When Time Fails (Silverman Saga Book 2) (26 page)

Arno and Aviva looked at her curiously. Annamari prayed for the floor to open up and swallow her.

‘Sounds serious,’ Arno said. ‘You both look pretty grim. What’s up? Is it about Steynspruit?’

Annamari shook her head. She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She cleared her throat, tried to remember the words she had rehearsed, over and over in her head. Nothing. She started again.

‘I don’t quite know where to start. This is very difficult. What I’m about to tell you… well, I’m not sure Aviva should be here…’

‘We don’t need to have any secrets from Avi. We’re all going to be family,’ Arno said.

Annamari took a deep breath. She started speaking. She couldn’t look at Arno. She couldn’t look at Thys. She wanted to die. She ploughed on. She made no excuses. She had no excuses. She had been incredibly stupid. She had fallen pregnant. And then she had lied to Thys – to everyone – for years. She was so sorry, so very, very sorry.

She forced herself to look at Arno. He was deathly pale.

‘So you’re telling me that Pa isn’t my father? Is that what you are saying?’

She nodded.

‘Pa, did you know?’

Annamari held her breath. What would Thys say?

‘Yes,’ Thys said. ‘I knew.’

‘You married her knowing she was pregnant with someone else’s child – and then you lied about it?’

Annamari cringed at the contempt in Arno’s voice.

‘No, I didn’t know then. I found out later. When you were – older.’

‘How much older? How did you find out? Did… did she tell you?’

Annamari flinched. The way he had spat out that “she” – it was like a knife piercing her heart.

Thys shook his head. ‘I just knew.’

‘And what did you do? What did she say when you confronted her? Why didn’t you tell me?’

There it was – that “she” again. Annamari shuddered.

‘I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything. I prayed that your mother would … I don’t know: I prayed that the Lord would give her the strength to … to tell me.’

‘And you didn’t say anything to me? Didn’t you think I deserved to know?’

‘I didn’t know what effect it would have on you,’ Thys said, then shook his head. ‘No, that’s not true. I was scared. I didn’t want to risk … I don’t know… I wanted things to stay as they were. I loved your mother. I loved you. I couldn’t risk losing you. I hated knowing, and I hated having to keep it a secret. But to risk losing your mother, to risk losing you... I couldn’t do it. I’m so sorry, son. I’m so sorry.’

Arno stood up, his fists clenched. ‘Don’t … don’t … I’m not your son. How could you pretend, how could you lie? All these years, you pretended that I was your son. How could you?’

‘Because you are. You are my son. You always will be. You have been my son from the day you were born. Nothing can ever change that.’

Arno turned to Annamari. She was dying inside but managed to meet her son’s furious eyes.

‘So, if I have the story right, you trapped Pa into marriage, you lied to him about me, you acted like a cheap...’

‘I… I… it wasn’t….’ Annamari spread her arms wide. She didn’t know what to say.

Thys interrupted. ‘Enough, Arno! Don’t speak to your mother like that. No matter what she did when she was a young girl, she is still your mother. She has always been a wonderful mother to you. You cannot deny that. And she’s my wife. She never trapped me into doing anything I didn’t want to do. I was always going to marry her. Our wedding day was the happiest day of my life. It just came a little earlier than I had planned, but I’ve never regretted it, not for a moment.’

Thys got up and came over to Annamari’s chair. He put his arm around her. ‘I cannot remember a time when I didn’t love your mother, Arno. Yes, I was angry when I realised what she had done, but I got over it because I loved her, and I loved you, and nothing was going to change that. Nothing will change that. Ever.’

Annamari fumbled in her pocket for a tissue to blow her streaming nose.

‘You have to forgive her, son. You have to forgive us. Please, listen to me,’ Thys said.

‘I don’t have to listen to you. You’re not my father.’ Arno fired a dagger of sheer contempt at them and strode out of the room.

Aviva scrambled after him. She stopped at the door, gave them a look of deep compassion and said: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll speak to him. He’ll come around. He loves you.’

***

The sun went away. Annamari sat on th
e
stoe
p
listening to the silence of the night. It was pitch dark, the moon and the stars hiding their glow behind invisible clouds. She reached for her coffee. Sipped. Grimaced. It was cold. She sipped again. The wind gusted across th
e
stoe
p
. She shivered. The temperature dropped. A vicious streak of lightning split the sky, giving her a momentary glimpse of the remaining poplars. She jumped when the thunder followed. She sipped again. The heavens wept. Still she sat, ignoring the spray lashing at her from the broken gutter.

‘Annamari, come in. You’ll get sick sitting out there in the cold,’ Thys called softly from the French doors.

She ignored him. She didn’t care if she did get sick. She deserved to be sick. She deserved to suffer as she had made Arno suffer; as she had made Thys suffer.

‘
Liefi
e
, come on. De Wet is going to be skyping us soon. You know how excited he is about the whole India tournament. Come inside now.’

De Wet. And Steyn. She’d have to tell them. She sipped her cold coffee again. She hauled herself to her feet and walked into the house, into the kitchen, poured the remains of her coffee into the sink. Then she walked, down the passage, past Arno’s closed bedroom door, into the study to confront her younger son on the other side of the world.

De Wet’s skype call came through. His face shattered into a Picasso portrait; his voice a staccato jumble of words. And then nothing. There was a message on the computer monitor about contact with the network being lost. Thys tried connecting through the 3G but that didn’t work either. Annamari sent up a prayer of thanks for the bad weather. It gave them time to ... to what? De Wet would still have to be told. Thys sent De Wet a text message about the storm and a time to skype the next day.

***

Annamari and Thys sat in the lounge, looking at the silent, blank television. The storm had probably knocked out their DSTV satellite television reception as well. It didn’t matter. They hadn’t bothered to turn the television on. Thys held her lifeless hand. He squeezed it gently. The storm continued to rage outside. Hail clattered on the roof, making conversation difficult. It didn’t matter either. There was nothing to say. Not yet.

They waited.

Thys got up and went to the kitchen. He returned with two mugs of steaming coffee. He put the mugs down on the coffee table in front of her.

‘We haven’t had supper,’ Thys said.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Are you hungry? Can I get you something? A sandwich?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Thys sat down. He picked up his mug, blew on it, sipped. Put the mug down. She watched him. She looked back at the lifeless television.

They waited.

The hail stopped. The storm died. The silence was deafening.

Arno appeared in the doorway. Aviva was next to him, holding his arm.

‘I have one more question,’ he said. ‘Who is my father? My biological father?’

Time stuttered.

This was it. The moment she had been dreading since…always. And now it had arrived. She had never thought about how she would tell Arno. She wondered fleetingly why she had never thought about it, rehearsed it, found a way to break it to him gently.

‘Alan Silverman,’ she blurted.

Time stopped.

Arno blanched. Aviva looked confused, then shook her head wildly.

‘What?’ Arno whispered. ‘Are you crazy? That’s sick! How can you say that?’

‘I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry,’ Annamari said.

Arno turned to Thys. ‘Pa, she’s lying, isn’t she? Tell me she’s lying.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Thys said. Then added, slowly, so there could be no misunderstanding: ‘Alan Silverman is your biological father.’

***

Later, lying in bed, unable to sleep, Annamari found she was unable to recall the details of the dreadful scene that followed. There had been shouting, and crying, and accusations.

She remembered Arno shouting: ‘Did Alan Silverman know? Did he know about me?’

‘No. I don’t think so,’ Thys had said.

‘Yes, I’m sure he did,’ she had answered.

And then… then, or was it later? She’d had to tell Thys, and Arno, even Aviva who had wiped away her tears and was sitting as far from Arno as she could on the couch. She’d told them about that humiliating scene with Alan. The one which had haunted her for years, which she’d tried to forget. About the time she had gone to tell him she was pregnant and he had said he wouldn’t marry her; and she had said that she would never, ever have married him.

‘Why did he never say anything to me?’ Arno’s anguish was plain.

‘He was incredibly proud of you,’ Aviva said quietly. ‘I don’t think he ever really loved anyone in his life – apart from my mother. But he was proud of you. He always compared you to Yair. He told Yair to be more like you. I did too…Oh my god, I never knew…I never thought… what is wrong with me?’

Annamari watched helplessly as Aviva doubled over and sobbed, her terrible grief shaking her slight body. Arno started to reach for her, then stopped, pain and confusion twisting his face into a grotesque mask.

Silence stretched into hours. Then Arno said the words she had been dreading: ‘Now what?’

Annamari shook her head. But she knew. It was over. Her son’s heart was broken, again, and it was all her fault. And Aviva – that poor, poor girl, after everything she had been through.

Aviva, curled into foetal ball on the edge of the couch, hugged her knees even tighter, and answered Arno’s anguished question. She whispered: ‘Nothing. It’s over. It’s all over.’

‘No,’ said Thys.

Annamari stared at him, shocked.

‘Let’s not make hasty decisions here,’ Thys said. ‘Let’s… there are … let’s think about this.’

What was there to think about? There was nothing to think about. It was wrong. There were laws. Arno and Aviva could go to prison. They were finished. They were sinners. Iniquitous sinners. Thys had said so.

Thys said: ‘Listen, the decision is yours, Arno – yours and Aviva’s. Don’t do anything rash. Don’t do anything stupid. Think about it. Think about why you think… why you and Aviva shouldn’t, can’t be together.’

‘Because she’s my... my sister. Oh my god. She’s my sister.’ Fresh tears streamed down Arno’s white face. He brushed at them angrily and glared at Thys. ‘What else is there?’

***

Annamari opened her eyes. She must have finally fallen asleep. Thys wasn’t in bed. Through the crack in the curtains the sky was starting to lighten. Morning was coming. A new day. She turned over and buried her head in her pillow. So what if it was a new day? Nothing had changed. Nothing could change. A few metres away, in De Wet’s old room, she could picture Arno battling his pain, tormented by Aviva’s distraught face as she closed the door of his bedroom behind her. And turned the key.

She turned over again. Closed her eyes. Tried to take long, slow, sleep-inducing breaths. Started counting sheep… again. Stupid, stupid old wives’ tale. It had never worked before. What made her think it would work now? She flung the duvet back. She needed fresh air.

Hugging her dressing gown around her, she made her way down the passage. The doors to Arno’s room and De Wet’s room were closed. She listened closely as she walked past. Nothing. Thys was in the study, playing on the computer. ‘Do you want some coffee?’ she asked. He shook his head.

She settled down in one of the rickety chairs on th
e
stoe
p
and looked out towards the Malutis just as the sun peeked over the top. She looked away… and stopped. Stared. Tears gathered. She blinked and looked again. There were only two poplars there. Another must have been blown down in last night’s storm. Soon, there wouldn’t be any left.

The sun crept higher in the clear blue sky. It was going to be another beautiful day. It was going to be a dreadful day.

Thys sat down heavily in the chair opposite hers. He rubbed his hand across his bloodshot eyes.

‘I’ve been reading. On the internet,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘Have you ever heard of genetic sexual attraction?’

She shook her head. She didn’t want to hear what he had found. He was like Thabo Mbeki. Always surfing the internet looking for answers to things there were no answers to. Mbeki thought he had found the answer to Aids and people said hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people had died because of what he thought he had learned on the internet.

‘It’s apparently a well-documented phenomenon,’ Thys continued. ‘It’s an attraction between close blood relatives – siblings usually– who have not grown up together; who may not even know of each other’s existence. Then they meet as adults, are immediately attracted to each other and fall in love. Most don’t ever find out they are siblings. There are quite a few reported cases but there are probably a lot more.’

‘So what are you saying? That Arno and Aviva have this… what did you call it?’

‘Genetic sexual attraction. Yes. Probably.’

‘So what? They still can’t be … they can’t get married or anything.’

Thys was silent. Annamari looked away, towards her mutilated poplar sentries. They looked so sad, so sadly pathetic.

‘Why not?’ Thys said, so softly she thought she’d imagined it.

‘What?’

‘I said, why not. Why can’t Thys and Aviva be... be a couple?’

Annamari gaped at her husband. Had he lost his mind?

‘Thys… are you crazy? It’s ... it’s incest.’

Thys leaned forward, rested his hands on his knees. He spoke slowly. Deliberately. Carefully choosing his words. ‘I’ve read...last night, on the internet. It seems a lot of people are campaigning to … well, to change the law about incest. They say consensual sex between two consenting adults – a grown up brother and sister for example – a couple like Arno and Aviva. They said that isn’t incest.’

‘Have you lost your mind? Of course it’s incest!’

Thys ignored her outburst and continued: ‘They call it a con... consanguinamorous relationship. Or something like that. I probably didn’t pronounce it properly. Anyway they say incest is only when it’s a power thing – when the one partner doesn’t have a choice.’

‘That’s crazy. No one will ever believe that. Incest is incest. It’s illegal. And that’s because it’s wrong. For heaven’s sake, Thys, you know incest is wrong. The bible says it’s wrong. You of all people, yo
u
know that’s what the bible says… you know the bible backwards.’

Thys learned forward and stared at her. He drew in a deep breath. ‘The bible says a lot of things
,
liefi
e
. But there are some things in the bible... there are things in there that are wrong.’

Annamari opened her mouth to object. Her voice was a strangled gasp. ‘But... but...’

Thys ignored her and continued: ‘Things we don’t accept anymore. And there are even some things that the bible says are okay but we know better. Things that are not only illegal – they are immoral.’

‘You’ve lost it, Thys. You have totally lost your mind!’

Thys smiled at her, sadly. ‘Remember, when we were little
,
liefi
e
? We were told that the bible said Apartheid was right. Every Sunday, we heard in church that God had said that black and white people were different and should not mix – remember? Well, that part of the bible is wrong. It’s only rightwing crazies who still say that.’

‘But Thys, there are other parts of the bible that contradict that. You always quoted those parts to your father when he got all sniffy and angry about the kibbutz. But there’s nothing in the bible that says incest is okay – is there?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘There isn’t. But the bible also says – without any contradiction – that slavery is okay. And it also says that women who commit adultery should be stoned.’

Annamari felt her cheeks burning.

‘So you see. We cannot take everything that’s in the bible literally. We cannot believe in everything in the bible. We shouldn’t.’

‘Thys! Oh my God. What are you saying? That you no longer believe?’

Anguish, uncertainty, pain, flashed across Thys’ drawn face before he buried it in his giant hands, with their now slightly swollen knuckles.

‘I don’t know. I really don’t know,’ he mumbled. He looked up at her and wiped his eyes. ‘I do know that I no longer have much faith in the bible.’

‘What?’ she croaked.

‘I haven’t... my faith... I’ve been questioning so much, for so long. Man’s interpretation of what we say is God’s word has brought so much pain and suffering to this world. Too many people interpret the bible to mean what they want it to mean – and then use that to justify causing harm to others.’

He paused and leaned forward in his chair and clasped her hands. ‘I cannot believe a God of mercy and forgiveness would want His word to cause anyone pain. Certainly not innocents like Arno and Aviva who have already suffered so much.’

Annamari shook her head and pulled her hands away.

‘But Thys. There’s a reason the law – and the bible – forbids incest. I don’t care what fancy long word you call it. Incest has always been forbidden because children born as a result of incest are born with deformities – they are crippled, or retarded, or have dreadful diseases.’

‘That’s not true
,
liefi
e
. There’s research that has proved that that’s a fallacy. Children born from an incestuous relationship may have a slightly increased chance of inheriting a bad genetic condition – but the fact is that most don’t.’

Annamari bristled. ‘And when did you find time to find out so much about it?’

‘I’ve been searching the internet for information about this from the time Arno came home with Aviva. I was shocked. And horrified. I realised that was why you had fainted. But then I started thinking about it. And I wondered. Why was I so appalled? They make such a happy, wonderful couple. So after the doctor had come and given you something to make you sleep, I went to the study and I searched the internet and read everything I could find. And again last night.’

‘And?’

‘And I’ve come to the conclusion that if Arno and Aviva want to stay together, we should support them.’

‘Are you out of your mind? They’ll end up in jail. And what will people say? What will we tell De Wet? And Steyn? What about your father? He would never allow…’

‘They will never know. We are the only people who know. You and me, Arno and Aviva. If we don’t tell, no one need ever know.’

Annamari shook her head. ‘That journalist knows. She asked me…’

‘That journalist has no proof.’

‘But…’

‘Annamari, that journalist has nothing except her suspicions based on what? How is she going to prove anything? Don’t you want your son to be with the woman he loves? Look how long he took to get over Beauty. Do you really want him to go through that dreadful pain again? He loves Aviva. Anyone can see how much he loves her. And it’s obvious that she loves him.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.’

‘It’s simple… can you accept seeing Arno and Aviva making a life together?’

Annamari didn’t answer. She couldn’t. It was too much to take in. She looked out towards the poplars. Force of habit, really. They weren’t as reassuring as they used to be. Something caught her eye. Something wasn’t right.

‘Thys, where’s Arno’s car? It was parked over there, under the jackalberry tree. But it’s not there now.’

***

Two weeks later, Arno’s car was found in Alexandra Township in Johannesburg. Stripped. There was no sign of the occupants.

‘I’m very sorry, Mrs van Zyl, Mr van Zyl,’ the young, black police officer said. ‘We’ve searched everywhere but there is no sign of them. We found some blood on the back seat but we’re not sure whose it is. The laboratory is going to test it but there is such a backlog... I’m so sorry. We suspect they were hijacked somewhere … We will continue to look for them but… you have to be strong.’