16mm of Innocence

by Quentin Smith

  “Were these the miners’ houses?” Dieter asked, squinting in the bright sunlight.

  Frans began to walk towards the first row of imposing and typically Germanic colonial houses. “Ja, miners and a whole community – teachers, nurses, even the architect.”

  Most buildings were engulfed by sand piled up at an aggressive forty–five degree angle; plaster flaking off the outer walls, window and door frames eroded and disintegrating; corrugated iron roofing rusted and eaten away by desert cancer, exposing crumbling roof timbers beneath.

  “And the bigger buildings?” Otto asked, gesturing towards an imposing structure to their right.

  “There was a hospital, a school, a theatre, a ballroom…”

  “My God, luxury,” Dieter said.

  “There’s even a swimming pool up there,” Frans said, squinting into the sun and raising his arm to indicate a square concrete structure just visible on the crest of the rocky ridge.

  “How long has it been abandoned?” Ingrid asked, walking with difficulty as her white and black court shoes sank into the sucking sand.

  “Since about the late 1940s.” Frans was beginning to sweat profusely and puff from the effort of moving his bulk through the heat and the soft sand. “Kolmanskop was like a fuse. It burned very bright… but not for very long.”

  Otto imagined Inez walking through this sand in 1948, perhaps on a moonless night to escape detection, furtiveness and despair uppermost in her mind. Where would she have chosen to end her life?

  They seemed to be heading for the house at the end of the row, its roof collapsed in and the walls in very poor condition. They passed a rusted sign in Gothic Germanic font: Kegelbahn.

  Sensing that they were studying it with interest, Frans paused. “German skittle alley – down there, I think.” He raised his fleshy arm and pointed.

  “Is this the house?” Dieter asked as they neared the ruins, their pace slowing.

  “Ja.”

  They stopped and stared in solemn silence for a moment. Otto found himself imagining their long–lost sister approaching the house in 1948, filled with incurable melancholy and dark intent. A desert wind whistled gently in their ears, stirring up little puffs of sand around their feet. Ingrid, surprisingly, took the first step towards the ruin, her tentative footstep on the wooden veranda eliciting a creaking protest.

  “Is it safe?” Otto asked.

  Frans shrugged.

  The front doorway was the only one to be enjoyed at full height. Every other ground floor doorway was filled with sand, entering through the windows and spilling out of each room like a lava flow, in some rooms reaching halfway up the door frame. The patterns in the swirling sand, as it folded its way around the walls of the house, exuded an abstract beauty that was hard to define.

  “Whose house was this?” Ingrid asked, studying each room in turn with a poignancy that was touching.

  “I think my pa said a mine manager’s,” Frans replied.

  Even though the paint was faded and peeling, and plaster had come away exposing brickwork, the bright intentions of the decoration – pinks, blues, striped shades of turquoise, and then white from door height up to the high pressed ceilings above – was still evident.

  “It’s as though they needed to bring colour into the houses in this drab landscape,” Ingrid remarked.

  They explored each room and then ascended the wooden staircase, each step smothered in sand, to the precarious, groaning, wooden flooring of the upper floor.

  “Who found her?” Otto asked, as they passed the bathroom in which an almost immaculate enamel roll–topped bath languished, half–filled with sand.

  Frans cleared his throat and pressed a clenched hand against his mouth. “My pa.”

  Ingrid’s head spun around to face him. “Your father found Inez?” She frowned.

  Frans nodded. “In the main bedroom.” He pointed into a large room looking out over Kolmanskop through a decadent bay window, now devoid of glass and most of the wooden window frame.

  A rusted, sprung metal double bed was the sole occupant of the room, and it looked as though it might disintegrate at any moment. Their feet shuffled on the sandy floorboards as they imagined Inez’s final moments; the quiet, forgotten abandonment where she had chosen to depart from this world.

  “How come your father found Inez?” Ingrid persisted, almost aggressively.

  “I don’t know. It was his job to patrol the Sperrgebiet. He was a diamond company security officer.”

  “And what did he find?” Ingrid asked, like an interrogation.

  “Two bodies: Inez, another man, and a revolver.”

  Otto’s ears pricked up. “Another man?”

  Dieter and Ingrid glanced at each other.

  “Her boyfriend,” Frans said solemnly.

  Ingrid’s eyes narrowed. “Who was holding the revolver?”

  Frans smiled nervously, briefly, shuffling his feet. “I don’t know, Ingrid, it was a long time ago.”

  “Hold on – she came here with someone else, and they both killed themselves?” Otto said, slightly agitated.

  Frans nodded. Dieter nodded.

  “You knew?” Otto said, narrowing his eyes at Dieter, feeling again as if he’d been deliberately kept in the dark, hurt that Dieter somehow knew and had not confided in him.

  Dieter shrugged and inhaled. “I only found out yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?” Otto said loudly. “You’ve known for a day but I have to find out from Frans?”

  Dieter appeared chastened but said nothing, avoiding Otto’s accusing eyes. Otto sighed in disappointment and walked to the enormous bay window, turning his back on everyone.

  “Do you know what happened here, Frans?” Ingrid asked calmly.

  Frans walked over and stood beside Otto at the decaying bay window, surveying the ruins of Kolmanskop as it gradually yielded to its sandy conqueror. “I have seen the files.”

  “Go on,” Ingrid said curtly.

  Frans placed one foot on the remnants of the bay windowsill as he gazed through the empty window.

  “My pa discovered them the following morning, presumably doing his rounds.” He hesitated. “I’m not sure how it came to be that he went into this house.”

  “Presumably this house was empty then?” Ingrid asked.

  “Ja, it was.”

  “Was anyone living in Kolmanskop in 1948?” Dieter said.

  “A few people, not many. It was mostly deserted.”

  “Did anyone call it in, hear anything; see anything?” Ingrid asked.

  Frans shrugged one shoulder. “No.”

  Otto could feel his heart beating in his chest at this forensic dissection of events that occurred nearly forty years ago; events that until twelve hours back he had not known anything about; events that led to the death of an unknown family member: his sister.

  “They were lying in each other’s arms over there,” Frans indicated the corner of the room beside the double bed, “each with a single gunshot wound.”

  Dieter winced; Ingrid paled; all Otto could feel was a rushing sound in his ears and weakness in his knees.

  “Who was holding the revolver?” Ingrid persisted.

  Frans turned to meet her determined gaze. “I think he was.”

  Silence for a few moments – hot, dry moments. Not even flies inhabited Kolmanskop.

  “Who was this man? Boyfriend?” Otto asked.

  Frans nodded. “I can’t remember his name, I’m sorry. But they were… in love.” Frans sounded forlorn admitting this, as though he still cared for Inez, a woman who had chosen someone else above him.

  “Two shots… and nobody heard anything,” Otto said quietly, almost as though he was talking to himself.

  “Did this happen at night?” Dieter asked.

  “I don’t think anybody can know for sure, but I reckon that was the assumption.”

  “How did they get here?” Dieter asked.

  “Nobody knows.” Frans made a face. “They probably wa
lked.”

  “Was Inez living at home then?” Dieter directed this question at Ingrid, who blushed.

  “Yes,” she replied, fumbling with her hands.

  Dieter looked at her quizzically. “Didn’t anybody notice her absence?”

  Ingrid’s eyes moistened and her gaze faltered. “She was twenty–one; not exactly on a curfew.” She wiped each eye with an index finger and sniffed, visibly uncomfortable.

  “This is what you were referring to, Frans, when you said that you could never become a diamond company employee?” Dieter said.

  Frans paled as he placed a hand over his mouth and stroked his chin a few times, then rubbed his eyebrow, then the back of his neck. He shuffled his mighty feet on the floorboards.

  “Ja.”

  “We’re in the Sperrgebiet, right?”

  Frans nodded, looking crestfallen.

  “Do you think that—”

  “That’s enough, Dieter!” Otto said.

  Otto was surprised by his sudden reaction as emotion and disbelief swelled up within him, forcing him to turn and leave the room, almost slipping on the sandy stairs in his haste. He stood outside in the merciless heat, his back turned to the building, feeling Ingrid, Dieter and Frans’ eyes watching him through the bay window.

  Ingrid emerged minutes later and she and Otto stood side by side in silent meditation for a few minutes, their hot skins ineffectively caressed by a gentle breeze. The desolate ruins of this once prosperous and thriving town were surreal to behold, as were the revelations about Inez.

  “Do you know who the man was with Inez?” Otto asked without looking at her.

  “I can’t remember, Otto,” Ingrid said.

  Otto scuffed the gritty sand with his suede Oxfords. Nothing grew in this infertile soil, the only useful fruit it had yielded to its human conquerors being diamonds – heaps of diamonds – and they were all but exhausted now.

  “It’s so unfair, you know – two days to Mum’s funeral and I’m not even thinking about her,” Otto said.

  Ingrid bent down to empty sand from her court shoes. “God, this fucking place is ruining my wardrobe.”

  Otto looked at her in disbelief.

  “You needn’t feel guilty about Mum. Remember, the fact that you never knew about Inez was her doing.” Ingrid’s voice was laced with something unpleasant: smugness, self–satisfaction; resentment.

  “And Dad’s.” Otto stopped short of saying ‘and yours’.

  Ingrid rubbed sand off each foot in turn before slipping her feet back into the shoes. “I really hate this place. I wish I’d never left New York.”

  Her coldness curdled Otto’s blood and he didn’t know what to say.

  Nineteen

  Otto bought dried flowers in Lüderitz later on and Frans drove him back to the cemetery that evening to place them on Inez’s grave. He did not linger; the day had been emotional enough. Being at his sister’s grave alone this time seemed more significant to Otto, as though he was better able to connect with his personal thoughts about the sister he had never known. He tried not to look into the gaping grave beside hers, forcing his mind away from the arduous matter of Mother’s funeral in just a few days’ time.

  “Don’t forget it’s fresh fruit and veg day tomorrow,” Frans said as he dropped Otto off on Bülow Street.

  Nobody, however, had any interest in buying food the next day. Their appetites had been quashed.

  “I’m not hungry,” Dieter said.

  “I’ll be gone in two days,” Ingrid said.

  They sat around the red kitchen table in silence drinking Mother’s good coffee without an ounce of pleasure.

  “I don’t want to watch any more home movies,” Ingrid declared suddenly, pushing her chair back and standing. “Let’s just do the funeral.”

  She ordered a taxi and left without saying another word. Nobody protested. Otto phoned Sabine for a lengthy call in hushed and emotional tones, interrupted only by brief and false joviality when the boys came on the line to say hello and then goodnight to their father. Hearing his children’s voices seemed to unsettle Otto’s composure the most. He suddenly felt very far away from Sabine and the boys. The immediacy of his warm family life contrasted uncomfortably with the emerging truths about his distant childhood, once remembered as comforting and nostalgic, now turning into an apparent conspiracy of cold, secretive falsehoods.

  In response to “When are you coming home?” he told Sabine that he was not sure yet. Later, from his bedroom, he heard Dieter calling Hong Kong and speaking to Jim in muted tones. Otto could not tell whether it was business or personal. It was the first day that Dieter had not sent or received a fax.

  *

  When Otto awoke the house was empty and he assumed that Dieter was at the library attending to business matters again. It was bright and sunny outside, but visible across the calm and reflective blue ocean was a fog bank that looked as wide as it did ominous. Otto sniffed the air: no smell of guano or seal dung. He smiled.

  As he sat down to enjoy a cup of steaming coffee with a slice of buttered toast and gooseberry jam there came a timid knock at the front door. Surprisingly, it was Ingrid.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she explained, removing a cream fur coat and matching woolly hat to reveal a peach ensemble. “I’ve been walking… where we did the other day.”

  She poured coffee and sat opposite Otto, embracing the mug with both hands. Otto ate his toast, considering his sister thoughtfully. Though the aromas of strong coffee and buttered toast were homely and inviting, the atmosphere was not.

  “Where is your brother?”

  Otto shrugged. “I think he’s at the library.”

  “Christ! Will he actually find the time to attend the funeral tomorrow?” The words were barely cold on her lips before Otto responded to the deep irony in her remark by raising his eyebrows. Ingrid had the decency to squirm. “Anyway, how are you?” she said, looking at him as if to say let’s move on.

  He swallowed, licking jam off his lips and fingertips. “I can’t believe you never told me about Inez.”

  Ingrid placed her mug on the table but kept her hands wrapped around it. “I was fourteen, Otto – old enough to know, but not old enough to understand.” She hesitated. “In this house decisions were made for us. I followed them.”

  “Is this why you hated Dad?”

  Ingrid shrugged in a noncommittal way. “Partly.”

  “Partly?” Otto repeated, sitting forward.

  “Look,” Ingrid began, breathing deeply, “you know about Inez, the sister I loved very dearly. The big secret that Mum and Dad imposed on us is out.” She unclasped her hands briefly and pulled a face. “Don’t expect an epiphany.”

  “What?”

  “The funeral is tomorrow and then we go our separate ways again.”

  Otto stared at her incredulously. He truly did not understand her. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Ingrid shrugged and raised her eyebrows.

  Otto jabbed his index finger towards the camelthorn roots visible through the kitchen window. “Who is that in our garden?”

  Ingrid leaned back ambivalently. “The police will sort that out.”

  “Yes, and they might arrest one of us.”

  “You’re being overly dramatic.”

  “It’s not natural for bodies to be buried in gardens.”

  Ingrid paled slightly but quickly regained her composure. “I’m on your side here, Otto. But what can I do?”

  “You were at least twelve back then. Surely you remember something?”

  Ingrid shook her head.

  “You lied about Inez,” Otto challenged her.

  The blood rose visibly to the surface of Ingrid’s face. “Don’t you dare! You are in no position to judge me, Otto.”

  Otto was stunned by her anger as she spat the words at him. “Why, because I was so young?”

  Suddenly the front door burst open as Dieter entered wearing tight, shiny yellow jogging shorts and a minut
e running vest, both of which exposed more than they covered. Rolled up in one hand were a newspaper and a brown folder containing papers.

  “Hi all!” he said, slightly out of breath but full of joviality.

  “Where’ve you been?” Otto asked.

  “I went to the library; a few faxes…” he raised the folder in the air, “and then a jog along the coast. Have you seen the fog bank out there?”

  “You look like one of the Village People,” Ingrid sneered, looking at Dieter’s running attire.

  Dieter walked past the kitchen table and dropped the newspaper onto the corner beside Otto, heading for the fridge. “If the cap fits, sweetie…” Dieter poured a glass of water for himself. “Oh, I told Otto.” He gulped at the water. “Haven’t told Frans yet. That’s a tough one.”

  Otto was surprised by Ingrid’s unruffled look of disinterest. “You knew?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Otto, didn’t everyone? You’re supposed to be the observant doctor.”

  Otto felt he was being ridiculed. “Yeah, but he’s my brother.” It was reminiscent of his childhood – significantly younger than both Dieter and Ingrid, he was always playing catch–up.

  “Mum’s funeral notice is in the Lüderitzbuchter,” Dieter said, pointing to the paper.

  Otto picked it up and began to flick through to the small ads and announcements section. He found the notice and read it aloud. A brief silence ensued.

  “It sounds nice, Otto,” Ingrid said. “You were right to choose those words. Mum would have liked it.”

  Otto sighed. “It finally feels as though the funeral is happening. There have been so many distractions. I…”

  Otto stopped and stared at the newspaper with his mouth slightly open. A boxed advertisement near the funeral notices had caught his attention.

  “What is it?” Dieter asked, rising to refill his glass.

  “Jesus,” Otto said, frowning as he continued to stare at the newspaper.

  “What?” Dieter repeated.

  “Listen to this: Saturday 20th April is Adolf Hitler’s birthday. Celebrate with us at Kreplinhaus. Drinks reception at 11.30am. Luncheon at 12.30. Guest speaker is Jurgen Göring. Dress formal.” Otto’s voice tailed off in disbelief towards the end.