16mm of Innocence

by Quentin Smith

  “I think I’ll join you,” Otto said, slamming the taxi door he had just opened.

  The taxi pulled off with the sultry figure of Ingrid visible in the back seat, staring straight ahead, arms folded.

  “I told you, she’s a bitch,” Dieter said.

  Otto was angry. It was his mother’s funeral and yet he was unable to mourn. He felt robbed of his duty as a son, of his right and indeed every human’s need to grieve the loss of his mother. They walked in silence. Otto turned to look upon the mound that marked his mother’s resting place but it was no longer visible, consumed by the grey fog.

  A pair of hazy lights emerged out of the ethereal mist and drew closer. It was Frans’ yellow Toyota police car. The car inched up to them, its wheels crunching on the gravel. Frans opened the window and his fleshy forearm came into view.

  “You guys want a lift?” he asked.

  “Thanks Frans, I think we’ll walk,” Dieter replied, scuffing the sand–smothered road with his shoe.

  “Where’s Ingrid?” Frans said, squinting past them into the deepening fog.

  Otto sighed. He was embarrassed by his family’s behaviour. Why could they not be like any other normal family?

  “She left in a taxi,” Otto said.

  “Did something happen?” Frans asked, one hand on the steering wheel and the other elbow resting in the open window.

  “I… er… I honestly don’t know,” Otto said, shaking his head. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter, she’s leaving tomorrow,” he added and then instantly regretted it.

  He sensed Frans studying them both through narrowed eyes, scraping his fingers across his stubbly chin, and for the first time Otto felt as though he was being scrutinised by a policeman who was investigating a dead body. The gravity of the unsolved crime weighed heavily upon him suddenly. Then Otto wondered why Frans had come back. An uncomfortable thought made him shudder: was Frans watching them?

  “She’s leaving?” Frans said, scratching his ear nonchalantly.

  “So she says.”

  Frans looked away and paused. “Are you going to Goerkehaus?”

  “Are you?” Dieter said.

  “No, I have to get back to the station, but I’ll drop you off. It’s not safe to walk in the fog. Drivers can’t see you.”

  As he and Dieter climbed into Frans’ police car Otto was filled with dread and a feeling of inexplicable guilt. Mother was buried and now all that remained was the serious unfinished business of the body, in which he was, by association, implicated. Suddenly he was wary of Frans, for he represented the law in Lüderitz.

  Twenty–Six

  Ingrid had not expected to see Frans at her hotel. She had bypassed Goerkehaus, deciding to forego the funeral wake, and was sitting in the hotel lounge listening to Cyndi Lauper singing Girls Just Want To Have Fun over a cup of steaming Darjeeling when he walked in. She stopped, teacup suspended in mid–air, as Frans approached with his languid lope.

  “Hi Ingrid.”

  “Frans.” She tried to hide her surprise.

  He sat down, easing his bulky frame into a rattan chair with as much delicacy as he could muster. “You OK?”

  She pulled a face and sipped her tea. “We’ve just buried Mother.”

  “Ja, I still remember when we buried Pa, it’s… unsettling.”

  They looked at each other in silence for a moment. Ingrid wondered what he wanted.

  “You didn’t go to the tea at Goerkehaus?” Frans said.

  Ingrid shrugged. “It seemed that most people were probably at Kreplinhaus for the fucking Führer’s birthday party. Any case, I’d had enough for one day.”

  Frans could not disguise his surprise at hearing Ingrid swear. “I dropped Otto and Dieter off at Goerkehaus,” he said.

  So, Frans probably knew that she and the boys had parted awkwardly, Ingrid thought, staring at his squint, wondering which eye to concentrate on when he spoke.

  “Can I ask you something, Ingrid?” Frans said with an intake of breath, leaning forward and clasping his hands between his meaty knees.

  Ingrid’s heart leapt into her throat and she put her teacup and saucer down on the table for fear of it rattling in her grasp.

  “Do you remember Inez’s funeral?”

  Ingrid was not expecting this. “God, that’s cruel.” She felt her eyes moisten.

  Frans sat back. “I know you were very close to her – she was your big sister.” He paused, appearing to drift off for a moment. “I had an older brother who died. I know what it’s like.”

  Ingrid looked down at her hands, willing herself to remain calm and unflustered. Inside though, her heart was pounding like a thoroughbred at the final furlong.

  “What do you want to know?” she said without looking up.

  “Can you remember her funeral?”

  Ingrid bit her lip. “Yes.”

  “It must have been very traumatic for you. How old were you, thirteen?”

  “Fourteen,” Ingrid replied coldly.

  Frans folded his arms over his protruding belly and angled his head. “Do you not remember anything about this body in the garden?”

  Ingrid studied Frans’ face, nervous to blink, suddenly aware that he was watching every reaction, every instinctive response; suddenly conscious that she was talking to a policeman, alert to the reality that she was being tested. Ingrid knew she had to be extremely careful about every word she let slip from her mouth.

  She shrugged, looking away. “Fourteen is still a child.”

  Silence for a moment. Cyndi Lauper was finished. German tourists milled in the foyer, talking and laughing loudly. Ingrid picked up odd words: Kolmanskop; Kreplinhaus; Felsenkirche; Jürgen Göring.

  “You’re leaving tomorrow?” Frans said.

  Shit, Ingrid thought, the boys must have told him. She didn’t want to appear flustered or defensive, and smiled nonchalantly. “I’ve got to get back. The funeral’s over.”

  “What about the house, the furniture, personal belongings?” Frans said, pressing the ends of his fingers together in front of his chin.

  “The boys will sort that out. I’m not interested in anything.”

  “Would you mind coming with me?” Frans said. “It won’t take long.”

  “Erm…” Ingrid hesitated, caught completely off guard.

  “I wouldn’t ordinarily do this on a day such as this, but if you’re leaving I won’t have another chance, you understand,” he explained.

  “What’s this about?”

  “I want to show you something down at the police station.”

  Ingrid felt light–headed and she tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.

  “Don’t worry,” Frans said with a chuckle. “It’s OK.”

  Ingrid knew she could not refuse, as much as she was deeply reluctant and apprehensive about what he might be about to show her. Why did he specifically want her to come along? Why not Dieter and Otto? Why not all of them? Or had they already been shown whatever it was he wanted her to see?

  She smiled nervously, trying to appear nonplussed. “Sure. Whatever.”

  *

  Lüderitz Police Station was close to the Adermann house on Bülow Street, just across from Bismarck Road on the way out of Lüderitz. It was an old German colonial building decorated in white with beige coloured frames around the sash windows. Sand was piled up against the walls that faced the Namib Desert, and also formed an eccentric mound around the base of the flagpole.

  “Hello Chief.” A uniformed African officer greeted Frans as they entered.

  “Sergeant,” Frans returned, walking through to his office situated behind glass–panelled walls.

  His office was like a goldfish bowl in the centre of the building and it made Ingrid feel very exposed and vulnerable to scrutiny. On the bland government–issue desk was a photograph of Frans’ obese family, framed in rustic quiver tree wood.

  “Are you going to fingerprint me or something?” Ingrid blurted out nervously.

  “Do I ne
ed to?” Frans replied, unnervingly confident on his own turf. He closed the glass panel door and walked over to a steel filing cabinet. “Sit down, please Ingrid.”

  Ingrid’s heart was racing. She felt out of control, cursing her presence in Lüderitz. She blamed Otto for persuading her to leave the comfort and security of her Manhattan apartment in the first instance, without which she would never have ended up sitting in the centre of Lüderitz Police Station, frightened out of her wits. Frans pulled the top drawer open along its squeaking rollers and then stopped, turning to face her.

  “This might be difficult for you; take a deep breath.”

  “You’re frightening me, Frans,” Ingrid said, her voice wavering. She pressed her knees together tightly, squeezing her clasped hands.

  “It’s OK.” He smiled. “After we gathered the remains of the child’s body we sent the skull to a forensic laboratory in Johannesburg. Have you heard of forensic artists and forensic anthropologists?”

  Ingrid’s ears were rushing as adrenaline–fuelled blood pumped through them. “No.”

  “What they do is to reconstruct facial features in three dimensions using clay, for example, to substitute for each layer of tissue: muscle, fat, skin. You understand?”

  “Uh–huh.” Ingrid dug her fingers into each other in her lap.

  “It’s not perfect but can be remarkably close.” He drew breath and plunged both hands deep into the open drawer. “I’m going to show you a reconstruction of the child’s skull. See if it rings any bells.”

  Ingrid covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes flinching as though she were in pain. She was trying ever so hard to exude calm indifference, fully aware that she was subject to prying scrutiny in Frans’ transparent office. But her nerves were making this impossible. When the little reconstructed skull was lifted from the drawer, revealing a bald head and smooth face sculpted in grey clay, she gasped at the unnerving resemblance to an infant child she had not seen for four decades.

  “You OK?” Frans said, pausing in mid–air with the clay head.

  “I’ve never done anything like this before,” Ingrid said, her lungs hungry for air. “How do you expect me to be?”

  Frans slowly placed the reconstructed child’s head on the desk in front of Ingrid. A round metal support protruded from below the head onto a wooden base. She shrank back from it, even though she couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  “Is the real skull… inside?” Ingrid asked, hesitantly.

  Frans nodded. “Sometimes we use a plaster cast, but in this case it is, yes.”

  The thought of that child’s skull sitting right in front of her, albeit smothered and disguised by clay, made the hairs on Ingrid’s neck rise. This very same skull had lain undiscovered in their garden for nearly forty years.

  The reconstructed features were fine: a small nose, flat brows, full infantile cheeks and a defined chin. In place of eyes two indentations in the clay simulated pupils.

  “Jesus.” Ingrid suddenly looked away, burying her face in both hands.

  “The ears are usually a guess; don’t pay attention to them. Sometimes the nose as well, though to a lesser extent. But I’m sure you’ll agree, it is certainly not a Herero child, nor a Damara, or any ethnic African. This is a European child.”

  When Ingrid looked back at the reconstruction she was aware of Frans’ eyes on hers, his belly hanging over his belt, one shirt button undone near the navel revealing pale hairy skin. Her eyes wanted to look anywhere but at the child’s head. A sudden rap on the glass door made Ingrid jump.

  Frans dismissed the uniformed officer. “Come back later, Eric, I’m busy, OK?”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Ingrid asked in a tiny voice.

  “You said you remembered Inez’s funeral?” Frans said, inclining his head.

  “So?” Ingrid’s voice was barely audible.

  “You are the oldest of the three children and therefore most likely to remember something. Evidence suggests that the body was buried around the same time as Inez’s funeral, maybe a few years earlier: 1946, ‘47 or ‘48. Dieter was probably too young, being only… what… four or five, and Otto just an infant.”

  Ingrid’s frightened eyes met Frans’ confident gaze. She felt on trial, her bladder weakening, her knees trembling, and she cursed her mother, only recently buried, and her father. Damn him. Damn them both. It was their fault that she was sitting in Frans’ office at that moment.

  “Do you recognise this face, Ingrid?” Frans said calmly. “Look carefully.”

  Ingrid forced herself to study the reconstructed head again. The artist had set the thin lips slightly apart, breathing a sense of life into the little child’s inanimate clay face. She shuddered.

  “Why do you think I should know this boy?” Ingrid said.

  Frans rubbed his chin without a flicker of expression. “You think it’s a boy?”

  Ingrid felt lightheaded. Jesus, what had she said? She was not handling this well. “Didn’t you say it was a boy?”

  Frans shook his head slowly. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Is it a boy?” Ingrid’s desperate eyes sought Frans’ face.

  “We don’t know, yet. What do you think?”

  Ingrid stood up and turned away. “Why are you asking me these things, making out I’ve done something? Christ, Frans, we’ve just buried my mother!”

  “So, you’ve never seen this face before? You don’t recognise this child?” Frans asked directly, pointing to the head.

  Ingrid didn’t know what to say. She was trapped and alone. She feared that saying the wrong thing might implicate her. Equally though, saying nothing could be misconstrued. For some inexplicable reason she suddenly wished her brothers were there with her, or at least Otto. She felt desperately forsaken, singled out and under interrogation, in a police station.

  “This is a shocking thing to see,” Ingrid said, pointing behind her back towards the desk without looking. “You could have warned me.”

  Frans leaned his frame against the edge of his desk. “It’s a necessary part of the investigation, Ingrid; just a formality. We have to figure out what happened.”

  Ingrid felt nauseous. “Can I go now please?” She sensed Frans’ eyes upon her, examining, probing, as though she was transparent.

  “I would like to ask you, nicely, not to leave tomorrow. This child’s identity has to be established and your family are the only people to have lived on that site.”

  “Meaning?” Ingrid retorted tersely.

  Frans shrugged his rounded shoulders and maintained his silence as his disconnected eyes flicked across Ingrid’s face. Her heart beat faster and faster. She had not seen this coming, this noose tightening around her neck.

  “You already have Mother’s DNA?” Ingrid said.

  Frans shrugged. “That may not be enough.”

  “Am I under arrest, or suspicion?”

  “Ingrid, I can’t force you to stay, but the Commissioner in Windhoek might.” His face softened and he smiled. “Please just hang around a little longer: you, Otto and Dieter. Let’s not get the brass in Windhoek involved, eh?”

  When Ingrid reached her hotel room, she shut the door in sudden relief and sat down in a daze on the edge of her quilted king size bed. Then she burst into tears almost immediately, covering her face with both hands, trying to smother the tears, hoping to force them back inside. Her body shook as her lungs longed for air, and she felt as though consolation was as unattainable as immortality. She could not remember when last she had cried. Not for Father. Not for Mother. It had been a long time ago. God, how it hurt.

  Twenty–Seven

  The tea at Goerkehaus was poorly attended, and after idle chatter with a few of Mother’s and in some cases Father’s friends, all wholly unfamiliar to him, Otto found himself standing alone with Dieter in the large, echoing room. Devoid of any decorations to soften the starkness of light yellow walls and well–trodden parquet flooring, it was fittingly bland and funereal.

 
“This is not what I imagined it would be like, you know,” Otto reflected over his third cup of tea.

  “In what way?” Dieter said.

  Mother was buried. They had met and shaken hands with many strangers who had come to pay their last respects. It suddenly felt very deflating, final, yet almost insignificant.

  “I’m not sure,” Otto admitted. “For one thing I thought we’d all be together today.”

  Dieter scoffed.

  “What did you find this morning?” Otto asked, angling his body towards Dieter surreptitiously.

  Dieter glanced at his wristwatch, his eyes suddenly animated. “The library’s still open. Let’s go and I’ll show you.”

  *

  Lüderitz Library was small and unassuming, a provincial library in every sense, right down to the middle–aged bespectacled woman bent over the reception desk. She smiled warmly at Dieter, revealing nicotine–stained teeth.

  “Grüss dich, Dieter.”

  “Hallo Eva.” Dieter nodded and gesticulated to Otto. “Das ist mein Bruder.”

  “Angenehm,” Eva said, glancing perfunctorily at Otto.

  Otto smiled and greeted her, catching sight of the large fax machine just to Eva’s left and imagining the hours Dieter had spent on it right beside her. Noticing Eva’s wide eyes returning swiftly to Dieter, Otto wondered if she fancied him – after all, he was a handsome man of about the right age for her. It made him feel peculiar realising what an absurd notion this was, though Eva was probably quite unaware of it, as indeed he had been until a few days ago.

  Dieter moved towards the back of the quiet room, past low shelves stacked with books and a few empty reading tables with desk lamps centred on each one. Otto followed dutifully. The library was empty and the mousy smell of old paper was strong.

  “I was amazed to find they have back issues of the Lüderitzbuchter archived on film,” Dieter said, sitting down in front of a Canon microfiche reader.

  He opened a drawer beside his left leg and flicked through the sections until he reached 1948. Pulling this out he opened the plastic binder and leafed through A4-sized sheets, each revealing multiple rows of small images.