He still does not look at me. He acknowledges my thanks with a single nod of the head, but his jaw remains inexorably clenched. I suddenly recall with indecent clarity the violence with which he slammed my head against the wall in the hotel room. If I hadn’t resisted, would he have inflicted even greater bodily harm on me? He hadn’t stopped even when my nose started bleeding. What precisely do I want to know from him – or just want from him? Do I want him to look me in the face and tell me, thirty years ago I took you to a hotel room, tried to ram my penis into your mouth, slapped you so that your nose bled, and knocked your head against the wall with all my might? Perhaps, I don’t know.
I go home. The sun sets in full glory. Pink and gold and all that is gaudy and over-the-top. The beauty depresses and intimidates me. The hollow-cheeked man is in town, as I feared. He is here either because he has something to do with the whole Buks Verhoef affair or because he’s following me, presumably because he thinks I know more about Verhoef’s murder than I’m letting on. Just what I need – to be followed by a fucked-up hollow-cheeked stalker and Joseph Beuys lookalike.
Twenty-five
I can feel the year relentlessly bearing down upon the winter solstice. Helter-skelter. The stolen paintings were confiscated, and then they disappeared from police storage. It’s mysterious, and I brood on it. What part is played by the disturber of the peace, and does he in fact have anything to do with it? He knew just a little too much about Buks Verhoef. He wanted to know what I know. He’s following me; somewhere he’s going to lie in wait for me. I wonder how the cocoons are faring. Three weeks, I read, for the stealthy process of transformation to run its course. Then the moth crawls out, lays her eggs and dies.
The morning sky is wide and wet. It’s grandiose. It’s sublime. It’s all of these things for the receptive of spirit. The last few nights I’ve been dreaming of the corrupter of my youth. According to report, he’s dying in another province. I was too young to do justice to the subtlety of his offensive.
The man, the hollow-cheeked stalker, won’t believe me that I know nothing. Perhaps it really isn’t chance that Buks Verhoef died in my arms. Perhaps I know something that I don’t know I know. I consider leaving town again, anything to flummox the man. But where to? Thanks to him and the Frankenstein double who left me the worms, my trip to the West Coast was prematurely cut short. For the time being I’m done with the old father. Reached a dead end. What was I thinking? I decide to lie low, until a plan of action presents itself.
*
Albrecht Bester was now sitting in Nick’s office every day bewailing his lot about the students who had been released on bail. He didn’t know whether he should permit them to attend classes again until their case was heard, because it could take months, he said, and he could under no circumstances tolerate the presence of undesirable elements at the school, but on the other hand they probably had the right to continue their studies. Oh sweet jesus he didn’t know how to deal with the situation. Thus, hand-wringingly, he sat with Nick.
One afternoon at the beginning of June, when Nick arrived home, Charelle was sitting on the stoep. She must have let herself in, she knew the code to the gate. It was bitterly cold, the first cold front of winter had arrived. The first thing Nick noticed was that her hair had been cut short. She was thin. She was tense. His heart started beating wildly. He invited her in; at first she seemed uncertain, then consented to come in. She wouldn’t stay long, she said.
In the kitchen she sat down at the table. He filled the kettle to make tea. She wasn’t going to stay long, she said again. She owed him an explanation, she said.
‘I treated you badly,’ she said. ‘You were always kind to me. I want to explain.’
His hands trembled as he placed the tray on the table and sat down. All of a sudden he knew what was coming. He feared the worst. He did not want to hear it.
He poured their tea. She told her story in a neutral voice. When she was coming back from the art school latish that Friday afternoon, a minibus stopped next to her, somebody jumped out, gagged her and pushed her into the minibus. They took her to a remote site and there the three guys took turns raping her. They’d first tied her hands behind her back with a rope. They hit her with their fists, they kicked her, they dragged her around.
She was having her period, she said, there was blood everywhere. They jeered at her because she was bleeding. They penetrated her from behind because she was bleeding. One of them must have felt sorry for her or something, because he said to the others that was enough, they had to leave before somebody found them there. Then they left in a hurry.
At first she’d just lain there. Then she’d worked her hands loose. Then she’d got up. That at least she could still do. Then she made her way to the main road. Somebody picked her up and took her to the hospital.
He wanted to say something but couldn’t. A hollow sensation in his belly.
In the beginning it was bad, she said. She couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t eat. She’d gone to stay with Desirée. She was still staying there. She hadn’t wanted to go home to her parents, because once she’d left Cape Town, she knew, she’d never come back. She dropped out of her course at the art school. She couldn’t work. She didn’t have the will to do anything. She was in therapy now. She thought it would be a long time before she was okay again. Emotionally recovered.
He asked whether she knew who it had been. No, she said, they had cloths tied over their faces. It wasn’t perhaps … But she shook her head before he could complete his sentence. Had she gone to the police, he asked. Yes, she said, for what it was worth. He called her by her name: Charelle … he said. These things happen, she said, some girls get off quite a bit worse than her. Quite a bit. That didn’t make it less terrible, he murmured. She didn’t know about that, she said. She was different, he saw. She was stricter. Less forbearing. Would she go back to art school, he asked, she did such fantastic work. He felt a fool saying it; a feeble and inappropriate remark. She shook her head. She’d not been able to take photos again yet, she said. She was going to enrol for a nursing diploma. But wasn’t that a waste of her talent! he exclaimed. Is it a waste of talent to help other people? she asked sharply. He felt reprimanded. Sick to the pit of his stomach. A weight like a rock resting on his chest.
But she was so furious, she said, so terribly furious. That they could do that to her. That she still regularly felt so terrified, so pathetic. Their aim had been to do her bodily harm and to humiliate her. They’d succeeded. She’d been so totally powerless. That was what she was so furious about. That they should have had such power over her.
He just nodded. Dumbfounded. When she’d finished her tea, she got up. She had to go. She’d just wanted to come and say. She was sorry she said nothing that day when she came to fetch her stuff. She’d not yet been able to talk then. That’s okay, he said, she shouldn’t feel bad about it. He understood. Could he give her a lift to Desirée’s? No, she was good, thanks. She could at least now use public transport again, she said, with a faint laugh. He walked her to the gate.
Just before she went out, she turned round to him for a moment, and for a few seconds they exchanged an intense, mutually beseeching look. Something welled up instantaneously and violently at the back of his throat. Tears perhaps. He wanted to hold her with this look and bind her to him. But it lasted for only a few moments, then she turned round and went out through the gate.
*
When she’d gone, he sat at the table in the kitchen for a long time. The table that he’d bought way back at an auction in Johannesburg. Isabel had liked it. It was dark by the time he got up, got into his car and drove to his studio in Woodstock.
As he went up the stairs in the feeble light to his studio on the first floor, a man was standing on the landing. In the faint light his face wasn’t clearly visible; he was wearing a cap. As Nick reached his door, the man, in one lightning-fast movement, was standing next to him, shoving him against the wall, and pressing a knife to his throat.
‘Give,’ he hissed, ‘or I cut.’ Nick smelt him, the liquor on his breath.
With a low cry he violently shoved the man away from him – he had the advantage of sobriety and greater heft – so that the man lost his balance, fell, rolled down the stairs, came to his feet nimbly when he hit the bottom, and cleared out.
Nick unlocked his studio door with trembling hands. He immediately poured himself a whisky. He sat down on a chair and looked at his current work, the large drawings on the wall. He saw that it was rubbish, what he was doing. Worthless rubbish. Isabel had been right. It was indecent, what he was doing. Indecent rubbish, all of it. She was tired of the male obsession with the pornography of violence, it gave her the shits, she’d said. Men wanting to level everything with the ground, wanting to drill and ram and fuck it into the ground. Her eyes as pale as her skin and her hair as white as flax. She’s ill, he’d thought, see what she looks like, see how pale she is, see how manically her eyes glow, how thin she is; she needs help more urgently than ever.
He drank more whisky. When he was properly inebriated, he lay down on the sofa. He woke up with the first pallid morning light shining in at the window. His first thought was of Charelle. His thoughts felt like harpies descending upon him and pecking at his eyelids. He had to go in to the art school, but he didn’t feel he could face the day.
Twenty-six
He went to work. He had a massive hangover and a throbbing headache. He was grateful that he would not have to talk to Albrecht that day. In the evening he went to have a beer with Marthinus. He couldn’t sit at home on his own, he was still too upset.
It was cold. Marthinus had made a fire. They sat in the sitting room. Nick was grateful for the warmth. Only now did he tell Marthinus about Charelle’s visit. Oh no! he said, oh Lord! It could be the girl the dreadlocks guy spoke about last time at Tarquin and company’s, he said. That was possible, said Nick. They could go and find out from Tarquin who the people were who did it, by this time they should know, or they could find out, said Marthinus.
‘Of what use would that be?!’ Nick exclaimed passionately. ‘It’s too late now! The deed’s been done! She’ll never be the same again. She doesn’t want to take photos any more. She wants to do a nursing diploma. Of all bloody things she wants to do nursing. She’s an extraordinary photographer, she’s got all the makings of a good artist, she’s got more talent and she’s more committed than just about any student at the art school. And I can tell you she’s made more sacrifices to be able to do her course than any of them.’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Marthinus. ‘Heartbreaking. Perhaps she’ll take up photography again later on.’
Nick said nothing, he thought of the way in which Charelle looked different, stressed and thin, as if she were running on her rims, as if she’d been robbed of all her softness; and of the determination with which she wanted to take up nursing, as if she were trying to throw off her old life with violence. When he thought of her, of what had happened to her, he still felt it in his body, in the region of his stomach, his heart. His heart felt as if it were being compressed between two heavy objects. He didn’t want to dwell on what had happened to her, but he couldn’t help returning to it again and again.
*
Jan Botha invited him for a beer in town. He was grateful for the invitation, because he felt the need to get away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the art school (and from Albrecht Bester’s hand-wringing agonising).
They had a drink in the bar where the Chris Kestell lookalike had followed him that day, the man who was now the suspect in the Buks Verhoef murder. Nick was still interested in Jan Botha’s job at the Salt River mortuary. Did he sometimes attend the forensic autopsies? Sometimes, said Jan Botha, when he didn’t have too many other jobs. As he’d said, things were pretty hectic there at the moment. The people couldn’t keep up. South Africa was a violent society, he needn’t tell Nick that – gunshots, stabbings, rapes, road accidents. Every year more than three thousand bodies were examined at Forensic Pathology. If you worked there, said Jan, you were very close to the pulse of the city’s violent heart.
How did he stand it? asked Nick. Oh well, said Jan Botha, it’s a job. He was used to it. He found it interesting. It was real. The kids at the art school didn’t know what real was, that was why they flirted with life-and-death games, then things went awry. Too much time and too little talent. Too much time, too much money, and bored. Most of those students were bored out of their tiny minds, said Jan Botha, so then they went looking for all kinds of cheap thrills and instant gratifications.
And did the work feed his art? asked Nick. Yes, said Jan Botha, it certainly did that. It was real. What he saw sometimes elicited a very visceral response in him – he found that important for making art, he said.
They drank their beer. Nick watched the man covertly. The warm, curly, shoulder-length hair, the eyeliner and mascara. An inscrutable guy. He wondered what Marthinus would make of him. He had no idea of Jan Botha’s sexual orientation. The man sent mixed messages – the sexy, fragrant, feminine hair, and the robust, no-nonsense macho vibe. A matter-of-fact bloke, focused, with no affectations. If he retained his focus he could turn out to be a good artist. He had the passion, the singularity of vision, the technical skill.
What was the general procedure followed after a murder? Nick asked. When they got a murder call, Jan Botha explained, the forensic police went out to collect the body. He sometimes went along. It depended whether there was anybody else to help. Forms were filled in on the spot, the Forensic Pathology Service was contacted by radio as soon as they got to the location, and again when they left. Photos were taken; he sometimes helped with that as well. The body was put into a white plastic bag on a gurney and strapped down. The gurney was wheeled back into the van. At the mortuary the body was weighed and measured as soon as it arrived, that too he often did. Then it was taken to the refrigeration room. There it stayed till the autopsy was done. The forensic pathologist then had to determine the cause of death. In most cases the violence had been committed under the influence of alcohol. The details were documented, the toxicology samples were sent away and added to the file when they returned. Only after the autopsy could the family come to identify the body. A death certificate was issued. The court case was more often than not delayed. The family could be thankful if the forensic report was ever opened. Generally the backlog was too great. Except when people had money, said Jan Botha; if they could pay, they could speed up the whole system.
On the way back to his car Nick walked past the coffee shop where Buks Verhoef was shot. He saw a man sitting in the window, reading a newspaper. His heart almost seized up with shock – the man was Victor Schoeman. He could fucking-well swear the man was none other than Victor Schoeman. He did not want to linger, in case the man looked up, but he did want to double-check. He walked past, went and stood on the stoep of the shop next door, and went back in the direction of the bar from where he’d come. Then he walked back, his head averted, but in such a way that he could catch a second glimpse of the man. It was Victor Schoeman, it was him for sure. Older, thinner, but him without a doubt. The same bony face, now even more like the older Willem Dafoe in the role of villain. Even bonier than before, his hair close-shaven on his head like that of a bloody convict.
That evening Nick went to see Marthinus to tell him. Menasse was there. They sat in the sitting room. Marthinus had once again made a fire. Marthinus and Menasse were rapt in conversation when Nick entered. Menasse was turned towards the fire, his hands on the armrests of the chair. While talking, he stared intently into the fire, as if beholding eternal verities in the glowing flames. Marthinus was sitting on a bench, his face tilted towards Menasse. Menasse was talking.
They stopped when Nick entered. Don’t interrupt your conversation, he said. He went to the kitchen, got himself a beer, and joined them in front of the fire. He didn’t want to interrupt them, but he was itching to tell Marthinus about Victor Schoeman.
He
re, in Marthinus’ sitting room, in front of the fire, he and Menasse in conversation, Nick felt safe. He thought if he hadn’t had this refuge, he’d have gone under. Menasse was wearing what he always wore – running shoes, an old pair of jeans and a windbreaker (he was dirt poor, Marthinus had said once). Marthinus was wearing sheepskin slippers, wide, high-quality tracksuit pants and a white woollen jersey that looked as if the wool had been spun by hand in Peru or on one of the Greek islands and the jersey hand-knitted somewhere. Exclusive.
Menasse said: God counts the stars, and names every one.
Lovely, said Marthinus. Lovely.
The human soul is clothed in a physical body – almost like a pupa in a cocoon – that enables the soul to function in the physical world, said Menasse. Our deeds, our speech and our thoughts could be seen as the vestments through which the soul expressed itself in this terrestrial sphere. The Shlemut referred to the non-duality of God. God consisted in Ayin – the imperceptible nothingness and complete unity, and Yesh – perceptible being, manifested in the diversity of creation. This non-duality was sometimes manifested as metziut – created being, and sometimes as non-metziut – the nothingness preceding creation. (Nick suddenly recalled the silkworms he’d kept as a child.)
Menasse had maintained the other evening that time existed before the beginning of the universe, said Marthinus, and he found that an interesting idea. He liked the idea that the beginning of the universe had not been the first beginning, but that the idea of a beginning was more complex, with endless consequences.
Menasse nodded dreamily. His gaze was still fixed on the flames, in which he no doubt saw the secrets of creation and of God’s nothingness as well as of his perfect unity with everything. Nick envied him this extensive system of truth and coherence. His own life felt as if it was fast scattering asunder.
The Shallows Page 17
