by John Coetzee
“I reckon so,” I said.
For the next few days I wondered if my dad was going to turn up again as he had promised to do, but there was no sign of him either. At least one consolation was that the thin column of smoke I saw rising from the campfire again was a sure sign that Inez and Antonio hadn’t left the country; I was more than relieved about that.
It was only toward the end of the week that Sipho came to the cottage again after school, looking very excited.
“What’s up, Sipho?”
“You won’t believe it, Rick! When my father came home for lunch today, he told my mother that Antonio had made an appointment to see him at the power station this morning. My father said he said he was very sceptical about it at first but, after listening for a while, he became quite interested in the things Antonio was telling him. Apparently he then agreed at least to listen to Antonio’s ‘global warming’ story. By showing my dad the pictures and graphs on his laptop, Antonio managed to convince him about the amazing things that can be done with algae. So when an important group of officials comes to give the verdict on the future of the power station next Wednesday, Antonio will be there to give them a slideshow and a presentation on the subject.”
“Hey, that sounds great, Sipho!” I said, thrusting my hand out for him to take five. But he just said with a worried look on his face: “The trouble is that Antonio desperately needs your Uncle Bert to talk to them as well because of his technical knowledge about what goes on in power stations. Is there still no news about him, Rick?”
I shook my head and, disappointed, Sipho left.
When I arrived back at the cottage, I heard the phone ringing. I picked it up, and to my surprise it was my dad calling. “Hello, Rick. I’d like to speak to your mother, please.”
“Anything wrong, Dad?”
“Just call her for me quickly, please.”
I shouted for my mom and when she came in from the garden, I handed her the phone. I stood nearby to hear what he was saying, but his voice came through too softly for me to understand a word. My mom said “Yes” a few times and once even “Oh really”. Then she put the phone down and turned to me.
“Your father said he was in Mpumalanga again on business for his company. When he stopped at a hotel for lunch, he saw Uncle Bert’s old bakkie standing next to one of the chalets. He found your uncle there and told him that he wasn’t to blame for what happened at the power station and that he could go back to work. But as stubborn as Uncle Bert always is, he told him to go away and said he was finished with the Ashby power station for ever.”
“Why, Mom?”
“He told your father that he is very angry that nobody wants to believe what he believes in and that everyone thinks he’s crazy. Your father said he did his best to convince Uncle Bert to swallow his pride and to come back to Ashby, but he refused point blank. And that was that.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just went into my room and kept wondering if Inez and Antonio would now abandon the project altogether.
Chapter 8
When the next Wednesday came around, Uncle Bert still hadn’t come back to Ashby. Then Inez made me feel a lot more optimistic by telling me that Antonio had reluctantly decided to give the group of officials from the power company’s headquarters the presentation about the algae project on his own.
Sipho managed to talk his dad into getting permission for the two of us to be present as well. So we soon found ourselves sitting again in the same big room in which, a few weeks before, Mr Singh from that posh school in Johannesburg had had that sizzling argument with Mr Khumalo. I could only hope that the same kind of quarrel wouldn’t erupt again this time, and I felt rather anxious for Antonio’s sake. But I felt a lot better when Inez came in quietly and sat down next to me. She looked really stunning again, dressed in the same colourful orange and yellow dress she had had on when I had first seen her doing that Spanish dance at the camping place, and once again she got my adrenalin pumping fast when she smiled at me.
A few moments later Antonio, smartly dressed in a black suit and bowtie, and with his hair tied back in a ponytail and his beard neatly trimmed, came in from a side door carrying his laptop. He put it down on the table in front of him, but when I noticed how he kept fiddling with his bowtie, I could see he was very nervous.
Mr Khumalo went onto the platform, stood next to Antonio and addressed the group of solemn-faced officials who were still seated after their important meeting of earlier on.
“Gentlemen, I thank you for your very wise decision to keep this power station in operation, and for again giving me the opportunity to run it to the best of my ability. And I thank you also for agreeing to give some of your valuable time to hear what this young man here has to say about the exciting new technology being developed. Allow me to introduce Antonio Gonzales from the University of Miami, Florida, USA.”
I saw a few of the men quickly glancing at their watches, and I even heard one of them, a grim-looking, white-haired gentleman with a red face, muttering to the official sitting next to him: “I don’t really have time for this kind of thing, you know. This fellow better have a good story to tell, otherwise I’ll be out of here pretty quickly.”
“Same here, Mr Oldsworth,” the man agreed. “I also have tons of work lined up for me when I get back to Head Office.”
That made me realise that Antonio was going to have a tough time convincing people like those, and I hoped there wouldn’t be more of their kind in the audience.
Antonio touched a key on his laptop and a slide appeared on the screen behind him, displaying a much enlarged version of the same kind of transparent green jellylike blobs of all shapes and sizes that Inez had shown me through the microscope that day at the camping place.
“Gentlemen, this is what most people refer to as slime,” Antonio continued after clearing his throat and managing to force some kind of a smile. “But after you’ve seen what it can do for our industrialised world of today, I’m sure you will agree with me that green gold would be a much better term for it. By now most people know about the threat of global warming and climate change. And technically-minded people like you undoubtedly already know what the dangerous build-up of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and the other greenhouse gases are doing to put our planet at great risk. Well, gentlemen, I’ve come to show you how those harmful gases can be reduced to a considerable extent.”
Mr Oldsworth immediately protested. “Listen here, young man. What has this got to do with the running of a power station?”
“That’s what I’d like to know as well,” echoed the man sitting next to Mr Oldsworth.
I saw some of the other officials uneasily shifting around in their seats while Antonio quickly made the next picture appear.
“This is what is called an algae bioreactor system. As you can see, gentlemen, it consists of a series of thirty transparent tubes, each placed at a specifically calculated angle to catch the maximum amount of sunlight. Specially grown algae are introduced into the tubes; the sun’s rays do their trick on them; photosynthesis takes place continuously and voila – the algae do their work and absorb as much as forty percent of the carbon dioxide and about eighty-five percent of the nitrous oxide from the fumes before they go up into the smokestack and out into the atmosphere.”
Mr Oldsworth, looking much redder in the face by then, called out loudly. “I knew this would be a waste of time. Please get to the point, Mr Gonzales.”
I wished the old guy would shut up because it was becoming obvious that he was planning to wreck Antonio’s presentation altogether.
“Please bear with me for a few moments, sir,” Antonio said, again looking very uncomfortable while fingering his bowtie. “The beauty of this process is the huge profits a company can make from it. While soaking up the harmful gases, the algae multiply so rapidly in the tubes that they can be harvested on a daily basis. The astounding fact is that fifty percent of the weight of each one of those microscopic single-celled algae is combustib
le vegetable oil. That oil can be squeezed out of the algae in a specially designed press or extracted by a special kind of centrifuge. And then, believe it or not, gentlemen, the oil can be used to manufacture a wide range of products, such as pharmaceuticals, plastics, hydrogen, biomedical products – even cattle feed – you name it.”
Before Mr Oldsworth could interrupt again, Antonio quickly took a sip of water and went on. “But most important of all, gentlemen, are the fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol that can be made on a huge scale from this vegetable oil. And the good news is that those valuable biofuels can quite easily replace the diesel and petrol obtained from coal and crude oil, which are now causing tons and tons of carbon dioxide to go up into the atmosphere every day.”
On hearing this, some of the officials in the audience began to sit up straight. But again the crabby Mr Oldsworth intervened. “Hogwash! It sounds like a goofy fairy tale to me, Mr Gonzales. Tell me, have those so-called biofuels of yours been tested in practice, and if so, on what scale?”
Antonio looked him straight in the eye. “I’m glad you asked that, sir. Yes, these biofuels have already been tested and are still being tested successfully in various parts of the world. It has been proved that with slight modifications and a certain amount of blending, it will be possible to run the billions of vehicles around the world on these biofuels, which will at the same time help to cleanse our atmosphere dramatically. That is the big picture I have come to share with you today, gentlemen.”
Mr Oldsworth growled like a bulldog tightly holding onto a bone between his teeth. “Just a moment. I have another question for you. In what way is the Ashby power station supposed to fit into this big picture of yours?”
That seemed to catch Antonio off guard, and I felt quite sorry for him as he began to fumble with his bowtie again and stumble over his words. Some of the officials began to mumble among themselves and one or two of them looked as if they were ready to get up and go.
Then the door suddenly opened behind me, and to my surprise, Uncle Bert came into the room in his blue overalls and yellow safety helmet. Marching straight up to Mr Khumalo, he said: “Please excuse me for intruding like this, but may I answer that gentleman’s question?”
Looking very embarrassed, Mr Khumalo didn’t know what to do at first. Then seeming to recover from the surprise appearance of Uncle Bert, he turned to the audience. “Gentlemen, may I have your permission to hear what one of my shift engineers, Mr Bert Lawson, has to say?”
Nobody objected, and Uncle Bert turned to face the officials and spoke so quickly that nobody – not even Mr Oldsworth – had a chance to intervene.
“Gentlemen, I decided to come back to the Ashby power station to say what I have to say. First, I would like to apologise to Mr Khumalo for having been such a thorn in his flesh ever since he took over as manager of this power station six months ago. I know that I have been using some of the company’s time with this attempt of mine to combat global warming by putting algae to work, and I know that my efforts might have occasionally interfered with my work at the power station. But I had two important things in mind: firstly, to benefit this power station with this exciting new technology; and secondly. to reduce the disastrous effects of global warming. Ever since I made contact with Mr Antonio Gonzales via the Internet over a year ago, he has been sharing this passion with me. Mr Gonzales had been to Boston on a study visit, where he saw a fascinating exhibit of a bioreactor, which was designed by a rocket scientist who had worked on experiments for algae to be grown on the International Space Station. In the process, that scientist had come up with the brilliant idea of using specially grown algae for cleaning up power plant emissions in this remarkable way. Mr Gonzales and I then decided to gather as much information as we could about the process. I invited him to join me here to conduct experiments with the algae we’ve been taking from in the power station’s dam. At my own expense, I imported all the equipment we needed, and our experiments have been a great success so far.”
Having said that, Uncle Bert turned to Mr Oldsworth and addressed him in a straight and steady voice. “Now this is how the Ashby power station comes into the picture, sir. If the power company can see its way clear to ordering an experimental bioreactor system from the USA, it could be mounted against one of the smokestacks here. This could then be the first power station in Africa to help in this way to create a cleaner industrial world for tomorrow by running on biofuels from algae and phasing out the destructive fossil fuels people are using all over the world today. I would gladly answer any questions you might have about this, gentlemen.”
A few of the officials started to applaud, and I felt Inez’s hand groping for mine and giving it a tight squeeze.
Shaking his head, Mr Oldsworth muttered again. “And I suppose next he’ll be telling us that they can also squeeze oil out of frogs’ eggs to make aircraft fuel!”
That drew a round of laughter from the men, and while they got up to leave the room, I could hear Mr Oldsworth still yakking loudly. I glanced at Antonio and Uncle Bert, who were still standing on the platform; they both looked quite devastated.
Inez’s fingernails dug sharply into my wrist. “See you later, Rick,” she managed to whisper into my ear, and as she got up to join her dejected-looking brother, I saw tears glistening on her cheeks.
I tried to say something to comfort her but it felt as if my jaw muscles had seized up altogether.
“That was a total disaster, Rick,” Sipho mumbled as we got up to go.
“Couldn’t have been worse, bro,” I sadly agreed while following him to the exit.
After saying goodbye to Sipho, I tried to make out what had gone so wrong with Antonio’s presentation. He had seemed to be doing so well until that Mr Oldsworth had started to butt in so rudely the way he did. And why didn’t Uncle Bert’s story make much of an impression on the officials either? I wondered dismally. It just wasn’t fair on Uncle Bert, Antonio and Inez after all the work they had put into everything for such a long time.
My pessimism kept growing as I walked along, and I was convinced that Inez and Antonio would now definitely pack up and return to their home country, and that I would never see Inez again. I didn’t know what I would to do with myself if that happened.
As the days went by nothing much did happen, except one day when I came home from school I saw my dad’s car standing outside Uncle Bert’s cottage. But before I managed to get there he had driven off. I was disappointed, of course, but I was even more disappointed when my mom didn’t want to tell me why he had been there. So I asked Susie if she knew anything, but she could only tell me that they talked and talked and talked for a long time inside the house while she was playing outside with her doll, Polly.
“But what were they talking about, Susie?” I anxiously demanded to know, but she just shrugged her shoulders.
“I dunno, Ricky. They were talking very softly all the time.”
Chapter 9
A few days later when I was on my way home again, I saw my dad’s white Polo standing outside the gate. This time I ran as fast as I possibly could, and didn’t stop until I was halfway up the path to the front door of the cottage, where Susie was playing in her favourite place in the sand.
“Daddy’s here, Ricky,” she said excitedly, blue eyes sparkling while she kept her hands well hidden behind her back. “And guess what he brought me.”
“What, Susie?” I said, trying to catch my breath in big gulps after my exhausting sprint.
“Guess, Ricky.”
“I haven’t got time for playing guessing games right now,” I said impatiently and was about to continue on my way, when I noticed the disappointed look on her face. “Okay, let me guess then, Susie. A big bag of sweets?”
She shook her head.
“A new dress?”
She shook her head again.
“Okay, I give up.”
Her face beaming, she brought out both hands from behind her back. “A brand-new boyfriend for Polly!�
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“Wow, I’ve never seen such a handsome teddy bear before! What’s his name?”
“Guess.”
“Oh Susie, stop that nonsense now, will you!”
She thrust her bottom lip forward like a little pouch. “Then I won’t tell you what Daddy brought for you, see!”
“Okay, I said, and quickly rattled off the names of all my friends I’d had in Nelspruit, but she mischievously shook her head after each name I called out. “No, I give up,” I said, finally coming to the end of my tether.
Laughing out loud, she pulled a funny face. “His name’s Teddy, stupid!”
Before she could say anything else, I just rolled my eyes and hurried up the pathway.
On entering the cottage I could hear my mom and my dad talking to each other. Their words sent an unpleasant chill shuddering down my spine, because it sounded as if they were talking about all the usual things again – things that I’d heard so many times when we were still living in Nelspruit. With a leaden feeling inside me I went into my bedroom and sat down on the floor with my back against the wall and my legs stretched straight out in front of me. I thought that any moment I’d hear my dad stomping out of the house, getting into the car and driving off in a big huff again. But, strangely, that didn’t happen.
After a long time had passed, I couldn’t bear the suspense any longer. So I got up again and stood near the living room door trying to catch a few words, but I still couldn’t make out what they were saying. I felt a burning sensation in my throat, and I couldn’t stop a little cough that slithered past my tonsils.
“Who’s there?” my mom called out.
“It’s me, Mom,” I said, feeling guilty about trying to eavesdrop on them.
“You can come in, Rick,” she said.
Bracing myself, I stepped into the living room, where I was flabbergasted to see my dad and my mom holding hands and smiling happily.