The book of happenstance. Ingrid Winterbach
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my way of acknowledging the wonders of creation. My meditation on the shells has been one of the very few things I do to tend my spiritual well-being.
“Why do you like them?” he asks.
“Because they are beautiful,” I say. “And because God made them.”
Constable Modisane casts a last sceptical look at the shells and exchanges a surreptitious glance with Moonsamy.
“Can you sell them?” he asks. “Are they worth any money?”
“I’m not interested in selling them,” I say. “And if necessary I will pay money to get the stolen ones back.”
“How much?” he asks.
“I’ve not had time to decide yet,” I say.
“O-kay,” he says amiably.
“What is that smell?” I ask. “Do you recognise it?” For the first time I pick up the sweetish smell of aftershave in the room. Constables Modisane and Moonsamy both sniff the air suspiciously. Constable Modisane a trifle more energetically than Moonsamy.
“It’s Boss,” Constable Modisane says. “Hugo Boss aftershave.”
*
The next day I encounter Sof Benadé at the Sand Dune. She works as a language advisor and translator at the museum. She translates from Afrikaans to English, and from German and French to Afrikaans. I think of her as the curator of languages. She is sitting with a copy of Die Kerkblad in front of her. “My father subscribes to this for me every year,” she says, “although my family knows that I have turned my back on salvation. They have long since accepted that I shall burn for all eternity in the fires of hell. The Reformed hell.” She gives a little laugh – half apologetic and half provocative.
“Is it that bad?” I ask.
“It’s much worse,” she says. “I thought that I could get away from the pastorie. I was wrong. Deluded. A deluded doos.”
(Deluded doos. I like that.)
Sof has a disarming awkwardness and narrow hands and feet. She is younger than I am. Dark hair, with the first signs of grey, and a small gap between her front teeth. She is shy, her eyes defenceless. Fine, soft grey-green eyes, withdrawn behind her glasses – but painfully observant.
“They broke into my place yesterday and stole most of my shells,” I say. I have a sudden need to tell this woman of the loss I have suffered, although I hardly know her.
“They urinated and defecated on one of my carpets. It’s a carpet of which I am really fond. I found it an intimidating gesture. But the real loss is the shells.”
“The one who did it should have his hand chopped off in public,” says Sof and gives a small cough.
“If only I could get the shells back unharmed,” I say, “I demand no drastic measures of retribution.”
“Who would want to steal someone else’s shells?” she asks.
“I would want to,” I say. “But I can hardly use myself as the norm.”
“What else was stolen?” she asks.
“Nothing that I’ve really noticed,” I say. “What matters to me is the missing shells. It breaks my heart.”
That afternoon I drive out along the South Coast to contemplate my loss. We used to come here during the July holidays, when it was cold in the Transvaal, and rent a house on the sea. My father started sunning himself weeks in advance. He sat on a chair in our back yard with a towel around his waist and a hat on his head. In this way he acquired a gradual tan and his skin never peeled. On holiday my brother and I made little trains from the stems of banana leaves. We ate some liana and it made us sick. A little friend came to play and we offered her some as well. I drew in a book I was given by my grandfather – my mother’s father, who had abandoned his family and had recently returned after an absence of twenty years. It was a Croxley Pen Carbon book, ten and three-quarters of an inch by eight and three-eighths of an inch in format. The pages were numbered, and every alternate page was lined. My father drew a train for me with a red ballpoint pen. (More pink than red.) I drew ballerinas, brides and bridegrooms with flower girls and bridesmaids. I traced my playing cards. I painted an ocean scene with a pirate ship in the background, which I copied from the lid of my box of watercolour paints. My sister Joets drew a mermaid on the back cover. It was beautiful. I was five or six, she was eleven or twelve. Our mother remained as white in her bathing costume as she had been before the holidays. She was afraid of the waves. The dunes in front of the house were unspoilt. They were covered with indigenous scrub and a creeper with small leaves and red berries.
I look in vain for that unspoilt coastline, for the whole coast has since been converted into a pleasure resort, densely built up with blocks of flats and time-share units. The coastline offers no consolation today. Which hardly improves my mood.
Since I arrived here, I have begun to write again. A young woman steps out onto a stoep; she is wearing a soft, flowered dress. For this woman it will never be possible to find happiness. She keeps her gaze fixed unremittingly on a man in white flannel trousers and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves. His fine arms are tanned and he is smoking a cigarette. Another man descends into the copper mines at Messina. He does not know where he comes from nor where he is going, and he seeks refuge in the pursuit of fleeting pleasure.
*
Very late that evening a man phones me. His name does not ring a bell.
“I’m thinking back tonight to an evening in 1978 in Braamfontein, in Felix du Randt’s flat. I would like to continue the conversation we had then.”
“Twenty-seven years later?” I say.
“You and I had a very enlightening conversation that evening,” he says.
“Is that so?” I say.
“You spoke with remarkable insight about Plato. How well you explained to me that we are lost in this world. That what we experience here is but a pale reflection of the real world, and that all the knowledge we possess is but the memory of an existence in a prior world.”
“You mistake me for someone else,” I say firmly. “I did not on that evening, nor any evening before or after, speak about Plato.”
“Oh, no,” the man says. “I could never confuse you with someone else. Never. I want to take the liberty of saying that I could not confuse you with someone else for all eternity.”
“For all eternity?” I say, with a scathing laugh (thinking of Sof’s Reformed hell).
The man also laughs, a jolly chuckle.
“What did you say your name was?” I ask.
“Freek,” he says. “Freek van As.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I still can’t place you. You are confusing me with someone else.”
Freek van As continues, unperturbed. “You arrived there late that night with Marthinus Maritz and Herman Holst.”
“That I remember,” I say. (I lost my head that night; I was drunk, my conduct was reprehensible.)
“Listen, Freek,” I say, “I can’t speak to you now. I had a burglary yesterday. I’m still recovering from the shock.”
The line suddenly crackles and his voice is almost inaudible. I consider replacing the receiver softly. Herman Holst, the editor, was there that evening; Marthinus Maritz, overzealous and misdirected, he was there. We were visiting Felix du Randt, a former lover of mine. Very vaguely I recall the presence of a fourth person, but I cannot be certain. A dark man? Pale.
“I have to go,” I say. “I can’t continue this conversation now. I have too many other things I have to attend to at the moment.”
“No problem,” Freek says. “I’ll be in touch again.”
“Rather