The Curator
Page 26
He held his head in his hands. ‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘What am I going to do?’ If he had his gun, he would have shot himself. Why had he not taken his gun? He walked back to the bakkie and searched amongst the pile of rubbish in the back. He found a short length of hosepipe. He jutted it into the exhaust pipe, but it was too short to reach the front of the cab. He started the car, then climbed into the back of the bakkie and covered himself with a tarpaulin. The hosepipe slipped out of the exhaust. He looked for something with which to secure it. He tried to use some old electrical tape, but the exhaust was too hot, so he shoved the pipe as deep into the exhaust as it would go. Again he climbed under the tarpaulin with the hosepipe. A trickle of fumes from the pipe made him cough. He felt a little light-headed. Was it really possible to kill himself this way? He thought about the rope lying on the car seat. There were many difficulties to hanging oneself. It was easy to get it wrong. He wasn’t sure he wanted to die, but he had enough time to think about it a bit before ripping off the tarpaulin. The gas was giving him a headache and making him dizzy. The car engine cut. He flung the tarpaulin off. ‘Fuck!’ He sat up. Standing on the stoep were the dead Labuschagne children. They were watching him trying to commit suicide. Was this God’s doing? Did God cut the engine? Did God send the children? He waved at them and the children waved back. The children were smiling. He felt peaceful with them here. They waved at him again and walked back into the house. In the window he could make out the face of the father, staring at him. He got up. ‘Come back!’ he called. ‘Don’t go inside! He’s there. He’s inside . . .’ His voice trailed away. He was still unsteady on his feet. A pain in his head brought with it a thought: hallucination. He sat down again.
He saw someone walking towards the car. Another hallucination: the old bantu with the yellow teeth; the one with the Bible name. The man stood and stared at him. Hendrik picked up a small screwdriver and threw it. It hit the man’s chest, but he barely flinched. The man picked up his knobkierrie and brought it down with force on Hendrik’s arm. He jumped up and screamed. ‘Fuck!’ The man raised his knobkierrie above Hendrik’s head. He jumped out of the way. The pain cleared his mind. He got into the cab, but the man pulled the door open before he could lock it. He tried to start the bakkie. The engine wouldn’t take. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to be beaten to death by an old bantu. The man grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the car. He was stronger than Hendrik had anticipated. The man kicked his knee and Hendrik fell to the floor. ‘What the fuck!’ he shouted. ‘Leave me alone!’ The old bantu kicked him in the stomach and he doubled over. ‘Please, leave me alone!’ The man raised the knobkierrie. Hendrik could see Lerato running towards them, screaming at the man. He brought the heavy knob down on Hendrik’s head with some force. He felt a moment of searing pain and lost consciousness.
Werner woke when someone opened the kitchen door. He sat up, forgetting that he was under the kitchen table.
‘Ma?’ he said.
‘Hello,’ Petronella said.
‘Is Johann dead?’
‘No. Have you seen Pa?’
Werner shook his head.
‘It’s still very early. Why don’t you two go to bed for a bit and I’ll make us some breakfast.’
The boys went back to their rooms. Werner lay in bed listening to his mother in the kitchen. He could hear her washing dishes. She filled a pot of water and put it on the stove. In the distance he could hear buses arriving. Today was Saturday. The girls were only due to leave tomorrow. He thought about Johann in the hospital. Did they put tubes in his nose and his mouth? Did they have to attach him to a breathing machine? Did his mother tell Johann’s parents? Where was Charlize? Were they at the hospital now? His mother was taking something out of the bottom cupboard. The toaster. If he walked down the path now, would he still see Johann’s blood everywhere? There would be ants in the blood. He could hear Steyn and the teachers barking instructions to the girls. All of this must have been decided while he slept. It was the first time that a camp had ended early. It was nearly cancelled when all the children got sick, but his father said they would ‘soldier on’. Was it his father? Was his father in jail? Johann looked very beautiful when he was so pale. If he – Werner – had been shot instead of Johann, then Steyn would have cradled him like that too. Steyn would have run through the bushes to his car. Werner could hear a car outside. He sat up on his bed and looked out of the window. It was his mother. He ran out of the house to stop her.
‘Ma!’ he shouted. ‘Ma! Where are you going?’
She stopped the car and wound down the window. ‘I’m going to look for your father. Go back to bed,’ she said and drove off.
24
WERNER PARKS THE car at the hotel. He knows he cannot go back to Pretoria. He sits there for a long time. There is a knock at the passenger window. It’s Aleksander. Werner smiles and opens the passenger door. The boy places both hands against the roof of the car and peers in.
‘Hello,’ he says.
‘Hello.’
‘What are you doing?’ he asks.
‘Oh, nothing much. Just thinking. What about you?’
‘I’ve just been for a swim. It’s our last day here.’
‘Oh, where are you going next?’
‘Australia, I think.’
Werner nods. ‘Well, say hello to my brother when you’re there.’
‘How will I know who your brother is?’
‘Well, when you see someone who looks a bit like me, you say, “Hi, Marius.”’
‘Okay, I will give it a try. Bye, Werner.’
‘Bye, Aleksander.’
He walks towards Johann’s house. The bushveld smells good and the sky is clear. He feels light; not happy, but carefree. The route he takes is along the banks of the dam. At the boathouse he stops to watch the children. A group of boys are carrying canoes to the water and several teachers are checking their life jackets. The children are of different races: black, white, Indian, coloured. They all speak with the moneyed accent of Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. They’re all laughing and smiling. They are carefree too, but also happy. It is tragic, he thinks, that he will never know the pleasures of childhood again; a life full of promise, unblemished, ripe to bursting with possibility. He waves at the children, but they – warned about the dangers of strange males – do not wave back. No matter, he thinks. No matter. He hesitates for a moment before stepping out into the clearing. He has to act with absolute clarity of purpose. He is certain they will both be there. For a moment he thinks that maybe they have left, but then he sees Marleen bent over on the stoep, busy with the washing. She stands up, sees Werner and shouts, ‘Johann!’ He removes the gun he took from Stefan’s house and fires three times. He does not know whether he hit her, but she falls to the ground. Johann comes running out of the house and bends down over Marleen. Werner puts the gun in his mouth. He watches Johann. He waits for Johann to stop him, to give him some signal. Johann does not. His finger is tight on the trigger. A few millimetres to infinity. His last thought is: Am I really going to do this?
25
HE WALKED DOWN the main street with the thirty rand in his pocket that he had taken from his parents’ cupboard. He counted on the fact that nobody would care what he did with the money.
‘Hello, tannie,’ Werner said as he walked into the shop.
‘Hello, Werner,’ Miss Hammond said. ‘We’re not a museum, you know.’
‘I’ve come to buy the picture, tannie.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, tannie.’
‘Very well, sir,’ she said.
Werner liked this. He had never been called ‘sir’ before. Miss Hammond fetched the painting from the back of the shop.
‘Would you like to take it just like this?’ she asked. Werner blushed. ‘Of course, this is rather a small-minded town. If you’d prefer, I could wrap it in brown paper for you.’ He nodded. Miss Hammond wrapped the picture and handed it to Werner. ‘I’m so glad you bought it.
I don’t know what I would have said to you if it had been sold.’
‘Thanks, tannie,’ he said.
He carried the large painting back to his mother’s car. She was still busy in the building society. When she got back, she said, ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a picture. I’ve been saving up.’
‘Of what?’
‘Jesus.’
‘Oh.’
They drove back to the camp. He waited until his mother went to the hospital to visit his father and then hammered a nail into the wall opposite his bed. It would only be for two nights, but he wanted to hang the painting up anyway. He lay down on his bed. When he squinted, it looked like Jesus was ascending towards him. He lay there for a very long time. He thought about Johann and what had happened. He thought about how Johann would now have a hook for an arm. It made him want to cry, because Johann had been so beautiful. By the time it was dark he was still lying on his bed. Jesus sucked up all the noise: the sound of Maria washing the dishes in the kitchen, the creak of the bed and the little black children playing in the village. Calm down, Jesus said. Calm down. Calm down.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank:
Ben Mason, my agent, who is not only great, but great fun to work with.
Beth Coates, my editor, who makes everything I write so much better.
Richard Pitschmann, always my first reader.
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Published by Jonathan Cape 2015
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Copyright © Jacques Strauss 2015
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First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
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