Free Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic

avenues.
    There’s the cover of his book! – I thought – it’s that picture of Uncle Doug’s, I swear. But I held my tongue. Just as there was no point anticipating a photograph Auerbach might still take, so there was no point recognizing one he had taken already. What could one say about it? Snap! And then?
    He’s playing a game – I thought this too – he’s having some fun. All this wandering around the city is nothing less than a guided tour of the places he’s captured on film. He’s letting us know we’re on his turf. There! That place with the palm tree! And what about that one covered in ivy? It was like counting caravans, Gypsy caravans like our own, when we drove down to the coast on holiday, a game my father dreamed up to keep me occupied when I got bored and restless. Who’ll be the first to see the sea?
    When we pulled up outside the house in Fourth Avenue, I had a more cynical thought: is this really the place he picked from up on the koppie? Neither Brookes nor I can contradict him. He might have chosen it this minute, relying on those intuitions he makes so much of. All you can say for certain is that the roof is green. Racing green. Groendakkies .
    While Auerbach went to see if anyone was home, and Brookes got out of the car to stretch and peel the fabric of his shirt off his belly like dead skin, I strolled a little way along the pavement to look at the house next door. My choice. It was as long and narrow as one side of a semi, a place that had lost its better half. The half left behind was yellow. A dozen steps led up to a stoep with a metal railing of diamonds and quoits. Beside the gate was a letterbox with a pitched roof and a chimney standing on an iron plinth like a maquette of the larger structure: they matched one another perfectly, down to the orange tiles and the red door. I could not wait to see what was behind that door. It might take another man’s charm to pass through it, but the choice was mine.
    Then Auerbach came back to the car to fetch his bags and invite us in. This knack for getting people to open up surprised me less the second time round.
    Mrs Ditton lumbered ahead of us down the passage, swaying at every step to sweep one thigh past another, almost brushing the walls. We followed her into the lounge. The room was lined with dressers and display cabinets, and for all its clutter peculiarly hushed and drained, like a little-visited annex in a museum. I remember stepping lightly from a patterned rug on to dark floorboards, aware that all around things were asleep on their shadows. Even Brookes took the boom out of his voice. Set out in cabinets of coffin wood and pillared glass were toby jugs and cruet sets, upturned port glasses, cut-glass dishes, fragile and flowery ornaments, iced frivolities for wedding cakes in lilac, rose and leaf green. Of course, you cannot see these shades in Auerbach’s photograph, although the black and white is perfect for lacquered wood and tarnished mirror. The ball-and-claw suite is ankle-deep in shadow, the curtains are so densely grained they could be carved from the same heavy wood as the furniture. There is a murderer behind every one.
    An object stood out in the gloom: a low coffee table with a cracked top.
    â€˜Is this from a lorry?’ Brookes asked incredulously, shifting aside a pewter urn on a tea cloth. Now I also saw the table for what it was: a windscreen welded at each of its four corners to a shell casing.
    â€˜A hippo,’ she said. The flesh of her arms shook with laughter.
    â€˜Military vehicle,’ Auerbach glossed it for him, ‘troop carrier.’ After a glance at the table, he went back to rifling out the legs of the tripod.
    â€˜They drove over a landmine with Jimmy inside.’
    â€˜Jimmy?’
    â€˜My son.’
    She watched Auerbach suspiciously. I saw that the pads of her bare feet were so thick and round that her toes did not touch the floor