Now the gun is being appraised behind a closed door. Michael sits in the tiny living room of the flat that Sadrodien has brought him to. Yes, how appropriate the term ‘living room’ is, the only space available to its inhabitants for living in, the rest – bedroom, bathroom, kitchen – all just big enough to accommodate their utilitarian purposes. Someone, long ago, removed the need for the ‘separation of sibling sexes’ from the apartheid housing specifications, Michael has read somewhere. ‘Coloureds are used to living very close to each other’ , a member of the housing standards policy committee wrote in justification.

Explained all the abuse, the rape, a non-white disease, one of those people would have surmised, and written as well, somewhere. Not afraid to record the horrors of their thoughts. How then to explain all the incest among Afrikaners? How to justify what Johan Viljoen did to his daughter Vinu? Of course! She is coloured, she invited incestuous rape. Double sin of the doubly damned.

‘Michael the Avenger.’

A ludicrous concept, a comic-book idea. And Vinu had not been serious at all when she proposed it. In fact, her voice had betrayed another intention that night: to draw him into the realm of other personas, lure him out of that asensual frame of mind that the sight of Silas staggering about drunkenly had put him into. Vinu wanted sex, unrestrained youthful sex, athletic and physical. Yes, how different it must be to have sex with the light on, without the flattering camouflage of shadows, and to wake up next to a young woman, touch her smooth, languid nakedness. No averted eyes or painfully smiling mouths when you deny them the mercy of a sheet in which to shroud themselves.

But not with Vinu. Too much of a martyr to her ‘father's love’ . Revels in her status as a victim.

Sadrodien emerges, alone, from the bedroom.

‘Gasant knows guns. You know, every gun has an identity, a personality, even.

Michael laughs, a self-conscious gesture. Sadrodien, a man of many wisdoms. A good definition of schizophrenia. Wonder if he knows what I'm thinking, aren't all these crazed prophets clairvoyant?

Soon Gasant comes in from his ‘consulting room’ . He, too, speaks in Sadrodien's rehearsed tone. The gun exchange is a concession; normally, his transactions are cash only. He is making an exception because Sadrodien says Michael (‘It is Michael?’ ) is a brother. The gun he brought will be sent elsewhere, just as the one he is receiving in its place came from elsewhere. Makes it difficult to trace.

Michael considers the gun's sudden beauty in the palm of his hand. A gleam of deadly metal. ‘Feel the weight’ , Gasant says, and Michael weighs the gun in his hand, nods as if he knows the significance of its heaviness – or its lightness? Gasant hands him a box of bullets, enough for three magazines, but this – ‘of course’ – is not included in the price.