At the Edge of the Desert Read online

  ‘I’m not sure how much of a difference my organisation makes,’ she admitted to Amanda, ‘but I try.’

  Amanda had read somewhere that the best way of becoming disillusioned with the charity sector was by working in it. ‘Do you think that’s true, Luce?’

  Will took advantage of their conversation to confide in me: he’d been ‘clean’ for two years. Had he overheard my aside to my sister? The primary reason for his moving to Namibia, he went on, was to get away from bad influences in his life. At this, Amanda took his hand without looking at him. Will held her before adjusting the way he sat so that she could no longer reach him.

  ‘After a night of hell I realised I was making bad choices,’ he said.

  Amanda put the radio on as if to shut him up. Four more people confirmed dead brought the total to twenty. The injured were being treated at the scene or rushed to hospital.

  ‘I’d reached the point where I’d chucked in my job and what was left of my relationship,’ Will said, ignoring the news.

  Amanda stood up and went inside the house.

  ‘My sweet, you saved me …’ he said, but she was no longer sitting beside him. His voice became a whisper: ‘I’d be dead now.’ He composed himself. ‘As Amanda will tell you, I was a massive wreck. As if I’d survived a plane crash – yet I was the plane. Miraculously I walked away with a few scratches, thanks to her, but I had sense enough to realise that the next time I mightn’t be as lucky.

  ‘Look, I realise this may sound like a cliché, but I feel strongly that there’s a plan for everything. Amanda put her foot down and said that she had to get out of London, away from the disaster I’d become, and although we hadn’t realised it at the time, she was leading us here. And when they gave me the sack, she gave me an ultimatum: do something worthwhile with your life or you get the boot. And that was how all of this – Lüderitz – just sort of happened.’

  His willingness to talk candidly boded well for my camera.

  ‘Lucia tells us you’re a filmmaker,’ Amanda said after Will and my sister had coaxed her back outside. The topic of conversation had officially changed.

  ‘Documentaries,’ I said.

  ‘Well that sounds fascinating,’ she said. I waited to see if she’d ask something else, but she merely added, ‘Will knows a few real directors in London.’ He glanced up at the sound of his name but dared not talk. Back to me: ‘Lucia said you’ve made one about apartheid.’

  ‘About Prime Minister Verwoerd, yes. Apartheid’s architect.’

  ‘I think I’ve got the DVD somewhere,’ my sister said.

  ‘Could we watch it tonight, do you think?’ Amanda said.

  ‘Yes, why don’t we do that?’ Will said.

  I’d been sitting with my legs casually crossed, and my skin became so overwhelmed with sweat that my top leg shot off the other and we all heard my foot slap the ground.

  ‘No,’ I said. I shook my head at my sister. ‘No.’

  Amanda began insisting that we watch the film. ‘It’ll take our minds off everything,’ she said, either referring to Paris or to her husband.

  The Brits kept pleading until I stopped objecting. And now Will wanted to know all about the assassinated South African prime minister, and was asking so many questions that Amanda said the matter had been decided.

  We pushed one of the settees out the sliding doors to the braai area. (The other had a wonky leg so we didn’t risk moving it.) Will took his place between Amanda and Lucia while I remained on my plastic chair.

  Lucia pressed play and Julie Andrews, in a nun’s habit, began running through Salzburg with seven children on the whitewashed wall above the braai. The familiar song rang out from Shane’s speakers encased in metal cages to protect them from climate and theft.

  ‘An arresting beginning,’ Amanda said, which I assumed was sarcasm.

  ‘Unfortunately my budget didn’t cover Hollywood actresses—’

  Lucia interrupted me as the screen went blue: ‘Sorry about that. My Saturday film club.’

  Will could barely hide his pleasure when Amanda said, ‘I obviously didn’t realise that was The Sound of Music just then, did I?’

  Lucia swapped the disc for Assassinating Apartheid and took her place next to Will.

  My film was awful. Compromises and bad decisions. It was like an unloved, unwanted child. My face smarted with shame. Too much time had passed since I’d last watched it. And now I couldn’t concentrate on the projected images because I’d forgotten that I’d recorded my voice-over with an American accent. At the time, I’d believed that sounding like a Yank was key to marketing my documentary in the US. My twang and rounded Rs were unendurable.

  The one part of Assassinating Apartheid that had nothing to do with me – the one thing I hadn’t agonised over – were its German subtitles. So I concentrated my attention on the white text at the bottom of the screen, those alien engravings, because the words were all that I could bear looking at. By some miracle my film had secured a limited screening on a US cable network after it was picked up at a festival, but it only gained momentum – modest even by documentary standards – in the German and Swiss markets. Which was how Lucia got hold of her DVD. There was talk of flying me over to Europe, but nothing came of it.

  Before I made the film, I attended a talk by an Argentinian director at the Grahamstown Festival who spoke about how she always chose a work of art to inform each of her documentaries. She mentioned Picasso’s Weeping Woman in relation to her study of three mothers’ disappeared children. I remembered her advice when I began researching Prime Minister Verwoerd, and again when I was about to give up the entire project because it threatened to become too difficult for me to think about, too intimidating to tackle. During a lengthy spell of procrastination and self-flagellation, I saw a report on Deutsche Bank’s art investments that includes one of Francis Bacon’s screaming popes. Without question this painting represented everything I was trying to bring to the screen: the Verwoerdian monstrosity was Bacon’s pontiff.

  This realisation anchored my project, and although indecision and anxiety never left me, as was evident tonight, I felt confident enough to start shooting. Where possible I matched the artist’s colour palette. I filmed the interviewees ‘wide’ so that my composition echoed the painting’s. His work influenced my decision, in post-production, to make the opening credits drip down the screen to replicate the gold paint streaking his canvas.

  Amanda held Will’s left hand again. His other rested lightly on the sofa beside my sister’s thigh, his fingers occasionally touching her. Perhaps his charitable aims weren’t his only reason for moving to Namibia.

  My sister noticed me watching them, and Will put his right hand in his lap. Amanda stared straight ahead, never releasing her grip on him. She only moved to yawn.

  ‘I don’t normally go to the cinema,’ she said at the end of eighty-two minutes and seventeen seconds. ‘Your film reminded me of that wonderful documentary about Nelson Mandela we saw in London – the one that won all the awards. Just masterful. That director has a new one out soon, if I’m not mistaken?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ I said. After tonight’s debacle, I wasn’t sure I’d convince Will to let me film him. ‘I should probably be going …’

  ‘What are you working on at the moment?’ Will asked.

  ‘Have you ever thought about San paintings?’ Amanda cut in. ‘Now that’s something I’d like to see. I’d love a film about that.’

  They weren’t falling over themselves to talk about my film, but then again they didn’t appear to have been as horrified by the experience as I’d been.

  Inhaling deeply, I explained somewhat facetiously about the outlandish kit needed to film rock paintings because audiences wouldn’t be content unless I shot in hologram or – I don’t know – some not-yet-invented format with more pixels than the human retina. The bottom line was that I couldn’t afford it. Not to mention the question of permissions and permits. Most sites were on private land and I’d
need farmers’ go-aheads as well as those of the tribal elders and local governments. And the moment those people heard that I was making a film they’d think that Hollywood had come calling, and would demand a lot of money … monica quickly becoming monica lewinsky. And even if I paid everyone and obtained the permissions and permits, I’d still have to schlep my equipment across miles of veld and over mountains. No, it was all too difficult …

  ‘If you plotted everything first,’ Will said helpfully, ‘then as long as you correctly planned your filmic equation you’d be able to calculate, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, how much money and effort the rock paintings would require.’

  Filmic equation? ‘Documentaries tend to be a bit more chaotic than that,’ I said.

  ‘I have a question about your apartheid film,’ Amanda said. ‘I didn’t quite understand what was going on in the parliament building. Was that meant to be the prime minister pacing those corridors?’

  ‘Surely that represented his delusional state, no?’ Will said.

  I explained how I’d hoped to show the assassin’s point of view just before stabbing the prime minister.

  ‘Perhaps you should have used actors to recreate the murder,’ Amanda said. ‘To clarify things. I don’t mean this as a criticism, but there were times when I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. But that could just be me.’ She wanted to know about the parliamentary carpet that continued to be used in the main chamber for decades after the PM’s death, even though it was marked with his blood. ‘Are you telling me that everyone could see those stains?’

  ‘If they knew where to look, yes. The Nats didn’t replace it because they wanted a reminder of their leader’s death. It was like their Shroud of Turin. Their “Carpet of Apartheid”. They weren’t about to forgive or forget.’

  ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘The era was insane,’ Lucia said.

  ‘And that carpet justifies your diagnosis of insanity,’ Will said. ‘Perhaps the only rational response to a deranged situation is an irrational one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘Let me think …’ he said. ‘Something like aborting the foetus to spare the child?’

  ‘Jesus, Will!’ Amanda said. ‘Henry, why did you say that everyone assumed the assassin was from the Cape?’

  ‘After the murder, the press took for granted that Tsafendas was a capital-C Coloured.’ Amanda gave a slight shake of her head, as if jolted by electricity, when I said the word. ‘His father was Greek and his mother was Coloured,’ I continued, ignoring her reaction. ‘And at the time, as far as South Africans were concerned, being Coloured meant you were from the Cape. But he was Mozambican.’

  ‘You mean “mixed race”, don’t you?’ She’d been itching to correct me.

  ‘We’re all mixed race.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t want to make a thing about this, but I don’t use “mixed race” because it implies one group is mixed whereas another is racially pure, which is bullshit. Same with “biracial”. I’m all for not offending people, but those words are just a convenient lumping together. And they’re wrong.’ I’d come to Twin Palms hoping for a quiet evening with my sister, but here I was entangling myself in a conversation about race. ‘Look, it’s late, and I should call it a night.’ No one objected.

  I was in the bathroom collecting my togs when my sister caught up with me.

  ‘I didn’t realise they were going to insist on watching your film,’ she apologised.

  ‘It’s fine. I survived.’

  ‘I still really like it.’

  I did my best to smile. ‘Listen, can I bum some zol from you? I’ve run out.’

  ‘I’m not sure how much is left in my stash.’

  ‘Then don’t worry.’

  ‘No, I’ll get it.’ She was about to set off but reconsidered. ‘Give me your towel. I’ll meet you at the front door.’

  As I made my way down the passage, I overheard Amanda telling Will how she couldn’t concentrate on my film. She stopped herself when she saw me.

  My sister joined us with my bundled-up swimming kit protecting the contraband. Will offered to walk me down the drive.

  On the unsheltered street the Souwi blew a gale that blasted the tops of the palms into shuttlecocks. Behind them, Amanda and my sister were silhouettes in the doorway.

  Will began speaking, but I could barely hear him above the wind, so I moved closer. He said, ‘Your documentary was quite wonderful.’

  I wasn’t sure whether to believe him after Amanda’s comment, but nevertheless thanked him.

  ‘I didn’t mean what I said about not minding terrorism,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  He reached for my arm. ‘I was wondering if we could speak for a minute. It’s just that your sister suggested I have a word.’

  ‘You’d rather not talk tomorrow?’ I said, not only because he was in shirtsleeves, but because I wanted to go home.

  ‘It’s a bit fresh out, but I’m fine. What I’m trying to say is that I’m hoping to ensnare you in a project of mine. What it is, is I’m planning a short talk for my group – our group – and I don’t suppose you’d have time to read a bit of a script I’ve chucked together? I’m sure it needs a lot of editing, and I’m hopeless at that sort of thing.’

  ‘You want me to look at a script for you?’

  ‘Well, yes. If you don’t mind. Only if you have the bandwidth, of course.’

  ‘And this is for …’

  ‘Well, my group, I suppose. Oh, you’re asking about its subject? In that case it’s about my personal radical enlightenment. My thoughts about Harmony. Not so much an introduction as a short lecture. Never let it be said that I haven’t warned you of my narcissistic tendencies.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll do it. I’ll read your script.’

  ‘You’ll do it!’ He lurched forward to hug me.

  And now he would do something for me.

  I said, ‘I have an idea.’

  He released his grip.

  ‘If someone were to film your lecture, you’d have a record of it.’

  ‘That “someone” being you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t suppose this is the best time for me to tell what I’m on about?’

  He had a point: past midnight, during a windstorm, were probably not ideal conditions. If I had any sense, I’d be in bed. I had to work on Chesley’s wedding tomorrow.

  ‘Try me,’ I said doing my best to show my interest because the evening might yet pay me an unexpected dividend.

  ‘I believe our civilisation is a bloated entity,’ he said. ‘It’s unwilling to tolerate questions about its archaic structures.’

  Even though I was exhausted and cold, if I’d had my camera with me I’d have suggested we go back inside for him to tell me everything. Hell, I’d have made him talk until my batteries ran out.

  ‘I want a society where everyone is inspired to work,’ he said gaining momentum. ‘Inspired by rivalry and self-esteem. A society that acknowledges our drives and entices us with wealth and pleasure.’ He was in his element. ‘You keep thinking I’ll go the socialist route, no? Everyone, regardless of class or opportunity or education or upbringing, deserves to live in a superstructure that accommodates their desire for profit and their need for sensual pleasure. To put it bluntly: society should do all it can to encourage us to make money and fuck. That is my law of passional attraction. It comes as no surprise to you that I believe civilisation limits and frustrates our desires. That’s why a man bombs the Place de la République and the Colonne de Juillet and the others. Civilisation profits from unhappiness. Civilisation is founded on poverty and destitution and disenfranchisement. Built on the root of all evil: frustration.’

  Will rotated with his wedding ring as he spoke. He twisted it around his finger as if unfastening a bottle cap, and occasionally slipped it off. Whenever he notice
d the movement distracting me, he’d return the gold band and rub his hands together as if warming himself. But before long, he sought the metal out to worry it again.

  ‘I should film this,’ I said. ‘Not right now, but soon. Both for your group, and online.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You think I should post it online?’

  ‘We could always disable comments if that’s what you’re worrying about.’

  ‘Why on earth would I do that?’

  ‘What I meant to say was that you should give people as many ways as possible of learning about your ideas.’

  ‘Yes, of course. And you honestly believe this’d interest them? I was wanting to offer you a bit of money to help with my script, but this changes the project entirely.’

  ‘For the better?’

  ‘Yes, for the better.’

  ‘You’d be able to give me something for my time?’

  ‘There’s no question about paying for your time, and your equipment, and all of that. No question at all. And I might be able to help in other ways too. I’ve a friend who does all sorts of behind-the-scenes work at the Sheffield film festival. I’m sure she’d be happy to put in a word for you when your new documentary’s ready. Now promise to visit Harmony. I really liked your film,’ he called after me as I set off into the icy blast. ‘We’ll make a good team. I’m sure of it.’

  I turned to wave at Amanda and my sister but they weren’t watching from the front door.

  —————

  I endured a restless fortnight smoking all of my sister’s weed to alleviate the tedium – the faint horror – of trawling through endless footage as I prepared something for Chesley.

  I hadn’t contacted Jago since his return to Windhoek, just as he hadn’t reached out to me. I’d considered sending him a photo of the Shark Island pool, but as much as I wanted to say hello I doubted we’d have anything to talk about.

  And then on a Thursday morning, after pulling an all-nighter, I found myself at my desk, mind foggy, barely moving. I was attempting to finish off the wedding with one last push, accompanied by The Dark Side of the Moon to drown out the ceaseless barking, the doggy metronome, from across the road.