Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller [58]
“So I told them, ‘Drown her.’
“Because, you know, a munt doesn’t like water. So one of the kids stripped off his shirt and dipped it in water and put it over her head. Then one of the other ous punched her in the solar plexus and she sucked in her breath, and the wet shirt stuck in her mouth and she thought she was drowning.” K feigned drowning under wet cloth. He caught his breath and flailed, grabbing at the air with both his hands so that the truck rumbled along unpiloted for a moment.
“But still she wouldn’t talk. I thought I was going to strangle her. I kept looking over my shoulder, man. I kept expecting to see a gook or ten appearing for lunch.
“So I tell the men, ‘Get her to talk, for fuck’s sake.’
“Shit! There were four of us and a whole fucking countryside full of them and I’m thinking, What have I done? These kids are going to end up in a body bag unless the bitch talks.
“So I left the boys for half an hour. I said, ‘Get her to talk. I’ll be right back.’
“I start skirting the village, trying to see if I could spot spoor, you know? Gook prints, gook smell. Gook anything. Nothing. So I come back. She still hadn’t talked. She still hadn’t told us where the gooks were.
“So I told the guys, ‘Beat her some more.’
“We beat her feet and her back some more. She wouldn’t talk. Instead, she spat on one of the boys. And . . . She was lying there, naked and crying and there’s snot everywhere and she’s got these fucking welts on her breasts and her ribs and then . . . raises her head and she spits. That’s when I saw red, man. I lost control.”
K broke suddenly and he was sobbing hard. “I got a pot of sadza from inside. I told the guys to give me the sadza stick and I dipped it in the hot sadza and I dripped the sadza between her legs.
“I said, ‘Where are they?’ I said, ‘If you don’t tell me I’ll kill you.’
“Man, I could almost smell the fucking gooks.
“The other ous, they’re saying, ‘Hurry up, man.’
“Because, man, believe me, you don’t want to be in the middle of a fucking village when a fight breaks out. You’ll get scribbled one time. Plus you’ll scribble a hobo of women, children, babies on your way down. . . . It’s a train wreck. I wanted to get the info and get the hell out of there.
“So I reckon it’s either her—or it’s us, plus a whole village. I’m screaming at her, ‘Talk to me! If you don’t talk, I’ll dip this stick in the sadza and shove it into you.’
“She was crying, but she wouldn’t say anything.
“So I scooped up a whole spoon of hot sadza. . . . Oh shit! Oh shit! Why? Why did I have to do that? I had the knowledge and the skills and the ability to find the gooks. I could have smelled them out. All I had to do is walk out of that village and start walking in ever increasing circles and I would have found them. But I was . . . I was scared and I was so angry by then. We were all going to die because this bitch wouldn’t talk.
“That’s what I should have done. I should have walked away from her and so what? I would have been plugged. Those kids would have been slotted. Oh well. Better I die than . . .” K drew in a deep breath. “I took a spoonful of hot sadza and I shoved it into her . . . into her . . . you know? And I shoved and kept shoving and by now she was screaming, so I put more sadza in there. . . .” By now, K was talking in winded bursts.
“And she eventually spoke. She eventually told us where they were. They were close, they were hiding nearby. So we went in there, the four of us, and we killed twelve of them. Then the helicopters came and I was so busy with body bags and the adrenaline and taking care of the boys—my ous needed to get out of there, man. We were exhausted.
“And . . . and I forgot about her. I forgot about her. I had wanted to take her into hospital and get her fixed up, but I forgot. And she had run into the shateen to hide and after that we couldn’t find her.”
K’s voice was high and broken. He said, “She died two weeks after from her injuries, she had got an infection. . . .”
“Oh God,” I said, swallowing