Fourteen
After coffee and an informal chat about what Otto and Dieter could remember of their childhoods at the house – which didn’t seem to amount to much more than fragmented memories trapped by the usual significant associations with pain, joy and sadness – Dieter asked Frans for a lift to the library.
“Not again, Dieter,” Otto sighed. “There’s stuff we need to talk about.”
“I have obligations to the business.”
Otto shook his head. Frans kept his eyes on his feet.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” Dieter said.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” Otto sounded frustrated. “I may as well go and see Ingrid.”
“Want a lift?” Frans asked.
“No thanks. I’ll walk.”
*
“Where do you want to go?” Frans asked as his police car rolled gently downhill under its own momentum towards town.
“Don’t mind. Somewhere I can buy you a beer.” Dieter glanced at Frans. “Can you have one on duty?”
“I’m the chief – I’m sure I can make an exception. How about the Zum Sperrgebiet?”
“No, not there,” Dieter said quickly, afraid of bumping into Ingrid.
“OK. The Bay View then?”
Dieter shrugged. Within a few minutes the car rolled up outside a low building decorated with a tinge of Teutonic colonial fussiness painted vivid blue. It was quiet inside, just one or two tables occupied by tourists on the veranda overlooking the harbour.
“Your usual, Chief?” the African barman asked with a broad smile, revealing flawless teeth.
“Thank you, Samuel. For you, Dieter?”
“Windhoek Export please.”
They sat down with tall frosted glasses filled with frothy amber. A lone fishing vessel was chugging into the harbour, listing unhealthily to one side. Frans stared at it with curious eyes as he plunged his eager mouth into the froth. In the background the sound of Wham was as unobtrusive as lift music.
“What’s it like in Hong Kong?” Frans asked.
“Busy,” Dieter replied. “Full of people, colour, smells. Anything goes. It never rests.” He shrugged. “I like it.”
Frans studied Dieter’s face closely. “Never married?”
Dieter shook his head with a wry grin creasing his cheeks. “What happened to Inez?”
Frans looked down at his meaty hands and traced patterns in the frost on his beer glass.
“I get the feeling you quite liked her?” Dieter added.
Frans leaned back in his rattan chair sheepishly, making it creak. “What has Ingrid told you?”
“Ingrid and I don’t really speak.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story going back many years. It’s not relevant.”
Frans rubbed his chin with one hand. “Ja, I did like Inez. She was beautiful, just like Ingrid, tall, clever, and she loved rugby. We went to a school dance together in our final year.”
Dieter’s eyes wandered over Frans’ bloated frame, wondering why such an attractive girl would go for a man like him. Perhaps Frans sensed this, for he shifted uncomfortably under Dieter’s gaze.
“I wasn’t always like this, you know – I was the rugby captain in those days.” He paused. “Anyway, there were other people on the scene as well.”
“How did she die?” Dieter asked, savouring the superior hoppy malt, a legacy of the German colonialists.
Frans leaned forwards and frowned. “You really don’t know about any of this?”
Dieter just met his eyes without replying. It was embarrassing that such a significant aspect of their family history was unknown to both he and Otto. What did it say about his family? What did it imply about him?
Frans exhaled deeply as he prepared himself. “My father worked as a security officer for the diamond company, as you know, patrolling the Sperrgebiet. I used to think it was a great job when I was growing up – the diamond company was wealthy and powerful, and to work for them seemed inevitable in this little town. It was either that or become a fisherman.”
They both drank beer simultaneously. In the harbour the listing vessel was mooring at the quayside with the help of a small gang of men.
“Inez met a man after we left school. He was from… er… Keetmanshoop, I think.”
“I’ve heard of that town before.”
“Your father used to have a practice there as well, dividing his time between Lüderitz and… er… that one.”
“Oh yes.” Dieter remembered. “Is that how Inez and this guy met?”
Frans shrugged. “Possibly. Anyway, they seemed to become serious, then they left town for a while, I don’t know where they went, and then she came back.”
“Without him?”
“I thought so. I was pleased that she was here again – I wasn’t married yet you see – but she was not the same person she used to be.”
Dieter blinked, trying to take in these extraordinary revelations about a sister he had, until two days ago, not even known existed. “In what way?” he asked.
Frans rubbed repeatedly at the skin below his eye. “She was… sad.”
Dieter sensed an anticipatory aura of what was coming.
“As you know, being in the Sperrgebiet without proper authorisation – a permit, and often an escort as well – was strictly prohibited. Still is.” Frans inhaled. “I quit smoking but, hell, I could do with a drag now.” He drained his beer.
“Another?” Dieter offered, burning with apprehensive curiosity.
Frans held up one hand. “No.”
“What happened?”
“My father found your sister’s body in an abandoned building in Kolmanskop, a few miles from here.”
“The old mining town?”
“Ja. It was in serious decline by the late 1940s and has been a ghost town for at least thirty years. There would have been a lot of empty houses even then, gradually being reclaimed by the desert.”
“How did she die?” Dieter said softly, apprehensively.
“Both she and her… boyfriend… had been shot,” Frans said.
Dieter’s heartbeat pulsated in his ears. Even though he had never known Inez these details of a death in his immediate family shocked him.
“Suicide?”
Frans made a face. “Officially, ja, but it was a bit… messy for my liking. My father found a revolver at the scene but there were no good fingerprints on it.”
“What are you saying?”
Frans squirmed uncomfortably, breaking eye contact and staring out at the quayside where the listing vessel was moored, surrounded by people with hands on their hips. As he was about to speak, the barman walked by and collected their empty glasses. “Another one, Chief?”
“No thanks, Samuel.” He waited for Samuel to saunter away. “I’m not suggesting anything, but it always bothered me that it was not clear–cut. There was no suicide note and Sperrgebiet security were a law unto themselves in the old days – untouchable, you know. Were they shot because they were wandering around the Sperrgebiet? Was it a cover–up, or was it suicide?”
Dieter could see distant pain in Frans’ eyes when he re–established eye contact. How ironic that this man had been so affected by the untimely death of Dieter’s sister, mourning her for all these years while he, as a member of her family, had never even known about her existence.
“Could they have walked into the Sperrgebiet wanting to die, inviting it?” Dieter thought, aloud.
Frans raised his eyebrows and briefly unclasped his hands.
“Is that why you didn’t become a diamond company employee?”
Frans looked at Dieter with unwavering eyes. “Absolutely. I even viewed my own pa differently after that. It was a terrible time for me.”
“What about the people of Lüderitz? It’s a small town.”
Frans opened his hands, palms up, in a gesture of hopelessness. “Officially it was suicide. Everyone mourned.”
“Who was the man found with he
r?”
“I can’t remember his name.”
Dieter placed a clenched fist against his lips as he sank into deep thought. Was it merely shame that had resulted in Inez’s identity and existence being banished from the family albums? But what could have driven her to such drastic and desperate measures?
“Your parents never told you any of this?” Frans said, a look of disbelief visible on his face.
Dieter shook his head dolefully. “No.” A brief vision of his dream appeared for a moment: the rolled–up carpet, the shadowy faces, the feeling of culpability and that haunting fear of imminent discovery.
Frans glanced at his watch. “I must go, Dieter, I’m expecting a call at one o’clock.”
Dieter continued to press his fist against pursed lips. “I’d like to go to Kolmanskop, if that’s possible?” he said suddenly.
“Of course. We need permits but I can arrange that. Just tell me when and how many people.” Frans stood up with difficulty, squeezing his belly past the chair backs. “Listen, man, I’m really sorry to be the one to tell you such terrible things. Can I give you a lift home?”
Dieter looked up but remained seated. “I’d like to walk, thanks Frans. On your way out perhaps you could ask Samuel to bring me another Export.”
“Ja, sure.” Frans lingered, his fingers still on the rim of his chair back. “One thing you might all have forgotten as you’ve lived away from here for so long: Thursday, tomorrow, is fresh vegetable day in the town.”
Dieter raised his eyebrows. “Fresh vegetable day?”
“Ja, once a week fresh veg and fruit is trucked in from Swakopmund. It goes quickly, so if you want something…” He shrugged and rapped his fingers on the back of the chair in front of him.
“Jesus, fresh vegetables once a week?”
“The desert hasn’t gotten any smaller since you left, Dieter. The closest town with proper links to the outside world is over five hundred miles away.”
Dieter considered his empty beer glass in disbelief. “So why do people live here, Frans?”
“You mean apart from the diamonds?”
Dieter pulled a face.
“In my experience,” Frans began, looking out of the window at the fishing boat, “people live here either to lose themselves, or to find themselves.”
Dieter followed his gaze and both men stared at the increasing activity building around the damaged fishing boat. “And you, Frans?”
Frans hesitated. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Dieter felt drained, emotionally exhausted. He was supposed to be here to mourn and bury his mother, but with just days to go his mind could not be further from her funeral at that moment. How could he continue to keep this secret from Otto?
Fifteen
The Zum Sperrgebiet was the model of a clean and generically designed chain hotel: deep–pile blue carpeting woven with the hotel crest, square oak reception desk and gleaming chrome and alloy lighting. Barry Manilow softened the airwaves melodiously at the perfect volume.
Otto found Ingrid in the lounge, reading a book through fashionable plus one dioptre readers perched halfway down her nose. She was clearly surprised to see Otto, who slumped uninvited into the empty space beside her on the fleur–de–lys patterned sofa.
“Otto!”
He smiled and stretched his arm out across the back of the sofa. “Morning.”
He imagined that in some families he would have leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, perhaps a little embrace, her hand on his arm briefly, her posture opening up to reassure him that he was welcome. Ingrid carefully marked her place, closed the book and pulled the readers off her nose.
“I’ve never seen you wearing reading glasses,” Otto said.
“We’re not getting younger, Otto. It happens to the best of us.”
Otto nodded and surveyed the room in which they sat: potted green ferns – quite out of place in Lüderitz – and framed landscapes of desert scenery and sculpted sand dunes on the neutral walls.
“It looks nice here.”
“It’s OK,” Ingrid said, making a face. “Definitely not four star, as they claim.” She studied Otto for a moment. “So, to what do I owe this honour?”
Otto inhaled. “Well, you didn’t come to the house, Frans has been and gone, Dieter’s at the library…”
Ingrid tutted and rolled her eyes.
“…So I decided to find you.”
“Aaaah,” Ingrid said, but it sounded insincere. “Should we order tea, or something stronger?”
Otto glanced at his watch. “Why don’t we walk?”
“It’s blowing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but it’s not unpleasant. Let’s look around the old town again.”
Five minutes later they stepped out into Göring Street, Ingrid in a knee–length grey coat with matching fur trim and a charcoal Russian fox–fur hat. As they approached the square colonial monstrosity of Woermann House she unexpectedly hooked her arm around Otto’s elbow.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked, curling her nose. “God, it smells out here.”
The wind was constant with occasional sharp gusts that could be surprisingly strong.
“Frans says it’s the smell of guano and seal dung being blown this way on the south–wester.”
“Jesus, give me the Central Park pigeons any day.”
They crossed to Hafen Street, which flanked the harbour. The lone, listing fishing boat moored forlornly at the quayside caught Otto’s eye as he recoiled slightly from the fishy smell of the harbour, effortlessly overwhelming that of the guano.
“I’m sorry your marriage didn’t work out,” Otto said.
“Which one?” Ingrid retorted with a curl in the corner of her mouth.
“All of them, I suppose,” Otto said. “You OK?”
Ingrid laughed cynically, dismissively. “God, yes. I’ve been through far worse. Growing up in our family prepared me for dealing with rejection in many forms.”
“Now that sounds like a confession.”
She glanced at him, her eyes unwavering. “I am not the one who should confess.”
Otto was pleased just to get Ingrid talking, even though conversation with her often took unexpected twists. The last time he remembered discussing her divorce from Newman she managed to bring up his Morris Minor car, his exorbitant university fees for six years in Cape Town, and Dieter’s all–expenses–paid business course in Cologne for four years, including an apartment on Taubenstrasse. She reminded him that even as the eldest child all she got was a secretarial course in Swakopmund for eighteen months and an engagement ring from Frederick. There was never any benefit to pointing out that she had not wanted to go to university and that she had in fact been desperate to marry Frederick, kicking and screaming about having to go as far as Swakopmund to study. She had even forsaken her graduation ceremony to leave by boat from Cape Town on a three week honeymoon cruise bound for her new home in New York.
“And who exactly should confess?” Otto asked.
“You been talking to your brother?” Ingrid asked.
“About what?”
She shrugged. Otto stopped and stared down a finger of land, a peninsula that extended the length of the harbour into the bay. The proximal end was a haven of factory buildings and warehouses, probably fisheries and processing plants, people and forklifts swarming in all directions.
“I think that’s Shark Island beyond the harbour.”
“Uh–huh,” Ingrid said, disinterested.
“That’s where Mum scattered Dad’s ashes after we left.”
“Is that where you’re taking me?” Ingrid asked.
“Another time. I want to go somewhere quieter,” Otto said, resuming his stride. “It looks very busy around those warehouses.”
They turned a corner. Straight ahead would take them into Diaz Street and right past the front of the Bay View Hotel.
“Let’s go up here,” Otto suggested as they turned sharply into Bismarck Street. “Why did
you not attend Dad’s funeral?” he asked.
Ingrid adjusted her arm in his. “You know, Otto, I didn’t really see eye to eye with Dad. We had our differences, it was no secret; he clearly favoured you boys, that was no secret either…” She paused for effect. Otto ignored the bait. “We just… drifted apart. Living in New York just made it easier.”
“That’s all?” It always amazed Otto how trivial the causes of lifelong feuds could be, especially in families.
“God, look at this old relic,” Ingrid said, stopping to admire the Deutsche Afrika Bank building, now, as the plaque proclaimed, a national museum. “Makes you realise that this dump of a town was once quite prosperous, in its day.”
An imposing building of typical German colonial architectural design – chiselled stone blocks to the first floor, supporting a square corner turret and gabled upper structure painted in vibrant white and bottle green to match the tiled roof – it was eye–catching, complete with security bars that had endured the corroding forces of nature for eight decades.
“It upset Mum deeply, you know,” Otto said.
Ingrid stiffened and withdrew her arm suddenly. “Mum knew exactly how I felt about Dad, and why. I don’t believe she ever expected that I would attend his funeral.”
“But something must have happened between you two?”
“Lots of things happened, Otto, but they’re in the past now, dead and buried.”
“But not forgotten?” Otto said.
She looked at him and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t bring them up again.”
They resumed walking, now apart with no physical contact, though almost in step with each other.
“Let’s go down here, I think I hear waves crashing on the rocks,” Otto suggested as they turned into Nachtigall Street, which led them to one of Lüderitz’s rugged shorelines.
It was as though they were walking down the western edge of the central spur of a letter W. The blue bay separating them from a rocky headland called False Island – site of Bartholomew Diaz’s centuries old beacon at Diaz Point – was spitting white waves under the relentless south–wester.
Otto wanted to press the point and ask Ingrid why she seemed to harbour such animosity towards her family, but decided at the last moment to draw back. If he upset Ingrid she might just leave, something she had done before. He wanted her to stay for Mother’s funeral, and there was also that unfinished business at the house.
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