To the Volcano

by Elleke Boehmer

In the fitful white light he sees the guerrilla ahead run, then trip, fall, and he is standing over him, no her, her, the white lightning playing across her big glistening eyes, and the whipping wind booming no no no—

  XII

  Noon, and Iris has left her broom against the wall. Her uniform is caught up around her waist. She didn’t have time to take it off.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ Iris says to John in English, ‘Let me see you.’

  He obeys. He looks into her eyes, she looks into his.

  ‘Soos die see,’ says Iris, ‘Soos water sonder bodem.’

  Like water with no bottom—John knows what she means.

  XIII

  ‘You fucked Iris,’ Patty stands, arms akimbo, in her front doorway. John faces her on the porch. In his hands are two fresh library books. ‘You fucked my black maid under my nose, in my bed, while I was playing piano, you fuck. You get out.’

  XIV

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, bra,’ Mick sullenly flicks his nail against the door-handle of the car. ‘You can give my ticket to someone else.’

  ‘You sure?’ John looks up at him. ‘You’re OK to miss it all?’

  ‘If I came along, I wouldn’t come back.’

  ‘I’m going and I probably won’t come back. Especially if you don’t come along.’

  ‘Man, something’s gotta give. And I like it here.’

  ‘I do, too, some of it.’

  ‘Not as much as me. I don’t think you’d ever want to come back, not even if there was something to come back for.’

  ‘Who knows, eh, Mick? For now, I can only play it by ear. I’ll go and play it by ear along with this whole list of Rasta men playing it by ear, playing the biggest sound system we’ve ever heard. I mean, forty thousand watts, did you hear?’

  ‘Brother, you’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!’ Mick sings.

  ‘Brother,’ says John, ‘how can I do independence without you? How can I drive all that way without you?’

  ‘Just think of Marley’s forty thousand watts,’ Mick says. ‘Biggest sound system south of the equator.’ And he hits John’s shoulder through the open car window.

  XV

  John drives. The sky ahead is blue with low white cloud banked up on the horizon and the sky behind is blue with low white cloud. A single condensation trail cuts through the blue, a line tracing west and south, to Cape Town or even farther—Tristan da Cunha, he imagines, Gough Island, South Georgia, Tierra del Fuego, places so far away they sound like myths.

  A soaring bird bisects the white trail. He thinks of the birds of prey that surf the warm air currents over the Mozambique hills. They will still be there, coasting. He thinks of the fine balance of their wide wings. He thinks of Patty and her flying fingers. He wishes he could have heard more of the music that flowed from her flying fingers. He thinks of Iris. Of her fine skin and the tiny scars she has over her left eyebrow, of tracing them with his finger.

  He thinks of his shame, the sheets flapping unwashed in the backyard.

  Iris.

  Perhaps he will never see them again—not Iris, definitely not Patty. To see them again he would have to come back, next month, next year, but in any event come back. Patty has said she will leave town soon, move on. She might play the cocktail hour in hotels in Port Elizabeth or East London. She is good at making fluid music, one piece sliding liquidly into the next.

  As for Iris, her child will soon go to school, her child—Mongezi—who was sick but is now better. Iris will have to find another job to pay his fees.

  John tests the thought of coming back. It fills him with neither grief nor joy. He thinks of the rage in Patty’s eyes when he kissed her goodbye, a quick, dry kiss on her cheek. He slides a Bob Marley cassette into the player.

  ‘Brother, you’re right, you’re so right,’ Marley sings.

  Something about the voice decides him. The voice is all itself, like Orwell’s voice. It has style, a measure. On this road running straight to the horizon, heading home, he wants to find a voice like that. Independence will bring a new measure and he must find a way of tuning into it.

  Mick talked about artists returning to the country, frontline soldier-poets from the camps in Mozambique, avant-garde troubadours who till last week camped out in English meadows begging beer-money, all as mad and crazy as he, John, is, all biding their time of return.

  John thinks of planeloads of poets in the sky and is suddenly impatient to be home. He fast-forwards the tape. ‘No woman no cry.’ ‘One love.’ He can’t find the song he wants. In fact he doesn’t know what the song is. He wants the two thousand miles that lie ahead to be behind him. He wants the Limpopo at his back.

  The thunderstorm falls suddenly upon the car. The grey rain sheets thickly down the windscreen so he pulls over. He switches off the tape and lights a cigarette. The car is a cave of water that quickly fills with smoke. The lightning makes sparks of silver on the surrounding rocks.

  Rain on wet rock, lightning, grey darkness. He remembers the Mozambique hills. He is there, as always, in the Mozambique hills.

  He remembers her big eyes looking up, the gleams in her eyes from the lightning.

  Her hands grip on his and he wrenches his FN back. Her eyes go brighter. She curls herself around his leg. She wants to pull him down into the mud, so he begins to kick. He kicks and he kicks. He kicks for a long time and then he bolts. In the distance his companions whistle for him.

  He clutches the steering wheel and presses his forehead into its plastic till the skin begins to sweat. Iris, he moans, Iris.

  As quickly as it came, the storm passes. The sky is blue again. He opens the car windows to let out the cigarette smoke and breathes in the smell of rain-stirred earth. He waits till his head clears and his heart stops pounding. Then he turns the key in the ignition. He pulls out onto the newly washed, blue-black road.

  Powerlifting

  KAY PUTS HER ELBOW to the screen door, balances her coffee mug. She shoves hard, then steps out on to her small brick porch in the shadow of the vine trellis. In her other hand is her transistor radio. The newspaper, still in its plastic, is under her arm.

  Rod, when he lived here, never could believe how she managed to juggle things—juggle as in keeping two things in her head at once, double-thinking not just double-doing, multitasking. In point of fact it astonished him, considering how rubbish she was at most things—including mothering, in his opinion. That she could listen to the breakfast news and read the paper at the same time, this was a wonder. That she could take perfect case notes even while a suspect was yelling at her.

  So, my one claim to fame, Rod, she would tell him, at least I have that. And thought privately, what’s so special, keeping my focus on two strands of words at the same time—especially when it’s generally the same news, the written and the spoken? As for the case notes, I’m writing what the suspect is saying, aren’t I?

  At other times, she told him, coffee is the magic ingredient, though it was never strong coffee.

  Truth is, when she’s reading, the radio here beside her on the wire-mesh table turns into white noise, padding the silence.

  She is still in her pyjamas, non-matching top and bottom, rosebud design on top, cotton leaf-pattern trousers. Soon, in a few weeks or so, it will be too hot to wear long pyjamas to bed but, for now, it’s comfortable. One of the joys of living alone, she thinks—not bothering one way or another, certainly not about night-gear.

  Keeping her face in the shade, she stretches her legs into the lemonade-bright sunshine. Looks like it could be a good day—a good day with nice weather. For one thing, there’s little to no news—which is to say, no news to worry about. For another, the magpies she heard yesterday are back, their liquid noises in the trellis overhead. And two white irises have bloomed overnight or, at least, she didn’t notice them yesterday. And Donny just called, which is great for two reasons: because it’s a special day for him, the date’s been in her diary for months, and because it means that today she has spoke
n to someone. Already spoken to someone.

  Since grouchy Rod, she prefers to speak to someone before going to work, to use her voice at least once or twice. She mentioned it in passing one day to Donny—I enjoyed talking to the magpies this morning—and maybe he took the hint. Talking clears away the night’s cobwebs, brings her up to the surface of things. It gives a reality check, to put it in Donny’s way. She needs to talk, to do talking.

  This was the thing that killed her after Rod left, bad-tempered as he was, the main drawback of living alone. Arriving at work and having to clear her throat of accumulated silence as if a plug of mucus were stuck there and had to be coughed free.

  Wish me good luck, Donny had said on the phone. He’d wanted her to know he’d arrived.

  ‘There already?’

  ‘Yes, where else, Mum? It’s all happening in our own downtown arena, the National Powerlifting Championships. It’s all totally real. I’m about to begin my warm-up.’

  She pictures him in the arena locker rooms, stood beside the grey slatted lockers. She’s handled an incident there before. He’s unpacking his things—keeping apart from the rest, like his coach always tells him; drinking plenty of water like she always tells him.

  From first impressions, he said, looking around, some of the other guys were huge, but not so much as to give him worries. A few he recognised from previous competitions. But he ignored them all. He sat and thought about his strategy. He knew he was better prepared than anyone.

  Kay isn’t sure what powerlifting strategy might be—doesn’t it just involve hefting weights? But she’s never asked and she doesn’t expect him to explain. He is his own man now, presiding in his own coliseum, hailing his own crowds, today, on this very day, this afternoon. Highly commended the first year, then silver medallist two years in a row, and today—today, who knew?

  She tucks her legs under, cooking now in their leaf-print fabric, something synthetic in the mix despite the pure cotton label. The light glitters on the newspaper in its plastic sleeve.

  To think that Donny’s just a few blocks over there, in the arena beyond the park and the cricket pavilion, ten or so blocks away—amazing. And still he phoned her, early as it was, when he knew he’d see her later. Medallist though he might be. He didn’t even say, see you later. He knew of course she’d find a way to pop round.

  Too soft to make it, Rod always said—mummy’s boy, too soft for his own good.

  Whatever that might be, Kay would silently retort. As far as she is concerned, men could use more softness. Something of the human touch could have helped Rod save his hardware business—that is, retain his personable, hands-on manager and so save his hardware business. Instead, he had ended up depressed and out of work, spending his days in the café down the street drinking free refills right up until the morning he finally walked out for good.

  Softness definitely suits Donny, it complements his muscles, his bulgy chest. She takes credit for both, the softness and the strength.

  Ignoring her aching heart, she has made Donny live away from home for over a year now. He hadn’t wanted to go but by degrees she had nudged him away. She made him get his own toiletries, then clean his own shoes, then do his laundry, then find a room, though every push was hateful to her. It was like leaving him at nursery when he was a baby, walking away and hearing him scream.

  Now and again she asks Donny about girlfriends, but only now and again. She doesn’t want to think about her son and girlfriends, not yet. He doesn’t need the fuss, not now, so soon, frying pan into the fire. He has his softness and his powerlifting, an unusual combination, sure, but only if you don’t know Donny and this one astounding capability he has—his strength like Samson’s. A couple of years ago she’d pushed him to find a coach, get training, she’d helped him phone around. Again, she takes the credit. It turned out that the coach, Carl—foul-mouthed, bull-necked Carl—made all the difference. Donny became a silver medallist the following summer.

  Softness in a grown son is pleasant for a mother, in Kay’s opinion. Softness connects back to when Donny was small. His smooth, soft legs and arms, she remembers, when he stood up in her lap and she held his cushiony knees, and laughed up at the pink colours in his round excited cheeks.

  She knew of course, even as she held those fat legs, that nothing lasted, that soon he’d grow big as all babies do, and yet, as she sat there holding him, she remembers thinking that this moment somehow topped out her life: it was enough, it was plenty. After this she could rest, her work on earth was complete.

  Well, the feeling passed quickly, as happens, yet, all these years on, how happy she still is right now that her big, gentle son called, she admits it to herself. She is very happy—overjoyed in fact, sitting here soaking up the filtered sunshine and thinking of him close by, giving her a ring…

  She drains her coffee and switches on the radio for the local news, turns the knob along the dial in case there’s a mention. A station breaks into ‘Stuck On You’. She lets it play.

  Pushing him away and yet pulling him back, Kay thinks, she can let this tension be. Helping him towards independence, but delighted about today, his thinking of her, sharing the glory. All day this joy will stay with her, she knows, even if he doesn’t win. Whatever success he gets is in some measure hers, too.

  She stands up, reaches for the still-wrapped newspaper, the coffee mug. Provided today isn’t too busy she will carry out her plan, she is decided, grab an hour if she can to pop downtown to the arena, catch some of the action on the big screen outside. The previous four championships were all inter-state—Goulburn, Tamworth, even Cairns—impossible to get to without a few days’ leave. But now the logic of rotation has brought the contest here. She hasn’t arranged for a ticket, but all along she has hoped she might, without drawing attention, slip away from work and make a quick dash downtown.

  Who would insist on keeping a distance? Rod, yes, certainly, but Rod has gone now. His turned-down mouth and withdrawn expression, all of that is over, in the past.

  She reaches to the chair-back behind her, feels for the bulletproof jacket that in the office generally hangs there, and catches herself up short. She’s not even dressed yet! Of course there’s no jacket. She must hurry. The sun’s much higher than she’d thought, needling her neck with hot fingers through the gaps in the trellis. It must be well past seven.

  ‘Stuck On You’ dwindles to buzzing. She switches the radio off, wasn’t listening anyway, sticks the device under her arm, picks up the cup and the paper and elbows her way back into the house.

  Putting everything down on the counter she starts dropping clothing as she goes, pyjama top, pyjama bottom, slippers, hairband. Then into the shower. Uniform. Shoes. And finally the bulletproof jacket. The effect of having the thing on is like getting into fancy dress. Every time, an instant transformation. See the person in the full-length mirror, in character, stern, dark, chiselled, defended. She thinks of Donny—perhaps at this very minute putting on his huge, reinforced powerlifting brace.

  ~

  The first proper call comes into the duty office around one-thirty.

  A woman’s voice, musical but sharp-edged, panicky, ‘My son…’

  Kay pulls her notebook closer and makes wide eyes over at Aitch, her partner for the afternoon. Action at last, though, darn it, it could definitely have come an hour or so earlier…

  Over morning coffee she had stupidly tempted fate by checking the downtown traffic situation on her phone, had thought she was in the clear.

  And now here she is, eating the cheese-and-tomato sandwich she brought from home more out of habit than hunger, letting herself think about the big screen outside at the arena, catching a glimpse of Donny in his belt, lifting some gigantic weight—is that how they do it, just lift it, without support, with muscle power alone?—and realising suddenly that the phone is ringing. Her brain must have gone scatty with too much coffee.

  ‘My son’s threatening me. Please, come quickly, soon as you can.’
r />   ‘Thank you, we’re here, we can hear you. Are you in immediate danger?’

  ‘No, not immediate, but I feel threatened. My son…’

  There is thudding in the background, then silence.

  Kay hands the phone to Jake, the service officer at the front desk. Aitch has grabbed the car keys, taking them in one smooth curving movement from the hook while heading for the back, the car park. She reaches for her bulletproof jacket, snug on the back of her chair, and dashes at the sliding doors.

  ‘I’ll drive round, pick you up in front, Dunstan Terrace exit.’

  The day has grown hot, easily over 40. The entrance is unshaded and the sweat bursts out across the back of her neck.

  My son’s threatening me, said that woman. Come quickly.

  A son threatening a mother, can that be true?

  Donny in his belt with his soft, conditioned hair, he’d not threaten a soul, would he, let alone his mother?

  Oh, men, her own mother often sighs, as if that one word explained everything. Rod leaving without a word that spring morning, which is to say, three short SMSes. Donny’s own father not paying a penny towards his upbringing, not even the music lessons he himself proposed, yet stockpiling gifts for other women in the laundry cupboard throughout their time together, cut-glass vases, tea sets, silk scarves—throughout their un-marriage, as her mother calls it.

  Aitch pulls up, Kay reaches for the door handle and swings herself into the car.

  It’s not for her to stand around mulling the whys and wherefores, she tells herself sternly. It’s for her to take action. She’s on duty just the same as everyone else.

  The house is down a narrow street lined with young mallee trees on both sides. A sky-blue front door stands open. At the back of the house, raised voices and a loud cawing sound. They ring the bell and then walk straight in, down the dark passage and to the back.