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learn a lot about someone before I even opened their letter. This writer used capital letters and pushed too hard with the pen, as if their message was very important. The address was written in the Afrikaans way, with the number after the street name. Elandstraat, 7 . The words of the letter were pressed onto a lined page with a black ballpoint pen:
    TANNIE MARIA. I’M SCARED MY FRIEND’S HUSBAND IS GOING TO KILL HER. HE BROKE HER ARM. HE THINKS SHE’S LEAVING HIM AND HE SAID HE’LL KILL HER. SHE DOESN’T WANT TO CALL THE POLICE. SHE SAYS I MUSTN’T GO TO HER HOUSE. IF I KILL HIM IN SELF DEFENCE OF HER, HOW LONG WILL I GO TO JAIL?
    I put my head in my hands.
    ‘Hey, Tannie, what’s up?’ asked Jessie.
    I gave her the letter. She read it in three seconds.
    ‘Gosh, you look peaked, Maria,’ said Hattie. ‘Can I make you a spot of tea?’ I nodded. ‘What’s the letter say?’
    ‘It’s another bastard dondering his wife,’ Jessie said, handing the letter to Hattie. ‘Threatened to kill her. Jislaaik. I wish there was a giant insecticide for these guys. DDT that we could spray from an airplane.’
    ‘There was that other lady of yours,’ said Hattie, looking at the letter, ‘with the husband who was also a rotter.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The lady with the ducks. Without the ducks.’
    ‘The bastard shot them, didn’t he?’ said Jessie.
    ‘I got another letter from her recently,’ I said, ‘telling me she was making a plan to leave. I think the woman who wrote this letter is duck lady’s friend. The one who gave her the ducks.’
    ‘Is there no return address?’ said Hattie.
    I shook my head.
    ‘Nearly all my letters are anonymous,’ I said. ‘But it’s got a Ladismith stamp.’
    ‘It might be someone else,’ said Jessie. ‘One out of four women in South Africa is beaten by their husband or boyfriend.’
    ‘I don’t think she’s one of those. I’ve just got a feeling that it’s my duck lady. She spoke about her friend who loved her. I told her to leave her husband. And now he might kill her.’
    ‘Fiddlesticks,’ said Hattie, putting a cup of tea on my desk. ‘There’s no need for that sort of nonsense. Let’s get a response to this woman right away. I’m sure you can help her. We can put your answer on the website now, and the Parmalat board, and we can get your letter into tomorrow’s Gazette .’
    ‘Eish. We’d better act fast,’ said Jessie. ‘I’ve got the number here for People Opposing Women Abuse.’ She was looking at her BlackBerry phone. ‘This is serious. At least three women are killed by their partners every day in South Africa. Okay, let’s give her the numbers for the Battered Women’s Shelter, Life Line and Legal Aid.’
    While Jessie wrote the phone numbers down on a bit of paper, I had a sip of my tea, and tried to think not of all the women in South Africa who were beaten, raped and killed, nor of my years with Fanie, but only of this woman and her friend, asking for my help. What did they need right now?
    ‘I can tell you this for sure,’ said Jessie, handing me the phone numbers, ‘self-defence won’t work as a legal argument, if she’s killing to protect her friend. The woman who’s being beaten can get a protection order and a warrant for the man’s arrest. If he breaks the protection order, the police will arrest him. The wife must organise this. A friend can help, but can’t do it for her.’
    I spent an hour making phone calls and another half-hour writing the letter telling her what I’d learned. Jessie was right. There was not much the friend could do. The woman had to act for herself. She must ask for the domestic violence clerk at the Ladismith Magistrates’ Court, and get a protection order. Her friend could give her all the information and the phone numbers. There was counselling and legal aid, and a shelter in George where she could stay.
    If duck lady was reading the paper – or the web or the Parmalat board – she would get