The Shallows

by Ingrid Winterbach

  *

  That afternoon Nick dropped in on Marthinus to tell him about the incident. He said he didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry. There the student sat in front of him week after week making no progress with her project and in the meantime she and her friends were probably passing the time every evening with all kinds of absurd satanic rituals that one fine day got out of hand so that she just about bled to death. Probably on the very blanket or cloth with the tiger or leopard on it that she’d wanted to use for the installation.

  An idea popped into Nick’s overheated brain. ‘Marthinus,’ he said, ‘for god’s sake just don’t say again that it reminds you of something in The Shallows.’

  ‘D’you know … now that you mention it,’ said Marthinus musingly, ‘I’d almost forgotten. There’s that beautiful – well, not beautiful, but powerful scene in The Shallows where the people are dancing around this effigy of the devil, a kind of folk-dancey dance, to the tune of some folk song, if memory serves. Listen, gruesome but forceful. I’d always read it with Goya’s Witches’ Sabbath as background. But carry on. Tell me about the girl.’

  ‘Thin. Blonde. Physically perfect, like a Barbie doll. The parents came to see me once. The father’s an arsehole, but the mother was worried about the project that the child was planning. Karlien, her name is Karlien. One of those people who look as if they’re going through life untouched. I never knew if she was registering anything of what I was saying. She struggled with the project, made no progress. I suppose I should have probed a bit deeper. I really just wanted her out of my office as quickly as possible every time—’

  ‘Wait, wait,’ Marthinus interrupted him. ‘Come over this evening. I’ll get Menasse to talk to you. He knows everything about this kind of diabolical condition. He’ll probably say that the girl never had a chance, she was already trapped in some or other demonic sphere. Don’t judge yourself. It was out of your control. Menasse will confirm that.’

  He wasn’t judging himself, said Nick, and he doubted if there’d been any diabolic or demonic spheres involved, for that the students had too little imagination.

  After their conversation he went to his studio anyway and finished the half-bottle of whisky that he always kept there. He slept restlessly on the sofa, and when he woke up, in the late afternoon, and everything flooded back over him, he thought he was going to slit his fucking wrists, there and then, that was how utterly shit he was feeling.

  *

  He forced himself to get up rather than to just carry on sleeping. He dropped in on Marthinus. Going home was out of the question. The very next day he would put his house up for rental. And if somebody wanted to buy it at a good price, all the better. Marthinus said nothing, but fried some eggs for Nick and made him coffee. Nick ate wordlessly, grateful for Marthinus’ solicitude. Later that evening Menasse with the adamantine brow arrived. (Marthinus must have commandeered him specially, though Nick had not thought it necessary.)

  They sat on the stoep. The conversation veered from this to that. A bit later Marthinus referred to what had happened to Nick’s student. Menasse did not seem in the least surprised or perturbed. Probably used to all kinds of bizarre goings-on, if he really was acquainted with the demonic spheres, as Marthinus maintained. Menasse questioned Nick cautiously. Nick told him about the girl’s interest in satanism. About the project that she’d planned and could never get going. How she’d got stuck on the photo with the blanket with the tiger on it. Menasse listened attentively. It sounded to him, he said, as if the girl had ended up in two intersecting circles, that of good and that of evil, which were almost inextricably intertwined in the Asiyah, the lowest world. She’d clearly, reckoned Menasse, already been enticed, blinded, drawn into or coerced into a domain of ignorance and darkness. A domain in which her soul was in peril of being destroyed.

  Nick said that as far as the domain of ignorance was concerned he’d grant Menasse’s case, but he wasn’t all that sure of the possible peril to the girl’s soul. That was to say, he said, if she – and for that matter he too – had such a thing as an immortal soul. Menasse smiled unperturbed. It would nevertheless benefit Nick, he said, no matter what his convictions, to regard the girl in her plight with a positive energy.

  The moon was half a disc tonight, alternately visible and veiled by fleecy clouds as eerie as a painting by Friedrich. To the right behind them the colossal, ominous mountain lay veiled in darkness. Charelle had been scared of the mountain when she arrived in the city, the day she had menstrual pain. He’d been shocked that she could tell him something so intimate. The temporary settlement behind them was lost in darkness, a patch of darkness in the night. There where Tarquin Molteno hung out with his fancy sneakers and his gold chain. A man of no fixed abode.

  Meanwhile Nick was determined to sell the house; even letting was no longer an option. More than ever tonight he dreaded the idea of going back there. He was scared he’d hallucinate or something. He was scared that something would be revealed to him there – something about Charelle’s plight.

  *

  ‘Do you believe what Menasse says?’ he asked Marthinus later in the week. ‘Everything he says about the lowest world and the domain of ignorance and darkness, and so on?’

  ‘Look,’ said Marthinus, ‘I have the greatest appreciation for Menasse. I see him as somebody with exceptional gifts. That I admire and respect, even though I may not believe everything he says. The superior man commands respect – Confucius. I have on occasion seen him intercede between two warring factions. Impressive mediation. He’s assertive without pushing himself to the fore. In short, a lovely person. I stand in awe of the Kabbalah, even though I’ve never immersed myself in it. As you know, my attractions and interests lie elsewhere. But I don’t think there’s any harm in taking cognisance of his slant on things.’

  No, said Nick, there probably wasn’t any harm in it.

  *

  Soon after the girl’s discharge from hospital, Nick and Albrecht (at the insistence of the latter) went to visit her at her parents’ home. They were armed with chocolate and an enormous bunch of flowers. (Bigger even, Nick noted, than the one Liesa Appelgryn had received.) The residence was on a wine farm with a view. The mother received them. She introduced herself as Mignon. An attractive woman, with those lush eyelashes; small, perhaps slightly too thin. The father was not at home at the moment. (Nick rejoiced greatly at this small mercy.) The sitting room was spacious, with an impressive blend of antique Cape Dutch pieces and contemporary furniture; the right paintings (among others Irma Sterns, Pierneefs, an Alexis Preller, a Christo Coetzee and a number of Maggie Laubsers); exotic vases, expensive carpets, kelims. The bunch of flowers was summarily delegated to the servant.

  The mother proposed that they should quickly look in on Karlien, before having tea. But no questions please, she stipulated, Karlien was still in a state of shock after the unfortunate incident. The girl was lying in a wide bed, waxen, her eyes shut. One arm, bandaged to the elbow, was resting on the bedspread. Around her neck, too, there was a bandage. (Nick felt a slight shudder at the thought.) Next to her on the bed, a collection of soft toys. The colour scheme of the bedroom – off-white and shell-pink. (In this space the prospect of a dried frog or a black candle or a cat skull was not even to be contemplated.) The girl opened her eyes languidly, but without really reacting to their greeting.

  The woman ushered them out again with equal adroitness. Tea, canapés and a variety of pastries were served. But when she proposed wine, Nick was only too ready to oblige. He got the impression that the woman was frail but feisty. She didn’t say much, told them briefly what had happened. Karlien’s flatmate had phoned them at three o’clock in the morning, in hysterics, to say that there was big trouble. The ambulance had got her to hospital just in time. After that Albrecht Bester, his moustache atremble, fortunately did most of the talking. He expressed his absolute shock and dismay at the incident, his sorrow that something like this should befall this talented child, and assu
red the mother that the culprits would speedily be brought to justice. Nick admired Albrecht for the skill with which he got all this said, while at the same time delicately shovelling in several petits fours and canapés and delivering appreciative commentary on the paintings, the colour scheme of the room, and the choice of furniture. The mother received all this in well-bred silence.

  When they said goodbye and Nick shook her hand, the woman looked up at him, and for a few moments they exchanged a glance that – in retrospect – in its flagrantly sexual invitation, was totally inappropriate to the occasion.

  In his car, on the way back to Cape Town, Nick groaned – no, he thought, no, not that as well.

  Twenty-one

  In the early morning I take a walk on the beach. The dunes in front of the hotel are cool. I want to crawl around in them on all fours, so lovely is the colour of the sand, the delicate little red dune plants, the small white shells.

  When I get back to my room, the box with silkworms has gone. I placed it on the table in front of the window, so that the cool breeze could waft over them after their hot journey yesterday in the back of my car. Honestly, I can’t get that worked-up about their disappearance either. I cared for them when they were left in my care. Now the next person, the one who took it upon himself to remove them from here (to steal them), is welcome to go looking for fresh leaves for them. In actual fact I’m relieved.

  I like the hotel, it’s unadorned, unlike the revamped hotel at Oesterklip. The double doors in the dining room open onto a cement stoep with a low whitewashed wall. The sea is so close that I can feel the dampness of the spray on my cheeks. Here I have breakfast this morning. I almost feel myself cheering up, and taking heart. Here, perhaps, I’ll be able to work undisturbed for a few days.

  While waiting for my breakfast I look at the newspaper. On the front page is a report that the suspect in the murder of Buks Verhoef has been sent for psychological observation. There is a photo of a laughing Verhoef, and an indistinct photo of the man with glasses and oily hair who shot him that day.

  I become aware of a crawling of the skin on my neck, seconds before the man pulls out a chair and sits down at my table. It’s the fucking hollow-cheeked disturber of the peace. The man I had at all costs tried to avoid at Oesterklip.

  ‘I have something for you,’ he says, and places the box of silkworms on the table in front of me.

  ‘What makes you think I want it?’ I ask.

  ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I’ll get rid of them here and now.’ And he makes as if opening the box and throwing the worms over the low wall.

  My immediate impulse is to stop him, but I control myself.

  ‘Did you follow me here?’ I ask.

  ‘What gives you that impression?’ he asks.

  ‘Because it can’t be pure chance that you should turn up here this morning, or that you stole the worms from my room.’

  He laughs. ‘Pure chance,’ he says, ‘do you feel like defining pure chance for me?’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘I don’t feel like doing anything for you. But I say again that it can’t be pure chance that has brought you here this morning to disturb my peace.’

  (I realise that in fact I should not engage in conversation with him at all.)

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘you’re right, it’s not pure chance. I followed you from Oesterklip.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You interest me. And I wanted to see what you’d do with the worms. I – by pure chance – saw you yesterday leaving with the box.’

  ‘I don’t want to do anything with the worms,’ I say. ‘You’re welcome to have them.’

  ‘Worms give me the creeps,’ he says. ‘I had an unpleasant experience with silkworms as a child.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear,’ I say. ‘Keep your story to yourself.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ he says, ‘all worms belong in the Garden of Eden. I can see no need or niche for them in the modern world. Isn’t silk nowadays manufactured synthetically anyway?’

  ‘That I couldn’t say,’ I reply, ‘but unfortunately these seven worms still need fresh leaves every day.’

  His eye falls on my newspaper. He picks it up quickly and scans the item.

  ‘Buks Verhoef,’ he says, ‘the poor murdered Buks Verhoef. Did you know him? I’ve asked you that before.’

  (For a single moment I’m scared that he will recognise me from the – fortunately – indistinct newspaper photograph, taken on that afternoon as I was emerging from the coffee shop after Verhoef was shot.)

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I only knew who he was.’ (I’m not going to tell this man that I held the dying Buks Verhoef in my arms. That my face was the last thing that the poor Buks beheld in this life.)

  ‘Who would want to shoot Buks Verhoef? Who’d want to harm the poor fellow?’

  ‘Did you know him?’ I ask, reluctant to pursue this conversation.

  ‘Didn’t know him. Did though meet him once or twice before I Ieft the country years ago. I’ve got nothing against him as a human being, but he was a howlingly mediocre artist. Perhaps he deserved to die just for that. What do you think? He was exceptionally successful, apparently. Built up a kind of art empire, you might say. Though rumours are circulating that he no longer made his own stuff, but employed a little team. An art factory. Something akin to Jeff Koons’s modus operandi. It makes sense, because I have grave doubts whether the poor Buks could as much as draw a donkey – let alone fashion a hyena or a warthog – to judge by his early work. But he saw a gap in the market – give the devil his due. Struck a rich touristy vein. And now it would seem as if on top of that he had stolen paintings in his possession. Tretchikoffs, Pierneefs, Sterns – which he would have got from where? And what does one do with stolen stuff except traffic in it? A shrewd operator, our Buks, though this time he was too clever by half; he overplayed his hand, it would seem. What do you think? Did he deserve to live, in so far as any one of us deserves to live?’

  He does not wait for a reply. Looks at the report again. Puts down the paper.

  ‘And the suspect is sent for psychological observation. What do you make of that? Mentally disturbed, apparently. Mentally disturbed people – that’s to say, severely disturbed people, like my poor cousin in the high-security psychiatric institution – often act at the instigation of higher powers. That is to say powers from the unconscious. A domain to be reckoned with. Those voices are not to be disregarded lightly.’

  He picks up the paper, holds it out for me to look at.

  ‘What do you think,’ he says, ‘does the man seem disturbed to you? Do you think he acted at the instigation of voices from his unconscious? Or is he someone absolutely ordinary – like you or me – who one day had just had enough of the tyranny of mediocrity, and decided he was going to get rid of Buks Verhoef for the sake of society’s aesthetic survival?’

  I don’t like the way the man looks at me. I’ve not liked it from the outset. I’m starting to wonder whether perhaps he saw me that day in the coffee shop. I don’t like him. I have a hunch – an intuition – that he’s better informed on the whole Verhoef affair than he’s letting on. Hollow cheeks, bony nose, the suggestion of a freckly tendency on his skin, a slightly weathered, ruddy complexion (of whom or what does it remind me?), his eyes are of an indeterminate colour, but with a manic glint.

  Unexpectedly he leans across the table and strokes my upper lip, before I can slap away his hand. ‘Your lip,’ he says, ‘suggests something of a criminal tendency. Has anybody ever falsely accused you of untrustworthiness?’

  I don’t reply. That is the best defence. That way there’s least danger of compromising myself in one way or another.

  He leans back in his chair. Takes up the newspaper again. Looks at it. Puts it down again. Looks down, at the table in front of him. Looks up, peers in the direction of the sea. (Grey and flat this morning – like his eyes, it suddenly occurs to me.)

  ‘Blinky Booysen,’ he says, musingly, ‘ever heard of him?
Now there was a talent. Without a doubt. One fine day simply disappeared off the face of the earth. Or at least disappeared from the city, from Cape Town. I’d swop any Tretchikoff, Pierneef or Stern for one of his paintings any day.’

  I know of Blinky Booysen. The Olivier brothers refer to him in an interview. They came across his work at art school, where he’d been a year or two, three before them. They mention him as one of the formative influences on their work. But the man does not have to know that either.

  ‘Come with me,’ he says. ‘We’ll make an unforgettable journey of it.’

  I don’t reply. Enough of this. I get up, take the box of worms, greet him.

  ‘Magdalena Cloete isn’t your real name, is it,’ he says.

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘and Vincenzo Anastagi is really a ridiculous choice for a false name.’

  ‘That is true,’ he says. He laughs, but with little real joy.

  And that is where we leave it.

  *

  That afternoon I sit in my hotel room indecisively. I have to get away from this place. Worms and all. Away from the hollow-cheeked disturber of the peace. He’s not going to let me get away, that much I know. He’s going to carry on asking me to go away with him. I find it disturbing that he remains so relentlessly on my track. I begin to suspect that he’s more than just a fetishist who’s turned on by my lip. I could go back to Stellenbosch, try once again to induce the old father to grant me another interview. Or I could carry on further up the coast. I could find a suitable spot, a deserted beach, and walk into the sea, box and all. Two birds with one stone. While the hollow-cheeked terrorist spies on me with binoculars from a dune, lights a cigarette when he is satisfied that I have disappeared under the waves for the last time, washes his hands of me, gets into his car again, and goes to visit his cousin in the high-security psychiatric institution. I don’t believe a word of all his stories – neither the cousin nor the family farm. The man has a different agenda. Where and how I fit into it, is not clear to me.