by Jenny Hobbs
Isie K Smuts (Ouma)
· 25 ·
THE FINAL BLESSING, AT LAST: ‘THE GRACE OF OUR Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us evermore. Amen.’
The bishop makes the sign of the cross as the usher swings open both doors to the Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic: hooting, parping, revving, buzzing two-strokes, the diesel throb of trucks and buses, weaving motorbikes and a buffalo stampede of minibus taxis. The hectic present invades the sanctuary where, for more than an hour, people have been communing with the past and the dead.
‘Can we duck out now?’ the Sharks lock mutters to his captain.
‘No. Wouldn’t look good.’
‘Come on, man. I’ve got a cramp from sitting so long. It’ll be another half an hour if we have to wait for all those old guys to dodder out.’
‘Forget it. We’re representing our province and the press is here. We’ve got to show respect.’
The player sits back, flexing his beefy neck and looking around him.
Skilled at exiting ceremonies, the journalists and most of the businessmen have melted into the side aisles. Several elderly Moths shuffle after them, desperate for the Gents. The nursing sister who looks after Retief Alberts leaves her pew to confer with him in a whisper, then gestures at Purkey on the other side of the church, indicating that Mr Alberts doesn’t feel up to walking.
Purkey nods. His next job is to release the trolley brake. Since there’ll be one less pall-bearer, the daughter can take her place with the men. It’s irregular, but women are getting so insistent about their rights that you’ve got to be careful. And she’s not the only oddball in the Kitching family. He scans the front pew. The boy is off with the fairies, the son’s married to a black, the sister’s looking daggers at the wife – and she looks hopping mad. It’s always the same at funerals; tensions burst out like loose springs. He’s seen men come to blows at gravesides and people throw things on top of descending coffins: letters, toys, framed photos, CDs, once even a guitar (someone reached down into the grave and fished it out).
‘You live and learn in our trade,’ Purkey mutters to Clyde.
‘Not mine. I’m out of here. Like, now.’ Clyde has been exchanging eye signals with the chick in the second pew, suggesting they meet outside.
‘You can’t go now! I’ll be on my own. Mr Digby –’
‘Fuck Mr Digby Senior,’ says Clyde. ‘I’ll drop his Dracula number off at the mortuary next week.’ He begins to edge backwards.
‘Don’t go. I can’t do this alone,’ Purkey moans. ‘It’s an important service. Please.’
‘I can’t do it neither. I’m gone.’ With a final rattle of his tongue stud, Clyde joins the early leavers ghosting up the side aisle.
Purkey panics. How’m I going to get the casket into the hearse, let alone get it out at the other end? The limo drivers will refuse to help; union rules. I’ll lose my job. Got to call the office, now.
He hurries into the vestry and hits a speed dial number on his cellphone. His own voice answers: ‘This is Digby & Smith, your superior interment service. The office is closed. For after-hours call-outs, please phone –’ and gives his name and contact details.
He can hardly believe it. Charmaine and the mortuary staff must have slipped off early. Mr Digby Senior is at a funeral directors’ conference in Cape Town. Mr Digby Junior is climbing in the ’Berg. He has been abandoned. He’s working for an inferior interment service. This is no way to handle – to serve – a hero on his last journey.
As he hurries back into the emptying church, the bishop’s triumphant ‘Amen’ still echoes.
At this point Purkey should be on the alert to assist Reverend George and the pall-bearers, but instead he’s trying to attract the son’s attention. Without success. Hugh has his head down and doesn’t see Purkey’s agitated signals.
But Theodora does. She’s sitting behind them, next to Mtshali, and leans forward to whisper, ‘What is wrong?’
Purkey bends down to her level, chins quivering. ‘It’s an emergency. My assistant has pushed off. I can’t handle the next part on my own.’
‘That boy with things in his ears? He’s gone?’
‘Just walked out. I don’t know what to do.’
‘You must call for help.’
‘I have. There’s nobody in the office. It’s Friday afternoon. This is terrible. A big funeral with TV cameras and all these people. Plus Mr Kitching was a Springbok. I don’t know how I’ll face the family. The shame of it.’
This gibbering undertaker had called her ‘ousie’, but he looks so distressed that she says, ‘Maybe I can help?’
‘You would?’
Close up, her skin is finely pleated brown silk and her ear is a perfect whorl like his favourite nut-centred Milk Tray chocolates. She’s smartly dressed: hat, handbag, stockings, shoes like his wife wears when they go to church.
She nods. ‘Mr Mtshali will surely help too. He’s a pall-bearer.’
Gilingwe Mtshali confirms his willingness, adding, ‘Must I go over there now?’
‘Any minute. Thanks, eh?’ Purkey says again. ‘It’s very nice of you both.’
‘We have respect for Mr Kitching,’ she says. ‘What should we do?’
Good Samaritans have been few in Purkey’s life, as have his contacts with black people other than mortuary assistants. The relief of being saved from humiliation triggers a rush of gratitude. He repeats, ‘Thanks, eh? It’s not difficult. Whilst the pall-bearers walk the casket up the centre aisle, I go up the side here with my assistant and meet them at the top of the steps to guide it down the ramp. Could you come with me –’ He is unsure what to call her.
‘I’m Mrs Ngcobo. Theodora, nè?’
‘Ah. Yes. Thanks. I’ll signal like this when we need to go.’ He raises a forefinger, looking so comical that she struggles to keep a straight face.
‘We’ll be ready, Mr –?’
‘Purkey. Wendell Purkey. Thanks. Greatly appreciated. I’ll give the signal when everything’s in order.’ He straightens up as Reverend George comes down the altar steps. It’s time for him to move forward, release the trolley brake and help with the turn so J J Kitching doesn’t leave his funeral feet first.
The organ starts to burble again as Reverend George beckons the pallbearers. Lin is making her way to the back of the group when he tugs at her sleeve. ‘Excuse me, miss. You’re to walk opposite your brother, in place of Mr Alberts.’
She says with heavy irony, ‘I’ve been promoted to the front rank?’
‘Mr Alberts is indisposed.’
‘Expedience, then. My mother won’t like it.’
Lin doesn’t understand why her mother is so angry. She had borne J J’s long illness well, yet today she was grumpy when they left the house and seems to have whipped herself into a rage. What’s worrying her? It can’t be money. J J had seen to his affairs in his last months, arranging with his accountant and lawyer to set up a family trust which makes generous provision for Shirley and Lin and Hugh and Sam, with a lifetime monthly grant for Barbara. His SAB Miller shares have done him proud. So why is she in such a state?
Lin puts her hand on her father’s flag-draped coffin and looks directly at her mother: I’m doing this for him, not to upset you. Please don’t be cross.
Shirley tightens her mouth. It’s not rage, it’s furious indecision. Ever since John’s illness was diagnosed as fatal, she’s been trying to make up her mind whether or not to tell her children about their half-brother. It would be a terrible shock to them, and she could always pretend she’s going overseas on a tour when she wants to visit him. But she’s tired of pretence; tired of playing second fiddle. She wants them to see what a fine son she’s kept hidden all these years out of respect for their hero. Surely there’s no harm in coming clean, now he’s gone? She scowls at Lin and Hugh standing on either side of his coffin, ready to head the procession up the red carpet. They’ve had their time. She needn’t feel guilty.
>
Kenneth says to Lofty as he gets up to join the other pall-bearers, ‘Are you coming to the cemetery?’
‘Haven’t been invited. No transport anyway.’
‘Come with me. I’ll drop you off at home after the wake. J J deserves to have friends with him.’
‘Were you ever a friend?’ Lofty has a right to ask, because he’d tried to get them talking to each other all those years ago at Twiggie’s.
‘No. But I’ve made my peace now. Stupid to let things fester.’
‘Too late for J J. He never got over causing your punishment.’
‘We all have to pay for our mistakes. And he had his compensations. Lucky to have a wife and kids too.’ Kenneth moves away to take his place with the other pall-bearers, raising his chin to hide the sudden shine in his eyes. His medals are identical to those at the head of the coffin.
Definitely jealousy, Lofty thinks. Poor bugger.
From the far side of the coffin, Sam scans the pews of rugby players who still sit wedged together, some with folded arms. They’re waiting until Grampa’s gone out. So if he hangs around he can ask for autographs. He looks down at his Order of Service with the old man’s photo on the front. It’ll be awesome if he can get some of the Sharks and Springboks to sign it.
He forgets about the girls he’d heard whispering behind him about French kissing and incest. One of them has vanished up the side aisle, telling her mother she needs the toilet, like, now.
The only disappointing aspect of being liberated was that when at long last we had access to plentiful food … we got the squitters … It took many months for the tummies of some men to settle down to the sort of fare over which they had salivated in their dreams for three years.
– GUNNER ALAN GARDINER, quoted in Captives Courageous,
by MAXWELL LEIGH
The war ended at midnight on 7 May, when the POWs at Moosburg were still being assessed and treated by American army medics and introduced to proper food in slow stages. Kenneth was among the wounded and seriously ill who were flown at once to hospitals in England for specialist treatment.
Major Irving reported, ‘The quacks say his privates are damaged, but they think they can save them and the fingers. They’re using M&B to control the infection and leeches to reduce the swelling. The medicine’s working, but he may never be able to straighten the fingers. Anyone know if he’s left-handed?’
Nobody had seen him write – there hadn’t been any letters from home to answer. J J said, ‘I didn’t notice, sorry, sir,’ and left the hut in another fit of shivering and sweating. Shell-shock, the medics had labelled his persistent nightmares and flashbacks to the burning plane, and he was grateful for the diagnosis that gave his debility a less shameful cause. He didn’t tell them about the other flashback: the guard hurrying towards him holding out a gold coin which he took and stuffed in his pocket.
It was his fault Kenneth had been punished. The words ‘my fault, my fault’ were like hammers in his head numbing and blurring everything: the taste of food, voices, thoughts, feelings. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he couldn’t. The hammers kept him awake and made him furious with everyone celebrating the end of the war. Instead of laughter and orgies of planning post-demob lives, he had to sit in a queue for the psychologist next to nutters with nervous tics or blank faces, some speechless, some gone far round the bend.
The gold coin smouldered in the inside chest pocket of his greatcoat, threatening to burn through and brand him. He had visions of the head crowned by a laurel wreath imprinting his guilt on his skin, scarring it red so he’d never be able to take his shirt off or go for a swim if people were around.
‘What’s eating you?’ Ed Usher asked when he told him to bugger off one day.
‘Nothing. Mind your own business.’
‘I’m just concerned.’ Ed’s feet were being treated and bandaged by the medics; he wore felt slippers and used crutches so there’d be no pressure on the bad heel. With his other Long March rescuer Kenneth gone, he’d taken to hanging around J J like a doleful basset hound.
‘No need. Do me a favour and get lost.’
‘You don’t look too good. Have you seen a quack?’ Ed persisted.
‘Yes, and I’m bloody fine.’ J J turned his back and walked off so Ed wouldn’t see that he was shaking again.
‘You know we’re being shipped out tomorrow?’ Ed called after him. ‘First Rheims, then England. On our way home, eh?’
He had a genius for obvious comments that made you want to sock him. J J kept going to control his surge of rage and tried to think about home. Umfolozi had faded to sepia snaps in a photo album after the violent horror film that was war. Victor slumped in his armchair having forty winks. Dot baking cakes. Barbara sulking in her bedroom. Bobby and the stick-fighters in threatening poses on the sawdust mountain. The steam train chuffing into the station. All so distant now from the battle-hardened man he had become with the awful knowledge of bombing and shooting and killing – and worse, betrayal – eating at his mind and guts. Would he have owned up to save his old schoolmate Maurice, or even then would he have been too frightened?
Was he a coward deep down, and the act of saving Herbie an aberration?
Before he was carted off to a labour camp, Herbie had reported the incident in detail to a senior officer and asked him to nominate J J for a Distinguished Flying Cross – so he had a reputation to live up to. How could he have tarnished it in one stupid act of accepting a bribe to keep quiet?
By the time the POWs were loaded onto a Dakota for Rheims, J J was in such a bad way that he was strapped in next to Major Irving who would keep an eye on him through the process of being deloused, examined, showered and kitted out in British Army clothes.
When he was done, the major took him to an empty office in the barracks and sat him down. ‘We’re admitting you to the military hospital at the UDF repatriation camp in Brighton for more treatment before you’re sent home. I know it’s unwelcome news. I’m sorry, lieutenant.’
J J shook his head, unable to speak.
‘I understand how you feel. But shell-shock is a serious condition. Proper treatment is important. We don’t want you demobbed until you’re well again.’
‘It’s not that, sir.’
‘What do you mean?’ Major Irving had kind eyes above his trim toothbrush moustache.
The confession welled and burst like gouts of vomit. ‘I took a gold coin from a guard who was stealing some at the hunting lodge. He offered me one and I took it. Didn’t tell anyone. I should have owned up. It was my fault Naylor was punished. I was afraid of being shot. I’m a coward.’
‘Ah.’
The major sat looking at him and J J grovelled, ‘I’m sorry. I’m rubbish. I let the side down. I deserve a court martial. I’m not worth the –’
‘But I ordered you men not to respond. The Gestapo had discovered the looting and the Kommandant was trying to shift the blame.’
‘If I’d said something they wouldn’t have picked Naylor. His punishment was my fault. How can I face him now?’
‘No need.’ The major spoke with crisp authority. ‘This information stops here, right? You are not to blame for the cruelties of war. You were not in your proper mind when you accepted that coin. Right?’
J J nodded.
The major put his hand on J J’s arm to soften what he was going to say next. ‘Nor can I take it off you, sorry. Rules and regulations.’
‘Why – what?’
‘Only one thing to do: keep the bloody thing until you can deal with it.’
J J kept shaking his head as he said, ‘I can’t. Got to get rid of it. Burning me.’ He was shivering and squirming like a terrified dog.
The major snapped, tightening his hand, ‘Pull yourself together, lieutenant. We have to fly again soon.’
‘Can’t.’
‘That’s an order, not a suggestion.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Still shivering.
He’d fall apart if he went on like thi
s. Bad for morale.
The major tried another tack. ‘What if I say to you that the spoils of war are finders keepers?’
J J blurted, ‘It wasn’t like that! I just kept that thing for insurance, to save my life. Now it’s killing me.’
‘Well, it’s a waste to throw it away.’ The major managed a smile. ‘Catharsis, that’s what you need.’
‘What?’
‘Heaving your guts out to feel better. Ancient Greeks did it. Suggest you tuck it away somewhere safe and dispose of it for a good cause when you get home. Case closed. I don’t want to hear another word. Good luck, lieutenant.’ He dropped J J’s arm, got up and marched out.
But Ed Usher had been listening at the door. And he told Kenneth Naylor and later Lofty, in strict confidence and stressing that the major had said J J was not to blame.
Ed always was stupid.
INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL EUROPEAN RANKS
IF TAKEN PRISONER OF WAR
1. According to international law every soldier is bound to give only his true name, rank, and army number if taken prisoner of war.
2. Every soldier will realise that if he gives away any other information he will be endangering the lives of his comrades and the success of the campaign.
3. The enemy will adopt every kind of method in trying to get information from a prisoner of war.
4. All ranks must be warned personally by their Unit Commanders of the possible methods which will be adopted by the enemy and all officers should lecture the men under their command, encouraging questions.
5. The enemy may use some of the following means in trying to get information:–
a. Kind treatment, leading to friendly discussion and argument.
b. Alcohol and/or drugs.
c. The use of listening apparatus.
d. Instilling fear and third-degree methods.
e. The offer of special privileges in return for what appears to be harmless information.
f. Bogus prisoners.
6. Don’t discuss:–
a. The names of your own Unit or Units in your vicinity of capture.