I have an appointment with Lydia Bascombe. I can trust her to make sense of the midden that is my mind.
L. BASCOMBE: There can be no reconciliation without reparations. History has shown that. Here in South Africa, we have seen what happens when you sweep history under the carpet of rainbow-ism. Those issues you thought you had pushed out of sight will fester until you can’t ignore them any longer.
ME: But what am I sweeping under the carpet? What?
L. BASCOMBE: The harm that John Coetzee did to you. You can’t forgive him until you have exacted payment for your suffering. It is not possible.
ME: He doesn’t even know that he harmed me. He is oblivious.
L. BASCOMBE: That doesn’t matter. Take the case of the Rwandan genocide. In the years following the genocide, the Hutus as a people flourished and grew prosperous. They got over the genocide. They put it behind them. The Tutsis, on the other hand, suffer from depression, unemployment, high suicide rates, and a general feeling of hopelessness. As a people, they are not doing well. It says so in The Guardian, so it must be true.
ME: I don’t know what any of this means.
L. BASCOMBE: The Hutus were responsible for the genocide. Well, the Hutu-majority government was. And while there are museums and other official attempts to recognise the genocide, the Hutus never had to pay a significant price for what they did.
ME: A bit like white South Africans, then?
L. BASCOMBE: If you like. When a historical injustice passes without serious consequences for the perpetrators, the victims are unable to heal. They remain stuck in a situation where the weight of their trauma prevents them from moving on. Perpetrators of the worst atrocities in history have the ability to move on very quickly from what they did. They might feel some superficial remorse, but it doesn’t stop them from succeeding.
ME: Like the Germans after World War II? You have German ancestry, don’t you?
L. BASCOMBE: Victims are retraumatised by having to witness their former oppressors flourishing like the green bay tree. This acts as a barrier to their ability to succeed. That is what is happening with you and John Coetzee. That’s why you are the way you are.
ME: There is only one flaw in that theory. John Coetzee is not my oppressor. He isn’t the person who raped me. He just wrote a book about it.
L. BASCOMBE: He was a secondary perpetrator. His book and its success had the effect of inflicting secondary trauma on you. You can’t deny that.
ME: No.
L. BASCOMBE: You should have launched that social media campaign. You could still do so. It would be healing for you to see him brought low. Only then would you be able to pull yourself out of your tuna-and-tinned-peaches existence.
ME: I didn’t know that therapists advocated revenge as a tool of healing.
L. BASCOMBE: Perhaps they don’t, but you have never been able to distinguish between what I really say and what I say in your imagination, have you?
* * *
I leave her office in a state of bewilderment.
Fantasy and reality are conflating in my mind. I can’t remember what Lydia Bascombe said. I know we talked about the idea of a social media campaign, but there was another conversation going on inside my head, and now I can’t distinguish it from the real one. Have I confided in her about the precise extent of my delusions? Would she have me committed if I did?
I get home and burrow under my crocheted blanket. It shows a tendency to unravel in places, but not in as many places as my mind is unravelling.
A knock at the door lifts me groaning from my armchair. Phones and doorbells. Doorbells and phones. I can’t decide which I hate more.
I open the door to find a small child standing outside. It is a boy in quaint clothing—knickerbockers and a button-down shirt. They are not clothes from another era, but the kind of branded throwback items that hipster parents pay a fortune for. When Eugene has children, he will dress them like this.
“Can I help you?” He must have thrown a ball over the wall into the hardscrabble patch of weeds on the side of my rented house.
“I need to talk to you. May I come in?”
So, not a ball then. This is a confident lad, unafraid of putting himself forward.
I stand back and make a sweeping motion with my hand. “Please do.”
I show him into the sitting room and inform him that I have only water to drink. Perhaps he would like a glass? He stares at the splashes of tea on my table and the abandoned, unwashed mugs, and asks for coffee. I explain that I only have instant, and he says that will be fine this once.
I make him a mug of coffee, and he settles into a chair opposite me.
“I thought you lived on a farm in Worcester,” I say.
“No, that’s not me. You’re thinking of someone else.”
“What do you want to tell me?”
“I need to explain that my place is here in the urban world. Here is where the transformation needs to begin, in the economic engine of the country. The countryside hasn’t been a significant player in this country’s narrative for two hundred years.”
“What is your role? Are you the sinless Christ-child?”
“That is too passive a descriptor. I am not the lamb, but the warrior. I am a reformer.”
“I don’t understand why I had a role in this. Why was my blood needed to create you? Why could the reforming warrior not have been a black child? Why did you have to be a mixed-race boy?”
“Because John Coetzee couldn’t resist inserting whiteness into a prominent role in this country’s future. He couldn’t accept that white people have become irrelevant—that their story has been told. He had to make them central to the narrative, even abased and humiliated by rape.”
“Is the humiliation mine or my father’s?”
“It is your father’s humiliation because you don’t experience it as such. You accept what happens to you, and it makes you stronger. You take your place in South Africa’s future as the consort of Petrus. It is your father who is left bewildered and out of time, aware that the world has moved on without him.”
“But I don’t want to accept what happened to me. I am not the peaceful, consenting fiction-Lucy. I am a rage-filled harpy.”
He stands and takes his mug to the sink. “You need to work on that.”
* * *
The child leaves on the heels of a text from Eugene.
Eugene: How goes it with the white whale?
An interesting opening gambit. It focuses on me and my priorities, while also demonstrating a shared knowledge between us—a kind of verbal shorthand.
Lucy: No progress so far. NYT op-ed rejected. Thought about launching social media campaign to smoke him out but decided against it.
Eugene: Those can be brutal for all concerned. Had a meeting in your neighbourhood this morning and noticed the cops outside your house. All okay?
This is the last thing I expect him to say. The very last. I was out at Lydia Bascombe’s office this morning for my appointment, but that doesn’t mean the police were here. They must have been at the house next door. Eugene must be mistaken.
Lucy: Must have been one of the neighbours. No cops here this morning.
Eugene: But there were. I saw them. They knocked on your door for ages.
Adrenalin fizzes through my veins, making my fingers shake so that I can hardly type.
Lucy: This must be a mistake.
Eugene: Did you have a break-in recently? Or maybe your car was tampered with?
Lucy: No. Nothing like that.
Eugene: I’ve upset you. Sorry! Perhaps there’s been a development in your case?
That would be the logical explanation, but my brain and body don’t think so. My reptilian brain has woken up and taken over. I feel as though the police have found me out. But what could they have found out? I haven’t done anything.
Lucy: After two years? Unlikely. My case is gathering dust at the bottom of a filing cabinet.
Eugene: It must have been for something else. But don’t worry about it. If they really want to speak to you they’ll come back, or phone. How have you been since I saw you?
We last saw each other at the comedy club—the underwhelming date that L. Bascombe tried to convince me wasn’t my fault. But it was. When a social butterfly and a social tortoise don’t get along, it is always the tortoise’s fault. I doubt the butterfly would have contacted me again if he hadn’t been curious about the police. Maybe I have something to thank them for.
Lucy: Okay.
I look at this response before I send it. Even the tortoise in me knows it is inadequate. Some elaboration is required. But what? I already told him about my op-ed for The New York Times and the social media campaign that never happened. What else is there?
Did I ever know how to do this? Was I good at social banter before the rape knocked it out of me?
Lucy: Okay, thanks. Working mostly. How have you been?
This is better than “okay,” but not by much.
Eugene: Busy. Need some down time. Been thinking of walking the Olifantsbos coastal path. Would you like to come?
Lucy: I would, thanks. Are you getting a group together?
I send this before I have time to think about it. It is an unsubtle way of asking whether this is a date. I should have waited.
Eugene: I can if you like. We could invite your friend Moira, and maybe my cousin Raz.
So it was going to be a date. And I just turned it into a non-date with my question. I think about trying to retract (It doesn’t HAVE to be a group. It can just be the two of us if you like), and my toes curl. Better to leave it. If it goes well, we can have a one-on-one date some other time. And it’s not as though our one-on-one dates have gone well up to now. Perhaps the presence of other people will change our chemistry for the better.
Lucy: Sounds great. I’ll confirm with Moira and you can ask your cousin. Olifantsbos is the one with the shipwrecks, right? I’ve always wanted to walk there.
Now I’m enthusiastic about this weekend. Moira and Raz will save us from awkwardness. We will find common ground and fruitful topics for discussion. And I will get to look at shipwrecks. It will be good.
* * *
But first, another home invasion.
The doorbell rings. I worry that it may be the trendy imp again—my fictional mixed-race child come to save South Africa from its troubled past. I don’t want to talk to him.
It’s the police.
I panic and try to close the door in their faces, but one of them steps forward and plants his foot in the gap so the door bounces off his shoe.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that. I have nothing to hide.”
It is a man and a woman. They are wearing the quasi-militaristic, belted uniform of the local police force. Khaki trousers tucked into combat boots. Blue shirts tucked into the khaki trousers and wrapped around with gun holsters. I last had contact with the police two years ago when they took my statement and collected my rape kit and clothing at the hospital. The associations aren’t good, but they aren’t terrible either. They did their jobs then, and they did them with reasonable competence.
“Are you . . . uh . . .” the man glances down and consults a notepad. “Lucy Lurie? Are you the daughter of David Lurie?”
“Yes, I am. Please come in.” I am anxious to show them that I didn’t mean it when I tried to shut them out. I wave them into my sitting room and offer them a choice of beverages. They accept tea with powdered milk and sugar.
When we are all sitting around with teacups balancing on our knees, they get down to business.
“Your father’s insurance company is processing a claim for damage sustained during a fire at his property near Worcester. Are you aware of this?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” This is just about the insurance claim. What a relief. “It has taken them an unconscionable time to process the claim. Unconscionable.” I don’t think I have ever said the word “unconscionable” out loud before, and now I have said it twice in a few seconds.
“The original police report was incomplete. That’s why we are here—to fill in the blanks.”
“Okay.” I lick dry lips. “Yes, that’s fine. I should text my father to join us. He can answer more questions than I can. He remembers more of the details.”
The woman removes the mobile phone from my grasp. She places it on the coffee table, where I would have to get up to reach it.
“That’s not necessary. We will interview him in due course. First, we are speaking to you, and then we will speak to him.”
“Right. Absolutely. That’s fine. I’ll let him know you’re coming so he can clear his schedule.” My father doesn’t like being caught by surprise. I want him to have time to prepare for this interview. The police officers say nothing. I take this as tacit consent. As soon as they leave, I will let my father know that they might be on their way.
“The night you were attacked on the farm, did you recognise any of the men who came into the house?”
Well, there was Petrus.
I nearly say it, but manage to stop the words in my throat before they emerge.
“Who is Petrus?”
I did say it. Out loud. The veil between reality and fiction is in tatters.
“Petrus is no one. He is a character in a book. Even in the book he didn’t do it. I don’t know why I said that.”
The police officers are on high alert now. They lean forward in their chairs—teacups abandoned on the coffee table—notebooks at the ready and pens poised.
“You say that one of the men was called Petrus,” says the woman. “Was he a farm worker you recognised? A piece-worker, perhaps, or a seasonal labourer?”
“No, no. I made a mistake. Petrus isn’t real.”
“You don’t have to protect anyone,” says the man. “After what he did, he doesn’t deserve your protection.”
“Can I fetch something?” I don’t know why I feel the need to ask permission to stand up in my own home, but I do.
They nod. I walk to the bookshelf and pull out John Coetzee’s book. Then I sit down and show it to them.
“This man wrote a book about what happened to me. He called one of the men Petrus, so that is a name I always associated with them. But it’s not real.”
The policeman makes a note of Coetzee’s name. “Did this writer have special knowledge of the attack? Where does he live? Perhaps he can tell us where Petrus is now.”
As tempting as it is to sic the police onto John Coetzee, I have to concede that there isn’t much point. If he lives in Adelaide, they won’t be able to make his life difficult.
“I don’t know where he lives,” I say. This is true. I have my suspicions, but I don’t know for certain. “Forget about the book. It isn’t important. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I didn’t know any of the men who attacked me.”
“Did your father recognise them?”
“I don’t think so. He didn’t say that he did.”
They make a note on their clipboards.
“How often did you visit your father on the farm? You weren’t living there at the time?”
“No, I was just visiting. I lived in a shared house in Cape Town at the time. I was a graduate student at Constantia University. I’m not sure how often I visited. A few times a year, maybe.”
“Why were you visiting on that occasion? It wasn’t Christmas or Easter. Or someone’s birthday.”
I’m not sure how she knows that, but she is correct. There was no special occasion. “My father invited me for the weekend. He said it had been too long since he’d seen me. I hadn’t been home in a while.”
“And what did you do before the attackers broke in?”
This strikes me as a strange question. Does he want to know what canapés were served before dinner (none) and how much sherry I was permitted (half a glass)?
“We had dinner together. I wanted to go out to a restaurant in town, but my father said he would cook, and he did. We had just finished our coffee when they broke in.”
More notes are made.
The policewoman looks up. “What did your father do while you were being raped?”
He watched.
“There wasn’t much he could do. The men took him to show them where the safe was. Then we were all in the same room. He was forced to witness what happened. They had knives.”
“And why do you think they broke into your father’s farmhouse? What was their purpose?”
To rape me.
“I suppose they were looking for something to steal.”
“But they didn’t steal anything, did they? They raped you and set fire to the house, and then they left.”
“I believe that’s true. Yes, I was told at the time that nothing was taken apart from a little cash.”
“So do you think they accomplished what they set out to do?”
“If they got away with nothing, then I guess not. Perhaps they were interrupted.”
“By what?”
I shake my head. In my memory, my father chased them away, but I have never been sure about this.
The policeman stands up. “That’s all we need for now, Ms. Lurie. You have been very helpful. Constable Mwire will stay with you while I go and speak to your father.”
He lets himself out of the house. Once again, I feel as though events have taken a strange turn. Then I remember that I wanted to alert my father, so I reach for my phone.
Constable Mwire nudges it out of the way.
“I’d like to use my phone, please.”
“Please wait for a few minutes. Let my colleague get there first.”
I sit in the armchair with my hands folded in my lap, feeling as if I have fallen into a Kafka novel. I have no idea what my rights are. My knowledge of the law is culled from television shows and social media. It doesn’t seem right that a police officer can occupy my home in this way and refuse me access to my phone. Am I a suspect? What am I suspected of?
“You are under suspicion of having not taken adequate measures to prevent your rape. You didn’t say ‘no’ clearly enough or firmly enough for the men to understand you. You didn’t scream. You didn’t fight. We are investigating you for your acquiescence in this felonious act.”
She doesn’t say this.
I ask her nothing and she says nothing. We sit in silence. I can hear her breathing. The shadows move along the floor as time passes. Her phone buzzes, and she picks it up to read a text. Then she stands.
“My colleague is with your father now. I will join him. Thank you for your co-operation.”
Once she has gone, I ring my father. He doesn’t answer.