Benjy gazes ahead of him steadily, slides down in his seat as he did in the car, as if wanting to make himself invisible. He is still pale. With great equanimity he insists that he is like fucking wiped out.
Late in the afternoon they drive back to Stellenbosch. Behind them the sun sets in an over-the-top extravagance of colour. That she sees in her rear-view mirror. Nature never holds back — every day the same prodigal spectacle. They arrive in the town at dark.
That evening they eat in a restaurant. Benjy hardly registers what he’s eating or what he’s drinking. His face is still pale, washed clean by grief, by the tears he shed earlier in the day, wide open with hurt. Maria would like to know more about the girl, but all that Benjy says — again and again — is that he can’t believe it. He thought that she was like one hundred percent for him. He can’t believe she dropped him. Not just dropped, she wiped him out. He thinks he’s like finished. He doesn’t know if he can carry on. She realises that there’s no point in even trying to talk about anything else — about the business venture, for instance, which seemed to be such a crisis last time. All other crises clearly now on ice, while he’s dealing with this one major crisis. What can she tell him — these things happen, in a few months you’ll have forgotten her? There’s nothing she can tell him tonight — he is too wounded: in his confidence, in his expectations; his self-image.
He spends the night in the guest house and the next day Maria takes him back to Cape Town. He assures her that he’s okay. As in actually okay, he says. At the corners of his mouth she discerns something of his old, childlike, dogged resolution in the face of obstacle and calamity. But now with a tougher, more masculine cast. Her heart goes out to him, and she is anxious. What’s the use of warning him, what’s the use of calling after him as she drops him: Be careful! Don’t take unnecessary risks! He doesn’t even hear her.
She sends the man a text message when she gets back to town, but it’s too late, he’s already made other arrangements.
*
Her tenant, Joy Park, informs her that she is not well. She has received the results of the series of tests. Her gall bladder has to be removed. Spunky Joy Park, who has never been got under by anything. Because she can’t afford a private hospital, she has to go to King Edward, a state hospital. Heaven help her, she adds, going to that hospital is the worst friggin experience of her life. Conditions are shocking — the wards are over-full, there’s no sanitation. If someone dies during the night, the corpse is removed only late the following morning. The morgue is probably also crowded, she reports. She’ll be lucky to survive this friggin little trip. If she chops off, they’re bound to steal all her valuables and dump her corpse on a trolley along with all the others — the only white among all the dead blacks. It freaks her out just to think of it. She’s never been so humiliated in her life — the only white woman in the ward. The operation’s nothing, it’s the disgrace that she probably won’t survive.
On the eve of her operation Joy Park phones again. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to pay her rent for the next two months. She thinks the hospital is more than she’ll be able to cope with, but what can she do, she doesn’t have a choice. Her flat smells musty, Maria must please do something about it. She doesn’t know how she’s going to work after the operation, as it is she has so little energy. And people don’t have money for luxuries like massages any more; even some of her regulars are no longer coming. She’ll send out her CV as soon as she gets out of hospital, and she’ll put up adverts everywhere, but she doubts if she’ll find anything, because who wants to employ an older white woman nowadays? The friggin blacks are getting all the jobs. She’s sleeping badly and she’s lost a lot of weight. Her child is obstreperous, doesn’t want to know about her (Joy’s) problems. The psychic has seen two faces behind her again — this time her mother and grandmother’s, thank God not that friggin shitstirrer of a son-in-law’s again. What must she do with Maria’s post while she’s in hospital?
Maria thinks: Joy Park, pay your rent or don’t pay it. May God have mercy upon you in your hour of need. I’ll attend to everything once I’m back, but please don’t hassle me here again.
*
Maria keeps in email contact with Martin du Bois, her partner of the past few years, whom she so summarily dismissed. Also not exactly dismissed — he was in any case intending to open a new branch of the business in Taiwan. He keeps her informed on how the enterprise is going. She keeps him concisely up to date on her own life. They have a level-headed relationship, their dealings with each other are considerate, civilised. He’s been away from home before for shorter and longer periods, this is not the first time that they’ve been apart for such a long time.
Now Martin informs her (now!) that he’s met someone, this relationship has burgeoned in the recent past, he’s considered it carefully, he feels this is what he wants to continue with. He is grateful for the years he and Maria have had together, but like himself, she no doubt can see that the limitations of their union exceed its benefits. (What a courteous man, so balanced, so little prone to over-reaction or excess, to hysterical allegation and irrational blame.) Yes, certainly, she sees it. Otherwise she would certainly not have dismissed him. Well — dismissed. But something of the kind. At any rate failed to ask him to stay, to reconsider his decision, to send someone else in his stead. No, she can’t blame him for seeking solace in someone else’s arms. (Are she and the economist not at this time engaged in the ecstatic celebration of vital forces?) Go by all means, she said to him. (Bottom line: seek solace where you can find it; that much I can no longer offer you.)
His decision nevertheless comes as a shock. It’s never a good idea to start a relationship on the rebound, as she did with Martin. She didn’t realise it then, but she now recognises that she was at the time still fatally attracted to that damn charmer and charismatic high-flyer, her ex-husband, the sculptor Andreas Volschenk. She left him, admittedly, but not without its breaking her heart. It was not easy to give him up — she always found him physically so alluring, such a life-affirming, ravishing lover. (The first time he laid her down in his studio, unloosed his hair, leant over her, and had her half-delirious with delight.) Because she found him so irresistible, she put up with much more than she should have. Was much too accommodating for much too long.
Him the therapist didn’t even get round to; Maria took to her heels too soon. Took flight, her ears stopped with both hands. Hardly had the woman mentioned the mother, mentioned the father, the sister’s name still hovering in the atmosphere around them, when Maria clammed shut and said: Thank you, this I cannot deal with right now.
Mother, father, sister. In particular, sister. Nothing to be done about it. Is she being silly? Maria wonders. Is she feverish? Is she sickening for something? Good Lord, Sofie, she thinks, what possessed you?