by Eben Venter
But still he digs in, clings to his dream, pictures himself in his pressed black Italian apron and his white T-shirt that he’ll freshen up just before opening time, half past eleven, with the logo of a tiny man holding a larger-than-body-size spoon in front of him with a cheeky wisp of steam curling up from it. Everything becomes vaguer and even dirtier, that’s what surprises him most, the filthiness that spreads over every aspect of his takeaway – even the pile of recipes, collected and carefully copied, starts looking like a heap of shit to him.
‘Sannie, is that you?’ Benjamin Duiker hears someone entering the gate, walking along the paving in heels, climbing the three broad semicircular steps up to the generous slate-paved stoep and opening the front door. Sannie from next door, of course, has the gate code, much to Mattie’s disgust.
‘Sannie?’ It can’t be anyone but her. He senses her presence. A big woman, not unattractive, just a bit coarsely put together, something she can’t help. A year older than him, but doesn’t look it. Self-satisfied, rather too much so. He often thinks: if something should happen to Mattie, and with Sissy far away on the farm in Laingsburg, Sannie will be his only recourse.
‘Good heavens, Bennie, I thought I heard your voice coming from this end of the house.’ She flutters in in a haze that he recognises and kisses him on the lips; drops of sweat migrate from her upper lip to his. ‘My word, Bennie, and now they’ve put you in here. And not even a bathroom for you. Where do you relieve yourself?’
‘It was my choice, Sannie. I want to spend my last days here.’
‘Don’t you talk like that, Bennie my boy, it’s not as if you’re on your way to heaven just yet. I pray for you every night, you know. Funny, I thought I heard a commotion over here. Must have been when they were moving you. Mattheüs and Samantha, must have been those two. Did they at least help?’
‘Everything, Sannie.’
‘I brought you some milk tart. It’s leftovers from the sale. We collected five thousand for Coronation Park. You know, Bennie, the poor-white Afrikaners near Krugersdorp. They have to make do with tents and caravans. No, we have a lot to be thankful for. I’m flying up next week for an appointment with Fanie Putter, their self-appointed mayor. Shall I go and make some tea for the milk tart?’
‘Later, thanks, Sannie. Just leave it in the fridge.’
‘Oh, I know who’ll get his hands on it.’ She comes up to him. Sannie thinks now that he’s lost his sight it’s her duty to talk to him with her body. Her breath scorches his neck. ‘You must eat, my friend. Otherwise your body can’t heal itself. Listen to me, I know what I’m talking about, Bennie.’
‘But aren’t there jobs for those poor people? There must surely be something they can do. You have to be able to make your own way in life, Sannie. I’ve always believed that.’
‘There’s nothing, Bennie. They’re at the mercy of other people’s charity. If we from down here don’t help them, they’ll all go under. Our pastor Roy Rabinowitz is going along with me for the Big Baptism. They first have to confess and confirm their testimony with the baptism, Bennie. Then they’re one of us. That’s how it works. They don’t just get stuff. They must first become members of the Silver Cloud Christian Fellowship. Only then do I write out the cheque. By now they know this. We’ve been saving souls out there like never before. You cannot live by bread alone. Those people are starving, I tell you. Starving.’
Benjamin just lies there. Fiddles with the strip of sheet folded over on top of his pyjamas. Silver Cloud. He says nothing.
‘Can I read you something, Bennie? I’ve brought along some of our pastor’s sermons. Just say the word. I’m happy to sit here with you for a while. I suppose you don’t have much company. I don’t see lots of people driving in here.’
‘My thoughts are just about enough for me, Sannie. A whole larder of memories. I remember every little thing as if it happened yesterday. Have I told you about the dwarfs I saw the other day? Imagine, three of them sitting over there on the windowsill. All in a row.’
‘Bennie?’
‘I’m telling you, Sannie. I don’t believe in such things, but a man can’t lie either.’
‘What do they say?’
‘They don’t really talk. The three of them just sit there holding onto the windowsill so that they don’t fall off. It’s been a few times now that I’ve seen them there.’
‘It doesn’t sound altogether right to me. One has to be on one’s guard, Ben. Has anybody else seen them? Mattheüs?’
‘I’ve been wanting to tell Mattie.’
‘Bennie, shall I ask our pastor to come and have a word with you? Do you feel the need?’
‘No thank you, Sannie.’ He turns his head away from where she’s sitting. She thinks he’s a child. He lies there, saying not a word; she sits and fiddles. Mouth shut, but not for long.
‘Bennie, I’m on your cell. Call me anytime, please. I have to take Janneman to the vet. He’s got a terrible rash under his tummy again. I don’t know what it is.’
‘Probably fleas, Sannie.’ He hears the big body getting up. Kleintjie, her husband, must have had his hands full with the woman. Only detective novels for her. And then every Saturday evening his palaver with the braai, the same each time, with lettuce and onion rings and tomato slices and Aromat. Eventually they didn’t want to go any more.
Sannie kisses him on the cheek and squeezes his hand. ‘Bennie, I was wondering if you didn’t perhaps want to make a contribution to Coronation Park. Every bit helps. Their need is great there.’
‘How many of them are there?’
‘Bennie, I … Pastor estimates around three hundred and fifty now. Most of them in caravans. Anything will help. And as I say, it’s souls for the Lord.’
‘Well, pass me my cheque book, then. In the drawer here.’ He gestures limply.
‘For how much shall I say, Bennie?’
‘How much do your benefactors usually give?’
‘Well, the last was from the AR Foundation. They gave generously, fifty thousand.’
‘Well, then, you can make it ten.’
‘Ten thousand?’
‘Yes, Sannie.’
‘Heavens, Bennie. The Lord will bless you abundantly.’ She bends over, the cheque book in her hand jutting unnecessarily into his breastbone, and kisses him again and plops down on her chair.
‘Remember to fill in the counterfoil.’
‘Done. Here you are, Bennie.’ Then she points his finger at the place he should sign. And he wonders whose pen it is, because he knows the feel of his own.
@ Clarence House, Jack facebooks Matt. Nothing can go wrong. Please check the time. Miss you! :-)
It’s just after five-thirty in the morning and on the chilly side. He considers taking a photo of himself to send to Matt, but decides against it. The boys are busy arriving, some of them straight out of bed and having dressed without washing. Rowers who don’t stay in the hostel are dropped off by their fathers. Moenien Albertse is dropped by his mother in a pitch-black BMW with tinted windows. When she opens the window to say goodbye, he sees her fancy headscarf. They’re Muslims. Moenien rows at number five on the stroke side. For a grade ten boy, he has one of the most perfect torsos Jack has ever come across. The white boys refer to boys like Moenien as ‘gam’. Not great. There’s nothing he can do about it. Not everything at Zilverbosch can be bright and beautiful.
It’s going to be just him, Jamie, and the boys. It’s the new red-headed English teacher’s first time out with the boys. Jamie is excited because he’s afraid of something going wrong. There are the eight rowers and the coxswain. No problem.
Jack drives the minibus with the trailer and boat and all the oars. He’s wearing a white, long-sleeved T-shirt with jeans, the T-shirt not tucked in. He’s thinking of Matt, that’s why he notices the T-shirt. What do you say so early in the mo
rning? He’s got nothing in his head. Steering wheel in his hands, Jamie next to him trying to stay awake out of politeness and making small talk.
Behind them are the boys, with their iPods and bottles of Coke and water. Some of them have put on Axe deodorant. There’s the rubber smell of their designer runners, some of them have pulled their hoodies over to sleep – he knows their register of smells.
They know him. He comes out of his shell at braais and so on. But when he has spoken, he’s spoken. That’s only fair. Taking out a handful of boys is no big deal. Just enjoy it. He doesn’t think ahead of this or maybe that happening. That’s the difference between him and Matt. Matt can see ahead a whole day or night, like a movie; and if things don’t turn out as he expects, he’s surprised or disappointed. Matt sees him like this (okay, not all the time): shirt tucked into pants, hairless strip around his ankles from wearing socks every day. The over-conscientious teacher-type who prissed up after one disastrous sex trip.
In the rear-view mirror, he sees some of the boys fooling around on Mxit. Some are taking mobile phone photos of one another, with all the obligatory finger signs. And then everyone has to look at the photo. They’re cool with Moenien. There’re no problems.
Mikey comes and puts a hand on his shoulder. They’re on the N7 now. Mikey is the pack leader. He’s blond, ungainly from growing too fast, and informed and clever at storing observations and information without ever officially sitting down to study. Mikey knows the Wimpy won’t be open at this early hour, but asks all the same if they can stop there. Jack gets his sense of humour, but without showing too openly how he enjoys it. The distance between him and the boys is just there. It’s not as if he plans it in advance. His instinct tells him that it’s the only way, otherwise they take advantage of you. The boys know he’s gay. It won’t be a problem at Misverstand Dam. It’s not a problem at Clarence or anywhere else. Ever.
At eight o’clock, they pull up at Misverstand. A brilliant day. The boys are frisky, Mikey not quite daring enough to be reined in. He sees to it that they put up the two-man tents right away, because when they come back from rowing they won’t want to do it. He knows them. He’s seen to it that he got a site with a river view, as usual.
Hennie Strydom, the trainer, arrives under his own steam. This evening when the braai begins, he’ll travel back to his just-married wife. Hennie and he, what can he say. The man probably thinks he’s going to hit on him. Even if he’d been his type, heavy artillery, ha-ha, he wouldn’t have dared. He’s got far too much respect for himself and for Zilverbosch.
The shell is held in position, and the boys in blue-and-white vests take their places, and so does the cox on this clean, clear day, with the sun on their shoulders.
‘Ready to row,’ shouts the cox, whose main job is to steer the boat on a straight course. Jack knows most of the commands by now. Rowing is such a proper kind of thing to do. These outings have a soothing effect on him. As if everything falls into place for a change.
He and Jamie sit on the shore under a blue-and-white tent with the Zilverbosch logo. As a rule he doesn’t smoke in front of the boys, so he lights up now. He inspects Jamie. Freckles are sprinkled across his nose and slightly pubescent cheeks. His eyebrows are ginger, his irises light-green. He has an open, innocent gaze, as if he’s not altogether present. You don’t easily get anything out of him. He’s too reticent, and definitely straight. From a rich home. There’s his car and all. Jack laughs. He’s got a nose for guys with money. It helps.
He gazes over the calm blue surface of the dam. On the other side are contoured hills where wheat farmers sow their seed. By now the wheat would have been long since harvested. With any luck, you’ll see some blue cranes strutting and pecking on the lands. Their tails and trailing wingtips. He looks at the cloudless sky, he hears other human voices further along on the water’s edge. No complaints.
‘Square on the ready,’ the cox shouts, and Jack doesn’t see their boat again. They are somewhere on the twelve-kilometre route. When they get back, there will be sandwiches and cold meat: plenty of carbohydrates, plenty of protein. He and Jamie will have to prepare it, but there’s more than enough time. Everything’s running smoothly. He can’t think of anywhere he’d rather be than here.
As dusk approaches, he prepares a fire in the special brick braai area. The two bundles of thornwood he’d bought at Swarries, the bar here at Misverstand, are ready and waiting. Jamie does everything he tells him to. Bumbling and butterfingered. Jack reckons the guy has grown up with other people doing everything for him.
‘Have one.’ No, he doesn’t want a drink.
‘Have one,’ Jack says again. And then he takes one of the eight beers he’d brought along.
The boys huddle together to one side. Now and again one drifts over to them, Mikey or Herman or Rory or one of the other grade elevens. Talk about nothing in particular, and joke with him. The new English teacher might not as well have been there. If nobody has come by for a while, Jack looks across the hump formed by the lawn to check on the boys on the other side. He likes keeping an eye on Moenien.
When the chops have been arranged head-and-tail, tail-and-head on the grid, and the first meat fumes are billowing up, he remembers a time long ago when he was small enough to run around naked in places like this. They were camping. There were gum trees; he can’t remember where. He’s banished most of this stuff from his life. And yet, tonight. Later in that place, when the wind came up over the water, there was also a dam or maybe a river; his mother had called him and dressed him. He remembers how he liked her mother-hands on his damp skin, and how nice the braai smoke was all around him. And his mother asked him: Can you smell the pine trees, the pine resin? It’s such a small thing to remember, nothing out of the ordinary. And no nasties with it.
Jamie is next to him with a stick to put out flare-ups. In effect, he’s alone with the boys. The guy’s a dud.
Liquor? It’d be naive to deny it. Vodka mixers, that kind of thing, bottles hidden in the boys’ tog bags. Mikey? Yes, he’d say so. He’d rather warn and inform the boys – searching their bags is out. It’s not expected of him, and he’d regard it as an invasion of their privacy.
After the meal, he and Jamie are sitting in front of their tent. He’s on his fourth, Jamie halfway through his second beer. The boys’ tents are haphazardly pitched to the left of them: the boys are all bunched together beyond the tents, away from the authorities. Boys’ voices that have broken and become men’s voices mingle with those of boys who have the high-pitched laugh of birds.
It’s still early in the year, the so-called slave period of the grade tens is still in force. To be a slave to a senior boy means having to report to his bedroom for no reason at all on a Sunday morning, you owe him all sorts of favours. During your slave period you subject yourself voluntarily to initiation.
Jack knows most of the rituals from previous years. He tells Jamie about it all. It consists mainly of silly games and stays within certain limits. It’s actually quite innocent and the boys find it hilarious, the seniors as well as the slaves. Jamie fiddles nervously with his chin, but then.
Jack has got up a few times to check on the boys from a distance, just to let them know that he knows what they’re up to. Jamie goes along the first time, stays behind after that. The light from one of the lamps is shining on the backs of the seniors, all of them in the dark-blue Zilverbosch tracksuits. In the centre of the circle are the slaves, the three grade tens, including Moenien, all in vests.
Jack stands watching, beer in hand, the boys’ laughter comes and goes, dies down when a senior claims something from a slave, then roars loudly when the slave obeys. He can hear the younger boys in the centre of the circle laughing too. He is satisfied. Walking back the last time, he stops again and listens, but without turning around and looking. And then, with the mingled taste of beer and braai chops lingering in his mouth and the damp da
m air of the summer evening on his bare arms, he again experiences something of that sense of well-being from his early childhood. It’s transient, though, and he leaves it like that. He has no wish to recall any further or to force himself to remember things from later years.
On his back on the blow-up mattress, he lies in the tent. Pure bliss. Next to him on the other mattress, Jamie has turned his back to him, uncommunicative, in a too-big, white T-shirt.
Jack likes his job. He likes explaining a poem and seeing the revelation dawn on their faces. Okay, only a few. He likes the energy of the boys. How it flares up and dies down and goes crazy and dies down again. From one of the other campsites he hears the sawing of an accordion and raucous singing. The boys he no longer hears.
He waits for sleep. He doesn’t need to. He could lie like that all night, hands on his underpants. The boys sleep in pairs in the tents. They’re safe, that’s all he needs to worry about. If he sleeps, his dreams will be sweet like those of a well-fed dog. He tries to listen to Jamie. Young, doesn’t snore yet. Heavily PC, this one. Won’t touch a cigarette. The new teacher’s motto will be ‘due diligence’, Jack decides. The requisite sense of duty, à la Jamie. His own approach relies heavily on the senses: listen and you will hear, look and you will see.
The side of the tent gets wetter and colder deep into the night. Crunch-crunch, some creature nibbles the grass outside. A hare or something. He picks his nose and flicks it away and puts his hand back on his underpants and lies there wrapped in his own body. He thinks of nothing.
In the course of the night, he is woken up by someone outside their tent. He crawls out of his sleeping bag, unclips the tent flaps and stands there on his knees, shining his torch. It’s Mikey. He raises the torch to shine in his eyes. His blond hair is off-white and unwashed.
‘Something’s happened, sir.’
Jack gets to his feet and shines the torch up and down the boy. He’s wearing his tracksuit pants and a pitch-black vest. He is serious. The torch plays slowly over his face, from left to right. Jack knows him; he wants to know everything. Mikey’s mind is usually in overdrive trying to think of something witty to say. None of that now. Won’t cry easily. At this moment, Jack sees him as an incarnation of the words of Cavafy: ‘his hair uncombed, uplifted, his limbs tanned lightly’ – but that’s irrelevant.