Dragons & Butterflies

by Shani Krebs

  That first night, after supper, I was totally and utterly exhausted. I fell asleep even before my head hit the ground. At around 1am I woke up, still in a sort of trance. I couldn’t bend my arms. Both arms had locked solid. They were also really swollen around the triceps and they hurt like hell. At first I thought I’d been bitten by a scorpion. I couldn’t understand what the fuck was going on. Somehow I wriggled my body to the cell door and managed to get to my feet. Then, using the ball of my foot, I repeatedly kicked the door, calling out, ‘Help! Help!’ at the top of my voice.

  That motherfucker Swanepoel was on night shift. Eventually, after about five minutes of my banging and shouting, he opened my cell.

  ‘Wat is jou fokken probleem?’ (What’s your fucking problem?), he asked sarcastically.

  ‘Ek wiet nie, Corporal, ek dink my arm is gebreek’ (I don’t know, Corporal; I think my arm is broken), I said. I turned my shoulder to show him.

  He grabbed the top of my arm and at the same time pushed his thumb and fingers into my muscles, causing me to yelp in pain. He had a sadistic smirk on his face.

  ‘Stop crying,’ he told me. He said I could see the doctor in the morning. In the meantime, I should just go back to sleep.

  Easy for him to say. So long as I didn’t move, the pain seemed to subside and slowly I slipped into a deep sleep. The next morning, at 3.30, although my arms were still sore and I still couldn’t bend them, somehow I managed to slip into my overalls. The pain was excruciating. Using only my feet and standing on a cloth, I shuffled around the floor of my cell, polishing it as best I could. It had to shine like a mirror or I’d be in shit. I couldn’t shave because I couldn’t raise my arms to my face, so one of the other inmates shaved me. When the breakfast was dished up, my plate was placed on the floor in front of me and, like a dog, I bent over and ate my food.

  At 7am, just before the morning exercise session, Swanepoel walked around checking our hair and seeing whether we had shaved. Knowing that I couldn’t bend my arms, I was the perfect sitting target for him. He walked up to me, looked in my eyes, took hold of my ear, twisted my head to the side and then, in a contemptuous manner, asked why I hadn’t shaved properly. Then, before I even had time to answer him, he took the cigarette he was smoking and stubbed it out on my cheek. I could hear the hair on my skin sizzle. Then he dropped the butt down the front of my overalls, where it landed on top of my underpants right on my penis. I jumped up and down and somehow managed to undo the buttons of my overalls and get rid of the butt, which had by then already burned a small hole through the fabric of my underwear. While this was going on, Swanepoel had a good laugh. I gave him a dirty look and wished I could throttle him, but thought it better to bide my time. As the DBI arrived, so did the military doctor on his routine DB visit. All those who wanted to report sick were called to fall out. I was the first among the few to leave the parade ground.

  I explained my problem to the doctor and he prescribed a muscle cream. On his report card he wrote that I could still do PT but was excused from doing push-ups and the obstacle course. I couldn’t believe it. There I was, back in the squad being forced to exercise, and when everyone else was doing push-ups, I had to do sit-ups. How I got through that day I don’t know.

  At lunchtime, once again I had to eat my food from a plate on the floor. Nobody was allowed to feed me.

  But Swanepoel wasn’t finished with me yet. On the occasions when he didn’t call me ‘rooinek’ or ‘Joodjie’, he referred to me as ‘die man met die groot bors en die kort bene’. That night he arranged a small surprise for the man with the big chest and the short legs.

  About an hour after supper Swanepoel, the two trustees and two other inmates entered my cell. In his hand Swanepoel held a tube of wintergreen cream. He explained that the only way to get the movement back in my arms, which had by now swollen to double their size, was to bend them by force. One of the guys rubbed wintergreen all over my arms and around my elbow joints, while the other held me down. Then Swanepoel himself began the patently enjoyable process of bending my arms. It was agonising. I yelled out in pain. For a single moment I thought I saw a glimpse of sympathy in his eyes, but then it was gone, and he carried on methodically, first bending one arm and then the other. I almost passed out from the pain.

  I did get back some movement in my arms, but the following morning they had swelled up even more. I looked like a bodybuilder. Gradually, however, as the days went by, I regained full movement.

  I’d been in DB for about ten days when Rabie, one of the trustees, completed his sentence and was being returned to his unit. This meant that his job working at the bowling green was up for grabs. That afternoon, after the hour’s afkak session with full gear and staaldak, we were told that all of us would be competing in a race and the winner would be given the coveted bowling green position. This job would mean no more hours of PT in the morning, nor in the afternoon. Toast and jam sandwiches for breakfast and as much coffee as you could drink. At that stage I was literally on the point of breaking down. Every night I cried silent tears. This place was pure hell and I had been pushed to my limit. I doubted I could last much longer. I was going to get that bowling green job if it killed me.

  The race began. On your marks, get set, go! We all bolted around the parade ground at breakneck speed. I managed to stay in about tenth position. I was an experienced long-distance runner and I knew there was no reason why I couldn’t win this. In times of desperation, like many people, I suppose, I always turned to G-d. Please G-d, let me win, I whispered silently.

  The weather was hot, I was dog-tired and my staaldak was too big for my head. It bounced about, slipping over my eyes, and I had to hold it steady with one hand. After a few laps it really started to bother me. Legs pumping hard, I worked myself into a strong second position, and with only ten laps to go, I knew I could bag the race. By now the helmet was actually hurting my skull, besides irritating the shit out of me, so I ripped it off my head and threw it on the ground.

  As I passed Swanepoel, he called me over. ‘Wat die fok doen jy?’ he demanded. ‘Gaan haal jou staaldak!’

  So I had to go back to fetch my staaldak and put it back on my head. I had now fallen into last position. The pressure was on. I picked up the pace almost to a sprint and, with only two laps to go, I was passing the other guys one by one. Then I was back in second position, and on the last lap the leader and I were neck and neck. I dug really deep; where I got the strength from I don’t know, but, by some superhuman effort, I won the race.

  Swanepoel wasn’t happy. Neither were the others. And the fact that they had been beaten by a Jew made it that much worse. I fell to the ground and lay flat on my back, gasping for breath. I looked to the heavens and I thanked G-d for coming through for me in my time of need. Seven days left in this shithole, I thought, and I wouldn’t be doing any more PT.

  Working at the bowling green turned out to be a holiday in comparison to what I had gone through. My remaining days in DB would be a breeze. The afternoon before my seventeenth day, and the last day before my release, we arrived back at DB from the bowling green just as the guys were lining up for their shower. While I was standing naked along the fence, I was told by one of the other inmates that Swanepoel had instructed that I was to be the last to shower today. Fuck, I thought, what was going on? I hadn’t done anything wrong, but my mind was all over the place. Why would Swanepoel want to beat up on me?

  Then it dawned on me. I was getting out tomorrow. My original sentence was 21 days, but through good behaviour I had got a four-day reduction. Then I knew what Swanepoel was up to! Hitting an official carried a minimum of 90 days in detention. He wanted to provoke me into a fight.

  The shower was at the back of an open brick construction. There were two water outlets a metre apart, with a wall on either side, but no doors. Beside them were four deep basins where the pots and varkpanne were washed.

  Everybody had finished taking their shower when I showed up. Nobody was around except Swane
poel, who was waiting for me with a cigarette in his mouth. There was another MP standing with him. I stepped into the shower area. Swanepoel took a deep drag, flicked the butt onto the lawn behind him and began moving towards me. I waited, keeping a careful eye on him. Then he asked me why the fok I kept taking the squad out of step when I was marching. What the–? I realised this guy was fucking crazy. And I was working at the bowling green now anyway; I wasn’t marching with any squad. As I opened my mouth to tell him he must have mistaken me for somebody else, he slapped me so hard that my ears rang.

  Then he jabbed his finger in my chest and said, ‘Jou fokken Joot, jy dink jy is sterk’ (You fucking Jew, you think you’re strong).

  Startled, I could taste blood in my mouth. I could also feel my blood pressure rising. Bang! Another slap across the other side of my face. Then Swanepoel had his fists up, openly challenging me. ‘Jou bliksem, slaan my terug!’ (You fucking cunt, hit me back), he taunted. He moved in on me and punched me in the stomach.

  I buckled over for a second, straightened up and looked directly into his eyes. ‘Fuck you,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to fight.’ Then I turned and walked out of the shower. Swanepoel mumbled something under his breath that I couldn’t hear. The other MP was nowhere to be seen.

  While I felt a sense of victory on the one hand, on the other I felt strangely humiliated. I knew Swanepoel’s intention had been to provoke me, and I was surprised at my ability to control my temper. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have hesitated. Even though I hated him, and all I wanted to do was smash his face, there was no way I wanted to spend a single minute longer in DB than I had to.

  The next morning, when I was released, Swanepoel was not around. When I walked out through the gate in the barbed-wire fence, I felt hardened. I was a changed man. It felt strange, but this was yet another defining moment in my life. I had survived another challenge and had come out stronger.

  I was warmly welcomed by my friends back at camp. When asked what it was like in DB, I joked and said that unless you had been there, you couldn’t fully claim to have experienced the army. By now we were almost three weeks into second-phase counterinsurgency training. I wasn’t given a choice about what field I wanted to specialise in and was placed with the platoon that had been trained to use a 91mm mortar. Just my luck; I had the responsibility of carrying the barrel, which weighed close to 20kg. We were put through a vigorous obstacle course that simulated a battlefield. Manoeuvring between the obstacles with the heavy barrel, along with my rifle and full kit, was no joke. Second phase was pretty intensive. Besides being taught to assemble and fire the 91mm mortar, we were also trained in bush warfare and one-on-one combat.

  I started having visions of myself somewhere in the Angolan bush, dodging enemy fire and having to take care of this fucking mortar barrel. Jesus! What the fuck was I doing here? I had had my fair share of fights, but going to war and actually killing somebody was not me. Our generation was mostly anti-apartheid anyway and against the policies of the ruling National Party. The whole world was boycotting South Africa. I saw no reason why I should give my life for a government that violated human rights on such a large scale. I dreaded the thought of going to war and dying for a cause that I didn’t believe in.

  With every day that went by, however, the threat of going to the border became more real. There was no doubt about it: we were being trained to kill. It seemed as if my fate was being decided by the mere fact that I had made the choice to do my army training first rather than go to college to study. I cursed myself for not having the foresight to know better.

  A week before the end of second phase and our deployment to the border, as if G-d had been reading my thoughts, an order came to our unit: North West Command was forming a marching band and they were looking for anybody who played a musical instrument. The timing couldn’t have been better. Here was an opportunity I couldn’t allow to pass. Four of us Jewish guys huddled together after the parade, excited by the prospect of getting out of going to the border. None of us had ever played a musical instrument before, never mind in a band, but back in my early days at Arcadia I had taken piano and guitar lessons, so maybe that counted. Because music lesson times had clashed with when we played soccer, and because I was tone deaf, my music career hadn’t actually lasted more than two weeks. Now I could have kicked myself for not persevering.

  We discussed all the possible scenarios. How difficult, we concluded, would it be to learn to blow a trumpet or play a drum? So we all gave our names to join the band. Three of us claimed to be able to play trumpet and the fourth guy said he played the drums. Within 24 hours we were transferred to headquarters and out of the fighting unit. As it turned out, another Jewish guy, from 14 Field Regiment just up the road, also joined, and with him a friend from Durban, Paul Bushmell. We were six Jews out of approximately 20 guys.

  Every day we had to report to the main hall, which was also used as a cinema. Outside was the army canteen, where you could buy anything from hot pies and cold drinks to toiletries and other necessities. There were two pianos on the stage in the hall. The guy in charge of forming the band was Staff Sergeant Meintjies. His superior was Captain Henrico, who was there to welcome us all. He gave us a big speech about how important this band was to the ‘Big Brass’. Fortunately for me, and for the rest of my friends, our musical instruments would only be issued in a week or two, and until then we were to remain in the hall and just chill. There was not much to do, so, while idling around, we found ourselves smoking weed and getting high almost every day. We were bored out of our skulls.

  One morning, while fucked out of our heads, we decided to have races with the pianos on the stage. We were busy pushing the pianos around when the staff sergeant walked in. The man was so shocked he couldn’t find the words to say anything. He just stared at us blankly and then he left.

  Best of all was that we weren’t required to do any guard duty. At the end of the day, we would drive to Joburg for a jol and return early in the morning. In fact, during my entire time in the band, none of us had a bed in the camp. Even while we were driving back at 5am we were getting high. It was like a never-ending party. Some of the Afrikaans guys who were serious musicians were totally amazed by our behaviour and lack of respect for authority.

  Then came the day that our instruments finally arrived. This was the moment of truth, and the moment I’d been dreading. Once we were issued with instruments and music books, we were briskly informed that we had two weeks to practise and prepare for the audition. The pressure was on. Every day we sat in the hall and practised. I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t blow a single note on my trumpet. Smoking weed was much easier. At intervals we would jump into our cars, go for a drive and smoke a joint. By the end of the second week, with the help of some of the other band members, and to my surprise, every one of us Jewish guys had learnt to play – everyone except me.

  D-day was upon us. One by one we had to go up on the stage where Staff Sergeant Meintjies was sitting, proudly waiting to audition us. Everybody made it through. I hung back to the very last, and then I couldn’t delay any longer. I held the trumpet to my mouth, took a deep breath and blew with all my might. My cheeks puffed up and my eyeballs nearly popped, but, except for a farting sound, not a single musical note emanated from my instrument. Jesus, I was embarrassed. Staff Sergeant Meintjies turned red and then went pale. He looked like he was going to faint.

  Thinking quickly, I said, ‘My mond is nie gebou vir hierdie ding nie’ (My mouth is not built for this thing), and I pointed scornfully at the mouthpiece. I will never forget the expression on Meintjies’ face. He was totally gobsmacked. I quickly added, in English, before he had a chance to say anything: ‘Perhaps I could play the cymbals?’

  Meintjies’ face lit up immediately and regained its normal colour. He stretched out his hand and took my trumpet away from me, nodding curtly. There was no way he could return me to my unit. This would have been not only a loss of face for him, but also a sign of in
competence, over and above which was the fact that most of our battalion had already moved to the border. (Although the civil war in Angola had formally ended in 1975, guerrilla warfare was still being waged by UNITA forces who, supported by South Africa, were fighting the MPLA, who in turn were armed by the Soviet Union and Cuba.)

  Over the next days and weeks, I would sit around and bang the cymbals together, which, I reckoned, could be done by any fool. Still, the best part of being in the band was that we could go home every night. Captain Henrico was really very fond of us. On one occasion I even brought my sister Joan to visit him, and he proudly escorted her onto the parade ground while inspecting the men.

  We were having the time of our lives, on the jol almost every night, loafing about during the day. All I had to do was clash those cymbals now and again. Joan’s flat had become a regular sleepover place for my friends; there were times when there were four or five of us crashing there, sprawled all over the lounge. One guy even slept in the bath one night. My sister, bless her soul, was very accommodating and never really complained until, one day, while we were smoking up a storm in her flat, one of my friends blew weed into her parrot’s face. The poor creature then committed suicide. When Joan came home, she found that the bird had stuck its head through the bars of the cage and broken its neck. She went totally ballistic and immediately banned my friends from the premises. When Joan was out at work, though, we would still meet there and smoke weed.