Sunday Times Literary Awards shortlist | David Ralph Viviers’ debut novel: beyond space and time in the Karoo

FICTION

Criteria: The winner should be a novel of rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction.

Mirage by David Ralph Viviers (Umuzi)

Mirage is a fast-paced metaphysical mystery set amid the intricate strata and koppies of the Karoo. In essence, Viviers’ debut novel is a story about loss and healing, and how we use narrative to process pain.

Judges said: An intriguing narrative that transcends time and space. The plot of this novel seamlessly connects the past and the present without impeding the flow of the narrative. Erudite without being pompous or overly didactic, the author guides the reader through lessons in history, cosmology and a spectrum of diverse human emotions. With a sharp, observant eye that sparks our own curiosity, the author has crafted a deeply affecting and sensuous novel. 

The genesis of Mirage:

The idea for Mirage probably began on a (slightly tipsy) winter evening in Matjiesfontein in the local bar. I was on my way to Sutherland to go stargazing with a friend and we’d stopped in the village for the night. I was immediately captivated by the single street that seemed frozen in time, surrounded by endless stretches of veld. I’d found the setting for my book.

The writings of Olive Schreiner were another important influence. When I first came across her at university, I was intrigued by how she wrote about the Karoo landscape — its ancient rocks and stars and thunderstorms. She had this perception of a “oneness” running through all things which, as an impressionable student, I was fascinated by. The character of Victorian author Elizabeth Tenant in my book was inspired by her. I wanted to create a story that played with time: a Victorian writer (Elizabeth) and a modern-day student (Michael), though separated by a century, exert a subtle pull on each other’s lives.

It was only halfway through writing the novel, though, that the true concern of Mirage revealed itself to me: our search for healing after loss. Is there really a narrative to our lives, or do we just create the patterns as we do with constellations? What happens to the things we lose in this world? Are they really gone forever, or do they take on other forms, a kind of recycling of stardust? I think the heart of the novel lies in the bond between Michael, the protagonist, and his mother, Erica. 

Mirage is also an excuse to put all the things I’ve been fascinated by since childhood into one story: the Karoo, the cosmos, botany and local mythology.

EXTRACT:

It pierces into the night: a wail, out in the darkness.

He listens, instantly tense. There it is again. Between a moan and a whisper. A creature? A child? The first sound is joined by a second: lower, dragged out. There’s a regularity to them, something cyclical, like a chant. He starts making his way towards the hotel, picturing lost spirits murmuring out in the veld, but as he steps up to the door, he’s met with more practical concerns. What if there are no rooms available? Or if he’s too late? As if confirming his thoughts, a church bell chimes in the distance, sending iron ripples off into the night.

The light in the hotel comes from fringed lampshades, turning everything soft and pink, like the inside of a conch shell. Paintings of foreign countrysides line the walls: nymphs in trees and water sprites under full moons, shadows slipping through woods. As his eyes follow their pale forms up the staircase, the grandfather clock at the bottom takes over from the church bell. But the bird wired to its cage is untroubled. Goura Victoria (Victoria crowned pigeon), a plaque reads. And now that he notices it, Latin engravings blink throughout the lobby, between the dangling roots of monsteras, naming potted plants, botanical drawings, severed heads with curling horns. Species of butterfly frozen in flight under glass, the markings on their wings like ink on blotting paper.

“Meneer? Have you made a reservation?”

The voice comes from behind a Phalaenopsis amabilis orchid. Even she has a label pinned to her jacket: Patrys. Patrys receptionistii, probably in her late forties, without the sense of irony you’d expect from someone in bridgeless glasses and a high-necked blouse with a pattern of swallows. She calls to mind the kind of shadowy things he’s associated with his father’s line since childhood: bluish photographs of glassy-eyed couples, stories of the Great Trek recounted by great aunts. The skin sags slightly on either side of her mouth, a replica of Queen Victoria’s portrait above her.

“Sorry. It was a last-minute thing.”

She pulls out a book from a drawer.

What will he do if the place is full? Go on to the next town and try his luck there? Find a dingy motel on the side of the road? But the last discordant chime tapers away to silence. He can hear no other voices, no muffled conversation drifting down the staircase, no scrape of cutlery or clink of glasses. Is anyone else even here?

Patrys licks a finger and turns some pages. Michael examines the orchid, a film of dust at its edges. Silk, or something coarser.

‘How long will you be staying with us?’

He pays for two nights. Nearly all his tutoring money.

“Single?”

Is it that obvious? “Well, just for now. Trying to focus on me.” He laughs. The sound is unconvincing, even to him.

She looks up. “Would you like a single room?”

He can feel the flush spreading up his neck. “Actually, would it be possible to have Room 303?”

Patrys stops paging. “The Tenant Room?”

“If possible?”

“People don’t usually want to sleep in that one. We have others available.”

“No, that one’s fine. Thank you.”

She writes something in her book, then runs her finger along the rows of copper circles behind her as swallows migrate across her shoulder blades. She explains the various mealtimes, which he immediately forgets. He can still make dinner now, but he’ll have to hurry.

“Up the staircase. Second last on the right.”

He’s about to turn away when he remembers the noises. “Sorry, I think there’s something out there in the dark. Sounds a bit like chanting.”

“Chanting?”

“Like a faint moaning in the distance.”

The corner of her mouth twitches. “You must mean the cherubim.”

The word conjures up images of winged creatures, contorting, wailing just beyond the hotel’s pool of light.

“Sorry?”

“How well do you know your Bible?”

The question surprises him. “Uh, not as well as I probably should. Why?”

She seems to want to comment on this, then changes her mind. “The idea comes from Genesis.” She looks up at the ceiling as she recites the verse, the light catching in her glasses so that he can no longer see her eyes. “And at the east of Eden, he stationed the cherubim with the flashing blade which turned round and round to guard the way to the tree of life. It’s a sort of joke the locals have come up with here.”

Michael wonders what kind of world he has stepped into.

Patrys stares at him, as if the riddle should be obvious. “What has blades that go round and round?”

He says of the lopsided structure at the padstal. “A windmill.”

“There’s two of them just to the east of the village, built back in the early days. We call them the cherubim, guarding the entrance to Sterfontein. Eden.”

Silence.

“It’s supposed to be funny because this is the Karoo. It’s the opposite of Eden.”

His laugh, too late, is even less convincing than before. Maybe his theory at the padstal was right. Maybe the journal’s third symbol depicts one of the cherubim, guarding a forbidden secret of the Karoo.

“Anyway, that moan you hear is the blades which haven’t been oiled in decades. Each year they get louder.”

He turns towards the stairs but, again, something stops him. The remnants of a half-inhabited dream. A red staircase.

“Everything all right?”

He still hasn’t moved from the spot.

“Uh. Yes. Thank you.” Coincidence. The frequency illusion. He begins following it up to the first floor, avoiding the eyes of the nymphs along the walls. As if bracing himself for whatever is above, he keeps one hand on the banister. On the last step, he pauses. He almost expects to wake up.

But a few seconds later, Michael opens the door to the room Elizabeth Tenant lived and died in, more than a hundred years before.