‘Should we go for a drink?’ Werner asks.
They walk down the road to a small bar on the corner. The two brothers sip their pints.
‘So you reckon Pa was having an affair?’ Werner nods. ‘Did you know about it?’
‘Of course not. We were just kids.’
‘You always knew what was going on.’ Werner says nothing. ‘How much money was it?’
‘Two hundred and fifty thousand.’
‘Jissus!’
Werner thinks about telling his brother the truth. He would say: Pa didn’t just die. I murdered him. But now the satisfaction of having killed his father is all he has. He has no wish to share it. Better that Marius carries around this anger towards his father, eating him up on the inside, a fury impossible to avenge. Perhaps they should bury the ashes so that every day the three of them can gather around the small grave – the grave of a mouse, of a rat – and spit on it. Or he could keep the ashes in the bathroom and, every time he takes a dump, he could sprinkle the ashes on his shit. There is no desecration he can think of that will relieve the anger. This he will carry with him for a lifetime.
‘Do you think Ma can come and stay with you in Cape Town for a bit?’ Werner asks.
‘Why?’
‘For a break. For a bit of a holiday. To get away from it all.’
Marius looks uncomfortable. ‘I suppose. If she wants. You know we only have two rooms. I’ll have to ask Yolinda.’
If only, Werner thinks, he could turn his life into an artwork. Werner Deyer: A study in inertia. Has he not acted with great force upon the world? How is it possible that, after doing this thing, his life has been returned to him essentially unchanged, except perhaps bleaker, with little hope, no hope, but also guilt. Is he overestimating his act? If his father’s life was a half-life, then he has committed only a half-murder. He is a co-murderer. He must share the assignation with a now-dead Barberton bantu, who lacked the courage of his convictions. A much better life was only one solid blow away. Good thing the kaffir died in prison. He had no idea the terrible train of events he’d set in motion, which seemed to culminate here, in this dreary pub.
They finish their beers and, for want of anything else to do, order more. They have no desire to go back to the flat. Werner considers the question of suicide, not in the dramatic sense of returning to the flat and hanging himself from the ceiling this evening (although that would have the added bonus of putting a dampener on Marius’s departure, would cause inevitable delays), but in a more general sense of something that he may contemplate seriously in the near, or fairly near, future. Did people commit suicide out of a sense of disappointment and boredom? If he were younger things would be different, but the path to a better life now seemed unimaginably arduous. So much money was needed. So much weight had to be lost. It would all take years. At his last visit to the doctor, when he’d been warned about his weight and his smoking, he did consider that there might be something freeing in being allotted a fixed number of days in which nothing he might do – no decision he might take – could militate against the inexorable progress of some unspecified disease (cancer probably, but his imagination preferred something painless); a joy in no longer measuring every vice in slithers of longevity. There could be succour in the freedom from ambition and desire. If the doctor had said to him, ‘Werner, I am sorry to say there is nothing we can do for you any more,’ he would at least be granted the ecstasy of the incautious life, not because as the English say, ‘You have thrown caution to the wind,’ but because caution – that shrill school-ma’am following two paces behind, tut-tutting – had finally lost her cane and he was free to push her into a ditch. But then, in murdering his father, had he not already done so, with little consequence? Well, if patricide was a dud, he could be assured that suicide would, for him at least, be something of ultimate consequence.
They drink until quite late. Guiltily they head back to the flat. Their mother is waiting for them in the lounge. She has decided to go and stay with her friend in Port Elizabeth, she tells them. It has been too long since she’s seen the sea and she’s entitled to a holiday. She has booked a flight for the next day. Werner and Marius both agree this is a good idea. Marius decides that he will return to Cape Town tomorrow and phones the airline to make the necessary arrangements.
‘Will you be all right, Werner?’ his mother asks.
‘I will be fine,’ he says. He will not, he thinks, commit suicide while his mother is away. The thought that people may only be alerted to your death because of a bad smell is too undignified, even for an obese failure like him.
13
STEYN’S MOTHER CALLED. He had not visited for some time She wanted to know when he would be back in Pretoria. He couldn’t face her. Petronella said, ‘If your mother wants to visit, she can always stay with us. We have plenty of room in the house.’ He thanked her.
The thought of his mother was tightly bound to what happened on that day. He’d polluted her. He thought about his wife; how she used to be when he visited her after their separation. She thought him very cruel to leave her with no explanation. She said to him, ‘I don’t mind if you had an affair. Please don’t leave me.’ All he said in response was, ‘I have a new job in Barberton. I’ll visit the boys.’ And when he did, they would sit in the lounge for an hour, making strained conversation. His wife would wear her best dress. She would have been to the hairdresser. She would have spent the week baking. She would be all smiles and laughs, on the verge of tears. Then he and his sons would go out into the garden and play a game of rugby. His wife would stand and watch, staring at him, his every move, waiting for a sign that this episode was over, that he was going to walk into the house and say, ‘Mind if I stay for the day?’ or ‘Would you like to come and live in Barberton with me?’ She loved him so much that she trembled when giving him his coffee. He would take this like a man, like a martyr. He would carry on paying the mortgage while he lived in that shitty rondavel, and his wife would eventually hate him for bringing her so low, for even marrying her in the first place, and all this he would take with equanimity. This is what would make him good. If there was a God, he would say that in the end he did the best he could and he did right by his wife and his sons.
Christmas with his mother was the worst. She looked at him, wounded, wondering how he could do this to her. Not to his wife or his sons, but to her. He knew she was sitting there thinking: Wouldn’t it be nice, wouldn’t it be lovely, if my son could be here with his wife and my grandsons, and all of us be celebrating Christmas like a normal family? And she was thinking, he was sure: If only there were a reason. Even if it was another woman. Even if his wife had cheated on him. But why had he given everything up, for nothing? Why was he living out in the bundus, in the sticks, in a bare little rondavel? The two of them shuffling around in the flat; it was too much to bear.
It had happened on the 16th of December. Ordinarily he would have not have remembered the date, except for the fact that it was Blood River. When he was growing up in Pretoria he always thought that it was the worst day of the year. The schools had closed for the holidays and everything that might be of interest to a boy was shut. Everyone was reverential. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the covenant the Afrikaners had made with God was so recent. God intervened and saved their arses from the kaffirs and they promised – they made a very solemn promise – to honour this day for ever. So when he was a kid, he and his mother would sit in the little flat in Sunnyside and get irritable with one another and fight until his mother got upset and shouted, ‘This is a holy day – what’s wrong with you? Don’t you have any respect?’
Steyn walked to the dam. He sat down and remembered: on that day he has the cooler filled with beer and some newspapers and a deckchair. He takes his shirt off and drinks two beers. Then he switches on the radio, covers his face with the newspapers and lies in the afternoon sun. Small beads of sweat gather on his shoulders and trickle like tears into the hair on his chest. It is after
two when Werner lifts the newspaper off his face and says, ‘Is oom sleeping?’
‘Just resting my eyelids,’ he says.
‘Ja – that’s what my father says too.’ Werner sits next to him. ‘I’m bored.’
‘Go for a swim,’ he says to the boy.
‘I’ve just eaten.’
‘That’s an old wives’ tale.’
‘Let’s go rowing!’
He gets up, finishes his beer and walks with Werner towards the camp’s rowing boats. Thirty boats are piled up on the bank; each turned upside down so they don’t fill with rain.
‘Which one should we take?’ he asks.
‘The blue one – there, the dark-blue one.’
‘No, that one is buggered up. It’s got a slow leak. I still need to fix it.’
‘What about the green one?’
‘Ja – that’s a good one.’
He pulls the boat towards the dam and tips it over. It hits the ground with a crunch. ‘Bliksem,’ he says. The oars lie on the ground. Werner fetches them and throws them in. Steyn pushes the boat into the water and wades in behind it. ‘I’ll hold the boat – go grab me another beer, quick.’ Werner runs to fetch a beer and then wades into the water. ‘Hop in,’ Steyn says.
Werner sits in the bow as Steyn tries to manoeuvre his bulk into the boat without capsizing it. When he manages to get himself in, he puts his back against the stern and slips his legs under the centre thwart.
‘And now?’ Steyn asks Werner.
‘What?’
He opens his beer and drinks. ‘You said you wanted to row. I am just going along for the ride.’
‘Okay,’ Werner says. He gets up too quickly and nearly tips the boat over.
‘Watch it, lightie! You’ll spill my beer.’
‘Sorry, oom.’ Werner sits down on the bench and plants his feet between his shins. He moves the oars awkwardly into the rowlocks. ‘Where to?’
‘Wherever you want,’ Steyn says, and Werner starts rowing slowly but steadily, while Steyn drapes his arms over the transom, tips his head back and closes his eyes. He sees sunspots through his eyelids. On the banks, black children splash and play in the water and women wash clothes. They wave, and he and the boy wave back. He asks Werner to identify various birds and trees, which he does correctly most of the time. Werner says he thinks he sees a fish eagle. ‘Ag – are you stupid, man? That’s a vulture.’ At the far end of the dam is a troop of baboons. They are playing in the trees that hang over the water. When one of the larger males spots them, the animal bares its teeth and screams. ‘Fok off!’ he shouts and the boy laughs. Steyn crushes the beer can between the ends of his palms and tosses it to the front of the boat.
‘I’m tired,’ Werner says.
‘Well, that’s a problem,’ Steyn says. ‘I’m not rowing.’
‘Okay – let me just take a little rest. My shoulders are sore.’
They sit quietly for a few minutes while Werner rolls his shoulders. Steyn looks at the boy through half-closed eyes and thinks that it couldn’t do any harm. It is such a small thing and he longs to do it, in all innocence. He sits up and puts his hands, ever so gently, on Werner’s shoulders and rubs. He starts talking to break the silence; so that the gesture does not seem too intimate. ‘Now – if you want to get really good at rowing, you need to do it every day. You need to row right through the pain and the stiffness . . .’ His throat catches on the word, but he clears it and carries on. ‘And then, when your shoulders are stiff, you rub on Deep Heat. I used to row for the university – and that’s what we always used. Deep Heat.’ Beneath his thumbs he can feel Werner’s shoulder blades. He longs to take off the boy’s shirt and kiss them gently, those two little golden wings, but he dares not, so he cups them in his hand for a moment, as he used to cup the breasts of his wife. His finger brushes the little V of hair on the nape of Werner’s neck and he leans forward a little, resisting the urge to bury his nose in it and take in a deep breath of boyhood. Werner tenses under his hands. The boy can feel it, he thinks. He can feel my desire. This is all I will do. I will just give him a back-rub and nothing more, and then this thing will be done. He regrets drinking so much. This boy has awoken something dormant in him that will not, for all he tries, wither and die. Is it, he asks himself, the reason he’s taken this job? Look, but don’t touch. How long will it be before his eyes betray him? He puts his one hand on Werner’s neck and the other on the small of his back. His voice is hoarse.
‘When you row, you must keep your back straight as you pull out.’ Werner straightens his back, but says nothing. Perhaps, Steyn thinks, if he does it once, he will flush this from his system. It is the tension of never actually having done it. It will lose its allure and, failing that, will give him sufficient to live with – a little bit of sweet sexual nectar, sustaining him in sad little sips to the end of his days, keeping this thing contained, satisfied, before it explodes in an act of unspeakable monstrosity.
He rests his hands on Werner’s hips. He can still withdraw and leave the moment with sufficient ambiguity that Werner will only suspect, but not know. Werner’s hips, those little bones he can feel through the small roll of fat, are the border between a malformed mind and a malformed life. Steyn’s breaths are quick and shallow and he knows he can’t speak. Werner shifts slightly in his seat and leans back. Steyn’s fingers slip to the front of his hips and touch his bare skin. He can still stop. He can say, ‘It’s getting late,’ and row home. He can be in his rondavel in less than half an hour. His fingers search for the top of the boy’s underpants. He runs his middle finger along the elasticated band, from right to left. Then he slips the top of his finger just beneath the band, so that he can feel the boy’s flesh. He traces back from left to right. Gently back and forth his finger works its way towards the prick. He brushes over the boy’s sparse, newly sprouting pubic thatch. For a moment Steyn stops breathing as he touches it. Werner has an erection. His slips his whole hand into the boy’s underpants and cups his balls. Be careful, he tells himself. Be careful with the boy’s balls. Werner’s scrotum has retracted into his body, the skin tight, thick and wrinkled, like fingers that have been in water. His balls are bigger than those of a child and Steyn can feel a few wispy hairs. He takes the shaft of Werner’s dick, gently pulls the foreskin, strokes him, rests his finger on the head, brushing the small piss-hole with his fingertip. Werner sighs. With pleasure? With his left hand Steyn reaches into his own pants and masturbates. He leans his head against Werner’s back. Then, just before he finishes, he takes his hand out of Werner’s pants, grabs the boy around his chest, pulls Werner towards him and nuzzles his hair. Werner’s shirt rides up, and Steyn can feel the boy’s skin stick against his chest; slick with sweat. He tries not to, but he groans as he comes. For a few seconds he sits there, emptied of everything. He pulls away from the child and dips his hand into the water to wash it off. He doesn’t want the boy to see this. The disgust and loathing sit in his stomach. ‘We need to go home. I’ll row.’ Werner turns around and sits in the back of the boat. Steyn catches a glimpse of the child’s face. He looks surprised and uncertain, but not afraid. He will face Werner as he rows. Steyn wants to tell him to sit on the other side. He wants to say, ‘Please, Werner, I cannot look at you right now.’ Werner is quiet and thoughtful. As they pass one of the small islands they spot a vulture. Werner says, ‘Look, a fish eagle.’
‘Yes,’ he says.
Werner narrows his eyes and stares at him. ‘No, it’s not – it’s a vulture.’
‘You’re right – it’s a vulture.’
Is it better or worse to have done this thing with a child of intelligence and cunning? There is a giddiness to Werner that makes Steyn uncomfortable; the excitement of a child that has learnt an important secret. What did he expect? Tears? Not from Werner. He did not expect Werner to cry. But he did expect him to be embarrassed. He had hoped that Werner would stare at the bottom of the boat, quiet and embarrassed. He did not expect this cheerful insouciance. He di
d not expect Werner’s cold and calculating stare and the slightly crooked smile when he said, ‘No, it’s not – it’s a vulture.’ So he of the malformed mind, and now the freshly malformed life, rows back with this dangerous boy as quickly as he can. As they approach the bank, Steyn hops out and pulls the boat onto the sand and Werner sits, like a princeling, like a lover, not moving to help. He says nothing. Werner climbs out of the boat and stretches while Steyn drags it further up the bank, then flips it over. Looking at the boy, he has a flash of anger. What has he done, after all? Groped him. That’s all. He has groped a boy, as thousands have done before him and thousands more will continue to do. And, what’s more, he liked it. The boy was a little complicit, wasn’t he? Did Werner tell him to stop? Did he give any indication that he didn’t want this to happen? Did he not lean back into his hands, pushing his fingers further, encouraging Steyn, willing him on?
‘Bring me the oars,’ he says more sharply than he intends. Werner looks at him and smiles. He saunters over to where the oars have been left, picks them up and carries them over, as Steyn holds the boat up on one side. Werner slides the oars under the boat and Steyn gently lowers it to the ground. He slaps the sand off his hands. Both turn to walk to the deckchair, folded newspapers and cooler box further down the bank. He packs up his things. Werner stands and watches.
‘Your ma is going to wonder where you are.’
‘Ja,’ Werner says.
Steyn wonders whether he can utter those three ghastly words, those predatory words of the pederast, covering his tracks, hiding his scent. Our. Little. Secret. The words all the more awful for dissembling in their childishness, their childlike-ness, not only the fear of crimes just committed, but also the hope of crimes to come. Should he say he is sorry? He can fall to his knees and say, ‘Werner, I am very sorry. What I did was terribly wrong. I swear to you it will never happen again.’ But is that not even worse? Is it really necessary to burden the child with his crime? Is it necessary for Werner to share in the guilt? The boy may not appreciate the magnitude of what has happened. The child may well be unaware of the enormity of the transgression. And if Steyn apologises, if he falls to his knees, what Werner suspects will be confirmed. But he needs a sign from Werner – anything – to say he understands. He stands facing the boy, thinking about what to say. He reaches into his pocket and finds a fifty-cent coin. He hands it to the boy and says, ‘Thank you.’ He hopes that Werner understands. In anticipation of nothing further – thank you. Werner accepts the coin as if he’d been expecting it. He smiles and nods and turns to walk home. Now Steyn thinks, there is nothing to do but wait.
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