The Shallows Page 8

  Albrecht Bester introduced her. He was toupeed and moustached and pomaded for the occasion and wearing a satin-shimmering three-piece suit with a chevron motif. (Ordered on eBay, or bought from De Jager’s Men’s Outfitters on the corner of Andringa and Crozier Streets?) A red handkerchief roguishly peeping from the top pocket of the jacket. The toupee styled at a rakish angle. Effervescent with excitement. A grotesque travesty of godaloneknowswhat.

  He would like to say a few words before yielding the floor to the artist herself, said Albrecht. He would like to impress upon all those present here what an enormous privilege it is to host an artist of her calibre here today. (The proceedings would conclude with somebody emerging from the wings with a bunch of flowers, Nick guessed, or a basket with fruit and nuts and a bottle of choice wine.) He would like now to call upon his colleague, Rick Toerine, to say a few words about Liesa’s work, before savouring the privilege of listening to the artist herself.

  Nick took to Rick Toerine as little as to Albrecht. No, even less, because Albrecht at least had a kind of old-world vocation for the teaching and appreciation of art, but Rick was young, ambitious, unbearably pretentious, lacking in intellectual integrity, a player of the first rank who knew exactly which modish discourse to zoom in on. A narcissistic operator, very much taken with his own learning, his appearance, his position. He was wearing a pair of hip-hugging green trousers, dark-blue open-necked shirt (both impeccably cut), a belt of plaited leather. His hair was short on the sides, longish and gelled erect on top of his head. Strutting his stuff. To Nick he came across as the kind of man who would have self-designed Art Deco chairs in his home, gilded ornaments like rabbits and pineapples, and a small collection of expensive vases in old gold and turquoise. Nick felt like shit; he was over the hill, past his sell-by date. (The vases of old gold and turquoise displayed on top of a lacquered black cabinet.)

  Liesa Appelgryn’s work was a celebration of sexual politics, said Rick Toerine. This was the woman artist claiming for herself the right to reappropriate and upend the female nude. (His discourse spiked with just enough modish terms to resonate with the students.) It also channelled the politics of class, he said. The artist potentialised her own working-class background – her father drove a truck between PE and Johannesburg – to activate and problematise the detritus of a whitetrash imagination. At art school she had for the first time engaged with official canonical art when, as a young student, she had operated the slide projector during lectures to earn extra pocket money. At that stage she had not yet engaged with contemporary art. Her early student output she herself characterised as small second-hand imitations of German Expressionism. (If only she had never deviated from it, thought Nick.) But then she had suffered a major depressive episode – she was not ashamed of this (the woman nodded, laughing, in confirmation – Oh hell, let it all hang out, the dirty washing, the personal detail, it was all part of the right to be embarrassed) – reinvented herself and started channelling the work of Jeff Koons and Mike Kelley. (Her stuff alas nowhere comparable with Koons’s outrageousness and Kelley’s dark delirium, thought Nick.) That was when she gradually started to apprehend that the tasteless, the vulgar, the sexual – that it all had to be embraced. (A clever move, thought Nick.)

  Liesa Appelgryn’s work was all about edge, said Rick Toerine. Her work was about the edge between provocative and disgusting, between good and bad painting, between psychological entrapment and psychological liberation. She succeeded in keeping the surface of each work stretched to breaking point by her intelligence; with her fine apprehension of dark and light she kept company with the great tradition of Vermeer and Rembrandt; with her undermining of this tradition she claimed kinship with masters like Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami.

  This couldn’t be true, thought Nick. The man could surely not be serious. This stuff had less than fuck-all connection with the tradition of Vermeer and Rembrandt. He had no idea what the kids were making of this, whether they could make head or tail of it, since they knew as little about Vermeer as about Murakami. He should stop thinking of them as kids, they were students – young adults. A few, he noted, were on their cellphones. They all had attention deficit disorder, they couldn’t listen for more than ten minutes to a lecture or talk. But he should stop underestimating them like that. There were bound to be a few among them who were talented as well as critical. Not that he’d ever come across one.

  Now Liesa was given the floor. She’d come a long way. Shy this woman was not, she had definitively appropriated the right to embarrass herself in public. She kicked off with a personal confession that wouldn’t have been out of place at an AA meeting.

  ‘My work is like heavy personal and heavy psychological,’ said the woman. ‘Way back I was, like ordinary, you know? I had such low self-esteem I could hardly talk I panicked so about myself. Then my breakdown happened, you know? So then I was in therapy for a long time, so now I’m cool with self-exposure. Now I can handle it all, every facet of my personality, now my work is feisty, now it’s, hey, a celebration of my repressed sexual fantasies, you know?! And I think I’m speaking for all the girls here.’ (Wink-wink; minimal response from the girls in the audience.) ‘People ask me when I’m going to paint, like, men, then I say: When they grab hold of my imagination. I’m not a political artist, but I am practising the politics of class. I deal in images of women, in case you hadn’t noticed’ – she gestured at the work behind her; a few students laughed. ‘I’m not scared of painting saggy-breasted, blowsy bottle blondes. I give the middle class the middle finger sort of. All those well-kept girls with their trim bodies and unwrinkled skins.’ (The majority of the audience were in the first flush of youth, all of them clones of Karlien – trim, blonde, unwrinkled, unblemished, untouched, clothed in expensive designer-label gear.) ‘It’s the detritus of my white-trash imagination and I cherish it, where I used to be ashamed of it. I didn’t always have as much self-confidence as I have now. I had a breakdown, it made me think and think – perhaps I was ashamed of something, you know? I couldn’t paint. Therapy taught me to channel my anger and my insecurities in my work. That toxic soil of “it’s not good enough”. Nothing grows in it. So I thought: I’m going to utilise that poison as fertiliser, and not try to see painting as an exalted, sacred place in which only beautiful and elevated things happen. So then I started painting straight from the imagination, the subconscious, a huge nude, and stuffed flowers into her mouth to stop her gob hole and schemed: Hell, this is fun.’ (A stirring in the audience. A few cellphones are raised on high.) ‘Then there was no stopping me. So then I started painting these huge, overweight girls with bums and tits and these enormous bushes.’ (A tittering at the mention of tits and bushes.) ‘I was liberated, I realised it was part of me: This loudness is my strength. My message to you all – we all know that toxic poison. Utilise it as fertiliser, don’t be scared to challenge everything. Break loose. Challenge. Challenge your own preconceptions. Challenge society’s preconceptions. Challenge art, challenge the whole of art history!’

  And sure enough, when she’d finished, and Albrecht had thanked her ecstatically, a thin blonde kid came up (Nick at first thought it was Karlien), and presented Liesa with a giant bunch of flowers – an over-the-top bouquet of arum lilies and flaming red-hot pokers. After this several girls leapt up and mobbed the artist, so that their friends could take photos with their cellphones of them with Liesa Appelgryn. There was an excited giggling and huddling around the woman. Somewhere they had after all registered that they were in the presence of a celebrity, even though they did not care a fig or a fuck what had been said about her work.

  He’d done something to offend Charelle. Or else the guy who’d been stalking her had instructed her not to have anything to do with him. Despair and desolation. After the photo opportunity Liesa Appelgryn bore down upon him, embraced him, all steaming bosom and profuse, perfumed female flesh. She was so glad to see him, she’d always so much adored his work! What did she want of him, for heaven
’s sake – he was unkempt, bothered, emotionally strung out. He ventured some feeble comment on her work, but fortunately did not have to say much more, because Albrecht, arms flung wide and broadly smiling, bore down upon them. Ready to spirit Liesa away to the next phase of the proceedings – a meal somewhere on a wine farm. All the colleagues had been invited. (Nick had neglected to reply.) Was Nick coming along? asked Albrecht, a mite icily. But Nick declined the invitation, mumbled a feeble excuse. He went home, still hopeful of finding Charelle in the kitchen, making herself a cup of tea.

  *

  When he got home, after the woman’s shameless performance, there was someone waiting for him outside the gate. The person was sitting on the pavement, swaddled in a big military overcoat, his back against the wire fence.

  He jumped up when Nick arrived. ‘Help,’ he said, ‘we come in peace.’ He did not look at Nick, made no eye contact. He hadn’t shaved recently and his close-cropped hair was also starting to sprout stubble. Convict, was Nick’s first thought. ‘We come in peace,’ he said again. ‘Somebody sent us. We are not allowed to say who. It’s just our hand.’ (He held up his left hand – it was wrapped in a dirty bandage through which blood was seeping.) His leg as well (he pulled up one pants leg, a wound that did not look too good.) ‘We were sent. We’re not allowed to say by who. The devil will get us if we say. We have promised. Water, we are thirsty. We are hungry.’

  ‘Come in,’ said Nick. Against his better judgement he let the man in at the gate with him. He made him sit down on one of the stoep chairs. ‘What is your name?’ he asked. The man was sitting on the edge of the chair. He now started obsessively tapping his index finger against his upper lip. Rapidly and incessantly. ‘Our name,’ said the man. He still did not make eye contact. ‘Our name is our pride.’ The man was clearly not all there. ‘Where do you stay?’ asked Nick. ‘We stay put,’ said the man. Something weird about him. Nick couldn’t put his finger on it. The man was unkempt, and he clearly had a screw loose upstairs, but he wasn’t retarded. Something noble about his (convict’s) countenance, and his features were aristocratic. His eyes pale as a seagull’s. Nick’s first thought was that the man must have escaped from some institution. He didn’t even want to think of the implications of this. Perhaps he should summon Marthinus.

  ‘We are thirsty,’ said the man. ‘We are hungry.’ Now Nick had no choice. He couldn’t now refuse the man food and drink. He had no other option – he had to take him along to the kitchen.

  When he opened the door to the kitchen, Charelle was standing in front of the sink. Her back turned to him.

  ‘Charelle!’ he exclaimed, surprised, ‘where have you been?’

  Something had changed. She was uncommunicative. When he went to stand next to her, he noticed blood-red chafe marks on her (slender) wrists. On her left cheek a large bruise was still visible.

  He gestured at her wrist. ‘Where did that come from?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s my business,’ she said, without looking at him.

  ‘No, it isn’t!’ he said. ‘I have a right to know! I was worried. I was afraid something might have happened to you.’

  ‘I’m moving out,’ she said. ‘I’ve come to give notice.’

  He took her by the shoulders, turned her to face him. ‘Charelle, look at me!’ he said. She tugged herself free. But not before he’d seen a large scab on her brow.

  ‘Somebody hit you,’ he said.

  She said nothing.

  He ordered the man, who had remained frozen stiff in one place, to sit down at the kitchen table. (Why had he let the fucking guy in?)

  ‘Charelle,’ he said, ‘who hurt you like that? Have you had another fit?’ (Though he knew that it took much more than an epileptic fit to leave somebody looking like that.)

  She said nothing. Rinsed the cup. Put it on the drying rack.

  ‘Was it the man, the guy who threatened you?’

  She shrugged.

  Behind him the man started tapping his fingers lightly but urgently on the kitchen table, making a strange high nasal humming sound like a singing telephone pole.

  ‘Just shut up for a moment,’ he told the man. Who all of a sudden lowered his head in his arms and started wailing softly. For crying in a fucking bucket.

  ‘Charelle,’ he said, ‘please, let’s sit down. Let’s talk. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘There’s nothing to say,’ she said. ‘I’m going to pack my stuff. Desirée is coming to pick me up.’ He did not recognise her. This was not the same girl who had sat with him at the table eating and laughing and talking.

  She dried her hands on the dishcloth. Hung it up neatly. When she turned around, he involuntarily moved closer to her, but she stepped back so violently that he thought he was getting the message: Don’t touch me, stay away from me.

  He stayed behind alone with the man. He now had no choice but to make him some tea and bread, which the man devoured hungrily. Clearly famished. He sent Marthinus an SMS. He had a problem, please could he come over. No problem, he was coming right away, Marthinus replied. Nick was at his wits’ end. What should he do – try to talk to Charelle in any case? Follow her to her room? He lingered in the kitchen indecisively. He made the man some more tea and bread. At least it gave him something to do while waiting for Charelle to leave. He couldn’t believe it.

  After a while she came to stand in the door. She held out the key to him. He followed her down the passage. ‘Have I done something wrong?’ he asked. She shook her head. Opening the front door for her, he said: ‘I’ll go with you to the police. You must get protection.’ She laughed, derisively. Her reaction was so unexpected, and so obviously with the intent to hurt, that he felt deeply mortified. He walked with her to the gate. He buzzed her out. Further down the street a car was parked, must have been the turban-woman. Charelle walked up to the car, didn’t even look back once, got in. The car pulled off. She was still gazing straight ahead of her. He turned round, flabbergasted. He went into the house. His scalp felt tight and cold. And now there was a deranged stranger installed in his kitchen.

  The man was still sitting gazing in front of him fixedly.

  Shortly afterwards Marthinus buzzed. Nick was glad to see him. The man remained motionlessly gazing in front of him. Nick informed Marthinus briefly of the situation. He made tea for them. The three of them sat at the kitchen table. (Where he and Charelle had so recently still shared such convivial meals.)

  ‘Charelle was here,’ he said. ‘She’s gone. She only came to give notice.’

  Marthinus was shocked. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘She’s been assaulted,’ said Nick. ‘She didn’t want to say by whom, she doesn’t want to stay here any longer. I have no idea if it has anything to do with me. Whether she’s been targeted because she was living here.’

  ‘Let’s go and hear what Tarquin and company can tell us,’ said Marthinus. ‘Perhaps they’ll have information.’

  ‘Information of what kind?!’ Nick exclaimed. ‘It’s too late now!’

  All of a sudden the man started talking. Rapidly and totally expressionlessly he gabbled the words, like something he’d learnt by heart, while staring fixedly in front of him. ‘A thing came down from the sky – a round thing – a shiny disc – it shone like gold – spun like a wheel – it was a great wheel – it had almost like wings – we were afraid – the heavens grew dark – we tried to run away – then there was a voice – do not be afraid, it said – a man emerged – he was garbed in fire – his countenance radiated a glow – he was like a mighty ruler – he extended his hand to us – then there was a terrible noise – like unto the wings of thousands and thousands of locusts – there was a great cloud of dust – we shouted – then the sky was dark with the sound – we could see nothing for the dust – we called out again, but it was too late – we lay flat on the earth – there was blood everywhere – there was much pain, and great darkness.’

  As suddenly as he’d started, the man stopped talking.

&n
bsp; ‘Oh Lord,’ said Marthinus, leaning forward across the table to Nick. ‘Do you remember the part in The Shallows where this huge thing – something between a flying saucer and a home-made spaceship – lands in a maize field? An ambush. A helluva shooting match ensues between the occupants and the locals – a real bloodbath. At one point the bullets are compared to locusts.’

  ‘So?’ said Nick, but he knew without any doubt what Marthinus was getting at.

  ‘So,’ said Marthinus. ‘It would not surprise me one bit if Victor Schoeman were behind this little lot. Read The Shallows – it’s all there! It’s ominous. Unheimlich.’

  Nick was tired. He was upset. He did not want the man in his kitchen. He had to leave, now. He didn’t want to listen to Marthinus’ theories. He wanted to go and lie on his bed in his room. He wanted time to get over the shock of Charelle’s sudden reappearance and departure.

  ‘What do you mean, Marthinus?’ he asked wearily. Across from him the man still sat staring fixedly in front of him.

  ‘My suspicion is that Victor sent him. This man is a calling card from Victor.’

  ‘Why would he want to do that?’ Nick asked, aghast.

  ‘From an excess of unchannelled ingenuity and malice,’ said Marthinus.