That night all three of the Adermann children were independently reminded of the suffocating solitude of Lüderitz, shrouded in its cocoon of fog, trapped between the vast Atlantic Ocean on one side and the expansive Namib Desert on the other: the Koichab Pan of the Great Sand Sea to the north and the forbidden territories of the diamond fields to the south and east. Only the occasional vibration of the foghorn and fuzzy halo of sweeping light from the lighthouse testified to Lüderitz’s still–beating heart.
Ingrid sat alone at a table in the lounge bar nursing a generous scotch and ice, staring emptily at flickering images of a travel documentary advertising local tourism on a wall–mounted television.
“The small settlement of Lüderitz was built by diamond prospectors into the only rocky outcrop along the entire inhospitable South West African coastline,” said the baritone voiceover. “It is referred to as the Skeleton Coast because of the numerous carcasses of rusting shipwrecks spread along it – over a thousand in total – victims of its legendary sea fogs. The Bushmen of the Namib Desert called it The Land God Made in Anger, and the Portuguese sailors referred to it as The Gates of Hell.” The heavy tones of Wagner accompanied panoramic views of sand, sea and desolation.
Ingrid wondered what she was doing in Lüderitz, why she had defied her instinctive reluctance and decided to join her brothers at Mother’s funeral. The hotel was average, the food forgettable and Lüderitz more provincial than she recalled. Her uncomfortable encounter with Dieter at the cemetery – not only her first conversation with him in so many years, but also on a prohibited subject cast to the very darkest recesses of even her own mind – had filled her with an immediate desire to return to her sunny Manhattan apartment.
Up on Bülow Street in the old family home Dieter was preoccupied with curled sheets of fax paper, wielding a calculator in one hand and a Mont Blanc pen in the other. He barely even spoke to Otto, who was sitting just yards away from him on the brown velvet sofa looking through the aged contents of a tattered Klipdrift brandy box marked heimfilme. There had been one phone call from Hong Kong, which Otto answered. A man calling himself Jim asked to speak to “my Dieter” and when Otto called him, Jim said, “Thanks darling.”
Otto had recoiled slightly from this unexpected familiarity and then spent the next ten minutes trying hard not to eavesdrop on Dieter’s conversation – which seemed to be all about business – as he studied the metal cans of film in the box. There were six in total, some beginning to show patches of rust despite Lüderitz’s arid climate: less than one inch of rain per year. Must be the fog, Otto thought. Each can had been numbered and dated with black marker pen in Father’s handwriting. Two larger cans bore the title of an old film Otto remembered enjoying with the family: One Million BC, part 1 and part 2. He smiled. The old films were just begging to be watched.
There were, of course, also important matters to discuss: the funeral notice and arrangements; disposing of Mother’s possessions and the house; not to mention the unpleasant uncertainty hanging over them regarding the unidentified child’s body found in the back garden. Otto was desperate to talk to Dieter but never got even the slightest opportunity. Surrendering to his mounting frustration Otto retired to bed, thinking about the memories and mysteries that awaited them on several thousand feet of film.
*
Morning broke with a vivid blue sky and blinding sunshine, revealing the contained swell of Lüderitz’s German colonial architecture – towers, turrets, steep tiled roofs and gables, oriel and bay windows – all perched precariously on parched black rock and aggressively surrounded by sand as far as the eye could see. Ingrid did not appear at the house in the morning and, had it had not been for Frans’ visit, Otto wondered whether she would have come at all.
Frans arrived mid–morning, his squint looking less marked than it had the afternoon before, leading Otto, with his GP hat on, to question whether his ocular oddity might be a latent exotropia accentuated by fatigue towards the end of the day.
“The fog has lifted,” Frans said, shuffling nervously and appearing ill at ease.
“Yeah, looks nice,” Otto said, “but I see a fog bank out there over the sea.”
“Ja, but fog out there means settled weather for us here. It’s when the south–wester blows the fog away that we have shit weather,” Frans explained and then smiled. “That’ll be in a few days.” He chuckled.
Otto made coffee and they sat around the kitchen table.
“You get sorted with the fax machine?” Frans asked.
“Thanks. Perfect,” Dieter replied with an accompanying hand gesture.
“Which local newspaper would be the best for a funeral notice, Frans?” Otto asked.
“Definitely the Lüderitzbuchter. Everyone here reads it.”
Otto nodded. “Their offices?”
“Down near Customs House, just before you reach the harbour.”
They drank coffee in silence.
“What can we do for you, Frans?” Dieter asked eventually.
Frans cleared his throat but would not make eye contact. He played with the unshaven folds of skin beneath his chin.
“I will need to speak to all of you again, more formally you understand, about the body. The Commissioner in Windhoek has ordered a detailed enquiry, given that it’s a child’s body and the fact that, to our knowledge, only one family has ever lived on this site.”
“Mum and Dad built this house,” Otto said.
Dieter shot an admonishing look at Otto as if to say keep your mouth shut.
Frans shrugged. “Ja, well that’s why I will need to speak to each of you to see what you can remember.”
“Well, nothing – I don’t remember anything about a body,” Otto said.
Dieter leaned in. “What are you suggesting here, Frans?”
Frans put his mug down and opened his hands. “Look, they want to know how long the body has been down there and who it is. Tests may tell us some things—”
“What sort of tests?” Dieter interrupted.
Frans drew a deep breath. “Apparently there is some new test developed in England… I don’t know much about it. Something to do with DMA… I think.” He twisted his jowly face.
Otto nodded. “DNA profiling… yeah, I’ve heard about it. It’s very new; not widely available, I don’t think.”
“What does that mean?” Dieter said, his face furrowed with concern.
“Our DNA is like our fingerprints – unique,” Otto explained.
Frans listened, his head unmoving as his eyes flitted between Otto and Dieter, like a predator watching its prey. “Ja, OK, well they want to do DNA tests and… er… we can also do something very simple right here in Lüderitz to give us a pretty good idea of the age of that grave.” Frans gesticulated towards the kitchen window with his index finger.
Otto and Dieter glanced at each other apprehensively.
“That was a fairly large camelthorn tree in your garden, its roots covering the body, so we think it grew after the burial,” Frans said. “Do you know when it was planted?”
“I don’t remember, I was too young I suppose, but I have in mind that we – Mum and Dad – planted that tree after the house was built,” Otto said. “Would you agree, Dieter?”
Dieter nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, I think so.”
Frans leaned back in his chair, which creaked in protest. “That would fit with the tree being about forty years old. Anyway, we’ll cut through it and count the rings and that will tell us exactly how old it is.”
“Objective, simple and very clever,” Otto said.
“But I do want to speak to Ingrid, though. Being the eldest, she may well remember more.” Frans looked around. “Where is she?”
Frans’ impromptu visit left Otto feeling unsettled and shaken, as though the spectre of this unexplained body was drawing ever closer, threatening to overshadow Mum’s funeral. Otto phoned Ingrid, who sounded hungover and moody. When she heard about Frans’ visit she fell silent and arrived at the house a short while later wearing another dazzling fur coat.