White Dog Fell from the Sky

35



Three hundred seventy kilometers to the south, deep-voiced thunder rumbled outside the prison. It was his twenty-seventh day of solitary confinement. Any day, he expected they would come for him. His mind was wooly, exhausted, fragmented, his heart full of sorrow. A few hours ago, he’d vomited up something that smelled like it had once been fish. His bowels had turned liquid. His body smelled as rancid as bad meat.

Earlier that night, a guard had stood outside his cell. Isaac heard him shuffling around and then Afrikaans muttered through the food hole. “I’ll make things easier for you. Get you real food. A shower.” What the man wanted was sex. With his bad skin and rotten teeth and bald head and white skin.

He heard footsteps leaving.

Not far away, the sound of the man they were breaking. Through the slit in the door where they passed him food, he’d seen this young man being led away. Now he heard him crying for his mother, crying out to God. When the man went still, Isaac stood in his cell, his back against the damp cement, and prayed. Some night, that man would be still for good, and they’d come for him.

He thought of Botswana, the journey under the hearse, the choking dust. Waking up to White Dog and the woman, her kindness, the way she threw water over him and laughed. Setting out down the path, the bad luck of meeting Amen. He pictured White Dog, the way she crossed her paws when she waited, the single black dot on her muzzle, how she seemed to gaze into the sky as though her planet was up there. He saw the madam’s hair, like the wild hair of an African woman who’s never braided it. He remembered her anger at her husband, that time when the water was shooting up, and he understood that she was not a person who would forgive or forget easily. But there was something else in her, a certain patience, slow to come to the boil. Her eyes looked at you, straight at you, unlike the eyes of most people.

He imagined her disappointment with him. She would have found another gardener by now. Maybe she would have gone back to her country. It was possible. She had nothing to hold her.

If White Dog were alive, she’d be waiting. Mostly bad things fell from the sky, but this small one with the black dot on her muzzle and the faraway look in her eyes was here on Earth for some good reason. And in that truth was a kind of hopefulness.

He heard breathing outside his cell. He lifted his head and could smell that guard once more. It made him sick that a man like that would be looking for him. Go away, rubbish man.

“Wat is u naam?” the guard whispered.

He gave his prisoner number, not his name. “Vyf sewe twee vier een.” 57341.

“U naam,” the voice said, impatient. There was no further sound, only constricted adenoidal breathing. He could imagine the mouth open, expectant. Then, “They’re coming for you tomorrow. I can save you.”

“No one can save me.”

“I can make things better for you.”

You touch me, and I’ll kill you.

The voice was low now, saying what he wanted to do.

Isaac’s innards turned over. He thought of the last meal he’d eaten, the small chunks of rancid meat floating in mealie meal, and vomited again before he was over the pail.

“Go away,” he said. “I’m sick.” The mess on his feet, stench of rot. A blessing. The man moved on.

Isaac heard the whisper several cells down, felt himself want to retch again. With a blast of will, he kept it down. A cell door creaked open. He wondered if the guard had told the truth, if they’d come for him tomorrow. He considered how he might die, not by their hands, but by his own when it got to that. It might be the only thing he’d trade for sex, a length of rope.