When Time Fails

by Marilyn Cohen de Villiers

  ‘I wouldn’t worry. These things happen. I don’t think it’s anything too serious, but tell your father to phone me if he’s concerned about anything.’

  Not too serious? It was a catastrophe. Tears seeped passed her closed lids. She willed them to stop. She had to think. She had to do something before it was too late. What if she was too late? What if they were already engaged? Or worse – married? Had there been a ring on the girl’s finger? She hadn’t noticed. And even if they weren’t engaged or married... they couldn’t stay together. They just couldn’t. She had to stop them.

  Anger, deep and visceral, rose in her throat. What on earth was wrong with the boy? Why did he always fall for the wrong girls? Why did he always do this to her? ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Annamari,’ she muttered to herself. It wasn’t Arno’s fault. It couldn’t be his fault. It was just a cruel, spiteful, twist of fate. She shivered. Thys always used to say there was no such thing as fate. He always used to say that everything was God’s will. Was this God’s way of punishing her? Surely not. Surely even an angry, wrathful God would not use Arno – who had done absolutely nothing bad in his entire life – to punish her? She wrapped her arms around her ice cold body and stared at the large damp spot on the ceiling.

  ***

  Annamari swallowed two Panados and dragged herself off the bed. She opened the curtains. The sun had not yet peeped over the Malutis, but the sky was beginning to lighten. The silhouettes of the remaining three poplars mocked her. The others had all succumbed to a variety of mishaps over the years – high winds and fire, usually. Last year, two had been struck by lightning and had come crashing down, blocking the entrance to Steynspruit.

  She sat down on Thys’ side of the bed and buried her face in her hands. She had no more tears. Thys had probably slept in the spare room, so he wouldn’t disturb her. He had crept in to their room regularly throughout the night to check on her and she had feigned sleep. But she hadn’t slept at all. Not a wink. Her eyes felt as if they had been sandpapered. There was a dull ache behind her eyes, but nothing that the Panados wouldn’t take care of. She got up and walked to the window again. She looked out. And shuddered.

  Arno was walking along the path towards the school. His arm was around the girl’s shoulders; his head was tilted towards her and she was laughing up at him. Annamari watched, mesmerised as they stopped and faced each other. Arno bent his head to her as she raised her face to his. They kissed. A long kiss. Annamari knew she shouldn’t be watching them like this, spying on them really, but she couldn’t look away. The kiss ended, and Annamari let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. They walked on, out of sight but Annamari knew where they were going. Behind the school was a path that led up to the ridge. There was a large, flat rock up there that she and Thys often used to sit on, sipping hot chocolate and listening to the silence of the veld as they watched the sun rise. But they hadn’t been up there for years. And after this morning, they probably would never go again. In fact, after this morning, Thys would probably never come in to their bedroom again either.

  She desperately needed a mug of strong coffee. To fortify her before she had to face her husband. Wrapping herself into her old red winter dressing gown, she tiptoed down the passage to the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the wooden floor.

  Thys looked up at her as she came through the door. He was at the table with a mug of coffee in front of him. Wearing a rumpled T-shirt and a pair of tattered black exercise shorts. He looked terrible. Grey and drawn. Old. He looked, she thought, as awful as she felt.

  ‘Morning, Annamari,’ he said. ‘Are you feeling better? Would you like some coffee?’

  Annamari nodded and seated herself on the stool farthest from where Thys was sitting. Thys took the pot of coffee off the stove and poured some into a mug – black and strong.

  ‘Would you like a rusk?’

  She shook her head and cupped her hands around the mug. She lifted it to her mouth, her eyes fixed on her husband. He looked back at her and then looked down at his coffee, so intently that Annamari wondered if he was seeing something in the black liquid.

  The silence stretched between them, taut, brittle, fragile. Sweat started to trickle down her back. Her forehead was wet. She had been stupid to put on her winter dressing gown; cuddly and comforting it might be, but it was way too warm for a spring morning.

  She got up and opened the back door, then the windows. Still Thys said nothing.

  ‘Did you sleep okay?’ Annamari blurted as she resumed her seat across the table from him.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Silence shrouded the kitchen. She loosened the belt of her dressing gown, allowing it to fall open. It was cooler, but she was still sweating. Thys continued to stare at his coffee.

  ‘Thys,’ she started.

  He looked at her. He didn’t move.

  ‘Thys... I need... I have to ... there’s something...’ She stopped. She didn’t know where to begin. All night she had tried to find the right words, the best way to tell him, gently. But there was no best way. And there was nothing gentle about telling a man that the son he had loved and nurtured for thirty-six years wasn’t his son. There was no way to say it. But she had to. She had no choice. After thirty-six years of lying and prevaricating and pretending, she had come to the end of the line. And the end of her marriage. And her life. Because Thys would hate her, and who could blame him? And Arno would probably never speak to her again. She was going to lose her husband and her son. Probably all her sons once De Wet and Steyn also heard what she had done... And it would serve her right.

  She put down her mug. She gulped in a huge lungful of air. She gripped the edge of the old table. She tried again.

  ‘Thys... I have to tell you something. Something I should have told you years and years ago. I wish I didn’t have to do this. I wish it could be different. You are going to hate me, and I don’t blame you. But you have to believe me when I tell you that I love you. I have always loved you. What I did was... stupid. I don’t have any excuse except that I was young and ... and reckless ... and really, really stupid.’

  She couldn’t go on. She clasped her hands and stared at him, desperately. He didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. The silence was painful. She cleared her throat.

  ‘I don’t expect you to forgive me. I wouldn’t forgive me if I was you. I hate myself for the pain I’ve caused, for what this is going to do to you... and to Arno...’ She faltered. She couldn’t go on. She couldn’t find the words. She couldn’t tell him. Tears she had been trying so hard to control streamed down her cheeks.

  ‘Annamari,’ Thys said. ‘Annamari, I know.’

  Chapter 44

  2014

  Time stopped.

  Annamari stared at her husband. Her jaw dropped open and she clamped it shut. She brushed her wet face with the back of her hand. What did he mean, he knew? What could he possibly know?

  ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘I know... about Arno,’ he said.

  ‘About Arno? What... how ... what do you know? How? When?’

  ‘I’ve known for years. You’d have to be blind and deaf and incredibly dumb not to know. I’m none of those.’

  ‘But... but ... you never said anything! Why didn’t you say anything. Something. Why... how could you keep quiet about it? Why did you let me go on believing... pretending...’

  Annamari could hear her voice rising. Anger surged through her. She couldn’t believe it. Thys had known – and he hadn’t said anything. He had let her lies fester between them for years. Forced her to continue lying, over and over again, knowing that she was lying every time she opened her mouth. How could he? Why had he?

  ‘It wasn’t my secret to tell,’ he said. ‘I prayed, for years I prayed that you would find the strength to tell me the truth. And then... well, it just didn’t seem to matter.’

  ‘When... how... how did you find out?’

  Thys sighed. A long sad sigh. ‘I think I
always sort of suspected but I didn’t want ... anyway, one day – it was when I was teaching at Driespruitfontein Hoërskool.’ He stopped. Annamari winced. Even from where she was sitting, she could see the pain etched on his face, in his eyes.

  ‘I was walking down the corridor,’ he said, so softly she could barely hear. ‘And suddenly I saw Alan Silverman in his school uniform coming towards me. I got the fright of my life. It was like seeing a ghost. He came closer and he laughed, and it was Alan’s laugh. It was the strangest thing. But of course, it wasn’t Alan. It was Arno. And I knew. I just knew.’

  ‘Oh Thys, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I was ... I can’t explain how I felt. I felt as if my world was falling apart. I was furious, more angry than I’d ever been in my life. I didn’t know what to do. Then I thought... I didn’t know what to think. I prayed that I was wrong. All the way home in the car I prayed that my imagination was working overtime. So when I got home, I went through the school magazines. The pictures of Alan... well, he must have been about the same age then as Arno was. And there was no question. They could have been twins. And suddenly it all made sense. Everything.’

  There was a long silence. Annamari didn’t know what to do. She wanted to go and put her arms around Thys. She wanted to apologise – but what could she say?

  ‘You really were good, weren’t you? You probably deserve an Oscar for the longest running performance ever,’ he said.

  Silence swirled around them again. She noticed that the nail on her pinkie finger on her left hand was chipped.

  ‘Thys...’ Annamari said, and stopped. Words could never fill the terrible void that had opened between them.

  ‘I wanted to confront you that day,’ he said. ‘I was going to. I hated you. I really hated you, for cheating on me and then lying about it. For lying to me, and to Arno, and for making a mockery of our marriage. And I wondered whether you loved me. Whether you had ever loved me or if our whole marriage was one big lie.’

  ‘No. Oh no, Thys. I did love you... I do love...’

  Thys didn’t seem to hear. He carried on, spewing over twenty-five years of suppressed doubt and emotion. ‘And I was angry, so angry. I knew that if I confronted you, if I said anything, I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I was frightened of what I might do. Of what I was capable of.’

  Annamari shuddered. In all their years of marriage Thys had never once raised his hand to her, or any of the children. Not once. But she had seen what he could do when pushed. Look what he had done to Stefan Smit.

  ‘I had to get away before I did something, or said something, that I would regret for the rest of my life. So I made up a story about a rugby tournament in Johannesburg and I left.’

  ‘Oh God, I remember,’ she said. ‘That was when Stefan Smit ... and Beauty... and everything. Oh, Thys, I remember being so upset that you were going to a stupid rugby tournament. You were adamant that you had to go. But you came back.’

  Horror shivered through her. She looked at Thys, wondering what she would have done if he hadn’t come back. Wondering how she would survive if he left her now.

  ‘I wasn’t going to. I was so hurt and angry. My whole life, our whole life was one big lie. All the years you had perpetuated the lie. I remembered all the snide remarks from my father and mother over the years, and how I’d defended you. Yet you had betrayed me. You betrayed me every single day. I was furious. Beyond furious.’

  ‘Oh, Thys. I’m so sorry.’

  Thys didn’t look at her. He almost seemed to have forgotten she was there, at the other end of the table, staring at him, waiting for the axe to fall, when he’d tell her that while he hadn’t left her back then, he was going to leave her now. And she wouldn’t blame him. She nibbled the chipped nail, then ripped it off.

  After what seemed like forever, Thys continued: ‘I went to a pub. I met a woman. She came back to my room...’

  A knife twisted in Annamari’s gut. Thys didn’t seem to notice her little gasp of pain.

  ‘But she wasn’t you. And I hated you for that. I hated you. She was the only woman besides you I had ever... and I hated you for that too because I kept seeing you and Alan and wondering ...And then you phoned. That woman was with me when you phoned. I wanted to tell you that I was with her, another woman. I wanted to hurt you as you had hurt me.’

  Annamari’s tears were blinding her. She let them splash onto the old table. She opened her mouth, closed it. There were no words.

  ‘You were hysterical,’ Thys whispered. ‘Almost incoherent. You said something about terrorists and rape and I thought... I thought you had been attacked. I thought you had been raped. I wanted to kill the person who had hurt you. And when I realised you were fine and that you hadn’t been the one... well, I can’t tell you how relieved I was. And that’s when I realised I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you. I knew then that I could never live without you, no matter what you had done. I knew I loved you more than life itself and I would spend the rest of my life taking care of you... And Arno – I love him. He’s my son.’ His voice faltered and he wiped his eyes.

  ‘And now? What now? Thys, what are we going to do now?’

  Thys stared at her. She stared back, then looked down at her clasped hands. She could hear her heart thumping. She couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Hello you two. You’re up,’ said Arno as he stepped into the kitchen, closely followed by the girl. He took her hand and led her over to Annamari.

  ‘Ma, are you feeling better? You still look very pale. Have you been crying?’

  She shook her head, forcing her frozen lips into a grimace of a smile. Arno smiled back, a little uncertainly.

  ‘Ma, I never managed to introduce you properly yesterday. This is Aviva Silverman, soon to be Mrs Arno van Zyl.’ He paused, and then added: ‘She’s Alan Silverman’s daughter.’

  Annamari shook the girl’s outstretched hand, and muttered hoarsely: ‘Nice to meet you.’ She glanced desperately at Thys, hoping for some indication of what to do next. He shook his head and mouthed at her: ‘Not now.’

  Weak with relief, Annamari staggered to her feet, clasping the gaping red dressing gown closed across her chest.

  ‘I’m sorry if I seem rude but I really must get dressed. Please excuse me,’ she said and fled out the kitchen, down the passage and into the bedroom.

  ***

  Annamari glared at the bible in her hands. She had looked for it next to Thys’ bed but it wasn’t there. She had found it under a pile of papers and books and an old foot and heel file in the cupboard at the bottom of his bedside pedestal. She looked accusingly at Thys as he came into the room, his expression unreadable.

  ‘What are we going to do? How are we going to tell him... them? That poor girl. After everything she has been through. And Arno, poor, poor boy. I can’t do this to him, again... it will destroy him,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean – again?’

  Oh heavens. Of course. Thys didn’t know. ‘Beauty,’ she said.

  ‘What about her? ‘

  She couldn’t continue. She couldn’t find the words.

  ‘What did you do, Annamari? Did you have something to do with their break-up? I thought the so-called mutual agreement between the two of them was strange. Especially as it was clear they were both miserable about it.’

  ‘I ... I had...It wasn’t...’ She faltered. She clutched the bible, wishing she believed enough to pray for guidance, inspiration, anything that would enable her to explain away the unforgivable.

  ‘What did you do? Don’t lie to me this time, Annamari. What did you do to them?’

  She flinched. She took a deep breath. She blurted: ‘Beauty is Alan’s daughter.’

  ‘What? Are you crazy?’

  ‘I couldn’t let them...’ She thrust the bible at him. ‘I read it in here. And then I asked you... and you said it was a sin, a really, really bad sin. So I – well, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell them about Alan, it would have destroyed Arno, and y
ou... I was so scared it would destroy us. And I was right, wasn’t I? And what would have been the point? Even if I had confessed everything and destroyed us and our family, Arno and Beauty still couldn’t have been... you know. They couldn’t get married... it says so, you said so.’

  Thys sank down on to the bed and stared at her. ‘Start from the beginning. I don’t understand.’

  Slowly, stumbling over the words, Annamari told Thys the story Rosie had told her all those years ago: how a good-looking young white man from Driespruitfontein – a boy really – used to visit Pretty in the township; how he had abandoned her when she was pregnant with Beauty. And then she told him how Pretty had confirmed her suspicions about Beauty’s father when she showed her the photograph of Alan in the school magazine.

  ‘But whatever made you suspect Alan was her father in the first place? How long had you known?’ Thys demanded.

  ‘You know the way you saw Arno and suddenly realised? It was sort of like that with Arno and Beauty. They were still little and they were playing or something, and the two of them turned and looked at me with those big blue eyes... and I just knew. I don’t know why. I saw the uncanny resemblance and, because I knew the story about Beauty’s father... well, it was easy to put two and two together.’

  Thys shook his head. ‘And I always thought you were against Arno and Beauty’s relationship because...’

  ‘Because you think I’m a racist?’

  Thys looked at her, shamefaced. ‘Well, what else was I supposed to think? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I couldn’t. I was too scared. I thought that if I did, you’d leave me.’ She paused. ‘And here we are again. Only this time... Oh God, Thys, what am I going to do? What are we going to do?’

  Chapter 45

  2014

  Arno and Aviva were waiting for her in the lounge. Well, not waiting exactly. They were sitting side by side on the couch watching Sky News when she walked in, trailing tension in her wake. Thys was standing by the fireplace. She knew exactly how the French nobility must have felt when they climbed the scaffolding and approached the guillotine. Except she was hardly French nobility. More like a common thief, a murderer approaching the gallows. She wiped her sweating palms on her jeans and smiled shakily at her son who was holding hands with his ... oh God... his sister. His half-sister. She swallowed hard, trying to swallow the nausea that was burning her gullet. She sank into an armchair and pushed her glasses back up her nose. She took a deep breath. She opened her mouth. This was it.