by Eben Venter
By daybreak his body is mobile again and he picks up the computer and positions it on his abs, and the index finger seeks and finds. There’s no sign of a single thought or recollection or even the slightest attempt at self-stimulation. Only the lethargic weight of his own body that drags him down, down, following its own impulse, his forearm lifting clumsily with the hand forming a funnel, and the rhythm again, but slower by a beat or two, until the fluids flow from him.
He sleeps. His father’s bell rings from the study. It’s now just after six in the morning. It’s a copper bell that used to stand on the dresser in the dining room. When there were people for dinner and the first course was ready – the dining-room table seats twelve – his mother grasped the bell with thumb and index finger on the flat handle with its image of the Union Buildings and rang it enthusiastically, swinging her arm to and fro, ran like a schoolgirl from the dining room into the entrance hall and left into the sitting room where the guests were standing or sitting with their drinks, and there she swung the little bell in a big, wide curve and laughed, her voice pitched high with a merry top note, almost like the trill of some songbird or other. Then his father swung round, infuriated, and uttered something that is terrible to utter about your wife in front of guests.
The bell has intruded upon his dream and he remembers thinking while dreaming: Can’t come now, Pa. You should be aware of the time. I’m still sleeping, I’m only human. And his father said: Well, then, that’s all right, Mattie. And he remembers how terribly grateful he was to his father in his dream. Almost tender. You need it, my son, he hears him say. And how happy he was for a long time afterwards that his father had given him the break, because usually he demanded immediate attention. So the bell subsided into silence and he remembers how nice and contented he felt about it. For a long time afterwards.
For a third time his sleep is interrupted. By now it is about eight o’clock, and the Cape morning in February of that year is pumping heat already, and the side of Table Mountain where UCT and Rhodes Memorial are built is splendidly and clearly visible from their front stoep; you could count the pines with their umbrella crowns all around the memorial. The computer is still open on a new video, twenty-three minutes into the film where he must have paused it, so that now he need only tap it lightly to set it going again. This time he allows himself to slip into the scene. The two are amateurs and have selected their bathroom floor as the perfect location to set up the camera, probably on a surface next to the hand basin so that the lens peers down at their bodies; one is still wearing his green underpants, and the light is a yellow, murky affair. It’s the kind of amateur porn that Mattheüs prefers and bookmarks. He slides into it, even longs to be going at it with the two on the tiles, tiles that he imagines would get slippery under the back from the sweat and stuff so that you’d have to anchor yourself to something on both sides. The pace of the action is lazy and deliciously lethargic because of the high temperature outside. Mattheüs takes longer this time, his energy drained, hours it takes, right until the morning of the next day, or so it feels. (In the meantime he’s got hungry, and thought of two fried eggs and crisply fried rashers of bacon and sweet fried tomatoes – in fact the only thought that has occurred to him in the course of that threesome session.)
Now there is only the last bit of conserved energy to release, his body grateful that the end is in sight. From his head and right through his body to the backs of his knees and down to the insides of his soles he is aware of pressure, the back arches, the thighs stretched to breaking point, and as the pressure builds, a continuous buzzing starts up in his inner ear, voices he hears, indecipherable and even reassuring, his mouth totally dry, and then at last the meagre, transparent fluid. He comes into his left hand and lets it dam up there. Only he, his body, knows it. Nobody else has ever seen it or ever will. Jack, nobody.
He sleeps in until twelve. He showers under lukewarm and then cold water and even tries to recall one of the porn stars he watched, but can’t. Even though their build and technique differed, there in the cubicle where he is slowly stabilising under a shower of water, they become mere clones of each other. Each a generic copy of the original. Who is it? And what is the ideal fuck in any case?
He shaves. He’ll drive out to the beach today and get some sun. He’s pale under the gills, inside too, and he wants to go and burn it out. In the mirror he sees that the hot water has left a pink rash on his shoulders. What he does know for sure is that he can’t reach a point of satisfaction with porn. If he were to think he could, it would be a lie. He doesn’t intend cutting down, either.
Back in his room he half-opens the curtains, dresses, and selects a pair of sunglasses from the string suspended on his wall like the mouth of a smiley. Seven pairs of sunglasses in all, only the Diesel pair genuine. The others all cheap imitations that look and feel just as good.
The bell. He can hear it’s not the first ring, that. The tongue strikes the copper lining, pure geriatric impatience. Must be hungry or something. He goes out without putting on deodorant.
My dear son,
I can feel the heat of the day behind me on my back. I’m chained fast, that’s for sure. It’s His will, I’m not complaining.
This morning my heart is full. I feel the need to talk to you. Also to Sissy. I miss my daughter. Imagine, I spent all night thinking of that town in China that Sannie read to me about, which only makes tweezers. Can you believe it. Now we can buy the stuff here for a pittance. How the world has changed. Your mother was very attached to her tweezers.
My heart is full. I was very angry that I had to ring and ring my bell the other day and you took no notice. Mattie, that’s not the way to treat your father. Look, I was really very angry. Much, much angrier than I let on to you. I restrained myself. It’s no use, my son. I was angry, but I’m not going to upset myself any further.
You see, that is what I’d like to share with you. In days gone by I would flare up for nothing and then immediately afterwards suffer terrible remorse. You all know me like that. My staff knew me like that. Now I saw my anger coming. Is that how your generation does it? You’re always talking about being in touch with your feelings. You can see now that your father has learnt a new lesson in his old age.
But I don’t want it to happen again, Mattie. Understand me well. Look, I considered having a nurse for a few days a week. But won’t you say when I’m dead: Heavens, Pa certainly wasted our money. No, I reckon, as long as you’re still here. Look, I’m not such a nuisance yet. Or so I believe, at any rate. I do after all have Sannie next door as well. You must feel free to talk, Mattie. You talk to me so seldom.
My son, you may think I’m stupid, but Pa isn’t, you know. I can sense when you come in here with my medicine. Or with the tray, doesn’t matter which one. I know you probably want it all to be over now. Over and out, as the saying goes. You want to move in here and do as you wish. Not much respect for your late father will remain.
I just wish we could talk to each other. Men are such odd creatures. My father, Grandpa Ben, said so himself. A man is a strange thing. Look, it’s not as if my father and I talked much about life, as I’ve said before. He wanted to make sure of my religion, that I believed and was living my life righteously, and that I would experience eternal life. That was his only concern from when I was a child to his very last days. He always wanted to know: Benjamin, do you believe in the one, true God?
Years ago, when I was just a whippersnapper, I was playing in the irrigation furrow on our farm. I was making my own miniature farm with its own lands and furrows, and for sheep we children always used the little cypress cones. So I was struggling to make my own dam with its wall and everything. Ag, I suppose I was three or four years old. All day I played there in the shade of the tall poplars. Then my father walked past, he always wore his hat on the farm, and he had his pipe and tobacco in his pocket. That’s how he went around. He saw me struggling. He took the
spade standing there and cut big fat sods and threw a strong, wide wall for me. So then I had my own dam on my farm. Do you know what that meant to a child like me, Mattie?
So that was how Grandpa Ben and I communicated. I bear him no grudge for it. My father was an outstanding example to me, throughout my life. I suppose that that’s how it is between men. Now I don’t know about you, Mattie. You don’t talk.
I’m tired right now. I’m pressing Stop.
Your father.
@ Grade Twelve class, Jack facebooks and posts it on his Wall. Has anybody got anything to say about van Wyk Louw’s Die Beiteltjie that hasn’t been said before? (Make no mistake: I like the poem.)
Steve (an ex-pupil of Jack’s, not gay): Imagery too simplistic. Overrated.
Jack sees an e-mail arriving in his inbox. He opens it while carrying on chatting. It’s from the principal’s secretary. Mr Richardson requires a meeting with you at the end of this period if it suits. Thank you, Layla. With a smiley. Red flag, that’s what he sees.
When he sits down in Mister Richard Richardson’s office and looks up at the photo of the state president – oh, shit. Nothing, he’s done nothing wrong. Or has he? His premonition kicks in again, as in automatically: why has he not seen it like this before?
The combination of him and Mikey and Moenien Albertse at the Misverstand Dam was wonky. From the start. He, Jack, with his libertarian discipline and Mikey the blond bully and Moenien who is stuck with the white boys’ nickname for him, no matter what. That word. Moenien stood out. Or did he? Was he the third ingredient in some kind of concoction? And not forgetting the holy innocent Jamie.
He shifts on his chair, a standard office chair with green upholstery and a round back. A wide-awake chair. He must have changed position a hundred times by now. Knees open or right leg dogleg and butch with right ankle on left knee or right leg tightly folded around left leg, more feminine and fairly common among men. Uptight is the word that Matt sometimes uses about him. Matt doesn’t get him, so to speak. One day he’s going to surprise him. He’s going to tackle him. Hurt him. Blow all his preconceptions about him sky-high.
He quickly picks up the framed portrait on Mister Richardson’s desk. It shows him and his wife in a half-and-half traditional Transkei outfit, even though she’s actually from Wiltshire. Terribly PC, the whole lot. And in front of them the three daughters. All three of them nice and sallow like daddy. And right in front the Labrador that you can immediately see is fed far too much.
Five years at Zilverbosch, two years as housemaster. Have there ever been any problems? A definite no. Mister Richardson, come on. He must realise what he’s got in him. Gay is no problem here. Once he thought that for a change of scene he’d apply for a post at Gimnasium. First question they asked him was whether he was married. Fucked-up way of asking whether he’s gay. Hello? This is the twenty-first century! Check your Constitution, people.
Jack saw the failed application as confirmation of his status quo. That afternoon, he bought the double CD/DVD of Tiësto, the Amsterdam DJ with his dirty sexy mixes. He was, he is happy.
‘Jack, my apologies, man.’ Mister Richardson takes his seat behind the desk, under the president’s photo. He’s wearing a navy-blue suit and white shirt with old-fashioned collar and navy-blue tie with the Zilverbosch crest. Nothing odd about him. ‘Coffee?’ He buzzes the intercom and orders two from Layla. ‘Look, I’ll get straight to the point.’
Misverstand Dam. No ways that an Englishman is ever going to pronounce that name correctly. In any case, that’s irrelevant. So shit got spilt. He’s itching to know who. Wouldn’t be Mikey. Must be either Moenien or Jamie, the hypocritical arsehole. How pathetically cautious people can be. When Mikey came to tell the pissing story at their tent, Jamie was doubtful at first, then he was just plain shit-scared. How clearly he now sees what he didn’t want to see before.
Gifted teacher. Popular with the boys. Loyal to the ideals and principles of Zilverbosch, says Mister Richardson. Get to the point, please. Cigarette, or he’ll die. One in his hand, at least, as a crutch.
So it was Moenien’s mother. She smelt urine on his shoes (brand-new Nikes) when he got home. Moenien had apparently stuffed the tracksuit pants into the washing machine very quickly, but his mother fished them out and saw the stinking stains. In this very office she’d come and vented, she couldn’t stand it any longer, no matter how many times Moenien told her: Mommy, it doesn’t matter, it was just boys’ games. No bloody way, that’s not how she saw it. Those white shits pissed on my son’s gym pants. Brand-new Adidas and not cheap either. Does Mister Richardson think it’s fair? And does he think for a moment that she’s going to shut up about it in the new South Africa?
He had to proceed with great care, says Mister Richardson. The woman was seething. He hoped she wouldn’t play the race card as well; racial harmony was a feature of Zilverbosch. Jack looks at Mister Richardson’s lips talking and talking and getting moist with all the explaining, he can see their fleshy insides. He carries on and says he made how many excuses to the woman. He is sure, he eventually said to her, that Jack acted in good faith.
Moenien’s mother persisted in being upset and insulted. She wants Mikey to be expelled. It’s a very serious matter. He soothed and coaxed for all he was worth, says Mister Richardson. But it’s turned into a huge embarrassment.
A gentleman, Mister Richardson, no doubt about that. Putting out fires, that’s all he was trying to do.
‘And what about Mikey now? That boy doesn’t deserve to be expelled on the basis of a single mistake,’ says Jack. Who doesn’t like Mikey Greeff? That shit-stirring glint across his eyes, morning, noon, and night. He does his best to confine the discussion to Mikey and Moenien.
Between the two of them, says Mister Richardson, he doesn’t want to lose Mikey for Zilverbosch. He’s an outstanding rower and an excellent swimmer. To get to the point. Jack freezes. He’s been waiting for this all along. Where does he fit into the picture?
Another cup of coffee? His cup has formed a blue scum, in the circumstances untouched. Mister Richardson carries on. This and that. It’s a sensitive matter, extremely sensitive, for him as principal, et cetera. Which has to be sorted out, of course. What? For the first time in the course of the meeting Mister Richardson says not a word. He looks up at the air conditioning unit on the wall behind Jack. Plump drops plop in slow motion onto the strip of wooden flooring just inside the door.
‘Is it a little too cool in here? Or is it my imagination?’
Is he out of his bloody mind? Jack is sweating as if he’s shagging. And for the first time since he’s kicked the habit, he wants coke or speed. Craves it, actually.
Jack, your discretion, says the principal. And where may I ask was the teacher in charge? Moenien’s mother demanded to know. Crux of the matter. Okay, so that’s how matters stand. Here we have it at last. Couldn’t he have spat it out right at the start? That’s how over-politeness can really screw up a man who’s trying to be straight and honest.
And then the bummer: Clarence House. The tremendous responsibility with so many boys under one roof. His role there as housemaster. Well, the way things stand at the moment. Jack’s capacity for discretion, that as well, is being questioned. (His sweat begins to stink, acrid – Matt would like him now.) It pains him to involve Jamie as well, but he was there when it happened. A witness.
‘Yes? What did Jamie have to say?’
Mister Richardson looks at him and shakes his head. ‘Right, let’s leave him out of the picture. It’s unnecessary to drag him into this. He’s a new arrival.’ It seems that Mister Richardson has already gone too far even in mentioning Jamie’s name. The man is covering up for Jamie, that’s what’s happening. Whatever Jamie has said about Misverstand, and how he handled the matter, was probably undoubtedly definitely not what he and Jack had agreed upon that morning in front of the tent. Jamie was
the fourth toxic ingredient of the Misverstand excursion.
But Mister Richardson, they, the governing body, won’t come to a decision. Decent-to-his-eyeballs Mister Richardson is leaving it up to Jack. He, Jack, must now calmly go off and reflect on the matter. Mister Richardson says he respects his integrity. His decision, whichever way it goes, will likewise be respected.
‘I believe your decision will be in the interest of our school.’
Dickhead. Why don’t you just tell me to my face? He’s just written off Mister Richardson as well. Decency? Please, spare me that. The man is spineless.
Money. The root of his panic. What he earns now is gobbled up by debts. (Plural.) Hundreds, thousands of rands run up in his wild life. Hey, Jack my man, how about that thousand you still owe me? – texts just about daily from his creditor, Okechi, the Nigerian. Sometimes late at night, so that he gets the fright of his life. His car long since pawned. Has he mentioned that? He’s calculated that after another two years as housemaster at Clarence, where he doesn’t pay a cent in rent and even receives a stipend, he’ll be in the clear.
He fiddles with his mobile phone. Matt. Wants to text him right away. Get drunk tonight to celebrate his downfall. He’s buggered.
And of course, of course, says Mister Richardson, pleased as punch with the bit of good news, in his position as the Afrikaans teacher he is above suspicion. Permanent and highly appreciated. (In a predominantly English school like Zilverbosch he’s managed to draw full Afrikaans classes, twenty-four grade elevens, nineteen grade twelves – that takes some doing.)