"No, Sergeant."

"Why I was talking to you was that I'd just seen your fingers, first and second on your right hand. How long is it since I've been with you?"

"It's thirteen months, Sergeant."

"And I've never noticed your fingers before."

"Just fingers, Sergeant."

"I've never noticed them before, and my wife says I'm the noticing kind."

"What didn't you notice, Sergeant?"

"No nails on the first and second fingers of your right hand."

Jeez looked down. Pink skin had grown over the old scars.

"Someone took them out, Sergeant."

"Ingrowing, were they? I once had an ingrowing big toe nail, when I was serving at the old Johannesburg Fort gaol.

That's closed now. They thought they might have to take it off, but they cut it back and it grew again, but not in. Hell's painful."

"Someone took them out for fun, Sergeant. Can we go inside now, please, Sergeant."

"Who took them out for fun… That's a very serious allegation

… "

"Long ago, Sergeant, long before South Africa."

He could remember the pliers grasping at the nails of the first and second fingers of his right hand. Pain rivers in his whole body. He could remember the smile of the bastard as he jerked the nails off. He hadn't talked to the bastard who had ripped his nails off, just as he hadn't talked to the security police in Johannesburg.

"And you get yourself washed up for the medic."

They went inside. Jeez going first and Sergeant Oosthuizen following and locking the door to the exercise yard.

The doctor saw Jeez once a week, and weighed him. Jeez knew why he was weighed each week.

Sergeant Oosthuizen stood by the door of Jeez's cell.

"That must have hurt when they took them out."