When my friend returns, Dorman instructs him to pick up a huge boulder and tells him to run at the back of the formation to prevent injury to the rest of us. He hands me Dylan’s rifle to carry.
It is getting dark. We will not eat tonight, which will put us at a disadvantage tomorrow.
Dylan is crying, silently, as he starts lagging behind. Only I see it because I’m running with him. When we reach the camp gate, he has fallen so many times that his pants are soaked with the blood from his shins.
For the last few kilometres we are allowed to help him. Oscar and I drag him, and two others carry his rifle and kit.
We wait for most of the platoon to finish showering. The seven open showers smell of steam, dirty humidity, soap and wet cement.
Our biggest concern is some boys in our platoon who are threatening to harm Dylan. He is under the shower next to me. I have soaped and rinsed, but he is just standing there. My eyes move up his frame to the dark hair leading to his navel on the ashen skin. There is no fat on his body, and every muscle is visible. The water picks its way over the shapes, hitting his shoulders and running down his chest, over his stomach, down to the dark hair where the water collects and runs down his shaft, arching over his uncut penis as though he is peeing.
The expression on his face is distant—not some place away from the pain, but rather some place taken to by the pain. He talks to me, at first without looking, knowing my attention is on him.
‘I’m sorry, En. Are you also angry with me?’
‘Are you crazy? You have done nothing. Fuck them, Dee. Fuck them. This is just the way things are here, you know that. After a while they will find someone else to pick on. You know how it goes!’ As I speak I realise that I am losing him. Strange that I should know this, for there is no change in his expression or the way he stands. I wonder if he might hear me if I speak more calmly, but I am pressing on, desperate to ease his pain: ‘Dee . . . Dee, Dylan! Stop worrying! Promise me you will stop worrying.’ But I know he isn’t listening to me.
‘Nick, I don’t know how much more I can take; how much more I want to take. It’s not just what happened today; it’s everything. It’s the way those boys were humiliated. You know, the guys who were caught kissing.’
‘Yes, I will never forget that.’
‘But it’s more than that . . . more than just the army . . .’
It is the only time he ever talks about giving up.
‘Then ask for an RTU. Who cares? Before you know it, we’ll be out of the army.’
‘No, you don’t understand.’
‘What do you mean, Dee? It’s not worth it. It’s just two years; no, only one and a half left. Dee, think about it: only one and a half . . .’
Why does he not answer me? Is he crying? Too much water . . . I can’t see. He just looks down. The water hits the back of his head, flattening the spiky black hair, then streams down his face. His back is slightly bent. Little jerking movements rattle his body as he gasps for air and spits out the water he has sucked into his mouth. He turns the water off and reaches for his towel. He buries his face in the towel and then pulls it down over his drawn features, like a curtain on a new act: composure.
In the dark at the end of the day I uncoil the tension. Knotted by anxiety, I release myself into the warm water of imagined bliss. Before crossing the threshold of mystery, I have a shower with Dylan. It’s a different time, later in life, after swimming, his hair long to my imaginings, his body brown, still fragile, his face laughing. And there is that look, the look that I understand, that I know. And want. And need.
21
Uncle Dirk is furious that he’s lost the parking space. More so, I think, that it was to a black man whose car he would have liked for himself.
‘He may be richer than I am, but he will always be black. Probably stole the bloody car!’
My uncle says something as we drive past him. The black man looks up and walks towards us. He bends menacingly into the open window. He is wearing a heavy silver chain, and as he bends forward it swings like a pendulum, weighted by an elaborate crucifix. There is a thin silver Christ on the cross. The altercation is brief, because it is clear that this man, who is prepared to confront him instead of cowering, is intimidating uncle Dirk.
Today we have to walk a longer distance from the parking to the public swimming pool.
Amongst all the people, the food, the colourful towels and the excited shouting of the children around the pool, I notice a man. He becomes the focal point of my day. He is probably a year or two into adulthood, and he is a perfect specimen. Every part of him is firm, all the shapes flawless, his smooth, tanned skin stretched over muscles of an obviously superior genetic disposition. He is in his prime.
It is alluring to watch a person who is aware of his beauty and its magnetism. He is wearing an electric-blue Speedo, sexier than had he been naked. He knows the power of sexual desire and handles it with ease.
When he steps onto the diving board I study his exquisite proportions, burning them into my memory for later use in the toilet. The part of him that I look at the longest is the V at the bottom of his long torso, leading into his bathing costume. He doesn’t dive in, but jumps up and slips into the water feet first, like going down a kiddie’s slide. He makes a very small splash when he breaks the surface and goes all the way to the bottom of the pool, staying there until he needs air. Then he shoots himself out of the water like some exotic aquatic god.
He is my day. I go into the water and watch him swim. I blow out air so that I can sink to the bottom of the pool, which I time carefully as he approaches. Under the water, through my goggles, I see that two tiny silver bubbles have attached themselves to his nipples.
22
WWhat you doing?’ Dylan asks.
‘Chilling. Just resting, thinking, daydreaming.’
‘What you daydreaming about?’
‘Oh, nothing really. What you reading?’
‘This . . . shit really, but I don’t have anything else. She,’ he points to the author on the cover, ‘has this patronising way of writing about Africa and the black people, and the attitude of the white characters is nauseating.’
‘You mean, some of them are really nice, as long as they don’t move in next door.’
‘Exactly. The book is actually about the time of the riots. Where were you during that time? I mean, were you affected at all?’
‘The valley where we lived had only two roads out, and both ran through black or coloured areas.’
‘Radical. All I really saw of the riots was what was on TV. It didn’t affect my day-to-day life at all.’
‘It was totally different for us. On bad days we had to travel in convoy with Police garries to get to school—guys with their rifles sticking through the mesh sides. If we couldn’t wait for a convoy, we would use briefcases or our school bags as shields and wind down the windows so the shattered glass from the stones wouldn’t get into the car.’
‘Not nice. But weren’t you scared on the farm? I mean, one is so much more vulnerable on a farm.’
‘The valley became organised like for civil war! Radios were issued in case the phone lines got cut; there were coordination points, first-aid classes, and people started carrying guns.’
‘Did anything ever happen, I mean on the farms?’
‘No, nothing serious . . . I was attacked, well, actually my friend was.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘One Saturday night this friend and I are riding along a gravel road on our motorbikes and suddenly I hear this dull sound, like aaaugh! And Anton, my friend, slumps forward over the tank of his bike. The bike swerves, but he manages to control it. He can’t get any air into his lungs though, so he just starts slowing down. And there are people running after us and shouting.’
‘What was it that hit him?’
‘A crutch. Can you imagine the blow; the swing and the speed of the bike, how hard it must have connected him? In the chest.’
�
�Shit.’
‘And in front of us more people jump out. It was a proper ambush.’
‘No way!’
‘And I’m begging Anton, “Go, go, go, go faster!” but he can’t. He is just gasping and lying over the tank, and there are people behind us and in front of us. I accelerate and get through, just by luck. But when I look back, Anton’s motorbike light moves in an arc to the ground and goes out, and the engine too. Shit, Dee, I was so scared.’
‘And?’
‘Well, next thing there’s this group of people running towards me, with Anton up front. But I reckon they are so drunk they won’t be able to run for long. And in any case, they have the bike. So I turn around and Anton hops on, and we clear off.’
‘Shit, man!’
‘He had two broken ribs and a stab wound, we only discovered later.’
The guy next to Dylan starts playing Carole King’s Home Again on his tape recorder.
‘Mm . . . I love this song. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever gonna make it home again, it’s so far and so out of sight. I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else knows how to comfort me tonight . . . Shit, this brings back memories . . .’
We listen to the song for a while. Dylan has stopped singing, his mouth is still moving slightly to the words, but he is thinking of something else and looking very sad.
‘Carole King reminds me of boarding school,’ I say, trying to draw him from whatever he is thinking.
‘You were at boarding school?’
‘Thought I’d told you! Loved it. Best year of my life. Everything changed. I sort of pulled myself together, made lots of friends. Booked myself in, just told my folks.’
‘They let you?’
‘Yep, had no choice. I was earning my own money. What could they say?’
‘Wild!’
‘You know, if I think of it, that was the day I left home . . . you know, emotionally. I was independent from that day on. No, I was already independent mentally. I think that’s actually where independence lies . . . being emotionally independent.’
‘How did you make your money?’
‘Did a little pig farming of my own. Bought a sow from my folks with sixty bucks I had saved up. She didn’t let me down. Always produced a good litter.’
As Carole King starts singing You’ve Got a Friend, Malcolm walks in and asks if I have some shoe polish for him. I spin the combination lock on my trommel—my steel trunk—and take out a tin of Kiwi polish.
‘Here, Mal, you can have this one, I’ve got another.’ He smiles, takes it, and as he walks off he sings, ‘Ain’t it good to know, ain’t it good to know you’ve got a friend . . .’
Dylan sighs; I look at him and he says, ‘I can’t read this. What you thinking about?’
‘Actually I was thinking about the year I was trying to pass maths.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I was forced to take extra maths with this guy, Mr. Leroy. Shit, Dee, I was so bad at it, man, and everybody was making such a big deal about it, you know. My father would say, “You’re going to become a tramp on the streets if you don’t have maths.” And it became like a mountain to me.’
‘So how did it go with the extra lessons?’
‘Mr. Leroy? Ha, hysterical!’
‘Tell me!’
‘Mr. Leroy was outwardly friendly, plumpish, short pants and thick, bulging legs, like Little Lotta in Boere shorts. His hair was gone, apart from a U-shape around his head, but he took these impossibly long strands of hair from the one side and combed them over his head to cover the bald part. And he kept it in place with something that hardened the hair, or maybe with sweat, I don’t know.’
‘Sis no, I can just see it!’
‘And under the hair is this head that looks like those travel cushions one uses on a long flight, you know.’ Dylan is loving it.
‘And?’ I keep quiet and think back, trying to picture as much as possible to relate to my friend.
‘The table we worked at was between the lounge and the dining room, completely off-centre. I remember how it upset my sense of symmetry. He constantly sucked those hard, round peppermints and they would knock against his false teeth and make a clicking noise. Thing is, Dee, he would move the mint with his tongue from side to side and at the same time dislodge his false teeth and slot them back into position with a sort of a clunk.’ We both laugh. ‘There was so much going on in that mouth it seemed over-full and busy. There was no space left in it to still teach maths.’
‘I love your stories!’
‘I tell you, man, it was impossible to concentrate!’
‘Who could?’
‘But that’s not all . . . He would rub my leg as he spoke.’
‘No!’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you do? I hope you just got up and fucked off?’
‘No, the thing is he would do it with a kind of affection, not sexu. . . like not meaning anything more by it.’
‘Yeah, right! Did you ever tell your mother about it, I mean him touching your leg and all that?’
‘No, and you know why? Because I was embarrassed, or I thought she wouldn’t believe me.’
I can see the grey sky behind Pappegaaiberg through the small window where I sit struggling with the maths. Before me Mr. Leroy starts writing smaller and smaller in an attempt to save paper. He scribbles new figures between others, confusing me even more.
‘Then one day—Dee, this is specially for you—he snorts to clear his nose and after talking through the snot for a while, you know, with that hollow, wet kind of sound, he spits it out! Right there!’
‘NO shit, man, no, stop!’
‘Yes, I swear!’
‘Aaugh!’
The Oudtshoorn afternoon is drawing to an end. Our ‘off’ day is over. Outside the light has a strange pre-dusk luminosity. Dylan has told me about his locked-in life, from the school he attended to the university he has been enrolled in. He tells me that even his career has been planned for him, and he says he feels jealous of my life with its freedom of choices.
We are close and quiet and again we listen to Home Again, uninterrupted.
***
Malcolm, it feels to me, has the ability to get through anything life puts in his path; not through, but over—comfortably over. He has an innate awareness and a finely tuned humour. He is remarkably flexible, yet never loses his identity.
Malcolm’s father never really recovered from his mother’s departure. Mal lived with this heartbroken man for most of his life and took care of him and Mal’s sister. Not financially, but as I listen to his stories, I realise that he in fact was the stability in the house—the strong one.
It is always easy to be with him, and Mal is tolerant of the fact that I constantly bring Ethan into our conversations.
Dylan, on the other hand, is dark and inaccessible, but he opens up to me in small, trusting steps, and I have time; I can wait. I will know him forever.
Dylan copes with the training, the pole PT, obstacle courses, and in the buddy PT we are always paired. He carries me, and I carry him. As he runs carrying my weight, equal to his own, it is painful for both of us. When we stand guard, we share the duty, and I am grateful for having him.
‘Crack’ is a common word in the army. If an instructor doesn’t like someone, he tries to ‘crack’ him. Once cracked, the conscript will request an RTU and leave. Cracking someone with a strong will is an excruciating process to witness. It becomes a contest—one the instructors cannot be seen to lose. It is therefore just a matter of time, but sometimes that time extends too far.
***
‘I will die.’
‘What?’
‘It’s just an observation. We’re all afraid of it and we all sort of know it, but we don’t allow ourselves to know it, if you get what I mean.’ I don’t answer, just keep on looking at him. ‘We don’t really know that we can die when we want to, but we can, you know. It’s liberating.’
‘We don’t allow ourselves
to know, Dee, ’cos we need to survive. We spend our lives fighting the one thing we know for sure will happen! Our whole focus is on survival . . . on just the opposite of dying. What’s the point if we expect to die or think about it all the time? It should just hover sort of too far away to think about.’
‘No, En, I can . . . I can actually die, and I don’t mind it. It is conceivable.’
‘Don’t think about things like that, especially not here. Shit, man, get a grip. Aren’t things bad enough? Stop talking like that!’
In front of us are all the parts of our R1 rifles that can be dismantled. The smell of rifle oil hangs in the air. I take a two-by-four, thread it through the copper part of the deurtrekker, which we use to clean the barrels, and start feeding it through. I continue until the two-by-four comes out clean.
There is nobody in the bungalow except Dylan and I, but I look up and check again to be sure when he asks, ‘Tell me about your toughest time ever.’
‘No, not now.’
‘En . . . trust me!’
‘I don’t know if you will understand. It’s really difficult. It was a time of madness . . . shit, man.’
‘Trust me, En.’
‘The thing is, Dee, why I don’t think you’ll understand is ’cos it involves God.’
‘Why do you think I won’t understand?’
‘I don’t know. It could sound crazy to you!’ On the gleaming floor in front of me a single ant is searching for a way home, or for food, or whatever. It seems lost in this desert of Cobra polish stretching ahead of it in what must look like a glowing eternity. I know it can’t see as far as the edge, or the wall, or the door, for it darts in different directions. Thoughtlessly I try to see if there is a pattern to its search and say, ‘OK then.’
‘It was just before you went to boarding school, you said.’
‘Yes, it was the year before I went to boarding school, but I guess it started way before that.’ I tell him everything except the most important thing, the one thing that caused all the fear and paranoia. I tell him the symptoms but not the cause. The rifles stay disassembled in front of us, and all the time Dylan’s dark eyes don’t leave mine for a second.
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