WE ARRIVED IN LADYSMITH early in the evening. The sun was already falling on the Drakensberg Mountains. A soft, buttery light covered the trees, houses, and churches of the town. It was a pretty old town in a river valley. The river was dry, but was known to flood. There were mountains in the west and south, and hills in the east and north. The town sat in between them, and it was so pretty you would have thought it was a movie set.
Los pulled up in front of a small, plain white house with a steel roof and porch. The house was narrow in the front, but extended out in the back. There was a wooden picket fence all around, a backyard with trees, and a small barn. When he shut the motor off, the silence slowly began to replace the ringing in my head. Los stood up and stretched. I did the same. Hollie jumped out, trotted over to a tree, peed, and came back with a look of expectation on his face. I reached in and picked up the tool bag. Little Laura stared at me through the mesh. I stared back. I think she wanted out. “Just a tiny bit longer, Little Laura.” I hung the bag over my shoulder and followed Los to the house. Seaweed dropped out of the sky and landed beside Hollie. “Hey, Seaweed. Nice to see you.” He hopped onto the motorbike, spied the pizza box, and went looking for crusts.
Los rapped lightly on the screen door with his knuckles, and spoke with a much softer voice than I had heard him use before. “Katharina. It is Los. I have brought a friend.”
There were sounds inside, and a shadow appeared behind the screen. As my eyes adjusted, the shadow grew into a dark-haired lady with bright shiny eyes and shiny teeth. She swung open the door with a great big smile, opened her arms wide, and wrapped them tightly around Los.
“My . . . dear . . . boy.” It was a long hug. She didn’t look at me until she let go. “And who is this?” She said this as if I had come from another world. I supposed I had.
“I’m Alfred. And this is Hollie.” I pulled the tool bag out with my arm. “And this is Little Laura.” I glanced over at Seaweed, but he had disappeared inside the sidecar. He didn’t care for introductions.
Katharina smiled at Hollie and Little Laura, then took my hand and squeezed it. I was surprised how strong she was. She gripped my hand tightly the way a labouring man would. Then she gave me a short hug, and it was as if someone had sat on me. “Come in!” she said, and disappeared inside the house. We followed her in.
Katharina was a special person. It was just as Los had said. She reminded me a lot of Sheba. Sheba lived on her own island, one of the tiniest islands in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland. She lived in a house full of animals, birds, reptiles, and butterflies, and kept a hydroponic garden. I met her on my first voyage at sea, when I moored in her cove, thinking it was empty, and she discovered me, and thought I was a creature from the deep. Ever since then, she treated me like a son. Then she met Ziegfried, and it was love at first sight. Now they were married.
Sheba loved everyone, and everything, and was full of wisdom, dreams, and the ability to see into the future. Katharina was like that too, except that she didn’t have animals of her own. All of the world was her family, she said. That’s what Sheba would say, too. I didn’t believe there could be another person in the world like Sheba, until I met Katharina. You would have thought they were sisters, even though they couldn’t possibly have looked more different.
Sheba was tall and lean, with long, flowing red hair, and thousands of tiny, wave-like curls. She had bright green eyes, and when she fixed them on you, they had a power over you, warm and loving, but a power all the same.
Katharina was shorter and stockier—about my height. She also had long hair, but it was thick and black, and she braided it into tight, shiny coils that hung down straight, and held strings of colourful beads. Like Sheba, Katharina wore lots of jewellery, but it was thicker and heavier than Sheba’s. Her limbs were smooth and muscular, like a gymnast, or a boxer. She always went barefoot. And her feet, like her grip, were tough. One thing that Katharina said really struck me. She told me she had been a witch in a former life. That wouldn’t have startled me so much if Sheba hadn’t said exactly the same thing. And that made me wonder if maybe they really had been sisters, somehow, in another life, if things really worked that way. I didn’t know if they did.
Katharina’s house was clean, tidy and bare. She didn’t have much stuff. There was a wooden table in the kitchen, a few chairs, and in the living room there were cushions on the floor, but no sofa or bureaus or bookshelves. There were books, but they were piled neatly on the floor. There was music playing, but it sounded ancient. In another room, there was an exercise mat, weights, a pull-up bar on the wall, and a massage table. I wondered what she did for work.
“I’m an occupational therapist,” she said, as if she had been reading my mind, which was probably true. “I’m also a yoga instructor, a personal trainer, and a dance instructor. I wear lots of hats. Mostly, I help people get better after an injury on the job.” She looked at me. “Do you know this music?”
“I think maybe I heard it at another friend’s house. You remind me of her.”
“Do I? You must tell me about her. This is Hildegard von Bingen. She was a twelfth-century mystic and composer. Listen to how fresh her music is. You would think it had been written this morning.”
“It sounds pretty old to me.” I smiled.
“The instruments are old. The music is young. It’s eternal.”
“Cool.”
Katharina grinned widely. She had nice teeth. “Yes, it is.”
We had a great supper. Katharina cooked rice with vegetables, nuts, and tofu, and served pita bread, salsa, hummus, and tabouli. Los and I cut up the vegetables. It was not the kind of meal that Hollie got excited about. But there was fresh fruit, and Little Laura was very happy about that. She rode around the house on Hollie’s back, which made Katharina bend over and laugh out loud. While we ate supper, we talked.
“So. Los. Where is your plane?” Katharina’s voice was a little tough, too, but you could feel the warmth behind it.
Los raised his eyebrows but continued staring at his plate. I could tell he didn’t really want to answer. “It sank to the bottom of the sea, but we raised it. Now, it is hidden on the ground, between some trees. I will borrow a truck and retrieve it. But it is in Mozambique.”
Katharina was stunned. “No! You flew all the way to the sea? That is very far.”
“I tried to turn around, but the air currents pushed me into the water. That’s when I met Alfred. He was there in his submarine.”
Katharina’s mouth dropped open and she turned towards me. “You were in a submarine?”
“Yes.”
She looked at both of us. “How can this be? One of you is in an airplane, the other is in a submarine, and you meet?”
We both took a bite, and nodded.
“If Alfred had not been there, I would have drowned.”
Katharina stared at me with a serious face. “You saved his life?”
“Yes. But today Los saved my life by chasing away an elephant.”
“I didn’t chase it away. It ran away.”
“He ran in front of it, and led it away. That saved us.”
Katharina waved her hands in the air above her head as if she were dancing. “Hallelujah! You two were meant to meet. It is obvious you share a destiny.”
Los made a serious face. “I would like to build a submarine, Katharina. Like Alfred has. That is why I have asked him to come here, to help me get started.”
Katharina turned to me again and stared intensely, as if she were reading my face for clues. I wondered what she was thinking. “And do you think my Los can build a submarine like yours?”
“Umm . . . maybe. I’m not sure. It’s a lot of work. It will take at least a couple of years. I just agreed to come and help look around for a suitable tank. I can’t stay long.”
“Where is your submarine now?”
“At Richards Bay. Under the water.”
“Alfred is being followed by pirates,” said Los.
Katharina continued to stare at me. I was starting to feel like a bug under a microscope. “Why are pirates chasing you?”
“I sank their boat, with drugs and guns on it. And I stole their money.”
Katharina stood up, carried one dish over to the counter, and brought another one back. She was thinking hard, but maybe didn’t want to share it. She turned to Los. “Could you make a submarine here?”
“If you would let me.”
“Los. I would let you build a temple to Zarathustra here, if that’s what you wanted to do.”
“Thank you, my dear friend.”
“You are welcome. What is troubling you?”
“I left my best tools in Soweto.”
Katharina’s face changed. She looked stiff now, and worried. “But you have many tools here.”
“Yes, but the ones I need the most are in Soweto.”
“But . . . you cannot go to Soweto, Los. You know that.”
“I can go when the national football comes. Do you know when the next time will be?”
Katharina hesitated. She knew, but she didn’t want to say. She answered so softly, we almost couldn’t hear her. “Next week.”
“Next week? That’s great!”
“Is it?” She questioned him with her eyes. “Los?”
“Don’t worry so much, Katharina. I will be careful.”
Katharina didn’t smile. She wasn’t reassured at all.
“I will be careful. I promise you.”
Her eyes fell onto the floor. She looked lost in thought, as if she were remembering something difficult. I had the feeling she wanted to say more, but wouldn’t. She wouldn’t interfere with his decisions. She wanted to, but respected him too much. I could tell it was difficult for her. Sheba would have been tougher with me. She would have fixed me with her stare, looked into my future, and tried to convince me to reconsider.
Maybe Katharina wanted to do that with Los. But he was older. And he was very stubborn. Besides, it was his decision to make. It was his life. And he had promised to be careful. Maybe that was enough. Maybe it wasn’t so dangerous, after all.
After supper, Los showed me the barn. It was thirty feet long and fifteen feet high—just big enough for building a sub, if the sub were the same size as mine. But Ladysmith was a long way from the sea. You’d have to haul the sub on the road in the middle of the night, the way Ziegfried and I did, and launch early in the morning, to avoid getting a lot of unwanted attention. And you’d need a big truck and a special trailer. It was so much work. I didn’t think Los knew what he was getting himself into. How could he? Still, I had to try to help. I would feel lousy if I didn’t. And who knew anyway, maybe he could do it? After all, how many people could build their own plane, and fly it?