At the Edge of the Desert

by Basil Lawrence

  Taut and muscled, Keanu began firing live rounds into the air in time with the drum. He shouted ‘Fly! Fly!’ to encourage the Belgians to take running jumps over the pit. Everyone found this hilarious until a yelling man misjudged his leap and landed on the coals in an explosion of orange sparks. He climbed out the hole, legs bloody, to dash screaming towards the ocean before anyone could stop him.

  One of his friends, a guy with a sunburnt face, called ‘Yanis! Yanis!’ as Keanu almost fell into the fire running after him.

  Not good.

  The curly-haired Belgian kicked sand at the pulsing flames: ‘This is fucking crazy. Did you see what it did to Yanis?’ Another man threw stones at the pit, the two of them chanting ‘Fuck this fire! Fuck this fire!’ until Meshack and Sixten pulled them away. The foreigners shook themselves free and ran to the waves.

  I went after them into the mist, repeating ‘not good’ like a mantra, to the rough surf where Keanu was attempting to haul Yanis onto the beach. The Belgians were knee-deep, and so drunk they kept falling. Yanis shouted at his inebriated rescuer. None of them saw the wave that flipped them onto their backs and dragged them out.

  ‘We’ve got to help them,’ I called to Quinty as he caught up with me.

  ‘What about sharks?’ he said.

  ‘We’ll be quick.’

  I kicked off my shoes and my clothes, and ran into the icy Atlantic. It was like flinging myself into acid. A cold wave hit me. The stinging blow had me stuttering for air, balls aching so that I could hardly breathe, as I steadied myself.

  Quinty yelled, ‘What the fuck are you lot doing? Don’t just stand there,’ to Will’s group who were watching from the beach.

  I didn’t trust the sea here: I knew from my brother-in-law that these shallows extended a few metres into the ocean before dropping into a deep trough where the backwash had carried many good swimmers out. Already the undertow was pulling me.

  An unseen wave boiled over us. Another quickly followed. I fought the churning water back to the surface as the Australian, in the mist ahead of me, plunged between two ocean swells. As the sea thrust me upwards, I caught sight of him swimming towards Keanu.

  I called out, my throat burning from seawater and dagga. I yelled at him to wait, but he moved further away so I had to let the current pull me in his wake.

  A wave as big as a house fell over me, and I slammed into hands that scratched my face and chest. When we resurfaced, Quinty had taken hold of Keanu. The three of us trod water as best we could.

  ‘Seems this is a fucking spectator sport,’ Quinty said.

  Headlights lit the beach far behind us to reveal Will with both arms raised above his head like Moses parting the Red Sea.

  We struggled to pull Keanu, and ourselves, free of the current. We flailed and swung our arms, but every wave took us closer to the drop. Although Quinty was stronger than me, and unfit though I was, I was the better swimmer.

  ‘I’ll take him,’ I said. ‘Head back.’

  ‘Where’s the other blokes?’ Quinty said.

  ‘No idea. I’ll come for them.’

  Flipping over, I cupped a hand under Keanu’s chin so that his head was firmly on my chest. Even with him weighing me down, I was able to pull ahead of Quinty, who was doing his best to keep up.

  I thrust myself against the tide. Gaining momentum, I made headway. Behind me the Australian worked hard, splashing furiously, but was stuck in one place. Or possibly drifting further away.

  He vanished behind a giant wave.

  Hoping that the crest was hiding him, I slowed to let it pass overhead, but couldn’t find Quinty after it had swept by.

  Keanu swallowed water. He thrust his elbows out as he thrashed from side to side in an attempt to free himself. I shouted at him to calm down.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he said between coughs. ‘Why have you stopped swimming?’

  I struggled to keep hold of him. Spluttering and pushing, he drove us both under. With him and the tide fighting me, I released him to be sure of reaching the surface again.

  There was no sign of the Australian.

  ‘Swim ashore,’ I told Keanu when he found me.

  ‘Take me!’ he pleaded.

  ‘I’ve got to help Quinty.’

  He made to grab me with as much vigour as he’d fought me off, but I eluded his grasp.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not far.’

  He was still calling after me when I swam to where I’d last seen Quinty. Ignoring Keanu’s cries, I shouted for Quinty. With every passing wave, the ocean pulled me further out, and I couldn’t tell if I was going in the right direction. Only once did I catch sight of Keanu, who’d drifted away from where I’d abandoned him, so I told myself not to look again.

  I almost missed the face – the death-mask that was Quinty – as it came up for air. As quick as I’d seen him, a wave of heavy, complicated water swept him back under. His head finally came up, as if he’d found a sandbank and was content to bob about, to take his time deciding what next to do. No shouting for help. Not lifting his arms. Mouth opening and closing like a fish. Eyes staring through me as he slipped under.

  Kicking my legs into the air, I thrust myself below the waves. I surged down. I swam as deep as I could into the black water until I had to breathe.

  Back on the surface, there was a slippery movement in the water on my right. I groped about for whatever I’d seen, splaying my fingers as wide as possible even though the cold made me clumsy. Something rough brushed my thigh. My instinct was to pull back, to swim away, but instead I grabbed it with both hands. Pulled it to the surface.

  I wiped Quinty’s hair from his face and held him close to me as I kicked against each oncoming wave. I swam as hard as I could bear. I was dizzy from the icy water, but dared not stop and look for the shore.

  I dragged Quinty to the shallows where the group waited. Hard, dry hands took me, barely able to lift me, because I wouldn’t let go of him.

  The cars’ headlights bleached Quinty’s face as it flopped toward me. Fresh blood seeped from the side of his head. His open eyes couldn’t blink. Then the drowned man gave a gasp, and people began yelling words I didn’t understand. Lucia was repeating my name, as if I was still lost at sea, while she hugged me in a blanket. There was no sign of Keanu or the Belgians.

  I was shivering, in spite of my bakkie’s heater, as I peered through my sister’s finger marks on the steamed-up windscreen with Quinty next to me. A motorboat crested the waves. Its propeller spinning as it lurched into the air. Three onboard torches shone through the mist to reflect off the surf.

  Eventually the boat surged up the beach and its occupants dragged a limp body onto the sand. One of the rescuers shook the unconscious figure, shouted at it, pinching its lifeless nostrils, sealing its dead lips with his, to give short, hard breaths. He pumped the wet chest with both arms held straight. Slammed his palms into the sternum. I’d witnessed violence like that once before in my life.

  They abandoned their search after the fog turned as thick as cold smoke and the waves unrelenting. Only then did I allow my sister to drive us to Quinty’s place for dry clothes. She wanted to take us to the clinic, but we reassured her that we were over the worst. After our hot baths I helped my sister tend to the cut above Quinty’s ear. She patched him up.

  He pulled a propane heater tethered to its gas cylinder by an inflexible rubber pipe from behind the settee. There was a hiss as he opened the valve, and the pop of gas igniting. He pointed the fiery blue ring at my sister and me. I envied the ease with which he did all this. Attempting just one task felt impossible.

  Lucia refused to leave us in case we took a turn for the worse, and slept with me in the guest room’s double bed.

  Late that night I looked in on Quinty, to make sure he was alive. His mattress creaked as he shifted about. He switched on his bedside light. Family photos hung on the wall above him. I recognised the tall man from the Krabbenhöft & Lampe guesthouse in
one picture whereas all the others were of Quinty’s sons.

  Without a word, Quinty lifted the corner of his duvet so that I could settle next to him.

  ‘You’re freezing,’ he said.

  I attempted to calm myself by listening to his shallow breaths, but as I drifted off to sleep my memories overcame me. They plunged me into the deep. Drowned me.

  Elizabeth Bay

  To stare at an empty pool, unaware that you’ve been led into a garden and made comfortable in the shade, isn’t too bad. Day after day spent watching concrete, certain that everything has changed for the worse, soon becomes bearable.

  It’s preferable to being helped into disorientating baths where hands rub soap on your wet skin. Or the meals, the disappointing meals, endured by the teaspoonful and left to grow cold, barely eaten, on their plates. Or the trips to the doctor who prescribes three antidepressants in quick succession before combining the last drug with an antipsychotic, a low dose to be taken once an evening, in an attempt to restart your mental engine. And your appetite. Regaining the weight you’ve lost while staring at the pool …

  But staring is nowhere as safe, warm or forgiving as medicated sleep. Nothing is as accepting. What can prepare you for the welcome embrace of an unmade bed? For it alone, life might be worth living.

  —————

  On the morning of my aunt’s eightieth birthday, the unsettled water in Lüderitz’s harbour was making it difficult for me to walk alongside her. This was because she kept struggling whenever the white foam lurched over our walkway. I kept a firm grip of her – a combination of cajoling and pushing – as we shuffled toward the Zanzibar, fearful that if she slipped she’d pull me into the drink with her.

  We had to wait beside a tower of kiddle nets because the American evangelists were blocking our way to the swaying ship. Their minister peered uncertainly at the dark, wet horizon and back at the two-masted vessel where impatient gusts slapped the Namibian flag.

  Once we were safely on deck, the captain suggested I take my aunt and my sister into his pilothouse where we found cushions under the benches built around a small table.

  The Methodists congregated near the stern. As they contemplated the field of orange dunes on the far side of the harbour, extending to the horizon, the minister took a roll of dollar bills from his fanny pack. The man of God paid the ship’s captain before seeking refuge among his flock. He joined them in singing ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’ and ‘America the Beautiful’. His hands completed their circle.

  Like a floating tractor, we puttered past Shark Island into the Atlantic. The crew unfurled the sails that lost no time catching the wind, no time pulling us away from the town.

  Soon dolphins were racing alongside us. My aunt clapped her hands as the pod leapt out of the water to reveal black-and-white markings, like military camouflage, on their underbellies. She wiped her eyes. Sitting across from her and my sister, I caught glimpses of the loving woman I remembered from my childhood. Lüderitz, quickly flattened by distance and rough surf, was forgotten.

  It didn’t take long for the Zanzibar to unsettle my stomach. Lucia suggested I get out of the stuffy pilothouse, so I made my way onto the cold deck, past the Americans discussing forgiveness, to the prow where I stood in the hard spray. I gulped fresh air. Took big mouthfuls of the stuff. Glad for its abundance as we cut through the motley swells.

  I was out there, shielding my eyes to watch five wild horses on the beach running parallel to our ship, while ahead of us I spied clouds as big as mountains. Great masses overwhelming the heavens so that I couldn’t distinguish sky from sea. Namibia disappeared as the ocean embraced the approaching storm.

  The captain shouted, ‘Hy gaat ons byt,’ to send us scrambling for life jackets. He ordered provisions stowed and everyone below deck.

  Hard water pounded the hull; the minister praised Jehovah. The noise alone could sink us: thundering lifts, and surging drops that made us say ‘Oh!’ as if we’d been winded. All the while we sprinted ahead.

  I locked myself in the toilet where the porthole swirled and bubbled. For half an hour, I couldn’t tell if we were rising or falling. If we were making for land or into the squall. Everything came up as I clung to the metal bowl. I’d have preferred to confront the storm on the deck because no ocean could be as powerful as this one felt, no winds as strong as these sounded.

  By some miracle we passed the Bogenfels rock arch as the storm began to subside. I stood on the deck in the quietening air alongside the Americans who were all imagining a stained-glass window in the middle of the open rock. Their minister said, ‘Today is a great day. Praise be!’ as the Zanzibar anchored in the shallows off Elizabeth Bay.

  My sister and I left our aunt chatting to the captain in his pilothouse when we went ashore with the Americans. The ghost town consisted of four lines of modest labourers’ cottages, running north to south, overlooking the beach. They were in a far worse state than the Kolmanskop houses. No Millionaires’ Row among them.

  An hour into our excursion, the captain sent word that our aunt had taken ill. We returned to find her slumped over his table. A stroke had stolen the words from her mouth and replaced them with whimpering puppy noises.

  In Lüderitz, a male nurse put his hand on my aunt’s cheek, the hospital sheet draped across her chest like an evening gown, as he called, ‘Miss von Escher? Miss von Escher?’

  We did our best to reassure her that she needn’t worry, that she was safe in the clinic, until the doctor arrived to explain, out in the corridor, about the extended blood clot and its consequent ischemia. He feared more episodes. The nurse suggested we fetch a small radio – so long as we didn’t mind it being stolen – to keep our aunt company. I went home to pack a nightie and a few toiletries, but nothing valuable. And on my return, at first I didn’t recognise my aunt: the shrunken, wigless head lying on her hospital pillow. She stopped breathing as I was asking my sister if she had any idea of what might happen next.

  I endured this odyssey, from harbour to hospital, from a wet anxiety to quiet death, every day. If this was to be the rest of my life, I’d prefer to have drowned off Agate Beach.

  —————

  An atmospheric shift. The afternoon temperature dropped as the sky dimmed, the sun flickered and Lüderitz fell silent.

  Clouds upon clouds upon clouds of sand – malignant, horrific cumuli – devoured my cabana as they thundered towards the ocean. The desert wave brought with it a sudden wind that pelleted my windows, pecking at the glass.

  The whistling sand blasted me for many dark minutes, and after the storm dissipated I wandered out to find the air still gritty with dirt. One of Twin Palms’s windows was shattered, but otherwise the place had survived the apocalypse.

  I let myself into the main house, my sister still in town, to find a faint dusting of sand covering the mementos from her life with Shane. The Rat Pack photos were on the floor, and their picture-frame outlines stained the walls. It was like visiting a dying friend.

  The hi-fi’s needle was on a Sammy Davis Jr LP from when someone had switched it off mid-spin. I was returning it, along with the rest of the room, to its original configuration when an explosion in the harbour made the wine glasses cry out from the sideboard, and the phone ring.

  ‘Hello?’ said a man on the other end of the line. ‘Lucia van Wyk?’

  ‘Who is this?’ I said.

  ‘I want to leave a message for Miss van Wyk. Can you tell her to call me’ – he gave his details – ‘because my client has returned to Lüderitz and is willing to improve his last offer.’

  I found a pen and paper and asked the man to repeat everything.

  A second blast, louder than the first, interrupted my visit to the kitchen where I was attaching my note to the fridge door. The glassware protested again. A shimmering white cloud rose above the bay like a long-distance communication, a simple invitation.

  —————

  Burglars had ransacked my aunt’s old house in my a
bsence, but my sister had already moved most of my equipment into my cabana by then. But they stole my old camera, the one I’d used for the lesson at Kolmanskop, along with the television set. My sister had reassured me that she’d checked every room to make sure nothing else was missing, and Quinty had been kind enough to fix the kitchen window and replace the security door.

  The kitchen was quiet and smelt of plastic because its walls were repainted, a surprise gift from Quinty. Judging by the new taps in the bathroom, he’d also repaired the plumbing. What my sister hadn’t told me was that he’d converted the pantry back into a bedroom now that Rupertine was living with cousins in Gobabis. All of which meant that the house was waiting for me to move back in. But as I wandered from room to room, I came to realise that I didn’t reciprocate its anticipation. Something akin to an old sorrow contaminated the place. Not so long ago, I’d convinced myself that the hefty brick walls and the Diamantberg under my feet would always protect me, but I was less certain of this now.

  Back outside, I had no desire to return to the cabana, not yet, and I wasn’t robust enough to withstand the supermarket, but I nevertheless put one foot in front of the other. And when I crossed the street it occurred to me that I was heading to Quinty’s.

  ‘In the flesh, old cock,’ Quinty said with great tenderness after hugging me. ‘And excellent timing, too. I’m just back from the harbour.’

  ‘I wanted to thank you for helping out at my house.’

  ‘That’s the least I could do. I was repairing your kitchen window and could see that you’d been in the middle of a clean-up, so I told Lucia I’d give the walls a quick lick of paint. Spruce them up for when you’re ready to move back. You got time to hang around for a bit …?’