by Paul Twivy
‘How could she?’
‘What do you mean, Freddie? She’s our housekeeper and Clara was happily watching a film in the next room.’
‘Except she wasn’t!’
‘Erva thought she heard a noise. She stopped ironing and came in to find Clara gone. The patio doors were open.’
‘My God, she might have been kidnapped. Have you called the police?’
‘Dad’s speaking to them now in the dining room. They came almost immediately. Of course, she hasn’t been kidnapped.’
‘Mum, how can you say that? She’s the daughter of the British High Commissioner. These things happen to diplomats. You know that!’
This awful possibility had already been injected into Anne’s mind and had started to spread like a virus. She wasn’t, however, going to admit that to Freddie. She knew how suggestible he was, a victim of his own vivid imagination.
‘Freddie, please check your phone to see if she’s been in touch.’
Freddie checked his WhatsApp. Clara had been desperately upset that they had not included her on the ‘Four Teenagers of the Apocalypse’ group. They told her that there weren’t ‘Five Teenagers of the Apocalypse’. The real reason though was obvious to all: that she was simply too young, and too prone to leaking stuff to Mum and Dad. So, Freddie had set up a two-person group for Clara and himself, called the ‘World Wilde Web’, in tribute to their name. He told her it was ‘much more exclusive’, which she had grudgingly accepted.
The number five appeared in white out of a blue circle next to their Group. He’d never been so pleased to see a number there. Normally, rising numbers felt like FOMO or a pressure to reply.
He opened it and put Anne on speakerphone.
‘Mum, there is something.’
‘Oh, thank God. What does she say?’
Freddie speed-read her long, excited paragraphs.
‘She says that she went to an amazing display of meteorites with their Geography teacher today. Blah, blah. Meteorite the size of a bus entered our atmosphere. Etcetera, etcetera… Captain Alexander was the first person to have them examined and isn’t that amazing as a coincidence? Blah! She ends by saying that she’s desperate to see shooting stars and that she’s the only one in her class who hasn’t seen them yet.’
‘None of that really helps,’ Anne replied despondently.
‘It does, Mum. She’ll have gone out somewhere to try to see them. I know Clara. That’s exactly what she’s done.’
‘The question is where though Freddie. WHERE!!!!???’
Anne couldn’t be the well-mannered diplomat’s wife, or the sanguine doctor, anymore. She could only at this moment, be defined as the mother of a lost child and she needed to scream.
Freddie stared in despair at his phone. The sound of his mother’s pain went through him like a blade. He suddenly had a brainwave. He switched the speaker off on his phone and put it to his ear.
‘Mum listen to me, I know how to find her. Did you put her ‘i-phone’ on Family Sharing?’
‘What do you mean?’ Anne said trying to disentangle her thoughts.
‘The ‘Find my i-phone’ app. Did you register Clara’s mobile on it?’
‘Yes, yes I did,’ Anne shouted in gratitude at Freddie throwing her a lifebuoy. ‘For once, I do want her to have taken her bloody phone!’
When they found Clara, she was sitting, oblivious to all panic, on the lawns at Zoo Park, gazing hopefully up at the skies.
It was only nine-thirty in the evening when they found her. To Clara it seemed like seven o’clock and still not her bedtime. It felt the darkest hour before dawn to everyone else. Ubuntu had found Freddie sobbing in his dorm and drove him to join his parents at the park where the mapping app had located her to within ten feet.
The police were soon dispatched with warm thanks and handshakes and went back to the station in an unexpected mood of happiness. Rarely did missing child episodes end well.
Clara was overwhelmed as the tearful members of her family embraced her, telling her to never leave the house again like that.
She looked into Anne’s face beaming and said ‘I’ve seen four of them, Mummy. Four shooting stars in one night.’
11
Hunting
It was around the table by the fireplace of the Reading Room that so much had happened between the three of them. It felt like hallowed ground. Secrets had been traded; summary judgements made on teachers and fellow pupils; Instagram’s created and shared. They had played Poker, Pontoon and Bridge with matchsticks borrowed from the kitchens as betting chips. It was here that ‘Namib’ had been created, their own language including signs and clicks. The last of these often ended in hysterical laughter at their tongue-twisted nonsense.
Sometimes, other boarders would try to lay claim to their territory. Standing over them, spraying sarcastic or threatening remarks would usually move them on. If they were younger of course, they could be shooed away like flies. Yet, occasionally, older boarders would settle down with a misjudged sense of entitlement. Then the strategy would be to draw up chairs alongside them and talk about the time a rat had scurried down the chimney and up their trouser leg. Bribery with items from the tuck-shop also worked. As a last resort, Hannah would offer to help with an English essay or Joe with an algebra challenge.
They had abandoned the fireplace more recently in favour of the Science Lab where, piece by piece, they filled up their noticeboard with the results of their investigations. Tonight, Joe and Hannah reclaimed their hallowed spot to meet with Sarah and Ben, who were coming to discuss the trip to Twyfelfontein.
Sarah had spent the afternoon meeting her opposite number at the Augustineum: to exchange notes and ideas on their special-needs students. So, they had seized on the opportunity to meet. Ben, tipped up, predictably late, from the University. Normally, parents were only allowed to visit at weekends, but they had special dispensation from the Headmaster to help with the Science Project. Besides which, anything to do with his beloved Twyfelfontein always bewitched Ubuntu.
‘Did you bring the cake?’ Hannah asked Sarah, as if her life depended on it.
‘Yes, coffee and walnut as requested,’ Sarah answered, laughing at her daughter’s intensity and handing over the tin.
Hannah grabbed the tin, lifted the lid and inhaled the smell of home baking with a satisfied sigh.
‘Did you bring anything, Dad?’ Joe asked, knowing the answer before it was delivered.
‘No, I’m sorry, Joe. I forgot. Next time, next time…’ Ben muttered, looking down at his empty hands.
Joe nodded in that sad way that young people greet repeated failings in their parents.
‘So, when do we head for the caves?’ Hannah asked, filling the tense silence that threatened to balloon.
‘Twyfelfontein,’ Ben intoned reverently.
‘Dubious or doubtful spring?’ Sarah enquired. Her German was decidedly rusty. She looked to Ben for certainty on the translation.
‘“Doubtful” is probably closer,’ Ben replied.
‘The story is that it was named after a German farmer who bought the land and was constantly worried about the water supply failing,’ Joe explained. Ben smiled quietly to himself at being relieved of his duties.
‘I’ve been researching it since we spotted the link with the map,’ Joe added.
‘Apparently, there are over 5,000 engravings,’ Hannah added. ‘So, how on earth are we going to find Alexander’s clues?’
‘If I always thought about the odds, I wouldn’t embark on most of my digs,’ Ben answered. ‘We can start by discarding those engravings that are graffiti, copies or too faint to distinguish. Also, there are two or three different periods of engravings. The earliest were done by the hunter-gatherers five or six thousand years ago. They are mainly of animals.’
‘Aren’t some of those part-human?’ Hanna
h asked.
‘Yes…’ Ben answered, admiring her quiet self-possession and the kind of curiosity he had always encouraged in his sons. He cast a glance over at Joe who was also looking at her admiringly. He wondered if anything more than friendship was growing between them. Joe stared back at his father, defying scrutiny.
‘Yes, what?’ Sarah asked, breaking into Ben’s silent enquiry.
‘For a long time, it’s been assumed that, somehow, they were just keeping records of animals, or using the drawings to teach their children how to hunt.’
‘And now?’ Joe asked.
‘Now it’s thought that many of the more fantastical animals are taken from dreams…dreams that the priests had when they entered the spirit world.’
‘There’s something else of course…’ a voice boomed out, echoing around the fireplace. Jacob Ubuntu had been drawn to the tight and intense group in the corner of the Reading Room, especially as, unusually, it included two parents. Parents were always a magnet for him, both for his own stimulation, and to protect the income of the school.
On seeing the Headmaster, they all stood up. He was warmed by their respect.
‘Please, please sit down,’ he said, shaking Sarah and Ben’s hands. ‘Would you mind if I joined you?’
‘Of course not, we’d be honoured,’ Sarah smiled. Joe and Hannah didn’t feel as comfortable. Somehow Ubuntu’s presence felt like control.
Ubuntu continued, his strong arms resting on the table, gently but emphatically, like a Sphinx.
‘Hunter gathering has been misunderstood. Mr Kaplan, I would be interested to know if you concur. The animals were never just food. It wasn’t just about eating to survive. There was a bond between the hunter and the animal. The animals sacrificed themselves to pass on the blood and energy of their life. This is why the engravings and paintings in the caves are not just representation. They are a kind of worship of the animals that gave their lives.’
A silence fell over the other four as Ubuntu’s words drew new wisdom in their minds. Hannah and Joe were too daunted by the presence of both parents and their Headmaster to respond.
Ben was feeling slightly displaced, and even a little shallow, in the presence of Ubuntu, a sapling next to an oak. He felt the need to grow a little.
‘The later drawings are by herdsmen and they were often not of animals,’ Ben added. ‘Many of them are geometric patterns. We think these might depict the position of herds. But no one knows.’
Joe’s interest was sparked by the mention of patterns just as Hannah’s spluttered out, like a candle at the end of its wick.
‘What kind of patterns?’ Joe asked.
‘Patterns that no one has deciphered. That’s part of the reason I wanted your help Sarah. You’ve studied hieroglyphics and semiotics. Perhaps, there’s some detectable pattern, some symbolism in the shapes, that you could help me decode.’
Sarah who had been leaning back in her chair enjoying the role of audience member, leaned forward and joined them in the front row of their enthusiasm.
‘Something did occur to me the other day,’ she responded. ‘I noticed that when people write Khoisan languages down, they represent the clicking noises with strokes and symbols.’
‘We do indeed,’ Ubuntu said. ‘I explained this very thing to your children recently.’
‘Supposing then, these shapes and symbols on the cave walls are a kind of language, an alphabet.’
‘Do you have any photographs of them, Dad?’ Joe asked with feverish excitement.
‘I have some, yes,’ Ben replied. ‘I wanted to show you, Sarah. They may not be the best, but…’
He opened a plastic folder and flicked through a selection of images.
‘Here…’ He pushed two or three across the table towards Sarah and Joe.
Ubuntu remained respectfully silent, diplomatically knowing when to take a back seat whilst parents drove a conversation.
‘What are you thinking, Joe?’ Hannah asked.
‘I am wondering,’ he replied, ‘if the cave engravers were trying to crack the same problem as us, and how long ago that might be.’
‘Which problem?’ Sarah asked.
‘Trying to decipher a series of circles in extraordinary patterns…’
Ubuntu believed that all his pupils should visit the townships and villages around Windhoek: to see how most Namibians lived. He felt it gave them a vivid understanding of poverty and hardship and a yardstick by which to measure their own privilege.
Joe, Hannah and Freddie’s year visited one such township. They started at the local quarry where people laboured with not much more than their hands for tools, in the full sun, for less than a dollar a day.
Their backs ached in sympathy, their minds couldn’t conceive of the soul-sapping tedium of these chores. They would have felt guiltier if they hadn’t been so shocked.
A woman of eighty sat, legs stretched out in front of her, her feet wrapped in rags to protect them. She hammered rocks on a rusted, metal pedestal that acted as a makeshift anvil. She embraced her task with a weary familiarity and a certain pride at her skill. Her look seemed to say ‘What else would I do? What else do I know?’ without it ever being said. Her patient smile, haunted Hannah for many nights afterwards.
Later, they moved to a market which assaulted every sense in their bodies and a few more they didn’t even know they had. On the fresh fish stalls, the women waved shredded cloths at the end of stubby, wooden handles: they used them as swats to keep the flies off. Their hands moved erratically, without being looked at, almost as if they were not part of their bodies.
On the dried fish counters, the carcasses stretched out far and wide, their backs arched with desiccation, their mouths open as if still trying to take one last breath. The stench was indescribable.
The Augustineum pupils shuffled along in disbelief. There were dishes piled high with caterpillars and grubs of various colours and textures, interspersed with tiny, dried anchovies that looked insect-like by association. Rock salt dotted the stalls like punctuation marks.
Jericho Andjaba, who had been assigned this field trip, enjoyed their horrified looks.
‘This is one of our staple diets. Caterpillars and grubs are first class protein. The future of our planet may rely on them. Anyone want to try?’
‘You’ve got to be joking, sir,’ Joe responded.
‘And please don’t tell us they taste like chicken,’ Freddie added.
‘No, sir, that’s what they always say about anything revolting,’ Hannah chimed.
‘No-one want to try? OK, then I will,’ Jericho said relishing the challenge and knowing the ashy texture would soon be washed away by his soda.
There were howls of protest.
‘No, sir, please don’t.’
‘They’re disgusting, sir!’
But before their words had even faded on the air, Andjaba had popped two caterpillars into his mouth. He chewed hesitantly at first, then munched vigorously with comic exaggeration, making his eyes bulge.
Everyone fell about laughing and then howled in disgust as the twitch of his Adam’s Apple indicated a swallow.
They continued to patrol the market. There were so many carcasses of fish and animals that even the vegetables seemed to take on animal forms. Sun-dried tomatoes lay on their backs like severed crab claws. Cabbages lolled on to each other like brains. Small, round onions popped out from under lettuces like eyeballs.
‘You see these?’ Andjaba asked, picking up a dusty, plastic bag with milky-white slabs that resembled ‘Turkish Delight’ frosted with icing sugar. ‘These are actually, pebbles. Now, why would anyone buy these?’
‘They don’t, by the looks of it, sir,’ Freddie said. ‘That’s why there are so many, left.’
‘Very funny, Wilde. Ever the class jester.’
‘I aim to please sir!’
‘These pebbles are bought by pregnant women. They suck them for the iron. Very important for the baby’s health.’
Hannah had a flashback to the small, dark-red iron tablets her mother had taken when pregnant with her sister. They seemed so synthetic and sophisticated by comparison to these white stones. In the end, of course, they had proved useless.
They left the market, picking up the bikes they had used to get to the village from school. As they cycled around a corner, a group of children surrounded them. They were aged from about five to ten, overflowing with excitement. They swamped them like the sea racing up a beach. Some, of them sat on their crossbar’s without being asked, some rang their bells, giggling.
Many were desperate to have their photos taken by the pupils’ mobile phones, demanding to see the pictures immediately afterwards.
‘They’re too poor to have mirrors,’ Andjaba explained. ‘That’s why they are so desperate to see themselves. They are people without reflections, except in puddles.’
This set Hannah thinking about whether life was better without mirrors. Perhaps you could feel happier about yourself if you could only judge your appearance by the way people reacted to you. On the other hand, this might make you more vulnerable. It might be better to at least have some reality from the mirror on which to peg your self-esteem.
All the children were dressed in second-hand, Western clothes: T-shirts and sweatshirts with the over-designed names and clever slogans of American and British fashion brands: products for whom they were an unwitting poster, but with which they otherwise had no connection.
‘They call them “Dead Man’s White Clothes,”’ Andjaba said, noticing them read the labels. ‘We get tons and tons of donated clothes from America and Europe.’
Some of the children wanted to tell them their names. They asked their names back in return, giggling at the strangeness of them. Many of them touched the foreigners’ pale white skin as if it were mother-of-pearl. Hannah, Freddie and Joe had never felt exotic before. They smiled at each other. They felt both special and ashamed. Their worries seemed so indulgent in the face of such poverty. The noise of laughter and surprise rose to a crescendo, like a flock of birds gathering for a migration.