Call It Dog E-Book

Marli Roode

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE 2014 SUNDAY TIMES SA FICTION AWARD Jo returns to South Africa after ten years in the UK to cover the riots sweeping the Jo'burg township of Alex. Nico, her estranged Afrikaner father, reappears and asks her to help prove his innocence in the murder of a black man, abducted by the security forces decades earlier. As they set off on a road trip through South Africa's now-unfamiliar landscape, it becomes clear that Nico knows more about the murder than he is letting on, and Jo begins to wonder whether she is his accomplice, or his captive. Set against the backdrop of a country struggling to absorb its bloody history and forge a new democracy, Call It Dog asks whether justice and truth are more important than the bonds of loyalty and love, and explores what is it like to feel you no longer belong in the land of your birth - or to your own family.

Leseprobe

CALL IT DOG

Published in Great Britain in 2013 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Marli Roode, 2013

The moral right of Marli Roode to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

Epigraph from The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann. Translation copyright © Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1974

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Trade paperback ISBN: 9780857899453 E-book ISBN: 9780857899460

Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic Books An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House 26–27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

To my parents, all of them

I have given a name to my pain and call it ‘dog’: it is just as faithful, just as obtrusive and shameless, just as entertaining, just as clever as any other dog – and I can scold it and vent my bad moods on it, as others do with their dogs, servants and wives.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Contents

1. A Season in Paradise

2. Some Afrikaners Photographed

3. This Is How It Happened

4. Bad Conscience

5. Too Long: 16 days ago

6. The Right to Make Promises

7. The Structure of Things Then

8. The Greatest Weight

9. The Transported

10. On Being Sane in Insane Places: 13 days ago

11. Intersections

12. The Tame People: Two days later

13. Please Do Not Feed the Animals

14. Particulars

15. The Blue Plan

16. In Other Words

17

18. Underground People

19. The Red Plan

20

21. Johannesburg Streets

22. We Who Are Homeless

1

A Season in Paradise

I find him in Empangeni. My father lies on his back at the edge of the sugar-cane valley, one arm under his head, the other flung out, fingers plaiting scrub and yellow weed flowers. The camera next to him is shuttered and blind. He squints at the wavering sky, which moves with heat if not with wind. Empangeni rises behind us: tin shanties glint through the sugar-mill smoke and dusty tracks cross the red hills to mark mission churches, now crumbling. In front of us, the green swarm of cane stretches to the horizon.

When did you get here? I ask.

Just now.

I stand over him, waiting. Were quiet, at right angles to each other. I close my eyes and lift my face to the sky as though hoping to feel rain. But the early-morning sun burns through my eyelids, red light suddenly inside my head.

How did you know I was here? I ask. The heat touches my shoulders and chest, a blessing.

I read your stuff online. By Jo Hartslief in Johannesburg, South Africa. He speaks in a British accent, mispronouncing my surname the way they all do. His would be no easier for them, the rolling r of Roussouw something only the Welsh would be able to attempt. The articles were good, he says.

His compliment surprises me. Thanks. I look down at him, the sunspots fading from his skin and clothes as my eyes adjust to the light.

Well, not too bad anyway. A bit human interest for my liking. He doesnt move to put air quotes around the term, and he doesnt need to. Too many interviews with crying refugees.

Lying down, my fathers belly slopes up from his ribcage. I wonder if it will hang over his waistband when he stands up. Hes grown a beard, which is red and grey in patches, and his nose has been broken since I last saw him. Its hooked now, but at fifty-three, hes too old for it to be handsome.

Before I can decide whether or not to get irritated, he asks: Were you staying near Alexandra?

No. Ive been going into the townships with Tumelo, the photographer Ive been working with. He knows where to go.

Hes good, he says, nodding his approval. Hes taken one or two nice shots.

Tumelos a war correspondent and has been taking photos much longer than my father has. I sometimes search stock-photo libraries for the pictures my father takes of steaming bowls of pasta and sauce, moist slabs of cake. I want to ask how his slathering shoe polish onto raw meat and frosting grapes with hairspray qualifies him to judge, but I know better, even after so many years.

Most of the other journalists out here from overseas, its obvious theyre staying in nice hotels in Joburg, he says.

I too have been staying in a nice hotel in Joburg, spending the money my grandmother left me on swimming pool access and a queen-sized bed. But I havent been able to sleep in it.

And using copy from the news wires anyway, getting the local photographers to do all the difficult work for them, he scoffs. This is something hes always banged on about, that photographers never get enough recognition. I dont let on that I agree with him. But your stuff is different.

Thanks. I wonder how long hell let me have this.

Of course youd be stupid enough to go there. They warned the press that its too dangerous, especially for a woman, and of fucking course you went anyway. He looks at me for the first time, his eyes triumphant slivers in the glare. I hope those kaffirs roughed you up a bit, put their pink hands all over your pasty skin. Thatd teach you.

I gather fistfuls of my skirt at my sides to steady myself against what I know is coming. Teach me what?

That you cant just come back here after so long and still know how it is how bad its gotten or how to stay safe. He turns his frown back on the sun. You cant come back after ten years and have it be your home any more.

I never said it was.

I bet they only picked you to come out here because of your surname. That and the nostalgia for swimming pools and Mandela that you whip out when youre trying to be exotic and interesting.