The Drowning Lesson

by Jane Shemilt

  Picking a cotton hat out of my bag, I nodded to the watching children and set off down the road, arms swinging. This was an adventure, I told myself, the word Adam had used to lure me here in the first place. As I walked past the last hut of the village, I thought back to the moment he’d first told me about Africa, how worried I’d been about my work, how angry. Looking back, it was as though I was remembering a play I’d seen once, about a woman in a story I’d almost forgotten.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Botswana, March 2014

  The hot evening closes around the track; the rasp of cicadas dense. My feet crunch quietly on the stones. Walking seems as easy as breathing; my thoughts loosen and drift in the warm air.

  Adam will be sipping beer, happy; that new word … Zoë, maybe under the trees with a lizard in her hands. Alice will be near Teko, reading, dark hair sweeping the page, calmer than this morning. The scent of supper diffuses into the garden; Elisabeth puts flowers in a glass.

  A crested bulbul startles up from the track, his staccato call tearing the peace: be quick, be quick, Doctor, be quick. The gold light darkens between the trees; a desert flower flares red in the shadows, and then it’s dusk.

  Supper time. Bath time. Sam might be crying.

  Another bird answers the first and another, then all the trees are full of their broken sounds. The darkening air feels thick as cake in my mouth.

  In front of my feet a thin snake slithers lightning fast across the track and disappears into a gully. I want a drink with gin in it. I want Adam to be impressed I made it home on foot – sorry he forgot to check the car, sorry he didn’t charge his mobile.

  The gate is shrouded in shadow by the time I reach it, though the wood is still hot under my hand. It swings back with the familiar two-tone whine. The frogs have started their night-time belching in the pond behind the house. When I kick off my slimy flip-flops, the dust is soft under my feet. Relief at being home blooms like a pain under my ribcage and I round the curving sweep of the drive, impatient to see the first lights pricking across the scrubby lawn.

  It takes seconds to register that all the lights in the house are blazing, that torch beams are moving jerkily across the lawn. Adam is shouting, his voice a low-pitched bellow, like an animal in pain. He’s over by the trees. When I start running, his face turns towards me, glimmering white through the dusk. Zoë, inside, stands against the wall, crying quietly. It’s not her, then. Alice squats in the corner, she sees me and stands with fluid grace. It’s not her either.

  And then I know.

  The shadows in our bedroom flicker differently: it takes me a second to see that the curtains are torn, and moving a little in the slight wind. A glittering pile of glass lies in front of the window on the carpet, a few jagged shards still lodged in the frame.

  The cot is empty.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Botswana, March 2014

  Kabo’s car roars down the drive, slows, stops at the road, and pulls away, the noise fading to nothing. It will be two hours before they reach the police station in Gaborone. Kabo will be talking, not Teko. Adam will be silent, hoping, as I am, that Sam will be at the police station: lost property, handed in. But people don’t hand in babies, not ones they’ve just stolen.

  The house is quiet, but the kitchen has a life that turns on its own. The stove roars. Thin strips of meat for Josiah’s biltong are hanging from hooks in the ceiling, stirring in the hot air. Elisabeth sits at the table, pushing at a lump of dough. Josiah feeds wood to the fire, staring at me as if he doesn’t know who I am. His eyebrows are drawn low, wrinkles deeply furrowing his forehead, eyes sliding to the sides of the room, confused. If he doesn’t understand what has happened, I don’t either.

  ‘Tell me what happened, Elisabeth. You were in the garden?’

  She nods. ‘Teko was inside looking after Sam.’ She glances at her brother. ‘Josiah was sleeping, in his hut.’

  Catching his name, he turns his eyes to her trustingly, like a child.

  ‘Teko made a noise,’ she continues. ‘We ran in. Sam had gone.’

  ‘Where have you looked for him?’

  ‘Everywhere.’

  ‘Everywhere?’

  ‘All the rooms.’ Her hands begin to work the dough again. Her voice lowers. ‘In the cupboards.’

  A small body could be bent to fit into a tiny space, pushed deep into a dark recess. The fridge in the corner hiccups and starts a deep whirring. I’ve hardly looked at it before. Never inside. I stand up and pull the door open; the movement startles Elisabeth to her feet with a little cry. There is almost nothing on the shelves. A little butter, some milk. Green leaves tied together. Elisabeth’s dismay hovers in the air. Josiah wipes his hands across his face and goes out of the door, shutting it behind him.

  ‘I’m going mad,’ I whisper.

  Elisabeth is silent. She puts the dough into a tin by the stove, covers it with a cloth, and begins to sweep the floor.

  ‘The chief’s wife is coming tomorrow.’

  She nods without looking up.

  ‘I found Josiah’s dog, Elisabeth.’ I get the words out quickly. ‘He’s dead.’

  She looks at me then, shaking her head, as if what I am saying fails to make sense.

  ‘He must have been hit by a car. The body was in a ditch. I’m sorry. I’ll tell Josiah.’

  Her mouth tightens; she glances at the door. ‘I’ll tell him,’ she says.

  I leave the kitchen. It will come better from her. For a moment I picture the small yellow puppy he must have once been, racing and tumbling in the garden, sleeping under his master’s bed. Then Sam’s face fills my mind again. His mouth is open, his cheeks shiny with tears, his body in a stranger’s grasp. Somehow I have to wait out the hours until Adam gets back. Kabo will go home and tell his wife. Soon all our neighbours will know. Our disaster will ripple outwards further and further, seeping into other lives.

  The late news on television shows men shouting on a platform, holding banners, crowds. Elections. I turn off quickly, my head ringing with fear.

  The wine bottle in the cupboard is half full; I drink two glasses quickly before I notice the telephone cord has been severed. They used a knife – the cut is clean. I back away as though the cord is dangerous.

  Zoë is lying asleep on her side, but Alice is awake, eyes wide in the moonlight. She turns her face to the wall when I tiptoe in. I lie beside her, hoping my presence is some comfort. An hour passes before her body softens into sleep.

  In our room, the bedspread is smooth. They didn’t have time to sit down. They had bent, reached into the cot, lifted and turned away in one curl of movement. Deft. Maybe practised. The pile of towels and the stack of nappies next to it on the chest of drawers are undisturbed. Why didn’t they take those? It would have been better if they had, a sign of kindness, a plan to keep him alive.

  His right eardrum will be bulging by now, the thinly stretched skin smoothly red. He will be screaming with pain but they won’t understand. Will they punish him? I slide down the doorframe and sit, rocking, on the floor, my head bent into my hands.

  I surface. He shouts from the boat, telling me to move my arms and legs.

  I sink again. It’s silent and dark under the water.

  The water fills my throat. I am drowning.

  The minutes hang, like meat from the hooks in the kitchen, lengthening silently.

  I finish the wine. Sleep, when it comes, hits like a truck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Botswana, March 2014

  ‘Dumela.’

  The light hurts my eyes. Wedged between Adam’s chest and the cushions of the back of the sofa, I can hardly breathe. His shirt has ridden up. The damp flesh pressed against my face smells of alcohol and sweat.

  A second later, despair rolls back, bringing a memory of Adam lifting me from the floor and falling with me onto the sofa. He’d slept immediately; his body heat had been narcotic and I’d slept again or, rather, was tipped back into unconsciousness. />
  ‘Dumela.’ The quiet voice repeats the greeting.

  A tall woman comes into focus, her body bent towards me, hands clasped together. Peo, the chief’s wife from last night. Her slanting eyes are sombre, her mouth unsmiling. Questions scramble in my head as I nod to her. Will she be able to help? Will she find Sam for us? I won’t be able to offer words to her or to anyone else; as if she can see my thoughts on my face, she disappears from view and the kitchen door closes quietly.

  I am in yesterday’s clothes. The clothes in which I kissed Sam goodbye, saw patients, ran home. Sliding past Adam, I put my feet to the floor: he groans and mutters, slipping back into sleep. Questions jostle for space in my mind.

  Was it a man or a woman who came? Both?

  The sitting room looks different: the floor feels colder underfoot. The chairs stand in a semi-circle. We’ve never sat like that. Perhaps we should have done. Would that have been better? Would Sam have been safer if we’d been the sort of family who sat in semi-circles to talk, rather than leaning against the door on the way out, or in the car, remarks thrown over the shoulder, from the front seat to the back?

  It may be that when they came and he started to cry they put a hand across his face, blocking his mouth.

  Through the window, the spectacular landscape has condensed to scrubby wasteland. Somewhere out there the hot air shapes itself around my baby. Someone knows where he is.

  I should be outside, looking in the thickets and down by the gully. Do I wait for the police, or run into the bush and search behind each tree?

  As I stand, my head tingling with indecision, Zoë’s voice comes in from outside; through the window I can see she is sitting at the veranda table. Alice is opposite. Two women are with them. The older has a hand on Alice’s back. The rings of a young, round-faced woman opposite flash as her long fingers pick over a pile of marula beans. Teko isn’t with them, she’ll be sleeping, as Adam is. As I step outside, the women look up and fall silent. The hand slips from my daughter’s back.

  ‘Dumela.’

  My voice sounds different, even to me. Zoë looks startled, Alice wary. Both have been crying. The older woman inclines her head. Dark moles are scattered untidily over her cheeks as if someone had thrown them at her face. The younger one is pretty; her full lips painted a brilliant pink. She looks across the garden, tapping purple fingernails on the table, a flush on her high cheekbones, embarrassed.

  Zoë slides off her chair and runs to me. ‘Have you found Sam yet?’

  ‘Not yet, Zoë.’

  Bending to Alice, I whisper, ‘Thank you for being sensible, darling. Daddy and I are going to work out the best plan. I’ve got to go back in and talk to him now.’ I kiss her. Her lips tremble, then set in a tight line.

  Adam is still asleep. He half wakes and tries to sit, but slumps again, a hand over his eyes. On the table next to the sofa, clean clothes have been laid out for me: a coloured skirt, with blue and orange circles, and a red shirt. Elisabeth or Peo: someone who knows that the act of choosing clothes to put on would have been impossible. The kindness makes my eyes sting.

  It is also possible that they hit him, knocking him unconscious to silence him, as they crouched over him in the dark, hiding in the corner of the room.

  I strip and shower, shuddering in lukewarm water, then dress in the clean clothes. In the mirror my puffy face and shrunken eyes look back at me, alien.

  Adam is sitting up, though he’s still half asleep.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I grip his arm, unable to wait any longer. ‘What are the police doing?’

  He puts his hand on mine, his fingers are hot, slightly sticky. ‘They’ve put blocks on the major exit roads and sent a team to the airport.’

  I should have driven straight to Gaborone airport instead of Kubung: I could have waited by the departures lounge, looking at each baby in turn before they were taken out of the country.

  Adam runs his tongue round his lips. A small glass of cloudy water has been left on the table; I hand it to him, he drinks quickly, then carries on talking. ‘They’re searching locally as well. Two officers are coming here this morning. No one must leave. They want to question everyone.’

  So the police are coming at last. ‘What happened when you got there last night?’

  ‘They saw us quickly.’ He lies back on the sofa. ‘I was called into a room with two officers. Kabo stayed outside. It was his turn afterwards. They treated us as suspects. They kept asking the same questions over and over, trying to catch us out. It was as though they thought I’d done something to my own son.’ He looks around the room, frowning, as if he were back in the station, being questioned like a prisoner in a cell.

  ‘They must have known it couldn’t be you. When Sam was taken, you were on your way home from the conference. Teko’s account must have tallied with yours.’

  ‘They’ll talk to her this morning.’ He nods towards the door as if he expects her to appear, on cue.

  ‘Why didn’t they take her statement last night?’

  ‘Perhaps because she wasn’t there?’ He talks slowly as if to a child.

  ‘How wasn’t she there? She left with you.’

  ‘She got out of the car when we stopped at the end of the drive.’ Adam seems puzzled by my question. ‘She started crying, so we let her go. Kabo thought it would be easier for her to answer questions with Elisabeth for support. Didn’t you see her?’

  Before he has finished talking, I’m hurrying through the sitting room into the kitchen, where Elisabeth, watched by Peo, places a pink cloth on a tray, the gentle colour glowing in the dark room. She stares in surprise as I run past into the corridor beyond. In Teko’s room there is a mattress on the floor, nothing else. Not the smallest scrap of paper. The room is windowless; I snap on the switch but the light doesn’t work. I’ve never been in here. Shame licks along with the surprise and fear. Was this how she lived, in the dark, in the same house where we had electric light, furniture, books and clothes? Laptops, plentiful food? What kind of resentment would build?

  ‘She’s gone.’

  Adam has followed me in, staring into the corners as though she could be there, pressed invisibly against the walls. Is that why she left? Because she felt invisible?

  ‘What does this mean?’ He looks bewildered.

  I know what it means. It means she could have taken Sam. That’s good. Back against the wall, the bare concrete feels cool under my fingertips, a little gritty. Good, because Teko will be easy to track down. I liked Teko, trusted her. Fury starts to swell but I push it away. I need a clear mind. She will return to the orphanage she came from: that’s where we’ll find them. She’ll keep him hidden in her bedroom until she works out what to do with him. Has she taken him because she loves him, or because she hates us?

  ‘She’s got him, Adam.’

  He nods wordlessly.

  Peo and Elisabeth have put the tea-tray on the table in the sitting room; now they are outside with the other women and Alice and Zoe. Their voices make a gentle noise, like a song on the radio, background music.

  This is why Peo and her friends are here. They are doing the talking for us, the walking and the living. Keeping the house alive. The bitter tea has the green-brown taste of raw leaves; the heat penetrates deeply.

  We drink our tea still standing. I put my cup down, misjudging the saucer. It tips over and a small brown circle bleeds outwards on the pink linen.

  Adam’s eyes are red-rimmed; a dark pink rash edges his hairline.

  ‘Wait for the police,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll go to her orphanage. That’s where they’ll be.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I’ll go. The police have questioned me. They’ll want to question you next.’ He replaces his cup. ‘I’ll need the address.’

  ‘Is it connected to the hospital in Molepolole?’ I stare at him, as my fingertips begin to sting with panic. ‘Or a mission centre somewhere?’

  He shakes his head. He doesn’t know. We’ve never known. We had accepted Te
ko at face value with no address and no references beyond the flimsy piece of paper we gave back to her. I always checked references; the au pair agency in England was renowned for its safety.

  Outside, the scrubby lawn stretches to the road. The trees glitter. In England there would be pale almond blossom by now, primroses in wet green banks. Was it because we are in such a different place that we’d ignored the rules or thought they didn’t apply? Had I been so frightened of giving offence that I put my own child’s safety at risk?

  ‘I’m leaving now.’ Adam is at the door. ‘Let’s not tell the police about Teko yet. If it gets out that she’s got Sam, they’ll go after her, then the media will latch on. She could be frightened into vanishing for good. I’ve got to get there first.’ His lips stretch in a grimace. ‘Once we get him back, she can disappear for ever, for all I care.’

  ‘How will you find it?’

  ‘I’ll find it.’ Adam’s face looks different, as mine did in the mirror. The slick fit of his eyeballs in their sockets seems to have loosened so that his eyes look bigger, less defended; the dry crease between his nose and his mouth has deepened. His shoulders have rounded overnight. For the first time I can imagine him as an old man.

  I’m shivering, though the heat is already hammering at my skull. Are there images crowding in Adam’s head, as there are in mine? Images that I’m burying beneath a picture of Teko smiling at Sam. The picture slips. I see cut bodies, severed hands.