The Shallows. Ingrid Winterbach
Читать онлайн книгу.
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.
Behind the vegetable garden was the orchard.
‘Everything here used to be much more chaotic,’ said Marthinus. ‘Less regulated. The founder had previously taken in more or less anybody in need – although mainly orphans and homeless people. He laid out the original vegetable garden and planted the trees. It was an admirable project but it started getting out of hand eventually. Hygienically it left a lot to be desired. The kitchen was apparently so dirty that the Department of Health was scared the plague would break out here. The inhabitants started fighting amongst each other. The dogs proliferated. The pigs wandered about in the neighbourhood. Nobody cared for the gardens any more. The orphans formed roaming gangs. They shat on suburban sidewalks. The Department of Welfare received complaints from all over.’
At the very top of the hill the road swerved to the right. (Nick was struggling up the hill, he was unfit, he hadn’t exercised for a long time.) For the last few days it had been good and hot again during the day. In front of them were five bunker-like buildings.
‘Arms depots during the British military occupation of the Cape,’ said Marthinus. ‘The man was an artist. An artist and a founding father! He used the bunkers as installation spaces. Now that sure as hell was something to witness,’ he said, shaking his head and whistling softly through his teeth. ‘Oh Lord. It was ground-breaking, it was way out. Five separate spaces and each with a different theme. But dark, make no mistake. A merciless onslaught on established Afrikaner cultural values.’
‘What became of him?’ asked Nick.
‘I’m not sure. Look, that man was a pioneer, and restless. He got bored with the whole project. He got fed-up with battling the Department. The whole neighbourhood. He had every department and body and bourgeois interest group constantly at his throat. The logistics demanded too much of his time and energy. The animals and the people started irritating him. He was most definitely humanitarian and philanthropic, but he also knew how to look after his own interests. He may have started feeling that all the demands on him were driving him into a corner. So he left this place. From one day to the next. Handed over the whole project just like that to someone else. Who knows – perhaps he founded something else somewhere else. A man with vision. Needed a new challenge. A complex fellow, all in all, even though I didn’t know him very well.’
Nick was listening with half an ear, worried about where Marthinus was taking him.
‘The man who took over from him,’ said Marthinus, ‘has a totally different approach. Good organiser, orderly mind-set. Possibly too orderly, but good. A kind of reformer – one of your missionary types. I suspect he’s planning a kind of utopia here – his idea of an ideal society. But it’s one thing planning something like that, and another making it work. Oh Lord, you’ll see. The man has no idea as yet of what he’s up against. There are forces at work here that won’t be thwarted by any utopian visions. Perhaps we’ll come across the man. A kind of Albert Schweitzer incarnation.’ And he laughed pleasantly.
Nick was no longer quite sure what all this had to do with Charelle’s disappearance.
‘Come,’ said Marthinus, ‘I’ll show you inside the spaces.’ From one of them came the sound of a little children’s choir. What they were singing sounded like something between ‘This old man’ and ‘Shosholoza’.
‘Preschool children are now being looked after while their parents are at work,’ he said. ‘Previously they roamed around here and in the neighbourhood like stray dogs. Now they start each day with a balanced breakfast.’
Nick was tired and impatient. He didn’t want to see the spaces either from the inside or the outside. He now wanted to make contact with whoever might be able to provide information about Charelle.
‘The new man,’ said Marthinus, ‘got rid of an almighty pile of rubbish. Do you feel like meeting him? He may be somewhere around here. Otherwise we can arrange something. As I’ve said, he’s also a friend of Alfons’. We’ll invite him for a beer. Although he may well not even drink beer!’ And he laughed. How unquenchably the man exuded enthusiasm and a sense of fun. Godaloneknows. The last thing on earth Nick wanted now was to meet this reformer – not now and not in the foreseeable future – whatever the scope and nature of his utopian dream or project.
‘Let’s move on,’ he said. ‘Some other time perhaps.’
‘For sure, for sure,’ said Marthinus. ‘We’ll make an appointment with the man sometime so he can show us around personally.’
‘Good idea,’ said Nick.
‘Come,’ said Marthinus. And he struck out along a small footpath to the left of the bunkers, until they reached a sturdy wire fence some distance along. They had by now climbed one of the slopes. He whistled. Shouted something in Xhosa. A man appeared from behind one of the low slopes and came up to them. They walked along the fence for a distance, up to a gap in the fence, artfully concealed with branches, which the man moved aside so that they could climb through.
‘Do you come here often?’ asked Nick.
‘Yes,’ said Marthinus. ‘A while ago I had my eye on someone here.’
‘Okay,’ said Nick.
‘A woman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Suffered terrible hardships to get as far as this. On foot through war-torn regions.’
‘Where is she now?’ asked Nick.
‘She’s gone to Johannesburg to be trained as a lawyer’s clerk. She’d had to interrupt her studies when she fled here. She’d considered her options carefully. She’s a principled woman of sound judgement.’
‘I see,’ said Nick.
They’d in the meantime trudged a good distance up the slope, and when they were halfway to the top they looked down on what looked suspiciously like a small informal settlement, in a basin between two slopes. Not visible from further down. A laager of shelters. A variety of materials had been used to cobble together these tent-like structures – thick sheets of cardboard, planks, fibreboard, canvas, although mainly plastic and branches, which the people had probably scavenged from all over. Higher up, against the slope, it even looked as if shelters had been dug out, the entrances covered with plastic bags. Discreet wisps of smoke. A subdued atmosphere prevailed here.
‘These are the people, you understand,’ said Marthinus, ‘who live with their ear to the ground. They know everything that happens down there in the city. They’re in touch with people living like rats in cement tunnels under the city. In culverts under roads and bridges. This place gets bigger by the day. But the people are careful. They keep a low profile. Some of them only emerge at night. Supervigilant. If they’re caught, they’re deported. Back to former homelands and internment camps.’ He laughed. ‘Oh Lord,’ he said. ‘But who’s going to stem the flow?!’
‘I get the picture,’ said Nick.
They walked towards a relatively solid little corrugated iron structure. Outside, seated in the sun on an old car seat, were two men.
‘Nick, meet Messrs Tarquin Molteno and Junius X,’ Marthinus said.
Nick considered going forward to shake hands, then thought better of it. Tarquin was picking his teeth with a match. His forearms were tattooed, he was wearing a thick gold chain around his neck and a signet ring on his little finger. His hair was short and gelled up straight. Small chin tucked deep into the folds of the neck. Fleshy gills. Neat pair of jeans. Dark glasses. Fancy sneakers. Cool customers, thought Nick. Perhaps drug lords. Fuck knew.
Tarquin gestured towards two plastic garden chairs. Marthinus dragged them up. He and Nick sat down. An audience, Nick thought. He could smell himself, he was sweating like a pig, from the walking and the tension.