Water Music (26 page)

He put his hand on her worn-out body, thanking her for the first and last time for her dignity. She had taught him how to fight and how to love. She had created a world for him that had shielded
him from the insults and exclusions borne by boys like him in Bo-Kaap.

Riedwaans chest burned, but his eyes were dry. In the end he had failed her. He had divorced the wife she had chosen for him, and Yasmin, her only grandchild, had left with her mother to live in Canada. His obsession with a job that he had just abandoned in five, inflammatory minutes, had cost him his family. He swore on his
mothers body that he would not let that happen again. Riedwaan lifted her body and laid her on the bier. She was light as a bird.

There were even more people in the house when Riedwaan left his mothers side: the extended family, neighbours, as well as Khadija the nurse who had been with her at the end. The Imam arrived and prayers were said and then it was time to go to the mosque.

Riedwaan
left the women in the house as, together with his mothers brothers and his cousins, he carried her body out of the front door for the last time. The sun had slid down in the sky when the funeral party spilled out onto the steep cobbled street, and they carried his mother at shoulder height to the mosque.

She was laid down, and the community of men who had known and loved her gathered around.
The Imam took his position in front of her. Facing away from Riedwaan and the other mourners, he performed the
Salatul Janazah
, and then the funeral prayers were over and his mother was carried to the waiting hearse.

Riedwaan stepped aside for a moment as a brief argument broke out concerning which brothers should go in which car. He fiddled for a moment with his mothers phone and sent a text
to Clare. He waited for a reply, but nothing came. An uncle took his arm, guided him to the vehicle that would lead his mothers final journey. The old Mercedes coughed to life, and the hearse and the small procession of male mourners moved down the steep streets of the Bo-Kaap to the Muslim burial ground in Observatory. Riedwaan felt himself being swept along once more in rituals that had buoyed
him ever since he was old enough to go to mosque with the men.

No. Clare had meant to say it.

Such a small word, one might as well not bother.

She tried to get up, but her ankle gave way and she fell again. Clare, her mind a blur, crawled through the mud towards the trees where the boy had fled. She hit her hand on something hard. A stone. She picked it up but Nancy was on her again, as strong as a nightmare, her fury a match for Clares desperation.
She hit Clare again, a glancing blow, and when the darkness cleared again, Clare was on her back and Nancy was on top of her, her face as close as a lovers.

Rosa came here. She came to you, said Clare. She came for help.

Nancy spat in Clares face.

Clare did not flinch.

If shes alive, tell me where she is, said Clare. You must tell me where he keeps her. Let me go and save yourself.

Rosa
is the one who must be saved.

From what, and why? Clare demanded.

She was wilful, said Nancy. He chose her and she defied him.

Your husband? said Clare. What has he done with her?

Loyalty and desperation. The battle evident in Nancys face.

People will look for me, said Clare. And theyll find me.

Not here, said Nancy. Not ever.

Mistakes happen, Nancy you can make it right, said Clare.

You understand nothing.

Nancy, you can do it. Let me go, said Clare. Otherwise therell be police, prison, a trial, an asylum. If you help me, you can make things end differently.

A glimmer in the womans blue eyes. Hope, or hatred Clare was not sure. Perhaps both. But right then Nancy had a stone in her hand. She raised it again and brought it down hard on Clares head.

Clare came round, overwhelmed
by a dank, rotting smell. It permeated everything. Her hair, her skin, the marrow inside her bones.

It was silent, no light at all to hold the darkness at bay. Blackness all around, and especially above her. Clare felt the earth pushing down on her. Above that, the weight of the night. Or the indifference of the day, perhaps. Clare had no idea where she was, but sensed that she was underground.
She screamed, but the walls blocked the sound. There was no one to hear that her mind told her; it was her body that would not accept this.

She was lying on a narrow bed, covered with a blanket. Metal bit into her throat. She tried to move, but further than a metre, she gasped for air. Floating spores seemed to fill her lungs.

She put her hands out feeling into the darkness. The wall was damp,
she felt the sliminess of mould on plastered walls. This prison had been custom built.

Beyond, the thrum of water.

She felt below the mattress, Braille-read the ridges with her fingertips.

She pulled against her restraint, leaning as far as the chain allowed her. The marks, enigmatic as runes, signifying perhaps the passing of days, weeks, years.

Clare collapsed back, gasping. She lay still
and stared into the darkness; regulated her breathing.

She heard it then.

A whimpering.

She opened her eyes; it was her own voice.

She concentrated on the pulse of cells in her belly: defiantly alive.

The Muslim graveyard was right next to Groote Schuur Hospital. The road to the place where the worlds first heart transplant had been performed was clogged with cars and hustling taxis. In the bustle of Observatory, the burial ground was an oasis of quiet, the graves packed as close to each other as the houses of the living in this windy corner of working Cape Town.

Riedwaans father had been
buried there three decades before. The thought of his fathers peace in Paradise being shattered by the arrival of his mother brought the glimmer of a smile to Riedwaans heart, if not to his lips. His parents arranged marriage had been an endless wrestle of wills, and his fathers murder had deprived Riedwaans mother of a perfectly matched combatant.

He was seven when his father died required
to be the man of the house, the only son then, as he was now. Thirty-five years lay between himself and that boy, but walking now, with his mothers body on the bier on his shoulder, that interim was erased.

He stopped with the other pallbearers his mothers body almost weightless at the edge of the grave and lowered her in. His mother he laid gently on her side, facing Mecca. He tucked her white
shroud around her. The final prayers were said, and then there was a hand on his back and he relinquished her to the earth, stepping back so that a board could be placed over her to protect her from the sodden earth flung from the spades of the diggers. Her grave filled, and at last she was gone, back in the embrace of the earth.

It was too cold, too dark, too wet to linger at the graveside.

Riedwaan moved through the mourners. Touching his shoulders the rough hands of working men, the smooth palms of men who sat behind tills or desks all giving quiet comfort to him.

Numbness took the place of guilt, and Riedwaan pulled his collar against the rain. He lit a cigarette. He wanted Clare, he phoned her again.

When I need you, Clare, he said to the silent phone, where the fuck are you?

Riedwaans anger had already turned into a tight, hard knot of dread.

Breath, touch, memory. In the darkness, thats all there was. That, and a single note the dripping of water. Clare counted the drops, each hanging for one maddening second onto the next. Time lost all meaning; seconds, hours, days merged in the absolute darkness. The chain around her neck made it hard to breathe. The leather restraints around her wrists and ankles made it impossible to move.

An electric light, a sudden blinding Cyclops eye in the low ceiling, was switched on. It pinioned Clare, illuminating her surroundings, but bringing neither comfort nor recognition. She blinked away the blindness. She was on a single bed. There was a blue table, two mismatched chairs, shelves on one wall. Two plastic cups, two spoons, two plates, a notebook and a yellow Bic. Steps seventeen of
them and a trapdoor in the roof. Four uneven walls, the blooming damp a mad yellow wallpaper covered with pencil marks: music unfurling, ordered pennants of notes on wavy lines with treble and bass clefs.

The door opened. A womans feet, her ankles, a long skirt.

Nancy. She took a bottle of water out of her basket and held it to Clares lips. Her throat burned with thirst. There was no fight
in her, not over this. Instead, she gulped the water that was poured into her mouth, telling herself what all prisoners tell themselves: just stay alive. Later, the capitulation could be undone.

Wheres Rosa? Clare demanded. She was in here. What have you done with her?

If you struggle I will tighten this. Nancy yanked the chain around Clares neck. You will keep still?

Clares heart hammered,
a trusting heart beating in unison deep within her body.

She complied, and Nancy released her.

I knew you would come, said Nancy.

What do you think you are doing with me? asked Clare. Her helplessness made her want to lash out and it was all she could do to keep still.

Im fixing things, smiled Nancy. And right now, Im going to wash you.

I can wash myself, said Clare.

Nancy didnt reply. She
was setting things out. A cloth, a bowl, a flask of warm water.

Wheres Isaac? asked Clare.

He has been found, said Nancy, her voice sharp. Brought back.

Isaacs not your son, you may as well admit this.

Nancy stared at Clare, her blue eyes blank. There was a swelling on her cheek, not yet discoloured.

Hes Esthers child, isnt he?

Isaac is mine, said Nancy. He knows it.

No, said Clare. He
knows the truth. Hes terrified of you. Hes terrified of Stern too. I saw that the first time I was here, and I ignored it. The weight of all the things she had not paid attention to was a stone pressing on Clares chest.

His father has punished him for what he did, said Nancy, but she wasnt looking at Clare. She was looking at her work-hardened hands. He will never do it again.

And your face,
what happened?

Nancy flushed.

Noah hurts you too, doesnt he?

He knows the Lords way, said Nancy. She took a facecloth, wiped Clares face, and then lifted her hair.

He hurt the others, said Clare. Esther, her mother. I saw the scars from the sjambok on their backs.

Chastisement is necessary.

Esther Previn, said Clare. Was she the first one?

Nancy brushed Clares hair hard, making no accommodation
for the bruises on her neck.

The pain brought tears to Clares eyes.

She was different, said Nancy, a tremor in her hands.

What made her different? said Clare. Was she your friend?

Esther joined our household. She came to us, believed with us. Together we healed her.

Then what happened? Clares voice a whisper. Noah liked her? Started sleeping with her?

He told me Esther was my sister-wife.
Nancy reached in the basket and brought out a towel. He said if I was a good wife I would accept her. I tried, I really tried.

It must have hurt, though, said Clare.

It was meant to be good, she said. It
was
good until Isaac was born. Her ways were not Noahs ways, and she defied him. He had to do what he did.

What did he do, Nancy? coaxed Clare. Tell me. It makes it easier sometimes. Just
saying what happened.

Nancy looked at her warily.

He beat her, but it was for her own good, she didnt want to listen, said Nancy.

Thats not all, though, said Clare. What did he make you do?

Nancy turned away, it was as if Clare had slapped her.

Esther tried to leave, didnt she? said Clare.

Nancy scrubbed Clares legs and then her belly. Clare braced herself, tightening her muscles against
the womans rough hands.

She was going to take our children.

Her children, corrected Clare. Ive seen them. Esther, Isaac. Their hair, the widows peak, just like their mother.

We could not let that happen no, no, Dr Hart. Nancy knotted her fingers. They were born here in Paradys, they were chosen. And they were mine.

A distant drip-drip punctuated the silence.

Is it that you cant have children?
Clares hand rested on her arm. Thats why youve done this, isnt it? Thats his hold over you.

Nancy took the stopper off a small bottle and the sweet smell of orange blossom filled the air. Clares stomach turned.

It is my fault, said Nancy. I couldnt be a proper wife. I had to find another way.

Nancy, said Clare. Stop. Look at me.

She raised her eyes to meet Clares.

Show me your back, Nancy.

Nancy hesitated for a moment, then she undid her buttons. She turned around, letting her blouse fall. A network of white ridges criss-crossed her bent back.

Your husband should be in prison for that, said Clare. What hes done, what hes made you do for him, is monstrous. You can stop it all, Nancy. Walk out of here. Walk down that mountain and get help. For yourself, for Isaac. Put a stop to your
suffering.

No. The venom in her voice made Clare recoil. I couldnt give him children. Always, theres something wrong with me. Its a mark of my sin and it was his duty to make me understand.

How old were you when you married him?

Sixteen. See this. Nancy pulled at the silver chain around her neck, held out the silver disc that dangled from it. Nancys name entwined with her husbands. Noah gave
this to me on our wedding day. Thats the day we became one.

She tipped oil into her hands and rubbed them together. Bending over Clare, she worked the oil into her skin.

Are you preparing me for him?

Nancy poured more oil onto her palm.

You did the same with Rosa, didnt you? said Clare. She needed a mother, she needed a friend, and you took advantage.

Rosa came to us, said Nancy.

For sanctuary,
said Clare. Not for this.