“Maybe. I don’t even know what kind of drugs they are. She took one before we left and Mom gave her one to take later. I have a feeling that she took that, too. I hope she hasn’t overdosed. I don’t like how quiet she is.”
“So we bring her to the hospital—and then what?”
“Well, she’s not going home while she’s still stoned on acid, even if the hospital says it’s okay. When we get to Cape Town, I’ll call Mom and Dad and tell them that she wants to spend the night with us. They’ll buy it. Even if they don’t, they’ll pretend to.”
By the time we got to Groote Schuur, Bethany seemed to be unconscious, but she was breathing evenly. I carried her into emergency as blood dripped from her hands and feet. The admissions nurse saw us and grabbed her phone. We were halfway to her desk when medical staff came running at us from all directions.
* * *
—
We waited for ten hours in the emergency waiting room, much of which I spent more or less asleep while Rachel read Het Achterhuis and wrote in her diary at such a frenzied pace that people stared at her as they went by. Finally, a nurse took us to Bethany’s doctor, who looked not much older than me.
“What happened?” he said. As we told him what we knew, he stared at us, his hands clasped behind his head as he leaned back in his chair. “She’s on lithium, antipsychotics and tranquilizers, and you give her LSD, a psychosis-inducing drug?” he said. “She’s lucky to be alive, given how much LSD she took. Not two tabs. More like ten.”
“We didn’t give her anything,” Rachel said. “Someone else did. It doesn’t matter who.”
“You drove the car. There are ways of getting an invalid out of the house that don’t involve drug pushers and tours of black townships.”
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said. The doctor nodded and glared at me as if I was the person responsible.
“God knows why, but she hasn’t had a miscarriage,” he said. “She’s been inoculated for tetanus and typhus because of the lacerations on her hands and feet. She’s come down from the LSD. She’s telling us what she told us before and then retracted. Making accusations. I don’t believe her, but—”
“You still think she believes what she’s saying?”
“I think she’s still psychotic.”
“Why don’t you believe her?”
He shook his head. “Too complicated to go into. I didn’t want to discharge her before, but I was overruled. Not this time. My older colleagues agree with me that she’s likely suicidal, so she’s staying here unless someone reliable comes forward into whose care we can discharge her. That clearly isn’t you two. And given her accusations, it isn’t her parents. It isn’t her fiancé and his parents, either, because they’re too close to the van Houts.”
He pointed at Rachel. “She’s been asking to see you. Just you. Are you up to it? You look exhausted. More so than him.” He nodded at me.
“I’m fine,” Rachel said. “I do want to see her. But I have to phone my parents and her fiancé and tell them something.” He nodded.
* * *
—
Rachel phoned her parents and Clive and told them that Bethany had readmitted herself and that the doctors recommended that she have no visitors until she said she was ready for them. When she got off the phone, she told me that Clive had asked no questions. “In fact, he didn’t say much more than hello and goodbye. And my parents—Dad said, ‘Very well,’ and passed the phone to Mom. And Mom said, ‘I’m sure the doctors know best.’ ”
“Does anything get them upset?”
“For now, let’s concentrate on Bethany. I’ll come get you after I see her. I’ll tell the doctor she said it was okay.”
Rachel took me to her about an hour later—it was about seven in the morning. Bethany lay in the hospital bed, eyes closed. Her hands were bandaged and lay limply on the blankets. When she opened her eyes and saw me, she shrugged. “Welcome to my second home.”
She sat up in bed with the help of a nurse. I told her I was sorry that the day had turned out the way it had. “Don’t be sorry,” she said, glancing at Rachel. “I’m the one who took the acid. I pulled the two of you into all of this. I spilled the beans on Dad and let a lot of other people clean them up. And then I changed my mind and expected everyone to understand. Well, now I’m changing it back, for good. Dad did what I said he did, and Mom not only knew all along, she helped him, shielded him, made excuses for him. She was, she is, his one-woman alibi. Anyway, I want out of their house and out of my engagement. If I marry Clive, I will die. If I don’t marry him, he won’t die. He’ll be pretty broken up, but he won’t die. I want this baby. I want out of daughterhood. So I’ve asked Gloria and Max if I can live in their house when I’m released, and they’ve said yes.”
“You said before that they’d side with your mom and dad,” I said.
“They are siding with Mom and Dad. But the doctor spoke to Gloria and convinced her that, whatever the truth is, it’s better that I not be around our parents, at least for now. Once they take me in—well, I’m not leaving there until they kick me out. Maybe they won’t. It might not be so bad, having my baby in the Porn Palace of the Twelve Apostles.”
“How do you know all those other things you told Gloria about Dad?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t blame Gloria for telling you about that,” she said. “Remember, Clive and I have been corresponding since 1975. He told me things he overheard his parents say. You’d think that even Clive would have more sense than to repeat such things in a letter that Mom and Dad might intercept or find in my room, but, well, Clive was even more Clive-like back then. Peter drinks when he’s at home, when it’s just the three of them. Clive says he’s a closet alcoholic. When he drinks, he goes on about anything and everything. I don’t think Clive told anyone but me. In his letters, he tried to make out that it was funny that Dad told so many lies to get ahead. Peter said Dad was never really in the Dutch Resistance. And Dad got into trouble with some first-year student, a girl at the University of Cape Town. I never got the rights of it, but the university paid the student’s family to hush things up and made a deal with Dad that, if he left without a fuss, they would recommend him to another institution in another Commonwealth country. And that, my dears, is how we all came to move to Canada. Oh, and Clive said that Dad plagiarized parts of his master’s thesis. He stole them from a graduate student and bragged about it to Peter when they met up in Amsterdam one year.”
I looked at Rachel, whose expression was blank, eyes downcast.
“Do you still have any of Clive’s letters?” I said.
“Nooo,” Bethany said. “I destroyed them lest they fall into the wrong hands. My word is not good enough for you?”
I shrugged. I suspected that she was telling us half of what Clive had told her and that he had made up or misremembered half of that.
“Anyway, Doc says he’ll release me into Gloria’s care the day after tomorrow—he says he likes the sound of me living with a sister who has no vices. I didn’t touch that one. I am a mess, and it’s going to be a while before I’m not a mess. I hate being so helpless, so needy and dependent. So melodramatic. I hated having to say to Gloria that, without her help, I’d die.”
“You can’t keep forcing people to do things by threatening to kill yourself, explicitly or otherwise,” I said.
“I wish I was as virtuous as you think you are, Wade, or as strong as Rachel. Call it self-pity if you want, but I think I’ve been through a lot more than the two of you. So, here we are—I’m the one who’s in the nuthouse. Gloria and Carmen and Rachel—I don’t know about them. Maybe Dad did just pick on me. Easier to keep a lid on one daughter than on four? Lucky me. I don’t know what will become of them, Carmen especially. No one in South Africa is free. No one thinks it matters if you tell the truth, or even if you know the truth. The truth is whatever it suits you to pretend it is, whatever
you can get away with pretending it is. I know I’m the pot calling the kettle black. And yet I plan to live here for my baby’s sake, because Max has money and I haven’t got a cent. Isn’t that heroic? Clive and Peter and Theresa won’t like me much. Mom and Dad, well, it’s not like I haven’t accused them in the past, to no effect. I’d disown them if I could, turn my back on them forever, but nothing less than a restraining order would stop them from keeping up appearances. Going forward, I’ll just have to make sure that I’m never alone with him. When we’re alone, I can’t say no to him. That’s a fact that almost no one understands, so I don’t expect you to.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “How could you stand to be in his company, even with other people around?”
“Don’t judge me, Wade,” Bethany said. “Clean Wade, from the pure white north. Unlike you, I don’t have a lot of options.”
“You need to rest, Bethany,” Rachel said. “We all do. You might change your mind about some things when you’re feeling better.”
* * *
—
“I want to confront them. Mom and Dad. I want to confront them.”
It was mid-evening and Rachel had just finished writing in her diary. She’d sat sideways on the sofa for two hours, writing and then crossing out what she wrote until her pen tore the paper to pieces. She dropped her notebook onto the floor. “All these accusations and I’ve never looked Dad in the eye and asked him if they were true. Or Mom. None of us have. Bethany spoke to them on the phone. And retracted on the phone. I’ll write to them, get it all down on paper, and then we’ll make a date to go see them. I’ll tell them about the beach and what Bethany told us when she was in hospital. I have to do this or I’ll always wish I had. I’ll write to them and dare them to meet me face to face. If I tried to say everything in person, they’d interrupt me and I’d get nothing said. Mom will tell Dad not to agree to it, but he will—I know he will. He won’t want it to look like he backed down from me.”
I was greatly taken with the idea of confronting the van Houts at last, of putting aside all delicacy and discretion and having it out with them.
A few days later, we met them in the house on Liesbeek Road. We knocked but there was no answer, so we let ourselves in. It was four in the afternoon. Hans and Myra were in the front room, standing side by side, dressed as if they were about to leave for some special occasion, Hans in a new-looking grey suit, white shirt and blue tie, his black shoes gleaming, Myra in a long, green, belted dress and high heels, her short, thick hair arranged just so.
“Right, then,” Hans said, clapping his hands, then putting them in the pockets of his slacks. He looked at Rachel. “So. So you have something to say to me?”
“I said everything I had to say in the letter,” Rachel said. “You should have something to say to me.”
“This is absurd, Rachel,” Myra said. “Taking LSD while she’s pregnant—no wonder Bethany is making more empty accusations. She’ll marry Clive and have her baby, and the three of them, with everyone’s help, will do the best they can.” She tilted her head and smiled as if to say she understood Rachel’s misplaced loyalty to her older sister and even admired her for it, but there were limits.
“She is very ill,” Hans said.
“All of your daughters are ill,” Rachel said. “Look at Gloria. Married four times by the age of twenty-five. Carmen is a heroin addict. Bethany is anorexic, depressed and suicidal. I’m writing and reading myself to death.”
“But, Rachel,” Myra said, “those are all different things. We can’t be to blame for all of them.”
“Why not? What does it matter that they’re different? What does that have to do with anything? Just because Dad might have done the same things to all of us doesn’t mean we should all react the same way.”
“I did nothing to you,” Hans said, pointing at her. “You were a virgin until you met this fellow. You told your mother. Bethany says it started when she was a toddler. Do you think I have nothing between my legs?” He grabbed his crotch with one hand.
“You—” I started, but he shouted at me. “You have no say in this. You are not part of this family.”
“There are many other things you could have done to us,” Rachel said, “things that leave no mark of the physical kind.”
“Might have done,” Hans said. “Could have done. Ridiculous. I have no idea what sort of filth you mean. Anyone might have done anything. As for Gloria, Carmen and Bethany, when it comes to virginity, we know how they lost theirs, because, like you, they told their mother about it.”
Myra nodded.
“You’re acting like a selfish and ungrateful daughter,” Hans said.
Rachel took two steps toward her father. “The Resistance,” she said. “You were never in the Resistance. You were never a war hero. The university got rid of you to save its reputation. You molested that student and used portions of student papers in your thesis. You got into so much trouble that, at the age of forty-three, you had to uproot us all and take us to another country. What should I be grateful for?”
“What proof do you have of any of this?”
“Clive told her things that Peter said—”
“Third-hand gossip. I will not be held responsible for what I am accused of by mentally unstable young women and the limp-wristed son of a weekend drunkard like Peter DeVries.”
“Have you lied for so long, both of you, that you don’t know how to tell the truth about anything? Mom, why did you always tell us not to mention the Resistance when Dad is around because it would only bring back unbearable memories of the girls our age that he tried to save but couldn’t, girls like me and Gloria and Carmen and Bethany that he risked his life for, girls like Anne Frank—”
“Anne Frank?” Hans said, forcing a laugh. “She never existed. That diary that you’re obsessed with is a forgery. Propaganda. The Jews, the goddamn Jews, made her up so that people would feel as sorry for them as they feel for themselves, the gentle, peace-loving, money-grubbing Jews. Look at him, your boyfriend, look at him and tell him that I laid a hand on you. LOOK AT HIM AND TELL HIM WHAT I DID TO YOU, TO YOU.”
Tears streamed down Rachel’s cheeks but she didn’t look at me. She stared at her father.
“There, you see? You can’t tell him because there’s nothing to tell. I never touched my daughters, but what if I had? You are my daughters. I can do anything I want with you.”
I lunged for him but Rachel grabbed my arm. “I have to do this,” she said. “He wants to provoke you. Then it will seem like you were in the wrong.”
I shook free of her but stayed put.
“Mom,” Rachel said. “Please tell the truth. Please. Is any of what Bethany is saying true?”
“We speak with one voice,” Myra said, taking Hans by the hand.
“I could easily hide behind an excuse,” Hans said. “I could say, ‘What was I supposed to do? Four young women parading naked around the house.’ I suppose your boyfriend thinks he wouldn’t be tempted. I’ve seen the way he looks at Gloria. He’d be tempted. Tits and ass everywhere I looked. But I didn’t lay a hand on a single one of you. No one gives you credit for crimes you might have done but didn’t do.” He pointed at me. “You can’t stand the idea that anyone had her but you. That’s what this is all about.”
“Or maybe,” I said, “you can’t stand the idea that anyone had your daughters but you?”
“Your proof?” he said. When I didn’t answer, he laughed. “Now look,” Hans said, turning to Rachel. “I’ve answered all your questions. We’ll forget this ever happened. So. Where are we going for dinner?”
“Dinner?” Rachel said. “Where are we going for dinner?”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“You have planted lies in her head,” Hans said, pointing at me. “She believes everything you say. She thinks you’re the only man on the planet with a penis. She would
n’t believe Bethany’s lies if not for you, or put any store by what Peter says when he’s drunk, or should I say, what Clive claims Peter says when he’s drunk. You’ve poisoned her mind against us. If what Bethany says is true, why haven’t Gloria or Carmen accused me of something?”
“Maybe they will,” I said.
“Bethany will change her mind again,” Hans said.
Myra nodded. “Time will prove us right. Bethany will come back to us and so will you. Soon, I’m sure. You both value family above all else. Clive, the poor dear, will take her back again. Her baby won’t be fatherless or grow up without grandparents.”
“I could have given up and died like so many others did during the war,” Hans said to Rachel. “You owe your life to me. I ask again, who is Anne Frank to you? Have you ever met anyone who met Anne Frank? You spend your time writing in a language no one else can read, making up imaginary characters like her. You prefer that to the truth. Death is nothing when it happens in a book. Wait until you meet it face to face.”
He pointed again at me. “I betrayed Anne Frank, boy. I phoned the Gestapo. I got sixty guilders for those Jews, seven and a half for each one. I did it. Do you believe me?”
“No, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe a word you say.”
“Look at her. She believes me.”
Rachel fled the house, sobbing. I ran after her, through the front door, which she had left open. She was already in the car. I just had time enough to climb in before she floored it in reverse, the rear tires spinning on the gravel, the Citroën barely missing the van Houts’ front steps and the rusting Ford Cortina, which she sprayed with stones.
“Rachel, slow down,” I said as she dodged the giant yellow tree fern, working the wheel as if she thought her father might come running after her at any second. She pulled out of the driveway and onto Liesbeek Road. “He was only baiting you about Anne Frank. Surely you know that.”
“I guess that visit wasn’t such a good idea,” she said, her tone eerily flat.
The Mystery of Right and Wrong Page 34
