The single student, apart from Jan Botha, who had shown some promise and whose work had still interested Nick – the images of headless seagulls, hotels with broken windows and wax figurines of a child with eyes sealed with pins – had dropped out on account of depression, despite his happy childhood. (Apparently he’d not been able to process the loss of the bygone idyll.) Jan Botha was for the time being his only student. Jan did not need Nick, because Jan knew exactly what he wanted to do. Nick didn’t know what he himself was still doing there. The woman for whom he was substituting would be returning in the fourth term. As soon as Albrecht had recovered from the shock and regained his equilibrium he would assign Nick new students. Nick didn’t know whether he felt up to this. He pictured an endless sequence of Karlien clones – the one as indecisive as the other, but each with a head filled with dark, brooding intentions.
*
He told Marthinus, when they were having a beer again on his stoep that evening, that the business with Charelle had really thrown him. He wouldn’t rest until they’d had a proper conversation, but she hadn’t responded to any of his calls or text messages. It was clear that she did not want any contact with him, and he couldn’t understand why not. He still feared that she’d been assaulted by the guy who’d stalked her earlier, who might have thought that she and Nick were having a relationship or something. He no longer wanted to stay in his house or be involved with the art school. Especially now after the ludicrous episode with his student. Perhaps he should do something drastic, he said, like going to study Japanese gardens. He was strongly attracted to Oriental art. He thought it could be good for him to rake gravel. If he’d had a predilection for it, he’d have gone off somewhere in isolation to meditate. Rake and meditate. But actually he was talking total crap and nonsense, he said, because raking and meditating were so totally not his scene. Totally not – it was actually a bit ridiculous to have mentioned it at all, because he completely lacked the propensity for it. It didn’t accord with his temperament. He thought he had a strong tendency to hedonism – although his equally strong tendency to melancholy probably tempered it somewhat.
Marthinus laughed softly. Who knows, he said, Nick might just possess abilities he hadn’t exploited. He doubted it, said Nick. If he sat for long enough under a pine tree, he might turn as green as Milarepa, said Marthinus. Nick thought for a moment that Marthinus was mocking him, but Marthinus was still gazing ahead solemnly. Oh Lord, he said, Milarepa is a fascinating figure. One of the most important teachers in Tibetan Buddhism. Trained as a sorcerer. In later life he said that he had committed black deeds in his youth, but practised innocence in his maturity. Imagine that, said Marthinus, to practise innocence. At long last, said Milarepa, he’d been released from both good and evil, and saw no further reason for action. I am an old man, he said, leave me in peace.
Nick said that that was what he desired as well – to be left in peace. He was god knows not up to supervising another student like Karlien. Once was more than enough. (He recalled the charged, sexually inviting glance the mother had given him when they parted. It had – to his surprise – totally wrong-footed him, and properly hit home, that glance.)
They drank their beer in silence. Nick’s eyes wandered to the settlement against the mountain. On whose side were Tarquin and company actually in the end, he asked. Did they collaborate with the police or with the gangs or what? They were mainly on their own side, said Marthinus. They collaborated with whoever suited them at any particular moment. But one thing was certain, they had their finger on the pulse through their extensive network of informants. Did Nick think they should at some point go up there again to see if Tarquin and company had after all discovered something? he asked.
No, said Nick, no, he didn’t think it would be any use. The best thing that could happen would be for Charelle to get in touch with him herself.
*
Nick covered the large, horizontal sheets of Fabriano paper, 150 x 110 cm, on which he worked, with a few layers of gesso to give them a rougher surface. He drew on this with koki pens – mainly sepia-coloured, with accents in dark brown and red. Numerous figures – exclusively men – committed acts of grievous bodily harm on one another: suffocation, strangulation, decapitation, torture. Sometimes he added shallow graves, car wrecks, chopped-down trees and smouldering tree stumps. All under a sky of billowing white summer clouds.
Twenty-four
It’s the third week of May. When the early morning is not overcast, the sunrises are magnificent. One morning, as I’m getting up, an immense, opaque cloud mass is hovering just above the horizon. The outline of the mountains is still solid. The rising sun, not yet visible, illuminates this cloud mass from below, so that it starts glowing blood-blue from underneath, a darker blue above. Except for this cloud column the sky is virtually empty, marked with a few smears of cloud. I can’t take my eyes off the sight. It reminds me of a painting by Andrea del Castagno: the Holy Trinity with St Jerome. God is supporting his Son on the cross, they are depicted from above. Christ’s body terminates midway, in two reddish-pink winged cherubim. The effect of this is that his body appears to be bloody, the organs visible, the ribs and the kidneys. The colour of the clouds in this painting is the exact shade of the undersides of the cloud mass above the mountain.
I once again contact the secretary of Marcus Olivier. Is there any possibility that I could speak to the professor again? She will find out from him and come back to me. This time I mustn’t botch it. I must be tactful, I have to reel him in gradually like a fish.
I am not at my ease. I’m scared the hollow-cheeked fetishist is following me. He’s quite capable of doing it. Something tells me the man has an agenda. It’s not for nothing he’s in the vicinity. The story of the cousin in the psychiatric institution and the so-called intended visit to the family farm are fabrications. I read him as someone who enjoys playing games. I can feel it in my bones. For the time being I avoid the coffee shop where Buks Verhoef died in my arms. I have a strange premonition that if I encounter the man somewhere it will be there. He has some or other connection with Buks, and also with the suspect. Of that I’m sure, though I have no proof to back up my hunch. He knows that I didn’t give him my real name, and that my Seventh Day Adventism was a joke (stupid of me) – but that’s exactly what he enjoys, that’s why he followed me. That man’s native territory is fabrication, counterfeiting and intrigue. I find it offensive. But if it’s true that it may just fascinate me as well, I must be careful.
In the newspaper I read a small report that three students at a private art school just outside town have been charged with assault and drug dealing. It seems as if the charge of assault is connected with a satanic ritual that went wrong and in which a fellow student almost bled to death. In the small newspaper photo the injured girl looks like every second girl in town: pretty, with a long blonde ponytail.
*
I meet up with you again in the café where we met earlier this year, soon after your return to the town. The day when it rained so hard. We haven’t seen each other for a long while, because you’ve been busy and I’ve seen nobody. There are lines next to your mouth that I haven’t noticed before. But you once again smile with your eyes, although in unguarded moments they still seem wounded, as if sorrow has been indelibly imprinted on them. How are you? I ask. Better, you say. The ground feels more solid under your feet. You’re not quite so cast down any more. You can laugh again. Sometimes for short spells you do again experience something like joy. And you? you ask. I tell you that I’m making headway with the monograph on the Olivier brothers. I’ve spoken to the old father twice, and the second time fluffed the interview, I say.
We sit in silence for a while. Drink our coffee. What happened? you ask. It was the day that Buks Verhoef was shot, I had the last interview with Marcus Olivier immediately afterwards. There were still spatterings of blood on my shirt. I fancied that I could still smell the blood on my clothes and even on my hands, even though I had rinsed them t
horoughly. The yelling of customers was still echoing in my ears. I saw Buks’s face before me. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him. I told you about it. I was totally put off my stroke. No wonder you fluffed the interview, you say. Do they know yet who did it, and why? No, I say. But the suspect has been sent for psychological observation. Who would want to murder poor Buks Verhoef? you ask wonderingly. Perhaps Verhoef was not as innocent as he appeared, I say. He always looked as if he couldn’t harm a fly, you say. He, perhaps not, I say, but his enemies, or his friends, might. Yes, you say, and look down. A while ago I found a black dog on the pavement in front of my house, I say. A beautiful animal. Narrow, noble head. She slept next to me on the bed that night. The next morning her owners came to fetch her. She must have got lost. They were glad to have her back. Are you more reconciled to your life here? you ask. You know how ambivalent I am about the place, I say. I hate it, it makes me claustrophobic, I feel I can’t breathe freely, and yet I return to it every time. It’s autumn in particular that I’m ambivalent about. So much self-evident beauty makes me restless.
I can still not forget the expression in Buks Verhoef’s eyes, I say. And what’s more, it was a moment of intense intimacy between us. It’s almost as if I hanker after it. It’s as if at that moment a special bond was established between me and Buks. You understand, you say, it makes sense to you. Who could ever have thought that I would feel like that about Buks Verhoef? We shared the moment of his death, we were at that moment as intimately connected as it’s possible to be to another human being. I’ve noticed, I say, that I think of him often. He’s somebody for whom previously, before his death, I felt nothing but the greatest contempt. And now I harbour this strange, inexplicable tenderness towards him. It’s almost as if I long for him, strange as that may sound.
It makes sense to you, you say. Quite unexpectedly, sudden tears start up in my eyes. My eyes burn, my throat aches with holding back the tears, because I’m embarrassed; I’m ashamed of my tears. It’s almost, I say, as if our souls got entwined at that moment. And you know how I feel about the soul, I add wryly.
I say nothing about my visit to Oesterklip. I say nothing about the silkworms. I say nothing about the man who followed me. I say nothing about my suspicions. You are the person closest to me. You’ve always been my only confidant. I’m scared you’ll ask me a question to which I don’t have an answer.
*
Marcus Olivier’s secretary reports that it’s in order, I may have an appointment. But it cannot be a long interview, the professor’s health was dealt a severe blow by his recent flu, and no personal questions, please. I assure her that I’ll keep it light. Just a few little general questions. For some or other strange (perverse?) reason I’m tempted to go and sit in the same coffee shop as on the day when Buks Verhoef was shot. Call it obsessive behaviour – compulsion, call it a tempting of fate. My appointment is at four o’clock. At three o’clock I sit down in the coffee shop, at the same table as on the fateful day. The sky this morning was uniformly bright, no cloud mass, no dramatic spectacle where the sun was rising, but further to the west there was a long, low, indigo-coloured cloud. Further along, only faint daubs in the sky and a tender rosiness in the east just before sunrise.
As I pass through the back section of the shop to the toilet, somebody unexpectedly grabs hold of my arm from behind. It is, sure enough, the man (was I not looking for trouble, didn’t I foresee it?), his two fanatical eyes close to my face. Even so, I’m almost paralysed with shock. We are standing between the shelves, with bottles of preserves and muesli on the one side and a table with tins of fudge, cheese straws in packets and round panfortes on the other side.
‘What do you know?’ he asks.
‘What do you want me to know?’ I ask.
‘What do you know about Buks Verhoef?’
‘I didn’t know him.’
‘He died in your arms.’
‘It was pure chance.’
‘Now you’re talking of chance.’
I don’t reply to this.
‘Come with me for a few days,’ he says.
I try to tug free of his grasp, but he only tightens his grip.
‘Had you noticed the suspect before around town?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say.
‘The man is totally cuckoo,’ he says. ‘But that you probably know.’
I say nothing.
‘Come with me,’ he says, ‘we’ll make a pleasant little trip of it. I promise.’
His face is close to mine. On his breath I smell coffee, cigarette smoke, something meaty.
‘I’ve looked you over very well,’ he said, ‘you don’t scare easily. You like a challenge. A girl very much to my taste. And the lip …’
I turn my head aside before he can stroke it again.
‘You intrigue me,’ he says close to my ear. I keep my head averted.
I turn to him, look deep and intimately into the fucked-up eyes and say: ‘Let me go or I’ll scream.’
He laughs merrily. ‘There speaks a forked tongue,’ he says. ‘On the one hand it says fuck off, and on the other it says, yes, why not?’
The next moment I take him by surprise by screaming very loudly and at the same time pulling loose of his grip. A bone-piercing scream that makes customers as well as waiters freeze in their tracks. A shocked silence ensues. Everybody is staring in our direction. For a moment I see in the man’s face an expression of confused surprise – he hadn’t expected that, I did indeed catch him unawares – before he turns on his heel and quits the shop swiftly.
A few members of staff rush to my aid. The man who was harassing me has left, I say, he’s just left the shop. One of the waitresses says she saw him come in. He’s dangerous, I say, watch him if he should come here again. I sit down with a beating heart. My hands tremble when I drink my coffee. I must calm down now, I admonish myself, otherwise I’ll be off balance again when I talk to the old father.
*
I am still slightly off-kilter when Miss De Jongh (still with décolletage) opens the door for me. Can she offer me anything to drink? I ask for a glass of water. (She may have hoped that I’d have another double whisky and shoot myself in the foot.) Once again the old father receives me on the stoep, the same travel rug on his knees, but this time he’s wearing a thick, check dressing gown and a scarf. Still no sign of recognition on his part. He acknowledges my presence with the merest nod of his head.
Did the great success and international recognition of his sons come as a surprise to him? Not in the least, they had distinguished themselves from an early age. From an early age in an artistic direction? I ask. No, he says, on the sports field and academically. He never needed to discipline them, as far as their work was concerned. (I wonder in what he did discipline them.) (I’m tempted to ask whether, like their mother, they were good tennis players, but have resolved not to mention the mother this time round.) Does he find it difficult that his only children have settled in a foreign country? No, why should he? They visited South Africa often, and he travelled frequently when he was younger. (I note that he uses the past tense. At some stage, then, the contact must have become less frequent.) I take it that he is thoroughly acquainted with their work? Yes, they regularly send him videos and catalogues of all their exhibitions. In this way he remains informed about everything they’re doing. Does he find their work resonates with him? Yes, why wouldn’t it? (Do I detect something defensive in his tone?) The video titled Kafka in Long Street, I say, is exceptionally dark, with all kinds of suggestions of sexual indecency, was that his view too? He shrugs, everybody is free to interpret the work as he wishes, he says. (I get the impression that he’s not familiar with this video.) It is said that their work exhibits more than just an underlying obsession with violence, with erotica – even with pornography and obscenity – would he agree? It’s not for him to pass a value judgement on their work, he says. It’s not a value judgement, I say, merely a description of its nature – could he go along with tha
t? I can see him hesitate. What are you driving at, Miss? he asks. (More than just defensiveness, I now hear aggression in his tone as well. Touched on a sensitive spot here?) And on that he signals to the woman that the interview is concluded. Have I gone too far once again, got his back up?
I thank him copiously for his willingness to talk to me. I say that he has no idea how valuable I find the conversations with him. I don’t wish to place him in a position of having to answer awkward questions. I do value immensely his willingness to talk to me at all. I have so much admiration for the work of his sons, and I don’t know anybody locally with whom I could have anything approaching an equally valuable background conversation.
The Shallows Page 16