The Raft: A Novel

by Fred Strydom

  A few hours later the man in the dank red shirt came across something that finally brought him to a stop: the sight of a woman walking towards him. He paused and stared at her. She stared back at him. She was wearing a black shirt and a ruffled orange skirt. She had long bleach-blonde hair. The roots were beginning to show and two curls framed her face.

  She was beautiful, he could register that much, but he was interested in more than her beauty. Something deeper had caught his attention, something he could not understand, like the details of a dream that had been forgotten but that left the waking soul with a lingering sense of incomprehension. He couldn’t shake it: this woman seemed different from everything and everyone else in the world. This was someone with whom he was somehow connected.

  He was now directly in front of her. They looked each other over like two curious animals. The sense of connection was stronger now, but still, he could not frame it into a single idea. Instead of a searing, single beam focused through the curve of a magnifying glass, his recognition of her was like a wide and warm blanket of sunlight bathing him in warm hope and possible meaning. Comforting, but nothing would ignite.

  They held hands, turned and walked along the street. The man felt a greater sense of calm now. The woman seemed calmer too, but they made no comment on it.

  Eventually, having walked alongside a stretch of twisted woods and open pastures, they saw a brown house sitting at the top of a hill. There it was again—a sense of connection, this time to the lone structure. They made their way up the gravel driveway past a paddock and two galloping horses and came to a stop in front of the large wooden building.

  The woman looked back at the man, her face anxious. Letting go of her hand, he stepped onto the front porch. The light through the slats above cast glowing stripes on the wooden floorboards. A wind-chime beside the door jingled softly. The man cupped his hand on the window. There was nobody inside. There were things—furniture, vases of flowers, a fireplace—but no person. He moved to the front door. Next to the door was the same panel he had seen in the car, the one with the glowing blue contour of a human hand. He placed his palm on the screen. With a beep, the door opened.

  The man took a deep breath, and entered warily. The smells that filled his nose were instantly familiar, though nameless. Wood. Lemon-lime furniture polish. Flowers.

  The woman came in after him. For a while, they stood there. Various objects radiated weak pulses of familiarity. The woman picked up a pink scarf from the sofa and held it to her nose. In the kitchen: two plates, dried crusts of old toast. Broken eggshells in a plastic bowl, water dripping into the sink. The man reached out and tightened the tap without thinking. Only afterwards did he register that he’d remembered what to do. A small memory, returned without warning.

  The woman joined him in the kitchen. She was holding something in her hand—a photograph in a wooden frame. In the picture the man saw himself and the woman bright against the backdrop of a snowy range of mountains. They were wearing goggles and yellow woollen hats. They were smiling and holding each other and it was clear that those two people in the photograph knew each other better than the two people now standing in the vaguely familiar house.

  She handed him another framed photograph. Once again he saw the two of them, this time lying on a red and white blanket under a tree. She was buttering a roll. He was wearing sunglasses and sporting a beard, lying on his back, his arms crossed behind his head. There were two other people in this picture: a young boy and girl. The boy lay sprawled with his head on the woman’s legs, sipping on a juice-box and looking at the camera. The young dark-haired girl was behind the woman, her hands draped over the woman’s shoulders, her cheek against the woman’s neck.

  The man instantly felt the same connection he’d felt with the woman in the street.

  No, not the same. Stronger.

  He knew these children.

  The man shoved the framed photographs back into her hands and dashed through the house. The woman followed him. He charged into one of the rooms. A large empty bed, a wardrobe, clothing, books, sporting equipment—nothing felt significant. He left the room and swung open the door of another. The walls of the second room were green, filled with more colourful objects than the rest of the house. Posters crowded the walls. A trophy stood on a shelf. Clothing was scattered on the floor. In the centre of the room was a narrow bed, and on it, he finally found what he sensed he had been looking for—the first thing he had felt the need to locate in two days.

  A young boy was curled up on top of the duvet, fast asleep. The man did not see the girl. She was probably somewhere else. He’d find her later; he was almost sure of it. But here was the boy, for now. The boy from the picture.

  The man reached his hand down and touched the soft brown hair on the boy’s head, and a word entered his head. A word like the first drop of rain in a desert. Out of nowhere and without warning. A word that he thought, and then recognised, and then said out loud.

  “Andy.”

  Invisible idiot

  I wasn’t certain how long I had been sitting on the sand with my back against the beached whale. It felt like I had been there for hours. I expected the first warm slivers of sunlight to arrive at any moment, but the long night was still full of stars.

  Various thoughts had drifted in and out of my mind as I’d been sitting there—aimless things, disconnected, each as unclear as the reflection of a face within the oily swirl of a floating bubble.

  Something caught my eye and I looked down.

  A small white crab scuttled sideways over the sand beside my leg. It passed under the warm light of my lamp and held up its pincers as if ready for a fight. Two black eyes bobbed back at me from their miniature stalks. They twitched as they scoped out the surroundings, and I was made suddenly aware of the small creature’s simple perfection—its candid existence. Nothing could seem more natural, more a part of the world. I reached out my finger and touched its broad chitinous back. It hurried off, back into the dark.

  “Hey!” I called after it.

  I stared up at the stars, deceptively close to each other, actually light years apart, at vast and varying depths.

  “I once saw a whale,” I found myself saying. It came out without my thinking. I expected the whale to respond in some way. Of course it didn’t. Undeterred, I went on: “I was with my son, a long time ago. We were on the beach and the whale was far out at sea, but he was thrilled anyway. Just to know it was there, even if he couldn’t see much of it.

  “He loved the beach. I’d take him there whenever I could. I’d sit up top and watch him run from the water, make shapes and sculptures in the sand. He’d chase the seagulls and poke the crabs. He was never scared. He’d dig holes and fill them up. He’d laugh and wave his small hands, as if he was standing on the deck of some large ship leaving a harbour. Then, after a long day, he’d return to me, throw himself into me, and I’d dust him off and we’d go home.”

  I stopped. The words died in the dark. I looked to my side, but the whale did nothing, showing no sign that she either understood or cared. I hadn’t expected anything else.

  “We’d go … home.” I added the last word carefully, forcing myself to remember the concept. I lifted my head again and sucked in the air.

  My son.

  Where was he? Was he okay? Did he even remember me, or was I disintegrating in his mind the way he was starting to disintegrate in mine, like the ink on paper left in water? Already my daughter’s small face had begun to fade, but that was different. The last time I’d seen her, it had been in the open casket at her funeral, and ever since that day I’d wished I hadn’t: the pale face in that tiny coffin had somehow annexed my memories of the one I’d known before … before the car had come screeching around the corner …

  The whale moaned weakly, a low sound that came from deep within her. I put out the lamp, closed my eyes, and listened. The sound moved through her and then through me. The cry of longing. A mother’s mourning. I curled up in a foet
al position beside her. My eyelids grew heavy and, back to back with a dying mammal marooned on the lip of the world, I quit on my mind and coasted off to sleep.

  I was in a room of some kind, or perhaps it was a cave. It was large and dark and I couldn’t see any walls. The only reason I knew it was a closed space was because my breathing bounced against something and echoed back at me. Constant drips of water from some place above me formed puddles on the floor, exuding the fumes of damp rot. I swung my head from side to side, craning back, trying to see an exit, but there was none. I attempted to extend my hands to touch the sides, but my arms wouldn’t move. I shifted my shoulders, but felt nothing at the ends of them. The realisation hit me: I had no arms, not even stumps. A surge of panic rose inside me like a septic froth, and I told myself it didn’t make sense, that I really should have arms, but there was no consolation in my reasoning. I was in a lightless space, with no windows and no doors and no arms to feel my way through. If you trip and fall, it’s going to hurt and be difficult to get up, so whatever you do, stay on your feet …

  Hey you. A voice crept out of the dark. Startled, I whirled around. The voice was soft but coarse and phlegmy. You have something to eat for me? A sandwich, maybe?

  Who’s there? I spun to my left and then twisted to my right, peering into the heavy darkness.

  Calm down, will you, the voice replied. It coughed, clearing its throat. It’s not like I’m not stuck in here as well. Do yourself a favour. Take a seat.

  I moved one foot forward and struck something hard. It was the leg of a chair—the one from the white house on the hill, instantly recognisable. I slowly lowered myself onto the padding.

  How about that sandwich then?

  I’m sorry, I said. I don’t have anything.

  There was a gurgling sigh. Fine, croaked the voice. So here we are, just the two of us.

  Water dripped from above onto my forehead, slipped warm and thick, like saliva. Hardly a few seconds later, it dripped again in the same spot.

  Do I know you? I asked.

  The voice cackled, then let out a long sigh. I once met a girl, it said, in the woods. She was sitting at the river, drinking water. I watched her for a bit, doing nothing, and then she saw me. Yeah, she was scared at first, but she came around eventually. Ha, children, they do know how to trust, don’t they?

  What’s your name? I asked.

  Jack, the voice said. My name’s Jack Turning.

  I’m Kayle.

  Well, it’s a pleasure meeting you, Kayle. He coughed again, sputtering. Too bad about the sandwich. I do love a good sandwich. A glob of warm water ran over the curve of my face like a fat tear. Where are you from, Kayle? he asked finally.

  I don’t really know.

  Yeah, me neither, he replied. I was just kind of here one day. Weird, huh? So, where you heading?

  I shook my head, then, realising he couldn’t see me, added, I don’t really know.

  Eh heh, Jack’s voice chortled. Looks like you’ve got yourself a case of the dunnos. Okay, okay—you dunno where you’ve come from, dunno where you’re going … do you at least know where you are?

  I said nothing.

  Kayle, let me ask you something, he said, and I wasn’t sure what he had gauged from my silence. You seem like someone who can give me a straight answer.

  All right.

  Tell me. I was once told I was a mistake. That I did not belong in this world. That’s why I sit in the dark like this, where no one can see me. But here’s the thing: if I was such a mistake, if I didn’t belong, as I was so rudely shown, what makes you—any of you—think you’re any different? What makes you so sure that one day, fed up with your shit, nature’s not going to swoop down on you all and take you all out? Hm?

  I had nothing to say. I didn’t want to tell him that the thought had occasionally crossed my mind.

  And if you are—if you come to the realisation you are a mistake in this world—will you have the courage to go willingly, to remove yourself of your own accord, or will you stubbornly remain, in stupid denial and against the will of nature?

  I paused and thought about it. I don’t know.

  Of course you don’t. I mean, you wouldn’t know until the bushes ripped off your face and you were covered in hundreds of angry hornets. You wouldn’t know until then, would you? Oh yeah, then you’d know, but by then it would be too late.

  A deep grumbling rose in the room. The foundation was shifting. Jack’s voice grew to make up for the steady, rising boom.

  Unless you finally decided to listen to that nagging voice in the deepest part of you, fighting to be acknowledged: that voice that says, hey you, Kayle, be honest; what good have you ever been to anyone?

  I craned my head and watched as the wall on one side of the room opened, a widening split in the darkness. It was suddenly clear to me: I wasn’t in a room at all. I was in the whale. For a moment, I was able to see the moon through the open mouth, hanging impo-tently in the sky. And then I caught sight of the edge of the horizon.

  No, it wasn’t the moon.

  It was something that looked like the moon. An impostor. An alien orb, cream yellow like the infected conjunctiva of a giant eye. It was watching me. It was also my last image of the outside world before the water rushed inside. My guts shifted to my chest and snatched my breath: the whale was diving under, descending, taking me down into the cold murkiness of the ocean.

  Icy water crashed over my body and lifted me from the chair. Floating around, trapped in the belly and breathing my last breaths, I was filled with nothing but a terrifying certainty the end would be coming soon. But it never did. Death wouldn’t take me. Instead, I was shaken about without even the arms to struggle, submerged in the water-filled belly, drowning but still living. Fully aware in the watery blackness, and alone.

  By the time the men returned in the morning, the beached mother was dead. I had no idea when she’d slipped away. When I struggled awake, just after sunrise, she was no longer breathing. The men arrived with two drums of oil. They dug a trench around the body with shovels. As the morning went on, a small crowd began to form around the carcass, no one speaking but everyone scrutinising the scene. I wondered if, like me, they were waiting for nothing else but to feel something. To feel anything.

  I stood back from the crowd, up on the embankment, watching from afar. The large black lump didn’t look like the same whale from the night before. The awe was gone, and with it the notions of fallen gods, of mystic giants, and other such romances of the heart and mind. Now, surrounded by people and exposed by the sobering light of day, it looked like nothing more than a big, dead animal. A rotting husk.

  I felt nothing.

  I looked over my shoulder. Gideon was near the tents, sitting on a wooden bench and cleaning his tools. To my left, Daniel had perched himself on the branch of a tree, giving himself the best view; the crowd around the whale had already deepened so that some in the back were struggling to see anything.

  Four men climbed atop the whale and had the drums passed up to them. One of the men said something to the crowd, perhaps warning that the fire would be large, but from where I was standing I couldn’t hear anything. Two men to a drum, they proceeded to lift them and tip them over. The slick black oil ran like treacle. They walked the length of the whale, making sure that all of it was covered in the dense fluid. Some of the oil dripped and ran out like thin black tentacles into the ocean. The men climbed off the whale and held up their hands, ordering everyone to stand back.

  A tug on the sleeve of my shirt.

  Beside me was the same girl I had seen at my tent in the early hours of the morning, two days earlier. She was still clutching her furry companion.

  “Hello,” I said to her. “Hello bear,” I added, tugging twice on its brown ear. A moaning sound came from her throat and she pointed up to the white house on the hill. She was probably mute; I hadn’t yet heard a sound come from her and her lack of speech seemed to extend beyond mere shyness. Nevertheless, it w
as clear I’d been summoned.

  I glanced at the crowd on the beach below, nodded to Daniel to let him know I was leaving, and trekked over the embankment up to the house on the hill.

  “We’ve been concerned,” said one of the heads from behind their long steel table. “There have been inconsistencies.”

  I shifted in the uncomfortable chair. Once again, the plugs and wires siphoned my thoughts and squirted them into the big grey box beside me. It rumbled like some anxious creature, foaming out its reports.

  My first thought was that the summonsing was connected to my night alongside the whale. The Body had its eyes: we were always being observed, no matter where we were and what we were doing. I’d often spot someone staring a little too long, making a note, loitering where they clearly had nothing better to do than spy.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” the woman said. “This isn’t about last night. That does not concern us now, though we will continue to monitor your inconsistent behaviour. What concerns us is more serious, I’m afraid.”

  My mind was blank and I frowned, trying to recall. Then it dawned upon me: Moneta. Her story.

  “You were seen with Moneta in the garden.”

  “Moneta asked me for a favour. To move a few pots,” I said.

  “But what did you speak about? You were seen conversing for quite some time.”

  I wasn’t certain how to respond. I couldn’t betray Moneta by telling them everything, and yet I couldn’t keep it from them either. The machine would read my anxiety.

  “She spoke about her plants,” I said as calmly as I could. “She was worried about them.”

  “What was she worried about?”

  “They aren’t growing properly. She’s been having some problems with the dahlias. She spoke about how some plants need to be near other plants, particular ones, that attention needs to be paid to the partnerships.”

  “Partnerships?”

  “Between the plants.”