At the Edge of the Desert

by Basil Lawrence

  ‘Even so, it feels like I’m wasting time,’ I admitted. ‘I suppose there are a few graves around Lüderitz that I’ve been meaning to visit.’

  ‘You should do that.’

  ‘It’s complicated. I think I’m about to be fired.’

  ‘Fired? Why do you say that?’

  ‘Apart from one exception, my interviews aren’t delivering the memories that the lawyers expected them to. The genocide happened such a long time ago. Anyway, I’m dealing with that as best I can. It’s too complicated to explain.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘You? Thanks, but I think the decision’s made.’

  He smiled. ‘I know people who can break bones.’

  ‘Keanu?’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to make light of your predicament. I’m really sorry to hear that it’s not going well for you, Henry. You deserve better than that. If it’s any consolation, you’ll have more time for this Harmony shit-show. And you’re welcome to interview me about my work. Just play nice with me.’

  ‘Ja, of course. All of this has left me feeling somewhat deflated.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’

  ‘I’m serious. I worry I’m idling my life away.’

  ‘So do something about it.’

  His response took me by surprise. I said, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Surely there’s something meaningful you can do.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Think. What about those graves? Why not say fuck it, and go film those graves?’

  Because the late afternoon sun reflected off the hard ground, Freddie appeared to be running towards me through a pool of shimmering water. He caught up with me, frantic to know where I’d been. He’d already cleaned the solar panels and whitewashed all the stones around the shooting range. I thought I’d stepped away for ten minutes or so, but I’d been chatting to Quinty for the better part of an hour.

  Instead of sitting down with the Harmonians for what smelt like roast chicken dinner, Freddie rushed to join the other volunteers on the parade ground. They were lined up for Amanda’s feedback on their day’s performance. When she saw Freddie, she announced that he hadn’t met his daily target and would have to work an additional shift on Sunday. None of the volunteers, including Freddie, objected. Amanda delivered her pronouncements firmly, so it came as no surprise that Freddie wasn’t keen on telling her about the tomatoes.

  I intended having a word with her after the post-mortem. She knew I’d been distracting Freddie, and was making me complicit in his punishment.

  ‘I’ll make things right with Amanda,’ I promised Freddie as soon as we had a chance to speak.

  ‘No, no,’ he begged, ‘don’t do that.’ He would gladly work the additional shift, only he implored me not to make a fuss.

  ‘But that’s not right.’

  ‘We don’t question feedback,’ he said. ‘We never question it.’

  He made me promise I wouldn’t get involved, and only after I’d assured him that I’d keep quiet did he fetch a broom to clean the parade ground.

  The sun was about to set, and my camera was in my bag because I’d had enough of Harmony and I was keen to leave the place. But Freddie kept sweeping the dust as methodically as if I was still filming him.

  ‘Shouldn’t you go in for supper before it’s all gone?’ I called to him. He shook his head and I remembered what they’d told me earlier: the evening meal wasn’t for volunteers.

  Unable to abandon Freddie, not after jinxing his day, I offered to drive him back to town. And when the two of us were in my bakkie, he told me about the room he rented on the other side of Lüderitz near the oyster-processing factory. It was way past Mrs Archipelago’s places, close to my parents’ old house, in an area I’d rather not visit.

  I’d planned on reviewing Dollar’s interview that night, but I was exhausted and my laptop’s screen hurt my eyes. To be honest, I’d done about as much as I could with my jailbird for the moment. So I heated a cup of milk in a saucepan, stirring in a tablespoon of honey like my aunt would do before bedtime. As it simmered, I decanted the tinned peach halves I’d left overnight in the fridge into a steel bowl. The radio news was about the Paris bombers. They were evidently part of a right-wing group, but I was half-listening and missed the organisation’s name.

  I took my aunt’s old karakul blanket to the enclosed veranda. The breeze had cleared the clouds from the night sky, and the full moon reflected off all the rooftops down to the harbour.

  I sipped my drink. The stoep’s aperiodic floor-tiles resisted my attempt to fix onto a pattern, no matter how hard I tried, as my thoughts turned to Ouma Gendredi. There was no way Chesley would be able to tell that I’d played her recording before my most recent interviews, but I’d nevertheless double-checked everything I’d sent him just in case there were any obvious overlaps. On top of this, my prison documentary had begun to drag. I needed to push myself to finish it so that I could enter competitions to ascertain if it had been worth my time and effort. Perhaps if Will’s contact at the Sheffield festival really existed, she might help me.

  The cold peaches smelt of sweet peas; the icy syrup ran down my chin as I ate them.

  Back at the kitchen sink, I splashed water onto my mouth and neck. I dried my still-sweet lips on the dishcloth because Rupertine wasn’t there to complain about me using it as a towel.

  Quinty was right: moping about wasn’t doing me any good. I had to do something. I returned to the veranda where I called him.

  ‘I want to find those graves,’ I said when he answered. ‘Will you help?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Too soon?’

  ‘No, that’s fine. What time?’

  ‘Early.’

  ‘You mean like in a few hours?’

  I glanced at my watch: it was just before ten. ‘Yes, probably. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep tonight. I’ve got enough work to keep me busy for a few hours, if I can concentrate, and then I’ll call you. You won’t mind me waking you?’

  ‘Ring me when you’re ready and I’ll pick you up.’

  I’d made good progress with Dollar when Jago phoned.

  ‘You awake?’ he said.

  ‘Working. And staring at the town.’

  ‘Is it pretty?’

  ‘Tonight, yes. The moonlight looks like snow on the roofs.’

  ‘How would you like to visit a game reserve with me? Come and stay with me in Windhoek next week, and then we can go to the reserve that weekend.’

  I’d forgotten our earlier call at Harmony, and the sudden realisation that I’d committed to driving to Windhoek made the polytunnel nausea return. But with all the cheeriness I could gather, I said, ‘That sounds nice.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

  I exhaled. ‘No, it’s nothing. Actually, I’m sorry, but I’m not sure if I can face nine hours in my bakkie on Friday.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think I’m burnt out. I also don’t know if I’ll have any more work in Windhoek.’

  ‘Oh …’

  Worried that he might hang up, I said, ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘You’ve been driving too much,’ he said at last. ‘I can hear it in your voice.’

  I was acting like a baby. ‘You know what, I’m coming to you. And yes: the game reserve sounds lovely. I really want to see you, and there’s nothing here for me in Lüderitz.’

  ‘You could always fly up.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I’ve got some air miles. I can book you a ticket for this Sunday.’

  ‘Jesus, Jago, are you sure?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Jesus, that’s amazing. I don’t know what to say. I’ve never flown before.’

  ‘Are you serious? Then I have to do this.’

  —————

  I asked Dollar about the key on his arm to determine its significance, and if the mark belonged to the 28s.

 
He said, ‘To open the gate.’

  ‘For your house?’

  He shook his head: ‘To get out of prison. Back to Soweto.’

  ‘And those?’

  He touched the raised scars on his wrists but didn’t respond.

  ‘When did you do that?’ I pressed him.

  A shake of the head.

  ‘Did someone else do it to you?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ He wouldn’t have allowed that to happen.

  I said, ‘Why did you do that?’

  Still no response.

  I changed tack, asking about the smudged words on his neck but he merely shrugged. My hand appeared onscreen giving him the vanity mirror I carried in my camera bag so that he could take a proper look at the marks. He glanced at his reflection but answered vaguely, which could mean that the tattoo was important but he didn’t want to discuss it, or it was a meaningless distraction that had killed a few hours in prison.

  ‘I am my own baas,’ he said at last. He held his wrists towards me: ‘I make this decision.’

  ‘You didn’t feel scared?’

  ‘Scared? This’ – he slapped both hands against his chest – ‘is mine. All of this.’

  ‘But you’re strong. You have a good position in the gang.’

  ‘If they want to take too much, I will take it before them. I will do it again.’

  ‘No.’ My response was new to him.

  He said, ‘What?’

  ‘Never again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You must never do that. Some people care. It’s selfish. No matter what, it’s the most spiteful thing you can do.’

  I shut up because my words were exciting too much curiosity.

  —————

  Details of Lüderitz’s Herero graves were easy enough to find on the Web, but I was more interested in a particular burial site I’d come across in the book containing the Shark Island photos, and the boy in the hessian sack. The grave was in the sperrgebiet, which was how I came to be crouching on the crest of a dune even though I hadn’t applied for a permit. A sandy ocean of curved barchans extended in all directions to the horizon. In the distance Quinty’s torch lit his path over the dunes back to the B4. If the authorities caught me out here, I’d plead ignorance.

  The highway lay north of me – the excavation machine whined faintly as it swept the road – but my destination was west, the same direction as the Atlantic, the invisible ocean. A wrong decision would take me deeper into the Namib, so I made sure to find the lightest part of the sky before I set off. Twilight was threatening the murk behind me, so I would head in the opposite direction. It was the one thing I had to be certain of. West was good. West was always good. It would lead me to Quinty waiting in Kolmanskop but also the grave lying between him and me.

  For an hour I pushed on, the unsteady sand shifting in my torchlight, watching for sharp rocks and scorpions and adders and bones, across the wretched land.

  The sun made its tentative debut, but as quickly set again when I scrambled into a deep dunal valley where the mist pooled around small stones like a heaving ocean thick with ice. It rose again behind me as I tackled the next incline. The rosy horizon warmed the sand as the wind blew away my footprints.

  The high clouds dispersed but the mist lingered. My shadow blackened my path as I prayed to the desert, asking it to reveal itself to me.

  The dunes grew steep, their inclines difficult for my legs, so that I had to feel my way up on all fours. I slid into each trough. Still searching, if a bit disorientated by the glare, I caught sight of Kolmanskop in the fog before I’d had a chance to find the grave.

  Against my better judgement, I turned away from the ghost town, away from Quinty waiting for me. The sandy air punished my eyes with garnet dust as I ventured south. Tiny specks danced and floated ahead of me with every step.

  At last, I paused to catch my breath, and to drink the remainder of my water in a giant star-dune’s shade. The sun soon found my hiding place, which meant it was time for me to return to Quinty.

  A shape disturbed the mist ahead of me. The feathery air resolved into a horse nuzzling the ground near the Kolmanskop entrance.

  Not wanting to frighten it, I hesitated. I dared not make a sound.

  The stallion lifted its head, giving itself a shake, so that the muscles rippled down its neck. Wet lashes fringed its large eyes. Without warning, the animal set off through the mist until all that remained of it were tiny vortices trailing in its wake.

  I woke the security guard, who waved me through to the parking lot where I found Quinty’s bakkie but no sign of the Australian. I was too early for the locked casino, but nevertheless much later than Quinty and I had agreed. I hoped that he hadn’t gone to find me.

  There was nothing to do but try his number as I waited in the shade. To stop my eyes aching, I covered them with the palms of my hands until a bus parked its hot throbbing engine inches away from my face.

  The vehicle’s door swung open and a tour guide began counting her eager German tourists. Two nuns, cameras slung over their black scapulars like hunting rifles, shielded their eyes to get a better look at me. A husband and wife, taking turns to shush their twin sons, sheltered beside me with heads down. Their guide explained that after the Germans discovered diamonds in this part of the desert, rows of ‘local’ men were made to lie stomach-down, muslin masks fastened across their mouths to prevent them swallowing the precious stones, to pick the roughs out of the sand with tweezers. Every worker, she said with great authority, collected four hundred carats of tiny diamonds per day.

  ‘Vier karat?’ the man next to me clarified.

  ‘Nein, vierhundert karat pro mann.’ And the same amount the next day, and again the day after that. This drew admiring nods from the group. Their brave German forefathers had tamed a desolate piece of Africa to create a bountiful colony.

  I’d become increasingly uneasy because Quinty still hadn’t returned to his bakkie, and wasn’t answering his phone. I’d somehow missed him, or he’d ventured into the sperrgebiet after me. I set off for the entrance buildings to peer into their empty rooms, but found no sign of him. The same was true of the next row, further away from the parking lot, where the old bakery, butchery and ice factory similarly revealed nothing. If I didn’t find him here, I’d have to go back.

  Exhausted, I struggled to orientate myself. I barely recognised the town. It was as if the dunes had shifted about since my last visit because nothing was where I’d left it. Sandy crests had sunk all the buildings I knew, with unfamiliar structures springing up in their stead. Even the casino was the wrong way around.

  The wind picked up and the desert was on the move, the town rearranging itself before my eyes as I attempted to locate the parking lot. But now the abandoned hospital blocked my way. Inside it, the undisturbed air was as soothing as cold water on my skin. In the first consulting room a metal bed-frame and an empty chamber pot greeted me, along with a glimpse of Quinty through the window.

  Shielding my eyes, I braved the Souwi as I went outside again. Unprepared for the sudden shock of wind, I stumbled near discarded vertebrae burnt white by the sun. The bones transformed into a snake’s skeleton and then a length of rope, until Quinty found me holding a twisted plastic bag with a supermarket logo.

  ‘Jesus, Henry,’ he said, handing me his bottle of water. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I waited as long as I could, but when you didn’t come I went to see if you were on the highway. This really wasn’t a good idea. Did you even find anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Promise you won’t do this again.’

  In the parking lot we passed the tour guide attempting to calm the German nuns who were delirious with excitement: Praise be the heavens, Sister Gertruda has photographed a stallion!

  I refrained from calling Chesley’s office to confirm my meeting for fear of receiving bad news, so the end of the week came and went without word from him or hi
s assistant. On Sunday I somewhat trepidatiously took myself to Lüderitz’s airport, and as I sat in the aeroplane on the runway, the flight crew busying themselves with last-minute checks, I experienced no excitement or nerves about the flight, but rather an unexpected pang. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more that Ouma Gendredi could tell me. Perhaps she might know about the young Herero boy in the Shark Island photo I kept in my wallet for safekeeping.

  I collected a rental car from Windhoek’s Hosea Kutako International Airport and drove to Jago’s townhouse to discover that he’d prepared the guest room for me.

  ‘This way we are both more comfortable,’ he said.

  He grilled two steaks in the oven, slicing mine before serving it to me as if I was a child or an invalid. There may have been some resentment in his actions, as if my unrefined manners demanded them of him.

  I became aware of him observing the way I ate. When I reached for the salt a second time, I felt certain that he would have liked to tell me not to spoil the flavour.

  ‘I bought donauwelle for dessert,’ he said as he cleared away our plates. ‘I am going to insist you eat it with a glass of eiswein.’

  I’d tasted the cherry cake on my last visit, and I wasn’t in the mood for its sourness or to be instructed on how best to consume it.

  ‘You know what, I think I’m done for the night,’ I said, excusing myself. I thanked him again for the plane ticket.

  ‘No cake? Coffee?’

  ‘No, I won’t sleep.’

  ‘Never mind, I will make coffee for you in the morning before I go to work.’

  As I brushed my teeth in the small en suite I wondered why he’d bothered to invite me. An overwhelming sense of entrapment made me push the bathroom door open so I felt able to breathe.

  Careful not to make any noise in the morning, I set off early. I did this not out of consideration for him, but because I wanted him to wake up to discover that I’d already left. It was childish of me, but if he was going to treat me as if I was uncivilised, I’d behave accordingly.

  A cargo truck trailed me all the way up the B1 in the direction of Tsumeb. We both took the Otavi turnoff and trekked in convoy through Grootfontein until I pulled onto the verge just beyond the rectangular district sign pointing to the farm, my destination, to allow the vehicle to pass. An old Ford Zodiac followed closely behind, and as soon as the highway was empty I floored my accelerator, cutting across both lanes, onto the dirt road.