“Is it a spider?” Dieter said.
Otto came crawling along to the flowers, reaching out.
“No!” Ingrid shouted, grabbing him by the arm and lifting him away.
He cried out in protest and perhaps some pain as he dangled in Ingrid’s grasp. In a flash of simultaneous deduction, Mother and Ingrid both turned to the silent pram. Mother began to wail as she rushed towards it. When she reached the pram the haunting sound of visceral suffering that she was emitting suddenly intensified.
“No, no, nooo…” Mother screamed as she lifted the blue and floppy body of Johan out of the pram. “Oh God, noooo…”
Ingrid, feeling weak at the knees, stared in shock, still holding Dieter’s hand. She lifted Otto up to her shoulder as both he and Dieter began to cry, frightened by what they did not understand.
“We need Father,” Ingrid said, staring at Mother for affirmation.
But Mother flopped back hard onto the mound of fresh earth on Inez’s grave, shaking her head, Johan’s lifeless body in her embrace. She sobbed, her tears wetting the infant’s purple face and glassy eyes. It was as though Ingrid was afraid to go near Mother and the dead child. She kept her distance, holding Otto as she knelt beside Dieter, comforting them both as they all stared at Mother, howling in heart–wrenching salvos. It was too shocking for Ingrid to comprehend, as though her mind was shutting down in self–defence. Dieter pawed at her shoulder, rivulets of snot running down his upper lip.
“What’s happened?” Dieter asked, looking at Ingrid with naive innocence.
Ingrid did not know how to respond, and she pulled Dieter closer to her as he pushed his thumb into his mouth. Rising up from the shore was a wall of leaden fog, obliterating both horizon and sky, approaching fast, soon to swallow Lüderitz and all its misery.
“This is all your father’s fault,” Ingrid said softly, and kissed Otto on the head. Inside, she felt cold. Her tears had dried up. Her eyes burned from staring at Mother’s broken body holding Johan.
Forty–Five
Frans stared at Ingrid, his divergent eyes worse than ever in the semi–gloom of the darkened living room. Otto and Dieter had gathered around them, Dieter still sitting on the floor, hugging his knees as he might have done as a boy while listening to a story being read to him.
“Had your pa already left for the Etosha hunting trip?” Frans asked.
Ingrid sniffed away tears and licked her dry lips. “No. He was home.”
Frans frowned almost imperceptibly. “So, what did he do?”
Ingrid shrugged. “Nothing. Johan was already dead.”
“From the scorpion sting?” Dieter asked.
Ingrid nodded.
“Jesus,” Dieter mumbled.
“If it was a black and yellow scorpion,” Frans said, turning to Dieter, “as I’ve told you, they are very poisonous, especially if you are a small child.”
Otto felt his heart pounding in his chest. The thought that he had been crawling about in juvenile ignorance beside Johan, perhaps inches away from the lethal sting that had claimed his young nephew, horrified him. How cruel and arbitrary the fates could be.
“And then what happened?” Frans asked.
Ingrid took a deep breath. “Father panicked. Nobody in Lüderitz knew that Inez had an illegitimate child – let alone with a Jewish man – and Dad was deeply concerned about his reputation, his honour and esteem.” Ingrid’s voice betrayed a bitter tone.
“Did she have the baby in Otjiwarongo?” Otto asked.
“I think so.” Ingrid nodded, looking briefly at Otto. “He and Mum went to his study and locked the door for a few hours. They told me to put Dieter and Otto to bed. When they came out it was already dark.”
Ingrid bit her lip. Otto felt nauseous, both from knowing what was coming and seeing Ingrid in such an atypically emotional state. He had never seen her like this before, stripped of her layers of armour.
“Dad went out and dug in the back garden for hours.” Ingrid stared ahead blankly for a few moments, though whether trying to recall or banish images from her mind Otto was not certain. “I was so exhausted, but I couldn’t go to sleep. Little Johan was wrapped up in a sheet or something in Dad’s study, like a doll.” Ingrid covered her eyes momentarily, drawing a few shuddering breaths.
“Did you see all of this?” Frans asked.
Ingrid nodded, her pink eyes refusing to engage with anyone in the room. “I remember it like it was yesterday. I watched first from Dieter’s bedroom upstairs, while I put him to sleep.”
“You saw your father dig a hole in the back garden – where we found the body a few weeks ago?” Frans asked.
“Yes.”
Frans wiped his stubbly chin with one hand and frowned. “Man,” was all he said, blinking furiously as if to straighten his eyes.
“It must have been after midnight before the hole was deep enough.” Pause. “They carried him out – Mum was crying and Dad told her to be quiet, and all I did was watch from the landing on the stairs.”
Otto studied Ingrid’s tortured face, tears streaked through her perfectly applied make–up like bicycle tracks. He had never seen his sister like this. She was always in control, aloof, confrontational. It was unsettling to see her struggling with such bitter memories, and he felt a sudden surge of empathy for her, feeling that he had probably misunderstood her motivations all these years.
“I’ve had a dream for many years,” Dieter said, quietly at first, clearing his throat into a balled fist. “It’s always the same, and it takes place at the back of our house.”
Frans turned around to fix one of his eyes on Dieter.
“I see people carrying a rolled–up carpet – a green one – out of the house.”
“Your bedroom carpet was green,” Ingrid said.
“I know, it makes no sense. In the dream I know there is something in the carpet, something that is wrong, very wrong, something that could get me into trouble, but I don’t know what it is. For some reason, I think it is a body.”
“Can you see who is carrying the carpet?” Frans asked.
“Never. The faces are always in shadows. There are a few people – two, maybe three. It leaves me with a hollow fear that one day it will be discovered and I will be in trouble.”
They all sat in silence.
“Do you see the carpet being buried?” Frans asked.
Dieter shook his head. “No. I never see a hole and I usually wake up then, so I don’t know where the carpet goes.”
Ingrid stared at Dieter with a deep frown etched into her forehead. “You couldn’t have seen that. You were… what… five? You were asleep.”
Dieter shrugged. “I know. Maybe I heard it later, you talking about it…” He shook his head. “I have no idea. Until today, I have never understood the dream, but now…”
Frans turned back to Ingrid. “What happened the next day?”
“Father left for his hunting trip and told us never to speak of Inez or the baby again.” Ingrid pulled a face.
“Christ, Ingrid. You’ve shouldered this all your life?” Otto said. “You should have told us, it would have eased your burden.”
“I promised Mum. Then it just became a…” She trailed off, unable to find the words.
“And your ma?” Frans asked.
“She would never say anything against Dad. That’s how she was. Love and obey,” she said sarcastically.
After a while Frans stood up slowly, as though his back was hurting. He arched his body and pressed his balled fists into his lower back. It seemed that he wanted to say something, but he took his time before speaking.
“I am really sorry for you guys. This is a terrible thing to discover, especially so soon after your ma’s funeral. Terrible.”
“It was Dad’s fault,” Ingrid said coldly.
“Eh?” Frans turned.
“It was all because of Dad. He drove Inez to suicide, he wouldn’t have her child in the house, he buried the body in the garden, he swore us all to
secrecy to protect and preserve his honour.” Ingrid was seething. “When I saw that film of him prancing around in his fucking SS uniform…” She shook her head slowly.
Otto stepped forward and embraced Ingrid. She hesitated and then he felt her head against his shoulder and her arms around him. Dieter joined them, placing one arm around Ingrid and one around Otto. They stood in silence for a while; Otto could not remember how long. There was nothing to say.
Otto heard Frans let himself out the front door.
Forty–Six
That evening Otto, Ingrid and Dieter went down to the seafood restaurant on Robert Harbour and sat around the same table, sharing two bottles of pinotage. No–one seemed hungry, Otto certainly wasn’t, but he sensed that there was a shared need for togetherness to mourn for all the lost years and wounding secrets.
They spoke little about the events that Ingrid had recalled, her chilling words still fresh and raw. Amidst numerous silences they pushed grilled hake, buttered lobster tail and creamed potato around their plates.
Otto was disorientated, his mind spinning. He could not think about the mother he had come all this way to bury; he could not even turn his mind to his wife and children whom he so badly missed.
“I am sorry, Ingrid, for never understanding what you have been through,” Dieter said.
She shrugged. “How could you have known?”
“I don’t know how you did it,” Otto said.
Though he said this, he felt that he knew the answer. Ingrid had withdrawn from the family, retreated to her own iceberg, a cold and unfriendly place from which she seldom ventured. She had never encouraged relationships with the family, keeping everyone at a safe distance. This way, he thought, she had avoided constant reminders of those terrible events she witnessed as a young girl, forced into a subservient pact of collusion that she had honoured until now.
“I want to go back home, now. I am tired,” she said, clinking her fork down and pushing her plate of uneaten hake away. “I will never visit Lüderitz again.”
She looked exhausted, Otto thought, emotionally eviscerated. Her eyes were still puffy and her eyelids layered, as though she had suddenly aged. Dieter picked up his starched napkin and wiped his mouth.
“I want to get home too,” Dieter said suddenly, eyes on Ingrid.
Ingrid looked up at him, her expression certainly receptive, even if not warm. “Is there someone?”
Dieter nodded and carefully placed his napkin on the table. “Yes, my business partner, Jim.”
“It’s a good thing Mum and Dad didn’t live to find out,” Ingrid said somewhat derisively.
“Don’t I know it. Why do you think I waited?”
Otto smiled as he watched Ingrid and Dieter over the glow of his wine glass. It had been a very long time since he’d seen any convivial exchange between his brother and sister.
“I suppose Willem Krause will now be quite happy to execute the will,” Ingrid said. “And I mean what I said – I don’t want the piano or anything from that house. I don’t much care what you do with any of it.”
“And your share of the money?” Otto said.
Ingrid made a face. “I have money.”
“We all have money,” Otto said. “It’s your entitlement as one of their children.”
Ingrid winced, as though she had been stabbed beneath the table. It was subtle, but Otto noticed. Her chest rose and fell for a few moments as she looked at him. What was she thinking, he wondered?
“Well, I guess this is it then,” Ingrid said.
“Why?” Dieter asked.
“I’m leaving tomorrow, back to Windhoek and I’ll catch the next flight I can to JFK.”
Otto held back a polite protest. There seemed no point now. This funeral gathering had gone on for much longer than anticipated, and had exposed more than he could ever have imagined in his worst nightmare. It was time to go home, he to Sabine, Max and Karl; Dieter to Jim; and Ingrid to… he realised then how little he knew about her life in New York.
“Shall we meet up at Christmas somewhere?” Otto said.
Ingrid pushed her chair back to stand up. “Let’s walk before we run, Otto.” She rubbed her eyes. “I need sleep, I am finished.”
Though brief and somewhat unconsummated, Otto felt good about the fact that they had managed to go out and dine together as family. Their childhood memories would never be the same again, but at least they all knew the truth about their parents, as revealing and unpalatable as it was.
Forty–Seven
19 September 1948
Mother stared in horror at the bloated cerise face in the pram. Beside her Ingrid screamed hysterically.
“What’s wrong with him? What’s happened?”
Mother pulled the tiny, limp body out of the pram in her strong arms and laid it down on the gravel beside Inez’s grave. Kneeling down in the sandy dirt she bent over the moribund infant and began to blow into his nose and mouth. Then she pushed rhythmically on his chest with several fingers in concentrated silence, her face drawn, as first one and then several tears rolled down her rounded cheeks and soaked into the arid soil.
“Mum, what are you doing?” Ingrid asked, clutching a wide–eyed Dieter against her leg.
“Put the pram in the car and get both boys in,” Mother said as she bent down to inflate the infant’s chest once again.
“Is he alright?”
“Just do it, Ingrid, quickly! There is no time to waste,” Mother said sharply.
Ingrid seated the two boys in the back seat. They were both crying and their round faces suffused with a rush of blood.
“Why is Mummy crying?” Dieter asked in between cries.
Ingrid stifled a sob as she tried desperately to reconcile in her young mind what had happened: the sight of that black and yellow scorpion scurrying away burned into her mind.
“We need to get home,” Ingrid said as she loaded the pram into the dusty old black Mercedes 130H, imported to Lüderitz long before the war even began.
Mother was still hunched over the tiny, stricken body, its arms spreadeagled on the infertile desert surface.
“Can you drive the car?” Mother asked without interrupting her attempts at resuscitation.
Ingrid paled. “I’m only fourteen, Mum.”
“Can you do this then?” Mother asked, making brief eye contact with her.
Ingrid cried and sniffled. “I don’t know what you’re doing.”
Mother bent over to breathe into the infant’s lungs before fixing Ingrid with a steely stare, her eyes cold and unsympathetic.
“For God’s sake, Inga, don’t snivel, you are going to have to grow up quickly in the next five minutes.”
“Mum?” Ingrid felt her knees weaken. She was frightened, overwhelmed and felt very alone, the world around her suddenly large and confusing. Urine trickled down her leg.
“Get behind the wheel, I’ll tell you what to do,” Mother said sternly.
Once in the car Mother held the flaccid child in her lap, hunched over it, continuing to compress the chest and breathe into its lungs. Her face was becoming flushed and perspiration dotted her forehead. Dieter’s crying intensified in the warm, claustrophobic cabin of the car.
“Start the car,” Mother said, pointing at the keys in the ignition.
Ingrid’s hands were shaking and she was startled as the engine burst into life, vibrating the car.
“Push the clutch in with your left foot.” Mother paused to breathe into the child’s lungs. “Gear into first.”
The car began to roll backwards.
“I’m scared, Mum, I’ve never done this before,” Ingrid snivelled.
“Listen to me. I need you to grow up right now! It’s only you and me that can do this, understand?” Mother’s tone was unyielding. “There is no–one else.”
“We’re going backwards!” Ingrid wailed, holding the steering wheel helplessly.
Dieter bawled in the backseat, his little fists held aloft in ignorant protest.
The car bounced, jerked violently and stalled, almost propelling the infant off Mother’s lap. She yelled at Ingrid, who was crying in unison with Dieter. The car started again and Ingrid tried desperately to get it moving, but with the same failed result. Mother screamed – a cry of frustration and anguish. Her chest was heaving and she looked exhausted. Ingrid watched as she put her ear next to the child’s mouth and then pressed a finger into his blue–black mottled neck. It no longer resembled a little infant boy. Ingrid averted her eyes from its spoiled skin.
Mother leaned back in the seat and let out a moan, an indescribable visceral sound of torment. She closed her eyes, squeezing a large tear out of each, and rested her hands on his chest.
“What is it, Mum?” Ingrid asked apprehensively, almost in a whisper, feeling her heart pounding in her chest.
Mother wiped one eye. “I’ll drive, you come and sit here and hold him.”
“But I don’t know how to…”
“You don’t need to anymore.”
Mother drove slowly and in silence, both boys in the back crying lustily, Ingrid sobbing almost hysterically with the dead infant in her lap, unsure where to put her hands, astonished by its floppiness, the little dry mouth hanging open. How could such a thing happen so quickly? A few times she swallowed bile.
Back at home on Bülow Street Mother wrapped the infant in a towel and placed it in Father’s study, locking the door. She put on her apron and moved through the house with a steely purpose, silently, wiping her eyes occasionally but not uttering a sound. Ingrid kept the boys busy, leaving Mother undisturbed in the kitchen, slicing vegetables, boiling meat, buttering bread and setting the table. She fed the children, though neither she nor Ingrid ate very much, and then instructed Ingrid to put the boys to bed.
When Ingrid returned to the living room she found Mother sitting in darkness, her face buried in her hands, a glass of brandy beside her. Ingrid hesitated, feeling that she was intruding upon something beyond her comprehension, something not meant for her to witness.
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