The Impostor (20 page)

Which throws up another problem. There is only one bed in the house, the one that he uses. But he’s troubled by the idea of letting them sleep on the floor: there are two of them, and they’re old–old enough to be his parents.

That image, of his mother and father without a place to sleep, decides him. ‘Take my bed,’ he tells them, and they accept without any argument. He has a faint prickle of resentment, instantly replaced by guilt: it’s because of him, after all, that they are here. Let him sleep on the ground for a few nights–it’s hardly a fair exchange.

Over the next few days, they don’t leave the house. They are always there, sitting in the lounge, looking sad and enigmatic. Occasionally a few words pass between them, but otherwise they seem to generate a fraught silence, against which even the tiniest sounds take on resonance. The creak of the couch. The window-pane vibrating in the wind. The squeaking of Grace’s shoes as she walks aimlessly about.

Like him, they are waiting. But their old life has ended; they are leaving their old life behind. While he is waiting to go on with his life, to pick up where he left off. At the same time he suspects that his life won’t be the same; something–but what exactly?–has changed.

Sometimes it’s too much. Sometimes he can’t bear to sit here for another second, hemmed in by these two. They’re like a pair of dark attendant angels, familiar spirits, here only to keep a watchful eye on him, toting up the moral score in a ledger. At these moments he jumps up. ‘I’m going to the shop,’ he tells them. ‘Will you be all right till I come back?’

There are always errands he can think up to keep him busy. But often he goes out without an aim, taking one of his walks through the town, no destination in mind, just passing the time. On one of these missions, going past the municipal office, he sees a small crowd of protesters on the lawn outside: the people from the township, he thinks, still angry about the lack of housing and services. But then he notices that this is a different group, with different placards and a different mood. Fanie Prinsloo, the ex-Springbok rugby player, is in front, shouting something through a megaphone. He’s carrying a placard that says, SOLD DOWN THE RIVER.

The story comes to him in bits and pieces as he moves among the bystanders. And some of it arrives later, in the form of a photocopied pamphlet dropped into his letter-box. There is hysteria and anger about the impact of the golf course on the natural environment, especially the river. There are figures showing that the golf course is likely to consume three million litres of water a day, which means that the river will dry up. The future of the town itself is under threat.

Adam is troubled by all of this, in a personal way. And his unease grows deeper when he gets a call from his brother later in the day. ‘
Ja
,’ Gavin tells him triumphantly. ‘Looks like the shit’s hitting the fan.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘With your friend from school, the golf course guy. And Genov, that old crook. It’s all over the papers this afternoon. Front page news. Listen to this.’

Gavin reads him the article, but what he’s hearing doesn’t get through to Adam. His head is swimming and he has only the most general impression afterwards–of land being rezoned through improper procedures, allegations of nepotism, and a suspect tender process. The whole golf course deal seems to be imploding.

He cuts his brother short. ‘I don’t get it,’ he says. ‘What’s actually going on?’

‘Haven’t you been listening? It’s unravelling, that’s what’s going on. What started it is this government character, what’s his name again, somebody Moloi, giving the construction contract to a company that happens to have his uncle and brother-in-law on the board of directors. Now all kinds of unsavoury things are creeping out of the woodwork. Your mayor is also involved. Seems like he passed an environmental impact assessment without running it past the council. People are calling for his head. Fanie Prinsloo–remember him?–has come out and said it publicly. Corruption.’

‘I don’t care about any of this,’ Adam says. ‘What’s it got to do with me?’

‘But this is your friend’s little project, isn’t it? I wouldn’t want to be him right now.’

‘He’s not my friend.’

‘What do you mean? Just two weeks ago you were down here at his invitation for a fancy party at that criminal’s house. I tried to warn you at the time, if you remember. I told you–’

‘I don’t see him any more,’ Adam says. ‘He isn’t my friend.’

19

Lindile arrives in the afternoon on Saturday. He’s a tall, thin man in jeans and T-shirt, driving a battered old Golf, which he parks in front of the house. He comes quickly down the path and knocks three times–a hard, clean sound–on the front door. He greets Adam with a cool nod and only accepts his handshake after a considered pause. He has a narrow face with a tight, set look to it, like a padlock.

‘I am here for my parents,’ he says.

‘Yes, yes,’ Adam says. ‘We have been waiting for you.’

He stands aside to let him in. Ezekiel and Grace are waiting uncertainly in the lounge. They seem almost afraid of their son, but once he has come inside they greet each other with hesitant formality. Adam isn’t sure of what kind of scene he is watching: one of reconciliation, perhaps, or just of tired filial duty. There is no way to know.

‘We’re very glad to see you,’ Adam says.

‘I’m sure you are.’ The voice is low and flat, as it was on the phone, but he stresses the ‘you’ slightly: a possible accusation.

Adam tries to remember what he knows about this man. The bits and pieces that Canning had thrown out were either sentimental (‘my first playmate’) or dismissive (‘he got all political later’). Neither seems to fit the self-possessed person in front of him, who shows no interest in small talk.

‘Please take a seat,’ Adam says. ‘Can I make you some tea?’

‘Yes,’ Lindile says.

He goes into the kitchen and makes tea. When he carries it through to the lounge, Lindile has seated himself in a chair, a little distance away from his parents on the couch. They aren’t looking at or speaking to each other, and the silence continues while Adam serves them. Then he puts himself uncomfortably down between the two old people; there is no other place. To keep the conversation moving, he says, ‘What is it you do in Cape Town?’

‘I’m a lecturer.’ He names a college that Adam has never heard of.

‘And what’s your subject?’

‘Political Science.’

‘Oh. Very nice.’ Adam’s eyes go down to the front of Lindile’s T-shirt, which carries an image of marching workers under a clenched fist. ‘And whereabouts do you live?’

‘In Nyanga. Is it an area you know?’

‘No.’

‘Yes, I have a house there. Four rooms. I live there with my wife and my cousin. Now my parents will be living there too. I don’t know what we are going to do.’

After all the terse answers, the fullness of this reply seems to carry a message. Adam sets his cup down next to him and speaks quietly. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Lindile. It feels to me as if you are very angry. I don’t know you, I don’t know what’s happened in your life, maybe you have reason for your anger. But what I don’t understand is why you are angry with
me
. I’m only trying to help.’

Even as he speaks, the words turn back on him. He is responsible, after all, for what’s happened to this man’s parents; he isn’t helping out of charity.

He tries again. ‘This isn’t easy for any of us.’

‘
Ja
? How is it difficult for you?’

‘I have a small place, as you can see. The same size as yours. But I’ve been sharing it with your parents. We’ve been living here, on top of each other.’

‘Yes,’ Lindile says, ‘that is very good of you. You have given my parents a bed for a few nights, you have given them some food. Now you want to get rid of them. So you have called their son in Cape Town, who hasn’t seen them in more than ten years, to come and take them away.’

‘I didn’t know there was some estrangement between you and them. I’m sorry if I’ve been insensitive. But still–this is your mother and father. I’m a stranger to them. They are your responsibility, surely, much more than mine. A child has duties towards his parents.’

‘You say you’re a stranger. But you know them, don’t you, from where they work? You said you were a friend of Kenneth’s.’

‘Is that what this is about? Are you angry because I know the Cannings?’

With the first trace of temper to flash through his composure, Lindile cuts him off. ‘If you want to help,’ he says, ‘if you really want to help, then give us some money. That will make a difference.’

‘I can’t. I’m not in a position to do that.’ Adam turns in agitation to Ezekiel, appealing to him. ‘I can’t give you work,’ he says, ‘or a place to live. I wish I could. I know money is the problem.’ The old man smiles and bobs his head. But Lindile speaks sharply to him in Xhosa and the smile disappears. Though Adam doesn’t speak the language, the meaning is clear: don’t make yourself servile, don’t dance in front of this man.

Then Lindile turns back to him. ‘
Ja
, you are right,’ he says. ‘Money is the problem. Money has always been the problem. Even before this. Even when they were working, they had nothing.’

‘I know that. I saw.’

‘No money, no power. Very simple.’

Adam gestures at the room, with its ugly, second-hand furniture. ‘I also have no money. Can’t you see? I am already learning what no power means. You assume too much, Lindile. We are not all the same. I am not like…’

‘Like your friends,’ Lindile says.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Like my friends.’

He feels that he has made a point, but in the silence that follows he knows: in the eyes of this man, he is just like his friends.

‘Canning tells me,’ he goes on, ‘that you were also his friend.’

‘He told you that?’

‘He said you played together when you were boys.’

‘When I was too small to know better, yes. But even then, when the playing was finished, I went to my
pondok
and he went to the big house.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he says. ‘For God’s sake. The whole country’s moved on since then. Everything’s changed. Can’t you move on too?’

Lindile smiles thinly. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I can’t move on.’ And that seems to be the truth of it. He is stuck in the past, pinned down under his anger, which is like a huge rock on his chest. Adam will never be able to do enough, give enough, to make things right.

As if to underscore this fact, Lindile jumps up. ‘Let us see how you live,’ he says, and before anybody can stop him he goes stalking through the house, from room to room. Adam finds himself scurrying along indignantly behind him. When they get to the bedroom, Lindile stops and turns, his arms folded. ‘So,’ he says. ‘This is your no-money. You say you can’t help us, but you have much more than we do. Even with four rooms, you are living here alone.’

‘This house doesn’t belong to me. It’s my brother’s house.’ His voice rises, shrill and defensive.

‘But you have four rooms,’ he says again. ‘Why can’t my parents live here with you?’

Adam is speechless. The question is obviously outrageous, and he can see from Lindile’s thin smile that he’s trying to provoke him. Yet on some level inside himself he also thinks that what Lindile says isn’t so unreasonable. He does have four rooms; they have none. Why shouldn’t they be living here with him, sleeping in his bed, sheltering under his roof? Why should he have it all to himself?

He quells his self-doubt in a moment. Of course, this is just a perverse game, and what’s being put to him is something else, something not said. He thinks he has the measure of this man. Judging by his car, his clothes, he is not too badly off; he is probably on a par with Adam. But although they’re on a level for the moment, Lindile is on his way up, Adam on his way down. And it’s part of their precarious equality that Lindile doesn’t have sharing on his mind. No, he would like their positions to be reversed: he would like to be here with his parents and wife, and possibly his cousins too, occupying all four rooms, while Adam is outside and homeless. Better yet, he would like Adam to be far away, in another country entirely. That is what would satisfy Lindile.

Ezekiel and Grace have followed them through, looking agitated. They seem unsure of what is playing itself out here, between their son and this white man, their benefactor. They start speaking anxiously in Xhosa, but Lindile ignores them. To Adam he says coolly, almost as if their whole exchange hasn’t happened, ‘We will leave now, I think. Thank you very much for everything. Thank you for the tea.’

Adam walks out with them to say goodbye. The old people are obsequious, thanking him with the usual excessive pantomime, which Lindile again cuts short with a brief, explosive word. Then the car pulls away, disappearing down the road, driving out of his life.

20

He starts to pack up the house. From the supermarket he gets a few old boxes and puts his belongings into them. He has thought of it as a big job, one that will take days or weeks, but is soon reminded, all over again, of how little he owns. In a couple of mornings his life is disassembled and ready for removal.

Nevertheless, he doesn’t call Cape Town and tell his brother to expect him. He’s not quite ready yet to leave. There is nothing to stay for, exactly, but now that it’s on the verge of turning into the past, this phase of his life takes on a sentimental glow. None of it has been too bad, really. Even staying here on his own has been something of an adventure.

So he drifts around from room to room, gazing out of the windows, saying goodbye to the furniture. He occupies himself with little missions to the municipality, giving them a month’s notice to disconnect the telephone, the electricity. Preparing the house for its emptiness again. He spends a lot of time sitting out on the back steps, gazing over the valley.

Winter is ebbing away; spring is sweeping in. Each day feels a little warmer, as the earth tips its face toward the sun. On the branches of the trees outside the front door, tiny buds and shoots are showing. The first swallows have come back into the sky. And in the yard, the new weeds are growing with a fresh infusion of pace and power. They are knee-high in some places already, and each day the green carpet is discernibly taller, thickening and rising like some insidious ambition. But Adam only watches them indifferently, knowing that somebody else, at some other time, will have to clear them.

On one of the evenings that he’s sitting out there, enjoying a mug of coffee, the telephone rings. In his pleasant lethargy he almost doesn’t answer it. But the ringing goes insistently on and on, and in the end he gets up.

The voice on the other side is low and panicked. ‘Adam,’ it says. ‘We have to meet.’

So distanced does he feel from recent events that it takes Adam a few seconds to recognize who’s speaking. Then he’s instantly furious again. ‘No, Canning,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to see you.’

‘You don’t understand. This is very important.’

‘Important to you, maybe. But not to me. There’s nothing to discuss.’

A pause, a faint burr of static. ‘You’re wrong, Adam. You need to hear this.’

Something in Canning’s voice disturbs him, a note that carries down the line and plants itself in his head, like a tiny seed of disquiet. He hesitates for a moment, then says, ‘All right. Where do you want to meet?’

The sun is going down as he drives through town and up to the highway, and the scarlet drama of the sky adds to his sense of intrigue and unease. Why the intense urgency of this meeting, and why at this time of day, when the long, attenuated shadows are all joining into one? And why at the old road, with its air of dereliction and decay, away from any observing eyes? When he’s turned off and parked behind a line of trees, the traffic passing on the main road seems very far away. He is alone in a shadowy half-circle of gravel, littered with plastic bags and beer cans and used condoms, smelling of urine.

The old road is a curious feature. It leaks sideways off the new highway and goes under a set of barricades before disappearing into the landscape. It is recognisably still a road, but the markings and signs have faded almost to invisibility, and the tar has been cracked open by bushes and tussocks of grass pushing through. In the last light, as the afternoon tapers away, it looks like nothing so much as a ghost-road, only half-present, through which the earth is showing. It’s hard to imagine that any traffic ever travelled on its surface.

While he waits, Adam walks around the parking area, kicking at gravel. The rush and roar of passing trucks carries through the trees, and the leaves vibrate. He is full of paranoid thoughts by now, and he has almost made up his mind to leave, when Canning finally arrives. He parks the SUV some way off from Adam and in just a few seconds he comes hurrying over.

Both of them, as they approach each other, are reserved. In keeping with the furtive nature of their encounter, Canning is wearing some kind of cloth cap on his head. Dressed like this, with his head pulled down between his shoulders, he reminds Adam of a tortoise. His flesh is pale and soft: like tortoise-flesh, hidden from the sun.

He says, ‘Did anybody see you come?’

‘I don’t think so. What’s this all about, Canning?’

‘Let’s walk. Do you feel like a walk?’

There’s nowhere to go, except along the old road itself. Under a bleary half-moon hanging low in the sky, in the greenish glow of twilight, the road is a luminous stripe across the darker land. They steer over the crumbling tar, avoiding the clumps of foliage in their way. They pass an old traffic sign, listing to the left and rusted away. There is the stridulation of insects, the call of some night-bird up ahead.

‘I heard you were having some trouble with the golf course.’

‘Yes,’ Canning says impatiently, ‘but it’s just a little setback. We’ll get around it very soon. Contacts, contacts–it’s all about who you know.’

‘Well, you seem to know some powerful people.’

‘Yes, yes. Actually, that’s the reason we’re here. I hope you realize,’ he says sententiously, ‘that I’m talking to you at great risk to myself. I would be in a lot of trouble if they saw me with you. I’m doing this because of what you mean to me. From the old days.’

‘Well, thank you, Canning,’ Adam says dryly.

‘Oh, don’t mention it. You’re my oldest and closest friend, after all.’ Their metronomic footsteps skip a beat as they skirt around a bush sprouting in the middle of the road. ‘If only you didn’t insist on being honest,’ he says with sudden bitterness. ‘If only you didn’t insist on speaking up. I told you it would make him upset.’

‘Who?’

‘Who? Mr Genov, of course. He’s such an unreasonable man. I’ve tried to talk to him, I’ve tried to explain, but he won’t listen. It’s just to be on the safe side, he says. I can’t stop him, Adam. I have no power.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘What? Don’t you understand anything?’ Canning stops and faces him, spreading his plump palms in appeal. ‘I’m trying to warn you.’

‘About what?’

‘Listen to him! They’re going to kill you, of course.’

Only now does the conversation become real to Adam. His knees go weak, a white light flashes behind his eyes. The notion of murder is suddenly like something tangible, hovering close by in the air. He has entertained the idea of it himself. He has, in a theoretical way, contemplated what it would be like to kill the man he’s speaking to now. But murder has a life of its own; he has sent it out into the world, and it has boomeranged back towards him.

‘
Why
?’ he says.

‘Because you know too much. Because you made the payment to the mayor.’

‘But I didn’t understand what it was.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t matter. I’m sorry about it, Adam, it’s my fault, really, I suppose. But no use crying over spilt milk.’ Canning gives a little shrug, as if they’re talking about some minor oversight. ‘Oh, it’s all been so stressful,’ he cries. ‘I wish this phase of my life was over!’

They resume their walk with incongruous calm, as if none of the preceding talk has happened. And their voices, as they go on speaking, also have a disconnected composure:

‘Talk to him for me. Tell him I’m no threat.’

‘I told you, I tried. But it’s too late. And anyway, you
are
a threat.’

‘Am I so important?’

‘You don’t understand. It’s because you’re not important at all.’

‘Poor Mr Genov, you said. So misunderstood. Such a bad press.’

‘I suppose I misjudged him. But I’m going to cut my ties with him. I want you to know that. When this is finished, I won’t see him again. Which is no consolation to you, obviously. But I’m just saying.’

He is almost curious. ‘How…?’ he says.

‘What do you mean? Oh, yes, I see…with a gun, I think.’

‘And who…?’

‘I don’t know exactly. They send somebody. There are people who do this sort of thing. For a living, as it were.’

‘And when is this supposed to happen?’

‘Tonight, of course. That’s why I insisted on a meeting.’

‘
Tonight
? But it’s almost dark already. What am I supposed to do?’

‘Well, you mustn’t go home. Not under any circumstances. Leave right away. Go to Cape Town.’

By now, they are perhaps a kilometre from the main road, with deserted countryside around them. They go over a rise and in front of them is a ruined bridge, half-projecting over a gorge. On the far side the road continues, but they can’t walk any further. Canning stops at the edge of the bridge, but Adam takes a few more aimless steps. He feels reckless, a little crazy. Space opens out below him; the metal struts whine in the wind. Without thinking, he lifts a foot and stamps and the sound echoes down the gorge–half-clang, half-crack.

‘Er, I wouldn’t do that,’ Canning says. ‘It doesn’t look safe.’

‘
Safe
?’ Adam says. The word has become ridiculous. He stamps again; the echoes peal away. He’s choking on all the pent-up emotion from the past months, some of it secret even to himself. He wants to laugh and weep at the same time. Is this really going to be his fate: to die because of a golf course? Tragedy and absurdity mix into a venomous cocktail and he suddenly lunges at Canning, grabbing and pulling with no clear intention. ‘This is all your fault,’ he shouts, ‘you lying, pathetic, little…chemical salesman!’

In a moment–unexpectedly–Canning is screaming back. His bloodless face is distorted. ‘Who…are…
you
…to accuse…smiling and talking…while you’re
fucking my wife
!’

They are fused together for a moment in a furious embrace, balanced on the edge of the bridge, an ungainly quadruped emitting high, hysterical cries. But the huge landscape absorbs their frenzy like a sponge. Eventually they quieten down and separate themselves, finger by finger, becoming individual and apart.

They can’t look at each other.

‘You knew all the time,’ Adam says. He’s breathing heavily, while he smoothes and tucks in his shirt. He’s lost some buttons in the scuffle.

‘What did you think? That you were subtle?’ Canning is flushed, his rapid breathing close to tears. He has a graze on one cheek. His cap has fallen off the bridge, and he keeps running a hand anxiously over the top of his head. He says, ‘She’s the most precious…the most precious thing I have. I notice her all the time.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Adam says. He has to fetch up the words from deep inside, and even then they mean nothing.

While they stand there for a long time in silence, the last sun disappears and the night takes hold. Patches of cloud drift over the moon and the earth wells up and disappears in the intermittent light. Canning says eventually, ‘I don’t mind you so much. With Baby, I mean. It was like sharing my good fortune with you. It’s
him
that eats away at me. I keep thinking about his horrible hands all over her…’ He gives a shudder.

Adam says quickly, ‘But then why don’t you cut him off?’

‘Business is business,’ Canning says. He jiggles his pockets, giving off the emphatic clink of loose change. ‘Got to keep your eye on the fox. My personal life is separate. I would never cross the line, but
he
did. No, if she had to betray me with someone…I’d much rather it was you, Adam. Rather you than anybody else!’

‘Thank you, Canning. I suppose.’

‘Shall we walk back?’

They retrace their steps without speaking, both of them sunk in introspection. It’s only when they come back in sight of the main road, with the headlights of cars sweeping past, that something else occurs to Adam. ‘How does he know about me?’ he asks. ‘How does he know I paid the mayor? How does he know where to find me?’

‘Because I told him, of course. I told him where you live.’

‘But I don’t understand–if I’m your friend–why you would do that. If you knew what he would do…’

‘Don’t you get it?’ Canning says. ‘I had to
stop
you. This has been my one big dream for half my life. The golf course must happen. I can’t have you messing things up with your silly principles.’

‘So you told him everything. And then you call me out here to warn me.’

‘Yes,’ Canning says sadly. ‘It’s weird, I know. But I couldn’t decide what was more important, you or the golf course. I wanted to save you both.’

‘Maybe you have.’

‘I hope so.’ He takes hold of Adam’s fingers and squeezes them. He doesn’t shake his hand so much as vibrate it, a tremor that seems to come from the core. ‘I suppose we’re not going to see each other for a while.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘It’s strange, isn’t it? How things work out. You think it’s all going to be a certain way, and it turns out to be utterly different.’

‘Yes, it’s strange.’

‘Take care of yourself, Adam.’ He lets go of his hand at last.

‘You too, Canning. Take care.’

He gets into his car and sits there for a few minutes after Canning has gone down the road. He’s not thinking about anything; just trying to calm his heartbeat and his breath. He knows what he has to do, but he doesn’t feel like proceeding in a rational way. Instead, he has a primitive, visceral urge to flee. Into the landscape, under the ground. He feels like a hunted animal, the focus of a carnivorous intent, that must run blindly for its life, stumbling across rocks, tearing itself on thorns. He has at last become part of nature, which he’d wanted to sing aloud in poems, and there’s nothing Beautiful about it.