The Drowning Lesson (19 page)

‘He was here just a few days before Sam was abducted.' For a large man his voice is unusually silky. ‘We thought it possible that he might have encountered something relevant.'

‘Relevant like his wife's political ambitions?'

Goodwill turns towards me, putting his hands on his hips, becoming bigger, more threatening even. If it is a threat, I ignore it.

‘I know body parts can be used for power … children's body parts,' I continue.

The obscene words are between us, as they have silently been all along.

‘Such things do unfortunately happen from time to time, but not round here.' His eyes flick to the laptop on the table and back to me. ‘You have doubtless read of an old case in Mochudi. Nothing was ever proved, of course.'

‘I also know of a school child near here, who walked into the bush quite recently. He's never been found.' Does he know about Baruti? I watch his face closely for clues.

‘Children who wander in the bush are always at risk.' He looks mildly exasperated. ‘Snakes, other animals, the heat. Parents should keep them at home.'

Police complicity was suspected in Mochudi. Whose side is Goodwill on? In that moment, thick with conjecture, Kopano knocks and enters. He glances at Goodwill then faces me. ‘Your daughter has just told me you found reptiles in the garden that had been skinned. I will need to see them. Can you show me?'

Weren't there rules here about questioning children on their own? Cheeks burning with anger, I lead the way. Kopano follows. Outside the house, I turn to him. He is younger than Goodwill, less guarded. He might be willing to let slip what he knows.

‘What do you think Josiah has done, Kopano?'

No answer.

‘Why are you interested in the reptiles?'

He glances back at the house as he walks beside me but doesn't reply.

‘Why, Kopano?'

As we reach the shed, Goodwill's heavy tread comes down the veranda steps after us. I have to be quick. ‘What do you know about medicine murders?'

But Goodwill is already beside me. Kopano silently holds open a plastic bag. As I tip in the bodies of the snake and lizards, his eyes slide sideways fearfully: so he believes in spells too.

They leave, Kopano carrying the bag at an angle from his body, as if it might be contaminated. Their car moves down the drive. I am no nearer knowing why they are keeping Josiah. Minutes later, Kabo drives in, Adam beside him in the car.

‘I found your husband miles away.' Kabo gets out, shaking his head. ‘He was starting back, but sunset comes quickly.'

Adam stands silently in the drive; he stares at his feet, his expression bleak.

‘I got your message about the dogs.' Kabo's hand grips mine. ‘I'll be near the kennels tomorrow for my niece's christening. I'll call in and bring them over in the afternoon.' He looks uncertainly at Adam, then back at me, pushing up his glasses.

‘Stay for a cup of tea, Kabo.'

I make a pot and we sit on the veranda; Adam and I avoid each other's gaze.

‘We should have christened Sam,' Adam says into the silence. His face is coated with dust, his eyes bloodshot. ‘His name means “heard by God”, remember? God would have heard him calling for us, if we'd christened him.'

Then I do look at him – stare at him. ‘Surely you're not going to pretend you believe in God suddenly?'

Kabo shifts in his seat at my words, glancing from Adam to me. Adam looks up; swallows are flying in a V-formation across the reddening sky. For a moment I imagine they're migrating to England. I've lost track of the seasons. Is it spring there? Summer?

‘Just because I need God now, doesn't make him less likely to be real,' Adam mutters.

It does, though; he's being irrational.

‘Maybe I should start praying.' He laughs abruptly. ‘If Sam is dead, shouldn't that mean he'll go to Heaven?'

‘I don't think God makes bargains like that,' Kabo says gently. ‘He'll look after Sam anyway.'

We are at the point of evening when a hush falls, a small hesitation before dark. Kabo's voice is quiet, as though he's in church, but Adam's is angry. ‘God should have been on my side,' he says. ‘I came to Africa to help.'

What had we imagined Africa would be like? The
very word had once been exciting but it's hard to remember exactly why. Adam had thought he could help and so had I. How arrogant that seems now, how naive. I doubt we have helped; our help wasn't needed. The kind of Africa we imagined doesn't exist. We found none of the things we thought we would. On the contrary, God or no God, it's been a place of loss.

The questions in my head distil. Is he alive or dead? Killed within moments of being taken? My mind hovers between possibilities as the hours and days tick by, not daring to settle. I hardly eat; my gums bleed. When I wake the taste of iron is in my mouth, as though I had sucked on knives in my sleep.

My milk supply has disappeared more quickly than I would have thought; from one moment to the next, my breasts stopped hurting. I can't rid myself of the thought that my body knows more than my mind, that my milk isn't needed now, because Sam is dead.

Adam goes back to the consulate three times a week, on his own. He doesn't mention God again; he is silent and eats little. Goodwill tells me the counter-trafficking department of the International Organization for Migration is involved now but surely it's too late. Sam could have been transported to another country at any time in the last two weeks. As Goodwill talks about grass-roots surveillance and witness protection, I can hardly take in the words.
My mind is full of images of Sam in some airless back room in a dirty cot, tear-stained and thin. At night I lie awake, wondering if he would remember me if we found him now.

Zoë follows me everywhere, asking to be held. Walking through the house is an effort; noises and light hurt. All day I search the Internet and scour every news channel. The children want stories, though I often lose my place and have to begin from the beginning.

The space between Adam and me widens. We hardly talk any more. We sleep in the same room but I go to bed later, when he is already asleep; he gets up earlier and has left to walk the bush or visit the consulate by the time the children and I have breakfast.

Yesterday a press plane flew low twice over the house; luckily the girls were inside. The gum trees bent and shook. The three guard dogs, housed in large crates near the garage, usually sleeping by day, woke and slunk in circles, whining.

Peo returns to her village early on a Wednesday. A knot of women wait for her in the road beyond the gate and she is quickly enfolded. Around us the journalists' vans are still closed. A man's cheek is pressed flat, a pale ham against the window. The women's ululations wake him and he stumbles out, aligning his camera. Others follow.

A tall girl detaches herself from the group around
Peo; she approaches me, unwrapping the sling around her. Mmapula. She holds out her baby to me. The group has become very quiet, though cameras click repeatedly. The baby feels light and warm; he mews in his sleep, like a kitten. For a moment I feel light-headed; Mmapula reaches to take him back. She gives me a small bunch of bush flowers.

‘
Ka a leboga,
' she says, and smiles. Thank you.

Peo takes my hand. ‘
Ka a leboga.
' My accent is clumsy. The murmuring swells into chatter, which fades as the group moves down the road; I want to call her back.

Car doors open and slam, engines start: some of the journalists are leaving, having got what they wanted for the day. The gum trees tower above me as I walk back. Kabo told me trees have a powerful spirit and it consoles me to think that the ancient African tree gods might be watching over us. My hand against the silvery bark looks like a skeleton hand. Staring up into the canopy of leaves, I find myself praying for death. As a child I once persuaded my father into a medieval torture museum in Siena. Racks and spiked cages would be unnecessary to punish a mother; those twelfth-century Italians would only have had to take her child away from her and she would have agreed to anything for his safety, even death. But my torture won't end. I can't die.

Up at the house the girls' faces, like pale flowers, are pressed to the windows. The dried bunch I was given rustles as I place it at the foot of the tree, my offering to the tree gods.

Inside, the girls have slipped from the window and are watching a cartoon on television. What's happened to my resolve, to the normal structure of the day? I ought to turn off the television; read the girls a story or help Elisabeth, who is quieter without Josiah, thinner. She moves more slowly. I'm letting things go, letting the fabric of our lives unravel. I can't remember when the girls last did any work. We never heard from Simon's friend, and after the police questioned Simon, I couldn't pursue it.

Later that morning, both policemen turn up. Kopano disappears but Goodwill stands in the sitting room, rocking backwards and forwards on his feet, leather shoes creaking. Elisabeth takes the girls into Josiah's yard. Through the window I see her set down a bucket to milk the goat. Alice leans against the wall, near the dogs' cage. She taps the wire; one wakes and lumbers to his feet. She aims a little kick in his direction. The animal crouches swiftly, tail flat against his body. Alice never used to be cruel. Grief is changing us all. Meanwhile Zoë squats, looking up at Elisabeth, waiting to be told what to do.

Goodwill sits, but remains silent. Perhaps he is
finding the words for bad news; perhaps he is simply bored: this job has gone on too long with no end in sight. There must be others waiting for his attention. He is dressed as usual in spotless uniform, though his shirt strains at the buttons. School children along the road wear perfect uniform too, though their homes often lack electricity and running water. Goodwill might live in a hut like that, he might mind that we are wealthier than he is, though surely he knows we have lost everything; no one could possibly envy us now. Maybe the international attention bothers him; after all, there are missing children who are never mentioned. For a moment Baruti's face floats between us.

The kettle whistles in the kitchen. The task of spooning black leaves from the tin into the chipped yellow teapot and pouring the bubbling stream from the heavy kettle is calming. Back in the sitting room, Goodwill takes his cup, sips and sighs loudly, then looks down to his lap at the papers he has pulled from the case.

‘Josiah,' he says finally, frowning deeply, as though the name itself is a statement of guilt.

‘Yes?'

‘We are concerned with this man. He is not telling us the truth.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘Thirteen days ago, the day after your son
disappeared, Josiah went to his home in Mochudi. He told his brother he needed money, then he left. He didn't arrive back here until the following morning. He refuses to tell us where he went in the hours in between, but he seems frightened, which worries me.'

Goodwill would be frightening to a frail old man, pushing him into silence; even so, these words are a warning. What has Josiah done that he is keeping so secret?

Goodwill wipes his hand rapidly over his face. ‘In my profession, fear means guilt. I am wondering where he might have gone that day, and how we might find out.'

‘I'm afraid I can't tell you. I have no idea at all.'

What Josiah does when he isn't working and where his family lives are unknown to me. As with Teko, we didn't involve ourselves. A bleak wave of regret breaks over me, leaving a backwash of bitterness. Goodwill is still staring at me. He seems suspicious that I am protecting Josiah; he thinks I'm not telling the truth, but I am. Almost. They have forgotten about Elisabeth. They may not know she is his sister. She may be able tell us more, but if there is more to find out, I will do the finding.

I begin to think about Josiah as Goodwill must, like a detective: a man with no money who unexpectedly breaks his habits to disappear for a while shortly after our child has vanished and refuses to say where
he's been. A man who had always singled Sam out for special attention.

Goodwill pulls himself to standing and drains his cup. ‘Kopano is digging up the grave by Josiah's hut.' Casually imparted, but I feel his eyes follow me as I run from the room.

Kopano leans on a spade, soil scattered around his feet in crumbling heaps. The wooden cross is in pieces on the ground. There are scraps of yellow fur in the earth, a long shallow skull. I walk back to the sitting room on trembling legs. ‘The dog,' I tell Goodwill. ‘Just the dog.'

Goodwill leaves silently. He has sharp instincts: he thinks I'm keeping something from him. He must have known the grave was for Josiah's dog, but perhaps he meant to terrify me, believing I would talk more freely from pure relief.

In the kitchen, the girls are with Elisabeth, collecting empty jars from a cupboard to make butter from the goat's milk; she sends then to scrub their hands and begins to scour the jars at the sink. A pan of water containing clothes bubbles on the hob, filling the air with the steamy scent of hot cloth.

‘About your brother, Josiah.'

The jam jars bob about in the soapy water as she washes them. She seems absorbed in her task: there is no indication she has even heard me.

‘He is in trouble; the police may keep him. He
visited his brother, your brother too, of course, thirteen days ago, then disappeared for the afternoon. No one knows where he went before he came back here.'

Elisabeth looks out of the window above the sink. Her eyes rest on his small vegetable patch; the neat rows of leaves are dried and dying.

‘
Ngaka ya setso
,' she murmurs.

That Setswana word, meaning traditional doctor. ‘So he's ill?'

She looks at me and away, her glance is full of secrets.

So, it's more complicated than illness. The steamy air thickens, clotting into the shapes of a small heart, limbs and lips. I lean against the wall for a moment, ‘Why did he go to see the doctor, Elisabeth?'

She shrugs and her mouth turns down: she has said too much already.

‘I need to see this doctor. He may help us to help Josiah.' She turns at my words and this time her gaze lingers on my face. Can she guess what horrors are passing through my mind?

‘Could you take me there?'

She inclines her head, so briefly it could be mistaken for an accidental movement.

‘Shall we go this afternoon, when Adam is back?'

Another small nod.

‘You will need money for the doctor,' she tells me. Zoë runs back into the kitchen followed, after a while, by Alice who, walking as though half asleep, stumbles against a chair and almost falls. I put my arms round her and she stands quite still, waiting for me to go. Elisabeth puts two jars on the table and pours goat's milk into them, screwing the tops on tightly. She shakes them and the milk slops up and down. Zoë laughs. No one notices me leave.

Josiah's room is stifling. The sun strikes through the metal roof, releasing a harsh clay smell from the plaster. The drawers have been pulled right out now; there are the marks of boots on the shirt and towel, which are lying on the floor. I fold both, lay the towel and the shirt back inside and close the chest. There is nothing behind the door; I even peer into the keyhole. My fingertips pick up a layer of gritty dust from the windowsill. The mattress is back on the bedstead, but has been slashed at one end with a knife, and some of the stained foam-rubber lining has been pulled out. Kopano must have done this on his return visit.

The room is so silent the air hums. The old man has gone and I am unable to grasp even the faintest echo of who he was. Questions begin to invade the barren space around me: could the emptiness itself
be a clue, a screen behind which another Josiah is hiding? He seems to have so very little: is the real stuff of Josiah's life somewhere else? A stash of money or knives in a box? I begin to feel frightened.