by Deon Meyer
I looked. I asked myself, as Domingo had taught me, where would I hide away, where would I set an ambush?
I saw nothing. ‘No,’ I said to Hennie Fly.
‘Okay, let’s get out.’
I want to recall, while I’m writing this, precisely how it felt to be fourteen and a half.
I can’t. I am blinded by the knowledge of who I am now, the man I have become.
I imagine I already had at the time the early signs of that dissatisfaction, the restlessness, the vague suspicion that I wasn’t quite like Hennie Fly. Or Nero or the pastor, or Jacob. Or Pa. That I was different, that I was more like Domingo, or at least had the potential to become like him.
Perhaps it was true. Perhaps all that was dormant in me.
Or maybe not. Maybe those few days were the turning point, the fork in my road. Maybe I had equal ability to become my father; it might just have been the incidents involved in the Great Diesel Expedition that determined my fate and character.
At the deserted airport outside Klerksdorp Hennie climbed out of the 172 and immediately lit a cigarette. He inhaled the smoke deeply and with great satisfaction. I had the R6 and did what Domingo said, I examined all the places, all the signs just as he had coached me, but there was no danger, it was just the two of us.
I remember: I wanted something to happen, I knew I was relieved and happy when Hennie Fly pulled open the door of the hangar and said, ‘Blikslater. Damn.’ Disappointed. I wanted this adventure to last longer, be more dramatic, offer some more opportunities for heroism.
‘What is it?’ I asked, still on the threshold.
‘They . . . This thing won’t be able to fly today . . .’
He disappeared into the gloom of the windowless hangar. I looked around one more time, at the other buildings, at the horizon. I followed him. There were three aeroplanes inside. The one in the middle looked a bit like our 172, but its engine had been removed: it was suspended from the ceiling by a strong chain.
‘It’s the TD,’ said Hennie. ‘We’ll have to go to Hoedspruit.’
I was pleased. Childish and excitedly happy. Like any fourteen-year-old.
We flew over Johannesburg and Pretoria. At three thousand metres there wasn’t much to see.
A moment of excitement. We saw four big trucks one behind the other on a double highway, as if they were driving in convoy. ‘That’s the N4,’ said Hennie. ‘I wonder where they’re going. And what they’re carrying.’
I was overcome with amazement for a while, because it struck home for the first time that there were other people, other communities that had also made a new beginning, who also struggled and fought and built and hoped.
At eleven in the morning Hennie pointed a finger northwards. Specks, a thousand specks in the air. We flew closer. The specks were birds. We flew over the swarm that swooped and turned and glided. Hennie passed me the binoculars.
‘They’re crows,’ I said.
‘Now I wonder why? They don’t usually behave like that.’
Pa would have known. Or had a theory about it.
We began the descent for Hoedspruit.
Hennie found the Cessna 172TD in a single-plane hangar after he smashed the lock with a crowbar. He looked back at where I stood at the old petrol Cessna and he said, ‘Come and look, Nico, this thing is brand new.’ He had his pistol on his hip. Domingo had said: ‘Hennie shoots okay.’
I was reluctant to go and look, to relax my vigilance, because this was a strange place. The sweat streamed down my back, it was steaming hot, oppressive. The runway was in the town, there were houses and what looked like a shopping centre right beside the airfield; we had flown over an ordinary filling station when we landed. People could hide anywhere. And I had a premonition, a sense of unease, something that said this was a very ‘hostile environment’.
Hennie Fly jogged back, a cigarette between his fingers, to turn off our old Cessna’s engine. ‘Nico, come and see,’ but in the sudden silence I heard the thick carpet of sound, insects, something else; it was like that day in Koffiefontein, that late afternoon when the dogs attacked us, very brooding and ominous. He pulled the hangar doors wide, I caught a glimpse of the Cessna. I pressed the safety catch of the R6 off and I wanted to say, ‘Hennie, I think there is something here,’ but I had no reason, apart from the feeling. We had flown over the town four times. He had pointed east and said, ‘The air force base is there, only ten kilometres away.’ He and I had looked carefully for signs of life and then we landed. The Cessna 172TD was in the seventh hangar that Hennie opened.
I took off the sunglasses, wiped the sweat from my brow, put the glasses back on, looked at the bush on the other side, looked at the bush on this side.
Someone was watching us, I could feel it. I stared, I searched, I turned round and round.
‘What’s the matter, Nico?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ and I walked into the hangar and there was the Cessna, snow white, with flashy black and grey stripes down the side.
‘This aerie has barely been flown.’ He had all the doors open, he got in, looked over everything, fiddled with something, and said, ‘Ja, I’ll have to put that battery in.’
We trampled a path through the long, green grass between the runway and the hangar; it must have been a lawn once. I helped him carry the stuff – the tools, the battery, the cans of diesel. I put the R4 down against the inside wall. In between I circled the hangar with the R6, looked around. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us.
Hennie stopped in front of the propeller, he tugged and pulled at it with his hands, and said, ‘Nope, the engine isn’t seized, everything is hunky-dory.’
He had a hand pump, transferred the diesel into the TD’s wing tanks. He said, ‘I think we must go back to Klerksdorp, I think we should go fetch that engine . . .’
‘All right.’
‘. . . for the Thielert gearbox.’
‘Sir?’
‘Let me tell you something, Nico: when they started building propeller aeroplanes, they realised that if the propeller turned too fast, the tips turned faster than the speed of sound, and then the propeller didn’t work so well.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I . . . If I remember rightly, the drag became too much. Something like that . . . In any case, the sweet spot is about two thousand seven hundred revs per minute, the prop worked the best there. But low revs need a lot of power, so the engines of the planes of those days were big. When they first started building these Cessnas, in the 1950s, petrol was cheap, so big engines weren’t an issue. They built an engine of five point two four litres, that thing could make a hundred and sixty horsepower. But later, when petrol got very expensive, they had to rethink. The interesting thing is, if you run a diesel engine at five thousand revs, it makes the same horsepower as that big engine, but it uses much less fuel. Now your problem is, how do you make an engine that runs at five thousand RPM turn a propeller at only two thousand seven hundred revs, Nico?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You build a gearbox that brings the revs down. And that’s what this German company did. Thielert. They built a gearbox for a diesel engine. There’s a gearbox like that in this aerie I’m sitting in now.’
‘Okay . . . But why do we have to go back to Klerksdorp?’
‘Push that can of diesel closer.’
I did that. Hennie pushed the feeder pipe in and began to pump again. ‘The problem with Thielert’s gearbox was that you had to have it inspected every hundred and fifty hours. In Germany. Thielert didn’t charge for the inspection, but it still cost you the postage and the time to get the gearbox from here to there and back again. And then Thielert went belly up, and suddenly it cost eight thousand dollars to have the gearbox inspected with other guys. Then only the rich guys flew their 172TDs, because it became just too expensive. That must be why this one was almost never used. We are going back to Klerksdorp to get that gearbox from that TD. So we have two. So that we can have one in the
plane while I take the other one apart for inspection. Then the Cessna will always be ready for action.’
‘Cool,’ I said.
‘It won’t take us more than an extra half-hour. But look at that weather . . .’ He pointed outside.
I looked through the open door, I looked up. But it was a movement lower down that caught my attention.
I gasped in fright: something, a shadow had moved in the long grass near us. I gripped the R6 tightly, finger on the trigger.
‘What is it?’ whispered Hennie.
I tried to motion him to keep absolutely quiet.
I saw someone jump up out of the grass. He ran straight at us.
Chapter 39
Thielert’s gearbox: VI
It was a child, a small boy, long light brown hair, his stark-naked little body walnut brown, his face and feet and hands filthy. He headed straight for me.
I thought of the ambush Beryl Fortuin had described to me, the men who used the children to get her to stop, I heard Domingo’s training, ‘make yourself a small target’. I dropped to my knees, the R6 pressed against my shoulder, and moved the barrel to cover the visible area behind the child.
‘Look out . . .’ I said to Hennie.
The little boy ran into the hangar, paying no attention to the rifle. His face was filled with fear and hope, he collided with me, threw his hands around my neck, squeezed me tightly.
There was nobody behind him.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Hello,’ he said. And he laughed with huge relief and joy. Showing two rows of surprisingly white teeth framed by the dirt around his mouth. Again he said, ‘Hello, hello.’
He smelled of wood smoke and bananas and shit.
He was alone, there was no one else.
I asked him what his name was.
‘Okkie.’
What was his surname?
He shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’
He said hello to Hennie, but he kept clinging to me.
I asked him how old he was.
He held up five fingers in the air. And then he closed one. Four. Perhaps. He didn’t seem absolutely sure.
‘Come. Granny,’ he said, and tugged my hand in a direction.
‘Wait, wait . . .’
‘Come.’
‘Are there other people?’
‘Come. Granny.’
Hennie was standing outside the hangar now, and his eyes searched along with mine. He shook his head. ‘I don’t see anybody . . .’
I was uneasy, unsure.
Okkie held up his arms so I could pick him up. I looked at him. He was too small to carry out someone’s ambush-instructions, much too small.
I had to shift the R6 to pick him up. ‘Where’s Granny?’
‘There,’ he said and pointed with his disgusting finger; we had to walk to the high wire fence, to the west. There were houses on the other side of the fence, across the street. I carried him on my left arm, while my right arm held the R6 ready. I stood and listened and looked.
‘Come,’ he ordered, impatient.
Only the buzz of insects. I walked.
‘I’ll carry on here,’ Hennie called.
We squeezed through a hole in the wire, and crossed the street. To the left was the filling station, to the right were the houses. He pointed at the house on the corner.
I could smell death already, five paces from the front door. ‘Granny,’ he said. ‘Granny sleeping.’
On the veranda were signs of activity – a barbecue drum with pots and pans and a kettle on. Cooking utensils. Empty cans, a water bottle, banana peels.
I opened the door. The smell was overwhelming. I could hear the flies and bluebottles. She lay in the sitting room. An old grey-haired woman. She had set out food for them, there were plates and a glass and a cup on the little table in front of the couch. She sprawled diagonally across the couch where she had collapsed.
‘Granny sleeping,’ he said again.
Beside the Total garage was a Spar supermarket. Okkie knew it, he pointed down an aisle. ‘Sweets,’ he said. ‘All gone.’ Resigned to his fate.
All the bottled water was gone, there was very little food left in the supermarket, but there was plenty of soap and shampoo, toothpaste and facecloths. I took some and walked back with him to Hennie in the hangar. I had seen rainwater in half of a plastic drum.
‘Where’s Granny?’ Hennie Fly asked us when we arrived.
‘Granny’s sleeping for ever.’ Okkie echoed the consoling words I had patiently explained to him on the veranda. He just kept on nodding in agreement, I couldn’t tell if he understood and accepted it. Now he said the words naturally, though with a certain age-old wisdom.
‘Come,’ I said. ‘Let’s wash you.’
‘Okay. Wash Okkie’s bum-bum.’
I smiled, wondering if his late granny had taught him to say it like that. ‘Yes, Okkie.’
I gave Okkie a good scrub, the water a deep brown when I was done.
Hennie Fly started the new Cessna, the TD, and the diesel engine ran well. Okkie was terrified of the racket.
‘It’s just the aeroplane.’ I had to shout to be heard.
He jumped into my arms, his eyes wide in terror, and began to cry, his arms tight around my neck. His hair smelled of shampoo.
‘It’s just the aeroplane, don’t be scared, we’re going to fly in it, we’re going high in the sky.’
He lifted his head from my neck, looked carefully at the Cessna. ‘Aeroplane,’ he said.
‘That’s right. We’re going to Amanzi.’
Hennie turned the Cessna off. He pointed outside, at the clouds building up. He said, ‘The weather . . . we mustn’t go looking for trouble. I think we should sleep over, Nico. Then we can get away early tomorrow morning, and there’ll be plenty of time to land in Klerksdorp and load that engine.’
‘That’s fine, Hennie.’ Pa and everyone back at Amanzi knew chances were good that we would stay away overnight, we had discussed it.
‘We have room for Okkie, hey?’
Hennie laughed. ‘Ja, he weighs less than that battery we brought along.’
I told Okkie I was going to look for mattresses to sleep on, and he should stay with Hennie.
He followed me.
‘You’ve got a little shadow,’ said Hennie Fly.
We ate before it was dark. We pushed the big doors of the hangar closed to keep the insects away from the candles. There were two small windows at the back, where moths gathered in their hundreds.
After dark, a deep, ominous sound.
‘That’s him,’ said Okkie. ‘Old Man Simba.’
‘It’s a lion,’ said Hennie. ‘The Kruger Park is just over there.’
‘Lion,’ said Okkie. ‘Big one.’
I couldn’t sleep. The night was hot, and Okkie insisted on cuddling right up to me. If I edged away, he wriggled closer.
I must have dozed off, because I woke with a start, hearing the sounds outside. Okkie was no longer beside me. I grabbed the R6, and saw through the rear windows something moving, something big and slow.
Okkie was standing at the window, looking out. I walked swiftly over to him, put my arm around him. He looked at me, put his finger to his lips conspiratorially. He whispered, ‘Shhht. Elephants.’
The massive shapes were identified.
I heard an elephant’s guts rumble, remarkably deep and loud, just the other side of the thin steel wall.
And then the elephant passed wind, an endless, rolling, rumbling, comical fart.
‘Oops, ’scuse me,’ said Okkie, putting a shy hand over his mouth and giggling.
I fought back the laughter, so hard that my eyes streamed.
Hennie was fast asleep beside us.
‘He pooped,’ Okkie whispered, eyes wide at the scandal of it.
We took off over the golf course. Okkie sat on my lap. ‘Look, Nico,’ he said. ‘Look!’ He pointed at the herd of elephants grazing, unperturbed.
‘They must have flattened
the game reserve fences long ago,’ said Hennie. And then: ‘Now I’m wondering how free and how close that lion was last night?’
Okkie mimicked the sound of the elephant’s midnight wind, with astonishing accuracy.
We laughed uproariously, the boy and me.
The new aeroplane was in excellent condition, inside and out, quieter, nicer, better.
‘Hell, the old girl flies like a dream,’ said Hennie.
I no longer wished for something dramatic to happen. I wanted to get home, to show Okkie to Amanzi. And Amanzi to him.
‘We better get a move on, I don’t like the look of this weather,’ said Hennie Fly as he flew low over the buildings of the Klerksdorp airport. ‘Can you see anything?’
With Okkie on my lap it was difficult to see properly. ‘No, sir, there’s nobody here.’
Hennie landed, rolled to a halt at the hangar marked Western Flying School, turned the plane and switched off the engine. He climbed out, and first went over to check the engine that we planned to take along. He called back, ‘Nope, nobody’s been here.’
Okkie and I went in as well. The R6 on my shoulder. The knife on my hip. Hennie’s pistol was shoved into his belt. He stared, hands on hips, up at the chain that suspended the engine. ‘I’m going to lower it on to the tarpaulin. It will be too heavy for us, we must push it little by little, on the sail. The trouble will be getting it into the aerie.’
Okkie was frightened by the rattle of the chain as the engine was lowered to the ground, and he jumped into my arms. I laughed, put him down again, and said, ‘Wait, I’ll pick you up in a minute.’
Hennie unhitched the chain. He took two corners of the tarpaulin, I took the other two. ‘On three,’ he said. ‘One, two, three.’ We strained, and moved it three-quarters of a metre. My R6 fell from my shoulder. I let go of the sail, picked up the rifle and put it on top of the engineless Cessna’s wing, beyond Okkie’s reach.
Hennie said, ‘Yes, good idea,’ and he took the pistol out of his belt and put it down next to the assault rifle.