The Afrikaner

by Arianna Dagnino

  “For Willem and his ilk, those like Kurt are the real traitors,” Cyril says drily.

  “Listen, I have no love for that kind of people, but put yourself in their shoes,” André says glancing at him through the rear-mirror. “The genuine interpreter of the Boer’s soul turns into a militant who attacks the political foundations of Afrikanerdom and incites resistance against apartheid. And he does so by shredding the volk’s mythology to pieces. Wouldn’t you feel stabbed in the back?”

  “No doubt,” Cyril says, “despite my intrinsic difficulty in putting myself in Boer’s shoes.”

  “Did he do all this from within South Africa?” Zoe asks, flaunting her brother’s tacit call to self-restraint — or at least that’s how she interpreted his interjections.

  “Nee. At that point he’d already chosen to live in voluntary exile in Europe,” Cyril says. “Here in South Africa censors kept themselves busy. You certainly wouldn’t read about his tirades in the local newspapers.”

  “I have read some of them recently,” André says.

  “Did you?”

  He chuckles, tapping gently on her thigh: “I’m not that dumb.”

  “Anyway, to him we Afrikaners are a nation of bastards, the offspring of the Dutch settlers interbreeding with their Khoikhoi, Malay and Malagasy slaves.”

  “Well, there’s some historical truth in it, but that’s quite a sweeping generalization.”

  André sneers lightly as he negotiates a bend on the narrow road: “Here is the voice from the academic pulpit.”

  “For the record, Kurt goes much further than that. It’s expressly to cover up the most ambiguous traces of our genetic indignity that our volk resorted to a warped sense of racial purity. That’s what he says.”

  “He speaks of collective self-delusion,” Cyril says. “Unsure about its place and identity, a whole nation was made to believe that ethnic pride and culture could only descend from race.”

  “Whichever way you look at it, it was sheer madness,” André says. “Mass mental perversion.”

  Zoe keeps quiet. She has never heard André talk so bluntly about their Afrikaner identity. That resentment in his voice is new to her. Perhaps he got caught up in the heat of the conversation. Or it may just be a considered pose for the benefit of the new black associate.

  She decides not to read too much into it. Instead, she looks out of the window waiting for the blue line of the ocean to appear in the distance.

  One and half hours later, they enter Gansbaai. From the car Zoe watches life amiably go by in this once small fishing village turned into holiday resort. Past are the days when white hunters lurked along this coastline waiting for the humpback and southern right whales to leave the feeding grounds off Antarctica, drawn by the call of the mating season.

  They have parked the car and walked across the beach, to the pier. From there, the view stretches over a sequence of small coves and tranquil bays protected by cliffs abruptly dropping into the ocean. Zoe breathes in, filling her lungs with the salty air. It’s a bright late autumn day, although its warmth is nullified by the brisk gusts of the south-western. She shivers in her jacket as she watches the ocean ripple and dance with light, the deep blue water turning green as it rolls against the cliff. It will be more difficult to spot whales in a sea so dishevelled.

  “Too late, they’re gone.”

  None of them has heard him arrive. Kurt greets Zoe with a wide smile before patting Cyril and André on the shoulder.

  “Let’s try the acoustic room and see if they’re still around,” he says tossing his jacket over a shoulder. He looks more at ease in his navy-blue pullover and canvas trousers than in his tuxedo.

  “The acoustic room?” André asks.

  “Yes, they opened it a couple of years ago to study whale sounds.”

  A few minutes later, they descend into an underwater chamber lying at the sea bottom, ten metres below the surface. Across the glass walls the seaweed dance gently in the current as a cacophony of wails, moans and shrieks starts enveloping the space.

  “They’re transmitted via a microphone applied to an offshore buoy,” Kurt says.

  The whales’ vocalizations echo from wall to wall, filling the room with mysterious laments.

  “Creepy,” André murmurs.

  “Whales emit sound to communicate and to echolocate,” Kurt explains for his guests’ sake. “When they dive, they receive and interpret the resulting echo as it is being reflected by the obstacles met on their way.”

  “In other words, they create acoustic images of their surroundings,” Zoe says.

  “Correct. They see by hearing.”

  “Nice way to put it,” Cyril says.

  Zoe listens more intently to the whales’ eerie cries soundscaping an invisible territory, marking their wandering in the deserts of the deep. Through the glass wall she peers once more into that subaqueous world of vibrating solitudes, then follows the others toward the exit.

  25

  A DINNER INVITATION

  THEY WALK ON the damp sand close to the shoreline marked by the lines of bygone tides.

  They don’t get to see any whales, but the fresh open air and the ocean’s swell are just as good.

  Later in the afternoon, Kurt invites them over. “I’ll make dinner,” he says. “Something simple, on the spot.”

  “No need to make up for having dragged us here for nothing,” Cyril says to tease him.

  On the way, Kurt stops at a grocery store to buy fresh produce. Standing on the pavement a few metres away from the outdoor stands Zoe watches as he picks veggies and exchanges a few jokes with the shop owner. He seems to bask in the ordinariness of simple gestures and easy talk. Back to basics. Is this what a life of dissidence, exile and imprisonment teaches you? Perhaps, this is his own way to make up for the prolonged loss of normalcy. Something happens to the brain. Now she can tell. After six months of self-confinement in a wasteland, even the simple furniture arrangement in her bedroom seems cluttered.

  How does he see the world after seven years of forced captivity in a cell?

  Kurt’s house, a simple bunker-like structure made of wood and stone, stands perched on a cliff between Gansbaai and Hermanus. The balcony protrudes from the building as if it were suspended in mid-air, between sea and sky.

  “Well, that’s what you’d call a view over infinity,” André says leaning his arms on the rail at the edge of the terrace. “It’s easy to become a lone wolf sitting up here with a Scotch, a good book, a little music in the background.”

  The sun, in the far west, is already an orange disk dipping in slow motion.

  “I can’t picture you in this role, André,” Cyril says with a laugh.

  “Neither can I,” Zoe says.

  But, then, why not? People change all the time, even when they think they don’t.

  “Anything to drink? Scotch on the rocks?” Kurt asks.

  “I’m all for it,” André says.

  The wind has subsided. Cyril and her brother drop into the wicker chairs on the balcony and start chatting in low voices.

  Kurt moves to the kitchen to prepare their drinks.

  As she looks around, Zoe notices another windowdoor, slightly ajar, leading into a studio. She peers inside. Three of the walls are covered with books; in a corner facing the window is a sturdy desk of what looks like reclaimed wood; a computer and a stack of black leather notebooks are the only objects on it. She enters, walks over to the closest shelf and runs a finger over the spines of the books: they’re arranged in alphabetical order. She pauses at the V and reads the titles of his works.

  “Here, Zoe,” Kurt says, handing her a tumbler. She jumps slightly: He has come from behind, catching her by surprise.

  “I’m sorry, I hope I’m not intruding.”

  “Not to worry,” he says perching himself on a stool by the window: “A fossil hunter can’t help being snoopy.”

  “I guess so,” she says, listening to the ice tinkle against her glass. “Most
of the time with few rewards, though. I mean, Mary Leakey found her first hominid footprints after she had wandered in the desert like a mad woman for thirty years.”

  He seems to wait for more. She can’t suppress a smile.

  “Is something funny?”

  “I’m sorry. With your high-neck fisherman’s sweater, whiskey in hand and unshaven stubble you look like a real writer. I mean, the way anyone would imagine, say, Hemingway in his study.”

  “Putting on weight, with greying hair and ready to shoot himself in the head. Too much like the old man, right?”

  “I see you have most of his books.”

  “We never stop imitating our models, for better or for worse.”

  Out there, the sky has suddenly turned blood red. Below them, the Atlantic waves keep beating on the shore with dogged insistence.

  As she turns again toward the shelf, Zoe makes eye contact with a young woman framed within a picture. She is of unusual beauty, with shiny black hair wrapping her shoulders like a silk shawl, slightly almond-shaped eyes and the golden-brown skin of the Cape Coloured.

  Kurt stands up rather abruptly.

  “You’re going to miss the sunset,” he says laying a hand on her hip, leading her gently through the window doors onto the terrace.

  They reach the others in time to pick up what Cyril is saying: “He built this house with his own hands, soon after he came back to South Africa three years ago.”

  Zoe looks sideways to check Kurt’s reaction, but he seems lost in his thoughts, perhaps in his memories. He keeps his eyes not on the fireball in the sky but down, at the relentless surf under their feet. Once again, he has retreated behind a curtain of cold detachment. Even his dwelling, so apparently open to the sun and the sea breeze, is standing within invisible walls – the ones he has erected between himself and the rest of the world.

  Darkness is setting over the bay as they finish their drinks and follow Kurt into the kitchen, a large room with wellscrubbed pots and pans hanging by nails over the stove. Their host moves at ease in this space, with the dexterity of a man used to living alone. Zoe watches him as he chops onions, stir-fries veggies, cooks the pasta. For a moment, through these simple gestures, Dario’s image superimposes itself on Kurt’s, as if her dead lover had come to reclaim her.

  “Italians devote a great deal of time and manic attention to food preparation,” she blurts out in the surge of emotion. Only to regret it immediately.

  André glances at her, puzzled.

  “Indeed,” Kurt says, unaware of the reasons for her verbal outburst. Then he adds, winking at Cyril: “I should’ve prepared a potjiekos instead.”

  “Do you honestly like that stuff?” Zoe asks glancing at their new director.

  “He’s teasing me,” Cyril says, while he helps André set the table. “Our man of letters here is among those who decided to reclaim — in spite of it all — the dignity of the Afrikaner culture and language.”

  “And would you do it by submitting us all to Boer gastronomy?” she asks in a half-joking tone watching Kurt while he dishes up the pasta.

  “Actually, as a social experiment I find it rather tasteful,” he says passing the plates around.

  Zoe falls quiet, not grasping the full meaning of his remark.

  “It’s not culinary art we’re talking about here, ousus,” André says coming to her aid. “It’s about South Africa’s future. While you were away, the concept of the potjiekos has been gaining traction among certain quarters of the Afrikaner intelligentsia.”

  “I see,” she says.

  “You’re not great at cooking, admit it, Zoe,” her brother says, keeping a playful tone. “But you know how to make potjiekos, right? You add layers of meat upon layers of vegetables and then let the whole thing simmer for hours. In this way, each layer flavours the others without losing its distinct taste.” He pauses to see if she’s following him; then says: “You never stir the potjiekos. If you mix its layers, all you get is an unpalatable meatloaf.”

  Zoe shakes her head, incredulous. Then, adjusting the plate in front of her, she asks, a bit too coldly: “So, by comparison, the American melting pot is the unpalatable meatloaf. Right?”

  Her brother turns to Kurt, expecting him to answer. Their host takes a long sip from his glass of wine before answering.

  “Listen, it’s obvious that the different cultures of this country can no longer be separated from each other. Just like, once put to cook together in the potjie the meat layers can no longer be separated from the vegetable ones.”

  Kurt pauses to pour wine into her glass. “This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve to make a stew of them. Otherwise what you get is a vapid Rainbow Nation where all the ingredients blend and taste similar.”

  “A self-imposed apartheid without the police regime. Is this your ‘new’ recipe for this country?” Zoe asks looking at the three men in dismay.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” Cyril says. “Kurt is right, diversity is healthy. We can accept each other and be together without giving up our differences. It’s useless — even foolish — to reduce us to a common denominator.”

  “It might prove the only clever way out,” she says, picking at her plate without much conviction.

  “Why not look at Canada and Australia, instead?” her brother asks. “Their multicultural model seems to work.”

  “So far,” Kurt says, smiling appreciatively at André. He has already emptied his plate and is ready for seconds. “In any case, theirs is a different history. We’ve got to find our own way.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Zoe. I’m all for cultural métissage, genetic mixing. Isn’t this the way we evolved?” He briefly smiles at her before going on with his reasoning. “But these must be natural processes. You can’t socially engineer hybridization nor integration. Just like you can’t impose apartheid. The Rainbow Nation is an appealing brand name for a torn nation trying to heal itself, but it’s a simplistic concept. Even trivial, I’d say, especially after what we’ve been through.”

  “What’s the alternative, though?” she asks.

  “The tribes of this country — the white, the black, the coloured — share a long history. Sure, a bloody and violent one. But we’ve been together for hundreds of years now. And, by the way, this is what sets us apart from Canada and Australia,” Kurt says turning toward André. “This common lived history should be the foundation of our new country.”

  André nods. “Not a fake shared identity, but a mutual respect of our diversity.”

  In the silence that follows, everyone seems to be absorbed in their thoughts.

  Her brother’s remark brings Zoe back to one late-night conversation she had with Dario. His words still echo loud and clear: “I’m anything but a racist, you know that. But let’s be honest, Zoe. After a day of high exposure to multicultural interactions, if I want to relax I seek my people. I mean, those with whom I can speak freely, in my mother tongue; with whom, if I feel like it, I may even make an inappropriate joke without risking someone takes offence or without being accused of racism, classism, cynicism, or who knows what other -ism. This is a universal thing, a very human trait. And it happens to everyone across all cultures and continents.”

  Her brother breaks the silence, picking up the thread of the conversation. “So Kurt, you’re willing to give the Afrikaner another chance in this land?”

  “It all depends on how much longer we need to wallow in our Boer shame, using it as an alibi for inaction,” their host replies looking sternly beyond the table, across the window, out at the black sea. “As a country, we can’t collectively re-enter history from the front door if we still lack the main ingredient: self-respect.”

  “But we did evil. Who will take responsibility for that?” André asks.

  “Group blame is a mistake, from whatever side of the fence you look at it,” Kurt says, reaching for the cheese platter. “It all starts and ends with the individual. This we should remember.”

  “With due repentan
ce, fathers and children are then acquitted of all charges,” Cyril says with a hint of sarcasm, lifting his glass of Merlot to study its colour up to the light.

  “With individual punishment and due collective reparation. Let’s stick to the secular. Retribution, repentance, atonement are words that belong to another realm of judgment.

  Zoe looks at Kurt’s hands holding the cup of wine: like a priest presiding at the celebration of the Eucharist.

  “I see where you’re coming from,” André says, playing with a cashew nut between his fingers. “As an individual, you’ve already paid your share. You rebelled against the fathers, the uncles, the brothers, and bore the consequences. But those of us who were tacitly complicit, who haven’t fought, died or left this country when it was time to do so, how should we be feeling now?”

  “Let everyone come to terms with oneself,” Kurt says in a firm voice, knife still in hand for having just sliced more bread. He pauses, puts the knife down and adds: “Each one of us should establish what he or she gave to or took away from this country, do the sums and then take action.”

  He gazes at his interlocutors, checking their reaction, then says: “What I’m trying to say is that, until we stick to this ethnic curse, until we accept to be branded as ‘dirty Afrikaners’ by the world, we won’t be free to think — and act — in new ways, nor feel responsible for one another.”

  Zoe notices that their host has uttered the word vloek (curse) not in Afrikaans, the language in which they are conversing, but in English, as if to emphasize its intolerable impact.

  “One first step towards this ‘freedom’ might be to stop thinking of ourselves as Europeans,” Kurt says. “We’re Africans, now.”

  She sits back, unable to contain a surge of annoyance in her tone of voice. “To become truly African we have to reject Europe as such. Is this what you’re telling us?”

  “I don’t disown our European blood. But we must accept our forebears were expelled from that world, for economic, religious or political reasons. Very few made for the Cape just for the sheer thrill of adventure. If anything, we can now claim the right to be a separate people.”