The Shallows Read online

  Behind the vegetable garden was the orchard.

  ‘Everything here used to be much more chaotic,’ said Marthinus. ‘Less regulated. The founder had previously taken in more or less anybody in need – although mainly orphans and homeless people. He laid out the original vegetable garden and planted the trees. It was an admirable project but it started getting out of hand eventually. Hygienically it left a lot to be desired. The kitchen was apparently so dirty that the Department of Health was scared the plague would break out here. The inhabitants started fighting amongst each other. The dogs proliferated. The pigs wandered about in the neighbourhood. Nobody cared for the gardens any more. The orphans formed roaming gangs. They shat on suburban sidewalks. The Department of Welfare received complaints from all over.’

  At the very top of the hill the road swerved to the right. (Nick was struggling up the hill, he was unfit, he hadn’t exercised for a long time.) For the last few days it had been good and hot again during the day. In front of them were five bunker-like buildings.

  ‘Arms depots during the British military occupation of the Cape,’ said Marthinus. ‘The man was an artist. An artist and a founding father! He used the bunkers as installation spaces. Now that sure as hell was something to witness,’ he said, shaking his head and whistling softly through his teeth. ‘Oh Lord. It was ground-breaking, it was way out. Five separate spaces and each with a different theme. But dark, make no mistake. A merciless onslaught on established Afrikaner cultural values.’

  ‘What became of him?’ asked Nick.

  ‘I’m not sure. Look, that man was a pioneer, and restless. He got bored with the whole project. He got fed-up with battling the Department. The whole neighbourhood. He had every department and body and bourgeois interest group constantly at his throat. The logistics demanded too much of his time and energy. The animals and the people started irritating him. He was most definitely humanitarian and philanthropic, but he also knew how to look after his own interests. He may have started feeling that all the demands on him were driving him into a corner. So he left this place. From one day to the next. Handed over the whole project just like that to someone else. Who knows – perhaps he founded something else somewhere else. A man with vision. Needed a new challenge. A complex fellow, all in all, even though I didn’t know him very well.’

  Nick was listening with half an ear, worried about where Marthinus was taking him.

  ‘The man who took over from him,’ said Marthinus, ‘has a totally different approach. Good organiser, orderly mind-set. Possibly too orderly, but good. A kind of reformer – one of your missionary types. I suspect he’s planning a kind of utopia here – his idea of an ideal society. But it’s one thing planning something like that, and another making it work. Oh Lord, you’ll see. The man has no idea as yet of what he’s up against. There are forces at work here that won’t be thwarted by any utopian visions. Perhaps we’ll come across the man. A kind of Albert Schweitzer incarnation.’ And he laughed pleasantly.

  Nick was no longer quite sure what all this had to do with Charelle’s disappearance.

  ‘Come,’ said Marthinus, ‘I’ll show you inside the spaces.’ From one of them came the sound of a little children’s choir. What they were singing sounded like something between ‘This old man’ and ‘Shosholoza’.

  ‘Preschool children are now being looked after while their parents are at work,’ he said. ‘Previously they roamed around here and in the neighbourhood like stray dogs. Now they start each day with a balanced breakfast.’

  Nick was tired and impatient. He didn’t want to see the spaces either from the inside or the outside. He now wanted to make contact with whoever might be able to provide information about Charelle.

  ‘The new man,’ said Marthinus, ‘got rid of an almighty pile of rubbish. Do you feel like meeting him? He may be somewhere around here. Otherwise we can arrange something. As I’ve said, he’s also a friend of Alfons’. We’ll invite him for a beer. Although he may well not even drink beer!’ And he laughed. How unquenchably the man exuded enthusiasm and a sense of fun. Godaloneknows. The last thing on earth Nick wanted now was to meet this reformer – not now and not in the foreseeable future – whatever the scope and nature of his utopian dream or project.

  ‘Let’s move on,’ he said. ‘Some other time perhaps.’

  ‘For sure, for sure,’ said Marthinus. ‘We’ll make an appointment with the man sometime so he can show us around personally.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Nick.

  ‘Come,’ said Marthinus. And he struck out along a small footpath to the left of the bunkers, until they reached a sturdy wire fence some distance along. They had by now climbed one of the slopes. He whistled. Shouted something in Xhosa. A man appeared from behind one of the low slopes and came up to them. They walked along the fence for a distance, up to a gap in the fence, artfully concealed with branches, which the man moved aside so that they could climb through.

  ‘Do you come here often?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Yes,’ said Marthinus. ‘A while ago I had my eye on someone here.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Nick.

  ‘A woman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Suffered terrible hardships to get as far as this. On foot through war-torn regions.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ asked Nick.

  ‘She’s gone to Johannesburg to be trained as a lawyer’s clerk. She’d had to interrupt her studies when she fled here. She’d considered her options carefully. She’s a principled woman of sound judgement.’

  ‘I see,’ said Nick.

  They’d in the meantime trudged a good distance up the slope, and when they were halfway to the top they looked down on what looked suspiciously like a small informal settlement, in a basin between two slopes. Not visible from further down. A laager of shelters. A variety of materials had been used to cobble together these tent-like structures – thick sheets of cardboard, planks, fibreboard, canvas, although mainly plastic and branches, which the people had probably scavenged from all over. Higher up, against the slope, it even looked as if shelters had been dug out, the entrances covered with plastic bags. Discreet wisps of smoke. A subdued atmosphere prevailed here.

  ‘These are the people, you understand,’ said Marthinus, ‘who live with their ear to the ground. They know everything that happens down there in the city. They’re in touch with people living like rats in cement tunnels under the city. In culverts under roads and bridges. This place gets bigger by the day. But the people are careful. They keep a low profile. Some of them only emerge at night. Supervigilant. If they’re caught, they’re deported. Back to former homelands and internment camps.’ He laughed. ‘Oh Lord,’ he said. ‘But who’s going to stem the flow?!’

  ‘I get the picture,’ said Nick.

  They walked towards a relatively solid little corrugated iron structure. Outside, seated in the sun on an old car seat, were two men.

  ‘Nick, meet Messrs Tarquin Molteno and Junius X,’ Marthinus said.

  Nick considered going forward to shake hands, then thought better of it. Tarquin was picking his teeth with a match. His forearms were tattooed, he was wearing a thick gold chain around his neck and a signet ring on his little finger. His hair was short and gelled up straight. Small chin tucked deep into the folds of the neck. Fleshy gills. Neat pair of jeans. Dark glasses. Fancy sneakers. Cool customers, thought Nick. Perhaps drug lords. Fuck knew.

  Tarquin gestured towards two plastic garden chairs. Marthinus dragged them up. He and Nick sat down. An audience, Nick thought. He could smell himself, he was sweating like a pig, from the walking and the tension. He hoped the two of them couldn’t smell him. It could make a bad impression. Marthinus, by contrast, seemed not fazed in the least. He lit a cigarette, exhaled the smoke at his leisure, admired the view, which indeed was quite something from this height. In front of them all of Table Bay lay stretched out. Under different circumstances one could have admired the breathtaking view.

  For a short while they sat in compan
ionable silence. There was an uncomfortable prickling under Nick’s armpits. Not his idea of an afternoon’s entertainment. Alfresco with the mafia. Convivial. He took a deep breath, tried unsuccessfully to enjoy the view, and hoped for the fucking best.

  Tarquin called over his shoulder and a girl came out. She didn’t look much older than fifteen. Tight jeans and big earrings. Tarquin signalled something with his head. She went back inside and re-emerged shortly afterwards with a tray, a bottle and four glasses. Pour, Tarquin indicated. Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Nick was on the point of suggesting that it was too early in the day for whisky, but he caught Marthinus’ eye and something in his glance told him you don’t turn down this drink. The girl poured briskly. Tarquin and Junius X knocked back theirs virtually in one gulp. Nick was scared that if he tried it he’d throw up. Not a good start to any negotiations.

  ‘What’s your problem?’ asked Tarquin.

  Marthinus said, ‘My friend Nick’s lodger has been missing for several days now. We want to know if you know of any missing or abducted girls in the area.’

  ‘Stacks of ’em,’ said Tarquin. ‘So what’s so special ’bout this one?’

  They all looked at Nick, who was sitting with the half a glass of whisky in his hand, and the sun blazing down on his head, and a fucking blank as big as a house suddenly hitting him.

  ‘She’s an epileptic,’ he said.

  ‘So?’ said Tarquin. ‘Stacks of ’em too. Ep’leptics and worse.’

  ‘She’s renting a room from me and I feel responsible for her safety,’ said Nick. (All of a sudden he felt like a big white bourgeois cunt. Ridiculous.)

  ‘What’s her name?’ asked Tarquin. ‘Anything to ID her with?’

  What was she wearing the last time he saw her? What should he say: soft skin, slender brown wrists? They’d shit themselves laughing at him.

  He cleared his throat: ‘Her name is Charelle Koopman,’ he said, ‘she’s a student at the art school in town,’ and he gestured in an indeterminate direction with his head. ‘She takes photos. She’s smallish with …’ he indicated with his hands, ‘dark hair, curly.’ (Prick, he thought, couldn’t he think – what coloured girl is going to have straight blonde hair?)

  Tarquin’s face was expressionless behind the dark glasses. Over his shoulder he summoned the girl again. ‘You!’ he ordered. ‘You go call Blackie.’ Away she went, weaving fleet as a gazelle through the shelters.

  Tarquin checked his cellphone. They sat. Nick drained his whisky. Jesus, the stuff scorched his stomach and had already gone to his head. Soon afterwards the girl emerged from among the tents with someone. An albino with snow-white dreadlocks.

  Tarquin hardly looked up from his cellphone. ‘Any casualties this weekend,’ he said, ‘rapes and mutilations and abductions and so?’

  A girl was raped down in Strand Street – first strangled with the hands and then with a wire hanger and thrown on a rubbish dump, the albino said in a flat, expressionless voice. The rest of his inventory was also delivered with no show of emotion. A girl’s decomposed body was found in the Liesbeek there where the road makes a bend near the highway. At Bellville station a girl was raped and robbed and left for dead. A student from the university was ambushed and robbed and raped and kicked. Two children were abducted there by the flats in Clarke Estate. The cops haven’t found anything yet. A man shot his girlfriend dead in Riverlea. A girl was gang-raped in Bishop Lavis. Two children were murdered in Lansdowne. Two high school girls have gone missing in Khayelitsha, the cops reckon it’s the satanists sitting behind it. One child was raped in Delft South and set on fire and another child was raped when she used the communal toilets nearby her house. A child was shot dead when he landed in the crossfire of two gangs. Three other laities from the one gang were shot dead by the other gang and one car was set on fire in Bishops and two houses in Delft South when some of the gang went to hide out there.

  Nick wanted to hear no more. The fucking sun, the fucking whisky, and now this gruesome fucking list. Marthinus was regarding him sympathetically. A reply was probably expected from him. He didn’t know, he said, he couldn’t tell.

  Audience over. Tarquin and associates would keep an eye open. Down again went Nick and Marthinus. Down the steep mountainside. Through the settlement or whatever it was called. Utopian experimental farm. Back to the coolness of Marthinus’ house.

  ‘Come watch a few DVDs with us tomorrow evening,’ Marthinus invited him. ‘It will distract you.’

  Nick didn’t want to. He did not want to be distracted.

  Ten

  At four o’clock in the afternoon I report to the retirement village. (A luxury resort, it must cost a tidy sum to live here.) The iron gates swing open, I am admitted. The resort is on the edge of town, the surroundings are beautiful. The housekeeper-cum-secretary receives me. If, like most people, she is slightly wrong-footed by my appearance, she hides it well. I do, though, note that her gaze (like most people’s) lingers a fraction too long on my unsightly lip scar. She introduces herself as Miss De Jongh. So no first names. By no means a uniform and sensible shoes – a full-blown décolletage, with imposing breasts. Little low-necked black top, tight black jeans. (Would that meet with the professor’s approval – wouldn’t he prefer her in a demure uniform?) And a raving bottle blonde. Did you ever. If she’s a mite taken aback, so am I.

  She conducts me to the stoep overlooking a lush fynbos garden. Professor Emeritus Olivier is seated in a wheelchair, with a rug over his knees. His back is turned to us. When he greets me, he shows no sign of recognition. And why would he, it was almost thirty years ago. His cranium is bonier than ever, without the softening effect of hair, of which he never had an abundance. I don’t want to stare too much and too unguardedly. He indicates with a broad, yellow-pale hand (affliction of the liver?) he wants to be wheeled down to the garden. It’s a fine day, bright, not too hot. The woman rearranges the rug. She pushes the wheelchair, I walk behind them. No chance now of any conversation. Down the winding pathway, through beds of fynbos and fragrant shrubs, up to a large pond. He indicates that he wants to stop here. We are standing on the paved edge of the pond, actually more of a dam. Big koi immediately come swimming up. One in particular remains floating near the edge, fairly close to the surface. Standing there, gazing at the fish, the professor and Miss De Jongh and I. What a bizarre apparition, seen at close quarters. Bright red, with two protrusions on either side of the mouth and something, I notice, like a blue membrane over the eyes. Could the fish be blind? The mouth, as it opens and shuts, has something obscenely sexual about it. Is it a coded message from the old father? An oblique reference to our sexual escapade almost thirty years ago?

  ‘Did the twins ever keep fish?’ I ask (to start somewhere).

  ‘No,’ says the old father (without turning his head in my direction), ‘no fish. Dogs, yes.’

  ‘What did they like playing with as children?’

  Olivier waits a while before replying. He’s obviously not going to make it easy for me. Miss De Jongh kicks the brake firmly into place, sits down on a bench a short distance away, thrusts out her legs in front of her and lights a cigarette. Very cool and casual, and old father does not object.

  ‘Just what healthy, normal boys usually occupy themselves with,’ he says.

  ‘And that is?’ I ask.

  ‘They read, cycled around, climbed trees, played ball,’ he says (irritated?), ‘took part in sport. In fact, they were very gifted in that direction.’

  ‘Did they like reading comic strips?’

  ‘Within limits,’ he says. (These limits, I suspect, were of his paternal edict.)

  ‘I assume they were fond of drawing?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  (Should I lean forward, my mouth to his ear, and whisper: I know what you’re capable of. I haven’t forgotten. Quickly and nonchalantly, before the blonde notices a thing?)

  ‘What did they draw?’ I ask.

  He makes an impatient gesture. ‘Anything. Anim
als. Aeroplanes. What do you call them – superheroes.’

  ‘As children, did they attend puppet shows?’

  ‘I took them once or twice.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where their fascination with puppetry came from?’ I ask.

  ‘That you’ll have to ask them,’ he says.

  ‘And do you still have regular contact with them?’ I ask.

  The man hesitates a moment before saying: ‘They are busy. They have a high international profile. But they faithfully send me catalogues of each of their exhibitions.’

  Then he extends his hand wordlessly in Miss De Jongh’s direction, who gets to her feet, produces a small plastic dish from somewhere in his wheelchair and hands it to him. Now he starts feeding the koi. The obscene mouth of the fish appears above the surface at rapid intervals, gobbling at the food. I stand watching in fascination and revulsion. The interview hasn’t exactly got off to a flying start. The old father could hardly have been less cooperative. I ask another question or two, but they’re not really to my purpose. Before long he makes another hand gesture in the woman’s direction. She steps on her cigarette end, gets up, kick-releases the brake, and I get the impression the interview is over. Not once did the old man look at me. Or give any sign of recognition.

  *

  I carry on working at the monograph. When I try to make another appointment, Miss De Jongh alleges that Professor Olivier is in bed with a severe flu. I don’t believe a word of it, but I don’t give up that easily. I still have quite a few questions I want to ask him. Why should I let him off the hook so easily?

  Eleven

  Thursday morning, and Charelle had still not returned. It had now been five days since her disappearance. That is to say, if she had really disappeared, and hadn’t just left to live elsewhere without notifying him. But all her stuff was still in her room. He’d checked and rechecked. All her clothes and underwear and shoes were still there, as far as he could judge. He phoned the academy of art, but at first they refused to provide any information about their students. Even to him, her landlord, as he patiently explained to them. Even if she were his lodger, they stuck to their guns. Her parents’ address, then. Nothing, no information. When he phoned again (he’d persist until they capitulated), the secretary said – half unwillingly – that one of the lecturers had said the student in question had not been to class since the beginning of the week. This made Nick sick with worry. Perhaps he should go to the police after all.