The knocking started again. Who was that? Suddenly he thought about the woman, the one he had got to feed the baby. Why her? Why would she come back? Tsotsi shook his head again. Things were happening and thoughts were coming too fast for him. He felt for his knife, but it did exactly the opposite of what it was meant to do. Instead of pacifying him, it started a separate, new sequence of thoughts. He remembered the river again, the gangs, then his mother, then Petah…The person outside knocked again.

‘Who are you?’ Tsotsi called out. The woman, could it be the woman. Why the woman? Silence. No one answering. A motor car cruised past in the street. Vague voices somewhere.

‘Who is there?’

He was halfway to the door when Die Aap answered. ‘Tsotsi is that you?’

Tsotsi stopped and listened.

‘This is me,’ Die Aap added. Jesus, what now. What the hell now. Things were happening too fast.

‘What do you want?’ No answer. ‘Die Aap?’

‘It’s me. Ja. Die Aap man. Hey?’

Tsotsi gently hid the baby under the bed, before opening the door. Die Aap smiled. Where’s his front teeth, Tsotsi thought, and then, why the hell am I thinking that. ‘I did think you wasn’t here,’ Die Aap was saying.

‘What’s the time?’

‘Morning. Can’t you see?’ He was still smiling.

‘What do you want?’ The smile went, slowly flowing away like thick oil.

Die Aap sighed at the same time, dropped his eyes and put his hands on his hips. ‘Yes it’s morning,’ he said, ignoring the other question, ‘or thereabouts.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I just come man.’

‘For what?’

‘Hell!’ he whistled a few flat notes. ‘Don’t I just always come,’ he asked eventually. ‘Where else do I go. Hey? Nowhere man. I just come here.’

‘Well don’t.’ Tsotsi closed the door in his face and went to his bed and sat down.

A few seconds later Die Aap’s head appeared at the window. He tried to whistle again but gave it up. ‘Why?’ he
asked.

Tsotsi repeated the question for him. ‘Yes why.’

My mother, he thought. My father. The bitch. The river. A spider spinning a web—but most of all my mother. He had to return to that thought. Everything started there. It was the beginning of himself, and of his memories, spinning like silk thread out of the soft shimmer of her humming on a day long, long forgotten. Was it true? Was it really true, had it been him? ‘My mother,’ he said aloud. The words were strong, and full of meaning and a clear image formed in his mind.

Had he looked he would have seen Die Aap’s eyes widen at the window. There was a thought if ever there was one. Tsotsi’s mother!

‘Your mother. Mine is dead.’

‘You knew her.’

‘Not yours. Mine. She died.’

Tsotsi looked at Die Aap. It was strange. He had never realized it before. Every man had a mother. Every single person in the world had a mother. Boston too. (Jesus, what about Boston. He would get around to that.) And Die Aap…and Butcher.