She follows the direction of his voice to an old family crypt with peeling white paint, not in the grandest part of the graveyard, with neither angels nor statues, but still strikingly large and dignified. Several generations of Amats have been buried here since the nineteenth century she sees when she shoves her reading glasses onto her nose and starts trying to decipher the names and dates on the gravestones.
‘Luisá Amat Lorenzo.’ Ruben gestures towards a black marble tile with gilded letters that are already starting to fade. ‘Born 26 August 1955. Died 14 July 1996.’
‘Dead on Bastille Day,’ Theresa whispers, afraid her voice might break if she spoke any louder. ‘Although I don’t suppose you celebrate that here?’
‘Our revolution has different dates.’
‘She wasn’t even forty-one yet.’
‘And here is her sister.’ Ruben points to a marble tile next to Luisá’s. ‘Ramira Amat Lorenzo, born 1950, died 2002.’
‘Also barely fifty. The Amat women seem to die young.’
Her heart contracts as she says this. Because it means that by now Luisá’s daughter is older than her mother was when she died. It means that Mercedes could also be dead by now. That is something she doesn’t dare think about now.
‘Not all of them.’ Ruben points to another marble tile a little further on. ‘This must be the mother of Luisá and Ramira. Clara Lorenzo Rios, died in 2004, when she was already long in her eighties.’
‘Ruben!’ She grabs onto his arm as if to prevent herself from falling when her eyes light on another marble tile just above Luisá’s name. The letters on this one are almost illegible, faint black on dull grey, but she can just make out the name.
She has to take a step closer to read the dates as well: ‘Angel Perez Gonzalez. Born 10 February 1955. Died 12 December 1975.’ Her voice is hoarse with emotion.
Even Ruben looks a little overcome as he nods slowly. ‘This is the Angel we are looking for.’
‘But why would he be buried with her family?’
‘His family did not have their own crypt, perhaps? Benita did say the Amats were a well-off family …’
‘Do you think his remains were brought back here from Angola? Or perhaps there was nothing left to bring back … Maybe he was never even buried; maybe it’s just his name that was added here so at least something remained of him somewhere. What do you think, Ruben?’
Ruben places an enormous hand on her shoulder to calm her down, to stem this tide of unanswerable questions. ‘I truly do not know, Theresa.’
‘But at least it means that Luisá didn’t stay angry with him right up to the end, doesn’t it? It means she wanted to be buried alongside him? Or at any rate wanted to see her name next to his in the same cemetery!’
Ruben says no more, just leaves his hand on her shoulder
‘I don’t know why it seems so important to me that she didn’t stay angry with him. He was so terribly young. He only did what he thought he had to. And then he died.’
She takes off her glasses and looks away so Ruben can’t see that she has started crying again. She longs to run away, just bolt in among the graves, find shelter behind some marble angel so this stranger beside her doesn’t have to witness the spectacle of a crying woman. But he has wrapped his arm around her shaking shoulders, and it feels so damn comforting that she stays right there, silently crying for a dead soldier and his dead wife she would so dearly have wanted to meet.
16. JAWS
The rancho where they spend the night is the size of a farm, with long, ugly, squat buildings that remind Theresa of boarding schools on the South African platteland. Among the other guests, apparently all tour groups, there’s a party of exuberant American teenagers on a school outing, which only reinforces the boarding school atmosphere. Especially when, after dinner on her way back to her room at the far end of a deserted corridor, Theresa encounters two teachers who are efficiently sealing the doors of the children’s rooms from the outside with yellow tape that looks like the tape police use to secure crime scenes.
At least in the seventies, when she was young, teenagers weren’t sealed inside their rooms on school tours, she remembers with a wave of retrospective gratitude. Does this mean that children nowadays are more wayward and daring – or just that the teachers have become more cunning? It is indeed a clever way to keep the children safe, away from the thumping disco music on the dance floor next to the swimming pool, but without endangering their lives should an emergency arise and they have to evacuate their rooms in a hurry.
But if the children are smarter than their teachers, and in her experience this is often the case, they most likely will have brought along their own supply of yellow tape. And if someone like her teenage friend Lynette happened to be in one of those rooms, they would all sneak out tonight and bribe a Cuban waiter or some other youth to reseal the doors from the outside before tomorrow morning. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Lynette would have led the whole lot down to the beach behind the holiday resort to drink or smoke or kiss in the dark.
Certainly not to dance beside the swimming pool. There is every sign that later on this evening the dance floor is going to become a geriatric battleground.
The other tour groups are comprised mostly of retirees – and although several of them probably aren’t that much older than Theresa, they all strike her as a good deal more desperate. Bald and grizzled British and German men who seem to spend the entire day hanging around the outdoor bar between the swimming pool and the dance floor. Women with wrinkled leathery skin and cocktails and cigarettes seated alone at tables, pretending to read paperback romances, but in fact surveying the available men at the bar. With the sort of dogged optimism that again reminds Theresa of her teenage years. Of her and Lynette at the Stilbaai Hotel.
Tourists at a watering hole scouting for wildlife.
Heaven help her if forty years on she sat waiting once again, with a cocktail and a cigarette, for a male creature to notice her.
Exiting the dining room, she scoots past the hopeful women as if they have a contagious disease.
Fortunately the dance music that has been playing since early evening, tinny international pop and irritating electronic sounds, does not tempt her to dance. On the contrary, she wants to get away from here as soon as possible and as far as possible.
But how is she supposed to while away the evening in this strange version of a boarding school room with its hideous floral curtains and slippery nylon-ish bedspread? Ruben hadn’t joined her for dinner. On the way to the dining hall she’d caught sight of him walking quickly through the entrance, freshly dressed in white pants and white shirt with the unmistakable panama hat on his head, on his way to the Plymouth parked a short distance away. The clean clothes and evident haste had made her suspect he had scored a date with the voluptuous Benita Madrigal Rosabal.
She was disappointed when she realised she would have to eat alone, and angry with herself for being disappointed – after all, she was used to eating on her own, she’d been doing it for years – and finally even cross with Ruben because he had somehow left her with the impression that she would not be eating alone tonight.
The thumping bass sounds of the dance music next to the swimming pool reach all the way to her room at the end of the long corridor. She leafs through the Cuban guidebook she bought in Havana, but the music is so annoying that it’s impossible to concentrate on anything. And when she closes the window to muffle the sound, the room becomes unbearably stuffy.
After an hour, she is so sweaty and irritated that she grabs a towel and heads down to the sandy beach behind the holiday resort. Not to swim, necessarily, just to escape from the hot room. And perhaps also because she can, she decides as she passes the sealed doors of the American teenagers. Because her own room hasn’t been sealed off like a crime scene. There are at least some advantages to growing old.
She can’t remember when last she swam in the sea at night – and of course she’d disregarded Nini’s advice abou
t packing a swimming costume. (‘I know, I know, you’re going on a mission, but you’ll be sorry if you don’t take your swimsuit.’)
As usual Nini had been right.
On the beach she kicks off her sandals and walks to the water’s edge. The shallow waves lap around her bare feet, surprisingly warm. So much more pleasant than the icy seawater she’s used to at Clifton or Bloubergstrand or on the West Coast. These days she seldom goes near Stilbaai or any of the other Southern Cape coastal towns where she holidayed as a child and young adult, where the water is at least a few degrees warmer. Those weeks-long holidays at the seaside belong to the distant past.
When she was young, ordinary middle-class Afrikaners could still afford swimming pools and holiday homes. These days you have to be wealthy, or else you prefer to spend your savings on a four-wheel drive so you can undertake adventures to unknown destinations. Or you try to travel abroad once in a while. Another option that is becoming more and more difficult as the rand continues to weaken.
Slowly she walks deeper into the water, until the small waves are breaking over her calves.
In the summer of 1975, she and Lynette wouldn’t have dreamed of venturing into the sea after dark. Even in daylight they rarely swam, preferred to lie on the crowded beach tanning in their new bikinis. It was the year Steven Spielberg’s Jaws hit the world’s silver screens.
Lynette’s naughty little brothers delighted in standing on the beach yelling ‘Hi!’ at each other – and then watching crowds of terrified swimmers rush out of the water because the greeting sounded the same as the Afrikaans word for a shark. Until one day Lynette’s strict father tore his slip-slop from his foot and gave them a hiding right there in front of everyone.
For Theresa the most bloodcurdling part of the movie was the opening scene in which a girl swims naked at night and an invisible shark starts to whip her around playfully, to the beat of a passage of ballet music, until she suddenly disappears under the water.
Whoosh, and she is gone.
For years afterwards, Theresa was too scared to venture into any ocean after sunset.
But there surely can’t be sharks in this sea, glittering under the almost full moon, still as a lake. And she is no longer that miserable teenager who was scared of everything, from sharks and teachers to sex and cocktails.
She pulls her dress over her head and sends it flying towards the towel on the beach behind her. So here she is, standing in the sea in her underwear. No one can see her. The small beach is deserted and the water looks inviting, and if she’s brave enough to swim in her underwear, she may as well swim in the nude. She unclasps her white cotton bra, quickly, in case her courage fails her, climbs out of her cotton panties, tosses the little bundle onto the towel as well, and runs into the water, laughing.
Just like that young girl in Jaws.
No, she decides when she comes up for air, like a ‘free fucking woman’, if Antjie Krog won’t mind. Shameless with euphoria, she flips onto her back and floats in the moonlight for a long time, arms and legs spread wide, her nipples hard from pleasure.
What on earth would Nini say if she knew?
Fifteen minutes later she is sitting on the beach, shivering, the too-small hotel towel wrapped around her naked body, the euphoria somewhat faded, but still proud of her bravery. And for the first time since her divorce twenty years ago, she recalls her first – and until tonight her only – naked moonlight swim in the sea. Or rather, it’s the first time she allows herself to remember it, because that was with Theo in the late eighties, when they were madly in love.
Shortly before he proposed.
It was during a road trip along the Southern and Eastern Cape coastline and through the Transkei, a very pleasant detour on the way to Pretoria and the flat where Theo’s widowed mother lived alone. The moment they arrived, nothing would be pleasant any more. But while they were still on their extended journey, Theresa had no idea of what lay ahead. That the old holier-than-thou Pretoria tannie would decide at first glance that her future daughter-in-law was a capricious flirt from whose claws she should rescue her son. That she would insist that her son sleep on the couch in the living room, not with his girlfriend in the only guestroom, that this would lead to a furious argument between mother and son, that Theo would grab Theresa’s hand and drag her out the front door to book them both into a cheap hotel.
‘I can’t believe this is how you treat the woman I want to marry, Ma!’ were the last words at her before he slammed the door behind him.
In the lift – which back then was always spotless and in perfect working order – Theresa stared at Theo, astonished.
‘Do you want to get married?’ Her voice was weak from shock.
‘Of course. Don’t you?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose so. Yes. I think I do.’ She caught sight of her startled face in the mirror inside the lift, her nose peeling from too much sun, her long blonde hair still snarled up from the sea water, and she started giggling helplessly. ‘I would just have liked a more romantic marriage proposal …’
He went down on one knee, his palm held open towards her. ‘Will you marry me, Marais?’
Before she could answer, the lift doors glided open. Two barefoot little girls, who’d been waiting right outside the doors, stared at them wide-eyed.
Theo got to his feet with a sheepish grin and the children held on tightly to each other’s hands as they carefully shuffled into the lift. Theresa could still not stop giggling.
But she never officially said yes.
And he always maintained that she was the one who had asked him. After all, that first baffled ‘Do you want to get married?’ had come from her mouth. Didn’t matter who asked whom, she told herself later, a marriage proposal in a lift in Pretoria didn’t really count.
Skinny-dipping under a half-moon off a deserted beach on the Transkei coast is fortunately a more romantic memory. They had both had a bit too much to drink, just enough to allay fears of sharks or dangerous currents or midnight drownings, but not enough to venture in too deep or too recklessly.
They splashed around in the shallow waves and ran out of the water hand in hand and collapsed onto the sand and tried to dry each other with their discarded items of clothing. They hadn’t brought their towels along on the walk from their small tent to the beach. They hadn’t planned to swim. It had all happened spontaneously. The drying business inevitably ended up in arousal and they made love right there on the beach, their damp bodies soon covered in a layer of sand like food dipped in flour before being fried. There was sand in their ears and between their fingers and eventually even on their tongues, but it didn’t stop them, nothing could stop them. The pounding of the waves – so much more powerful than the lapping of these small Cuban waves – drowned out every sound except their laboured breathing. It was one of the best orgasms they ever reached together. Or ever would reach.
But of course that wasn’t something they knew that night.
It had probably been the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning? No wonder she never wanted to be reminded of it before.
When at last they were pulling their clothes onto their sticky, sandy bodies, she confessed that she had always been too scared to swim in the sea at night.
‘Do you remember the summer of Jaws?’ she asked. ‘Nineteen-seventy-five?’ He didn’t answer. Laughing, she continued, idiot that she was: ‘That movie ruined the sea for me at night. For the rest of my life, I thought. Until tonight.’
She looked at him enquiringly when he still said nothing, just kept gazing at the dark sea and the rolling waves.
‘Theo?’
‘That summer I was in the army. On the border. Where there were no sharks.’
His voice sounded muffled, as if he were talking through a piece of fabric, and when he turned to face her, there was a look in his eyes that she would never forget. Like a curtain that was ripped open to show you a black hole of which you’d been blissfully ignorant. And then pulled back
into place just as fast, so you immediately started to wonder if it had simply been your imagination.
That was Theresa’s hope in the days and weeks and months that followed, because she had no idea how to deal with a man who concealed such a black hole inside him. She already knew back then that she would always be drawn to wounded birds with deep dark souls. But not that dark. Fuck knows, not that deep.
That night on the Transkei beach she just flung her arm around his shoulders and leaned her head against his neck. She couldn’t think of a single comforting word. She hadn’t been there. What could she say?
17. BROKEN TOYS
When Theresa walks into the dining hall, Ruben is already seated at a table, tucking into an enormous breakfast. Not exactly what she would call a morning meal. His plate is filled with everything from rice and meat to salads, but she remembers Oreste’s playful remark about why Cubans liked buffet meals so much, and decides not to comment.
She quickly goes to pour herself a cup of pitch-black coffee, grabs a bowl of fresh fruit salad from the buffet counter, and plonks herself down next to him, bursting with curiosity. He’s looking mighty pleased with himself while he chews.
‘You’re in a good mood?’ she hints.
‘I had a very successful evening,’ he says, when he finally stops chewing. ‘I phoned Benita.’
‘Benita Madrigal Rosabal?’ The teasing note in her voice is supposed to hide her consternation. She’d been under the impression that it was Benita who was the hunter in this story. The horny huntress. She is instantly ashamed of her condescending attitude. ‘Glad to hear you were successful.’
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