The Death of Adolf

Adolf was 39 years old when he was found dead, in my car, with multiple gun shot wounds to his head and chest; he had been shot execution-style.   I don’t know what he was doing and I don’t know why he was dressed in army fatigues.   Who chased him in the dead of night, cornered him and shot away his life?  I still don't know.

 

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February 1987

 

A few days before this, we had spent a weekend in Dullstroom, a delightful small town, one of the great trout-fishing destinations of South Africa at the time.    It was raining that day and cold fingers of mist hovered sluggishly around the stone and wooden log homes, lending the town an air of the Scottish Highlands.   Pine trees grew everywhere, fenced in by barbed wire and large signs warning people to stay off the privately-owned land.  Empty gaps appeared in places in the forests, evidencing the constant tree cuttings necessary to satisfy the ever-hungry maws of the nearby paper mills that were polluting the atmosphere with grey smoke and foul odors.  

 

From the damp grounds of these forest floors sprout a range of mushrooms, and it was to pick these delectable fungi that we were there.  Armed with Swiss Army knives we swept away the needles and sliced the mushrooms clean off at their tender bases.    As the morning wore on, the forest became a sizzling sauna; steam forced its way through the dank pine needle carpet and spread out into the already oppressive air.     When we had collected all the mushrooms we needed we built a fire and fried mounds of chopped porcini mushrooms in lard and garlic.   Fresh rye bread scraped with a clove of garlic and then fried in the lard completed our feast.

 

As Adolf had to go to a meeting on Monday, we'd come up to the forest in two cars. 

Monday morning came all too quickly, and it was time for Adolf to drive to Swaziland for his meeting, and for me to take the dogs and the mushrooms and head home.

 

“See you later, mon cheri,” he yelled, the car’s pistons singing joyfully as he accelerated and hurtled out of sight.    He was driving my brand new, cute little metallic grey VW and I was in the Mercedes.  

 

 

I drove home in a warm glow of happiness.  It was raining and the windscreen wipers swooshed hypnotically back and forth on high speed, making visibility possible only every few seconds. 

 

“Life is good,” I thought, as I drove past fields of corn and sunflowers, through small towns and villages and arrived home a few hours later. 

 

 “Boss Adolf called and told me to cook dinner for you, Ma’m,” our maid Miriam said as I walked into the house.    Most middle to upper class families in South Africa boasted a maid and a gardener at that time, and we were no exception.    There were two sides to life in South Africa before Nelson Mandela, and it all depended on your skin color which side of life you were on.

 

Adolf didn't call that night, and that worried me.  The following morning, Miriam and I cleaned and sliced all the mushrooms and laid them out to dry in the sun on sheets of newspaper.  The phone rang and I ran to the study to answer it.  "Hello," I said, relieved that Adolf was finally calling.  The handset hissed and crackled in my ear and finally I heard a voice.

 

"Do you know the man who was shot to death last night, in a car registered under your name?"  Hiss. Crackle. Hiss.

 

The handset fell from my numb fingers.  I felt a primitive scream form in the pit of my stomach as I fumbled for the cigarettes that Adolf kept in the top drawer of the desk.  I ripped the packet apart, and yanked out a crumpled cigarette.  I had not smoked in eight years.  As I put the Camel to my mouth, the scream finally reached my throat.  I will never, ever, forget the sound that came out of me.   Miriam ran into the study, and without knowing why I was howling like a dying rabbit that'd been attacked by a coyote, she began to ululate in grief.   Just as I knew, she, too, knew that Adolf was involved in some kind of criminal activity, and that he was now dead.   She found my brother's telephone number and called him.