Blood Safari by Deon Meyer Read Free Book Online Page B

‘Sometimes I forget about food,’ she said.
    She passed me the wine list. ‘You’re welcome to have wine.’
    ‘No, thanks.’
    She studied the menu for a long time and without enthusiasm. ‘Just a salad, a Greek salad,’ she told the waiter. I ordered a bottle of mineral water for the price of a small car – and the beef fillet with green pepper sauce and mashed potato. We looked around at the other people in the room, middle-aged foreigners in groups of two or four. Emma tugged the white linen serviette out of its imitation ivory ring. She twirled the ring round and round in her delicate fingers, examining the fine leaf pattern engraved on it.
    ‘I’m sorry about earlier …’ she said, looking up. ‘When I saw the impala …’
    I remembered the moment when she had put her hand over her mouth.
    She turned her attention back to the ring in her hand. ‘We had a game farm in the Waterberg. My dad …’
    She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to gain control over the emotion behind the words.
    ‘Not a big farm, only three thousand hectares, just a piece of land with some buck so we could go there on weekends. My dad said it was for us, for his children, so we wouldn’t be total city kids. So we would know what klits grass is. Jacobus was never in the house when we were on the farm. He would sleep outdoors and walk and just live outside … He always had two or three friends there, but in the late afternoon when the sun went down he would come and fetch me. I must have been nine or ten; he was nearly out of school. He would go walking with his little sister. He knew where to find the buck. All the little herds. He would ask me, what do you want to see, sis, what buck? Then he would teach me about them, what their habits were, what they did. And the birds, I had to learn all their names. It was fun, but I always felt a little bit guilty because I wasn’t like him. It was like he only came alive when he was on the farm. I didn’t always feel like going to the farm, not every weekend and every holiday …’
    She went quiet again until our food came. I tackled the steak with a passion. She pushed her lettuce around restlessly with her fork, and then put it down.
    ‘My dad … for him the worst thing was that they never found Jacobus. Maybe it would have been better for him if there had been a … a body. Something …’
    She lifted the serviette from her lap and pressed it to her mouth. ‘He sold the farm. When there was no more hope. He never talked to us about it; he just came home one day and said the farm has been… it was the first time … today, when I saw the buck. It was the first time since then, since Jacobus died.’
    I didn’t say anything. My expressions of sympathy had never been reliable. I just sat there, aware that I wasn’t especially privileged. I was merely the only available ear.
    Emma picked up the serviette ring again. ‘I … Last night I was thinking maybe I’m making a big mistake, maybe I so badly want to have something of Jacobus somewhere that I can’t judge this impartially. How can I be sure it isn’t my own emotion and longing? I miss them, Lemmer. I miss them as people and I miss them as ideas. My brother and mother and father. Everybodyneeds a family. And I wonder, did I come here searching for that? Did the man on TV really look like Jacobus? I can’t be sure. But I can’t just … that phone call … if you asked me now what the man said, what I definitely heard? That’s what you need a father for, to ask him, “Dad, is this the right thing?”’
    My plate was empty. I put down the knife and fork in relief. Now I didn’t have to feel guilt that the food was good and I was enjoying it while she struggled with her emotions. But I couldn’t answer her question. So I said, ‘Your father …’ Just a little encouragement.
    She enclosed the ring with her hand, lost in thought. Finally, she looked up at me and said, ‘He was the son of a stoker.’
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