The Disappeared (5 page)

There were not
many photographs of her mother in the house. Daddy had taken them all down and
put them away in a heavy chest of drawers downstairs in his study. He kept it
locked at all times. Daddy didn’t like looking at pictures of mommy. It made
him sad. The little black and white picture, in its ornate silver frame on the
dressing table, was the only one that remained in the house. Minki once saw her
daddy cry as he looked at it. Seeing her daddy cry had made her feel so
helpless. And terrified. It was the way she was feeling right now.

Minki looked
at the old picture as she slipped on the dress. She carefully smoothed it out
against her body and turned towards the full-length mirror that stood in the
corner next to her dressing table. She smiled at herself. A sad tight smile.

She thought of
her mother. The tall elegant and graceful woman that greeted her every morning
from her dressing table. Forever caught in a black and white memory. She
thought of the beautiful and kind woman that presided over her prayers each
night, guarding her until the lights went out.

Her name was
Sophia and it was the most beautiful name in the world.

Minki walked
up to the photograph and gently ran her finger along its frame. Tears welled up
in her eyes as the beautiful woman stared lovingly at her.
Two years.
That’s what her daddy told her.
Two years.
That’s how old she had been
when her mommy died from a dark disease.

Her mommy was
dead. But they still talked. All the time.

At night when
Minki was feeling lonely and scared she would imagine endless conversations
with her mother; wonderful animated discussions full of laughter sharing and
joy. She would imagine what her mother’s voice sounded like. What words or
phrases she liked to use. The nuances of her pronunciation. The intonation of
words. She imagined what her body would smell like; the perfumes she liked to
use, the scent of her hair. She would spend endless bright hours imagining the
colours her mommy liked to wear and what music she liked. In time, she had
added an indescribable plethora of details that had brought her mother to life;
an intangible yet living universe of sights sounds and smells.

Minki had her
favourite scenes and conversations that she would act out, again and again,
each time adding a tiny delightful detail. There was the one where she would
get home from school and her mommy had bought her a beautiful new dress even
prettier than her favourite one. She imagined her mommy’s joy as she presented
Minki with the gift; the pure unconditional love with which she would help
Minki try it on and the huge endless hug that would follow. A timeless moment
between mother and daughter. Then there was the conversation – projected
way
into the future – where she would tell her mommy about her first boyfriend.
Like two best friends, they would sit on Minki’s bed and talk excitedly about first
love, whispering and giggling into the midnight hours. This dream was one of
the more extensive ones. Her first love would become a high school sweetheart
and after university – she
had
to attend university, daddy and mommy
insisted – they would marry. She imagined the tears her mommy would cry on that
most beautiful day. On the morning of the wedding, Minki and her mother would
share a very special conversation – the kind of words that can only be spoken
between a mother and daughter on that beautiful day – that most beautiful day.

Now, as Minki
stood before her mother she remembered the words. She remembered every single
word. As Minki stood before the photograph, she needed so badly to hear those
words again.

She wiped the
tears from her eyes and suddenly longed for her daddy. He was strict. He was
fierce. He never smiled. But she loved him. And right now she wanted to feel
his strong arms around her, wanted to smell his
Aramis
after-shave. Wanted
to feel the thump of his heart-beat through the cotton of his work shirt while
she touched his rough face.

She exited her
room. Maybe her daddy was already awake. It was early but maybe just.

He worked so
hard her daddy. He was a lawyer at Obsidian Technologies – the big modern
building up on Bishop’s Berg – and was their Chief Legal Consultant. It was a
source of great pride for Minki that she could remember the big title.

Her daddy
worked so hard and she always tried to be quiet in the morning hours before he
woke up. Usually she daren’t wake him up. But this morning Minki needed to be
with him. Maybe, just maybe, he was already awake. She slipped out of the room
and carefully walked along the passageway that led to the staircase.

Her daddy had
been a very successful lawyer in Johannesburg. But then mommy died. He almost
had a nervous breakdown. Aunty Terry said he almost killed himself. Then her
daddy decided he had to leave. Had to get away from the place that was alive
only with dead memories. That’s when they came to Bishop. Some of it her daddy told
her; the rest had – of course – come from Aunty Terry.

Minki was
halfway down the stairs when she suddenly gripped the balustrade in fright. She
stopped halfway between two steps. Her left foot suspended in mid-air. The
knuckles of her right hand were white as she tightly gripped the wood of the
handrail. She was staring down at her father.

‘Daddy?’

A cold
numbness washed over her. She remained motionless frozen with alarm.

‘Daddy?’

Fear had
driven the pitch of Minki’s voice up half an octave. The blood had drained from
her face. From deep within herself, she gathered every last strand of willpower
and tore free from the balustrade. Minki didn’t dare take her eyes off her
father. She inched forward. Her left foot landed on the next step with a
bone-jarring thud that made her head quiver. Still she didn’t take her eyes off
the man standing beneath her.

Minki’s father
was standing stiff and motionless facing the naked wall. His face was right up
against its smooth white surface, his nose a mere inch away. His arms were extended
stiffly along his sides as if he were standing to attention. From this angle,
Minki could see that his eyes were open.

‘Daddy?’

A tense insistence
underlined Minki’s voice. She slowly crept down the stairs towards her father.

He remained
silent immobile. Frozen. Just staring at the wall. Saying nothing. Doing nothing.
Just staring.

Minki reached
the bottom of the staircase. Her limbs atrophied with fear but she kept on
moving.

‘Daddy? Please
... daddy.’ Her voice was cracked with emotion. Her eyes filled with tears. She
took torturous slow steps towards her immobile father. Her one hand was
stretched out in front of her. She crept closer, reaching for him. ‘Please
daddy,’ she pleaded, ‘what’s wrong?’ Sobs choked her voice and racked her tiny
frame. In an excruciating ballet of fear and terror, Minki reached out her
hand. Reached out and touched her father. And then ...

He spoke.
There was no alarm in his voice. No inflection. Nothing. And he said only one
word.

‘Sophia.’

Lindiwe stood
in the backyard of
gogo’s
house, frozen in place.

Spring had
only just begun to stir in the trees that dotted the yard and the neat shrubs
that were arranged along the wooden fence. The tiny lawn on which Lindiwe stood
however was still yellow from the bitter touch of winter. The air was without
movement; a deathly stillness saturated everything.

That was the
first thing that struck her. The utter desolate silence. Not a single sound
stirred the morning stillness.

Lindiwe was
staring at the rear end of
gogo’s
cute little cottage-like house with
its quaint wooden window frames and its bright red kitchen door. But she didn’t
see any of it.

Every morning
since her arrival – without fail –
gogo’s
two Yorkshire Terriers would
rush out to greet her. Licking. Barking. Clawing. With early morning
exuberance.
Bloop
and
Blaps
. The two Yorkies. Without fail either
one or both would come to fetch her and take her into the house.

But this
morning there was only silence. And emptiness.

And there was
something else. Something she couldn’t identify at first. What was bothering
her? What –

And then she
realised. She ran to the wooden fence separating
gogo’s
yard from her
neighbour. Like clockwork, the appearance of the two Yorkies would elicit a fit
of barking from the neighbour’s grumpy old Doberman. But now there was nothing.
The barking had become such a part of her morning ritual that only its absence
now made her notice it. She looked over the fence, scanning the yard of their
neighbour – an old retired railway worker who was only slightly less grumpy
than his dog.

Lindiwe
gasped.

Old Mr
Roelofse kept the Doberman tied to a long chain that allowed the dog to roam
the limits of the yard.

The chain was there.
But attached to the end of it was only an empty collar. The dog was gone.

On the
dew-moistened grass, the empty collar with its chain lay like an incomplete
sentence. An obscene joke with a failed punch line.

Lindiwe walked
anxiously towards the fence on the other side. Here the elderly Du Preez couple
kept their black Labrador unleashed. Free to roam their small neat yard. But
this morning the yard was empty. And the Labrador was gone.

The anxiety in
her chest boiled over into near panic. Lindiwe ran for the back door.

Someone was
behind him.

Joshua paused.
With a measured breeziness he slipped a Camel cigarette from the packet in his shirt
pocket.

Just be
chill. You’re just a hitchhiker, nothing more.

As casually as
possible he turned around.

It was a young
boy. He was staring up at Josh. A blank look on his face. Josh looked around;
the boy was alone. Unattended by an adult. He focused on the little boy’s face
again. That same blank unfaltering look. Josh guessed the boy was around eleven
years old.

‘Hey man, you
got a light on you?’ Josh smiled. Silence. The little boy’s empty stare didn’t
falter.

‘Have you seen
Winston?’ The question came out like a statement. Flat and toneless. Josh
frowned trying to probe the boy’s face for any hidden meaning. There was only
the blank wall of childhood. Josh looked up and down the street and shrugged.
He tried his most amiable and unthreatening expression.

‘Hmm ... Winston?
Now let me see.’ He put on a big show of thinking hard. Appearing to rack his
brain. ‘Nope. You’re the only little boy I’ve seen today. I guess your friend
must be at his girlfriend’s place.’ Josh beamed a nice-guy-next-door smile. Hoping
the kid would at least smile at his joke.

The same blank
look greeted his attempts. There was an endless silence as Joshua waited for
the kid to react in some way ... any way. But he just stared. This kid’s
flippen
creepy, Joshua thought.

Insects.

Joshua lit his
cigarette. ‘Okay. Dude I’ve gotta get moving. So I’ll see-’

‘Winston is
not my friend. Winston is my dog. Have you seen him?’ The kid spoke in the same
toneless voice. But this time there was the hint of something else. It sounded
almost like an accusation.

Insects.

‘Your dog?
Sorry kid, no such luck.’ Joshua was trying hard. But – damn – this boy was
starting to irritate him. ‘If I had the time, I would’ve helped ya-’

‘Winston is my
dog. And he’s gone.’

Joshua nodded
slowly. He narrowed his eyes trying to look sympathetic. It was – he was sure –
a miserable failure. He didn’t feel particularly sympathetic at this stage and
he was sure the kid could see right through him.

‘I’ve looked
everywhere but I can’t find him.’ Blank words just like his blank face. No
emotion at all.
What a psycho kid!

‘Yeah?’ Irritation
was starting to seep into Josh’s words. He was finding it difficult to connect
with Robot Boy.
Time to get a move on.
Josh wanted to open his mouth and
excuse himself in the nicest way possible. But again the boy beat him to it.

‘Mr Wessels’
dog is also gone. It’s a Jack Russel. His name is Zeek. But I can’t find him.’
The boy looked straight at Joshua unblinking. ‘They’re gone.’ Then a moment
later. ‘They’re all gone.’

For the first
time Josh realised the little boy wasn’t looking at him but through him. He moved
his head but the boy’s eyes didn’t follow him.

Screw this.
It was time to be firm. ‘Look here, I’m sorry man.’ Joshua leaned forward and
placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The boy recoiled violently, back-peddling
until he was a couple of feet from Josh.

‘Who are you?
What are you doing here?’ The vacuity in his voice was now gone replaced with a
panicked urgency. Joshua sensed trouble. He held his hands up in the air palms
towards the boy.

‘Hey, relax
dude. Okay?’ Joshua eyed the police station uncertainly. He started backing
away from the panicked boy.

The boy’s eyes
were wide with fear. He looked around frantically. ‘They’re all gone! They’re
all gone!’

Joshua looked
up and down the street. Time to make an exit. ‘Go home, kid.’ Joshua spoke as
firmly as he could manage under the circumstances. ‘Your parents are looking
for you. Go home, now.’ Joshua turned and began walking towards the filling
station in the distance. As he moved away, he could hear the boy’s voice. It
was soft. Barely above a whisper. On any normal day it would have filled Josh’s
heart with a measure of compassion. But this was anything but a normal day.

Insects.

The boy’s
voice had that same toneless dead quality. It gave Joshua the creeps.

‘Winston ... Winston.’
Over and over again. ‘Winston .... Winston ...’

‘Sophia?’

Minki shrank
from her father gasping at her mother’s name.

‘Sophia. Is
that you?’

She stared in horror
at her father; eyes wide in uncomprehending terror. She began to sob
voicelessly. Against the wall her father stood motionless and silent.

Minki wanted
to touch her father. To hold him. But she was afraid to go near him. Moments
before in her room she had felt so close to him. As if she could extract his
physical essence from the air. From a mere memory. Now as she stood inches from
him she had never – in her entire life – felt further away from him. She didn’t
recognise the man that now stood before her.

Minki slowly circled
him. Moving to his right side. She tried to catch a glimpse of his face until
now hidden from her. What she saw shocked her.

Her father’s
face was pressed up against the wall; unblinking, unseeing eyes fixed on a spot
light-years away. But it wasn’t his hollow eyes that shocked Minki. It was the
ridiculous, almost idiotic smile on his face. It was the inane grin of a
brain-damaged child; frozen, unwavering and without humour. Her father’s eyes
and the plastered grin that sat below, were miles apart; they did not belong to
the same face. A cold chill shot down Minki’s spine. She clasped a shaking hand
to her mouth in disbelief. Tears ran into the neckline frills of her dress; her
chin trembled as deep silent sobs surged through her.

‘Daddy, it’s
me. Minki.’

His stare did
not waver. The same idiotic smile froze his lips in place.

‘Daddy?’ Minki
edged closer. ‘Daddy?’ She was about to move even closer when ...

He slowly
twisted his head and looked at her with hollow sightless eyes and that grin

(
oh no that
grin!
)

still on his
face.

Minki slowly
backed away, terror spreading through her.

‘Sophia.’ It
was a slow drawn-out guttural sound. A horrible parody of affection.

So-phee-aaah.

Minki
screamed.

Her father –
her daddy – blinked hard. Looked away. Then turned to look at her again. The hollow
eyes and the dumb grin were gone. She held her breath as the strange man before
her stared into her soul.

‘Minki.’ It
was her name but it shocked her. It sounded horribly out of place. ‘Minki.’ She
wanted him to stop; stop saying her name. She wanted her father back. And then.

It was her
father. Standing before her. As if nothing had happened.

‘I need you to
fix some cereal for yourself.’ There was a disconcerting calmness in his voice.
Minki found this even more unsettling than the zombie that moments before had
been staring into the wall. She backed into the slanting balustrade hoping her
father wouldn’t come anywhere near her. Hoping he wouldn’t touch her. He seemed
completely unaware of her state of terror.

‘I’ve got a
few things to do this morning.’ He turned and was gone, disappearing through
the archway that led from the dining room into the spacious lounge.

Minki sat
against the lower balustrade and cried softly. All she had wanted was her
daddy. All she had wanted was the re-assurance of his presence. The comfort of
his arms around her. She felt confused and scared. And she felt alone; more
alone than she had ever felt before.

She sat for a
moment her head between her knees softly rocking back and forth. Then she
composed herself and walked through a second archway into the kitchen, still
wiping tears from her eyes. She opened a cupboard and reached into the shelf
for the Kellogg’s Fruity Loops. Although she wasn’t hungry, she dutifully
poured herself a small helping into a bowl. She fetched milk from the fridge
poured it over the multi-coloured rings then added sugar.

 She tried to
be brave but it required all her resources. Deep down Minki felt like she was
cracking. She remembered Aunty Terry’s words:
nervous breakdown
.

She listlessly
ate the soggy maize loops. The incident with her father had shaken and scared
her even more than the nightmares this morning. She loved her daddy more than
anyone or anything in the whole wide world. But now ...

She chewed
absently trying not to think of her father.

Now she feared
him with all her heart.