The Impostor (19 page)

18

The knock comes in the middle of the day. A tentative sound, a light rapping on the front door. It’s been a few weeks since the last request for work or money; word must’ve got around that he has nothing to give, and when he opens the door and sees the two of them, he launches into his usual apologetic refusal. But after a few sentences he trails off.

The faces outside are both strange and familiar, like people in a dream. Old, tired black faces, uncertain and afraid. A man and a woman, wearing dirty, ragged clothes. But what has silenced Adam is the yellow hat, being twisted and untwisted in the old man’s hands.

‘Ezekiel!’ he says. ‘Grace!’ He has thought of them–though in truth he hasn’t thought of them–as gone, erased, disappeared. But now they have found their way to his door.

‘
Ja
,’ Ezekiel says. He looks as stunned as Adam, but he smiles, showing the brown stumps of teeth.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘No, we are looking for work, mister Adam. We are trying all the houses here. Because we are hungry. The madam, she told us we must go, but we have no place to go. So we are looking.’

‘She told you to go? But why?’ As he asks the question, his eyes flick guiltily towards Grace, but she is staring at the ground.

‘No, I don’t know, mister Adam. She is saying we did something wrong, but we did nothing.’

The silence that follows is filled to the brim.

‘Come in,’ he says at last. ‘Come and sit down.’

As they go obediently past him, he catches the smell of them: an unwashed, sweaty stink. The old man is carrying two plastic bags, and it occurs to Adam that everything they own must be in there. They stand in the middle of the lounge, awkward and out of place, until he gestures to them to sit. Even then they perch on the very edge of the sofa, as if they want to leave no impression on the room.

‘Where have you been staying?’ he asks them.

‘Outside.’ The old man flaps his hand in a loose gesture.

‘Outside? You mean you’ve been sleeping rough? But you must have friends, surely, somewhere around here…?’

‘We have no friends.’ He shakes his head.

Adam remembers what Canning had told him: about how his father had taken the two of them with him, from farm to farm, wherever he went. It had sounded like a tale of mutual loyalty, but now he sees where this story will end. The
Oubaas
is gone; they are alone; they have nobody to help them.

His heart is wrung: he is part of this, part of what has happened to them. His voice trembles slightly as he says, ‘What are we going to do with you now?’

Ezekiel says, ‘No, I don’t know,’ and gazes down at his broken boot.

Grace looks up at Adam and a glance goes between them, electrified with a peculiar voltage. He jumps to his feet. He must
do
something; he must act. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Let’s have a word with Canning.’

In a rush of principle and conviction, he goes to the phone. Having something, anything, to do is a relief. But when he tries Canning’s mobile number it rings for a while, then goes to voice-mail. He calls the lodge instead and Baby picks up. ‘I’m coming out there,’ he tells her. ‘Please instruct the guard at the gate to let me through.’

‘What’s this about?’

‘I’ll explain when I get there.’

He puts the phone down before she can answer and he isn’t sure whether she’ll do what he’s asked. But he’d spoken very insistently and when he gets to the gate, the guard lets him through without a word. On the other side, he drives down that familiar dirt road again, with Ezekiel and Grace sitting beside and behind him like a cargo of silent accusation, and it occurs to him that this may be, after all, a more fitting end to the story: to restore these two old people to their rightful place, before he himself disappears into the background.

As they pull up under the trees outside the house, he sees a small convocation happening on the lawn. Canning and two others, drawn together in feverish deliberation. They stare at his car in alarm and astonishment, giving off a vibration of crisis. Suddenly he is unsure about having the two old people with him. They had felt like a moral ballast, weighting him securely, but now he thinks it was a mistake to bring them along. He should be having this conversation on his own.

‘Wait here,’ he tells them. They look only too relieved to stay behind.

When he gets out of the car he sees that one of the people on the lawn is Sipho Moloi, who turns away sharply from his approach. Canning breaks with the little group and hurries over to meet him. ‘Adam,’ he says, smiling glassily, ‘this isn’t the best moment. We’re facing some little challenges right now. Got to sort it all out.’

‘I’m not here for a sociable visit. It’s just…I thought I might persuade you to reconsider. It isn’t fair, Canning. It’s not their fault.’

‘Fault?’ The word hangs in the air between them, then fades away with his smile. ‘I don’t follow you.’

Only when Adam gestures behind him, at the two stolid shapes in the car, does Canning understand.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘
Them
. Yes. Well, they’re not my problem, Adam.’ A tightness and impatience have come into his face; he is visibly straining backwards, to get away. ‘They did it to themselves, actually. Baby caught them stealing from the kitchen. And it wasn’t the first time.’

‘That isn’t true.’

‘What?’

‘They weren’t stealing. That’s not why. It was something else.’

‘Whatever,’ Canning says, his face pink. ‘I really have to go now, Adam, I’m sorry.’

Baby approaches at this moment. She has, in fact, been watching them from the front veranda for a while; he’d seen her over Canning’s shoulder. ‘What’s the matter?’ she says sweetly. ‘What’s wrong?’ But her eyes carry some of the cold quality he saw in them last time, and as Canning hurries away, out of earshot, her whole tone changes. ‘Are you mad?’ she hisses at him. ‘What are you trying to do, bringing them here?’

‘Look at them,’ he says. ‘They have no future.’

‘Why is that my problem?’

He is astonished. ‘Because you did it to them. You sent them away.’

‘You know why. I had to. I told you I’d take care of it. It was the best thing to do. Under the circumstances.’

‘The best thing for who?’ he says. ‘For you?’

‘And for you.’

The truth of this stings him into silence. He can only say, ‘But I didn’t want this.’

‘Adam. Adam. They were past their time anyway. They can’t stay on–all of this is changing. There’s no place for them here any more.’

It comes to him again: what he has been complicit in, what he has not refused. His fury is like a blind dropping down in his head. He wants to grab and shake her; he wants to do violence.

‘Fuck the poor,’ he says, ‘is that it?’

Something flashes across her face, which she seals away. Then, carefully, she says, ‘Yes. It’s true. I don’t care about them. Why should I?’

‘Because…that could have been your life.’

‘But it isn’t,’ she says. ‘Is it?’

Both of them are conscious of Canning and his associates nearby, of what must be hidden from them. Without that watchful audience, they would be attacking one another right now, using teeth and nails and fists. But they speak instead.

‘I know who you are,’ he tells her.

She has a tight, brittle smile on her face, and her whisper is like a thin, tiny needle of hatred. ‘No, you don’t. You don’t know anything about me. Not anything. If you did, you wouldn’t speak like this. You don’t know how I’ve fought, the things I had to do to get to where I am. If I’m over here and they’re over there, that’s because I’m stronger. And part of being strong is doing what you have to do. Do you think I’m going to give up my life, give up all
this
, for them? Are you crazy? You can keep your pity and your sentiment, you can keep your white man’s weakness. You’ve never been desperate, not for one day in your life.’

Over her shoulder he sees a peacock, pecking at some insect on the ground. Even here, at the heart of so much finery, there is the brutal appetite, reaching out with its hard little beak to stab, stab, stab. Who could write a poem about a peacock?

He walks away from her, back to the car. The eyes of the two old people show no surprise or disappointment; they hadn’t expected anything else.

The next time he speaks is when he pulls up at the house in town. ‘I have to do something with you,’ he says to his passengers. ‘I have to make a plan. Do you have any ideas?’

They shake their heads, they look down.

‘There must be somebody else you can go to.’ Then he remembers. ‘What about your son?’

The son–Canning’s playmate. Where is Lindile now?

‘He is in Cape Town. He is living there.’ The first time the old lady speaks.

‘And can you contact him there? Do you have a telephone number?’

She fishes around in her plastic bag, comes up with a dirty scrap of paper. The number on it is faintly written in pencil. But it is the one possible solution.

They crowd behind him into the passage as he calls. It rings for a long time before a woman answers. Her English isn’t good, and the line crackles, but he understands her to say that Lindile is out, that he’ll be back in a few hours. He leaves a message, asking him to call back.

‘It’s about his parents,’ he says. ‘His mother and father. They’re in trouble and I’m trying to help them.’

The connection hisses, then goes dead. But he feels better afterwards: something has been set in motion, steps have been taken. It’s only much later that it occurs to him to wonder what the relationship might be between Lindile and his parents. If they had wanted help from their son, would they not have called him already? Is he meddling in something that he doesn’t understand?

Meanwhile he makes tea and sandwiches for his visitors. It is poor food–what he eats these days too–but they consume it quickly, hungrily. Then he herds them into the bathroom. ‘Clean yourselves up,’ he says, ‘it’ll make you feel better.’ While he runs the bath he goes through his cupboard to look for clothes that might fit them. The old man is about his size, they’re almost a match. He takes out trousers, a shirt, a pair of shoes. For Grace he has nothing suitable, except a jersey and a scarf.

While they’re washing, he sits in the lounge next door, listening. There is the sound of water splashing, an occasional murmur between them. Is it him that they’re discussing? Do they find his hospitality a joke, do they see through it to the shame underneath?

When they come out again, it’s not quite a transformation. But they do look cleaner than before. His clothes hang a little loosely on Ezekiel, the shirt sleeves overflow his hands. The shoes slide around on his feet. Grace is wearing the jersey and a set, opaque expression. They come back into the lounge and sit down on the couch again, this time without being invited.

When he goes into the bathroom a little later, there is a ring of black dirt around the tub. While he busies himself scrubbing it away, he reflects on the change in their positions. They are, by a twist of fate, his guests, and he has somehow become the servant. But he embraces the new role, he fits himself to it eagerly. A small measure of humiliation might lessen his crimes, in his own eyes if not in theirs.

At that moment the telephone rings. The voice on the other side is low, flat, almost inaudible. ‘This is Lindile,’ it says. ‘I have a message to call you.’

‘Yes! Lindile! This is Adam Napier. I have your parents here with me.’ He explains what has happened, without going into detail. He tells nothing that incriminates himself. He has rescued the two old people from the roadside; he has taken it on himself to look after them. No doubt his mother will give a fuller story to Lindile in due course, but by then, Adam hopes, they will be far away.

When he finishes, there is a long silence before Lindile sighs. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he says.

‘Well, I don’t know. Are you in a position to help them? Give them a place to stay? There’s nothing for them up here.’

‘No,’ Lindile says. It’s unclear whether he’s refusing or agreeing.

‘They’re your parents,’ Adam says desperately. ‘They have a big problem. Don’t you want to help them?’

‘Who are you?’ Lindile says unexpectedly.

‘Me? I’m…I’m a friend of Canning’s. I mean, Kenneth’s. I used to visit the farm.’

Another sigh. The low voice says, ‘I cannot come tomorrow. The earliest I can be there is the weekend. Saturday.’

The weekend is still a couple of days away. While he gives his address, Adam is already thinking ahead, to how he must look after these two. He can’t put them out to sleep in the open again. But to have them sleeping in the house, under the same roof, is more than he’d bargained for.

He wishes he had money. With money, a great deal would be possible. He could pay for them to sleep at the hotel; he could give them a proper meal at a restaurant. Better yet, he could give them a big cash donation and send them on their way, his conscience eased. With money, he could put a gap between him and them; he could wash his hands of them completely.

But he doesn’t have a lot of money left. In fact, without the help of his brother, his position wouldn’t be too different from theirs. So he has no choice but to fall back on the comforts he can offer, which are practical and immediate. He can share what he has: another meal of bread and cheese and tea, and a bed for the night.