Blind Date at a Funeral

by Trevor Romain

  I must say I had a feeling the boy was going to disappear the first chance he got. I had him figured out the minute he sat down. I could just tell.

  I felt sorry for the old man though.

  Shame, man.

  I cleared my throat and leaned forward. Then I leaned back again.

  I thought if I woke him up he would still have a chance to catch the boy. I really felt bad for the old man. There is something very endearing about sleeping people. A sadness almost. I didn’t quite know how to wake him and tell him the boy was gone. I didn’t want to see the pain in his face.

  I didn’t have to.

  The boy came back a few minutes later with two steaming cups of coffee. He woke his grandfather and gave him one of the cups.

  They drank their coffee …

  … while I stared out of the window at the empty Karoo.

  Granny on a Mission

  (Soundtrack: ‘Chariots of Fire’ by Vangelis)

  Playing international rugby for your country is a wonderful thing. I loved representing the Springboks. One of my good friends was an All Black. We played against each other a number of times.

  My friend was a little stronger than me, but I was a little faster. And although we were the best of friends, there was no holding back when we competed against each other.

  He was particularly good at rucking and would use his boots without mercy if he came across me holding onto the ball on the ground.

  There may not be a better feeling in this world than playing an inter­ national game of rugby for your country.

  I remember one memorable game in particular.

  It was an unseasonably warm winter’s day in Johannesburg. The pitch was perfect, the crowd was roaring and I was feeling pretty strong that day.

  I remember cradling the ball just before the kick-off and recalling names of some of the Springboks who played before me. Names like Dawie de Villiers, Frik du Preez, and Syd Nomis, to name a few.

  I always felt good cradling a rugby ball in my hands.

  My father had been a very good rugby player and I inherited his love for the game. He played scrumhalf for Dale College and captained the first team. He often took my brother and I to Dale College reunions when we were little boys.

  He would take us to the rugby ground and show us where he once caught the ball behind his own post, and jinxed and sidestepped this way and that, finally scoring a try under the opponent’s posts. Or the time he took the ball on the blindside of a five-yard scrum and scored a winning try in the last minute of a grudge match against Grey College.

  Dale would play the traditional Selbourne College game on the Saturday afternoon of the reunion and we would sit proudly next to my dad, our hero, as he sang the school war cry alongside all the schoolboys in the stands.

  ‘Aha aha aha kangela e Dale College …’

  Other dads sang their kids lullabies when they were infants. My dad sang us the Dale College war cry.

  One time, my dad got my brother and me Dale College first-team rugby jerseys belonging to a certain Taljaardt and Gerber, the first-team scrumhalf and flyhalf combination. I have no clue who these chaps were, but I remember their names clearly because they were boldly lettered on the back of the jerseys above their numbers.

  Even though those jerseys were ten times too big for us, we wore them until they practically fell off our bodies. I think my mom actually threw them away one night while we were sleeping.

  That was then and this was now.

  So there I was, waiting for the kick-off. This time it was my name on the back of the jersey. A Springbok jersey.

  The opposing flyhalf placed the ball in the centre of the field and stepped back, waiting for the ref to start the game.

  The whistle blew and the game was on.

  The flyhalf kicked the ball high and I waited, both feet firmly planted on the ground, waiting to receive the ball.

  My fantasy was suddenly shattered by a scream.

  ‘Behind you!’

  I swung my head around and saw a white Ford Anglia heading straight for us at high speed.

  I dived out of the way as the car whizzed by.

  ‘That’s no way to drive on a bloody international rugby field!’ yelled my friend. ‘Jirre, are you mal, lady?’

  ‘I don’t think she likes us playing rugby in the street in front of her house,’ I said, sarcastically.

  ‘You don’t say,’ said my friend. ‘Especially when you kick the bloody ball over her fence every time.’

  We had very small front gardens in my neighbourhood and there was nowhere else to play. In our little primary-school minds, the street was our rugby stadium or Wembley Stadium or an international cricket field or even sometimes an athletics stadium.

  We used wooden tomato boxes as wickets or hurdles or goal posts.

  Our imaginations were amazingly vivid and, without much effort, we were transported to the most wonderful venues in our minds, until the little old lady barrelled down the road and instantly brought us back to reality.

  She was a very irritable old woman. She was tiny and could not see over the steering wheel of her car. She looked through it.

  She lived next door to us and got furious when our rugby ball went over the fence and rolled into her hydrangeas or rhododendrons or her precious damn ranunculus.

  You could see the evil intent in her eyes when she aimed the car at us. She was very consistent in her murderous driving style. She would turn the corner onto our street and as soon as the wheels were straight, she would put her foot flat and accelerate. Then she would aim at anything in the street that irritated her, like little boys with rugby balls or cricket bats.

  Then she would swing the car into her driveway, gun the engine to get up the little slope and screech to an immediate halt just short of the garage door. As she jammed on the brakes, the back of the car would rise up, rock forward and settle back with a groan.

  ‘Hey!’ my friend yelled as the old lady got out the car one day. ‘You almost killed us!’

  ‘I know,’ she barked back. ‘That’s what I was trying to do!’

  We had absolutely no response to that statement.

  So my friend and I just looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and went back to being international rugby stars.

  The Rather Pretty Lieutenant

  (Soundtrack: ‘Pretty Woman’ by Roy Orbison)

  The first time I saw her, I almost stabbed myself in the chest with a bayonet.

  I was walking back to my tent, after being issued with my army equipment. It was the first day of basic training at Fourth Field Regiment in Potchefstroom.

  We felt really proud, and rather important, as we walked back to our tents with our FN rifles in hand. Some of us popped the bayonets onto the weapon we were given, which made us feel even more important.

  I was busy trying to figure out how to fit the bayonet onto the barrel when I spotted her.

  There were hundreds of troepies stationed there, but she was the only female soldier we had seen on the whole base. I think during my entire two years of national service, I only saw four or five women in uniform.

  She was a lieutenant assigned to our regimental headquarters.

  I have always had a soft spot for women in uniform, except for meter maids and postwomen.

  She was rather attractive and I fell in love with her instantly. Along with a few hundred other sex-starved eighteen- and nineteen-year-old mongrels.

  I was so busy looking at her, I tripped over the guide wire of our tent and almost impaled myself on my bayonet. And, as you would expect, the guys would never let me forget that.

  We caught glimpses of her all throughout basic training and she even spoke to me once during that time. Actually, it wasn’t really speaking – it was more like a grunt as I saluted her.

  About six months later, I was sent to run what they called the media centre in the headquarters. My job was to head up a team of guys to create diagrams on plastic sheets for overhead projectors
. Officers used the sheets for lectures.

  The rather pretty lieutenant worked in an office in the building. I think I spent more time walking past her office and going to get a drink of water than doing my work.

  I’m happy to say our relationship developed quite a lot after I started working in that building. By ‘a lot’ I mean she grunted at me daily when I saluted her. I don’t think she said two words to me in the year that I worked there.

  She had pretty green-blue eyes. They were slightly different in colour. She was a classic Afrikaans beauty. In the same mould as Sonja Herholdt and Anneline Kriel.

  Intellectually, I knew that there was no chance in hell that she and I would ever be an item.

  Firstly, she was about ten years older than me.

  Secondly, she was a Permanent Force officer and I was a lowly lance bombardier doing my two years’ national service.

  Thirdly, she was a tall, attractive, strong woman and I was a short, scrawny, certified knucklehead.

  But love is a funny thing. It will not listen to logic and it will totally ignore reality.

  Love makes people blithering idiots.

  Love has a way of blocking out reality, no matter how much you try not to let it.

  Love has a tendency to become very dangerous when placed in the wrong hands. Hands like mine. Especially when there is a pen around. A pen is how my obsession with the rather pretty lieutenant turned from fantasy into a potential disaster.

  I honestly just meant to do it once. A small gesture, if you will. But things do not always turn out as planned.

  The first note I dropped into the ceramic pencil holder on her desk was a little drawing I did of a person smiling.

  It was quite simple really. Her desk was right by the door and it was quite easy to pop the note in there when nobody was watching.

  The second note did not have any words either. In fact, none of the notes I ever delivered had writing on them because I never wanted to be identified. I can only imagine the consequences, never mind the ridicule, if the commandant found out.

  ‘If you do anything that makes me unhappy,’ he would often say, ‘I will have your balls for breakfast.’ I did not want anyone having my balls for breakfast, or any other meal for that matter.

  I felt pretty safe though, because there were a number of guys who worked in the media centre with me who could draw as well.

  After a while, I started adding a little heart to each picture I drew. What was I thinking? Apparently I wasn’t thinking, because about once a week I left her a little love drawing.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but whatever it was, it didn’t happen.

  A few months later, the lieutenant was transferred back to the South African Army Women’s College in George, home of the soldoedies.

  I was saddened by the news.

  Intellectually, I knew nothing would ever come of my illustrated love notes, but deep down inside there was always a little spark of hope, a fantasy that she would suddenly walk into my office, throw her arms around me and tell me that my little notes had made her fall in love with me.

  The commandant and his staff had a little goodbye party for the rather pretty lieutenant, but because of my lowly rank I was not invited to the shindig.

  I sat at my little desk, hoping to catch a last glimpse of her as she walked by our office for the last time.

  I heard everyone wishing her well and looked up as she passed the door.

  She did not even look in. She was carrying her personal belongings and was on her way out of my life forever.

  Then, to my surprise and subsequent horror, she stepped back and looked into the office from the hallway.

  ‘Romain!’ she barked.

  We all scrambled to our feet, which was army protocol when an officer entered a room.

  ‘Mooi prentjies. Dankie,’ she said.

  And then she was gone.

  ‘Mooi prentjies?’ said one of the guys. ‘What is she talking about?’

  ‘I have no clue,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders.

  I wish I could have seen the look on my own face.

  The Oxygen Thief

  (Soundtrack: ‘The Air that I Breathe’ by The Hollies)

  We called Oom Nel the Oxygen Thief because he huffed, puffed and panted like each and every breath he took was his last on earth.

  He and his wife, Tannie Kleintjie, were civilians who worked at the headquarters of Fourth Field Regiment, where I was stationed for most of my national service. They were both very nice to us troepies and even remembered some of our names.

  They were both pretty old and decrepit. Oom Nel was an administrator of sorts and Tannie Kleintjie, as far as I remember, was the commandant’s secretary. She was a very tiny lady, hence the name Kleintjie.

  Oom Nel was henpecked to hell by the aforementioned tannie. She was on him about something every day.

  He would often talk to us while we were waiting in line to have a haircut or if we were at the headquarters to sweep the floor or weed the garden. Each and every time, he would tell us the same, long-winded story.

  ‘Ja,’ he would say, huffing and puffing because he had just walked ten steps from the office. ‘I’m off to get the post. But before I go, did I tell you about the time when I fought in the North African campaign? We were chasing that bastard Rommel and his so-called desert rats all over North Africa. It was the Second Battle of El Alamein where I almost took a shot to the head. I heard that bullet flying past my earhole. A few inches difference and you would be speaking to a dead man today.’

  ‘If you were dead, you wouldn’t be here,’ said one of the guys during one particularly long version of the story.

  ‘Exactly!’ said Oom Nel. ‘That is my point exactly.’

  ‘Ja. Ja,’ we all concurred.

  ‘It was hell there in the desert,’ he said, scowling. ‘Not like nowadays. You men have it easy.’

  We all nodded and muttered, agreeing that we had it easy.

  Often the window would open and Oom Nel would suddenly straighten up from his stooped, storytelling posture and shuffle off.

  ‘Hemel,’ he would say, ‘nou is ek diep innie kak.’

  Tannie Kleintjie would appear at the window. ‘Oom Nel!’ she would shout. ‘Gaan haal die pos!’

  ‘Ja,’ he would mutter under his breath, ‘keep your panty on, woman. I’m going. I’m going.’

  One morning, a few of us were standing guard at the front gate of the camp when one of the guys pointed to the flower bed in front of the building and said, ‘What the hell is Oom Nel doing?’

  We all looked towards where he was pointing. Oom Nel, the Oxygen Thief, was on all fours, crawling around in the flower bed.

  We all rushed over to find out what was happening.

  ‘Wat makeer, oom?’ asked one of the guys. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Hemel,’ said Oom Nel, ‘nou is ek diep innie kak.’

  ‘Why are you innie kak again?’ asked my buddy, Hennie, trying very hard to suppress a smile. ‘What did you do this time?’

  ‘Look,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘My wedding ring is gone. I think I dropped it here in the drain. It must be in the drain, because it’s not on my finger and it’s not on the ground.’

  ‘Nooit, oom,’ said Hennie, pushing past him. ‘Mind, let me look in there.’

  So Hennie got on all floors and peered through the iron grates of the small circular drain.

  ‘I can’t see a ring, oom,’ said Hennie, peering through the grate. His nose was almost touching the drain.

  ‘No, maar, look harder,’ urged Oom Nel.

  ‘I’m looking as hard as my eyes can look,’ said Hennie. ‘They can’t look any harder.’

  ‘Open the drain,’ said Oom Nel.

  Hennie muttered under his breath and pried the cover open with his bayonet.

  We huddled around the drain, watching. Hennie was about to reach down when we heard Tannie Kleintjie’s voice yelling in the distance.

 
We all looked up.

  ‘Jirre!’ said Oom Nel, startled. ‘What now?’

  Tannie Kleintjie came storming across the lawn. She was all riled up and red in the face.

  ‘Oom Nel!’ she barked.

  Oom Nel quickly put his hands behind his back so she would not notice the missing ring on his finger.

  ‘Errr, ja,’ he said, looking extremely guilty.

  ‘Are you trying to find a girlfriend?’ she yelled.

  ‘Me?’ he said, puzzled.

  ‘Yes, you,’ she said, thrusting out her hand. ‘You left your wedding ring on the sink. You’d better put it on right now or else.’

  Oom Nel took the ring.

  ‘Leave these boys alone with your cockamamie stories,’ she added. ‘They have work to do.’ She turned and headed back across the lawn. ‘And don’t forget about the post, oraait?’

  ‘Oraait,’ said Oom Nel.

  He looked at the ring in his palm and then looked down at the drain.

  None of us said a word.

  He scratched his head thoughtfully and said, ‘Jirre.’

  ‘Jirre, Oom Nel,’ we all concurred simultaneously.

  Oom Nel shook his head, took a deep, wheezy breath, and shuffled off to get the post.

  The Nee Nee Man

  (Soundtrack: ‘Ipi Tombi’ by Bertha Egnos and Gail Lakier)

  I first saw the Nee Nee Man when I was a young boy.

  He was a grey-haired old African man who carried a tattered, brown leather suitcase and wore a red fez on his head.

  The Nee Nee Man walked the streets of Johannesburg, spreading what he called ‘God’s Joy’. Even though his shoes were worn totally through, his toothless mouth always carried a genuine, infectious grin. He handed out incense to people who stopped to hear him sing his ‘Nee Nee’ song.

  He always chanted the same song. ‘Na nee, nee, nee. Na nee, nee, nee.’ He did this over and over again as he walked. That’s why everybody called him the Nee Nee Man.

  We would get so excited when we saw him walking down our street. Kids in the neighbourhood would run out of their houses when they heard him singing. He was funny and magical and seemed so joyous. He made us all feel good when we saw him.