‘I don’t see a reason for dragging the rest of us with you.’
‘No? How else could I puncture the arrogance, the stupidity, strip away the complacency, drive the lesson home? Did you know that every week in this nation scores of baby girls as young as nine months are multiple-raped because of the protection they afford against Aids? Yet you still believe these people can be pulled from the swamp, that evil can be tamed.’
‘Generalization doesn’t help a cause.’
‘It can reflect a general truth.’ Eye-lock, unbroken. ‘Only blacks could have hailed Winnie Mandela as Mother Africa. How many mothers do you know who brutalized and murdered with impunity, who danced while their terror squads ritually beat children to death? Mother Africa, Mr Kemp.’
Mother Africa. The subject for discussion, the lecture that filled the pale space of the yacht’s sun lounge. Kemp changed to remote, his speech engaged, mind disengaged, heard the logic in the madness, the words filter from a distance. Mother Africa. She had given birth to so much pain, so much rage; she had spawned the entity of Denys Krige. The man spoke – of how in Africa extremist rhetoric was an IOU, of how land was taken by right of conquest, of how no tribe would share power, how each tribe would subjugate and grab. It was how the white settlers had played it, applied the African code, and survived, until the end. Until the western governments, imbued with sanctimony and armed with sanction, thought better and lost their nerve. One tribe overthrown, another introduced. And the code was restored, the tradition continued; oppression, farm seizure, political killing and misrule returned. It was the nature of the beast, the character of the black. Jonty and Victoria Krige were dead, their father on the losing side. The Boers were used to that, used to the wilderness, to hardship, to the concept of guerrilla war, to employing natural cover, initiative, local resources, to sowing confusion, to fighting back. There was little room for truth and reconciliation. Krige had plans.
He was talking. ‘The greatest mistake Britain and America ever made was to allow their major cities to become African townships. Everything that followed was predicted and predictable. Rape, drugs, knives, guns, street robbery, epidemic criminality, plunging standards, the end of the rule of law, the destruction of civil society, even the occasional muti murder for children’s body parts.’
‘And you thought you could exploit it?’
‘It was there to be exploited.’ A simple gesture of the hand, an apocalyptic mindset summarized in a sentence. ‘Politicize the black sense of injustice, the primitive responses, the predisposition to aggression; politicize understandable white fear, provide the money, arms and training and you can awaken the nightmare.’
‘You should have left us to dream on.’
‘Too easy.’
‘Boss …’ The shout came from below.
Krige stood. ‘Let us step outside.’
A few paces and they were at the balustrade, a viewing position overlooking the stern deck. Before them, crewmen moved purposefully between oil drums, spoke into handsets or held binoculars to their eyes. On the port side, three men emptied buckets of fish oil and innards into the sea, the sight foul, the smell corrosive.
Krige pointed to the unseen distance. ‘Over there are Dyer and Geyser islands. Which puts us right in the middle of shark alley.’
‘I assume it’s related to the activity on deck?’
‘And below it. We’re chumming the water and replicating the sounds of fish in distress. Spells feeding time.’
‘Two o’clock, boss.’
The dorsal and tail fin were visible, cruising at constant, bringing the predator close to the surface, close for the kill. It was large, unhurried. No rush. Not yet.
‘Great white,’ Krige commented. ‘Female. Could be five metres or more in length. There’ll be others.’ The fin bobbed and slipped from sight. ‘Finest hunter, best tactician in the ocean. Can detect fish flesh that’s only one in ten billion parts of sea water, triangulate on sound, pick out vibrations with pressure sensors in her pores, home in on electrical currents generated by muscle activity. Add image-intensification for enhanced night optics, warm blood for efficient energy, an insatiable appetite, and she’s quite something.’
‘Here for a purpose?’
‘She’ll be at the tuna heads any moment.’
He made for the ladder, Kemp encouraged to fall in behind by the appearance of his South African shadow. Planning had gone into the demonstration. It was there to frighten, to feed, perhaps do both. Might as well see it to conclusion, might as well prepare to be the conclusion. He steadied himself on the rungs, lowered himself down. More slop hit the water.
A surface explosion, a burst of dark grey, and the jaws of the shark were clamped and wrenching at the bait. Awesome, disturbing. It was a spectacle of power, of raw mouth, pure hunger, ragged teeth, scarred nose, of a thrashing body flipping to white underside and falling away with the prize.
‘Company …’
The loiterers were circling, converging, pointing in on the flow. Feeding would turn to frenzy, the area churn with curving, diving forms. Creating a mêlée was Krige’s specialization. He had conjured this, wanted this. A thud, the impact of marine life on the hull, the heavy splash and pink spray of close-in battle. The businessman held a pistol in his hand, leant against the rail. Kemp remained still, rooted, staring at the automatic, staring down the man. He had to work, had to confront. The backdrop blurred, violent ingestion, torn dentistry, represented by shudder-tremors, sudden upheaval. The gun was held across Krige’s chest. Kemp balanced on the balls of his feet. Caught between a lead slug and tumbling sharks. A tuna head vanished in a beaten flurry of waves.
‘Haven’t you done enough, Krige?’
‘Is that official recognition?’
‘Personal disgust.’
‘Then we share a sentiment.’ The weapon trembled, the grip tight. ‘What is life against the death of one’s children, Mr Kemp? You must have a view.’
His only one was narrowed, of a muzzle, a trigger-finger. ‘Not under duress.’
‘The day Jonty and Vicky died, the United Nations were holding a conference against racism. A chance for blacks to claim unique and universal victimhood, to argue for reparations, to excuse failure. Where is my claim, my compensation?’
‘You bypassed standard procedure.’ He had overshot basic comprehension.
Krige’s face was calm, matched to the voice. ‘Innocence is gone. There can be no avoidance of the truth, no disguising of agendas, no going back.’
‘No ducking responsibility.’ Kemp eased his shoulders around a rigid spine, absorbing the pressure, readying.
The firearm was lifting, small, metallic-blue. ‘I would never do that.’ One inch, two. Committed, climbing to the grand finale, the final farewell. ‘Your country or mine, across continents, the tribes have taken up arms, the struggle renewed. There will be a victor, there will be judgement.’
‘It’s the end, Krige.’
‘I will not be sitting at the table of brotherhood.’
‘Lower the gun.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s a starter-pistol.’
Single report, vignettes of skull fragments, of a corpse catapulted. The blood spill mingled and widened, fish gut, human, trailing out on the reddening current. Kemp closed his eyes, his vision awash. More fins headed into the radiating slick. It somehow seemed appropriate.
