The Impostor (16 page)

This is a favourite theme of Gavin’s. He’d been up on the border for military service and had seen a bit of action. He liked to talk about how the country was full of apparently normal white men, many of whom had committed rape and murder and cut off SWAPO ears; these people were upstanding members of society now, their darkness buried under the surface.

‘But that’s different,’ Adam says, interrupting him. ‘We were conscripted, we
had
to go. This is somebody who
chose
to do this stuff for a living. He tortured and killed and kidnapped for the government. I mean, he’s a
bad
person.’

‘Oh, don’t be so naïve, big brother. There was a war on, that was the situation. That’s what happens in a war. You think the other side didn’t do the same? At those ANC camps in Tanzania, there was also torture and murder going on. Those guys planted bombs in shopping centres, they blew up women and children–’

‘It’s different,’ Adam says, dismayed. ‘They were on the right side.’

‘There’s no right side in a war, there’s just your side and the other side. I don’t disrespect this guy for what he did back then–it’s what he’s doing now that’s shabby.’

‘What are you saying, he should cover up for his bosses? You can’t just forget about the past, Gavin. It’s got to be opened up, so the whole country can move on.’

‘He’s turning against his buddies. Jeez, come on, that’s low. I’ve got no respect for a traitor. No wonder he’s afraid. I hope they do come and get him before he sings. And you’d better pray they find the right house–they might shoot you by mistake.’ This strikes Gavin as hilarious; he roars with laughter down the phone.

‘Let’s not talk about it any more.’ Adam is disturbed and upset; he doesn’t know what he was looking for, sharing this story with his brother. He changes the subject to arrangements for the coming weekend and soon afterwards brings the conversation to an end.

But the talk has stirred up an element of human sympathy for the blue man, which he cannot quite subdue. He keeps remembering, for some reason, the vulnerable glimpse of Blom’s skull that he’d had while he made his confession: he is just a man, after all, with a man’s fear of death. Adam wonders what his name, his real name, might be, but he tries to put the question out of his mind. A name is everything; a name is nothing. No point in thinking about it.

He sees his neighbour a few times over the coming days when he goes out to attack the weeds. Although winter is in full swing now, with low grey skies and the river running full and throaty through the town, they enter into a period of unseasonal balmy weather, which Adam takes advantage of to try to reach the bottom of the yard. Next door, Blom is also out in his garden, wearing a floppy sun-hat, digging furrows to his fruit trees. Although they are sometimes very near to each other, it’s as if the fence between them is a wall; they have rewound to the very beginning, when they studiously ignored one another.

He doesn’t quite finish with the weeds–there is a last remaining strip of them at the bottom–but on the day before he has to leave for the city he finds the sculpture again. It’s buried among the brown stalks, where it must’ve landed the night he threw it away. He’s pulled so much detritus out of the yard that at first he thinks it’s just another piece of junk, an abandoned bit of an engine. Then he realizes what he’s holding. It’s an odd moment of recognition, turning the ugly thing around in his hands. He has a curious feeling of revulsion and indulgence towards it, which is connected to something else completely. He’s about to hurl it away again, over the fence into the next-door garden, but something holds him back. He puts it down on the ground behind him instead. And when he’s finished working he picks it up and carries it inside, and sets it down on top of his notebook.

15

Gavin is a little fatter, a little more heavy lidded. He watches Adam’s discomfiture through a lens of mild malice. ‘How’s the poetry coming along, Ad?’

‘Fine, fine.’

‘That’s good. I’m glad you’re not wasting your time up there. And how’re the weeds?’

‘Almost finished clearing them. Another day or two and they’ll be gone.’

‘Oh, that’s great,’ his brother says, opening a packet of pretzels and pouring them into a bowl. ‘Now you can plant something decent there.’

They are sitting in Gavin’s lounge, drinking beer. The room is fronted with glass, and the view of Robben Island, surrounded by sea, is like a picture frozen and framed for their enjoyment.

‘By the way,’ Gavin says, ‘that arrived for you by registered mail. I signed for it, I’m sorry, when I saw the surname. I only noticed it was yours afterwards.’

The envelope is big and brown–official looking. It’s the first correspondence he’s had from the outside world since his old life collapsed. He is almost excited, until he opens it: a summons to court, the date long past, for the traffic fine he’d got eight months ago. When he’d passed the spot this morning–the turn-off, with its one tree–on his way down to Cape Town, it had been the first time he’d thought of the incident in half a year. All of it feels very long ago; his sense of moral outrage seems almost antiquated.

‘What am I supposed to do now?’ he says. ‘You should’ve forwarded it to me.’

‘I meant to. But I didn’t get around to it.’

‘It says here they’ll issue a warrant for my arrest if I miss the court date. Are they going to arrest me?’

‘
Ag
, are you crazy? Don’t worry, just tear it up. That’s what I do with all my tickets. Nobody bothers about that sort of stuff these days.’

Adam doesn’t say more, but he’s troubled by guilt. He remembers how fired up he’d been at the time, how resolved he was to fight the issue, but he’d got distracted by other things, and now it’s too late. He turns his attention to Charmaine, who’s next to him on the couch, cross-legged and barefoot. Her hair hangs down loosely, curtaining her enormous eyes. ‘How
are
you?’ she whispers.

‘I’m doing all right, thanks.’

‘Your aura is clearer than before. Though there’s still some movement. Maybe too much. A lot of fire and turmoil, but it’s better than it was.’

Gavin takes a pretzel from the bowl on the table and crunches it with his mouth open. ‘I don’t mind telling you,’ he says, ‘that I think you look terrible.’

‘Gavin.’

‘Well, he does. He’s thin and dirty. He needs a haircut. He looks like a refugee.’ To Adam he says, ‘I’ve made a booking at a steak-house tonight. I’m going to fatten you up.’

‘No,’ Adam says. ‘I’ve got this party to go to.’ When his brother looks uncomprehending, he goes on: ‘I told you about it. It’s the reason I’ve come down here. We talked about it.’

‘Oh,
ja
,’ Gavin says vaguely. ‘Remind me again.’

As Adam runs through the details, Gavin takes on a bored, distracted expression. But he must be listening, because later, as Adam is about to leave, he suddenly announces, ‘It’ll never fly. This golf course thing of yours.’

‘It’s not mine, for God’s sake. It has nothing to do with me.’

‘Out there in the sticks. Who’s going to drive out there to play golf?’

‘It’s on a major new road,’ Adam says defensively. ‘And the landscape is part of the design.’

‘If you’ve got money in this thing, take it out. I’m telling you–sell your shares. Don’t get burnt.’

‘Shares?’ Adam says. ‘What are you talking about? I’ve got no money for groceries. How would I buy shares?’

The invitation to the party is lying on the kitchen dresser; Gavin picks it up and looks at it. ‘Genov,’ he says musingly. ‘That rings a bell.’

Adam takes the invitation back before another lecture can begin. ‘I’d better go,’ he says. ‘I’m late already.’

He doesn’t own a suit these days; he’s had to borrow one from Gavin. But the jacket is too big, so that the sleeves hang over his hands. Underneath it, his one good shirt is too tight for him, and it smells of mothballs. He feels flagrantly conspicuous, as if he’s dressed like a clown, though none of it is too obvious when he looks in the mirror. Nevertheless, he almost balks: it’s not just his clothes, but the whole evening ahead, that doesn’t fit him any more. Only the prospect of seeing Baby keeps him moving forward.

The house is in a wealthy suburb Adam doesn’t know. He has been driving slowly along leafy back roads for half an hour, map in hand, when the blaze of light and the blare of revelry tell him that he’s arrived. A liveried flunkey at the gate inspects his invitation, then tells him he will have to park out in the street, there is no place left inside.

The driveway is a long winding approach through trees, with fancy cars parked all along its length. Off to the side he glimpses tennis courts, a swimming pool, a paddock with horses. Only at the top of the drive does he emerge into the full spectacular vulgarity of what awaits him. A castle, all turrets and balustrades and battlements. Everything, from the stone to the architecture, appears to have been brought in from elsewhere. The effect is of an incoherent oddity, like some fantastic spaceship that’s crash-landed on top of this hill, with the survivors swarming over the wreckage. There are a lot of people. He can see them through the windows; they overflow the front stairs. He has a moment of wanting to turn around and run. He doesn’t belong and he’s sure everyone can see it.

Once his invitation has been inspected again, he’s allowed through the door. The impression of an accident continues inside, the roar of voices like the moment of impact, infinitely stretched in time. There is an air of crisis, without focus or centre; dance and talk and flirtation are going on everywhere, splintered and amplified by mirrors. But even here, Adam stays outside the frenzy, like a deaf man watching an orchestra. He feels very alone amongst the flesh and festivity. He sees the rooms without the people as cold, tiled space, broken by tasteless statues and expensive paintings, and himself pacing through all this desertion, his footsteps quavering outward in echoing concentric rings.

In a passage, next to a huge Chinese vase, he is confronted by a tall, grinning man with craggy good looks and dark hair combed back. His teeth are numerous and dazzling. Adam has seen the teeth before, on aerosol cans in the supermarket. Which is how he comes to recognize the famous golfer, who has designed the course for Canning. He has long since retired from the game and is more famous these days for his own brand of deodorant. ‘Whose friend are
you
?’ the golfer shouts, pumping Adam’s hand.

‘Canning’s. I’m looking for him, actually–have you seen him?’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Canning, Kenneth Canning.’

‘Never heard of him, old buddy. You look like you could use a drink!’

‘Never heard of him? But this whole thing is his idea.’

‘Must be some mistake, old buddy. This is Nicolai’s baby. Here, have some wine.’ He plucks a glass from the tray of a passing waiter and gives it to Adam. ‘Nicolai’s own label, from his wine estate. Enjoy!’ Then the famous golfer is gone, shaking the hand of somebody else in the crowd.

Adam downs the wine as he moves on. It’s dry and fragrant, an expensive taste–part of the costly waste that surrounds Canning. But although he can sense his friend close by, somewhere among these people, he can never quite find him. His panic is tempered by the many other faces in the heaving mass that he almost knows, faces on the edge of being familiar, like acquaintances from long ago: small local celebrities, television stars and sports stars, a notorious revolutionary who’d been in jail for fifteen years, socialites and politicians, even a well-known charismatic preacher. Though he has the impulse to greet these people, their names, their connection to him, stay out of reach; he hurries on from them, looking always for Canning, because close to him will be the one person he does want to see. As he enters each room, he feels hopeful and expectant, but as he pushes through the crowd, his eyes deflecting off the face of each new stranger, he becomes more and more despondent, until he gets to the next doorway. There is something dreamlike in the progression and futility, the hovering sense of quest.

Somewhere in the crush he meets Sipho Moloi, who greets him with bright uncertainty, before asking after the health of the minister.

‘No, no,’ Adam says, ‘I met you at Canning’s place.’

‘Whose place?’

‘Canning, Kenneth Canning. You know, where the golf course…’

‘Ah!’ His face lights up with recognition, then clouds over again. They both smile tightly at each other, anxious to escape.

‘I’m looking for him, actually–Canning, I mean. Have you seen him? Or Baby?’

‘Yes…I think I saw him…through there. But it was some time ago.’

Adam pushes through into a big courtyard, open to the sky. A live band is playing jazzily in the corner and people are dancing around a fountain that cascades into a stone pool in the middle. There is a roped-off platform to one side, supporting a bizarrely distinctive shape: a mock-up of a putting green, a bunker next to it, and a flag on a pole planted in the centre. Bunting and balloons hang overhead, and the wall is covered with a massive, blown-up backdrop of mountains and green
kloof
and desert stretching away.

Then he does see Baby. She’s dressed entirely in white–white dress, white shoes, white blossoms in her hair–and she looks radiant and virginal, as if she’s getting married. She’s talking to an older man standing against the wall, who has the air and the functional clothes of an impersonal attendant, a butler of some kind.

Having searched for her for so long, he doesn’t approach right away, but watches her for a while across the courtyard. She is laughing and animated, full of a vitality he hasn’t seen in her before. The dancing, the music, the crowd: now that he’s found her, none of these exist for him. But she seems to have drawn power from the swirling colour around her; she looks like one of the gilded, gifted company, with a future of possibility at her feet. As he starts towards her, a pang goes through him, like the blow of an axe; he feels he is looking at a memory, something already lost. Even when he’s right in front of her, she doesn’t notice him for a moment. Then her eyes fix on him, and for a second he has an impression again of the imbalance in her gaze.

‘What are
you
doing here?’ she says. Her displeased expression is almost instantly covered with a dazzling smile.

‘Canning gave me an invitation, of course.’

‘But how sweet.’

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he tells her.

‘Have you? Where?’

‘Everywhere. Room after room.’ He is close to her, so close that their bodies are in contact each time they lean in to speak. He can smell her perfume and feel the heat of her arm. He has a desperate impulse to act recklessly: press her into the wall, kiss her lingeringly in full view of all these people–claim her in some way. But at the same time he knows that it’s only because of the crowd that they can be intimate in public like this. He must get her away from here, to somewhere secluded and safe, where they can renew the bond between them. ‘Do we have to stay here?’ he says hoarsely. ‘Isn’t there somewhere we can go?’

She pulls back from him. ‘Are you mad?’ she whispers angrily. ‘This is the middle of a party. And I’m busy right now. Go and talk to Kenneth.’

‘Where is he?’

She gestures with a flick of her fingernails to where her husband is standing by himself at the back of the courtyard, a lonely figure, sunk in alcohol and shadow. Nobody is near him.

‘I saw a swimming pool in the garden as I came in,’ Adam tells her. ‘It looked quiet out there.’

Her eyes study him with amused disdain. She starts to shake her head, but at that moment a flurry starts up on the platform in the corner. A microphone is being tuned; lights are turning on; people are readying themselves for speeches.

This is the perfect moment to slip away, with the crowd distracted, but she has taken a step back from him. ‘I have to go,’ she says. ‘I’ll speak to you later.’

‘I came here for you,’ he says again.

‘Well, you shouldn’t have.’ For a second her hand touches his arm, and his heart lifts. But her fingers tweak dismissively at his sleeve. ‘Your jacket doesn’t fit you,’ she says, and then she’s moving away.

He has a stunned moment of incomprehension: something has passed him by. Hadn’t he been clear? Why hadn’t she understood? They are two of a kind; neither of them belongs here, in this frivolous city crowd. But she is another person tonight, somebody he doesn’t know. The real Baby, the one that he wants to see, is still out there somewhere, in Gondwana, or in his poems.

He goes in the other direction, against the flow of people. Everybody is pressing in towards the corner where the lights are coming up. On the opposite side of the courtyard, in another universe entirely, Canning slouches against the wall; he gives the impression that he is propping up the building. Adam sees something in him that is both touching and repellent: he is the sort of person it would be easy to hurt and forget. But he beams delightedly when he sees Adam. ‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ he says. ‘I thought you hadn’t come after all.’