I sit on the wheel arch, knowing I never want to hear that sound again. Uncle Hendrik races across the veld to where the animal has fallen. I slip onto the dirt and dry blood on the corrugated floor. Still I don’t let go of my ears.
My father is horrified at my performance and orders me to get up, but I stay on the floor, bouncing around with the spent cartridges. By the time we reach the springbok, my father, scarlet with shame, has pulled me up by my elbow. Hanno is laughing at me and calls his father, who looks at me and chuckles.
Through my tears I see the springbok, legs outstretched in a spasm, all its magnificence gone, eyes glaring with dread. It struggles to get up, but the bullet has severed its spine, paralysing the hind legs.
‘Here we don’t waste bullets,’ uncle Hendrik says as he raises his foot above the animal’s head and brings his full weight down on its open eye. Then, ceremoniously, he opens his pocketknife and slits its throat. Blood pumps out in thick squirts, and the front legs kick in semicircles on the ground.
My father’s elder brother wipes his knife on the animal’s soft, white chest. The entrails, released from the belly by Piet’s knife, spill out in a steaming heap.
Hanno walks past me and spits, ‘Sissy.’ Frankie, tight-faced, tells him to shut up. They throw the carcass on the back of the truck and leave the entrails behind.
I beg my father to ask uncle Hendrik to take us home, and Frankie says: ‘Dad, please, I don’t like this. Please, can we go home?’ He looks the other way and doesn’t answer us. His embarrassment is palpable; not just one, but both his sons are afraid of one of the most important rituals on this farm.
Uncle Hendrik drives on, slowly, staying down-wind from the other animals. After a while we come across three more springbok, grazing and unaware of us.
‘There’s one for you, Peet,’ uncle Hendrik calls from the front. ‘The one on the right, that’s your bok.’
‘It’s a ram; the other two are females,’ says Hanno, sitting proudly next to his father.
My father takes aim and I start crying. Frank, also almost in tears, begs him not to shoot. Then the shot goes off and the springbok in the centre collapses. Uncle Hendrik makes a suck-clicking noise that signifies disappointment, and my father looks uncomfortable. As the truck starts, the wounded buck jumps up.
‘You’ve wounded her, shoot again.’
‘It’s a female, Pa,’ says Hanno.
‘Yes, son, I know.’ Our father, visibly flustered, takes aim again.
He uses the cab as a dead rest and fires another shot. The springbok stumbles, starts running and stumbles again. Uncle Hendrik sets off at a speed while Hanno indicates the direction to follow.
We stop on an embankment. Uncle Hendrik takes out his binoculars and raises his eyebrows to nestle them in his eye sockets. When he removes the binoculars, he blinks to adjust his sight and says, ‘Her front leg is badly wounded and she’s getting tired. We’ll easily catch her now. Do you have a good shot, Peet?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ I watch as my father takes aim, waiting. The sweat under the rim of his hat runs down his sideburns, trickles down his jaw, and drips on the rifle. He squeezes the trigger. Again the springbok jumps up and stumbles forward, this time with even more difficulty, falling with every step.
It takes another two shots before the animal eventually dies.
When we reach her, I see that the front legs have been shot off above the joint and she has been running on shattered bone. There is soil in the cavities that used to contain marrow.
‘Sy’s dragtig, Baas,’ Piet says. She’s with young! This time Piet opens the stomach with care and takes out the sack containing the foetus. He slits the membrane and produces a wet little deer. With his weather-beaten hands he removes the phlegm from the animal’s mouth and starts blowing gently. The second blow produces a kick and a ragged rhythm of breathing.
‘Give it here,’ says Hanno and grabs the animal from Piet, climbs on the back of the vehicle and wraps the fragile little creature in a hessian bag from the floor.
Despite our pleas to also hold the animal, Hanno won’t let us near it. Before long he loses interest, and when he looks down a while later and sees it is dead, he throws it into the pool of blood between the carcasses of its mother and the ram.
In the afternoon we play at the feet of the women, who are sitting in conversation while the men are cooking meat on the open fire. We drive our toy cars up and down hills we’ve formed out of gravel.
The three mothers are sitting in a half moon. Aunt Sannie’s huge body spills over the sides of her chair, her pink-white legs protruding from under a tight crimplene dress. In between talking she barks orders at the staff. To her right sits our auntie Ester, whom I haven’t met before, in a rowdy floral miniskirt. She sips glass after glass of white wine. Her voice becomes sharper, louder and she becomes more careless about keeping her legs crossed. Frank and I build a road to give us the best vantage point.
‘What do they call that, hey, Frankie? Is it also called a willywinkie?’ He shrugs and giggles. Auntie Ester is nonchalantly holding her three-month-old daughter on her lap, while her hands are occupied with her cigarette and the wine glass.
Our mother sits to her right, with Bronwyn on a blanket at her feet. I see my mother watching the bouncing child nervously.
Then it’s time for a nappy change. Auntie Ester puts the baby down, and with a wine-spilling jerk she drags a pink plastic bag from under her chair. She bends forward, opens the nappy and squints through the smoke of the cigarette in her mouth. Her legs open even wider and the miniskirt moves up, revealing a frilly panty with a dark fuzziness behind it.
There is yellow shit all over the lower part of the baby’s stomach and when it’s wiped off, I see that where we have a willy-winkie, she has the oddest little aperture. What a shame—she must have got hurt. On either side of the slit are huge, swollen bulges. Maybe she has two bums, I think to myself.
Seeing our attention fixed firmly on the child and our aunt, our mother orders us to go and play elsewhere.
‘But she’s lying across our road, Mom.’
‘Then drive around her, come now, boys.’ Auntie Ester’s cigarette, more ash than tobacco, is slightly bent, but defiantly holds on to its original shape. Then the ash breaks off and falls on the child’s face. My mother picks the child up and takes her into the house.
‘Sannie, keep an eye on Bronwyn, won’t you. And you two,’ she turns to us, ‘go and play over there.’ She points vaguely to a spot under a tree.
As we gather our toys, auntie Ester loses her balance and collapses in front of us. We hear a slurred mumble as the grown-ups rush to her aid.
I long for Sophie. I now know I will never see her again. I know this from the way she said goodbye.
‘Ngizokubona . . . Ngizokubona, Isipho, Isipho, Isipho.’
I start panicking that the ghosts of last night might return. The image of the dying buck is still clear in my mind: entrails spilling out, the soil in the shattered bones, the dead calf.
Certain events are like permanent fixtures in the murkiness of time and experience. I revisit them—no, they come to me. Baggage that can’t be shed; only sometimes ignored for self-preservation.
We are often changed by our circumstances. Sometimes they stain our souls indelibly. What we see is just a phantom of the tattoos we carry in our core. And more marks are constantly being added. Only when these marks become dark does the mist fade, punching through the shroud. A glimpse at a person who has been completely stripped could reveal such darkness that we want to shy away, as if moved by our heart’s early warning system.
6
It is 1977 and Mr. Klopper’s garden has been taken away from him. He has been teaching Agriculture at the school for 23 years and now they’ve turned his garden into a parade ground—a parade ground to make ‘cadets’ out of us, to prepare us for the army. The school will play its part in preparing us to defend our country against the not-so-clear or present danger of
Communism. A new form of agriculture is being developed—fertilising our brains and sowing the seeds of dread.
Most parents will make their sons obey the ‘call-up’ instructions, even though they have never fought in any war themselves.
In my matric year I receive my call-up papers. I become a number: 77529220.
7
My mother finds us a home in Welgemoed, a suburb of Cape Town about half an hour’s drive from the city centre. It is a new suburb skirted by a few remaining farms. The house is situated on a hill and reached by a steep road. Frankie and I count the grazing cows as my mother’s Austin Mini battles up the hill. Our father drives a company car—a Mercedes Benz 230. It has a speedometer that changes colour as the speed increases.
There is a large lawn fronted by a low face-brick wall. The servant’s quarters are at the back, as well as a ringworm-infested sandpit full of cat pee.
On Sundays my mother wears a conservative dress and mantilla and goes to the Catholic Church. My father, dressed in a black suit and carrying his hymn book and Bible under the arm, goes to the Dutch Reformed Church. We go with our mother.
Now that we have a larger house we start receiving house guests, and my mother’s parents, Gran and Grandpa, are our first visitors. Our father’s parents, Oupa and Ouma, also come, but never at the same time as Gran and Grandpa. Gran and Grandpa are warm and friendly and full of fun. Oupa and Ouma are kind, keeping their distance and demanding respect-because-we’re-old. Ouma tells us about our Afrikaner heritage and how we took our country from the English, the damned English. With her we have to be restrained and well behaved.
In this antiseptic, secure order of Whites Only the seasons change and we grow older by another year. Of this time I only really remember Frankie. Everything is associated with him.
8
The hours roll on endlessly on the parade ground.
That boy is cute, I wonder if he’s gay. Guess I’ll never know. The sun is so hot. I wonder if I’ll burn a frown that will make me look older. My polish is nearly finished. Has Mom changed? Has everything at home changed? I want to buy a panel van, turn it into a surfer-cabby. Would I be able to afford it on army pay? I’ll make a plan; re-design it. Yes, I like that, think it through really well; plan every detail. I’ll build it myself, and then fit a fridge, stove, gas and a wood-strip ceiling. I’ll plan a trip. Who will I take with me? Maybe that boy, where is he from? We’ll do a trip around the country. I must stand next to him in the lunch queue. We’ll sleep in the back, just the two of us . . . Don’t go there, can’t march with a boner. Shit, this is boring. This is so fucking boring. Can’t they march? Don’t they have any rhythm? Frankie’s face . . . Frankie, I miss you, I miss you, my brother. Hope PT is easy. Hate pole PT and buddy PT. I know this afternoon during PT I’ll pick him. He seems light, lean and sexy. Think of our first house in Welgemoed. I was so happy at first. Second house in Welgemoed, then Banhoek, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin. Don’t listen to that music, it’s evil, devil-music, it’s from Satan. Midnight Express, Rocky Horror, Jaws. ‘Platooooon, halt two-three . . . bang . . .’
Will I still be able to draw after two years?
‘Leeeeeft turn . . .’
Will I be accepted into Art College? I miss Anne. Travel, travel. New York. We are lost. Think of the first house in Welgemoed. I do know what happiness is. I did . . . until that day—when everything changed.
9
I turn five and Frankie will turn seven a little later in the year. It is five days after my birthday.
My mother runs past me screaming, then Gran . . . then someone asks me a question and runs off. Gran carries Bronwyn from the other side of the road, past me, into the house. There is shock and desperation in the old woman’s eyes.
Frankie is lying on the side of the road, next to the Ford Cortina. My mother holds her mouth to his, blows into it and presses his chest, over and over. When she blows, she’s quiet, but when she comes up, I hear prayers, questions and instructions in an incoherent slur. Each time she pushes down on him, his head rolls to the rhythm flowing through her arms into his tiny frame as she tries to force life back into him.
His head is in a dark pool on the rough, black tar. His hair is wet, and there are small pebbles clinging to the side of his face.
Everything around me is swirling, deformed, and a loud hum twists my perception out of shape. Thoughts and images cram into my head, but they’re too big.
Beyond this lies a new pain—a stab that only allows me to stand and look. I am not sure what has happened. I need to think. I must get away from this. What happened? I don’t understand.
From a misty abyss comes the image of Frankie running after Bronwyn. Then the mist lifts and I know . . . that’s what happened . . . the screeching of tyres and the thunk . . . dull, metal-heavy.
As the events replay in slow frames, a heavy wheel starts turning inside me, unleashing a phenomenal determination: I have to clean the side of his head. I have to change what’s happening. I start tearing through the people who have gathered around him. I grab Frankie from my mother’s hysteria; call his name . . . As I cup his head in my hands, I feel a macabre displacement, see his changed expression, the dead grimace staring past me.
It takes two adults to pull me away from my brother. I feel the heat from the bystanders, from the tar, from my mother, from the car standing there with demonic indifference. Frankie’s leg is twisted under his body, the skin brutally torn. I hit out and scream as they drag me away. If I stay he will be all right . . . I know, I know . . . leave me . . . LEAVE ME!
Every word, every smile, every function . . . stops.
Every story, every game, every sense . . . gone.
Through the afternoon and night I follow the rituals of eating, brushing my teeth, having a bath. I walk into the room with his empty bed. Where is Frankie? Where is he? Where is he now? People hold me and I am given an injection. Screaming, hitting, fighting for air . . . blur . . . fall . . . black.
Never again will I see an empty single bed and not think of Frank. Forever in my soul will be a Frank-shaped vacuum, craving to be filled. Much later I will realise it is both ‘best friend’- and brother-shaped.
The nightmares start the night after Frank’s death and return every night. There is a cord under incredible tension and I have to keep it from whipping out of control. When I lose control, it becomes knotted and I wake up screaming, wet and petrified, too afraid to close my eyes again.
I start walking in my sleep, spending time with Frankie and telling myself stories at night to fall asleep. I also talk to what people call behind cupped hands ‘his imaginary friend.’ Who is he? I don’t tell. I will never share him again. I will keep him safe. I have a soul mate now, deep inside, that nobody can see, nobody can take away from me, not even time . . .
I should have done something. Did I see the car? Could I have warned Frankie? I should have gone across that road. No, I should have stopped Bronwyn from crossing it in the first place.
10
Each one of the 700 kilometres we travel is like the other. We journey with the hearse following us in grim convoy. We enter a different kind of time—one of long seconds.
We travel to uncle Hendrik’s farm, where Frankie will be buried with the other Van der Swarts.
Everything appears to have a sickly, cheap shine—from the glossy little casket to the large hearse. They tell me he is inside this box and it feels so wrong, so unworthy of what it’s holding, so far removed from the real Frankie.
Hour after hour I look back at the face of the car behind us, the chrome grill smirking between two cold eye lights. Is he rolling around in there? Is he comfortable? Can he feel? Does he know? Where is he? The tar is like an elastic band stretching between us, never letting go.
This is all there is: Frank and I and the vessels transporting us . . . How can one not want something so much, yet it still happens?
At Laingsburg and at Three Sisters we stop
for fuel, and so does the black car. My parents are arguing constantly about the funeral. My father does not want to offend his elder brother, who has arranged for a minister from the Dutch Reformed Church, while my mother, being Catholic, won’t hear of it—there has already been a service in the Catholic Church in Bellville. Uncle Hendrik will not allow the funeral to take place without a service and he doesn’t want a priest to do it.
Every time they refer to my brother they use the past tense.
When we get to the first farm gate, I get out to open it and close it after the hearse. Dust clings to the black mirror-duco of the car. I hear a hiss of heat through the teeth of the chrome face, then a blowing sound, and then the engine dies. After running without water for many miles, the head gasket has blown.
At the first gate of the many that compartmentalise the road to uncle Hendrik’s farm, we move some of the bags to the back seat and put my brother in the boot of our car. The lid won’t close, so my father ties it to the bumper. We take the driver, in his weary grey suit that smells of stale cigarette smoke, to the only hotel in Richmond. Then we turn around and drive back to the farm. When we pass the hearse, I notice that it has been sucked closer to the ground, looking melted down and pathetic, close now to its own death.
My father is quiet, my mother is crying, and I go down into the hollow of the seat and turn my face to the backrest to talk to my brother.
There are no hugs between my father and my uncle, just a set way of acting—solemn, no display of emotion. Everybody, even Hanno and the staff, have taken on this ‘way’ as if from a manual. The warmth of enfold-me, it-will-be-all-right, talk-to-me, that I yearn for and got from Gran, Grandpa and my mother’s side of the family at the memorial service in Bellville, is missing here.
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