Emil Coetzee entered his office and went to sit behind his desk. He picked up a black orb that had, embedded within it, a gorgeous multi-coloured glittery twirl that created the sensation of looking into a vortex. He believed that he had received it as a present from his son, Everleigh. He could only believe this and not know it with certainty because he did not remember receiving it, but it was the sort of beautiful thing that his son would give, or, more precisely, would have given when he was younger. Emil had recently found the orb sitting on top of a forgotten pile of National Geographic magazines in his den at home and had decided to bring it to the office to use as a paperweight.
From under the paperweight that he believed, but no longer recalled with certainty, had been a gift from his son, Emil retrieved the only letter that Everleigh had ever written him. He knew the letter by heart and no longer had to physically read it, but he liked the materiality of the now flimsy and fragile paper in his hands – liked the weight, the burden of it. As Emil read the letter, he tried not to look at his hands.
You finally got your wish. You have always wanted me to kill something and now I have. I hope you are finally proud of me. I have become the son that you have always wanted.
He always read the ending aloud and let the words fill the silence of the office.
Although his hands were trembling when he finished reading the letter, he managed to carefully fold it and place it under the paperweight that may or may not have been a present from his son.
The reading of the letter from Everleigh was the first half of his morning ritual. For the second half of his morning ritual, Emil opened the top drawer of his desk and retrieved his wallet. He allowed his hands to become still before he opened it and took out five notes written in a left-leaning cursive on azure-coloured paper. He placed the notes on top of his desk, in the order they had been received:
No. 1 Pioneer Road
There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.
– Zora Neale Hurston
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
– Zora Neale Hurston
Let’s meet. We need to talk. H&S. Friday at 2 p.m.
When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another.
– Zora Neale Hurston
The man that Emil truly was existed at a point somewhere between the letter from his son and the five notes from the woman that he loved. He wished that he could pinpoint the exact spot and know himself confidently and completely. He wanted to be assured, as other men in their fifties must be, but he was not. He imagined these men beholding their reflections in mirrors and feeling something specific like contentment, confidence or resignation.
On the rare occasions that he looked at himself in the mirror, Emil never felt anything specific; his inner world was too unresolved for him to feel settled in it. All his life he had seemed only to be able to grasp at the edges of things, never to see or experience the whole, to find himself in the middle of something that had already begun. He could have very easily been another kind of man if he had known how to be anything else but himself.
Emil’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. Before he could tell whoever it was to enter, a young woman let herself into his office. She wore an army jacket, khaki shorts, a white tank top with no bra underneath it and hiking boots. A rucksack was carelessly slung over her right shoulder. It was a very calculated look that was meant to get the attention of men, Emil objectively observed.
She smiled at him and offered her hand for him to shake. One of her front teeth was discoloured and Emil tried not to stare at its dull greyness as he shook her hand. He examined her entire face and noticed that she was not as young as she had at first appeared. There was a hardness about her that must have come with some of the necessary disappointments of age.
She carried with her a scent that was sickly sweet like the smell of decaying roses. The scent hung heavily in the air and soon filled the entire office.
‘My name is Saskia Hargrave. I am a journalist with The Chronicle,’ she said, sitting herself down opposite Emil despite the fact that he had not asked her to. ‘I would like to write your story – a feature in The Sunday News.’
That explained her aggressive behaviour. She had commandeered the space around them because she meant to take charge of what came next, to corner him, to not take no for an answer.
‘My story? I don’t have a story,’ he said.
‘You’re Emil Coetzee. You’re The Head of The Organisation,’ she retorted as though this was news to him. ‘Of course you have a story. You’re one of the country’s heroes.’
‘The country must be in a truly bad state if it has a man like me for a hero.’
Saskia appeared confused by this for a moment and then she blinked away her confusion. ‘Oh … I see. Humility. A nice touch.’
She reached for her rucksack and retrieved her notebook and pen. She scribbled something hurriedly and then stared at him and smiled.
‘Miss Hargrave,’ Emil said, as delicately as he could, ‘I really do not have a story for you.’
‘But you’re the man of the hour,’ she said, her smile faltering slightly.
The smell of decaying roses soon overpowered Emil. He excused himself and went to open a bay window and stand by it for a moment. He gratefully breathed in the polluted air of the City of Kings.
‘Emil?’ Saskia said. ‘I was actually contemplating doing more than a feature … I would like to write your biography. Your life has just been so full, rich and exciting. Your story has to be told.’
Emil clearly saw how it was with her. Saskia Hargrave believed that he was merely portraying false modesty and expecting to be flattered and so she was trying to flatter him. However, she was not particularly good at flattering people. Flattery was something newly acquired in her arsenal. Until recently, hubris had made her rely on the fact that she was young and attractive and could easily, therefore, invite the interest of men. She was young no longer and she was now at a loss because she had put all her power and sense of self in the most transient thing – youth.
Even so, she had been sure that she was still young and attractive enough to excite the interest of a middle-aged man, like him, who must be desperate to savour youth. That was why she had not worn a bra. She had wanted him to know, from the very first moment he saw her, that she was sexually available to him. Saskia Hargrave had been so sure that this tactic would work that she had not prepared herself for another outcome.
Emil was not a saint. The entire City of Kings knew this. Nevertheless, sinner though he was, he had long ago found the woman who would redeem him. He glanced over at the azure-coloured notes on his desk and wondered how he could put them back in his wallet without bringing too much attention to them. Saskia Hargrave appeared to be a very inquisitive sort and so it was probably best for him to stay by the window and make her look at him and not the contents of his desk.
‘Emil, things are changing in this country … rapidly. Men like you may very well be forgotten in a year or two. You want to be remembered, don’t you?’
Did he want to be remembered? There had been a time when he had wanted nothing more than to make an impact and leave his mark – to be a man of history. But now that he had succeeded in realising his dream, he felt almost certain that he should have wanted something else of his life.
‘You want to be remembered, don’t you?’ Saskia Hargrave repeated, this time with uncertainty in her voice.
‘Not