Swimming with Horses

by Oakland Ross

  Upstairs, in my room, I placed the manila envelope on the bed, where it seemed to glow. By now my muscles were cramped from tension. My pulse was racing, and I was close to hyperventilating. I was that worked up. During the drive back to Durban, it had been all I could do to restrain myself from tearing this parcel apart, bomb or no bomb. All these years I had dwelled in a sort of gloom-ridden slough, not only because Hilary had vanished, but also because she had made no effort to communicate with me — no letter, no phone call, no hastily scribbled note. If nothing else, surely, she had owed me that.

  And now, this package. It had somehow remained intact through all these long years. I was certain it was Hilary who’d sent it. Who else? I raised the envelope to my nose and sniffed at the sealed flap, an absurd gesture, I know. Did I think I could identify an explosive by its smell? Besides, was it likely that Hilary would send me a bomb? Why on earth would she do such a thing? It was ridiculous to think that this package contained a weapon of any kind. Ndlovu had a gift for melodrama, that was all. Oh, hell. I didn’t care. I took the envelope in both hands, and I tore it open.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Sam

  Ontario, Spring 1994

  THREE WEEKS AFTER I returned from South Africa, my parents moved into new quarters, a two-bedroom condo in a newly constructed building in Hatton. Condos in Hatton! It seemed like a contradiction in terms. I remembered the place as a small farming village with a car-repair shop and a single store. But this was progress, I suppose. Anyway, the move proceeded without incident, and my presence was required for only a couple of days, long enough for me to drink too much Scotch, get in my mother’s way, conduct several aimless conversations with my father, and say my goodbyes.

  It was late morning when I climbed into my car and drove off, aiming south toward Mississauga and the Queen Elizabeth Way, on a journey that would take me around the western reaches of Lake Ontario and then eastward into New York State and on to Syracuse, a five- or six-hour drive. I was feeling downhearted, as I had been for days, ever since I got back from Africa. I was also feeling old, and my father’s dwindling health had only added to my sorrows on that account. Age. Age and its afflictions. That wasn’t all. For years now, I had resented my father, considered him a traitor of sorts, all because he had once worked for Quinton Vasco. I no longer felt that way. I understood now that he must have had his motives. I had learned, for example, that he’d once scraped through a lean patch, after some investments of his went sour. He’d been that close to declaring bankruptcy. It seemed he had gone to work for Quinton Vasco for the oldest of reasons: he needed the money. He’d done what he thought was best, and that was it. I had to let it go.

  Not far south of Hatton, I surrendered to a sudden impulse. I was still thinking of Hilary, of course — of Hilary and Quinton Vasco and everything else. I flicked on my left-hand turn signal, slowed down, and peeled off onto Number Four Sideroad. The next leg was shorter than I remembered. In a matter of minutes, I reached the Quinton Vasco lands, or what had once been the Quinton Vasco lands. That large tract of terra firma presented an entirely different aspect now. I pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and stopped the car.

  For a time I merely stared out the windshield. The chain-link fences were gone, of course, but so were the open fields, broad slopes, and the vast phalanx of maple bush. I barely recognized what I was seeing. Once, green hills had rolled like waves through a sea of grass that churned to the distant edge of the escarpment, bordered by a shoreline of trees. Now I saw only serpentine asphalt drives, fanciful street lamps, two-car garages, and houses.

  The houses were massive, all constructed in an ersatz Cape Cod style that seemed weirdly incongruous here in rural southern Ontario. But I suppose Kelso isn’t truly rural anymore. It’s practically a suburb of Toronto. I eased myself out of the car and continued on foot. I wanted to take a closer look at this startling transformation. I had so many memories of this place, yet for decades I had avoided coming back, owing to events or circumstances I preferred not to recall. Now something had changed. Some blockage had been cleared from my mind. Probably, I could blame my trip to Africa for that. It had shed new light on everything — or not light exactly. Different shadows. Still, one way or another, I now knew that Hilary and I had been even closer confederates than I had ever imagined. Maybe for that reason I was now willing to confess — at least to myself — what I had kept bottled up for so very long.

  I wandered for a time along these twisting streets, most of them bearing twee monikers such as Heartfelt Crescent or Sweetdreams Parkway. Eventually, I found Quinton Vasco Boulevard — was I the only individual in this drama never to be immortalized by a road? — and I turned to plod along a portion of its length, as if drawn by some irresistible force. I had to make careful use of this cane of mine, for my balance is apt to be shaky. I tramped on until I reached a high point two hundred yards or so north of Number Four Sideroad. Here, I drew to a halt.

  More than three decades had crept past since that afternoon in late August 1963, the afternoon when I had last stood here, at this spot or very near it. Now I took a deep breath and peered around at all these houses with their dormer windows and pastel hues. It wasn’t long before my head began to swim. I felt dizzy, a haze of vertigo, as if I might fall right down. I managed to steady myself with my cane, and my thoughts slowly cleared.

  I wondered if the people who lived in these houses had any idea that Quinton Vasco was murdered right here — or right about here. I found it difficult to fix the location exactly. So much time had passed, so very much had changed, the view not least of all. The view was stunning, or it used to be. Even in my roaring panic — with Vasco’s body prone upon the grass beside me, his skull and face disfigured beyond recognition, the blood — I had felt compelled to keep still and to take stock of the view. Even now, all these years later, I can remember it perfectly well, the riffling grass and cerulean sky, the fleets of platinum clouds. My ears had been ringing, yet I had stood my ground, transfixed, unable to do anything but watch as that vast panorama seemed to detach itself from my shrinking world, detach itself and drift away, luffing into the past, stealing my boyhood with it and scuttling all the possibilities of that summer, possibilities that once had seemed endless.

  I remember that Vasco’s body had suddenly jerked or twitched — some involuntary post-mortem spasm, I guess — but it had seemed for all the world as if he were coming back to life. He would have to be killed again! The prospect so horrified me that I could think of nothing else.

  After the second shot, I turned and began to run. I kept on running, through that field of alfalfa grass, out the unlocked gates, and then south along Second Line toward the Barkers’ place, toward Hilary. I remember how deafening it all seemed — the pealing in my ears, the crazy whine of the cicada, the panting of my lungs. I ran and ran, and I suppose that I have kept on running all these years, ever since that pre-lapsarian afternoon in August 1963, when my world changed forever.

  Now, from somewhere nearby, I heard a screen door slap shut. A lawn mower buzzed in the distance then faded. A woman’s voice called out to some child to “stop that, stop that this instant.” I reached up with my free hand to massage my forehead. I felt a headache coming on. Pulling the trigger — that had been the easy part, strange as it may seem. The hard part had come several days earlier, in the back seat of Colonel Barker’s car, when I removed the Makarov pistol from Hilary’s bag. After that, everything had seemed to carry me along as if I were being propelled by some force of nature, a fast-flowing river that bore me downstream. It had been no great feat to goad Quinton Vasco into meeting me in that field. Where the enticement of sex is concerned, it seems a man will do almost anything. Once there, I knew what to do. I’d seen enough Perry Mason episodes to understand the basic working of a gun. Meanwhile, I had somehow convinced myself that I had a lofty purpose to uphold — to seek revenge for an African’s death, to defend a woman’s honour.

  What nonsense it was, what
drivel. Who was Muletsi Dadla to me, alive or dead? His supposed murder was a lie that Hilary told because it suited her to tell it. Now I understood the truth, and the truth was this: I had avenged a falsehood. I had wagered my life for no good reason, for nothing at all.

  Well, not for nothing. For Hilary.

  That night down by the quarry ponds, when Quinton Vasco punched Hilary in the face and then kicked her — it was then that I made my decision. I knew what I was going to do. “Fuck with me,” he’d said, “and that’s what you get.” And I had thought Oh …? Oh, really?

  Two days later, when I found her at the end of my harrowing foot race from the Quinton Vasco lands, Hilary did not seem shocked at all. She was lounging on the patio, reading a book, wearing only a bikini. I babbled uncontrollably, yet she took it all in, as if my words made perfect sense. What was more, she seemed to know exactly what to do next. It was as if she had worked everything out in advance.

  “Give me the gun,” she said. She quickly engaged the safety, something I had neglected to do. “Wait here.”

  She hurried inside to dress. Later we drove to Bruce Gruber’s place, and Hilary delivered the weapon to him while I waited in the car, keeping my head tucked out of sight. After that we headed up to Newburgh, where we watched The Pink Panther on the big outdoor screen, attracting as much attention as Hilary deemed necessary. Either I was her alibi or she was mine. And then she was gone.

  And that parcel? The one that Hilary sent me from Mozambique, in care of Mr. Ndlovu? It did not contain much, but what it did contain represents everything that I now possess of Hilary Anson, everything that I ever will — a dog-eared copy of Cry, the Beloved Country inscribed to me, along with a one-page letter written in her cramped and slanting hand.

  In it, she admitted what I already knew to be the truth. It was she who had shot Jack Tanner by the banks of the Tsoelike River, she who helped to roll his body into the water’s flow. I suppose he’d had it coming. Of course, he did. Still, it stunned me to know she had been a murderer even then, even before I first met her, before she first set foot in Kelso County. Maybe I should be repelled by that knowledge, yet, strangely, I am not. Just the opposite, in fact. She lived her life for a cause, and that is vastly more than I can say for myself. The truth is, I honour her for what she was and for what she did. I always will.

  In her letter, she explained the silence she had maintained for all those years. It was simple, really. Any communication between us might have been monitored by the Canadian authorities and could have incriminated me. This would remain true, she wrote, at least until the statute of limitations ran out — which practically made me laugh. She was dead wrong there. In Canada, there is no such statute, not for murder. I will dwell beneath this thunderhead for the rest of my days.

  I wonder, did she cast some brand of spell on me? Did she work some hoodoo with my mind, just as she seemed to do with Bruce Gruber, just as she so easily did with horses, bending their will to her own, sans saddle, sans bridle? I wish I knew the answer, but I understand now that I never will. Because there is no answer. You might as well ask if free will exists. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, the sensation is the same. Either way, we believe that we are free. But we can never truly know.

  She made no mention in her letter of Quinton Vasco, not a word. Still, she told me she remembered that last day, that final night, just the two of us in Mrs. Barker’s rented car at the Newburgh Drive-In. She ended with a trio of sentence fragments split by ellipses. If I had been younger … if you had been older … if the world had been ordered a different way …

  If. If. If.

  Her letter was dated December 3, 1976 — nearly two decades ago. She had signed it, Love, Hilary.

  And now here I was, back at the scene of the crime for the first time in three long decades. All those years I had tortured myself with one question above all others: Had I meant anything to Hilary Anson at all? Now I suppose I had an answer — an answer of sorts. She wrote that letter, after all. She trusted that one day I would embark upon an African odyssey of my own. In a way, she reached from beyond the grave to renew contact with me. I must have mattered to her, at least a little, for her to do that. I must have lived in her thoughts for a time.

  That night in Durban, back in my hotel room, after my session with Mr. Ndlovu, after I learned what had become of her, I had wept. I sobbed like a child, without shame or restraint. It was only to be expected, I suppose. Hilary Anson had been at the centre of my life for so long, ever since that summer when I was fifteen years old. And then, in an instant, she was gone. Finally, I could mourn. Now here I was in Kelso once more, on a street named for Quinton Vasco. I sensed my eyesight beginning to blur yet again. I clasped my cane to my side with one arm and reached up with my free hand to dab the dampness away. My vision cleared a little, and I gazed out at what remained of that shimmering view, now mostly obscured by houses and sidewalks, by street signs and parked cars.

  Well, people have to live somewhere.

  A vehicle approached along the roadway, and the driver slowed, ducking his head to squint up at me. I could tell what he was thinking. Here was a stranger, a man who did not belong in this place, a trespasser arousing suspicion. I had no wish to disturb the peace, so I turned to trudge back to my car, thinking of the long drive ahead, across the border and on to Syracuse. I remembered what awaited me there. I had a book to write. I did have that. In all my brooding over Hilary these last days, I had almost forgotten about this other project, the reason I had travelled to Africa in the first place. A book. An important, even necessary, book. I felt the tug of it now, like a pang in my gut.

  As I walked toward my car, I heard a once-familiar sound — the clip-clop beat of horse hooves drumming along a blacktop road. I looked up just in time to see a pair of teenaged girls on horseback, striding eastward along Number Four Sideroad at an extended trot. They wore sneakers, blue jeans, and T-shirts, their long hair rippled behind them, and they were tending in the direction of the old quarry ponds. Both of them were laughing, maybe on account of something that one of them had just said or maybe because it was springtime in Kelso and laughing was what you did. What some people did.

  I held these two riders in my gaze for as long as I could manage, but soon they vanished beyond a blind of Cape Cod houses and maple trees. They disappeared from my view, just as everything eventually does, just as everything finally will. I shuffled back to my car and climbed inside. I started the engine, eased the vehicle around, and drove off along the fresh-paved road, aiming for someplace like home.

  EPILOGUE

  Sonya

  Mozambique, Summer 1977

  ON A SWELTERING NIGHT in midsummer, a South African couple drives out along the Marginal, the arching boulevard that snakes along the seacoast, dividing Maputo from the Indian Ocean. Their car is a second-hand Renault sedan, which the driver parks outside a quaintly named establishment, O Restaurante Mini-Golf, famed for its prawns in piri piri sauce. The two stroll across the terrace and find a table by the pool. She wears bell-bottomed blue jeans and a beige halter top, and her bottle-blond hair is tied in a loose ponytail that barely brushes the back of her neck — a relief in this seething climate. Her skin glows with a glaze of perspiration, for the air practically steams even now, well after sunset. She doesn’t care. She loves this languor, this stillness, this heat.

  Her companion wears leather sandals, tie-dyed jeans, and a grey T-shirt with a likeness of the Fab Four stencilled on the chest. He points over his shoulder toward the bar and raises his eyebrows, posing a question. He means beer.

  She smiles. “Por favor.”

  He grins in return, then rises to his feet, and ambles over to the poolside bar, its roof fashioned of thatched palm fronds. She watches him stride away, his arms glistening in the heat, his shoulders square, his back tapered. She shivers, despite the humid and stultifying air. To distract herself, she turns to peer out into the darkness, punctuated here and there by the pilot light
s of fishing boats returning late to harbour. The heat ploughs back, and she vainly fans herself with the restaurant’s one-page menu, laminated in plastic.

  For two years now these two have lived in this Portuguese-speaking city overlooking the Indian Ocean on the east coast of Africa. Already, most of the Portuguese settlers have fled, taken the so-called chicken run, all thrown into a panic following the collapse of the Marcelo Caetano regime in Lisbon. That long-feared calamity led to this territory’s sudden independence under majority rule. Black rule. Almost overnight, the armed rebels of Frelimo paraded in triumph into the capital, discharging their automatic rifles into the sultry blue sky, waving from the armour-plated turrets of their commandeered tanks. Once known as Lourenço Marques, the city has been rechristened Maputo, and now this mixed-race South African couple are residents here. Residents in exile. After all, it is safe in this handsome seaside town — relatively safe — or so it is said. Of course, in this treacherous portion of the world, relatively safe means not very safe at all. A war is underway, a brutal counter-revolutionary war, and spies are everywhere. Spies, saboteurs, assassins. It is said the presence of a revolutionary government in Mozambique will hasten the demise of apartheid in South Africa. That very fact is what makes this place so dangerous, for South Africa’s agents are on the prowl everywhere, picking off their enemies one by one.

  It is for this reason that the two of them have established themselves here. As a front, she runs a travel agency, a small office with a basement flat that serves as a clandestine safe house for her compatriots, ANC freedom fighters shuttling in and out of Mozambique. Nor is that all. At times she and her companion have been required to undertake secret operations themselves. They have killed; both of them have. She recalls the dates and the circumstances, but almost never the names. That makes it easier, or anyway less wrenching — not to recollect the names. She learned that much from the first one. Jack. She’d had no choice, yet the memory pains her still.