The Shallows

by Ingrid Winterbach

  ‘Marthinus …’ said Nick.

  ‘Look,’ said Marthinus, ‘just because you can’t see it immediately, that doesn’t mean there’s no link. That man is back in the country with a purpose. What the purpose is, I don’t know, but that it’s connected with all sorts of things we’ve heard about in the recent past, that I don’t doubt. I sense it in my bones. Oh Lord. He likes games. He likes planting clues. For him everything is play – the more reckless, the better – life and death as well, unfortunately. A strong psychopathic streak, we can agree on that. Even a full-blown psychopathy. Nowadays apparently the term is sociopath. But with this incredible imagination. Just look at the novels, just look at The Shallows. Underrated. Too demanding. No reviewer wanted to risk an opinion on it. Brilliant in parts. The internal monologues! The sustained and irreverent imagination! I almost want to call it a masterpiece. Something between Flaubert and that hideously astonishing Chilean, Bolaño. The same gruesome and senseless violence, the same piling-up technique – hundreds and hundreds of pages – the same cryptic dead ends and loose ends and brutal, poetic leaps—’

  ‘I’m going away,’ Nick interrupted him. ‘I’m going to rent a room somewhere. I don’t want to receive Victor in my house. I don’t even want to know about his plans and his psychopathic activities. Sorry. In any case, I don’t like my house any more.’

  ‘Oh come,’ said Marthinus. ‘Don’t let yourself be scared off unnecessarily. Are you coming to watch The Man Who Wasn’t There with us tonight?’

  *

  Later that morning Nick bought a newspaper. On page three there was an indistinct photo of the suspect who had shot Buks Verhoef. He examined it more closely – the man looked suspiciously like the Chris Kestell double that he’d met earlier that year in the coffee shop! And the coffee shop was the exact same one where he’d been accosted by the same man. Although at close quarters the man had looked less like Chris Kestell (the meandering eye). But in any case he liked all of this not at all. He didn’t want to tell Marthinus about this. It would only confirm his suspicions and encourage him to further far-fetched deductions. He didn’t want to abet Marthinus in his flights of fancy. He didn’t know him well enough to know how reliable his intuitions were. He wasn’t going to say anything. He was going to leave it to Marthinus to notice the resemblance, or not to notice it. Perhaps, in fact, the resemblance was coincidental. The photo was not very clear. Perhaps he had Chris Kestell on his mind, at the instigation of Marthinus.

  Sixteen

  Marthinus invited him for a beer and they sat outside on the stoep, even though the autumn air already had a nip to it. This evening Alfons was there as well, and Selwyn Levitan. Alfons had lively blue eyes and an upright, dignified, patriarchal air.

  It was a near-moonless night. Lights were twinkling in the bay. Marthinus had previously pointed out the location of the urban farm to him, and behind it the informal settlement where Tarquin and company sometimes hung out. Nick fancied that he could see faint lights in that vicinity, like tiny fires, but he couldn’t be sure. The people probably kept a low profile, especially at night. If not, they’d be detected, targeted and driven out – back to where they came from.

  They talked about the murder of Buks Verhoef.

  Selwyn asked what had happened.

  Nick said the man was shot and killed point blank in a coffee shop. For the time being he didn’t mention that he thought the suspect looked like the Chris Kestell double that he’d come across by chance in the same coffee shop a few weeks earlier. If Marthinus were to hear that, he’d make another meal of it.

  Marthinus said that he’d read that a memorial service would be held in the town hall. Verhoef had had so many hangers-on and admirers and friends that that was the only hall that would be big enough to accommodate them all. But he would be buried from the Shofar Church.

  Satanism light, said Alfons.

  ‘Satanism,’ said Selwyn, ‘mustn’t be taken lightly. A very real force to be reckoned with. Call it Satan, call it whatever you wish.’

  Nick thought of Karlien, so blonde, so expressionless, so drawn to satanism. He wondered where the fascination lay for her.

  He’d seen him once, said Selwyn about Buks Verhoef. ‘A very lost soul. Very permeable barriers. Very open to malediction. Very little psychic protection.’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ said Marthinus. This pronouncement of Selwyn interested him. ‘Permeable barriers, you say,’ he said. ‘Fascinating. Does that mean that perhaps he wouldn’t have been shot if he’d had more psychic protection, less permeable psychic barriers?’

  ‘Who knows,’ said Selwyn.

  ‘I just thought he was a lard-arse and a crap artist,’ said Alfons.

  After Alfons had gone to bed and Selwyn had disappeared into the night (in a taxi, ordered and paid for by Marthinus), Marthinus told Nick that Selwyn’s Jewish name was Menasse. ‘He’s your hyper-intuitive character,’ said Marthinus. ‘Very finely attuned to the world. Profoundly schooled in the Kabbalah. You’d never say it – by day he’s an estate agent. Good intuition for the emanations of a place. Buyers trust him. Very spiritual. He’s interested in the chariot.’

  ‘What chariot?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Ezekiel’s chariot, his chariot of fire,’ said Marthinus. ‘The Ma’aseh Merkavah. Ask him about it! He likes sharing his knowledge!’

  Nick considered it, though Ezekiel and his chariot were not for the time being a burning issue in his mind.

  *

  Charelle did not react to his calls or text messages. Nick wanted to talk to her. He wanted to propose a meeting in a neutral space. He wanted to know that she was okay. If he could understand why she’d left, he might perhaps reconcile himself to it.

  On Monday he went to the art academy to enquire about her in person. At first they wouldn’t give him any information. Then the secretary said that the student Charelle Koopman was no longer registered with them. She’d dropped out of her course.

  When?! asked Nick.

  The date the woman mentioned was about the time when he’d last seen her, when she’d come to cancel her lease.

  Did she give any reasons? he asked. But the secretary stuck to her guns. She could give no further information.

  That afternoon Nick phoned Marthinus and said that he thought they should perhaps pay Tarquin and company another visit. Maybe they could cast some kind of light on the affair.

  For the second time they ascended the slope to the settlement on the hill. Early autumn, still warm. Past the kitchen and recreation area, the prefab buildings to the left. Two elderly men and a woman were working in the vegetable garden. In the orchard a few children were playing under the trees. Everybody greeted them exuberantly as they walked past. At the top of the hill they turned right again, the bunker-like buildings in front of them.

  ‘When Jurgen Wesseker took over here after the founding father left,’ said Marthinus, ‘he started getting rid of the almighty pile of junk in the bunkers. Actually lorry-loads of the stuff. It was a sight to behold. Workers and residents spent days carrying out things. When everything had been carried out, the city’s poor were invited. Taxi-loads of people with shopping bags turned up from Khayelitsha and surrounding areas. They descended like blowflies on a carcass. Clapped-out bakkies carted off loads of booty. People erected makeshift stalls and bartered some of the things that they’d plundered. There was something of everything: building material, crates and boxes of all sizes filled with every conceivable and inconceivable thing; there were old magazines, books, newspapers, kitchen equipment, crockery, garden tools, broken garden and indoor furniture, empty bottles, string, wire, half-full tins of paint, masses of nails, screws, locks, hinges, thick ropes and thin ropes, bottles full of elastic bands, stuffed animals and birds, old curtains, mouldy and tattered sheets and blankets, cushions, paintings, corrugated iron sheets, pieces of Masonite. Broken toys. Old clothes, shoes, hangers. Man, too many things to name. At last, when everything had been carted off, the place stripped, Jurgen
moved in with a team of cleaners. Cleaned, painted, converted the bunkers into dormitories for the widows and orphans. Got funding from the Department of Welfare. They were probably overjoyed that the place had now passed into other hands and was under responsible management. Jurgen makes a good impression and he had a fully worked-out twelve-point plan. As I said, a chap with vision. With a sense of vocation. An orderly mind – you need something like that to run such a show. More than just a refuge for widows and orphans. A model community, or that at least is what he has in mind. Whether that’s how it’s going to turn out, we’ll have to wait and see. There are some violent forces knocking about here – chaotic forces that are not going to allow themselves to be thwarted by any visionary or crusader. I’ve mentioned it before. You should hear Menasse on the subject. He has a supersensitive apprehension of revolutionary powers – it’s his Jewish, Eastern European genes. Quite apart from his mystical bent.’

  By now they’d passed the bunkers on the left, and were trudging up the footpath. Nick became aware of sweating in anticipation. Marthinus was wearing a kind of bush hat, khaki shorts and boots. Shapely, sturdy calves. Tanned. Today he looked like a tour guide or forest ranger. Nick also had sturdy calves, but he wasn’t as fit as Marthinus. He was battling up the hill.

  ‘Menasse is one of the most intriguing characters I know,’ said Marthinus. ‘The original wandering Jew. Highly intuitive. Enigmatic. Mad about sport – cricket, tennis – self-assured, but very spiritual. A mystic, in the spirit of Ezekiel. If you look carefully, you’ll see – a brow as adamantine as that of the ancient prophets. Acquainted with both the awakening and the extinction of the soul. Knowledge of the sphere of the demons, the dark side of the creation. Once when I was manic, he laid the healing hands on me.’

  They had now reached the hole in the fence. Was Nick imagining things, or was this fence sagging even more than the previous time?

  This time it was not Tarquin sitting outside, but a different man. One of the Main Men, Marthinus whispered behind his hand. Nick didn’t know what he meant. Main in the gangster world, Main in the settlement? Up here or down there in the city? The Main Man had high cheekbones, Oriental eyes, prominent nostrils, a swarthy complexion, but with a dark-red flush, and straight hair. The high cheekbones made him look like Genghis Khan. Tarquin had to be called first. He emerged, taciturn. How often would he hang out here? Nick wondered. The hut was makeshift, not very big, certainly not adjusted to the likes of Tarquin, with his gold neck chain and expensive shoes and taste for all sorts of luxuries.

  The drill was the same as before. They all sat outside, Nick and Marthinus on plastic garden chairs. But this time Marthinus presented a bottle of whisky that he produced from his rucksack. It was accepted in silence (for services to be rendered), and poured by the girl. This time round Nick had prepared himself in advance, but he still found it difficult to down the liquor as quickly and with the same nonchalance as the others. He wished that, like Marthinus, he’d had a hat. The girl went off again to fetch the man with the albino dreadlocks.

  Nick was sweating. He dreaded what he might hear.

  Once again the litany of rapes and murders. Everything was received in silence by Tarquin and the Main Man. Neither of them reacted to the list of horrors. Business as usual. Three children were raped in the last week in Grassy Park, two boys were killed in a shooting incident in Hanover Park. A girl’s body was found on the Flats; she’d been strangled and raped. Ten children were raped in Delft. The youngest was a three-month-old baby. A child was raped by other children at a school in Delft East. A farm labourer from Lynedoch was murdered by fellow prisoners in a cell in Pollsmoor. They kicked him, beat him up and strangled him with an electric cable. Two gang members were shot and killed in Mitchells Plain.

  ‘A girl,’ said the albino, ‘was abducted and raped down in the city there by the art school.’ Nick thought his heart would stop.

  ‘How long ago?’ asked Marthinus.

  The man considered. ‘About ten, fourteen days ago.’

  ‘Is she dead?’ asked Marthinus.

  ‘No,’ said the man. ‘She got away. Another laitie helped her.’

  Nick and Marthinus glanced at each other.

  ‘Could you perhaps get more information on this incident?’ Marthinus asked Tarquin. He nodded. ‘Who was responsible for the attack. Any information.’

  Tarquin nodded. They took their leave. Going downhill, Nick’s legs almost gave way under him.

  ‘In the vicinity of the art school,’ he said. ‘That was almost exactly when she disappeared. What are the chances that it was her?’

  ‘It doesn’t sound good,’ said Marthinus, ‘but you can’t really tell for sure whether it was her. This kind of thing happens all the time. At least somebody helped her to escape.’

  But Nick felt sick with dismay. ‘Something bad must have happened to her, she was serious about her course, she wouldn’t have dropped out for nothing. She was different, she wasn’t herself when she came to cancel her lease. She didn’t even want to look at me. Never mind talk to me.’

  All the way down Marthinus tried to reassure him. Nick shouldn’t blame himself for this, he said. These things happened. If it was her, if it had happened to her, remember, it didn’t happen because she was renting a room from him.

  How did he know that, asked Nick. How could he say that with any certainty?

  No, said Marthinus, he probably couldn’t say that with a hundred per cent certainty, but the violence in this city was too often unmotivated – a question of the wrong person in the wrong place. Too often just a question of bad, bad luck.

  But this was of no consolation to Nick. He would have to get in touch with the woman with the turban.

  Seventeen

  Marcus Olivier informs me via Miss De Jongh that he will not grant me any further interviews. No reasons are given. (He would, though, have sniffed something suspicious in the air – no doubt he would recognise the smell of blood.) I messed up the interview. Asked the wrong questions too soon. Mucked in with questions about the mother of the boys – a matter that should have been touched upon later and with greater circumspection. My judgement impaired by the double whisky, and rattled by Verhoef’s death, my timing was completely out. I should have softened up the old father first in the course of a few interviews; I should have patiently reeled him in like a fish.

  When I arrive home the next day, after having tea with a woman friend (one of the few) in town (the coffee shop not yet open to the public – the floor tiles have to be scrubbed clean first and one long table sanded down and special offers devised to tempt customers back to the place of death and disaster), I find, sitting on the pavement, a lithe black animal, a greyhound. She must have run away or got lost, because she is not bewildered, just very thin, and exhausted. I take her inside. Give her water, give her a bit of raw mince with a raw egg. She eats and drinks eagerly. Then she curls up on the sofa and goes to sleep. She must indeed have been very exhausted.

  Later she comes to sit by me, where I’m working in the bedroom. The bones of her pelvis and her ribs are clearly visible, but she’s no stray, the black coat is shiny, well tended.

  I hold her narrow head in my hands, the high-born creature. I look into her eyes – almost transparent, the colour of amber. She looks back. A gaze full of trust, a compassionate gaze. A gaze of ancient knowingness.

  I stroke her smooth head, her lean flanks. She has something of the smooth, satiny coat and head of an otter. Her ears are cool. Now and again she turns her noble head in my direction, and regards me with her compassionate gaze. Then again she looks ahead fixedly.

  I make her a soft bed of folded blankets next to mine, but she must feel the cold, because in the course of the night she jumps into bed with me, crawls in under the blankets. All night long the noble animal sleeps up close to me. I turn around carefully so as not to disturb her sleep.

  The next morning I contact Animal Welfare. A dog conforming to her description has indee
d been reported missing: a young black greyhound bitch, missing for three days. A young yuppie couple come to fetch her from my house. The woman is overcome with joy to have her back. She carries the motionless animal to their car in her arms.

  *

  The death of Buks Verhoef remains with me. Not because I shy away from violence, but because the unstaunchably spurting stream of blood from his wounds has called up a profound melancholy in me. And because we shared the moment of his soul’s departure from his body. In the whole coffee shop (and universe) there was nobody else who heard the soft hiccup, or sob, with which his soul took flight. I was the only one, with his mouth close to my ear, my cheek next to his.

  Five years ago I was employed by a prominent man in town. He was already ill at that stage. For three years, the last three years of his life, I was something between a caregiver and a female companion to him. I had responded to an advertisement in the local rag. (He and his only daughter, visiting from Canada, had conducted the interview. I found her unsympathetic. I suspect I wasn’t her first choice for the appointment, but I was his.) I was initially appointed for three afternoons, later full-time, so that I no longer needed to earn my keep with freelance work. (The emolument was excellent.) At the beginning, while he was still mobile, I took him to do his most essential shopping, walked with him in the park, accompanied him to his special exercise sessions at the local gym. I needed the money. My life had been going nowhere for many years. That is, in fact, still the case. The man was an exceptionally well-to-do businessman, refined. Towards the end I sat by his bedside for hours reading to him. I wiped his brow with a damp cloth. I made him take little sips of fluid through a drinking straw. I fed him the meagre mouthfuls of food that he could take in. I held the bowl for him when he vomited. I trimmed his nails carefully. I listened to the regrets that he expressed about his life – the people he had wronged, his children with whom he had no strong ties. He said that his faith had never been particularly strong, but that now, in the face of death, it wavered more than ever. He was scared, he said, of the great darkness. I said that was understandable, and held his hand. For two, almost three months I sat by him like that. Towards the end, the last weeks of his life, virtually day and night. I watched with sorrow as he deteriorated. The private nursing staff – the day and night sisters – cared for him professionally, but from me he expected something different. A very close bond was forged between us. It must have been in the light of this that he had changes made to his will. (This I only found out after his death.)