The Shallows

by Ingrid Winterbach

  I’d like to ask her sometime whether Olivier had been a good employer. I can picture her shrugging. He was okay. He paid well. He sometimes came up with requests not covered by her contract – and she’d never exactly been of a charitable bent. But she had her price, as every woman in her situation would have. In general he was a cold fish, I picture her saying.

  I think back to the koi in the dam at which we’d stood gazing during my first visit to him. The blue membrane over the eyes that had made the fish seem blind. Bright red, with the two protrusions on either side of its mouth. How sexually obscene I’d found the mouth, in its opening and closing palpitations. I’d wondered, that day, whether it could be a covert message from the old father, an acknowledgement of our brief tussle almost thirty years earlier, when he’d thought he could exploit my deformity to his own benefit.

  *

  As far as his cremation is concerned. How should I picture that? How ravishing it would be if I, darkly veiled, the two sons (fresh from Alaska or New York or Amsterdam), and Miss De Jongh were the only mourners in a small private crematory chapel. On the coffin, standing at the front of the chapel, the sons place a hand-carved puppet (perhaps even the Punch and Judy puppet starring in the Kafka in Long Street video). A puppet to accompany the old father to oblivion or damnation. Even a voluptuous female puppet, perhaps, symbol of the faithful spouse in Indian culture, who is burnt with her husband on the funeral pyre. Miss De Jongh places a copy of her employment contract on the coffin. And some or other memento that she judges appropriate to accompany Olivier’s last journey. His spectacles, perhaps, or his fountain pen. I’ll have to think about my own contribution.

  The man from Hobkirk & Doves (overweight, in a shiny grey suit) gives a signal, presses a button, the coffin moves forward slowly; to the accompaniment of monophonic Gregorian chant it glides on metal bearings through an aperture, the curtain closes. The coffin slides into the cremating chamber, the doors are sealed. Everything is now primed for action. The oven is stoked, it’s at the correct temperature already (593 °C). The coffin bursts into flame. The old father burns. His body fat burns. His muscles burn. His organs burn (the fatty heart, the sagging testicles, the limp penis). His bones burn. His bony forehead burns, his tongue, his eyeballs, his brain, everything devoured by the flames in the twinkling of an eye.

  No, not in the twinkling of an eye. It takes two to three hours for the body to be consumed by the flames. Afterwards the pulverised bones are raked together with a little implement specially designed for the purpose. The urn is ready the next day for the sons to take delivery. In the meantime after the ceremony we go to have a meal in a restaurant with a breathtaking view of the sea.

  Instead of scattering the ashes somewhere, the sons decide to have them made into a coral feature, that they can place in a fish tank, or use in one of their videos in an undersea scene.

  Thirty-three

  My monograph on the Olivier brothers is nearing completion. I still watch a few of their videos every day with enjoyment. The Cabinet of Jan de Grevenbroek, like Kafka in Long Street, enthrals me anew every time. Again and again I watch them, and each time details strike me that I haven’t noticed before.

  I look at the mountains. I gaze at the sunrises and sunsets as if my life depended on it. I watch series on my laptop. Good series, bad series – fantasy, horror, crime, everything on offer. Quality is no longer a prerequisite.

  *

  Nick told Marthinus that he wanted to pay Tarquin and company another visit. He wanted to find out whether they had any idea of who was responsible for the rape of Charelle. He felt that the perpetrators should not go unpunished.

  Marthinus was perfectly amenable to this suggestion. He proposed that on their way they might as well pay a more extended visit to the farm – now that under the hand of Jurgen Wesseker it was turning into such an interesting utopian experiment. And because they hadn’t got round to it on their previous visits.

  But Nick said no, some other time. This time he wanted once again to keep the two visits separate. He didn’t want to be distracted at first by an extended visit to the utopian experiment. He wanted to go straight to the settlement, to Tarquin and company.

  Marthinus said he understood. It was fine, they’d do that. He didn’t have a cellphone number for Tarquin, but he thought it would be in order for them to arrive there unannounced. If Tarquin wasn’t there, somebody would in any case be able to tell them when they were expecting him again.

  In the third week of July, on a bright, sunny morning, they walked up the slope. First through the experimental farm, on which Marthinus delivered a walking commentary. Here the singing of children was once again audible at a distance. People were working in the garden. The vegetable beds seemed well established. Everything created a peaceful, orderly impression.

  ‘Look,’ said Marthinus, ‘as I’ve told you before, the farm used to be a kind of farm-cum-installation art work. People who used to hang out here, friends of the founder, maintained that at the time it was often also something of an interpersonal battlefield, with several clans and factions embroiled in vehement internecine strife. That was the situation when the founding father was still in charge of things here. However pure his original intentions for the place, over the years it degenerated into something dangerous and explosive, quite apart from the precarious sanitary situation. There were rumours of child neglect, animal abuse. The whole yuppie neighbourhood was quite rightly indignant, because the chaos spilt over into the vicinity, as could have been foreseen. Children defecating on pavements, packs of stray dogs, feral pigs – it was all a scourge for the owners of tidy, suburban gardens. Torches and alarms at night, rumours of riot and even murder – at any rate murderous intent – were an ordeal for the inhabitants of the surrounding middle-class neighbourhood. A complaint was lodged with the Department of Public Works. Several complaints, which became progressively more insistent with time. The farm was deemed to constitute a security and health risk.

  ‘The founder too, as I mentioned, presumably had had his fill of the Department and the yuppies breathing down his neck. And probably also of the persistent chaos and warring factions in his back yard. For whatever reason, one day he packed up and left. From one day to the next just handed over the whole caboodle lock, stock and barrel to someone else. I told you about that. But apparently not before telling the Department, without mincing his words, exactly what he thought of them. An outspoken man, according to all reports. Outspoken and bellicose. I met him once or twice by chance, and he struck me as the kind of guy who could cross the Alps like Hannibal with a whole army and a troop of elephants. Indomitable.

  ‘Enter Jurgen Wesseker. You’ll meet the man yet. We’ll make a plan. The mind-set of a reformer. He turned up at the city council and the Department of Public Works with a neatly worked-out twelve-point plan. He made a good impression. He kicked off with a mammoth cleaning-up operation. I told you about it. He presented the warring parties and clans with an ultimatum: behave yourselves, subject yourselves to certain regulations, or pack up and clear out. Apparently he inspired enough respect to get the people to buckle down and submit to the regulations. A fair number of the former residents, however, were sent packing.

  ‘Jurgen Wesseker was told he had a year to get the situation up and running. If not, the buildings would be razed, and man, woman and pig be driven from the land.

  ‘It’s now almost a year later, and things seem to be on the up and up. You can see for yourself. Everything in beautiful order. The children well cared for, there is preschool provision for them, the residents are put to work in the gardens and in the kitchen, the gardens themselves a pleasure to behold. Beautifully laid out. You can see for yourself.’ (Marthinus stopped walking and with a sweeping gesture indicated the whole area – as Adam might have signified the paradisiac nature and extent of the Garden.) ‘The animals in cages. Each according to its nature. Pig with pig and rabbit with rabbit. No sign any more of the packs of stray dogs. The buil
dings well maintained – properly cleaned, fixed up, painted. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if everything here proceeded according to a carefully worked-out timetable.’

  And indeed, as Nick saw, everything was clean, orderly. In any case absolutely no sign of any health risk. As a matter of fact, there was the pleasant smell of freshly turned soil, of grass and leaves, and the enticing aroma of freshly baked bread.

  ‘But,’ said Marthinus, ‘whether it will remain like that, whether Jurgen Wesseker will succeed in turning the place into the model community that he envisages – in the first place whether he will succeed and in the second place whether it’s sustainable – that remains to be seen.

  ‘As I’ve said, there are powerful and chaotic forces at work under the surface. Even if Jurgen takes them into account, that’s not to say he’ll be able to control them. The informal settlement is right next to the farm, and there’s a constant influx of people trying to find a safe haven there. And then there are the evicted factions who are probably planning revenge initiatives.’

  Marthinus came to a sudden halt. ‘Can you also feel,’ he said, ‘the menacing powers stirring beneath the surface?’

  Nick felt nothing. The ground under his feet felt very solid.

  ‘I can sense it,’ said Marthinus. ‘A tremendous force threatening to derail everything, just below the surface. It feels as if everything here that is orderly and under control is balancing very precariously on the surface. I reckon Menasse would be very sensitive to the vibrations and emanations here. He’s bound to know exactly from which sphere trouble and worse are to be expected. I’ll bring him here soon, together with Jurgen Wesseker. It can only be to Jurgen’s advantage to be prepared.’

  Nick could just picture it: Menasse picking up the emanations here like a diviner indicating water with a dowsing rod. And then, once he’d determined where the menacing forces were hiding under the surface – what would they do to safeguard themselves?

  They walked on. Nick was grateful that it was no longer high summer. Lovely the surroundings – all bush-covered slopes and kloofs. To him the surroundings seemed peaceful, but he evidently lacked the receptivity to emanations of Marthinus or Menasse.

  Once again they slipped through the fence much higher up. (Nick thought the wire looked slacker and less well camouflaged with every visit.) Before them stretched the settlement, also apparently peaceable in the morning sun. Bigger, Nick fancied. More shelters of all kinds of material – mainly plastic and branches – spiralling wisps of smoke, a few children playing among the temporary tents and shelters. Big muddy puddles of water everywhere after the recent rains. The mud couldn’t be very hygienic. Even a dog or a chicken or two. Here and there clusters of young men in hoodies in coldish huddles regarding them distrustfully.

  When they reached Tarquin’s corrugated iron shack, the door was closed. Marthinus knocked. No response. After a long while one little curtain was tweaked open. The young girl with the large earrings who had poured them whisky on their previous visit opened the door a chink.

  ‘Isn’t Tarquin here?’ he asked her.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘When is a good time to come and see him?’ asked Marthinus.

  The girl hesitated.

  ‘Tarquin’s not coming back again,’ she said.

  ‘Is he staying somewhere else now?’ asked Marthinus.

  Again the girl hesitated. ‘No,’ she said, ‘he’s not staying nowhere else. Tarquin’s dead. They shot him.’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ exclaimed Martinus, ‘who shot him? When?!’

  ‘We dunno who it was,’ said the girl.

  Nick suddenly had a crystal-clear image of Tarquin as he sat here before, like a Mafia Buddha in the sun, with the golden neck chain and earrings, the diminutive chin, fleshy neck and small, resolute mouth, the slightly oily curly hair, cut short against the skull. But especially his emanation suddenly manifested itself clearly to Nick’s vision – an emanation of total entitlement, of being absolutely one hundred per cent in charge. The world at his feet, triumphant with a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue in his hand.

  He and Marthinus moved downhill quickly, through the wire fence, through the farm, where the children were now playing under the trees and hailing them with shrill voices. A few even pursued them, yelling, but were promptly recalled by their minder. Out through the gate (guarded by the Xhosa-speaking man).

  ‘Who would have done that?’ asked Nick.

  ‘It could have been anyone,’ said Marthinus. ‘It could have been gangs. It could have been the police. It could have been someone with a grudge against him. So do you see what I mean,’ he said, ‘there are forces at work here constantly. Nothing here is ever static; everything is perpetually in motion. There are constant regroupings, a never-ending battle for control. Chaotic forces, seldom benign.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nick, ‘I can see that.’ But all that he could actually see was Jan Botha pushing the dead Tarquin into the Salt River mortuary on a gurney.

  *

  One evening when they were once again sitting at Marthinus’ place, Nick asked Menasse to expatiate on the Kabbalah’s vision of good and evil. (Anselmo Balla was there too. They were sitting in the sitting room by the fire. Balla was staring morosely into the fire with his large, melancholy, Romanesque eyes. The flickering of the flames played on his broad, egg-shaped head. He wasn’t talkative this evening. Apart from the fact that his body spasmed at regular intervals, he sat completely still.) Very complex, said Menasse. If he could summarise it briefly: The tendency to evil, the yetzer ha’ra, or animal instinct, is inherent in all people, as is the yetzer ha’tov, the tendency to good. Look, said Menasse, evil manifests itself in ever more subtle forms, and for that reason every thought, emotion and habit must be scrutinised with care. Our existence, like that of Adam – who, with Eve, was responsible for the disequilibrium between good and evil – is closely linked to the earth, to the body, to the material sphere, and our Adamic nature is inclined to evil. The tendency to good, the desire to do good, must be constantly cultivated through sustained effort and through zealous dedication and watchfulness.

  After Menasse and Balla had departed, both of them into the black night (in the taxi that Marthinus had as always ordered and paid for), Marthinus said to Nick that he suspected that Anselmo Balla suffered from the same condition as Samuel Johnson, namely Tourette’s syndrome. In fact, he saw him as a kind of incarnation of Samuel Johnson. Perhaps not quite such a distinguished man of letters, but with a similarly robust erudition and loquacity.

  Nick said to Marthinus that he felt, in the light of what Menasse had said tonight, like Adam – heavy, earthbound, freshly created from clay – clay into which just a tiny bit of life had been breathed, just enough to allow him to function at a very primitive level.

  *

  The end of the break arrived. Nick had to go back to the art school. Apart from Jan Botha, three new students were assigned to him. This time he was alert to any deviant interest (satanism and the like), but all three girls’ proposals struck him as woefully conventional. But he’d learnt his lesson. The more innocuous their projects, the better. Even if they wanted to do petit point, he’d be damned if he’d resist them. Only one of them, a braying redhead, said she’d really liked what Liesa Appelgryn did. She also wanted to implement that toxic emotional soil as fertiliser in her work. Oh dear Lord, thought Nick, but if that was the way she wanted to go, so be it, as far as he was concerned. Tits and forests of pubic hair were probably wholeheartedly wholesome, all things considered. The kid he thought he should watch was a thin, bluish-pale little blonde, with dark rings under her eyes, who couldn’t quite decide what she wanted to do.

  Albrecht Bester was still in hand-wringing mode. He’d decided that he didn’t want the accused students back at the art school. They were out on bail, but he didn’t think that their presence could have a good influence on the school and the other students, he told Nick.

  Nick heard nothing from the woman.
(He realised it was better like that, although he still longed for her fragrant hair and eager body.) He avoided the town, because he was scared he might bump into her there. Even in the city he kept himself small, as if expecting the husband to send a revenge posse after him.

  Back at the art school, thoughts of Karlien impinged on his consciousness again. He’d once asked her whether she listened to music. Yes, she said. ‘To what?’ he asked. She hesitated. In retrospect he thought that she might have censored herself, because she replied: As in Miley Cyrus and suchlike. He’d told her to go and listen to Black Sabbath – to any of the death metal groups, there had to be lots of them. The church invaders and other anarchists. To Diamanda Galás (the Plague Mass). To anything that went against the grain, he told her. He’d thought he had to shock her out of her comfort zone, out of the middle-class torpor of privilege preventing her from breaking through to something cruder, something more confrontational – something that would give her satanism project more substance than the insipid photo and the sensational little magazine article. He remembered that she’d been close to tears that day. He’d thought that was because she didn’t understand what he wanted from her. Now he thought that it was probably because she’d been panic-stricken about her situation. Black Sabbath, death metal – she’d probably thought: Oh puh-lease, been there, got the T-shirt. (As well as, of course, the black candles, the desiccated frog, the cat skeleton, all the accessories, equipment, everything requisite for the dumb kids to execute their senseless deed.) He’d never know.

  It upset him every time he looked at Jan Botha’s clean-shaven head. He missed that rich, fragrant head of hair. (Into which he’d felt an urge to push his face.) He didn’t know if he was imagining things, but it was as if Jan’s work had lost something of its power. Jan now also worked more on his own, came in less frequently. When Nick asked him how things were at the Salt River mortuary, he said he was bailing out for a while, for the time being he wasn’t working there any more. It had suddenly started getting to him – the carnage without end.