must have been Crosshatch—had dug down into them. Once inside it was possible to travel from house to house without ever emerging above dune-level.
One of the entrances to this underground maze was in Crosshatch’s yard, a short tunnel into the side of a dune. The dune was densely overgrown with a carpet of tough, grey-green dune-spinach and succulent vygies, the matted web of their roots stabilising the sand and preventing it from filling the entrance way.
Ndlela and Isabeau pushed open the door at end of the tunnel. As always, it stuck and Ndlela had to thump it open with his shoulder, bringing down a shower of sand.
“Oh.” Isabeau stared into the dark beyond the door. “I forgot we don’t have torches.”
“It’s okay,” said Ndlela. “It just looks dark from it being so glaring outside. Why did you want to come this way? It’s going to slow us right down.”
“I don’t want those circus people to see us.” Isabeau stepped inside.
The room was swamped with sand, so they were close to the corrugated metal roof. It was rusted through in places with fringes of roots dangling down from the grass and weeds that had found purchase there. Isabeau headed for the gap in the opposite wall. Beyond it was a corridor, open to the sky above, and beyond that the entrance to a green-painted kitchen.
The kitchen’s roof was solid, so it was dark inside. Sand pressed up against the cracked glass of the window and trickled down to fill the sink below. The floor was knee-deep in sand and the ceiling bulged alarmingly. Although the place was dry enough now, it leaked badly whenever it rained. The cupboards were buckled with damp, their once-neat ivory paint patterned with maps of black and green mould. Some of these cupboards, Ndlela knew from past explorations, still held ranks of rusted tins and the dusty, rat-gnawed cardboard boxes.
Ndlela and Isabeau made their way through the house and into the next one. They’d named the rooms over the years. They passed through the Root Room, that must once have been a pretty sitting room but was now filled with a curtain of roots from the milkwood trees growing on the roof. Lace doilies were draped on the plush arms of the chairs and a warped piano stood in one corner, carrying a freight of china figurines.
Next was the Sunnery, a small house that had lost its roof in the storm. Each of its tiny rooms was open to the sky, making it a favourite haunt of lizards and other small creatures who came to bake in the sun and track its tile floors with a lacework of tiny footprints.
They came to a side-passage that was boarded over with planks. Isabeau started squeezing past this barrier but Ndlela was impatient to move on. “You know we’re not allowed in there.”
This made Isabeau roll her eyes. “It’s just the Cathedral.” She looked wistfully at the planks that barred her way. “You used to go in there all the time! I bet you’re just scared you’re too fat to get in there now.”
But she followed after him when he moved away.
A few houses further on was one of Ndlela’s favourite places, a room with an enormous corrugated iron door that held a perfectly preserved internal combustion car, half drowned in sand. In the past, he and Isabeau had spent many hours sitting on its leathery seats, pressing their feet onto the mysterious pedals and disagreeing loudly about what each lever and button was for.
At last they reached a corridor at the far end of the dunes. Isabeau made her brother wait while she crawled out among the prickly slangbessie bushes to have a look around.
“All clear,” she said and they trotted down the slope towards the river mouth.
Ndlela wondered how much of Isabeau’s efforts to remain out of sight was because of real fear and how much was a game. He sometimes wondered if she could tell the difference between the world as it was and the stories she told herself about it.
“Look! The Dutchies.”
Ndlela looked where she was pointing. The dike team was off in the distance, on the far side of the river.
“Race you there?”
“No,” said Ndlela heavily. “It’s far too hot. Let’s just walk.”
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The dike workers seemed pleased to see them. To Ndlela’s satisfaction, they were putting together one of the wind pumps.
“So,” said Wim as he watched Ndlela fit together the bamboo sections. “Something got into our chicken coop last night. Dog, by the look of the tracks. Bloody clever dog too. Drew back the bolt and opened the gate, easy as easy.”
Cilla shook her head at Wim. “Much more likely that somebody forgot to close that gate.”
“Really? Did you see anything?” Isabeau eyes were large. “Do you think it could be—”
Wim laughed. “Leendert says he saw it. Big black dog. Maybe more than one. But not a gardag. No armour, sweetie, sorry.”
“Oh.” Isabeau’s face fell. “But Leendert’s sure? It must have been dark. And a black dog, at night?”
Wim shrugged. “You’re right, and there’s the way it opened the gate too. Your Samurai Dog is clever enough to do that, isn’t she?”
Ndlela guessed that Wim just said this to annoy Cilla, but the idea cheered Isabeau.
“She is that clever!” Isabeau said, happily sorting through the lengths of bamboo, looking for the next one Ndlela needed. “She’s more than clever. I hope it was her. Wouldn’t that be amazing, Ndlela?”
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As Elke’s map had showed, the freeway provided the best route out of the city. Hardly anyone used petrol-driven cars anymore but that didn’t mean that the freeways of Kaapstadt were unused. The road was crowded with horse-drawn carts, skateboards, bicycles, solar-charged motorbikes and scooters, even the occasional solar bus that huffed and trundled along the cracked tar.
There were well-used footpaths too, running along next to or underneath the freeways. This was the route that Elke chose. It was late when they set out. As soon as they were away from the crowded city streets, Elke initiated mind-link with Meisje. Back in the Eye she’d often linked with Meisje to track down a suspect or examine the scene of a crime. It gave her access to the gardag’s enhanced vision and her superior sense of smell. When they were linked, human and dog shared impressions and impulses as well as a wordless communication more direct than any spoken language.
The ability to mind-link was what made gardags so useful. It was also one of the reasons why gardags became so adept at understanding human language. Experiencing mind-link with a human had a profound effect on gardag pups.
It had been Elke’s habit, during her years as a gardag handler, to slip into mind-link with her dog whenever she travelled long distances. It made it easier to fall in with the dog’s tireless lope, cut out the exhausting hum of human worries and conjectures that would otherwise cycle through her brain.
It felt good, running along underneath the elevated freeway with Meisje at her side. Running was a rare pleasure, something they hardly ever got to do in the Eye. Elke felt Meisje’s intense satisfaction as the dog revelled in her own strength, her body stretching out into a steady, loping run. The setting sun cast their shadows out beside them and for a while Elke allowed her mind to submerge in Meisje’s, letting go of the human need to analyse the past and attempt to predict the future.
All was now.
The scent-scape enveloped them. Dry grass, their own sweat. Faint food smells and smoke from the city’s supper-time fires. The ancient tang of petrol and exhaust fumes lingered in the dust that puffed up around their feet.
Then Elke felt the electric tingle of Meisje’s attention. The gardag had slowed, dropped her head, was picking up on a strong, animal scent.
Dog.
More than one.
Elke slowed to a walk, breathing deeply, allowing Meisje to explore, only half thinking about the information that came to her through the link.
Male dogs. Two distinct scents. And here, a female dog. No. Not quite a dog.
Elke turned to watch as Meisje sniffed fastidiously at a damp patch on the soil. The wealth of scent information clouded her mind for a moment, then one fact emerged.
Gardag.
Meisje looked at Elke questioningly, then continued sniffing. No doubt about it. At least one gardag had recently been here, accompanied by two more dogs. Something about their scent was puzzling her. Elke let Meisje sniff.
Three gardags?
Kaapstadt had a gardag unit. It was possible that they’d been out here, doing some job or other. Elke looked about uneasily. Could these people be hunting for her and Meisje? There were no recent human scents at all. No human handlers, and that was strange. Gardags were rarely sent out to reconnaissance on their own.
Elke carefully cut the mind-link. If she was dealing with pursuit, she needed her wits about her. Maybe it was time to tak
e a different and less direct route. With a signal to Meisje she stepped off the path, pushing her way through the prickly bushes.
Even if they aren’t on the lookout for us, we can’t afford to run into a gardag unit right now. Better to take a less direct way.
On the far side of the bushes was a narrow track, too uneven for running. She hitched the backpack higher on her shoulders and set of at a steady walk.
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Ndlela woke from a confused dream about one of Crosshatch’s pigs. Isabeau was leaning over him, shaking his shoulder.
“What?” He groaned and tried to roll away from her.
“I said,” hissed Isabeau in a tone of exaggerated patience, “Are you awake?”
“Well, I am now.” He squinted sleepily at her. “What do you want? It’s the middle of the night.”
“No it’s not. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep.” She sat next to him. “Ndlela, Noor is wrong about those circus people.”
“What do you mean?” Ndlela pushed himself up into a sitting position.
“She just can’t think about anything except her work, that’s all. If she’d heard them herself, she wouldn’t be so calm about it. She thinks we made it up.”
“Maybe.” Ndlela yawned. “But can’t we talk about it in the morning?”
Isabeau was quiet for a long time. Then she said, in a small voice, “I keep thinking about what that man said.”
Ndlela sighed. “What man?” His hopes of being allowed to go back to sleep were dwindling rapidly.
“The one we heard talking. While we were hiding.” Isabeau pulled a section of blanket around herself. Ndlela couldn’t see her expression in the dark, but he could tell from her voice that she was worried. “He said that about shooting somebody. And about a prisoner. And we saw somebody in one of those cages didn’t we?”
“We saw something,” Ndlela admitted. “I don’t think it was a person. Actually, I thought it might be a dog.” He yawned again. “Anyway, what can we do about it?”
“A dog?” Isabeau seemed startled. “Are you sure?”
“No, of course I’m not sure. I couldn’t really see anything. It was dark.”