Читать книгу My Only Story - Deon Wiggett - Страница 22

‘Yes, we do have a school newspaper,’ says Estie in the archive, and she shows me a cupboard with back issues of Stabilis.

‘Can I maybe also see the yearbooks for 1993 and 1994?’ I ask, and Estie hands them over before going back into her office to perform a dozen tasks.

I slam down the yearbooks on a glass-topped exhibition case. I feel really weird about all of this. I have now lied to both Marzaan and Estie, and I am about to see Willem the way he looked not long before I met him – the version of Willem that taught here for all those years.

My hands tremble as I page through the 1994 yearbook looking for a picture of the teaching faculty.

There they are. Row after row in black and white. I scan all the teachers’ faces, scan them twice. Then the names in the caption twice too. Willem is not there.

It could be that the staff picture was taken after he left. I open the 1993 edition and search for the staff. No Willem.

‘Um,’ I say in the doorway to Estie’s office, ‘can I maybe have 1991 and 1992?’

I find no Willem in 1992. Nor in 1991.

And only then do I get it. I have no actual proof that Willem taught at Grey. I have come here because he told me he was here. But he wasn’t. His so-called history at Grey College is nothing but a fiction; a poisonous invention from the tongue of my personal bullfrog.

I am standing in a high school’s museum on a weekday, when people like me are supposed to have careers. And for what? Willem was never here. I have come all this way to run a fool’s errand.

I am not going to lie: I was in a bleak space standing in that Grey museum. It translated into some extremely unflattering thoughts about Bloemfontein, and also about all of humanity.

I do not like it in Bloemfontein. I have already spent a night here and now I am wasting a day here. It is 11 a.m. – if I leave now, I will hit Joburg before traffic and be safely home by 3 p.m., no mess, no fuss. Plus I will have four hours in my car to think about my life choices. I do not know the first thing about being a detective. I know about advertising. I should be in advertising, like a normal person; not trying to catch my own personal sex offender in a witless, hopeless quest that will not lead to salvation, but to financial ruin and professional disrepute.

As I was saying: I was in a bleak space.

Abandoning the useless yearbooks, I gloomily page through Stabilis. It is the first edition of 1991 and not even half my heart is in it; only really my brain, which likes history and newspapers. For instance: on page 2, inspiration strikes a Stabilis staffer, who talks to some black cleaning staff oppressed by apartheid.

Under the headline ‘Hostel workers work well together’, the piece starts: ‘The Black [sic] hostel workers of Grey College are a very tight and happy unit.

‘Several Black hostel workers told STABILIS that they are extremely happy with the positions they occupy. They would not like to leave their posts either. Not one of them currently plans on leaving Grey and they would like to keep working in the hostels for an unlimited time.’

Then the article lists the workers’ tasks, which ‘basically involve cleaning the hostels, [doing] linen and laundry, and cleaning the teachers’ flats. Sometimes service in the kitchen is also required.’

But all’s well that ends well. ‘Although it is a lot of work for so few workers, everybody is happy and they do not complain about the amount of work,’ Stabilis reports.

I would love to contact these segregated workers from 1991 to hear what they think of what was written back then, but the story in Stabilis does not include their names or any quotes.

I turn the page and a story at the bottom of page 4 catches my eye. ‘New blood for STABILIS’ it reads. And underneath: ‘Last year we unfortunately had to bid Mr Breytenbach farewell when he left for Willowmore.’

What do you mean Willem left for Willowmore?

Moreover, where the fuck is Willowmore?

In this museum, I thought I would learn how Willem’s seven missing years ended. Yet here I am and it seems I am actually at the beginning. I will need more yearbooks.

I go back into Estie’s office, grab an armful, and walk out with lopsided urgency. On the glass-topped exhibition case, I fumble through the yearbook for 1990, when Stabilis says he left.

I find the staff picture and I do not even need to scan it. From a sea of teachers’ faces, Willem’s leaps out at me like a stab in the eye. Willem grinning at the camera like the cat who got the cream; parasite and bullfrog rolled into one.

Willem taught at Grey College for two years only, and he was involved in many extramural activities. I learn this from the pictures in the only yearbooks in which he appears: 1989 and 1990.

We are talking typical high-school yearbook pictures here. At school, maybe you also had a day once a year when school pictures were taken. Some professional photographer comes to your school, sets up his expensive-looking professional equipment, and then proceeds to fill the school day by taking pictures of all configurations in which schoolchildren occur. Class pictures. Then sports teams. Societies. Hostels. Achievements. Novelties. The intercom in the classroom buzzes all day long: ‘Will all under-15 rugby teams come to the hall immediately for photos; all under-15 rugby players to the hall immediately.’

It is one of the best school days of the year, as the photos keep interrupting the eternal monotony of youth. No schoolwork can be done, because half the class plays rugby.

Paging through the yearbook, I can picture these scenes from decades ago. Willem and twenty-six boys from Stabilis have been called over the intercom. The teacher and the boys goof around as they wait for the photographer to make some technical adjustment. They exchange little jokes that sometimes just cross a line; Willem has a familiar manner with the boys, so they have a familiar manner with him. He is not like the other teachers. You can really talk to Willem. You can tell him things and trust him to tell no one. If a broad-thinking adult is called for, Willem is who you will call.

I take pictures of everything. If Willem is in a picture, I take a picture. Every configuration in which he had access to boys from Grey College; each boy’s name printed in the caption below it. In here, in these long-ago photos, are the pieces of the puzzle.