and bushes behind the waterfall. Ross was in front and Raatgever behind him. That was the last anyone ever saw of Raatgever – even Ross, if you believe his story.
The rest of the party bathed in the cold, falling water or in the little pool at its base; a few of the other boys eventually climbed to the ledge as the two Basils had done, but did not venture far along the creek in pursuit of them. All accepted that Ross and Raatgever were extraordinary people and at times it was best to leave them to pursue their own joint agenda. The group had arrived at Baracara Falls just after 10:00 a.m. At 12:30 they had lunch, making sure to leave some for the two Basils. Just before one o’clock Ross appeared on the lip of the waterfall looking troubled.
‘Did Ratty come back?’ he shouted. When they told him that he had not, Ross seemed more agitated.
‘We thought he was with you. We saw him follow you into the bush,’ Father De Montfort said.
‘I thought he was behind me all the time, but when I turned around he’d disappeared. I’m going back to find him.’
And that, essentially, is the story. Pretty soon everybody was topside the falls looking for Raatgever, except the rather corpulent Tony D’Andrade and two of the girls. Alison Cossou had sprinted up the falls quicker than most of the boys. Ross took them to the spot where he said he had turned around for the first time to say something to Raatgever, only to discover that he had vanished. The others were surprised how far they’d gone along the creek; it was quite difficult going in places – there were swampy patches and places that were quite deep and other spots that seemed particularly gloomy and sinister. They could not understand why the two Basils would want to trudge through all that – it was hardly anyone’s idea of fun. Ross said that he and Raatgever had spoken to each other from time to time and that he’d heard Ratty’s footsteps splashing behind him – although when he turned around it was partly because he had not heard anything from Raatgever for a while.
The whole story sounded improbable and one of the other boys said, ‘The two of you concocted this whole thing to play a trick on us – it’s just the kind of thing you two would do. I’m sure Ratty’s hiding in the bush somewhere, or else he’s back at the falls by now, sharing the joke with fat D’Andrade and the girls.’
This immediately seemed plausible to all, including the priest, and they were ready to abandon the search and return to the waterfall, but it was hard not to believe Ross, who was by now visibly disturbed and swore that it was no trick. For more than an hour they shouted Raatgever’s name and searched up and down the creek for him, making forays into the bush wherever there was an opening in the undergrowth through which he could have walked off into the surrounding forest. There was no response and no signs that Raatgever had been there.
The group assembled back at the falls at 4:30 p.m.. By then the three who had remained at the foot of the falls had grown concerned at all the distant shouting and thrashing around they had heard – and at the passage of time. The boatman then came along the path from the river to discover why the group was not waiting on the riverbank at 4:15 as planned, and there was a moment of pandemonium with everyone speaking and shouting at the same time. All were silenced by a loud and desperate shout of ‘Ratt-a-a-a-y!’ from Alison Cossou, who then burst into tears. At that point a profound gloom settled on the group. Led by the Jesuit Father, they prayed that they would find Raatgever – or that he would find them – and then they prayed for his family and the repose of his soul if anything tragic had happened to him.
When it began to get dark and they prepared to leave, Basil Ross announced that he was not going – he would spend the night there and wait for his friend. ‘He would do the same for me,’ he said firmly, and could not be persuaded to leave and return in the morning with the search party. In the end Father De Montfort decided to stay with him. Next morning the others, along with a large and curious group from Bartica, arrived at first light to find Ross and the priest wet and hungry, and miserable because there was still no sign of the missing boy.
For two days searches were made of the forest around the creek and far beyond; then a party of policemen arrived from town with dogs and they spent two days combing the area, but there was no sign of Raatgever. The speculation was that he had wandered far into the forest, got lost and been eaten by a jaguar or had fallen into a bottomless pit. Some said that if he knew how to survive he could wander around the Mazaruni-Potaro jungle for months.
All this was decades ago, and there has never been a satisfactory explanation of the mystery. There were those who harboured the suspicion that Ross had somehow done away with Raatgever – those who remembered their intense rivalry of a few years before; but no one could provide a plausible account of how he might have accomplished this without leaving some trace of this presumed crime.
But what of Ross himself? What did he think? On that harrowing night spent at the foot of Baracara falls, Ross had told the Father that he felt responsible for Raatgever’s disappearance. It crossed the priest’s mind that Ross might be about to confess to having done some harm to Raatgever, and he blessed himself quietly and asked the boy if he felt he needed to go to confession. Ross replied that he didn’t know; he claimed that he had been quarrelling with Raatgever as they walked single file up the bed of the stream. He’d been jealous and angry that his friend and Alison Cossou seemed to be in love with each other and then he’d been annoyed with himself for having these feelings. At the top of the falls that morning Ross had been irritated anew over the fact that he and Raatgever couldn’t seem to get away from each other, that it had occurred to Raatgever to climb the waterfall at the same time that he’d begun ascending the rocks. Then Raatgever had followed him up the stream. After they had walked some distance he had told Raatgever that he was fed up with him and he claimed that his friend had replied tauntingly, saying: ‘You’ll never be rid of me, I’m your doppelgänger. Wherever you go, I will follow, like Ruth in the bible.’ This had made him more angry and he refused to look back at Raatgever, although the latter eventually began to plead with him.
‘I’m only joking, Ross. Look at me, I’m your best friend, I always was and always will be.’
‘I wish you’d disappear for good,’ Ross had told him.
‘You would suffer most if I did,’ was the reply from behind him. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you yet that we are nothing without each other? It’s your wonderful Catholic religion, Ross, that makes it impossible for you to accept the truth: we are two halves of a single soul. Please Ross, forgive me whatever it is that I’ve done to wrong you: forgive me and accept me – accept yourself.’
‘I wish to God you’d disappear, just disappear! Vanish!’ Ross had heard himself insist in a terrible, hissing voice.
Then, he told Father De Montfort, there was a long silence before he thought he heard Raatgever say, very quietly: ‘All right.’
After that he didn’t hear any sounds from behind him, and after this silence seemed to have lasted several minutes, he looked back. There was no sign of Raatgever and he’d turned and walked further up the stream, convinced that Raatgever was hiding somewhere to make fun of him. Some time later he’d turned back, looking carefully along both banks of the creek, but refusing to call his friend’s name, thinking that Raatgever meant to teach him a lesson by remaining hidden. He’d then returned to the top of the falls. He told Father De Montfort that he still expected Ratty to show up triumphantly, perhaps early next morning, and that his friend was doing this to punish him – adding after a pause that he (Ross) deserved to be punished for what he had said.
But hours later that night, after it had rained and they had begun to hear the noises of bats and animals in the surrounding forest, Ross said to the priest, as though continuing a current conversation: ‘Unless he really disappeared, Father – unless I made him disappear...’
‘And
