Boston’s eyes were moving with a nervous frequency from Butcher, to Die Aap, to Tsotsi and back again, moving as the moment progressed and the laugh developed again and the smiles stayed smeared, moving like a cornered animal trapped in a ring of ridicule, looking for its opening and its escape.

‘Don’t be so hard Johnny.’ It was the woman again. ‘Come and give me a kiss.’

Boston went up to her. She cringed. With great deliberation and a flat hand he slapped her in the face. Then a second time. Her voice dropped to a soft, vibrant register. She kept her eyes closed, but the frown went from between her brows.

‘Darling. Darling!! Come again Johnny.’

Butcher laughed. ‘Not too much hey. Your maag can’t take it.’

Die Aap joined Butcher in laughter. ‘’S goed Butcher boy,’ s goed.’

Boston gave up the struggle. He went to the table and emptied his glass, but still didn’t sit. He suddenly seemed to have lost interest in the other three. He walked aimlessly around the room and at times opened his mouth as if something were going to come out, but when nothing did, he shook his head and carried on walking.

Butcher’s glass was empty. He thumped the table. ‘Soekie. I’m dry. You’re slow tonight. Soekie!’

She answered from her room.

He twitched his shoulders. He was beginning to look at the woman in the corner, staring at her intently for a few seconds, then turning back to the table and fiddling with his glass, his hands noticeably more nervous after he had looked back at the woman in the corner for the third time.

‘Soekie!’

‘I’m coming for Gawd’s sake.’

Tsotsi rocked gently on his chair. He saw it all: Butcher and the woman, Die Aap half asleep, Boston prowling the room, looking for some inward thing, some word that would explain away, or even just explain, that moment after the job on the train when he had sat down in the gutter and vomited, and more than vomited because Tsotsi also heard the sobs that slobbered out with the bread and beer of their meal an hour earlier.

Going to Soekie’s Tsotsi had said to himself, I will do exactly the same as I always do. It was that simple. So he rocked in his chair, he kept his hands idle on his knees, he drank two drinks to their four, he watched them, he heard them sometimes and sometimes closed his mind and thought about nothing, and he said to himself repeatedly, It is exactly the same as always. He was persistent in this assurance and pursuit of an outward reality that was the same as always because, for some time now, in a strange way, it had no longer felt the same.

Boston had something to do with it. He hated Boston. That was why he had chosen to take one on the trains, because of Boston. Boston had been with them six months now. It had been all right before him. But when Boston came, it had begun, and Tsotsi knew why. It was because of his questions.