Last Train to Retreat Read online

  Last Train to Retreat

  A Novel by Gustav Preller

  About the Novel

  Zane Hendricks boards a train one winter night in Cape Town, and what should be a 24 minute ride home from the advertising agency where he works becomes a journey of terror.

  Some years earlier Zane crossed the railway line from his birthplace on the Cape Flats to a better life, but his murky past catches up with him forcing him to confront what he’s been avoiding all of his young life – himself.

  Lena Valentine, having suffered abuse in her early teens, lacks self-esteem to the point of self-hatred. On the first night of the FIFA World Cup her simmering rage boils over when she tries to save an exotic, beautiful Thai girl from a gang of human traffickers, and what starts off as a mission of mercy ends in disaster.

  Hannibal Fortuin, leader of the Evangelicals gang, has declared God dead and embraced crime kingpin Jerome Sasman, aka the Gnome. But the Gnome disappoints him too and Hannibal’s actions become driven by his bloodlust and cruelty that reach new heights as twists and turns of fate bring Zane into his sights once more.

  Last Train to Retreat is a gritty novel about a young man’s courage in the face of irredeemable evil, set against the backdrop of a dystopian Cape Flats and its Coloureds – people forcibly relocated to a barren piece of earth because of their skin colour, and still trapped today, with a police force that knows it can never beat the gangs and the drugs.

  It was like going back to his past as Zane made his way down the dusty street. It was a street from his childhood that he had walked for so many years. Now there was a sense of high noon about it – men with hard eyes watching him come into town, the street ominously clear of ordinary people. Down the road to the house imprinted on his mind since the day Chantal had told him about the crystal meth explosion, aware with each step he took that he was staking his sister’s life, Lena’s, and his own on the next few hours.

  Author’s Note

  Lavender Hill, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, is situated immediately south of Retreat on the east side of the railway line that runs to Simonstown. It is far too ironic a name for an author not to use. It isn’t just the fact that there are no hills and that there’s never been any lavender (the name hails from the days of District Six), it also epitomises the plight of the Cape Flats – poverty, youth unemployment, and, inevitably, substance abuse and violent crime, both gang and family related.

  Almost daily in South Africa police ineptitude, corruption and arrogance at the highest level down to the rank of constable make the news. In the course of my research, however, I met members of the South African Police Service who deserve medals for their dedication and compassion, knowing they will never win the battle for the Flats.

  Although Lavender Hill is a real place, the characters in the novel are fictional. Any similarity with actual persons, living or dead is coincidental.

  For the convenience of readers a glossary of Cape Coloured terms used in the novel appears in alphabetical order at the back of the book.

  I’d like to thank Andrew Primrose for reading the manuscript with his usual insight and for his valuable suggestions.

  This novel is dedicated to my wife, Sarah, and my son, Raoul.

  Gustav Preller, September 2012

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Glossary of Cape Coloured Terms

  Other novels by Gustav Preller/Reviews

  About the Author

  Copyright

  One

  Cape Town, Friday, 11 June 2010

  Lena’s hand slipped down to her jeans pocket to make sure the knife was still clipped to it. Its folded-up steel felt compact and reassuring. She remembered how, years earlier in the gun shop, she had flinched three times – when the weapons on display reminded her of the violent ways of men, when her finger first felt the blade of the Kershaw, and when she saw the price of R900. Her fear of living on the Flats had been greater – after saving for months she bought the knife never dreaming that one day she’d carry it on a mission through the streets of Cape Town.

  Across the road from where Lena stood, the new stadium squatted on the common – a blazing basket banishing the night for hundreds of metres. Vuvuzelas buzzed like a million angry bees, shaking the still air around her, and, momentarily, her resolve. Lena glanced at her watch. The match between Uruguay and France had fifteen minutes to go. Soon spectators would make their way to guest houses, B&B’s, hotels, car parks and the train station, using the specially created fan walk patrolled by police. It was the first day of the FIFA World Cup and Cape Town was overflowing. Earlier, in Soweto outside Johannesburg, South Africa and Mexico had drawn the opening match against expectation, igniting the nation.

  For weeks Lena had watched the outbreak of patriotism as motorists bought the country’s flag and mirror socks from vendors. Beggars transformed from holding out hands to selling flags bunched-up like flowers. The colours of the rainbow nation had never looked brighter. But burning inside Lena was the knowledge that every thirty seconds a woman was raped in South Africa, not counting child rapes – one of the highest in the world. At the trauma centre Mavis would counsel those who had been brave enough to seek help, and she’d allow Lena to assist on weekends – to give tea and blankets to the shivering victims. Lena would listen and she’d shake too, not from shock but from an old rage that would take hold of her like a fever. She went to the centre because it made her feel less alone, and because in a painful way it gave her strength. The truth was, she thought bitterly, that sixteen years after Nelson Mandela had sworn the oath as president of a free land with a world-class bill of rights her country was still a nation of rapists.

  As Lena stared at the glittering stadium across the road she felt neither pride nor excitement. What would it bring to Lavender Hill, where she lived, and Grassy Park, Manenberg, Hanover Park, Bonteheuwel, or Guguletho, Langa, Khayelitsha – places that sounded so nice on a map? Not a thing, because they were on the wrong side of the track. The mountain side was where the soccer fans would stay, many of them men travelling on their own or in groups, for the game they said even though the world knew they also came for the women. There was no difference between them and the men on the Flats who took what they wanted, Lena thought, they just paid for it.

  When she saw no one who looked like a sex worker, Lena made her way back to the city in her skinny black jeans, blue and white beanie over her ears, grey anorak hunched forward in the cold, sneakers moving softly like striped cat’s paws over the concrete. In Upper Portsw
ood and Vesperdene Roads, which were more residential, she came across girls wearing minis and high heels, big earrings, hair in fancy curls, their eyes saying, ‘scram, bitch, this is our patch’. They weren’t what she was looking for.

  Lena pressed on. For the first time in her life she was ready to cross the line from thinking to doing, from being turned in on herself like a sunflower in the night to someone ready to fight back. She knew she carried too much anger and distrust to be as loving as Mavis. But she could no longer live with the feelings of powerlessness and shame that had been hers for years – from the time her gangly girl body showed signs of becoming a woman.

  •

  It was at Boundary Road that Lena saw the girl standing just beyond the reach of the street light. Lena looked up the narrow street all the while taking her in: black stockings, short skirt, glossy hair and high cheek bones, and hooded, slanted eyes. Take it easy, Lena thought, she might be like the others. ‘Excuse me … do you know if this street goes through to High Level Road?’

  The girl didn’t look up. ‘No cars, only for people … there steps at the top.’ She pressed herself further into the shadows. Her accent was foreign.

  Lena stared into a face that didn’t match the sluttish clothes – not the hardness she’d seen in the others but rather the vulnerability that dogs had about them on the Flats, a cowering look that expected the worst. It couldn’t take away from the girl’s exotic beauty. She smelled like a ton of crushed flowers, a fragrance too strong but one that would see her through the night.

  ‘You’re not from Cape Town, are you?’ Lena asked.

  The girl shook her head looking down.

  ‘Where are you from, then?’ The girl couldn’t have been more than twenty. She stood no higher than Lena’s chin.

  ‘Koh Samui, it is far away … many hours on the plane.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Thailand, I am Thai.’ It sounded like the beginning of a chant.

  ‘Can I ask your name?’

  ‘I am Sarai.’

  ‘And I’m Lena. You don’t mind me talking to you?’

  The girl glanced up Boundary Road, and whispered, ‘Cupido, he is up there, he won’ like it …’

  ‘Who’s he?’ Lena became aware of her thudding heart.

  ‘You go, please. I wait here, you musn’ stay, okay?’

  In her green almond eyes Lena saw what she wanted to know. There had been media reports before the World Cup warning it would be a magnet for syndicates trading in humans. The Cape Flats News featured lead articles on the threat to schools and Lena had seethed at the thought of traffickers preying on girls. She also knew that women would be lured from other countries, complicating matters – they could be arrested and sent to Lindela, the transit camp for illegal foreigners, or used by police to testify against their bosses, something that could drag on for months in the courts. To Lena it was no reason not to do something. She had come here by train tonight but hers had been a journey of many years. Would she wake up tomorrow feeling any different? Could she ever? Lena’s mouth went dry. ‘Sarai, I know why you’re here. I want to help, understand? I won’t hurt you.’ If the girl walked away would she walk away too, back to her small existence?

  Sarai stood frozen like a street busker. Touch her, Lena thought, hold her and bring her to life again, a new life away from this world of hers. For how long had unwanted acts of touching brought the girl humiliation and pain? Lena wanted to tell her that she knew of the revulsion of skin on skin when there was desire in the one and not the other. Lena took her hand. Startled, the girl pulled back, ‘You go. He will kill me dead!’

  ‘We can walk away, Sarai, now. Look, there’s the fan walk, and lights, police. We’ll go on it … I’ll take you to people who’ll look after you in a safe house. Cupido will never find you … Please trust me!’ Lena had never asked for anyone’s trust, having withheld her own from the world for so long. It felt strange.

  ‘No!’ the girl said, her eyes pleading to be left alone, ‘they get me and I never see my home again.’

  Was Sarai any different from the dogs of Lavender Hill, no longer capable of responding to soft words and hands, not trusting kindness? Lena felt as if she’d been slapped in the face. ‘You take care then,’ she said, distressed that the girl was not in a position to do anything of the sort.

  Lena made her way back to the stadium. The bulging bright basket was beginning to disgorge people like ants, some still blowing their vuvuzelas. How many of them would be having Sarai tonight, she thought – soulless, loveless matches by Cupido the pimp?

  •

  Sarai had imagined herself walking away with Lena – to freedom and safety, to Koh Samui. She wanted to cry thinking of her island home. Nobody cared where she came from or who she was, it was her body they wanted. Johns telling her how – no caressing, no kissing, just doing it, every which way, four, five times a day, and now eight for the soccer, Cupido had said. Fucks and forgets, to Sarai. Without the forgetting she would have gone mad.

  But the moment had passed. Sarai no longer had her passport and she had little money. And always, always there was Cupido, swearing he’d kill her if she ever ran away. Even if she dared, she was afraid she’d be sent to jail for being in the country illegally and for being a sex worker which was also illegal. And how could she trust Lena or anyone else in this country after what had happened? It seemed to Sarai that here, people killed for a mobile phone or a few Rand. In Chaweng, her home town, people hardly ever raised their voices or arms in anger. Sure, some farangs could get rowdy and rough but most would leave their emotional baggage behind because Koh Samui was all about being happy.

  •

  An hour later the snaking line towards the city between Western Boulevard and Main Road had thinned out and Sarai was still waiting. Cupido had instructed her and the other girls to stand in the side streets, not on the fan walk where they’d be obvious. On the hill behind them Cupido had rented three houses for the World Cup, each with a lounge for transacting, and three bedrooms for sex. From the outside no one would know what went on inside. It was clear to Sarai that Cupido couldn’t lose – on match days they’d work around the stadium bringing customers to the houses, and on non-match days they’d be in the city parlour where clients would come to them. The parlour was where Sarai lived, mostly locked up in a room upstairs when she didn’t have customers.

  Sarai shivered. She’d not experienced winters before because Koh Samui had none. Couples walked by holding hands or with arms around each other. Even with women at their side the men looked at Sarai. They were no different from the Johns who visited her – married, usually with kids, wanting things they couldn’t get at home.

  Cupido had been down twice, in a rage that she had not found customers. ‘The klonkies all got Johns, what’s wrong, hey? I haven’t got all night!’ Cupido often scolded her when in fact she brought in more money than the others. The Chinese girls had attacked her because she wasn’t like them with their small tits and boyish hips, and they had fought like animals in the lounge while everyone laughed.

  Tiredness was overwhelming Sarai. She sat down on the kerb wishing she could sleep – undisturbed, for days, in her home set amongst the coconut palms near the Green Mango strip. No longer aware of her shivering body Sarai’s mind flew like a bird from its cage to her island home, to powdery white sands and warm waters, swaying palms, mountains and waterfalls, and friends.

  A hard voice startled her, ‘You are available, yes?’ She got up, smelling beer and cigarettes. A frightening face looked down at her – huge yellow glasses with no lenses, owl-like eyes, a helmet painted green, yellow, and blue with some stars, a plastic soccer ball on top with horns sticking from it, and the words BRAZIL on the front. The man towered above her. He said again, ‘Well, are you or aren’t you?’

  •

  Lena found a table outside a restaurant and asked for a glass of water wishing it was hot chocolate. The waiter gave her a straw as if it would magic
ally change the taste of water. She chewed on it, painfully aware of her solitariness on this night of crowds and thinking of the girl’s plight following her like a forlorn puppy.

  Lena looked at her watch. She’d never make the 11.10 pm train and she couldn’t afford a taxi to Retreat. She’d have to take the last of the late trains put on for the World Cup, the 11.50. Her heart started thudding again. Would Sarai still be there? Unlikely, the girl was too beautiful. It was only the first night of the World Cup, Lena told herself, she’d come back, find another girl. Make it work this time.

  Lena strode out into the road. Three inebriated men on the fan walk sounded like an entire stand of rowdy fans. Ahead of her she could see someone sitting on the kerb and another figure wearing a weird head contraption. Then both were upright – one big, the other small. A terrible realisation swept through Lena. She turned around and ran, salty tears burning her skin. She’d left it too late, she’d come so far only to fail the girl, and herself. It had all been a silly dream. Lena stopped, and thought – the Makarapa man taking Sarai up Boundary Road is everything I loathe in the world. He stands for all men, doesn’t he? And what do I, Lena Valentine, stand for if I don’t fight it?

  She ran into Wessels Road, dim and narrow, her hate propelling her up the hill, now dense with flats and houses. Five minutes later she reached High Level Road. There was no one in sight. She leaned against a wall to catch her breath, ten, fifteen seconds. She had to get back to Boundary Road, approach it from the top this time – where there were stairs, Sarai had said.

  •

  Lena could hear an impatient voice, ‘I want it, man! But nine hundred … no way, man, no way!’

  Halfway down the staircase was a small, grassy platform with a solitary tree and a railing. From there Boundary Road descended sharply, and beyond it in the moonless night Lena could see the glittering lights of the V&A Waterfront. She heard Sarai’s reply, ‘I tol’ you, mister, no anal … straight only, nine hundred one hour.’