The Curator

by Jacques Strauss

  ‘Come, let me take you back to your hotel.’

  Werner wants him to. He wants Johann like this: solicitous, tender, guilty. He wants to make up with him, but he can’t. ‘Just give me my keys.’

  Reluctantly, Johann lets him have the keys. He follows Werner to his car. ‘Werner, please wait.’

  Before he gets into the car, Werner turns to Johann and says, ‘You’re going to throw your life away. Just like your father.’

  With one eye swollen, and drunk, it is difficult to drive back to the hotel, but there isn’t much traffic and it’s not far. Werner goes to the bar and asks for some ice in a tea towel and a double whisky. He presses the ice against the side of his face. He drinks the whisky and orders another. He can’t believe that Johann punched him. Johann let him touch him. He let Werner touch and caress him. How was that so different from a kiss? Everything was humiliating. He feels a surge of anger towards his father. He must remember to collect the ashes, so that he can do something thoroughly unholy with them – in front of his mother. He wants to shout at her: This is what I think of that miserable, worthless prick! And Marleen? What does he want to do with Marleen? He wants to put a shotgun between her legs and blow her cunt out the top of her head. He wants to watch dogs lick up her blood and remains on the floor and tear at her entrails. She takes his money and turns his friend against him. He thinks about Marleen using that money: a romantic dinner with Johann; new lingerie to excite Johann; a new bedspread on which to fuck Johann. The barman enquires about his eye, and Werner tells him to mind his own business and get him another drink. The rage, rather than subsiding, is building. He downs his drink and walks out of the bar, still pressing the tea towel with ice to his face. Aleksander and his parents pull into the hotel car park. The parents nod politely as they walk past, and Aleksander gives him a quizzical glance. He removes the ice pack to reveal his badly swollen face. The boy looks wide-eyed, turning around to take a second glance as he follows his parents to the hotel entrance. Werner thought it would be humiliating, but – drunk, dishevelled, beaten – he feels masculine. Was that admiration he saw in the boy’s eyes?

  The next morning Werner wakes up late with a headache. His face throbs. He inspects himself in the mirror. His face is less swollen, but a purple bruise extends beyond the eye socket, and he peers out of a slit. His hair is dirty and he smells. He throws up in the toilet, swallows the remainder of his painkillers and takes a shower. He is running out of clean clothes. He makes a mental note to enquire about a laundry service at the hotel. How much longer does he intend to stay?

  He sits on the bed. There is little point really. He should simply pack his things and head back to Pretoria where, if he has any sense, he will redouble his efforts at his job and eventually be appointed manager. But should he set much store by this? How long did he wait for a position at the Bureau? And would they appoint a white man, a Boer, as manager? How has it come to this? Now even a more senior position in administration is, if he gives it any thought, unlikely. The sense that his life has been lived with an illusory future, which always seemed only fractionally out of reach, is paralysing. He should get up, do something, but he just sits. He touches his face. Johann punched him. After everything, Johann punched him. And yet he can feel, pressing up against the gloom, the darkness, little tumours of hope that threaten to burst through and set him again on a course of action to save his life. Johann’s guilt. Stefan’s paintings. He tries to push them away, but doing so is like needing them, feeling the growing solidness of magnificent, malignant possibility. What happened last night can be undone. Johann will ask for forgiveness. He will come pleading, if only to clean the money he took from his friend. And Stefan? That, he thinks, feeling a surge of energy, remains to be seen. He grabs his car keys and heads out.

  When the maid opens the door, Stefan is waiting in the living room. ‘You’re late,’ he says to Werner. He looks at Werner’s face, but says nothing.

  ‘Could I have some coffee?’ Werner asks.

  Stefan nods at the maid, who goes to the kitchen. Stefan does not intend to have Werner over for company. This time there are only two black men waiting in the dining room. Werner has been co-opted as free labour. No matter, he thinks. The maid brings a pot of coffee on a tray and sets it down on a small table. His hands shake as he spoons the sugar.

  ‘I hope you will be a little more steady when I’m working,’ Stefan says, looking at his hand. Werner nods.

  They raise Stefan to the required height for the day’s work. He is unsatisfied with the rendering of the ceiling. The reflections are not correct. There is a pile of photographs, which Stefan took at different times of day of the living-room ceiling. Werner is glad of the silence. He feels a certain kinship with this man who has the tact not to ask what has happened. He is concerned about the occasional waves of nausea, and has worked out what he will do if he cannot suppress the need to vomit. The important thing will be to move as far from the painting as possible. But it will not do to vomit. He cannot be dismissed, shunned, twice in twelve hours. He cannot have Stefan and his goons toss him out the house so that he’s crawling around in the dust of a squatter camp, with nowhere to go but home, back to his devoured half-life, in a state of disgrace.

  At one, they break for lunch. The black men are dismissed to eat their lunch outside and the maid brings in a plate of ham-and-cheese sandwiches for Werner and Stefan. The man has made some effort. Perhaps he was excited by the prospect of Werner joining him after all? Is it simply the fact of white company? The bantus, Werner thinks, are unlikely to have much time for a mad cripple painting scenes of violence. They will do what they must, for rent or money, but have little interest in this man or his work. Besides, they must wonder, is it really necessary for him to make so much of this minor tragedy? The bantus are so practised at the art of suffering; they are the masters of suffering: I suffer therefore I am. So perhaps this is what Werner is to Stefan; another white man who, as Afrikaners go, is cultured enough. He benefits then from Stefan’s isolation. He must seem a veritable Renaissance man. Werner nibbles his sandwiches. It will be good to settle his stomach.

  After lunch they set to work again. There are no interruptions this time and Stefan works without speaking much. Three times he asks to be taken down so that he can view the painting from the back of the room. When Werner is about to ask a question he is silenced by Stefan. Today there is more of a mania to his work than yesterday; an intensity that the two workers have evidently learnt to recognise. He is not belligerent and rude this time, but sharper and more impatient with their work. He expects an intuitive understanding of what is needed, and it is clear to Werner that the two black helpers are far more practised at this than he is. He is the awkward presence in the room; slower, sometimes confused about what’s needed. The men step in to smooth things over, using few words. There is no music this time. Everyone conspires to maintain the silence. They break again at four and then work until eight. Finally Stefan says, ‘I cannot manage another stroke.’

  They lower him into the wheelchair. They are all exhausted. Stefan goes to the back of the room to survey the day’s work. He flicks through the photographs and glances up at the painting. He makes a few notes in a book, the pages of which are covered in a dense black scrawl interrupted by a few sketches. In the book there are also newspaper clippings and other loose sheets of paper. The men leave and Werner is left alone with Stefan. Werner asks to use the bathroom. He walks down a passage that is filled with paintings: a bullet passing through a boy’s skull, the dead body of the schoolgirl in the living room, like Ophelia floating in blood. There are portraits of all the brothers and sisters, bar Stefan. The bathroom is at the end of the passage, but he decides to go up the stairs to have a look at more paintings. On the landing is another large canvas: the house from afar, with the yellow police tape flickering in the breeze. In one of the bedrooms is another painting. It’s a picture of a white man and a black woman in the cab of a bakkie. He looks at the picture more
closely. The man is his father.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ It is a black woman, very thin, with severe features.

  ‘I was looking for the bathroom,’ he says.

  ‘It’s downstairs.’

  ‘Lerato?’ he asks. She nods. ‘Do you remember me?’

  ‘You have the same eyes as your father.’

  ‘Is that him? With you?’

  She nods. ‘Stefan will not like it if you are here.’

  He leaves the room and goes downstairs, but Lerato does not follow him. He takes a long piss in the bathroom. The sounds of his stream hitting the water echoes and he wonders whether Stefan can hear it. He could offer to become Stefan’s carer. In his own way he could be a midwife to greatness.

  Stefan has put on a CD. More Bach. He calls for Werner from the kitchen. He’s opened a bottle of wine and has laid out cheese, crackers and grapes. He gestures to a chair and Werner takes a seat. He pours Werner and himself a glass of wine.

  ‘If you want to snoop around my house you should at least ask,’ he says.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Did you meet Lerato?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Did you ask for your money?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you recognise your father?’ Werner is uncomfortable at having being caught out. ‘I can hear every footstep from downstairs. And you’re not a small man.’ Werner blushes. ‘Did you recognise him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How good is the resemblance?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Only good? Did you walk into the room and gasp with instant recognition? Or did you have to study the face? Is it just an approximation of the man? It’s difficult, painting someone you don’t know. I had a few photographs to work with – but Lerato gets very irritated with me. I make her study the pictures until she begs me to stop. I don’t know whether I’m draining the venom or sucking her dry.’ Stefan laughs. ‘Probably the latter. She’s a bit creepy, isn’t she? The way she knocks about upstairs. All wan and wasted.’ He laughs again. ‘My little black spook. I call her my little kaffir muse – and when she tells me not to call her that, I say I only call her kaffir because she doesn’t believe in my work.’

  ‘Why do you paint these pictures?’

  ‘Jissus,’ he says, ‘what else can I do? It is the defining event of my life. Nothing will eclipse it. Sometimes you choose what defines you and at other times it is thrust upon you. There is no point in pretending otherwise. There is no moving on. It is the only thing I think about. It will be the only thing I think about until the day I die.’

  Werner wonders about defining moments. It is not the way he has thought about life. Does every life have one? Is so, has he had his? Was the murder of his father his defining moment? If so, it is rather feeble. Perhaps that should be his epitaph: Werner Deyer – Undefined.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Stefan asks.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About your money. And the fact that you don’t have it.’

  Werner shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I will go back to Pretoria, I suppose.’

  Stefan nods and refills their glasses.

  ‘What are you going to do with the paintings?’

  ‘Burn them,’ he says, but when he sees Werner’s expression, he quickly adds, ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’m might be mad, but I am not stupid. When I am finished I will have an exhibition. I will sit there in my sad little wheelchair and watch the people walk from canvas to canvas in stunned silence. Occasionally they will glance over their shoulders to take a peek at the tragic artist who’s stuffing his face with canapés and drinking red wine by the bottle. And when the room is packed to the rafters, I’ll take out a gun and blow my brains out.’ He takes a sip of wine. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll sell them all and spend the rest of my days fingering prostitutes. Maybe I’ll take a job teaching at the university, and then you and I can have lunch everyday. Maybe I’ll die in my sleep tonight. Then all you have to do is take a hammer to Lerato’s head and bribe my bantus to help you get the paintings back to Pretoria. Then you can be a real curator, like you always dreamt. You can tell people how you discovered a mad artist living in a squatter camp. It would make a good story. It would be your making. I’d probably do better dead than alive. I think my being alive makes the whole thing a bit tabloid. There would always be the problem of the artist – and, really, what else can he do? He’s a freak who can’t escape a twenty-minute episode of his life.’

  They eat the cheese and grapes.

  ‘Can I ask you a personal question?’

  ‘What is more personal than this?’ he says, gesturing to the paintings.

  ‘Is Lerato . . . your lover?’

  He sips his wine. ‘When I turned eighteen I moved back to the farm. Another farmer had leased the land. I brought a carer with me. She cooked for me and cleaned for me and wiped my arse. A jolly woman. I hated her. Very much. I didn’t go looking for Lerato. I don’t know if I even wanted to see her. I thought she would have left. It’s what she should have done. But one day she turns up at the door. And she looks like me. Fucked. Fucked in the head. The first person I saw who looked like me. I needed her. So I told her she must come and live with me. She thought as a maid. That too, but I wanted her to sleep in my room.’ He gestures towards his groin. ‘I am quite incapable of doing anything. But she was a comfort to me. She’s the only one who knows. She belongs to me. At first she refused. The bantus are very prudish.’ He smiles. ‘So I said, “If you don’t sleep in my room every night until the day I die, I will drive all your family and all of your friends from my land.” So she stayed.’

  ‘Do you still need her?’

  ‘We need each other.’ He cuts a slice of cheese and eats it. ‘I don’t know if that counts as being lovers. I suppose it’s as close as I am ever likely to get.’

  Werner nods.

  ‘And you?’ he asks Werner.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I doubt you’ll get the money. So what do you want?’ Werner shrugs. ‘Everybody wants something, Werner.’

  ‘Would you ever consider a commission?’ Werner asks.

  ‘It depends. Do you have something in mind?’

  It must be the wine that makes him think this way; it has taken away, for a short time, the hurt. ‘I would like you to paint a man with a prosthetic arm.’

  ‘Any man or a particular one?’ There is something cruel about the way he says ‘particular’, but Werner chooses to ignore it.

  ‘A particular one. Naked, with a hook.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  The maid clears the dishes. Stefan invites Werner to spend the night. That way he can start working early tomorrow. The maid shows him to the room with the painting of his father. He is tired, but not sleepy. He can hear voices in the house: Lerato and Stefan.

  He looks at the painting, bringing his face to within a few inches of his father. ‘Hello, Pa. Was this your defining moment? With the bantu girl?’

  21

  TONIGHT, PETRONELLA THOUGHT, was the night that her house returned to normal. Now she could clear that family out of the area. Social services must come and take those children away. She looked at the little girl sitting in the kitchen with a towel wrapped around her, drying by the heater; a pretty little girl really. Perhaps, if circumstances had been different, she might have turned out okay. The girl was frightened. Petronella thought about what she could say to make the girl feel better. She felt bad for the rough way in which she’d treated her. The girl stared at her with contempt and stuck her tongue out. Petronella took a deep breath, decided to ignore it and put the kettle on. Marius walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Hello,’ he said to Charlize. The girl squirmed with embarrassment, folded herself up in her towel and stared at the kitchen table.

  ‘Where is your brother?’ Petronella asked him. He shrugged. ‘Don’t just shrug. Why do you think God gave you a tongue?’ With Petronella’s back to her, Charlize stuck out her tongue and M
arius started laughing. ‘What are you laughing at?’

  ‘Nothing, Ma.’

  She turned to face Charlize. ‘You had better watch yourself, young lady. I don’t care what goes on at that gom-gat house of yours – but in my house you will behave like a civilised white.’ The girl did not answer and stared at the table again.

  Petronella checked on Charlize’s clothes, but they were still wet. She wanted this child and her brother out of the house, but she would not send her home in wet clothes. Someone needed to set an example for these people. She looked at the girl. Her hair was still knotty and untidy at the ends. Her fringe was too long. The more transformed she was, the stronger the message. ‘You need a haircut,’ she said. She took out a pair of scissors and a comb from one of the kitchen drawers. ‘Marius – go and fetch the broom.’ She stood by Charlize, scissors in hand. ‘Sit up straight and close your eyes.’

  ‘Tannie mustn’t cut my hair.’

  ‘Sit up straight and close your eyes.’

  The girl did as she was told and Petronella started cutting her fringe. Somewhere she had some ribbon. She thought about tying bows in the girl’s ponytail and maybe putting a little perfume on her. Perhaps she should tidy up the boy too. Get him to take a proper bath and cut his fingernails. She would give him an old pair of Werner’s jeans and a clean T-shirt. Then she would knock on their door and say, ‘Excuse me. I have brought your children back.’ And she wouldn’t have to say anything else. They’d see for themselves and be ashamed.

  The wet clumps of hair fell on the floor and Marius swept them into a pile. Petronella could hear the girls returning to camp. They were filing into the mess hall and she could make out the clatter of tin plates and cups as the girls formed lines at the serving counters. Hendrik would soon be home. If she dealt with these children, he’d have to deal with Maria. Unless, of course, that woman had already gone running to him. It would not be the first time. For years that woman had worked by her side, but still she went running to Hendrik with any grievance, any perceived slight. She needed Hendrik to understand that she was trying to put things right. It was good that this was all coming to a head. With Lettie she was making a fresh start. She blew some loose hairs off the girl’s face, and Charlize wrinkled her nose in distaste at Petronella’s smoky breath. ‘Much better,’ she said, inspecting the girl, and then turned her around to cut the back of her hair.