He looked after his money so neatly, so carefully. I think he was scared of people. Or shy, perhaps…There were no friends. It was just us. It was all we needed.”
Only the wind and the rain against the window. She looked up, looked at Hope Beneke. “There were so many times that I wanted to ask. That I wanted to say he could tell me, that I would always love him, it didn’t matter how deep the pain was. There were times that I wanted to ask because I was so dreadfully curious, because I wanted to know him. I think it was because I wanted to place him, because we do that with everybody, place them in a space in our heads so that we know what we can say to them the next time we meet, or what to give them. It makes life a little easier.
“But I didn’t ask. Because if I had asked, I might have lost him.”
She looked at Van Heerden. “I had nothing. I sometimes wondered whether his father also drank and his mother was also divorced and perhaps he also came from the wrong side of the tracks. Like me. But we had each other and we needed nothing else. That’s why I didn’t ask. Not even when I fell pregnant and he said that we would have to do something because children didn’t deserve the wickedness of this life and that we couldn’t protect them. I didn’t ask then because I knew he had been beaten. Like a dog. Too often. I simply went and had an abortion. And I went so that they could fix me so I could never get pregnant again.
“Because I knew we only needed each other.”
And then she wiped the drop from the point of her nose and looked down at her hands and he didn’t know what to say and knew he couldn’t ask his other questions.
The house was a tomb now.
“I think we must go,” the attorney said eventually, and stood up. She walked to Van As and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
They ran across the street together through the rain to their cars. When she pushed the key into her BMW’s door, Van Heerden stood next to her. “If we don’t find the will, she gets nothing?”
“Nothing,” said Hope Beneke.
He merely nodded. And then walked to the Toyota as the water sifted over him.
¦
While the onions, peppercorns, and cloves were boiling, he telephoned.
“I’m cooking,” he said when she replied.
“What time?” she asked, and he didn’t want to hear the surprise in her voice. He looked at his watch.
“Ten.”
“Fine,” she replied.
He put the phone down. She would be pleased, he knew. She would make assumptions, but she wouldn’t ask any questions.
He walked back to the gas stove in the kitchen – the only room in the small house that showed no signs of dilapidation and want. He saw that the water had boiled away. He poured a few sticks of cinnamon into the palm of his hand, added them to the ingredients in the silver saucepan. He added olive oil, measuring with his eye, turned the flame down. The onions had to brown slowly. He pulled the chopping board toward him, cut the lamb shanks into smaller pieces, eventually transferred them to the saucepan. He grated the fresh ginger, added it to the stew, along with two cardamom pods. Stirred the mixture, turned the flame even lower. Looked at his watch, put the lid on the pot.
He laid the table with the white tablecloth, the cutlery, salt, black-pepper grinder, the candleholder with white candles. He couldn’t remember when last he had lit them.
Back to the work space. He opened two tins of Italian tomatoes. He always preferred them to freshly cooked ones. He chopped the tomatoes, took a small green chili out of the fridge, rinsed it under the tap, sliced it fine, added it to the tomatoes. He peeled the potatoes, put them in a bowl, opened the hot-water tap, filled the sink, poured in washing liquid, rinsed the knife and the cutting board. Uncorked the bottle of red wine.
There was something in that safe. That someone knew about.
In a separate pot, small carrots in a tablespoon of orange juice, small spoonful of brown sugar. A little grated orange peel. Bit of butter later on.
That was all that made sense. Because nothing else was missing from the house: no cupboards ransacked, no beds overturned, no television set taken.
Jan Smit. The lone wolf with the mistress. The man without a history, without friends.
He looked at his watch. The meat had been in for thirty minutes. He lifted the lid, scraped the tomato and chili pulp into the saucepan, replaced the lid. He switched on the kettle, put basmati rice in another saucepan, waited until the water boiled, added it to the rice, lit the flame, put the saucepan on the stove, checked the time.
He made sure that the front door was unlocked, lit the candles. She would be here soon.
Jan Smit.
Where the fuck did you start?
Orange juice had boiled away. Added a tablespoon of butter.
He walked to the bedroom, took his notebook out of his jacket pocket, sat on the threadbare armchair in the too-small living room, looked at the notes he had made when he had borrowed the dossier from O’Grady that afternoon.
Fuck-all.
Nothing. He stared at the identity number. 561123 5127 001. On November 23, 1956, Jan Smit’s life had begun. Where?
The door opened. She came in on a gust of wind and with a dripping umbrella. She saw him and smiled, collapsed the umbrella, and put it down at the door. She had tied a scarf around her hair. She took off her raincoat. He got up, took it from her, threw it over the arm of a chair.
“Nice smell,” she said. “The chair will be wet.” She moved the raincoat to the small coffee table.
He nodded.
“Tomato stew,” he said, walked to the kitchen and fetched the red wine, poured two glasses, handed her one. She pulled a chair away from the table and sat down.
“You’re working again,” she said.
He nodded.
She sipped at the wine, put the glass down, untied the scarf, took it off, shook her hair.
He walked to the kitchen, opened the pot of stew, added the potatoes, some freshly ground black pepper, a teaspoon of sugar, a pinch of salt, tasted, added more sugar. Killed the flame under the carrots. He walked back to the table, sat opposite her.
“It’s an impossible task,” he said. “I’m looking for a will.”
“Sam Spade,” she said, and her eyes laughed.
He snorted without anger.
“I’m so pleased,” she said. “It’s been so long…”
“Don’t,” he said softly.
She looked at him with overwhelming compassion. “Tell me,” she said, and leaned back in the chair. “About the will.” The light of the candles glimmered dark red in the glass of wine when she picked it up.
¦
Hope Beneke lit thirteen candles in her bathroom without counting them. The candles were multicolored – green and blue and white and yellow. One was scented, and they were all short and stubby. She liked candlelight and it made the small white-tiled bathroom in the townhouse in Milnerton Ridge more bearable.
Her temporary house with its two bedrooms and its open-plan kitchen and white melamine cupboards. Her temporary investment. Until the firm started making good money. Until she could buy something that looked out over the sea, a white house with a green roof and a wooden deck and a view over the Atlantic Ocean and its sunsets, a house with a big kitchen – for entertaining friends – and oak cupboards and a bookcase that filled an entire wall of the living room.
She poured in bath oil, swished the water around with her hands as she bent over the bath, her small breasts moving with her shoulder muscles.
Her house by the sea would have a huge bath for soaking in.
She closed the taps and slowly climbed into the warm water, listened for a moment, wondering if she could
