Читать книгу Blue Sunday - Irma Venter - Страница 6

Thursday, 8 February, 12:00

“She’s gone.”

Ivanka Babikova – Miss Behave – doesn’t waste time. I haven’t even touched the ice-cold Castle in front of me.

I pick up the photograph she pushes towards me across the table, sticky from years of spilled beer and half-hearted cleaning. Peer at it in the Midnight Club’s dim light. I turn the well-worn photo towards the stage where a redhead called Kitty is taking off her clothes. Not that there were a lot to begin with.

She’s pretty, but tired, the seduction stale and mechanical.

I’m trying to place the music crackling through the loudspeakers. Eventually I recognise it: a techno version of “You Can Leave Your Hat On”. It’s twelve o’clock on a weekday and Kitty is plying her trade in front of four men and a woman who is staring at us as if she’s wondering whether we could be police. The place smells of mould and old, deep-fried food.

I look at the photo again. The woman standing next to an ancient, pale-blue Renault Clio is young. A girl, really. Light-brown hair, not dyed, a pink T-shirt, denim shorts showing off a pair of tanned, athletic legs. It looks like she cut the shorts herself from a pair of jeans.

Ranna takes the picture, puts it down in front of her, wipes condensation off the bottle of Amstel, and takes a long drink. It’s 37 degrees in Joburg today.

“How old is she?” Ranna gives the photograph back to me.

Ivanka snorts. “She’s young. She’s beautiful. Isn’t that enough reason for any man to help?”

The brunette’s Russian accent sounds just like her name, exotic and sharp.

I wipe across the face on the photo with my thumb as if I could charm an answer out of the mute image. The girl looks worried, maybe even angry, but she’s trying to hide it by holding the car keys out towards the photographer in mock excitement.

Ranna brushes the long black curls from her face, her left arm heavy with silver bracelets. She looks pointedly at Ivanka, as she always does when someone’s ducking her questions. Her eyes are dark blue today, like the clouds brewing outside.

“I don’t know how old she is. Maybe Ruby knows.” Ivanka beckons to a woman behind the bar whose hair is a curtain of braids.

Ruby walks as though she’s having trouble with her left hip, even though she can’t be older than forty. She looks as tired and cranky as the Russian. I glance at Ranna. How on earth did she persuade this woman to pose for a photo essay? To trust her enough to tell her about this girl? To ask for help?

“How old was the little one?” Ivanka asks Ruby.

Ruby’s mouth twists bitterly. “She was eighteen.”

“Eighteen?” Ivanka sounds surprised.

Ruby shrugs. “That’s what she said, and she had a driver’s licence to prove it.”

“Sounds like you didn’t believe her,” I say.

Ruby narrows her eyes. “Are you really going to help, or are you going to sit here for two hours like the police did, taking a statement while you perv and drink my coffee? And then we never hear from you again?”

I look back at the photo. Ranna was right about the girl, about me, as always. That I should do this story.

“We’ll write an article,” I say, “but then you have to help. How old was she really?”

Ruby crosses her arms. “I think she was closer to sixteen.”

“But what about the Renault?”

“Colin wanted to believe she was eighteen. Didn’t matter if the licence was fake. She came in here, young and eager – and nice – and told him she could dance. Showed him she could dance.” Ruby snaps her fingers. “Just like that she got the job, never mind that I said she was too young.”

“Could she dance?”

“Oh yes,” says Ruby.

“Strip?”

“She learnt quickly.”

I feel strangely relieved about the answer. “And was she really nice, or nice just to get work?”

Ruby sweeps the braids from her eyes. “Her name was Martina. Tina.”

I nod. “Okay, then. Was Tina really nice?”

Because there’s really nice, and there’s nice in order to survive. Nice because you know what to do to put food on the table.

Ruby pulls the corners of her mouth down. “She was really nice.”

“Too nice for here,” says Ivanka. “But sad. Very sad. And angry.”

The Russian fishes a pack of cigarettes from her handbag, lights one and blows the smoke high into the air. Her neck reveals the onset of middle age, lines that creams and make-up can no longer hide.

“When did she disappear?” I ask.

“Sometime over Christmas,” Ruby answers. “Ivanka and I were off for a week. When we got back on the 30th, she was gone. The way people talk, they last saw her on the morning of the 24th.”

“That long ago? Did the police find nothing?”

“They didn’t even look. I know what they think, and you too, probably. That some blesser took her away, or that she went onto the streets, or OD’d somewhere, or went home.” Ruby’s hand mimics a mouth opening and closing. “But she didn’t do any of those things and she’s not a junkie.”

“How do you know that?”

“Are you––” Ruby snaps.

Ivanka holds up her hand. “Wait, wait.” She quickly looks towards the front door as though she’s expecting the club manager any minute now. The heavyset bouncer pretends he doesn’t see us. Ivanka gave him R100 before she came to talk to us.

She turns to Ruby. “Ranna said he was going to check the facts before he writes the story, remember?”

Ruby lifts her chin in challenge. “I know Martina wasn’t a junkie, because I look after the dancers.” She motions towards the stage. “That one? Llello … coke. She thinks no one knows, but Colin’s already moved her to afternoons.”

She taps her chest with a long red fingernail. “I know everything that goes on here, and I can promise you that girl didn’t want to go home. There was nothing there for her. Neither money nor food. She was desperate when she got here. I gave her a sandwich before the interview and she ate as if she hadn’t seen food for days.”

I look at the photo on the table again. Martina. Tina. Sixteen is very young to be dancing in a Joburg strip club.

“It’s almost two months now. Has no one heard anything from her?”

Ivanka shakes her head.

“Did she ever talk about where she came from? About a mother or father?”

“No.” Ruby waves towards a door at the back of the stage. “I’ll show you everything she left here. Maybe that’ll help.”

“Everything?”

“Her suitcase, clothes, make-up. Just her handbag is gone. When she didn’t return, I packed the rest of her things in a suitcase and took it home. Things have a habit of disappearing here.” She points her thumb over her shoulder towards the back of the building. “There are single rooms at the back of the club that the girls can rent if they want to.”

I look at Ranna. What woman, no matter her age, leaves her clothes and make-up behind when she runs away?

Ruby laughs sardonically when she sees my expression. “I’m telling you: she didn’t run away. She was taken.”

The sun breaks through the clouds as we leave the Midnight Club. Ranna puts on her sunglasses and takes my hand.

A bright-blue BMW with shiny mags turns into the gate and parks in one of the two carports on the grounds. The engine gives a throaty, impatient roar, dies. A youngish man with black hair gets out – bulky and broad-shouldered, his slim-fit black suit and white shirt more sedate than the car.

He laughs. “Frankie?” He walks towards us, his shiny black shoes crunching over the gravel. “What a surprise.”

Ranna squeezes my arm, warning me, and steps forward. The man kisses her on the cheek and extends his hand towards me.

“Colin Farrell. And no, I had the name first, not that actor.” He smiles.

I shake his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

The absence of lines around his eyes tell me he’s lying. He is considerably younger than the film star. And I can see why Ranna warned me. His eyes stray to her breasts, stay there.

Ranna worked hard to convince the manager of the Midnight Club to include Ruby and Ivanka in her photo essay about the women of Johannesburg. Not that I know why she even had to ask him. In the end, she wasn’t allowed to photograph them at the club.

From up close, it’s clear that his suit costs more than Ranna’s camera.

Colin swings the car keys in his left hand. “You’ve come to get more photos?” Suspicion glints through the feigned friendliness.

“No.” Ranna smiles – briefly, almost intimately, touching his arm – and shakes her head. “Alex was curious. And a little jealous.”

“Makes sense.” Colin plays along. “I would be.” He laughs, but it’s forced. “Don’t you want to stay for coffee? Something stronger? The Boeing’s gone over. I hide the good whisky in my office.”

“No, thanks,” says Ranna. “Next time. Promise.”

“Call me.” He hesitates. “Next time. Call me before you come.”

“I will,” says Ranna solemnly. “Promise.”