The Gloaming (12 page)

I walked to the KLM desk and bought a ticket for Kilimanjaro. It wasn't a decision, it wasn't a choice.

All my life had been a segue.

Meeting Tom. Being left by Tom. Even the accident. Even Magulu.

And even in this moment when I step toward Davis—who stands at attention, his smile intact; even at this moment—in the fading light of a courtyard in western Tanzania—I'm not making a choice.

I'm yielding.

Davis takes my suitcase and I do not resist. He puts it in the back of the Land Cruiser. He reaches for the box but I shake my head. No, I must hold this. He opens the passenger door. I get in. There's a glow-in-the-dark crucifix rosary draped on the rearview mirror. Davis starts the car. We drive off.

Who is Davis? Am I to be taken to some forlorn place? Murdered? The truth is I don't care. I have nothing to live for—a bland expression that I now understand. That I welcome. Because life, like a wire, requires tension on both ends. You care to live and someone else cares that you live. What's the point of holding the slack end?

We drive out of town, Davis saying nothing, focusing intently on the road and the objects veering into it: suicidal donkeys, overloaded cyclists, battered pick-ups groaning under the weight of a million green bananas. Children, always more children.

‘Where are we going, Davis?' I ask.

‘Tanga,' he says.

I have no idea where Tanga is. Or why we're going, or how far.

And only now do I recall Dorothea: ‘The
uchawi
will direct you.' But I put the idea to one side, onto the shelf with my parents' kachinas and saints, their Buddhas and bundles of sage: the tchotchkes of belief.

Night narrows around us. The road burrows through it like a tunnel.

 

The front door buzzed.

I did not answer immediately. Who could it be? Now, after dark. A boy I vaguely recognized running off, laughing and shouting curses? Another plastic bag filled with dog shit? I was weary, but had no right to be so.

‘Hello?' I said through the intercom.

‘Strebel,' he said. ‘Paul.'

He came up the stairs, hesitated at the door, his hair at odd angles, his tie askew. He gave the impression of a man in a hurry, with something important to say.

‘Come in.'

He did, and looked around, looked at me. ‘I'm sorry to intrude.'

‘It's fine, please.' My calm tone belied the fear that a new witness had come forward. Someone to say: That American woman aimed her car straight at those children, she drove straight, straight on.

Strebel and I surveyed each other.

‘Do you have anything to drink?' he asked, as if to allay my fear. ‘Not tea; a drink drink.'

‘Wine?'

‘Thank you, yes. Please. A large glass.'

‘I have red. Bordeaux.'

He nodded. ‘I should explain.'

I grabbed a bottle, handed him the corkscrew. Neither of us spoke again until the wine was poured. He took a sip. ‘You can ask me to leave.'

‘Why?'

‘If you don't want me here.'

‘The wine,' I said, because I did want him here. ‘It's not very good.'

‘Oh, the wine.' He looked at it in his hand. With the other he tried to smooth his hair, but he only flattened it on top, leaving the sides askew.

‘Tom always bought the wine. He knew all about it. I just choose by the labels.' I rotated the bottle with its pretty blue label so Strebel could see.

‘I think there's a lot of fuss. Like coffee. We should just get on with it.' He took a purposeful sip and gave a hesitant smile. ‘I was at my granddaughter's birthday.'

We sat and he slid the glass back and forth over the tabletop. He took another sip. ‘I've been a detective for twenty-six years. I should be able to deal with things like this. We're trained to be objective.'

‘Objective? About the sight of three little bodies in the road?'

He rubbed his eyes, as if to remove the image. ‘I really shouldn't be here.'

‘But you are.'

He regarded me in a way that felt acutely masculine. I knew he was thinking that I was attractive—he was allowing himself that thought. He said, ‘The wine, it really is not very good.'

‘It's awful.'

Strebel lowered his eyes and then he stood.

‘Is that why you're leaving? Because of the wine?'

‘I'm leaving because it's absolutely not what I want to do.'

We moved toward the door. I began to open it. But then I stopped. Strebel was close to me, and I turned so that my shoulder brushed against his chest. I'm not sure if I did this on purpose. But when it was done I was overcome by the need for him to touch me. He stayed absolutely still.

I cannot now remember the way our bodies turned to speak, whose hand first touched whose face, but there was a kiss. He was afraid to offend, afraid to assume too much. I took his hand and led him to the bedroom. For a moment he hesitated. ‘I'm too old,' he said. Then he kissed me again.

He was not Tom. Perhaps that was what mattered most.

‘I want to tell you something,' he said much later. I stretched my body against the length of him, the warmth of him. He would go soon, after he had said what he needed to say, and we wouldn't sleep together again. This much I knew.

‘I want to tell you what happened.'

‘Why? Why would you do that?'

‘Because of how we were talking the other day. The distress you feel at not remembering. But the parents expect you to remember. They need you to explain. It's like my granddaughter's coloring books, where you color in each part, carefully between the lines, so simple, and then you have a whole. Then you have the picture.'

‘But who would want that picture? Of the children, like that.'

Turning toward me, he propped himself onto one elbow. ‘The parents want to make sense of it. My wife—'

He stopped.

‘Let's not pretend you don't have one.'

He kissed me, perhaps grateful for the reassurance, and then he went on: ‘My wife has dreams. They make sense to her, but I think only in the retelling. She chooses what to leave in and what to leave out. I think there is no meaning, dreams are images, the brain processing. But she needs meaning. So she imposes it. And in my way, as a policeman, I also impose order. Motive, justice. It's natural. Otherwise we're just atoms rushing around.'

‘But the inquest.'

‘If the inquest is based on your current statement, it will satisfy no one but the file clerks. There will be a recitation of technical facts and a conclusion of “no fault.”'

‘Are you suggesting I make it up?'

‘No, no.' He touched my cheek with his fingertips. He wanted to reassure me. ‘I'll tell you.'

‘Isn't that illegal?'

‘Completely.'

I thought of the man who came into the flat, who sat in the kitchen drinking my coffee. Would it help him? Was that what he sought by entering my space? An explanation? I may become real to him—colored in. The way, sometimes, I'd pressed my face into Tom's shirts when he had been away. The smell of the starch had confirmed him. I nodded.

‘Good.' Strebel kissed me lightly on the forehead. ‘So. We start with when you woke up. What did you have for breakfast? The twelfth of March. Begin there.'

‘Toast. Tea.'

‘What kind of toast? What kind of tea? If things are specific, they seem more real.'

‘The local granary bread. With butter. Irish Breakfast tea.'

‘I used to like Earl Grey. But my doctor said, “Absolutely no caffeine.”'

‘I think Earl Grey tastes like soap.'

Instead of laughing, he spread his hand over my hair, moved his face close to mine and murmured, ‘Pilgrim.' We held on, and in those brief seconds so much was possible. But then we let go.

‘I got dressed after breakfast. Navy blue. Tom liked me to wear navy blue. I wore a navy blue turtleneck and a navy blue wool skirt.'

‘Navy blue is a color for old women and the police.'

‘It's discreet, tasteful.'

‘You're thirty-two. Why do you want to be discreet?'

‘Is that part of the story? My capitulation to navy blue?'

A soft laugh. ‘No. I'm sorry. You wore navy blue. You brushed your teeth.'

‘I brushed my teeth and put on a small amount of makeup. Discreet, tasteful makeup.'

He gave me a small, acknowledging smile.

‘Then I left the flat.'

‘At what time?'

‘Eight-fifteen. My language class in Tunn starts at nine.'

‘You got into your car?'

‘No. Mrs Gassner was in the hallway. She couldn't tie her shoelaces because of the arthritis in her hands. She asked me to help. And I remembered the phone bill. It was weeks overdue. She warned me, ‘“They cut you off no mercy.”'

‘And they have.'

‘And so has she.'

‘No mercy?'

‘She calls me
“Kindermörderin”'

‘Ignore her. She'll stop when she finds someone else to persecute.'

‘But I am a child killer. A killer of children.'

‘No,' Strebel said. ‘You cannot even say you caused the death of children. It is not correct. It is emotion, not fact.'

‘Legal fact.'

He lay back. ‘If you need to cry and blame yourself, then you should. You should find a way to sink into that, but not drown. Don't deny all the complex feelings. But, right now, I need you to be here with me, helping me. We don't, you know, have so much time.'

‘You have to go home.'

‘As you say, we won't pretend.'

‘Of course. I helped Mrs Gassner with her laces, and I ran up to get the phone bill. Then I got in my car. I saw her drive off.'

‘And that's it?'

‘I sat for a while, thinking about Tom. Being angry about Tom. Minutes. And if I hadn't—'

Touching my lips with his finger, he said, ‘Listen. When my daughter was very small, three or four, we were in the bathroom brushing our teeth, and there was a power cut. Everything went completely black. It was only for a moment, a few seconds. But she cried hysterically. When the lights came back on, she said, “I thought I was dead.” She couldn't understand it was nothing to do with her. Maybe lightning. Maybe a tree falling on a power line. That's what I'm trying to tell you. You didn't make the darkness. You did not kill those children.'

‘Tell me, then, who did?'

‘Let's keep going. You started the car.'

‘I started the car, I was thinking of Tom.'

‘Then you drove through the village,' he said. ‘You thought it might rain. You thought about the gray clouds and how you wanted it to be spring.' He was watching me as he spoke. ‘You came around the corner, the one below the village. The traffic was light. You weren't speeding. And then suddenly a dog ran in front of you, right in front of you.'

‘A dog?' I said almost in wonder. ‘What kind of dog?'

‘Black, maybe dark brown. Dark and quite large. You don't know much about dog breeds?'

‘I had a mutt growing up.'

‘Then it was just a dog. And you braked to avoid it.'

‘A large dog. A black dog, possibly a dark brown dog. That's why it happened?'

‘Yes.'

‘And then I saw the children.'

‘Did you?' He could not keep the inquisition from his voice.

I closed my eyes. ‘No. I can't even feel them.'

‘Pilgrim.' His face was close, a lover again.

‘It was the dog's fault?'

‘No. Yes. There is no fault. You got out of bed. Everyone got out of bed that morning.'

‘What should I do now?'

‘Come in and make another statement. Just this, what we talked about. I'll tell Sergeant Caspary to expect you.'

He lifted his hand gently from my face, his departure beginning.

 

REMEMBER!
YOU ARE ONLY THE CUSTOMER!

The sign is displayed atop the counter, the script the kind of red block letters used to warn of fire or falling rocks. The counter contains Tanga's best selection of notepads, all three of them dusty, stale and lonely as week-old pastries.

I regard again the admonition, and glance at the young man perched on the stool. I assume he works here, but he shows no interest in me. He has not even looked over. He stares at nothing—or something I cannot see, a bewitching vision. The shop, so bright at the entrance, closes into darkness behind him. It's impossible to know how deep or large it is, what might be back there. The man sits between the shadow and light. Half his face is exposed, every pore, every fault; the other half invisible.

‘This one.' I tap the glass, pointing to a notepad with a faded green cover.

He gets down from the stool—an abrupt movement as if spurred by an electric shock—and, taking a set of tiny keys from a hook above the counter, unlocks and slides the cabinet open. I'm fascinated by the idea that such security is necessary. He pulls out a red spiral notebook, furthest away from my choice.

‘Not that one, this one,' I tap again, more vigorously.

With a sigh he replaces the spiral notebook and selects the green cardboard one. ‘This is an inferior item. It is made in Tanzania. The paper is very poor. You will not be satisfied.'

‘Thank you for your advice. But it is the one I want.'

After paying him, I walk out into the halogen blast of midday and to the post office. I write to Mrs Gassner, enclosing a check for the phone. The stamp shows a giraffe standing in front of Kilimanjaro, and I imagine Mrs Gassner squinting at it, concluding I'm on holiday.

The post office overlooks the arc of Tanga's bay. Giant mango and fig trees line the headland above the sea, which is the deep blue of hand-tinted postcards; no shallows here, no shades of aqua or turquoise, only depth all the way out to the Indian Ocean. An island sprouts in the middle of the bay, an upthrust of coral rag topped with a crew-cut of green. It is hardly bigger than the three ships anchored beyond it.