An Unquiet Place

by Clare Houston

  Karl turned back to Hannah. ‘We call this the “Ou Huis”. It was my mother’s after I got married.’ He took a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door, stepping back onto the stoep. ‘I’m afraid it’s been mostly shut up since she died. Esme can’t stand, what she calls, the old lady smell, and I just don’t know where to begin or what to do with all the old stuff.’ He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

  Sarah patted him on the arm. ‘Don’t worry, I probably know this little house better than you do. We’ll be fine.’

  Karl smiled at her. ‘Ma certainly loved you. I think when you brought Neil home that holiday, all sorts of plans went up in smoke. For both our mothers.’

  Sarah smacked her palm on his arm. ‘A good thing I did, then! We would’ve bickered each other to death.’

  Karl laughed and raised one brow suggestively. ‘I don’t know about that – we used to agree you had the finest legs in Leliehoek.’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘Don’t listen to a word he says, Hannah. He’s always teased me relentlessly.’ She turned her back on him and went into the house, leaving Karl grinning on the stoep.

  ‘I’ll send over some tea for you,’ he said and walked away, the buoyancy in his step disappearing as he approached the main house. How hard his life must be now, alone, with a wife like Esme, thought Hannah.

  The Ou Huis was neat inside but completely still. An abandoned atmosphere had settled there. Hannah felt the emptiness, as if this house longed to have someone living in it, loving it. It was furnished with old, heavy furniture, upholstered in brown velveteen. Each chair had a white-lace doily set neatly over the back. Ornaments crowded a glass-fronted cabinet and a book case was filled with red bound Reader’s Digest books and Christian devotionals. Sarah called from the next room. The bedroom was furnished simply with a high single bed and a large wardrobe reflected in the wings of a glass-topped dressing table. Photographs crowded there, narrow white-and-gilt-scrolled frames leant on cardboard stands. Hannah picked up a wedding picture. The couple stood on the steps of the Dutch Reformed church in town. The bride’s smiling face was crowned with a fifties-style veil falling below her lace-covered shoulders.

  ‘Who is this, Sarah?’

  Sarah, crouching in front of a smaller book case, squinted up at the photograph. ‘Oh, that’s Gisela and Bryant, Karl’s parents.’

  ‘She was gorgeous. Like, film-star gorgeous,’ said Hannah, peering at the beaming couple.

  Sarah smiled. ‘And still beautiful in her eighties. Marilie resembled her.’

  Hannah replaced the frame and noticed, at the back of the collection, another photograph. She picked it up and studied another couple. Alistair and Marilie. For the first time, Hannah saw how lovely Marilie had been. Petite with blonde hair pulled smoothly back into a short ponytail. She was dressed in riding gear, a smart black jacket, and cream jodhpurs, and she held the bridle of her horse. She kissed the side of its head where a large rosette had been attached to its bridle. A bright ribbon medal hung around her neck. Alistair stood behind her, large in comparison, and he was looking at Marilie. His unspoilt mouth smiled at his wife, but there was something else in his expression – a sadness or longing Hannah couldn’t quite interpret.

  Sarah had pulled out three heavy, leather-bound photo albums. She staggered to her feet and glanced at the frame in Hannah’s hands.

  ‘There she is. Beautiful. Talented. And completely in love with that horse. I loved her like my own daughter, but she held herself away. From everybody, except that horse. You know she made the Olympic showjumping team? She died a few months before the Games.’ Sarah shook her head and carried the albums to a round table in the living room. ‘Come on, let’s see what we can find in these.’

  Hannah returned the photograph to its place, with one last glance at the man, who, even then, seemed to be injured.

  Each album had a metal clasp on the side. Thick board pages held two photographs back to back on each side of the page. Sprays of flowers curled on each corner, sketched and painted delicately in watercolours. Someone had written captions below some photographs – small, faint pencil names and dates. Hannah began paging through the first, peering at the names. ‘These are mostly De Jagers,’ she said to Sarah who was looking at another album.

  ‘That would be Bryant’s family, Karl’s father. And this album seems to be the Van Rensbergs. Karl’s paternal granny was a Van Rensberg.’

  Hannah kept on going, checking each picture, and then pushed the book away, sighing. The last of the three albums was plainer than the others, but the first page made her heart jump. A man sat in a spindled chair, dressed in a black suit. A white flower was pinned on his lapel. His serious face looked out at the camera. Standing slightly behind him, a young woman had her hand placed on his shoulder. Her light dress had long fitted sleeves to her wrists and a high neck. The waist seemed so cinched, she held her breath tight and high. A pale, pretty face looked away from the camera. The pencil named the couple Danie Petrus and Aletta Badenhorst. Married 1880.

  ‘This is it, Sarah!’

  Sarah scooted her chair closer to Hannah. On the next page, an older couple sat, their chairs angled towards each other. Jakob and Anna Badenhorst. The man’s bushy white beard, full and neatly clipped, reached his chest. He didn’t smile but his eyes looked soft somehow, as if he were about to smile. His wife was more severe, with dark hair parted unforgivingly down the centre of her scalp and pulled back tightly off her face. She sat upright in her chair, her black high-necked dress stiff and formal. ‘The diary speaks of Oupa Jakob and Ouma Anna – this must be them.’

  Hannah felt she should open her eyes as widely as possible to believe what she was seeing. Quickly turning the page, she found a family portrait. The two couples, slightly older than on the previous pages, were seated on chairs in the foreground. On one side stood a boy, tall and strong, his young face tanned and smooth. He stared into the distance past the camera. A baby sat alongside him, on Aletta’s lap. A frilly white smock covered tiny feet as the child peered at the camera, fine blonde hair curling in wisps. This portrait was set outdoors and, peering closely, Hannah recognised the white trellises, similar to the ones outside this very room. Hannah read aloud, ‘The Badenhorsts, 1891. This is the family, Sarah,’ whispered Hannah, poring over the picture, trying to absorb every detail. ‘These are the people she writes about.’

  ‘So who is who?’ said Sarah, leaning forwards. ‘This is taken nine years before war breaks out.’

  ‘I would say these are Rachel’s parents, Danie and Aletta,’ Hannah said, pointing to the younger couple. ‘This older couple would be Oupa Jakob and Ouma Anna. The boy would be Wolf, which would make the baby Rachel? I think she fitted between Wolf and the rest.’

  They turned the page and found two more photographs of the family. On the left, a formal shot of the men and two boys, one an older Wolf. The men were seated, with the boys on either side. All were wearing slouch hats and held rifles at their sides. The facing page held a picture of two small girls. One stood, her dark hair wild and curly, escaping the confines of an enormous bow that sat crooked at the back of her head. Her fine-featured face was exquisitely fair, with large dark eyes set beneath fine brows. She had bunched up her dress on one side to reveal buttoned boots. The other girl was a toddler, seated on the floor with a white smock spread around her and a painted wooden dolly clutched in her arms. The next page was empty and, through the frame, they could read on the back of the previous picture, Kristina en Elizabeth, 1898. ‘These are the two youngest, Rachel’s sisters,’ said Hannah. ‘I wonder if the missing picture was of Rachel. There’s one of the boys and one of the girls, and then this gap. Why is nothing simple, Sarah?’

  The last photograph was a wedding portrait of Wolf and Corlie, taken ten years later. Wolf’s face was hardened, his eyes shadowed. He stood stiffly with his hand resting on a high-backed chair. His new wife perched on the chair. White-lace sleeves reached smooth, pale forearms, and her hands
held a posy of white flowers. Her fair hair was piled on her head which she held firmly set. It was her face that struck Hannah: she was pretty, but something around the mouth spoke of determination, a slight petulance which made Hannah feel a touch of sympathy for Wolf.

  ‘Gosh, but this is solemn for a wedding picture,’ said Sarah, echoing Hannah’s thoughts. ‘I know they weren’t supposed to smile, but they hardly look the blushing new couple.’

  ‘They were tough times, I suppose,’ said Hannah, leaning back in her chair. ‘Seven years after the war, trying to make a new start, rebuilding your home and farm. They would have been scraping an existence together.’

  ‘And probably both traumatised,’ added Sarah. She turned the page, but there were no more photos, the board pages empty, just frames with vacant holes that sank to the back of the album. ‘I wonder what happened to this family.’

  Hannah was opening the drawers below the display cabinet when they were both startled by a knock at the door. She stood guiltily. A woman dressed in a neatly pressed blue-and-white uniform, brought in a tray which she set on the table.

  Sarah jumped up and grasped the woman’s hands. ‘Lena, it’s been such a long time since I was here. I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Sarah, things are bad here.’

  Sarah’s eyes softened in sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry, Lena.’

  ‘There are no visitors any more, and I worry for Mr Karl. The madam is angry all the time. Shouting for me, shouting for Mr Karl …’ Lena shook her head.

  Sarah jogged their hands up and down to draw Lena’s eyes to hers. ‘Why don’t you come home? There will always be a place for you there.’

  ‘I can’t leave Mr Karl. No new girl will stay a single day with her. At least I know how things go in the house. I know what he likes to eat. I look after Mr Karl.’

  Sarah pulled her into a hug. ‘Karl is lucky to have you.’

  When Lena had left, Sarah poured tea and helped herself to a square of moist coconut cake. ‘Poor Lena. I don’t know what to do. Esme is so brittle, so thorny; nobody can get near her. She refuses to see any therapist, won’t consider medication. And she seems to be getting worse as time goes on, not better.’ She sipped her tea and stared out the window over the garden. ‘And, let’s face it, I’m the last person she’ll accept help from. I think she always felt threatened by me because I grew up with Karl. Because I got on better with his mother than she ever did. And then Marilie’s death just wrote me off, along with Alistair.’

  Hannah had gone back to the cabinet and, kneeling, opened the linenfold drawers again. One was filled with all the random bits and pieces which accumulate in drawers. Rolls of ribbon, a pair of binoculars from the forties, an old biscuit tin with an assortment of fountain pens and elastic bands. The second drawer was deeper. Stacked on one side were some cardboard files, labelled with stickers that read, Tax, Banking, and Correspondence. From the other side of the drawer, Hannah drew out a large Bible. Its leather covers were worn soft, perishing at the creases where it had been opened and closed for a hundred and fifty years. Gently, she turned the first pages. The pages were tissue-paper thin, the writing in beautifully printed old Afrikaans. A few pages in, she came to the ragged edges of a page that had been torn away. She could see it had been some kind of register, faint, printed lines reaching the tattered ribbon in the centre. The next page was intact. A marriage register that began in 1850. Hannah ran her finger down the list and found the marriages of Rachel’s grandparents, her parents, then Wolf. Further down, she saw Gisela, then Karl and Esme, and lastly Marilie and Alistair.

  ‘These old Bibles usually used to have birth and death registers in them, didn’t they?’

  Sarah turned to her. ‘I think so – have you found something?’

  ‘I think the birth and death page has been torn out. Such a pity. It would have answered most of our questions about the Badenhorsts.’

  ‘Now what?’ said Sarah, taking another square of coconut cake.

  ‘We’re still just guessing about Rachel. We have one picture, but with no name identifying her.’ Hannah sank into a velveteen rocking chair with her mug of tea. ‘That’s not much for Alistair, is it?’

  ‘It might have to be enough. Finish your tea, Hannah. We should go. We’ve been here a while, and I don’t want to trouble Karl.’

  ‘Should I find a recipe book to make our ruse slightly believable?’ Hannah grinned at Sarah, who nodded, colouring slightly.

  Sarah picked up the tea tray and left to return it to Lena in the main house, while Hannah went through to the kitchen at the back of the little house. A rounded corner shelf sat near the old-fashioned stove and was stacked with recipe books. She pulled one off the top of the pile and left the house, pulling the door closed behind her.

  Alistair wiped his wet hands on the back of his jeans as he approached his mother’s house. The pungent smell of roasting rosemary drifted from the kitchen, making him smile. Inside, Sarah bustled around the room, pushing a pan of sausages into the oven to bake alongside a tray of butternut wedges. At the table sat Hannah, paging through a book. Alistair stopped in the doorway, suddenly unsure whether to escape back to his house or enter the room. Neil, peeling potatoes, looked up as Alistair hesitated.

  ‘There you are,’ said Neil. ‘I was about to come call you.’

  ‘I followed my nose,’ said Alistair, watching Hannah look up and smile at him. He stepped into the kitchen and took the knife his father held out, beginning to cut the potatoes into a pot.

  Glancing over at Hannah’s book, he noticed the pages were old and fragile, browned at the edges, and spotted here and there with marks and crusty bits.

  ‘What is that?’ he said.

  Sarah opened the oven door to poke a skewer into the butternut. ‘We were at Karl’s today,’ she said. ‘We borrowed one of Gisela’s recipe books.’

  Alistair caught Hannah’s quick smile for Sarah, before she turned another page. Then she jerked forward to peer at a page.

  ‘Sarah, it’s her! Rachel wrote this. It’s her bread recipe she speaks about in the journal.’

  ‘Let me look.’ Sarah took the recipe book, held it at arm’s length and squinted at the page. She then rifled through the rest of the book, stopping towards the end. ‘You see,’ she said, pointing to another page, ‘this is Gisela’s writing at the end. It could have been her mother’s book.’

  ‘Or even her grandmother’s, Wolf’s wife. That would put it in the same timeframe as Rachel.’ A smile spread across Hannah’s face and Sarah beamed back at her.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Alistair, laying down the knife and moving to the table. Hannah turned to him, smiling smugly and handing him the open recipe book. At the top of a page, in neat spidery writing, was written and underlined in a sweep of ink, Rachel’s Best Bread.

  ‘A recipe? We’re going to open a can of worms over a bread recipe?’

  ‘It would seem we are,’ said his father, still patiently peeling potatoes.

  Sarah swatted at him with her oven gloves. ‘We found an album with photographs of the old Badenhorst family, one with Rachel as a baby. And then this recipe book with the very recipe she talks about in Hannah’s journal.’ She waggled her mitted hand. ‘She was real, Alistair, which means the camp is likely to be real too.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Alistair raised his hands in surrender. Hannah’s face lit up with a smile, delight dancing in her eyes. She was clearly loving every minute of his defeat. He bowed a low, mocking scrape, offering the book back to Hannah like a medieval courtier. ‘What now, Captain, my Captain?’

  She knocked him gently on his bowed head with the recipe book. ‘Now I shall call my brother to recommend an historian.’

  ‘Remember the deal though?’ Alistair straightened and folded his arms across his chest, his light mood threatening to unravel.

  ‘Yes, of course. No media, no strangers, no circus.’ Hannah’s grin was infectious and Alistair couldn’t help but smile back. Underneath, thoug
h, a niggle of dread began to uncurl. He had held his life so tightly for the past eight years, held it in a fist. Nothing had been outside of his control and he had felt safe. Until now. On so many levels. Giving strangers licence to his farm was enough to tip him over the edge but then there was Hannah. He shut down that line of thought. He wasn’t ready.

  He kept the tone light that evening, hiding the churn inside and maintaining a friendly banter with Hannah and his parents. He liked seeing her there. Relaxed and laughing. He liked seeing his mum and dad respond to her, drawing her out further with talk of growing up in Cape Town, childhood holidays in Betty’s Bay. Maybe he and Hannah could manage a friendship. Maybe, if he kept his distance, they could keep it like this. Easy and light like warm water at the top of a sunny pool. She had kicked her shoes off under the table and, when she rose to help Neil carry the dishes through to the kitchen, Alistair watched her retreat bare foot down the passage, her legs long and slim in the old jeans hugging her hips. She lifted the dishes to dodge Grant bounding past her and, as she raised her arms, her T-shirt slid up a few inches revealing the small of her back and a hint of underwear, a line of lace sliding above her jeans. This was the problem, he thought. Friendly did not describe what she evoked in him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Days slid by, and Hannah had not heard a word from her brother, Joseph. She had rushed back from Goshen and emailed him that same evening. Every day since, she had called him at every number she could find. Voicemail picked up every time she tried his UK number. She had left messages with his secretary at the archaeology department and, as a last resort, she had called her mother at the rented apartment in Cambridge. The conversation had not gone well.

  ‘I have no idea where Joseph is, Hannah. I’ve been trying to contact him for five days now, with no response. If you children only knew how frustrating it is that you never answer your phones! Why have them, I want to know. And then I hear from Todd that you’ve left Cape Town!’