Moffie (30 page)

‘So why is he so nasty to us?'

‘Guess because he knows I know his secret. He made me promise that I wouldn't tell you, but I reckon you should know.'

‘But I still don't understand, Mal. Surely he knew you had some serious ammo against him. I mean, remember, we even had that argument about homosexuality and all.'

‘And Oscar kissed you!'

‘So
that's
why Gerrie did it, to discredit the two of us in case you ever said anything. The little bastard!'

‘But wait, I'm not finished.' Malcolm moves up against his pillows. ‘So we get home and, as you know, I only have the single bed, so I make him a bed on the floor and we say good night and so on and then . . .. Ooooh, I'm so tired.'

‘Stop that! AND?'

‘Well,' laughing, he tries to yawn but goes on, ‘a little later I feel him getting into bed with me. And of course I tell him I'm not interested and that I don't feel comfortable, but you know, a man is not a stone, and I had a lot to drink and all, but I still say no.'

‘Thank goodness.'

‘But then he says I must just lie back, I needn't do anything. So I reckon cool, I'll get a
lekker
blow or a hand job, what the fuck. But then, instead of him giving me a blowjob or something, he starts licking me, all over, until he gets to my feet, and then he jerks himself off and leaves me. Doesn't say a word, cleans himself and gets back into his bed.'

‘What?'

‘The next day he's like ice towards me, makes me swear on my mother—he obviously doesn't know her—says he must go, and never talks to me again.'

‘Wow! Now it all makes sense. That's why he went on and on about us being gay and trying to get the whole platoon to call us moffies. Shit, what a warped cunt. Tell me, when he was licking you,' we suddenly find it funny and burst out laughing, ‘did you, like, touch him and stuff?'

‘You know, Nick, that's the thing; I didn't. It was as if he wanted the humiliation more than the sex. It wasn't sexual for me at all, and when he came, I was just too happy it was over. It was so mechanical, and he was embarrassed, not like wow, full-on climax, you know.'

‘It's actually quite sad, isn't it?'

‘Yes. But I just wanted you to know so that you'd stop feeling so guilty about my hand . . . OK?' For a while we're quiet.

‘Thanks, Mal, but from now on no more secrets, right?'

‘Right.' Then he smiles. ‘I shouldn't have told you; could have milked you. Come now, Nick, it's your fault, now I need to be relieved,' pointing down at his groin.

‘Mal, does it make sense to you, this Gerrie thing?'

‘You know, I have no problem with it. I reckon each to his own, as long as nobody gets hurt.'

‘Yep, guess there are some strange sexual habits out there.'

‘Perversions.'

‘Maybe we shouldn't call them perversions. As you said, each to his own. Fuck, if a guy wants humiliation, or bondage, who cares? Provided it's not abusive, or with underage kids or animals. It's their choice.'

‘Yep, but in our case we've been persecuted simply because of the way we were born, man.'

‘And it's going to be like this forever if we don't do something about it. If you think about it, we're the most victimised minority, and yet we're not a threat to anybody. But people are so thick, most of the discrimination is because most straights don't even know the difference between a homosexual and a paedophile.'

‘Do you remember those two Boksom Boys?'

‘Of course!'

‘Do you know what the worst thing was for me? Not the fact that they were so badly beaten up. But when they walked into the mess and the whole place went silent and they stood there and someone started chanting “moffie, moffie, moffie” and everybody joined in.'

‘Yes, I remember.'

‘Nick, I swear, I don't know if I'll survive that. I'm proud of being gay, but there's no way that anybody in the army must catch us out, you know. It's just too dangerous.'

‘No. You know, to me the saddest thing is that they split up. I mean that the one oke betrayed the other one. But I tell you . . . that guy, he stood proud. He lost his friends and his family, but he told me that night they would not get him to be dishonest; that's all he has. I've always felt so guilty for not being able to help him in some way.'

‘Shit, Nick, what could you do? Hell, man, thank heavens you didn't try, otherwise you would be in Ward 22 with them, being fucked up for life.'

‘I still felt like a traitor. Isn't it pathetic that we've become so used to living in secrecy and hiding our feelings that it's become second nature? We just accept the way we're treated. Shit, we don't even know what it must feel like to have an open, caring relationship with a partner. It's like these older guys who live their whole life together as “friends” and never come out, not even to their closest family. You know, we're actually as badly persecuted as the blacks in this country. Even more so. At least it's not illegal to be black!'

‘Did you ever wish you were straight?'

‘Of course I did. Prayed for it.'

‘Do you think it will ever change? I mean, will we ever be treated like “normal” people?'

‘No, not in this country, not with this government. And the general public will also have to change their attitude.'

‘Nick, when we get out of this shithole, we're going to have a good time, man, I guarantee you. The first thing is, we're saving up and going to America: New York and San Francisco!'

‘Yes, and have all the sex we've missed out on.' I look at my friend and I know somewhere deep inside there will be good times ahead for us—very good times. And in that moment the fears that I have had of the two of us drifting apart after the army, is gone. I recognise the cables that have bound us, and suddenly know that we will be friends forever.

 

 

T
he Welfare Officer contacts Dylan's parents, who say they will see me, and they send a driver in a black Daimler Double Six to collect me.

The house that Dylan left for the army is set in green abundance. It exudes a comforting feeling of tradition, of perpetuity, of a strong foundation. Uniformed servants are manicuring the garden as we drive up to a pillared veranda.

Inside there is the stillness of antiques and heavy drapes, mingled with the light of marble and crystal. I am led to an enormous patio at the back of the house, with sloping gardens leading to a large pool, beyond which are more lawns, a tennis court, stables and a forest. The furniture on the terrace is covered in a pink-and-white striped fabric. The woman sitting under an umbrella gets up as I approach. She is tall and elegant, but she seems to have a tenuous composure. Her black hair is so perfectly in place it makes me think of black candyfloss. Her mouth is drawn in a blemish-free face, the skin on her forehead and around her eyes tight.

‘Welcome, Mr. Van der Swart, can I offer you something to drink?' At her side, a servant steps forward, awaiting her instruction.

‘Please call me Nicholas,' I say.

‘Very well, Nicholas it shall be. Something to drink?' she asks again as she sits down.

‘I'll have a Coke, please,' I say as the chair that has been pulled out for me is placed gently against the back of my legs.

‘I am told you knew my late son.' When she says ‘son' her mouth quivers, her voice slightly high and gaunt.

‘Yes, Mrs. Stassen, we shared a bunk bed and a cupboard. I was his closest friend.'

‘Dylan never had many friends. Introverted boy, my Dylan.' Her words are pensive, and I struggle to think of something to say.

‘He was very quiet, but we were good friends. In fact, just before . . .' I stop. What am I saying? Nicholas, pull yourself together. I look at her and say, ‘We were very close,' and then I wonder if she might misinterpret
very close
.

‘Dylan should never have gone to the army. Lord knows, with all John-Andrew's connections we could have got him off, or sent him out of the country. None of our friends' children ever went to that beastly place.'

I hear my father's words: ‘Yes, these rich people just live off the fat of the land and are not even prepared to send their sons to the army!'

She keeps quiet, but I see her thinking, wanting to say more. Or perhaps it's the vodka delaying her speech. ‘What a waste . . . oh Lord, what a waste. What have we done?'

‘Mrs. Stassen, I'm so sorry. I just want to say I really, really am.' She doesn't listen. I want to reach out and take her quivering, manicured hand laden with rings—just to touch her, to steady her. But I don't.

‘My beautiful, beautiful, gentle boy.' I look at her eyes. She is weeping more than just tears. She is broken inside, under the veneer of expensive skin products.

She opens the catch of an ornate little pillbox and takes out a capsule, which she swallows virtually unnoticed. A man, clearly Mr. Stassen, approaches from the opposite side of the terrace and sits down at a table that is set for lunch.

The butler invites us to join Mr. Stassen at his table, which stands beside dramatically high arched windows and doors with stone surrounds. A male servant assists Mrs. Stassen to the table. She starts introducing me, but her husband interrupts her.

‘Yes, Margaret, I know who the young man is.'

‘Good day, sir, I'm Nicholas,' I say, extending my hand. After a cursory handshake I take the seat indicated to me while he picks up the white cordless phone brought to him on a tray.

Before me on the glass table is the finery of Dylan's life that I never knew. He could have held this silver knife and fork in his hands and sat in this chair, I think as Dylan's father talks on the phone. Between sentences he indicates that I should start on the hors d'oeuvre placed before me. How difficult the change to the crudeness of the army must have been for Dylan.

Mrs. Stassen, in the grip of her tablet, hardly speaks, and when she does, she is ignored.

Mr. Stassen puts the phone down, turns his attention to me and starts asking me about the army. He is particularly interested in what is happening on the border. I gloss over Koevoet, the contacts and the little I know of the war, but tell him in detail about Malcolm and his injury. The friendship between Malcolm, Dylan and me is an easier place to visit than Koevoet.

As I sit making small talk in a setting that seems to have no bearing on the friend I have lost, I am suddenly filled with regret for encouraging this meeting and I have to fight the urge to leave.

Why am I here, and what can I tell them about their son, apart from the fact that we were friends? Am I here only because they felt it would be inappropriate to refuse me? Were we good enough friends for me to have crossed this divide? I can't tell them about my love for their son. How does one explain such a love, discovered deep within, months later, in a war? And how is it that I can love two people? Do I only love him now because he is forever out of reach? How much did he love me? Did he, after all, really love me?

As we eat, Mrs. Stassen sinks deeper into the exit of drugs and alcohol. She sips her chardonnay without appearing to allow the liquid over her lips, but the wine steward continually fills her glass until Mr. Stassen indicates to him to stop. She uses the leftover vodka, which she has not allowed them to remove, to swallow another pill.

‘You,' she suddenly says, pointing at her husband. ‘You,' she says again. I glance at him and see him stiffen. He has an expression of anger and apprehensive expectation, but he remains composed. ‘You,' she says for a third time, ‘you killed Dylan. You just won't admit it, but you did! Go on, tell the boy!' He doesn't reply, but simply indicates to the staff to help her inside.

As they transfer her to a wheelchair, she tries to fight them off with arms that have forgotten how. Her refinement and poise prevent her from raising her voice and using force to resist. She sinks into their charge as she has probably done all her life; trapped by privilege.

‘I'm losing her. You cannot believe what a regal woman Dylan's mother was, but the drugs have taken her.' Something tells me that before this tragedy he would never have shared something so personal with a stranger.

‘Surely there is help, treatment? It's only been a few months,' I say and immediately wish I hadn't. But I am so nervous that I need to talk, so I talk before thinking.

‘Nicholas,' he says, ignoring my question. ‘I've read all Dylan's letters again. He often spoke of you.' Suddenly I find it difficult to hold my knife and fork, so I balance them on the side of the plate and look up.

‘I think he was very fond of you. You were a good friend.' My mouth and throat are like sandpaper. He looks at me, into me, as if he has already been inside and is just re-checking something.

‘Not good enough, I'm afraid. I feel I should have tried to prevent what happened.'

‘The thing is, Dylan was always a sensitive child. I thought the army would make a man out of him. How wrong I was.'

‘He
was
a man, Mr. Stassen. Really. He coped with all the PT, the training, in fact, better than most, despite . . .'

‘Despite what?'

‘Well, despite the fact that our sergeant seemed to pick on him, which is what they do; it's just the way the army works. But I don't think that's why Dylan, you know, ended it all.' There is silence and I wonder if I have opened something that should have remained closed. What happens if this man with all his power starts an enquiry and I am asked to testify?

‘What did this sergeant do?'

‘He just sort of picked on Dylan. The thing is . . . they . . . it happens to all of us at some point. I guess they want to see how much we can take. Dylan could take it. Believe me, he was really tough. The thing with Infantry School is that we are there voluntarily, provided we are physically and mentally fit. So the instructors are pretty much allowed to do anything they want with us. We can refuse, but that would mean leaving the course. If it all got too much, Dylan could have left, got an RTU, but he had this tremendous tenacity. Mr. Stassen, please know that your son was a man . . . the finest there is!' I want to say, ‘Whatever
a man
may mean,' but I decide against it.

‘Thank you,' he says. The jumbled sentences twirl around my head. Did I say something I shouldn't have?

‘What is an RTU?'

‘Return to unit. The unit we were first posted to. But Dylan chose to stay, and I can tell you he was one of the toughest people I know . . . knew. It was not the training, Mr. Stassen, I'm sure of it.'

He looks past me, pensive for the first time. Just as I expect him to ask me what I think the cause of Dylan's suicide was, he says, ‘No, it wasn't the training . . .' A long silence follows, and I wonder why this man is implying that he knows why Dylan ended his life. Then he asks me.

‘Nicholas,' he says, looking straight at me, ‘why do
you
think my son killed himself?'

‘I don't know.' How do I do this? ‘I think it was everything—just life generally. Dylan never really opened up. We shared many things but he never told me his deepest feelings.'

‘It doesn't really matter any more, does it? Some things cannot be undone. Now it's just a matter of learning to live with it. I just hope my wife pulls through.' He sighs and looks up at what must be her bedroom window.

‘Mr. Stassen . . .' We are already out of our seats when I say this. It is clear that the time set aside for me is over, but I sink back into my chair and he follows suit. ‘Mr. Stassen, I think maybe I could have avoided what happened.'

‘Why do you think this?'

I talk despite the screaming in my head telling me to stop, bracing against the decision that I would NOT tell him I think his son was gay, or in love with me. The words flow out as if I have no control over them; words I decided must absolutely remain unsaid.

‘If I had listened more intently, if I had allowed him to speak, maybe he would have told me, or maybe he even did. But I wasn't sensitive enough to realise that he wanted to tell me. I think . . . one night he wanted to tell me something, and I wasn't a good listener. I think it was difficult for him to even start telling me, but I just didn't want to hear.

‘Don't go on. It's not your fault, that I'm sure of.'

Now that I've started, I want to go on, but he has stalled my momentum. I feel a sense of collapse. He reaches forward and puts his hand on my shoulder.

‘Never blame yourself, and don't talk about it. It is not your fault that my son took his life.' By now we both have tears in our eyes.

‘Come with me, my boy.'

We get up and he leads the way down a wide passage. On the one side glassed arches look out over the estate, and on the other side paintings and antiques are arranged on a wall that leads up to a vaulted ceiling.

To me this splendour becomes a new epitaph to Dylan, that mystical phantom. I decide to lay him down in these environs from now on, rather than in the harsh Defence Force. Now that he has gone, he can rest here . . . in my mind.

Mr. Stassen has stopped and appears to be wrestling with some private thoughts, and I leave him to it. We are in a huge space with a massive staircase curving upwards between carved wooden balustrades.

I can see Dylan moving down these steps, skipping down the last one and swinging on the end of the balustrade to turn left and walk down the passage.

‘I've decided to show you something,' Mr. Stassen says.

I follow him to his office. He removes a key from his oak desk, opens a cupboard and starts turning the knob of a safe. The door is released with a thunk. He reaches for a letter in the safe with the familiarity of someone putting his hand on his own heart.

‘This . . . I intercepted it. He had posted it just before he took his life. I must insist, for the survival of my wife and family, that you never talk about its contents. I know now that you need to read it.' He passes a blue envelope to me.

 

My dearest, dearest Mother and Father

 

I know I am about to cause you great pain, but what I am about to do, cannot be avoided. I cannot go on. I REALLY CANNOT. I have debated this decision for many years. There is something about me that I am unable to change; something that will cause you great pain and shame.

I am a homosexual; I am gay. I know this is not tolerated. I know that you see it as a weakness, as despicable. I know how you feel about the shame this would bring on the family, but believe me, I CANNOT CHANGE. It is for this reason that I have decided to end it all.

I am not miserable because of the army; it is in fact here that I have had a glimpse of the happiness I will never have. Mom and Dad, I have fallen in love, and it is a love I know I can never have. I have avoided this in the past, but now it has consumed me. I simply cannot live like this, you must understand, because I know and you know I will never be allowed to live with a man.

I am sure the man I love is also gay. To know that it is right there and to know that it can never be, is more than I can bear. It is all I think of, constantly, and I feel as if I am going mad.

I am so very, very sorry for the heartache I will be causing you. I want you to know that I understand and do not blame you for anything. The world we live in is to blame, not you.

I beg of you, know that I am not doing this to punish you; I am doing this to free myself, to free you . . .

Your loving son,

Dylan Edward

 

Something inside me has broken. Tears wash over my face, my shoulders shake and I have neither the strength nor the wish to control it.

I cry for the irretrievable waste, for the loss of Dylan's life, the complexity of it, for the fact that I didn't love him when he was with me, for the suffering, for not trying to prevent it, for not being sensitive enough, for Ethan being there at a time when there was a Dylan. I cry for Mal who might lose his hand, for the bodies that lay on the floor of the Buffel, for the woman who was raped and then murdered, for her husband who was decapitated in front of her, for everybody and everything sad. Had I known, had I known . . . I would have, yes, I would have stopped it, because I could have made a difference.