"They won't hurt you... They are friends, you know..."
His reassurance came with a bit of relief, I could say.
Some were wearing green work suits and gumboots, carrying sheep skins. When we stepped out of the car I didn't feel as afraid. Although I was not all chests out, chin up, and stomach in. We walked around with everyone staring at us. Staring at me to be exact and I couldn't keep up with their sense of eye contact. My gaze fell to the ground each time it collided with any of theirs. My walk also had no rhythm. I walked like a wet dog that dragged itself behind its master. Meanwhile, Elijah's steps commanded the ground. His shiny Italian shoes were immune to the dusty surface of the place's gravel.
"Welcome to the Point of No Return. We have twelve guards, here. Each guard has one driver to take a report from. When a driver brings a guest, all his guests are watched by the same guard. All the guards report to me. You know when we got here this place had been closed for ten years. We brought it back to life," he said.
When Elijah talked about himself it sounded as if he talked about someone else. And he had that cool about it like it was not a big deal to him. I had known he was my boss but didn't know he commanded a whole yard. We approached a group of guys who were training. They were in a shooting range of arrows using crossbows. Others were sparring, kicking the hell out of each other. "So, when you are out who takes over?" I asked with uncontainable curiosity.
"No one, I am the commander, no one else. No one does that when I'm gone. The captain does his job which is to lead the team in training. Not command," he said as we stood next to the guy who had shot the best shot at the target.
"Give it to him," said Elijah to the sharpshooter.
The guy handed me his loaded crossbow.
"Shoot," Elijah shouted.
As if I was an arrow expert…
How could he embarrass me like that? And did he not do it in front of all those people? He knew exactly that I was no killer. I was a Mr. Nice Guy, man, nothing more.
"Shoot the damn thing," he said, now getting impatient.
I pulled and released the thing with my hands shaking and it swayed way off the target. Elijah took another arrow from his guy.
Gazing with a serious look, he gave it to me, "Go again."
I took the thing but again when I aimed, I trembled; he took my arm and stabilized it with his fast grip, "Strong," he shouted, "Focus," pointing his finger at my head, hitting it on my temple a few times.
I took a deep breath and after a few moments released the arrow. And wow. It had hit the target, but it was not a fatal shot. It hit the upper leg.
"Next time go for the heart; go for this." He pointed at my chest as he continued with the tour.
I had to chase him after giving the guy his crossbow.
"You need to train," he said while looking ahead.
"Okay," I agreed.
"The captain, Squdeyi, and the others will make you ready to be a guard in no time,"
"The captain? Who is the captain?"
"Yes, the guy you just met. He is the best martial artist here. He has a black belt in Judo and Jujitsu. He's also a former guerilla soldier with the underground Freedom Fighters movement who also went to Zambia and Russia. He is a trained killer."
"Wow," I said in admiration.
"Yes," said Elijah.
"Has he killed a person before?"
"Who? Squdeyi? He's killed a lot of people."
"Yhoo!" I said, turning to look at him only to meet his eyes, eye-to-eye and he winked at me as if he expected me to do that. I looked away. The guy had some freakish vibes. Death could be seen from his dark eyes and that evil smile. I strolled around behind Elijah admiring the camp's brilliance until dinner time. I was not hungry; I only wanted to try the food of the place. And of course, see the girls. There the girls were all relaxed in a well-kept huge hall with about forty round tables. Each table had a diameter of no more than 1 meter and four or five chairs around it. The tables had tablecloths of different colors with nice Maxhosa print decorations. The hall had a tiled floor, off-white walls, and one big door for entrance. A walk-through from the main hall to the kitchen passage led back to the main hall. A guest would enter, go to the walk-through passage, take a plate, and serve themselves on the buffet of the day before coming out from the opposite side of the walk-through passage. The guest would take a preferred sit at a table of their choice. The township doesn't have these kinds of things, these are suburban things. Here people ate salads with tofu, raw: tomato, lettuce, cucumber, avocado, and some olives, using a fork and knife. They served only whole-wheat, brown rice and the juice was 100% pure. They had fruits, nuts, seeds, and new foods I didn't know. We sat and Elijah told me interesting stories about some girls. He had a specific detail on each one of them, or their stories at least.
"You see these girls are hopeless of the hopeless. They come from the bottom of the pit of the township dungeon, with different backgrounds. Some have lost hope in the world of the living before contact with us. They were prostitutes, hopeless drunkards, school dropouts, and teenage mothers who had been illegally aborting babies. Some slept with married old men for money. And believe it or not, some were cold-blooded murderers..." he said.