It was a pitifully small gathering around Mother’s grave and Otto considered that many of the mourners might have slipped off to Hitler’s birthday celebrations at Kreplinhaus, eager to hear the provocations of Jurgen Göring. He wondered how few people might attend the tea they were putting on at Goerkehaus.
The three of them stood almost on top of Inez’s grave, Otto separating Ingrid from Dieter. As the priest droned on at the head of Mother’s grave, Otto studied the faces of those gathered in sombre abeyance. Frans stood opposite them, appearing to stare intently at Inez’s headstone. Wilma was there, clinging to a man with silver hair and a pencil moustache, but the old man and his daughter were not in attendance, no doubt rubbing shoulders with their old friends at Kreplinhaus.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the priest chanted, casting a handful of sandy Lüderitz dirt onto the coffin.
Otto’s wandering mind was drawn back momentarily by these words and he watched intently as his mother’s coffin descended slowly into the quiet, rocky hole. He felt Dieter resting his head against his shoulder and was surprised to feel his brother’s body shaking with grief. Glancing at Ingrid he could see her stony eyes staring past the priest, towards the east, the sand dunes and open desert.
He wanted to be upset, knew he should be inconsolable as the youngest, favourite son, but he was not. He wasn’t sure how he felt. His mind was fizzing with irreconcilable thoughts: about Inez, about Keetmanshoop, about Otjiwarongo, about Neil Solomon. What role did these things play in his sister’s death? What role did his mother play? How many secrets was she taking into the ground with her? He sighed and tried to catch Ingrid’s eye. He failed. She was too far away.
After everyone had left and the fog was beginning its advance on the coastline once again, its tendrils snaking across the sandy soil, Ingrid, Dieter and Otto stood in silence staring at the two graves, side by side: Inez and Mother.
“Father should be here as well,” Otto said, thoughtfully.
“You’d have thought he’d want to be buried next to Mum,” Dieter said.
“And his daughter,” Otto added.
“Why Shark Island?”
Otto knelt down and arranged some of the flowers on Mother’s grave, taking a bunch of fresh lilies and moving it to Inez’s grave. He moved some of the dead flowers out of the way.
“Watch out for scorpions,” Dieter said.
Otto looked up. “Scorpions?”
“They like to shelter under the flowers. Apparently they’re deadly around here.”
Otto stood up. “Who told you that?”
Dieter nodded towards Ingrid. “She did.”
Otto glared at Ingrid.
“It’s true,” she conceded.
“Poisonous?”
“Very.”
“Frans told me the same thing,” Dieter said.
“Frans?” Otto was confused, feeling as though he had missed something, been excluded from furtive discussions.
“Can we go now? I don’t want to be in the fog wearing this – it’s Armani silk,” Ingrid said, turning and moving away.
The intensifying fog was beginning to bleed the colour out of their waiting taxi.
“Did you hear what that old man had to say about Inez?” Otto said to Ingrid as they walked.
“Old man?”
“The guy with the Zimmer frame and ear trumpet, I was shouting at him in the church. You must have seen him,” Otto said.
“What did he say?”
“He said he drove Inez to Otjiwarongo for Dad when she was ill,” Otto said.
“Ill?”
“She spent a year there… with friends of Dad’s.” Otto pulled a face.
Ingrid frowned. “I knew she went away, that’s all.”
Otto studied her face, evaluating her answer. “What was wrong with her?”
Ingrid paused beside the taxi. She looked across at Mother’s fresh grave and gesticulated. “They’re both resting now and it’s finally all over. Please just leave it.”
Otto was exasperated. “Jesus, Ingrid, what’s finally over?”
Ingrid’s eyes glowed defiantly as she opened the door of the taxi. “Not today, Otto. Just… leave it.”
“Leave what?” Otto was angry suddenly and felt heat rising in his face.
He looked across at Dieter, who shrugged and turned away. “I’m going to walk.”
“I think I’ll join you,” Otto said, slamming the taxi door he had just opened.
The taxi pulled off with the sultry figure of Ingrid visible in the back seat, staring straight ahead, arms folded.
“I told you, she’s a bitch,” Dieter said.
Otto was angry. It was his mother’s funeral and yet he was unable to mourn. He felt robbed of his duty as a son, of his right and indeed every human’s need to grieve the loss of his mother. They walked in silence. Otto turned to look upon the mound that marked his mother’s resting place but it was no longer visible, consumed by the grey fog.
A pair of hazy lights emerged out of the ethereal mist and drew closer. It was Frans’ yellow Toyota police car. The car inched up to them, its wheels crunching on the gravel. Frans opened the window and his fleshy forearm came into view.
“You guys want a lift?” he asked.
“Thanks Frans, I think we’ll walk,” Dieter replied, scuffing the sand–smothered road with his shoe.
“Where’s Ingrid?” Frans said, squinting past them into the deepening fog.
Otto sighed. He was embarrassed by his family’s behaviour. Why could they not be like any other normal family?
“She left in a taxi,” Otto said.
“Did something happen?” Frans asked, one hand on the steering wheel and the other elbow resting in the open window.
“I… er… I honestly don’t know,” Otto said, shaking his head. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter, she’s leaving tomorrow,” he added and then instantly regretted it.
He sensed Frans studying them both through narrowed eyes, scraping his fingers across his stubbly chin, and for the first time Otto felt as though he was being scrutinised by a policeman who was investigating a dead body. The gravity of the unsolved crime weighed heavily upon him suddenly. Then Otto wondered why Frans had come back. An uncomfortable thought made him shudder: was Frans watching them?
“She’s leaving?” Frans said, scratching his ear nonchalantly.
“So she says.”
Frans looked away and paused. “Are you going to Goerkehaus?”
“Are you?” Dieter said.
“No, I have to get back to the station, but I’ll drop you off. It’s not safe to walk in the fog. Drivers can’t see you.”
As he and Dieter climbed into Frans’ police car Otto was filled with dread and a feeling of inexplicable guilt. Mother was buried and now all that remained was the serious unfinished business of the body, in which he was, by association, implicated. Suddenly he was wary of Frans, for he represented the law in Lüderitz.