The Satanic Mechanic. Sally Andrew

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      CHAPTER SIX

      The interview was short, but it went far back in time. Slimkat told Jessie about the Bushmen’s ancient and sacred relationship with the earth and the stars. And then he spoke of the many ways that people, animals and plants were being killed today.

      ‘We must leave this highway of death,’ he said. ‘This road of hatred. We must return to the path of love.’

      When they were finished, Jessie walked out with Slimkat and Ystervark, and I phoned that FAMSA number and made an appointment.

      When Jessie came back to the office, she told me that Ystervark had not returned her knife.

      ‘It was weird,’ she said. ‘He looked up and down the street as if someone might be following them, and he wouldn’t let me near the car. There was someone in the back that I couldn’t see properly, wearing a woman’s scarf. I got my pepper spray back, but he shook his head when I asked for my knife.’

      ‘What did Slimkat say?’

      ‘I don’t think he realised what was happening. We’d said goodbye, and he was getting in the car.’

      I clicked my tongue. ‘It wasn’t right to take your knife.’

      ‘Maybe he needs it more than I do,’ said Jessie.

      Later that morning, I sat in a soft orange armchair in a small room at the Ladismith hospital.

      ‘So . . .’ said the counsellor from FAMSA. She also sat in an orange armchair. She was young, with wide eyes, blonde curls and a matching blue top and skirt, just like a little doll. A poppie. She looked down at some paper on her clipboard. ‘First, I need to tell you that I am a counsellor in training, but I’m perfectly qualified to assist you.’

      She looked up and gave me a bright smile, then clapped her hands together like a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school.

      The room was clean, the walls lemon-yellow. There was an orange couch and a white plastic table, and in the corner, on the floor, a box of children’s toys. High up was a long narrow window with white curtains that waved softly in the breeze. Between the curtains, I could see a grey-blue piece of the Swartberge and a section of sky.

      ‘So how can I help you, Mrs, um,’ she looked down at her clipboard again, ‘van Harten.’

      ‘Ah,’ I said.

      ‘English or Afrikaans?’ asked the poppie.

      ‘Um . . .’

      Her questions seemed so difficult. I looked at the window.

      ‘Are you cold? Shall I close the window?’

      ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, thank you. I like fresh air.’

      I struggled to sit up straight in the armchair; it seemed to be swallowing me. She was perched on the edge of hers, her head tilted to the side, like a bird. Her birdie-poppie eyes were bright, but it did not feel like she could see me. How could I describe to her the dark things from my past that still live inside my head? And my very personal problems with Henk?

      ‘What’s on your mind?’ she asked.

      I stared down at my hands.

      ‘How about,’ she said, ‘just to get us warmed up, I’ll give you some abstract pictures to look at, and you tell me what they remind you of.’ She pulled some sheets from her clipboard and handed three of them to me. ‘Just look at the top one and tell me what it reminds you of.’

      That was easy. ‘It’s a pumpkin fritter with lots of syrup and butter.’

      ‘Okay. And how does that make you feel?’

      ‘Hungry.’

      ‘Okay. Let’s have a look at the next picture, shall we? What can you see there?’

      ‘A group of people dancing around a fire. And on the fire is a potjie pot, with lamb potjie in it. And here, in the middle of the flames, are two big black eyes staring at me. They can see right into me.’

      ‘What do they see?’

      I shrugged.

      ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘What do you think of the third picture?’

      I looked at that one for a while.

      ‘Arms and legs and blood,’ I said. ‘There’s a woman who’s been torn in half, and a man who has been stabbed in the heart. See, here is the knife. And they have both been run over by a tractor; look at the tyre marks. They are all flat and squishy, like a pumpkin fritter.’

      ‘All right!’ she said, sitting so far forward in her armchair I thought she would fall onto the carpet. ‘And how does that make you feel?’

      ‘Hungry?’ I said. ‘It’s nearly lunch time, isn’t it?’

      ‘Hmm,’ she said, and wrote something on her clipboard.

      I swallowed. ‘My boyfriend . . .’ I said. The word felt funny on my tongue, at my age.

      ‘Mm?’

      ‘Henk. He wanted me to get help. He thinks I’m traumatised after my kidnapping. There was a murderer . . .’

      ‘You СКАЧАТЬ