On the Sunday morning Frans offered to drive Otto and Dieter to Keetmanshoop once he had been to church with his family. Otto recalled that the Lutheran congregation of Lüderitz was both fervent and close. It was generally considered more desirable to be in church and fall asleep than not to attend at all.
“Frans is a great guy, isn’t he?” Dieter said as he and Otto sat drinking coffee and eating toast in the kitchen.
Otto nodded, mindful that Frans was also so much more: the local police chief, the man charged with determining the identity of and circumstances surrounding the child’s body in their back garden, and the man who after agreeing to drive them to Keetmanshoop had said to Otto, “No problem. There is just one thing you two can do for me in return.”
“I’d better call Ingrid and tell her,” Otto said while chewing his toast and strawberry jam.
“You think she cares?” Dieter said.
“I feel I should, after yesterday.”
But Ingrid was not at the hotel. Otto let the receiver drop down slightly from his face in disappointed acceptance.
“What?” Dieter asked.
“She’s not there.”
“I told you.”
Frans arrived at 10am, dressed in his Sunday best: a black suit and tie worn with a pressed white shirt. Under all this reverent clothing he was perspiring like a farm animal.
“It’s a four hour drive so we should get going,” Frans said. “You should bring water.” He loosened his tie and folded his enormous jacket into the cluttered boot.
“This is really good of you, Frans,” Dieter said as they settled into his Toyota.
“Ag, it’s no problem. I still have a crime to solve and any possible clues unearthed in Keetmanshoop could help me too,” he said matter–of–factly.
“A crime?” Dieter said.
“Ja,” Frans said, as though it was self–evident. “A body buried where it shouldn’t be is against the law.”
Otto was deep in thought as they drove out of Lüderitz on the B4, past the cemetery, reminding him of all the death that surrounded him. Inez and Mother buried side–by–side in the cemetery; Father’s ashes scattered on Shark Island – for reasons not yet clear – and the body buried right in their back garden almost forty years ago, beneath the camelthorn and the patter of their young feet.
“Where is Ingrid?” Frans asked, turning to Dieter in the passenger seat and meeting Otto’s eyes in the rear view mirror.
“She’s leaving today,” Dieter said.
Frans sighed and adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, staring at the road. “I asked her not to leave Lüderitz yet,” he said tersely.
Otto gazed out through the grimy windows, seeing nothing on either side of the road but sand, dunes and occasional protrusions of black rock. Perilous incursions of sand across the road surface restricted their speed of travel.
“What is it with you guys and Ingrid?” Frans asked.
Otto hesitated, hoping Dieter might answer. He didn’t.
“You know, living so far apart in the world is not easy,” Otto said lamely. “We haven’t been together under the same roof for twenty… thirty years.”
“But you two seem OK?”
Otto found Dieter’s eyes staring at him in the mirror and grimaced.
“Ingrid seems to feel that we got more than our fair share from Mum and Dad, more than she did. Since then we have done well while her marriages have all failed,” Dieter said, pulling a face.
“She’s been married a few times?” Frans asked, his eyes searching for Otto’s in the rear view mirror.
“Yeah, about three times. Divorced the last one six months ago apparently,” Otto said.
Frans shook his head, adjusting his bulky frame behind the fulcrum of the steering wheel. “Something’s bothering her.”
“I gather she was very close to Inez,” Otto ventured, feeling strange mentioning his lost sister so casually in conversation, a name he had not even known less than a week ago; a life he still did not understand.
“Ja.” Frans nodded. “Very.”
“I think maybe Inez’s death affected her more than she lets on,” Otto said.
Frans met Otto’s eyes in the mirror. “Ja.” Then he turned to Dieter, nudging him on the shoulder. “And you and Ingrid don’t speak?”
Dieter looked at him. “No.”
“Why not?”
Dieter shrugged. “She doesn’t like me.”
Otto cringed and covered his eyes with one hand. Discussing their petty family dynamics with Frans made them seem so trivial and baseless. Despite the biting, divisive reality of family feuds, trying to explain them to strangers inevitably gave the impression of such puerility.
“And I’m not sure I like her much either,” Dieter added.
“But she’s your sister,” Frans said incredulously, taking his eyes off the road to peer at Dieter.
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
God, Otto thought, Mother must be turning in her freshly dug grave. He looked out of the window. They were driving through a cutting, surrounded by strata of burnt rock layered upon each other like brown and black sponge cake. Soon it was just sand again. Sand. More sand. Occasionally pirouettes of sand danced whimsically across the road under the spell of a swirling desert breeze.
“Did you know the Solomons?” Otto said suddenly.
Frans looked up into the mirror. “I’ve heard of them, vaguely. Keetmanshoop is on the Trans–Namib Railway and the father did a lot of work on the rail networks. But I didn’t know them.”
“It’s a long way to Keetmanshoop,” Dieter remarked. “Do you know how Inez met this guy?”
Frans shrugged and pulled a face. “Your pa had a surgery there, didn’t he?”
Dieter nodded.
“Maybe it was through that?”
“Why did Father have a surgery way out there?” Otto said. “I never understood that, nor as a child did I appreciate the distance. I just remember him being away from home a lot.”
Frans scratched his head. “These little communities out here in the desert are very isolated. Even a place like Lüderitz with only twelve thousand people is isolated. The smaller towns really depend on bigger ones for support.”
One long sandy stretch through the Tsaukeib Plain was so flat and straight that Otto nodded off several times in the back seat. Monotonous, never–ending desert as far as the eye could see. The road ahead shimmered under the glassy reflection of a heat mirage and Otto understood how people dying of thirst could mistake them for oases in the desert.
“What would we do if we broke down out here?” Dieter asked.
“I’ve got a radio,” Frans said, tapping a bulky contraption covered with knobs and dials in the dashboard.
“And if we didn’t have a police radio?”
Frans chuckled, his great belly heaving behind the steering wheel. “Pray!”
Ausweiche provided some visual pleasure as they drove through a canyon between dramatic, arid, rocky outcrops on both sides. The rock appeared to have been charred by the unrelenting sun, parched of every scrap of goodness. Past the little town of Aus they entered a landscape punctuated at intervals by low rocky outcrops with flat tops, like hills that had been sanded down to a smooth surface. Otto was mesmerised by their unearthly beauty.
“This is what I imagine it looks like on Mars,” Otto said, face pressed against the cool glass of the window. “How does anyone live out here?”
With every mile that they travelled eastwards the terrain seemed to comprise more rock than sand. Otto awoke at one point, disorientated and struggling with a dry, leathery mouth.
“These are the famous quiver tree forests,” Frans said, pointing out of the window.
Enormous quiver trees – reminiscent of cinnamon–coloured broccoli with stunted growths of mustard–coloured succulent leaves sprouting forth – dotted the landscape amidst chocolate brown boulders and dry tufts of bleached grass.
“A forest of a different kind,” Dieter remarked.
“In desert terms, this is almost a jungle.” Frans chuckled. “They’re actually aloes. We locals call them kokerboom.”
“Why quiver tree?” Otto asked, captivated by the unusual appearance of these giants of the desert.
“The San hollow out the branches to make quivers for their arrows,” Frans replied.
*
Keetmanshoop was eventually revealed as a contained, flat and featureless little town. German colonial architectural influence was abundant and the settlement was poignantly bisected by Kaiser Street. They drove straight to the police station.
“What do you guys want to drink?” Frans asked as he opened his door, which protested at the accumulated dust.
“Anything cold,” Dieter said.
Frans heaved his sweat–stained bulk into the flat–roofed brown building and returned ten minutes later with three cans held in one hand by a formidable grasp.
“Here you go,” he said, settling himself into the seat. “The sergeant says the last of the Solomons moved away many years ago. He thinks they all congregated in Windhoek.”
Otto felt enormously deflated by this news, especially after that exhausting drive through the most desolate countryside he had ever experienced. Why had they not simply phoned? He knew the answer: he had wanted to see the place for himself.
“We’ll start at the cemetery.” Frans seemed upbeat as he cracked open his can of Fanta.
They drove to the edge of town to a very derelict–looking rendered wall, once painted white, now losing chunks of plaster as it struggled to support a pair of dilapidated iron gates. Behind this disrespectful boundary, granite headstones languished in gravelly rows in the desert sunshine. Immersed once again in the heat they crunched their way methodically between the grey monoliths looking for Neil Solomon. They found Dr Carl Hahn, pastor and missionary, Schmidt, Stern, Ahrens, many dating back to the 19th century, but no Solomons. Aloes, cacti and succulents, randomly scattered throughout the desiccated graveyard, looked on in silence.
“He was third generation,” Frans muttered, turning around to survey the headstones. “There must be a few Solomons here, somewhere.” He planted his hands on his hips.
“There’s another section through there.” Dieter gesticulated.
When they reached the smaller walled cemetery attached to the main area by an arched gateway, they stopped. The headstones had a different appearance: taller and more ostentatious. Dieter read aloud. “Horwitz, Marks, Kaye, Rosenstein.”
“This is the Jewish cemetery,” Otto said, noticing the Hebrew lettering and the Star of David on the headstones. He turned back, thinking it had to be a mistake.
“Solomon,” Dieter called out.
Otto froze. “What did you say?”
All three men stood still, their eyes meeting uncertainly.
“I see a few Solomons,” Dieter repeated, much softer this time.
A memory of Dieter asking him if Sabine was Jewish fluttered into Otto’s mind and he covered his nose and mouth with cupped hands.
“Jesus!” Otto said.
Frans stood his ground awkwardly. Then, as if sensing their bewilderment and shock, he turned on his heel and began to walk the rows. “Let’s find him.”
It did not take long as the Jewish cemetery was relatively small. They gathered in front of Neil Solomon’s imposing black granite memorial erected by his grieving family to commemorate his premature death. Its contrast to Inez’s humble headstone back in Lüderitz could not have been more absolute.
“Neil Solomon,” Otto read aloud. “23.11.1925–11.9.1948. MHSRIP.” He felt cold suddenly, despite the hot, dry, windless air. “I don’t understand the Hebrew bit.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dieter said, staring in disbelief at the memorial. “He was Jewish.”
“I hadn’t realised there were Jewish communities living here,” Otto reflected, quietly.
“Why?” Frans said. “Because it used to be a German colony: Deutsche–Südwestafrika?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“It is still very German,” Dieter commented.
Frans just looked at them, hands clasped in front of his pendulous belly.
“Dad would not have approved of this,” Otto said, walking slowly around the memorial stone, examining it from every angle. “That’s for sure.” The craftsmanship was exquisite, carved finials and scrolls, elaborate sand–blasted lettering and patterns adorning the polished surface. He stopped and met Dieter’s eyes across the lavish memorial in silence.
“I think you mean he would have been fucking furious,” Dieter said softly.
Frans cleared his throat. “It certainly makes their suicide more understandable.”
“Doesn’t it fucking just?” Dieter blurted.
“Star–crossed lovers,” Otto said.
Frans just looked at him.
“Romeo and Juliet?” Otto tried to explain. “Forbidden love?”
“Oh ja, now I’m with you.”
Dieter sat down on the edge of an adjacent headstone, swinging one leg absently. “So, Inez falls in love with Neil, father finds out he’s Jewish, goes ballistic, they run away, have to come back home, are not permitted to be together and…”
“No,” Otto said. “That old guy at the funeral said he drove Inez to Otjiwarongo because she was unwell.”
“What old guy?” Frans asked, frowning.
“Some old chap, deaf as a post, was there with his daughter. He said he was Dad’s partner here in Keetmanshoop.”
Frans nodded. “Otjiwarongo, that’s a long way from Lüderitz.”
“Ingrid says she doesn’t remember any of this,” Otto continued. “I don’t understand why Otjiwarongo, nor what was wrong with Inez.”
Frans shuffled his feet on the dusty gravel beneath their feet. “Otjiwarongo has a large German population. Perhaps your pa knew some people up there?”
“Yeah, but why send her there?”
“To get her away from Neil Solomon?” Dieter suggested with a little hand gesture towards his headstone.
“I think we should go and talk to this old partner of your pa’s,” Frans said.
Otto pulled a face and shook his head. “He’s very old and painfully deaf, Frans, and he was awfully vague on detail. I spoke to him and to his daughter quite a bit at the funeral yesterday. It was difficult.”
“They didn’t go to the cemetery?” Frans said.
“No, they went to Goerkehaus.”
“Ah.”
Dieter lifted his head. “Did Dad used to attend those Hitler bashes?” He directed his gaze first at Otto, who dreaded the answer, and then at Frans.
Frans squirmed and nodded. “Ja, to my knowledge he did.”
Otto felt a chill and looked away sharply. “The things we never knew about our parents.” Then he gazed back to the memorial stone, to the name Neil Solomon, to the residua of Father’s rigid and intolerant beliefs. He glanced at Dieter, whose head was supported in one hand, eyes staring ahead, and imagined what might have happened if Father had known about Dieter’s homosexuality. He felt a sudden pang of sympathy for his brother, who most likely sensed this, and had been forced to live a painful lie for all these years.
“Do you think Ingrid knew about this?” Otto said, inclining his head towards the headstone.
Frans and Dieter gazed at him.
“In my opinion,” Frans began carefully, “Ingrid knows more than she is admitting.”
“But why?” Otto said, trying to understand what could have motivated Ingrid to be complicit in the deception about Inez.
“That’s what I need to find out,” Frans said, wagging his index finger in the air before tapping it against the side of his nose. “And I have to tell you guys that I believe it will be connected to the body in the garden.”
Otto felt winded. Dieter paled visibly.
“You think our parents had something to do with the body?” Dieter said.
Frans studied them both without a flicker of reaction. “That is one possibility.” His unsteady eyes flitted from Otto to Dieter, like a hawk hunting a field mouse.
The silence grew uncomfortable, with not even the sound of a distant bird or the buzz of an insect to break it. The air was still, hot, and accusing. Otto did not know what to think. He was frightened to think too much. The memories from his childhood were failing him, leaving him feeling exposed and lost. What more might he discover? What might Frans, the upholder of the law, discover?
“Careful Otto, there is a scorpion near your foot,” Frans said, raising one arm.
Otto froze and looked down at the hot gravel beneath his feet. “Where?”
“Beside the plastic wreath. Just walk towards me.”
Frans beckoned with outstretched arms for Otto to approach. Once safely away Otto turned and scrutinised the wreath, its flowers bleached by the merciless sun. Adopting its customary C–shaped posture, with tail and deadly sting poised above its body to strike, a large dark brown scorpion with yellowy–orange legs sheltered on the marble chippings in the shadow cast by the wreath.
“Parabuthus villosus,” Frans said. “Very poisonous.”
“God, it’s huge,” Dieter remarked.
“Ja. Give them a wide berth,” Frans advised. He looked up at the sky, squinting towards the sun. “Let’s go and find the old man,” he said, making a move towards the gates. “I want to talk to him before we leave.”
*
The old man lived in the centre of Keetmanshoop near the Rhenish Missionary Church, an impressive Gothic construction of local brown stone erected by the German colonials. The police said his name was Klaus Abert. Once they had all settled in his parlour, smelling overpoweringly of oiled wood and unwashed linen, Otto realised that Klaus’ hearing was far worse than he remembered. Even with the Maelzel ear trumpet jammed into his hairy ear, Klaus screwed up his wrinkly face and stared blankly whenever anyone spoke to him.
“We have come to ask you about Inez Adermann,” Frans said.
“Was sagst du?”
In piecemeal fashion Klaus told them that he had been Ernst Adermann’s partner, and that he had driven Ernst’s eldest daughter to Otjiwarongo because she was unwell and needed the invigorating climate of the Waterberg plateau to convalesce.
“It took me two days to reach Otjiwarongo and two days to get back again,” he said with a grin, as if it had happened yesterday.
Otto and Dieter glanced at each other. Klaus was simply repeating what he had told Otto in the Felsenkirche the day before.
“What was wrong with Inez?” Frans asked.
“Wer?” Klaus yelled, leaning towards Frans with his ear trumpet aloft.
“Inez Adermann,” Frans repeated slowly and loudly. “What was wrong with her?”
Klaus’ eyes met Otto’s and then Dieter’s with a look of puzzlement. “Ja, I took her to Otjiwarongo for Ernst. He said not to tell anyone.”
Otto straightened. What a strange thing to say. What a peculiar request to make. “Not to tell anyone?” Otto repeated. “I wonder why?”
“Who did you take her to?” Frans yelled.
Klaus looked at him through watery eyes for a moment before replying. “Otjiwarongo!”
Frans sighed and turned to Otto. “This is pointless.”
“Like I said,” Otto replied, “I’m not sure if he just can’t understand us or if he’s forgotten.”
Frans drew breath and licked his lips, turning back to Klaus, leaning towards the ear trumpet. “Why did Ernst ask you not to tell anyone?”
“Was?”
“Why did Dr Adermann ask you not to tell anyone about taking Inez to Otjiwarongo?” he repeated slowly.
Klaus pondered this for a moment, his smooth tongue snaking restlessly around his edentulous mouth. “Dr Adermann was my partner. Ja.” His eyes flicked from Frans to Otto to Dieter, seeking affirmation.
In the background a ticking clock chimed politely four times. Frans appeared frustrated, tapping his shoes on the floor and staring at the floorboards.
“Did you ever see Inez again?” Otto asked.
“Was?” Klaus turned to face Otto, his lined face drawn in around a purplish nose.
“Did you ever see Inez again?” Otto repeated very slowly.
A sad realisation seemed to pervade Klaus’ eyes as he gently shook his head. “Nein.”
“Did Neil Solomon go to Otjiwarongo?” Otto yelled.
“Solomon… ja… was?”
“Did he go to Otjiwarongo?”
Klaus suddenly shook his head animatedly, releasing the trumpet from its purchase in his ear. “Ah – nein, nein. Solomon was eine Jüden.” He continued to shake his head vehemently. “I only took Inez to Otjiwarongo.”
Otto sank back in his threadbare seat and met Dieter’s searching eyes. It seemed clear to Otto that Father had separated Inez and Neil Solomon. The illness, of which Ingrid apparently knew nothing, was probably a ruse. What plagued Otto, having just buried Mother the day before, was whether she knew about this? Was she in agreement with sending her daughter away to Otjiwarongo? And why had Ingrid so willingly conspired with both of them to withhold all of this from her brothers?
*
The long drive back to Lüderitz was filled with silences, thoughtful, disturbing silences. Of one thing Otto was certain: there was more to Father than he remembered as a child. There was more to his entire childhood than he recalled. There were quite evidently chunks that he had never known about, but then being the youngest by some margin, this in itself was not entirely unreasonable.
Were there discrepancies, however, in the bits that he could remember, or that he thought he remembered? How could he be sure after so many years? What a dreadful development, he considered, to be questioning every cherished childhood memory that he had held on to over the years.