Moffie (32 page)

‘We have family friends whose father has this massive company, really wealthy—been our neighbours in Clifton for years—and all the children, three boys and a girl, are made to work for the company. No choices, no compromise, you work or you're disinherited.'

‘Pretty much Dylan's situation.'

‘Did it help to speak to his parents?' he asks, looking at me and gearing down.

‘Yes, but it has sort of changed my memory of him, if that makes sense. It has helped to give me closure, to realise that maybe I couldn't have prevented his death. But I will never know for sure. Some part of me will always feel that I could have done something.' Deciding to change the subject, I say, ‘I'm going to miss you, Ethan. When's your next pass?'

‘It's actually this weekend.'

‘Wow, lucky you! What are your plans?'

‘I don't know, my folks will fly me down to Cape Town, I guess. Listen, when we finish the army at the end of next year, let's take a holiday together, say up the Wild Coast for a couple of weeks. What do you think? Can you surf?'

‘Not too well. Shit, that would be great, man. I can't wait! That's a deal, OK?'

I feel a pang of pleasure and pain in my heart. Eternal, I say to myself trying to describe the feeling, this thing that has grown in me that hurts but at the same time has become my most important need. Eternal . . . to last forever.

 

***

 

‘There are only three things that will last forever,' I can hear Mr. Davids so clearly. ‘Faith, hope and love. One day you will understand hope. It can't be taught. It is something you will understand; it will come to you.'

Love was easy, wished for, given and received, causing different reactions. Faith has been a journey for me. At first, I just leaned on it, then clung to it, and then it supported me.

Hope only made itself known to me in my nineteenth year. The army, Middelburg, basics, Infantry School, Vasbyt, the border and Koevoet taught me hope. I now realise it is not just some desire beckoning on the horizon. It is the trust in a future, lying there like a safe harbour.

 

Travelling with Ethan gives me hope, a colour to drench my time in, a brighter pigment. I want him to talk, because then I can look at him, study him. I want to burn his image into me so that I can take him with me, in my Wild Coast fantasy, all the way to Oudtshoorn.

After saying goodbye on the soot-stained platform, I turn to get into the second-class carriage. He calls my name. When he says it, we step towards each other and he hugs me and says he will see me as soon as he can. He whispers it into my ear, too precious for others to hear.

I find my compartment, press the silver bar at the top of the window with the springbok head etched into it, and release the catch. The glass drops down and I lean out for the last few words.

He promises to spend as much time with Malcolm as possible, and the train starts moving. Only when the rhythm is well established and I can no longer see Ethan, do I draw back into the compartment and the real world.

 

 

M
y name is Pranks.'

‘Hey there, Pranks, I'm Nicholas. How are you?'

‘Shit, thank you.'

On the high-backed seat sits a woman who came in while my interest was still focussed on Ethan.

‘Is that your boyfriend?' she asks, drawing on a cigarette. She is dressed like the cigarette: all in white, with gold shoes and a gold chain around the waist. Without waiting for an answer she goes on, ‘Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. I won't go to the police or tell your friends in the army. One of my best friends is, you know, like
that
.' Between every phrase, she draws in more smoke. The cigarette lingers on her lips, and then her tongue pushes the butt out.

I try to cling to Ethan's smell, and all I can think of is how the smoke from this woman's lungs is displacing it.

‘Come on, what's your name? If we're going to share the com­partment . . .'

‘I told you. Nicholas.'

‘Well, hello, Nicholas.'

‘Why did you ask me that?' I stutter.

‘What? Oh that. Just the way you said goodbye, you don't look like
trassies
, but two beautiful boys like you, what a waste. Shit, you guys are going to break some hearts. Would you like a drink? How about some Tassies? Tassies for the
trassies
!' and she bursts into spluttering laughter.

From her white handbag with a gold plastic flamingo on the flap, she takes a half-jack of brandy. ‘Or some Klippies an' Coke? When you see the trolley, be a dolly and get us a few Cokes.'

‘No thanks, I won't have a drink.'

‘Oh, come on, don't be a moffie.' She is halfway through the word when she laughs a smoker's chortle, thick with phlegm, ending in a cough.

‘OK, maybe later, after supper.' I feel like crying, for Ethan, for his sound, his walk, his smell. I need something to relieve me of this heartache. I want to run or somehow just escape, but the compartment closes the smell of the woman's perfume and smoke in around me.

‘When you introduced yourself . . . Pranks, is it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, Pranks, you said you felt like shit. Why did you say that?'

‘I am shit.' She is clearly pleased I've asked. ‘My family has discarded me; husband found a younger
bokkie
, traded me in, and the children have sided with him. He has the money. Money, that's what it's all about. Don't you agree?'

‘No, not really.'

‘You will see, you will see. Money, that's what it's all about.' She sings the last words. She looks at her dim reflection in the glass where the night is perforated by lights changing the glass pane into a mirror. ‘Discarded, thrown away like trash, like shit; that's me. And now I'm going to live with my sister in Bloem­fon­tein.'

 

I make my bed on the top bunk, safe from her spilling brandy or falling on me. Lying on my stomach and raised on my elbows, I write about Ethan:

 

This is love that should be renamed, the type that can make you mad. The type you can never live without, once you are addicted to it. This world will coexist next to such love—it's bigger than the planet where it was born.

 

When I close my eyes, I see blood seeping in between the frames of the destroyed people of Ward 22, the killing and the lost lives. And then the shouting starts. When this happens, I don't sleep.

I get up and go to the toilet at the end of the carriage, splash my face with water and talk to myself quietly, my face close to the speckled mirror. I put my shoulder against the side of the cu­bicle to balance myself, lift the lid and take my penis out. Stand­ing at an angle, I aim at the stainless-steel toilet. The pee twists from between the two small lips.

Running my hands against the sides of the passage, I walk back to my compartment, steadying myself in anticipation of the irregular movement of the train.

From the other end of the passage, a man is heading towards me. I recognise him immediately as the medic who stitched my head on the border. When we come face to face, I say, ‘Hi, do you remember me?'

‘No, china. Hey, yes . . . maybe, hey! But I'm
lekker op 'n stasie.
Pissed as a parrot, china. Who are you again?'

‘You stitched my head on the border. What are you doing here?'

‘Goin' home, my mate, for
lang pas
. Now I remember. You're the oke with the head, and the friend with the hand. I still came up with the doc from the base. Ja, ja, I remember. So how's your wound,
ek sê
?'

‘Pretty good!'

‘Fucking good stitches,' he says looking at my head. ‘So, where you goin'?'

‘Back to Infantry School.'

‘I'm getting off in Bloemies early, so I reckon rather like
dop
all night!'

‘Well, I'm going to try and get some sleep. Enjoy your long pass.' He shakes my hand and we push past each other.

‘Hey!' he shouts after me. I turn around. ‘I remember, at the bang site I didn't really have to look after you. There was this guy from your platoon, fuck, he was amazing, took care of you like you were like this.' He crosses his middle and index fingers to indicate closeness. ‘I just left you with him.'

‘Really, who was he?'

‘Fucked if I know. But the amazing thing was, this oke was so together, not rattled at all.
Fokken
strong china, that
ou
. Solid, hey, solid!'

‘What did he look like? Can you remember?'

‘Ja, good-looking. The kind of
poes
that gets all the chicks at the disco. Black hair. Shit, china, you don't know him? He walked all the way with your stretcher to the Puma. Big help, that oke, big help.'

‘Thanks,' I say, and just as I wonder if he has heard me, he raises his hand, index finger and pinkie extended—the safe-my­-mate sign—and stumbles on without turning back.

Oscar is the object of my thoughts before I fall asleep.

 

Somewhere during the night Pranks starts talking and tries to engage me in conversation. Everything about her depresses me. She becomes so drunk that she no longer cares if I listen—prob­ably used to being ignored. The only words I remember her say­ing before falling asleep again are, ‘It's when you don't matter to anybody, when nobody cares, when you have no meaning,
that's
loneliness.'

Early the next morning she gets off at Bloemfontein without saying goodbye. Her blond beehive is pathetically skew. Search­ing the platform to see if there is someone to meet her, I see her looking at her own image in a shop front, trying to adjust her hair. Next to her is a suitcase of tartan fabric that seems barely up to the task of holding her few possessions. There is a thud, then another one, and we start moving.

As the sober Karoo morning slips past, I think of uncle Hen­drik, auntie Sannie and Hanno, and the times we spent with them. But mostly I think of the weekend of the funeral.

 

T
here is an incredulous silence in the ‘sacred' dining room where I'm standing, demanding that the dog be taken to a vet. An alien could just as well have entered the room and asked for sex with auntie Sannie.

They are stunned. Hanno is enjoying this—my behaviour vindicates him.

‘Nicholas, get out,' my father hisses. I don't move. ‘GET OUT NOW, THIS MINUTE! We're eating. Get that dog out of this house. Did you not hear what uncle Hendrik said? No dogs in the house. What in heaven's name is wrong with you?'

Still I don't move, which is unheard of. In this house things operate within the parameters of the rules laid down by the men, generation after generation. But there is weakness in their disbelief, feebleness in their overreaction. How can something so small cause them such angst? This gives me the courage to speak, and I direct it at the only person who seems sane to me.

‘Mom, please, the dog and the puppy are suffering.'

My mother surprises me by turning to uncle Hendrik. ‘Hendrik, will you please do something about those animals?' Now everybody starts talking at the same time, in disbelief, wondering why everything seems to be spiralling even further out of control. There's a dog in the house, even worse, in the dining room. Where is the discipline? How dare these people break the rules like this? What's with this child and this Catholic woman?

‘For the love of God, please,' my mother asks again.

Eventually uncle Hendrik seems to regain his composure. ‘Will you please see to it that I'm not disturbed at MY table, by YOUR child, while I'm eating? Then, and only then, will I consider looking at the bloody dog. Does your child have no manners? Who is in control, you or him?'

‘GO NOW! Get out this minute! Do you want another hiding? Embarrassing me like this,' my father shouts, red in the face. His words are desperate and angry, but there is also an air of pleading. He is in a corner, and I realise that I too have power.

‘Please, my boy, wait outside,' my mother asks, beyond caring about their rules. She just wants this to be over.

 

 

T
he train stops at Colesberg. There I have to wait for the rest of the day and night for the next train to Port Elizabeth. I spend the time in a rowdy two-star hotel, hiding in my room one floor above the bar. From PE I change for the last time at Klipplaat, to an ordinary passenger train to Oudtshoorn.

 

Next to the brownish grey station building there is a tickey-box. The black rubber earpiece smells of dirty hair, but it is my only way of connecting to 1 Mil, to Ethan and news of Malcolm.

The unhelpful voice tells me he doesn't know where Ethan is. After asking him to connect me to anybody who can give me news about Malcolm, he keeps me holding on for so long that I run out of coins.

With a heavy heart, I wait on the slatted bench for the duty driver to pick me up. I move my bum over the slats, bending for­ward to find a moderately comfortable position.

Unbuttoning the flap of my shirt pocket, I take out my little book. Thinking of Pranks makes me write:

 

She possesses something sad, a cold wisdom when completely stripped down. I wonder if there is some freedom in that.

 

By the time the army minibus arrives, I am exhausted, and the driver's news that the entire Infantry School is on pass doesn't help my mood. I missed the pass by one day—the first pass since border duty.

The driver's chatter is negative and empty. Delighting in my misfortune, he says, ‘You are
shnaaied, broer . . . naaied
in the eye, my mate!' And again, ‘You're fucked, bro, all the way back from the border and fucked out of a pass. Now that's a bum­mer.'

‘It's Friday. The army will give me a train pass.'

‘No way, you're out of luck, man. There's nobody to issue it. Besides, I know the schedule, and there are no trains to get you to Cape Town in time. You'd better hike.' I know he is right. It will take longer than the pass to complete a return trip. If I had to start hiking tomorrow, I'll have two days on the road and two days there, if I'm lucky with lifts. I decide to rest first and to make up my mind tomorrow.

The clothes I have worn for three days, stick to me like grease. Looking around the streets of Oudtshoorn, I get that strange feeling of having been away for a long, long time, yet it feels as if I'd left only yesterday. We enter the camp gates, and everything I look at has an uncomfortable memory.

It is strangely humid for late winter; strange . . . maybe it's spring? Or early summer . . . what's the date?

I'm waiting to report to the lieutenant on duty, but he is shout­ing at a troop who has driven into his car with an army Land Rover. Every expletive, every possible form of verbal degrada­tion, is used to belittle the young man in front of all those present in the duty room. He was one of the first troops to drop out of the course. Suddenly the lieutenant turns to me, points and says to the troop, ‘You see this man? He is the elite. You don't deserve to tie his shoelaces, you fucking failure. He has done the whole course; not a wimp, piece of shit loser, like you. Look at him and give him fifty.'

The young man turns to me and stamps his foot. His face is red and sweaty, there are tears in his eyes, but not enough for him not to recognise me—and a wave of shame passes across Hanno's sorrowful face. Instead of enjoying the moment, as he is doing fifty push-ups at my feet, all I think of is how strange it is that we haven't bumped into each other before.

Later I feel a sense of triumph. My cousin Hanno, against whom I always seemed to fall short, could not make it here, yet I did. I have all but completed this course, an even greater achievement considering my nature. And suddenly I am filled with pride. For the very first time I feel that I will succeed, that nothing, not even Dorman, will stand in my way.

 

The old face-brick barracks of Golf Company stand deserted. I take four steps into the room where I spent my first months in Infantry School. The bunk beds are as they were, the mattresses rolled up as if dried out without human contact. I look at the bunk Dylan and I shared, our grey metal cupboards and the pol­ished floor.

This is where my
trommel
stood. Right here I sat praying dur­ing our ten-minute quiet times, morning and evening, where I pleaded with God to save me from this. Here I scrambled for the working parts of my rifle and struggled with the combination lock, losing vital seconds during drills. Over there is where I slept, and that is where Dylan slept . . .

The atmosphere holds more than just my memories. The angst is still here, clinging to the walls, waiting in this deserted space to seep into you when you enter.

The ablution block next door looks dark and wicked, but some­how smaller than I recall. Then I go back to the bungalow of Pla­toon One, from where I left to go to the border.

The kit of those who were wounded was put on their beds. I sort through it and pack everything back into the cupboard with the clanging doors. I notice that much of my gear has been stolen. I put Malcolm's kit in my cupboard as well, lock the stain­less-steel handle, and gather my toiletries and clean clothing to go to the shower complex.

In the distance I hear thunder; some of the crowns of the clouds are shining brilliantly against the dark sky. There is the promise of rain—Little Karoo shrubs releasing their scent to the wind running ahead on the breath of the storm.

I choose the shower
we
used, drape my towel over the basin
we
shared, recalling a strong Dylan and trying to still the turmoil inside me. The shaft of light from the high windows sparkles in the cold drops deflected by my chest. I stand there with an in­explicably mixed feeling of joy and sadness, an expectation of some undisclosed promise.

As I walk to the
Kamp Kafee
across the road from the duty of­fice I hear the words, ‘Hey, you!' floating towards me. ‘Hey, you,' the duty driver who collected me from the station shouts again, ‘there is someone for you at the front gate. Shit, I didn't know where to find you. I was just going to forget it; never thought I'd find you.'

‘Who is it?'

‘Fucked if I know. Go down there. I'm off duty now.'

On the way to the front gate, the rain starts coming down. There is a whipcrack and white light and then a sharp boom that rumbles off between the valleys.

When I get to the duty room I am drenched, water streaking from my hair and running into my shirt.

The person leaning on the duty counter looks around as I en­ter the room.

‘Ethan!' I blow the water from my lips, blink, and wipe my eyes to see if it's really true.

‘Hi, Nicholas,' he says softly. ‘I've come for you.' The duty room and the people in it have ceased to exist.

Tears are streaming down my face, but the water of the storm outside hides them.

‘Come with me.' He turns and I follow. Outside, it's raining harder and we run to his car, laughing out loud as we close the doors.

‘What are you doing here?'

‘I've come for you!' he says again. The rain coats the windows of his MG, and the drops fall loudly on the canvas roof. With his arm over my backrest, he turns to me. He moves closer, smiling, his skin wet, like mine, rain on his eyelashes; and then he kisses me.

The earth revolves around moments like these: feeling the firmness of his lips, taking in his smell and his taste, my hand on his neck—that neck I've watched and studied for so many hours. He pushes his beret off his head, his tongue licks the water and the tears from my face, and then he finds my mouth again.

I hug him, hold on to him, not like I did before, but with all the need for him released—released on a lover,
my
lover.

‘I've booked us into a guesthouse . . . very romantic, actually.' He laughs and starts the car. ‘I was hoping just to see you for a bit, to tell you . . . Then I got here and heard that the whole camp was on pass, and I thought I'd driven all this way for nothing. And then the driver said you were here!'

‘This is so, so good Ethan. Your timing is perfect. Just drive, nobody in my company even knows I'm here. I have the whole weekend—four days. I can fetch some clothing tomorrow.' He smiles, rubs his leg, revelling in the mischief as he says, ‘You won't need any. By the way, we must phone Malcolm when we get to the guesthouse. He must be climbing the walls by now.'

‘Now I understand. He told you!'

‘Yep. Why did we wait so long, Nick? We've wasted all this time.'

‘I've loved you since the day that bastard cut your hair and hit you. Do you know that? Do you know how many times I've wanted to tell you that?'

‘Me too, shit, me too. And there's good news, Nick. Mal­colm's hand is going to be fine. It seems the army doctors did a good job—full use, they reckon. Looks a little scary, pins and metal good­ies and all, but he's going to be fine.'

***

 

Early Monday morning I watch Ethan's MG leave through the Infantry School gates, and I feel invincible. I seem to have all the answers, having been divinely anointed, touched by the finger of God and having had a glimpse of eternity. I feel the sim­ple wisdom of utter happiness, when all else seems inconsequen­tial. At the same time, there is the dramatic pain of parting, still camouflaged by the bliss of the weekend; a pain I dwell on, take in in large swigs, using it to remind me of our time together.

This is different from the pain of our previous separations which were without hope. This is an exquisite pain made un­bearable by the promise of return.

Past the main parade ground where they divided us into com­panies all those months ago, climbing the embankment to the tuck shop, I realise that I have no ammunition against this feel­ing. Even if he should be lying in my arms, get up in the middle of the night for a wee, I would immediately feel empty, craving him until he folds into me, knowing exactly how far to pull up his legs for mine to fit in behind them; every single body part like a void waiting to be filled—arm over chest, hand in hand, cheek against shoulder, penis against bum.

It is for this that we were born. So when it arrives, we know it, we recognise it as our ultimate destination.

 

***

 

When rank is handed out, it is no surprise to me that I become a corporal and not a one-pip lieutenant—Engel, Dorman and Ger­rie's last show of power. How much of it is Gerrie's doing, I don't know. However, making me an NCO is not enough revenge for them. They also manage to place my name on a list that I only find out about when base allocations for our second year are done.

Some weeks before the passing-out parade, we are allocated to bases around the country, or sent for active border duty. The method of allocation is nothing short of barbaric. We take posi­tion on the grandstand, and on the cricket field in front of us is a number of tents, each representing a base. There are only a few places one would want to go to. The rest are bases on the border one wants to avoid at all cost. A person with an intercom shouts out the name of a base, and we have to sprint to that tent and stand in line. Only a few candidates are chosen, and the rest have to return to the grandstand. The officer enrolling the members at the ‘new' base doesn't indicate how many men he requires, which leaves one waiting in a line where you might not be placed, thus giving up the chance of getting into a second or third choice of base.

This must be how the gladiators felt—walking out into a ring, fighting their own for a chance of survival, depending solely on physical ability to outrun and outshoulder the others.

After my third try, I manage to get to the front of a queue for a training base. I am one person away from the front when I hear my name being called over the intercom, with other names I don't recognise.

Being singled out for anything in the army spells danger. My brain races through questions and possibilities. Should I not just get my name enrolled here before I respond? Then my name is called again, with number and rank. The person in front of me has completed his enrolment and the officer calls, ‘Next!' Before me are two roads, completely different in direction, but I have no choice because the person shouting over the intercom is now instructing people to look for me.

At the podium, an irate staff sergeant informs us that we are the only group not allowed to ‘choose' our base. We are allocated to one which, of course, nobody wants to go to, as it is infamous for its high contact rate. The answer we are given when we ask why we have been singled out is,
‘Fok, ek weet nie, maar julle moes kak drooggemaak het! Julle op hierdie lys is diep in die oog genaai!'
(‘Fucked if I know, but you guys must have fucked up badly! The ones on this list are really fucked in the eye.')

The tent we have to go to is on the furthest corner of the crick­et field. I am brimming with panic and hatred, but even more with humiliation, as I walk behind the staff sergeant with this bewildered group, trying to figure out some kind of solution and praying furiously.

We are halfway across the field, and I am lagging behind by about two metres, when I notice our company commander some distance away. Without a second thought, I turn and walk to­wards this man who has been my leader for a whole year, but to whom I have never spoken.

From the way I halt, stamp my right boot down and salute him, the man must detect my desperation. As I speak, I cannot believe that I'm addressing an army officer in such a way. I don't say I ‘cannot,' or ‘please, could I not,' I simply say ‘I will not' go to the border. He looks at the symbol on my arm—the black and green triangle with the semicircle like a parachute above it—and sees I'm from his company, Golf Company.

He looks at me and then past me, and all I can think about is the way he spoke about Dylan and the two boys who were caught kissing in the laundry room. He doesn't look at me again, not even when he says, ‘Follow me.'