The Shallows

by Ingrid Winterbach

  ‘So?’ said Nick.

  ‘I have a hunch Victor Schoeman has a hand in this – mark my words!’

  ‘How can you say that?’ asked Nick, astonished.

  ‘Not your common or garden businessman – he’s also an art collector. The plot thickens!’ exclaimed Marthinus.

  ‘In what way, Marthinus? I don’t see any plot here. I see only a couple of coincidences.’ (Would Charelle be up by now? He’d not heard anything. She might be shy to come into the kitchen if she heard there was somebody there. He’d not heard her come in the night before. But he’d also been out for a while.)

  ‘Victor left England under suspicious circumstances. An issue with a creditor or something of the kind. He’s in financial straits,’ said Marthinus, ‘and he has an art background.’

  Nick wondered whether Marthinus hadn’t perhaps been watching too many DVDs. ‘How do you know all this?’ he asked. ‘Besides, Victor has always been in financial straits, ever since I’ve known him. That’s nothing new either.’

  ‘A friend of Alfons’ is in touch with someone who is in touch with Victor.’

  ‘That still doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘Look,’ said Marthinus, ‘do you remember the part in The Shallows,’ and he moved closer confidentially, ‘where a group of escaped psychiatric patients roam around running amok? Exactly that – escaped psychiatric patients! Can it be coincidence?! They’re a kind of marauding band wreaking destruction as far as they go. Their headquarters are in a room behind a mortuary. The leader spends the nights lying behind a green plastic curtain separating his bed from the stockpiled coffins, and he schemes. He schemes till the cows come home. Brilliant! Internal monologue upon internal monologue! Brilliant! A portrait of a paranoid schizophrenic Dostoevsky would have been proud of! I’ve always thought that was one of the most astonishing parts of the novel.’

  (Nick remembered the scene vaguely. He’d never read The Shallows all the way to the end, he’d been too pissed off with Victor at the time.)

  ‘Doesn’t the man shoot the others and then himself?’ he asked. (He was impatient, he didn’t really want to be having this conversation. Kept his ears pricked up for any sound in the passage.)

  ‘Yes. Oh Lord. A scene that sort of reminded me of Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert. Static. Almost slow motion. But magisterial. Horrendously barbaric, the violence of it.’

  ‘Victor never shied away from the depiction of violence,’ said Nick drily.

  ‘No! He didn’t! Violence is his medium. It’s his natural language!’

  ‘You’d never say it, to look at him,’ said Nick. ‘However. I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that he looks like Willem Dafoe in some villainous role.’

  ‘Too true,’ said Marthinus. ‘David Lynch and Tarantino are also right up his alley.’

  ‘Blinky couldn’t stand him.’

  ‘Not?! Well, I never.’

  ‘He thought he was a poseur.’

  ‘A poseur, eh? Yes, he did have rather a penchant for the affected flourish. And do you know who his heroes were?’

  ‘No,’ said Nick.

  ‘Brigadier Theunis “Red Russian” Swanepoel, and the Dalai Lama.’ He lit another cigarette. His tea must have been ice cold by now, but he drank it with undiminished relish.

  ‘Be that as it may,’ said Marthinus, ‘I’m prepared to bet my bottom dollar that Victor is behind both the escape and the assassination attempt. It’s there, it’s all in his novels!’

  ‘So?!’ Nick exclaimed. ‘Surely his novels can’t form a basis for such an assumption!’ He was impatient. He was no longer in a mood for Marthinus’ far-fetched suspicions. It was ten o’clock already. Charelle never slept this late. Should he go and tell her it’s okay, she can come to the kitchen at any time, she must be wanting a cup of tea by now?

  ‘Wait and see,’ said Marthinus. ‘It’s one hundred per cent Victor’s kind of scenario.’

  ‘From where did the patients escape?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Some high-security psychiatric hospital in the Moorreesburg vicinity. Only the most extreme cases are to be found there. The really severely disturbed cases. Oh Lord, it’s right up Victor’s alley. The more deviant, the better.’

  Marthinus drank the last of his tea. Smoked another cigarette. Then (fortunately) he had to go and do something at home, attend to the pigs or whatever.

  What should he do? Nick wondered. To go and knock at Charelle’s door now might be taking it a bit far. She might emerge of her own accord as soon as she no longer heard voices in the kitchen.

  At eleven o’clock he knocked at her door gently. No response. He called her name and knocked louder. No response. Against his better judgement he opened the door gingerly. She wasn’t there. Her bathroom door was open. Nobody there. Her toothbrush was still there. Her room was tidy, as always, the bed made. Her weekend bag was on top of the wardrobe. He hadn’t heard her come in the previous night nor leave in the morning. Why should he be upset – she didn’t owe him an explanation of her comings and goings.

  He had an appointment in Woodstock to view a prospective different studio space. He’d shortly have to vacate the studio that he rented in Observatory. He’d put it off for too long. He hadn’t wanted to face the disruption. He had no all-consuming desire to go and have a look this morning. But good studio space was hard to come by.

  Reluctantly he went to inspect the place. (Where could Charelle have gone to so suddenly? She seldom went out.) The space looked fair enough. He’d take it. Today it didn’t matter that much to him where he worked. The work he was embarked upon was not yet substantial enough for his exhibition the following year. He’d have to work faster, produce faster. The move to Cape Town had been disruptive, had made him lose momentum. The pressure on any artist to remain on the radar was great. (He was substituting temporarily for somebody at the art school because the move had left him in financial difficulties.) In the meantime the art world was moving on. There were hundreds of young artists every day doing interesting and innovative stuff. All of them were driven and ambitious. Like Charelle. Perhaps not all of them as talented as she, but talent was no prerequisite nowadays. He would not be able to bank for very much longer on his name and his prior success.

  He read the newspaper while having coffee in a small coffee shop. He saw no report on either the assassination attempt or the fugitive psychiatric patients. Could the whole thing have been a figment of Marthinus’ lively imagination? He had at times suspected the chap went overboard with things (very much like his unrealistic cousin) – as with the talk about Chris Kestell.

  Late in the afternoon he arrived home. Once again there was no response at Charelle’s door.

  By Saturday evening she’d still not returned. Eventually it turned nine o’clock, ten o’clock. She hadn’t said she was going away for the weekend. She usually did so. Not of course that she had to do it. She’d gone away the previous weekend with the woman in the turban. Desirée, not a particularly friendly woman. He didn’t want to phone Charelle. She’d think he was checking on her. Unforgivable. At eleven he went to bed. At first he dozed off lightly, listening for her footsteps. Somewhere in the early hours he half woke up, imagining he could hear voices on the pavement in front of the house, hoped, half-asleep, that it was Charelle, but didn’t hear her come in, and slept on restlessly.

  He woke up the next morning in a grumpy mood. He should have known he would scare her off sooner or later. A middle-aged white man suddenly starting to cook for her. Her landlord to boot. Much too close for comfort. He felt embarrassed and humiliated. What had he been thinking? Then he reconsidered: apart from their eating together regularly over the last few weeks, he’d done nothing that could in any way have given her the idea that he was in the least making up to her or intent upon a mission of seduction.

  By Sunday evening she had still not returned.

  Eight

  The trees are being stripped of their leaves. Every day it gets light a little later. In the m
ornings I have my tea in bed and look at the mountains. My gaze, I see in the mirror, is laconic. My spirit is refractory and troubled. The negotiations with Professor Marcus Olivier – professor emeritus in history – are not making headway. He is the father of the Olivier brothers, twins, on whom I’m writing the monograph. That such a father could beget such sons! I want to talk to him, though I’m still not sure what I’m hoping to learn from him. The more obstacles he places in my way, the more determined I am to gain access to him. I don’t negotiate directly with him – all communications (telephonic or by email) are channelled through his secretary-cum-housekeeper. I have no idea what she looks like, but I picture a curtly competent woman, dressed in a uniform, with sensible leather shoes with thick rubber soles.

  On cards I enter everything relating to the brothers and their work. Biographical information (the father, the absent mother, their youth in South Africa), their training (undergraduate as well as postgraduate), puppetry, literary influences (Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, etc.), surrealism (a vital component of their work), music, the technique of stop-action filming (their technique of choice and a field in which they are regarded as modern masters), the critical reception of their work (a lot has been written about them). Meanwhile I’m negotiating with the secretary-housekeeper. I intend to persist until I manage to secure an interview with the old father.

  The town is pretty, but also repugnant.

  I avoid people. This is a time of isolation. In the foreground: the mountains and I and the brothers. At times there is a zooming in the air. The mountains vibrate. In the background: the absent but urgent presence of the pig-headed old father and his sidekick-cum-housekeeper. Sometimes I meet up with you in town. Always we talk about him, because his death is still fresh in our minds. At times it’s better, at times it’s worse, you say, but the emptiness remains.

  When I’m not occupied with the cards, I follow links on the internet. I read that Philip Roth says in an interview that he’s done with writing. He’s devoted the largest and best part of his life to the novel, but now he no longer feels the compulsion. There’s a photo of him: he looks like a disillusioned old man, but his gaze remains piercing. Done, presumably, with characters like Mickey Sabbath: panty-sniffing, outrageous Sabbath, singing a paean to the clitoris, masturbating on the grave of his lover with the short legs (or am I confusing her with another character – Winnie Verloc, perhaps, in The Secret Agent? Winnie, for whom life did not bear much looking into).

  Then, one fine day, the secretary, a Miss De Jongh, phones. Professor Olivier is prepared to grant me an interview. But the interview is subject to strict conditions. It can’t be longer than half an hour, perhaps even shorter if the professor finds that it exhausts him too much. I will have to submit my questions in advance for the professor’s approval.

  We make an appointment for the end of the week, at four o’clock in the afternoon.

  Nine

  When by Monday afternoon Charelle had still not returned, Nick called her on her cellphone. The subscriber you have dialled is not available, was the only message he got repeatedly. He went to check her bedroom again. Spacious, almost the size of two rooms. She’d said more than once that she’d never in her life had so much space to herself. Everything arranged in a very orderly fashion on the large worktable (which she’d been very pleased with). There were few of her own possessions in the room, apart from her crocheted spread on the bed. Everything painfully tidy. Not a frilly, girlish room. He looked in the wardrobe. All her clothes were still there, as far as he could tell. He’d so often been fascinated with her attire – everything seemed second-hand to him – not fashionably second-hand, poor second-hand. The worn boots and the home-knitted jerseys. He’d wondered whether he should take her to buy clothes – but that would probably have been outrageous and presumptuous on his part. He looked in the bathroom again. Toothpaste and toothbrush. Skin products (not very expensive, by his estimate). In a small make-up bag (soft material with an embroidered Chinese dragon motif on it, probably bought at some Chinese store) – mascara and lip gloss. Two flagons of nail polish. (Slender fingers, slender nails.) Nail scissors, nail file. Tampax in the cabinet under the washbasin. Toilet paper. Shampoo and conditioner in the shower, a shower cap. He couldn’t remember what she normally took with her in the morning. He vaguely recalled that she sometimes carried a rucksack. It was not there.

  He sat down on her bed. He recalled that she’d told him she hadn’t known the girl very well in whose room she’d stayed when she first came to Cape Town. The room had been terribly untidy, and terribly cluttered. She couldn’t believe that anybody could have so many things – so many useless things. She’d tried to tidy up, but she hadn’t known where to put everything, and then she’d become discouraged. She’d felt completely alienated in that room. And she’d always been cold there. But she’d really liked the other girl who lived in the house. The one who’d cried so much that day about her parents’ dog.

  On Tuesday he phoned again in the course of the day. Still the same message. He didn’t know where to get hold of the Desirée woman, he didn’t know her surname.

  By Wednesday morning Charelle had still not returned. He reluctantly went to work. The students were back from their three-week-long Easter break. Thank God he didn’t have an appointment with the Karlien girl that day. At the end of the previous term she’d started dragging her feet on her satanism project (stillborn, Nick was starting to suspect). Possibly because her parents disapproved. (The father had looked like a bully. A brutal fellow, used to having his way.) He didn’t think he’d be able to be tactful with her today. He went home early. He phoned Marthinus and asked if he could drop in. There was something he urgently needed to discuss with him. Marthinus awaited him at the top of the stairs, mug of tea and cigarette in hand. Come in, come in, he said. A cordial kind of guy. Nick was grateful to see him.

  He explained the situation to Marthinus. How long had she been gone? Marthinus asked. Ever since Saturday morning. That was to say four days. Should he go to the police? No, said Marthinus, forget the police. They weren’t interested. There were too many missing persons. He had a better idea. He’d take Nick to a place where the people had a very shrewd notion of everything that happened in the neighbourhood and down in the city – everywhere: under bridges, in tunnels and culverts, in every conceivable hideout. These guys had their fingers on the underground pulse of the city. Underground and above ground. He’d take him there this very afternoon.

  ‘Where does she work, who are her friends?’ asked Marthinus later that afternoon as they walked, first a few blocks towards the mountain, then turned right and walked another few blocks up a slope.

  ‘I don’t know. She has a friend, Desirée, a woman with a turban.’

  ‘That’s a start,’ said Marthinus, ‘there aren’t many women with turbans.’

  ‘Her name is Charelle Koopman,’ said Nick. ‘She’s studying at the Peninsula Academy of Art. She’s very serious about photography. She helps a friend twice a week at a hairdressing salon. She’s quiet, she doesn’t go out very often. She’s never really received friends at the house. I sometimes cook for us in the evening.’ (He feels a bit shit having to say this.)

  ‘Where does she come from?’ asked Marthinus. From Veldenburg, said Nick. And he was scared that the people who’d sworn at him, and the chap who’d threatened her a while ago, might have something to do with her disappearance.

  What made Nick think that? (Any intrigue, and the man was all ears. The matter of Victor Schoeman and the escaped psychiatric patients a case in point.) A black car that he’d seen driving past his house once or twice after the swearing episode, he said, and if memory served, he’d also been sworn at from a black car, although he couldn’t say that with any certainty. She had, however, recently said that for a long time she hadn’t had grief from the man who’d threatened her. Apparently he hung out with bad company – tik-heads and the like.

  ‘Doesn’t sound good,’ said Marthin
us. ‘There probably is something to your hunch.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Nick.

  ‘To a settlement here up against the mountainside,’ said Marthinus.

  ‘A settlement?’ asked Nick.

  ‘A friend of Alfons’ started it as a refuge for outcasts and rejects. You could say the man was a kind of founding father. He managed the place for years in a very unorthodox style. Then he handed it over recently to a younger chap – very idealistic – who’s in the process of as it were reforming the whole bunch,’ said Marthinus, uttering his abrupt little chuckle. ‘Oh Lord,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Nick, not entirely buying into Marthinus’ plan, but relieved that he was at least doing something, not just sitting around fretting and fiddling.

  At the top of the steep hill they turned right again. A short distance along they came to a gate. There was a guard here. The gate was locked. Marthinus evidently knew him, he talked to him in Xhosa. The man let them in. As they followed the road up, Marthinus explained.

  The first building on the right was the kitchen and recreation area. Here once a day a nutritious meal was prepared, sponsored by the Department of Welfare. On the left there were a few prefab buildings, where the permanent residents lived. It was still early, most of the people had probably not returned from work, said Marthinus.

  Behind the kitchen was the vegetable garden. It covered a large area, everything here was planted in neat rows and clearly well maintained. The people worked in the gardens themselves in exchange for accommodation, said Marthinus. He’d helped here with the new lay-out and plantings – the original garden had been so neglected, there was hardly anything left of it. Now they were growing enough fruit and vegetables to be self-sustaining. Man, woman and child were expected to work here.

  To the right of the vegetable garden was where the animals were kept: pigs, chickens and two milk cows. Eggs and milk were plentiful, said Marthinus. His pigs were the descendants of these pigs.