*
In the course of the night I imagine I can hear a soft shuffling at my door, but I sleep on, at the mercy of the indecipherable logic of a dream. When I get up the next morning at the crack of dawn, intent on getting away before the man with the bad-luck eyes can accost me again, I find on the floor in front of my door the box of silkworms. I immediately go across to the window overlooking the parking lot. The vehicle in which the large man with the Frankenstein face arrived the day before has gone.
Yesterday I could more or less deal with things with equanimity, but this morning – after the conversation with the hollow-cheeked Joseph Beuys lookalike the previous afternoon, and the box of silkworms at my door this morning – my courage deserts me. A great despondency descends upon me. I can never escape my situation. Freedom of movement is not granted me. Thoughts in that vein.
Give me a break, I think. What am I supposed to do with the fucking worms?
I take the box inside and open it. Seven worms, five white ones and two zebras. (Five loaves and two little fish and a miracle waiting to happen.) How sought-after the zebra silkworms were at school. How comely the fully rounded buttock of the zebra. How elegant the flanks of the extinct quagga. How pretty the zebra-like markings on the back of the nautilus. The leaves are yesterday’s, almost gnawn bare, only the veins remaining. The worms have clearly munched their way energetically through it all, and equally energetically shat it all out at the other end, because there’s more excreta than leaves in the box. The seven worms lift their heads in hungry unison. I have urgently to find fresh leaves for them somewhere. Where I could have walked unhindered into the sea on some remote beach, had I wanted to, I now have to go in search of mulberry leaves.
What do worms do? They lay eggs. They hatch. The worms eat and grow. They spin themselves into a cocoon and change into pupae. The moth crawls out of the pupa and lays eggs. A cycle repeated into all eternity.
*
The moon waxed once more. Nick, Selwyn Levitan (alias Menasse, with the prophet-like adamantine brow), Anselmo Balla, Alfons and Marthinus were sitting on Marthinus’ wide front stoep. Nick thought of the Astor Court, which he visited at the Met, where the master of the house would gather with friends to enjoy the full moon, to read poetry, play a musical instrument and test and savour a new tea. No poetry was read here tonight, no tea drunk. But the moon waxed and their little group sat there with the master of the house, in companionable silence, drinking wine. Apart from the waxing moon there were fleecy clouds in the open sky tonight, and the moonlit outline of the great mountain loomed behind them to the right. This was good enough, thought Nick, he could certainly live with this.
Anselmo did not sit still for a moment. He wriggled and fidgeted, he tapped his foot rhythmically, he sputtered, he snorted, he talked non-stop. Menasse with his gentle voice occasionally steered the conversation in a different direction. Marthinus, normally an unquenchably enthusiastic talker, was quiet tonight. He sat, he drank his beer peaceably, he rolled and smoked his cigarettes. It was not as if he was distracted; he was still attending to the conversation, he just did not take part.
At one stage Nick got up, let his eyes wander to the left, towards Signal Hill, first to the farm area, and then, further up the mountainside, to the refugee camp, at night only a dark splotch. There where Tarquin Molteno and the Main Man sometimes hung out (crazy about dogfights and boxing, but a church and family man, according to Marthinus). Once again he imagined that he could see the flickering of lights in that area, the light of small fires. Every time he thought of the albino saying a girl had been raped in the vicinity of the art academy, his heart contracted with fear. It couldn’t possibly have been her, he told himself. Troubled, he sat down again.
Anselmo Balla said: We are brought forth from nothing and we return to nothingness.
Menasse said: The human being is equipped to comprehend both good and evil, and on his choice depends the balance of the world.
Anselmo Balla said: We are the nothingness that scrutinises itself. (He moved his head from side to side when he spoke, he groaned and snorted and looked straight ahead of him when somebody else spoke.)
Menasse said: Man initially came into being as a metaphysical potential in the mind of God.
The moon was moving swiftly, occasionally veiled in light cloud. The night was cool. Marthinus was still sitting taciturn in the corner. Below them lay the city, the harbour. What was he going to do about the sale of his house? Nick wondered.
Anselmo Balla said: St Augustine said that time is the locus of uncertainty. It is a locus of uncertain and perilous transition because anything can happen there – both good and evil. But as soon as time comes to an end, history comes to an end – then evil has run its course, then no rectification is possible any more. Then time vanishes. It is replaced by eternity.
Marthinus stubbed out his cigarette and sighed.
Nick sat on a long time after Balla with the egg-shaped head and Menasse with the adamantine brow had departed (in the taxi that Marthinus had ordered and paid for) and Alfons had gone to bed. He did not want to go home. He was scared of his empty house. He was scared of the feelings that could overwhelm him there. Buks Verhoef, who had made him such an attractive offer on the house, also, God knows, dead.
Marthinus said: ‘Balla thinks he’s a lapsed Catholic, but in fact he can’t get Catholicism out of his system. Menasse, again, speaks from his immersion in Jewish mysticism. Friends, but the two of them will never convince each other till the end of time. Old Testament, New Testament, I can’t decide myself. Buddha – the lord Siddhartha, or Jiddu Krishnamurti – the anointed of the Theosophists? (Even though he sent them packing quite early on.) Oh Lord, I keep harping on two, three thoughts for ever. The Koran. Each has its own appeal for me. I don’t even want to think of the possibility of Orthodox, because ever since childhood I’ve been attracted to graven images. To drink from the Holy Communion cup, to kiss the altar or the hem of the Virgin’s robe, the glory of the richly painted interiors, the chanting of the Byzantine choirs, oh Lord. If I’d been an Israelite, I’d have danced up a storm with the best of them around the golden calf. But then there’s the burning bush as well. Any manifestation, I have such a weakness for manifestation. The burning bush! I’d have given my front teeth to experience it. To know for certain what it is a manifestation of!
‘At the end of his life Jiddu Krishnamurti said that an immense energy, an immense intelligence had occupied his body for seventy years. He did not think, he said, that people realised the extent of this intelligence. But now the body could support it no longer. Nobody could comprehend what his body had endured. Nobody. And let nobody pretend to be able to do so. And now, said Krishnamurti – ninety years old at the end of his life – after seventy years it had come to an end. Not the energy and intelligence – those were still there, every day, and especially at night. But after seventy years the body could endure it no longer. You don’t come across it again, he said, not for hundreds of years. When this body went, that also went. No consciousness would remain of that consciousness, of that energy and intelligence. People would pretend or imagine that they could access it. But nobody had ever been able to do it, nobody. That was what he said ten days before his death.
‘Old Jiddu,’ said Marthinus. ‘Now there was a man who could anticipate and intercept every feint and stratagem of consciousness. I read him and my mind boggles.’
He sighed again, and lit a cigarette.
For a long time yet Nick and Marthinus sat on the stoep, while the moon rose higher and higher in the sky, later to usurp the heavens as the only and the brightest light – proud ruler – and bathe everything below in a milky sheen.
Then Nick got up, took his leave of Marthinus (the master of the pavilion), and returned reluctantly to his own dark house.
Nineteen
Now I have to get away from this place as quickly as possible, before the hollow-cheeked man waylays me again, or another Frankenstein figure acco
sts me with a bizarre request. The worms are hungry, but I don’t have time to tarry any longer in this town. And away I go, but I’ve miscalculated. It’s some distance to the next town, and it’s hot this time of year. The worms will have to put up as best they can with the conditions. The box is on the back seat, I’ve draped a scarf over it to keep them cool. In the garden I picked a few leaves that to my mind seemed most like mulberry leaves. If I poison them with the leaves, then that’s a great pity, but at least I didn’t abandon them on some doorstep.
I drive up the coast, skirting the stinking and turbulent sea. Arrive at last at a hamlet, not much more than a main street with a garage, a few little shops, and something that looks like a general merchant. Some or other pristine holiday destination, with quaint little cottages further along, on the sea. How pretty the surroundings are, everything parched white by the sun. In a cloud of dust I pull up, spattering gravel and pebbles in my wake. I get out, see to it that the box is properly shut, I really don’t want to hunt for fugitive worms as well. Lock the car. Go into the cool store. It is nothing more than a large, virtually empty space. In one corner are a few shelves, half-empty. In the opposite corner is the counter. In the centre a wire rack with a small selection of vegetables: bunches of wilted carrots, a few onions, gem squash. A packet of apples. Behind the counter, an Oriental. If I had to guess, Chinese. He does not seem friendly.
I address him in Afrikaans, but he does not react. In English I ask him whether he has fresh leaves for silkworms. Surely the Chinese know all about silkworms. Isn’t that where they come from, and didn’t some dowager empress love her silkworm cocoons more than her subjects? It doesn’t look as if he understands. Leaves, I say, from trees, or beetroot leaves. For silkworms to eat. I perform self-feeding motions with my hand, and chewing motions with my mouth.
He doesn’t sell worms, says the man. (He pronounces it ‘wolms’.) I don’t want worms, I say, I want food for worms, silkworms. Fresh leaves. No leaves, he says. No worms. Only the items on the shelf. I’ll show you, I say. I fetch the box from the car. Place it on the counter in front of him. Open the box.
Is it my imagination, or are they already a mite smaller and darker? Food, I say, fresh leaves. For the worms. The man looks, interested. How much? he asks. No money, I say, food, about ten large leaves. He’ll give me fifteen rand for the box, he says. I don’t want to sell them, I say again. I want food for them. Leaves. He should know, I say, don’t silkworms come from China? He doesn’t come from China, he says, he comes from Benoni, Gauteng.
Outside, after the cool interior, I am blinded by the sun for a moment. Next to the steps is a black garbage bin. For a moment I consider chucking the box into the bin there and then. Or turning back and selling the worms to the Benoni Chinaman for fifteen rand. (I could perhaps negotiate a higher price.) But neither outcome would be a worthy end to the worms – beautifully fat and gleaming as Nguni cattle when they were left in my care.
Back in my car, and on my way, the enticing odour of the cold, salt sea in my nostrils. To feel the cool of the water enfolding me. Box under the arm into the sea. Deliver me from impious intentions.
*
I decide not to continue further up the coast. I’m not going to find a single mulberry or beetroot leaf on this barren and deserted West Coast. I turn back and take the R399 to Veldenburg, where I find fresh beetroot leaves for the starving worms, and from there to Frederiksbaai, where I check into the small hotel by the sea. Here I can settle, the worms gorging themselves. May God grant that they speedily transmogrify and take flight into the dark night. Now I carry on writing the monograph on the Olivier brothers.
I write: ‘The brothers have been pioneers of the stop-action film technique for twenty years. Because they work in such an individual and innovative way with the fusion of different genres: collage, stopmotion, live action and special effects, their influence on other artists is limited, and their whole oeuvre escapes the confines of a specific genre classification. Since leaving South Africa and settling in London, the brothers have made more than forty moving-image works. One of the main characteristics of their short films is the blending of the erotic, the metaphysical and the mystical. “The enchanting metaphysics of obscenity” – as their work has been referred to.’
*
It was bitterly cold, the coldest time of year. It rained incessantly. I sat in the house not knowing what to do, where to direct my attention. Everything was as cold as ash. It was like a fire that had been doused. The most vital memory was of him in his coffin. However unreal his death had been, as he lay there, that was real. At first Willem Wepener and I had stood at a respectful distance, then approached timorously. It was he, and it was not he. You had not wanted to go, because you did not want to remember him like that. Nor did you ask me about it afterwards. You did not want to know. At this time you mostly kept your head averted. I had never seen you so motionless. You were at times untouchable as a statue. I felt misery in the pit of my stomach, heavy as a stone. My kidneys were cold, my womb was cold, my sex was cold, my stomach and my liver were cold, my lungs were cold. My entrance and my exit were cold. My heart was as cold as a lump of lead. My limbs, too, were cold, my hands and my feet. My eyeballs were cold. My nose was cold and my ears. The roof of my mouth was so cold that I fancied I could feel the scar of the rectified cleft, every cicatrised stitch of it. I touched my upper lip, felt the tumid, cold ridge running to my nose, and still the tears would not come.
Twenty
Marthinus phoned Nick a few mornings later to tell him that he’d just read in the paper that a stash of stolen paintings had been discovered in Buks Verhoef’s workshop, including a Pierneef and a Tretchikoff, as well as a whole pile of other valuable stuff. Somebody found it who’d come to value Verhoef’s works. Nick said to Marthinus he mustn’t even think of saying it. Marthinus said he wasn’t saying anything. Nick said he knew what Marthinus was thinking. Marthinus said he couldn’t deny that he was intuiting something. Don’t even mention it, said Nick. Why not, asked Marthinus. Because he did not want to hear again that Victor was behind this as well, said Nick. Marthinus said right on, he wasn’t saying it. Nick said, well then, let it go. Marthinus said right on, he was letting it go. Nick said, don’t even think it. Marthinus said right on, he wasn’t thinking it. Nick said, of course he was thinking it, he couldn’t very well stop him. But he thought that Marthinus was over-interpreting – he saw Victor’s hand where in all probability it was not. Nick said he knew Victor was a schemer and a plotter, but he reckoned that Marthinus was now going too far in ascribing events to him. Marthinus said yes, Nick was probably right, he was inclined to get carried away with things.
Poor Buks. Nick still found it difficult to see the poor overweight, clumsy, apologetic, asthmatic Buks as a villain. He’d been intending to buy the house and to convert it into a private gallery. What he’d meant by that, heaven only knew. Perhaps he’d wanted somewhere to store his stolen goods – his Tretchikoffs and Pierneefs – or a place where he could peddle them. A smokescreen for his unholy transactions.
After the conversation Nick wandered from room to room in his house. In the front room, opposite his bedroom, some of the boxes were still unopened. Since Charelle had left, the house felt even emptier, less inhabited than before. A stopover. He ate here and slept here, but most of his time was spent in his studio in Woodstock, when he was not at the art school (where he actually also wanted to be as seldom as possible). Only the kitchen, that was the only room that had ever had a shred of conviviality for him, and even that only when he and Charelle had had supper there together.
*
In the same week, early one morning, Albrecht Bester, the principal of the art school, woke Nick with a phone call. A terrible disgrace had befallen the school, he said, he was afraid it could adversely affect their future numbers. One of their students had almost bled to death the previous evening in the course of some ritual. And three of their other students had also been involved, and that
with some satanic ritual, he didn’t know what he was going to tell the governing body. And the girl, he was sorry to say, was one of Nick’s students, one Karlien Meyer. Nick instantly sat up. What happened?! he asked. Ever so terrible, said Albrecht, terrible that something like that should be associated with the school. And on top of it all some of those implicated were among their most promising students. (Here Nick thought he could detect a sob in Albrecht’s voice.)
Nick asked what indicated that the ritual had some connection with satanism. Well, said Albrecht, on the scene – in the living room of the flat, no less – all kinds of objects were found. Razor blades, black candles – things that he had no idea where one would get hold of them. Perhaps from one of the Chinese shops in Bird Street. Apparently the ambulance covered her up just like that in the blood-soaked blanket on which she’d been lying and took her away. And just in time, too. How badly was she hurt? Nick enquired. Difficult to say at this stage, said Albrecht, but apparently so badly that, as he’d said, she’d almost bled to death, and in all probability would not be able to complete her course this year.
Nick thought, should he go on his knees in gratitude that he’d been released from the girl and her idiotic non-starter of a project? The wretched kid – she could have been dead! He should have discouraged her from the outset, nipped the whole damn half-baked satanistic idea in the bud right there and then. He should have known that behind that pale, expressionless countenance a multitude of unholy thoughts was brewing.
Look, said Albrecht, the two of them would have to go and see the parents. They’d have to visit the girl. As soon as possible. The father was an important donor. They couldn’t afford to lose his financial support. Was it really necessary for them both to go? asked Nick. Oh yes, said Albrecht firmly. She’d after all been Nick’s student. They had to go and demonstrate their empathy. Flowers, they’d have to take a big bouquet of flowers. She was still in hospital. As he’d said, she almost died.
The Shallows Page 13
