She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me by Emma Brockes Page B

for signs. “I had a plant called Sarah once. I gave it to my sister Doreen to look after. She killed it, of course.”
    Fay asks me what I’m doing the following day. “Oh,” I say vaguely, “this and that.”
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    THAT EVENING IN THE HOTEL bar I take out my journal. It was given to me by my friend Merope as a leaving present, with an inscription on the flyleaf: “I am your South Africa book. Be nice and write clever thoughts in me.” If she hadn’t given it to me, I’m not sure I’d be keeping much of a record. Despite my journalistic camouflage, I’m going about this whole thing while looking through my fingers, as if watching a scary scene in a horror movie. It’s not that I want to
find out
what happened so much as to
have found out
,
in the same way, I think, that my mother didn’t want to tell me so much as to
have already told
.
    The bar is off to one side of the lobby, furnished in dark wood and with the TV tuned to an American sports channel. Lone businessmen sit, jackets off, ties loosened, craning up at the telly. I order a double vodka tonic, and feeling pleased with myself, record the day’s events: the buying of the phone adaptor (“panic, panic over”); how much my lunch at Yo! Sushi cost; my miraculous walk along the highway. I note my aunt’s determined “nothing surprises me” outlook and the strange, feverish tone of our conversation. I write joyfully of Joan’s
joie de vivre
.
    In a separate notebook I keep all the names, numbers, and addresses, the evolving to-do lists and impressions scribbled at angles, to be transcribed later. It is these notes, unthinkingly produced, that, looking back, strike me as the truer record of what happened.
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    GIVEN THE CHOICE, I would rather see things written down first; you can control the flow of information just by looking up and don’t have to do anything particular with your face. The thing I had concealed from my aunt is that I am not going to sleep late or wander around the neighborhood acclimatizing the following day. I am going to hire a car and driver from the front desk and go to the National Archives in Pretoria. Taking no chances—I don’t imagine it’s a popular route—I plan for the trip as if driving myself. I study the map and in the second notebook scrawl: “Hamilton Street, Arcadia, via Mears, Jeppe, Beatrix, right into Savage, right into Hamilton.” If all goes to plan, I’ll photocopy the paperwork, take it back to the hotel, and, with a large drink in hand, read it at my leisure.
    The next morning is overcast again. There is a women’s health conference taking place in the hotel and you can’t wait at the elevators or stand in line at the breakfast buffet without overhearing women wearing laminated badges loudly discussing chlamydia. Outside the foyer, security men in yellow vests mill redundantly around.
    When the maroon BMW pulls up, I shake hands with the driver, who introduces himself as Paul, and say I will need him all day; after he drops me at the address in Pretoria, he will have three hours to kill before coming to collect me. While speaking, I monitor myself for signs of condescension, overcompensation, madame syndrome, visible race or class guilt, or any other tonal imperfections, while wondering if he is ripping me off. The rate is so high it is practically Western. Paul nods and we get into the car.
    Pretoria, the capital, is not known for its charm; Johannesburg has the charm, the guile, and energy, although I have yet to see any of it. We pull off an arterial road into a leafy car park and Paul lets me out. He promises to be back at the arranged time.
    I don’t match the profile, I suppose. I am too young to be here in the middle of a weekday, a lone female arriving at the guard hut eccentrically on foot. The two men in the