by Deon Meyer
And I began to think of what Nico had said, how Domingo had accepted him anyway, how Domingo was a person you shouldn’t always take literally.
Domingo had told him, ‘If she’s back before you, she’s in.’
That’s all. That was the only rule.
I had to be back before Nico Storm.
Then I had an idea. And I thought, it might not be fair, but it didn’t matter, he was an arrogant, cheeky brat. All is fair in love and war. And this is war.
But then I thought, wait, it might not be necessary. Let me see if he can pass me. And then he passed me.
Four kilometres to go. Her footsteps behind me grew heavier. Slower.
My heart went out to her. Such terrible resolve, such delicate grace, such wonderful rhythm, but today she was not going to become a Spotter. Unless Domingo was in the mood for mercy.
I extended my lead, I wanted to deliver the coup de grâce, put the result beyond all doubt. I wanted to look back, but I had to think about our romantic future as well.
I heard her scream, a shrill scream of terror.
Chapter 78
Sofia’s SpOT test: III
I stopped, turned around.
Our first crossbow meeting still haunted me a year later. So many times I wished that moment could have been different. More romantic. More dignified. For me. Over and over in my bed at night in the SpOT barracks I had replayed that scene so that I could fulfil my leading role as hero and saviour.
And here it was now, dream turned real: Sofia Bergman was in distress, and I could save her.
I ran back, I couldn’t see her. She must have fallen, over there at the big rocks and thorn trees.
‘Sofia!’ I shouted, really worried now, as I ran back on our tracks.
She didn’t answer.
Perhaps she’d fainted. Exhaustion. It happened.
I was past the thorn tree, I reached the rocks. And then something hit me right between the eyes.
Sofia Bergman
I hit him with the butt of the rifle. All’s fair in love and war.
He dropped like he’d been pole-axed and stayed there as I ran on. I didn’t know if I’d hit him hard enough to be out for a minute or an hour. I would find out once I’d passed the test.
A bit further on I started to doubt: had I hit him too hard? Did he hit his head on a stone?
What if he’s dead?
No, he’s not dead. Just unconscious.
What if he’s dead?
Three kilometres to go, I could see the dam, I could see the Special Ops base there on the hill across the river, and I was worried I had killed him.
I would have to go and see. I ran slower and slower. I stopped and turned around.
Then I saw him coming. Fast. Five hundred metres away. Or four hundred. I spun around and bolted as fast as I could. Pumped full of adrenalin, because now I was scared of what he would do to me. You can’t hit someone over the head with a rifle butt and think there’ll be no consequences. He was going to be cross. Very cross. And the anger was going to make him run like he had never run before.
And if he caught up with me, ten to one he would hit me too.
Fear gives you wings.
I can’t describe all the things that I thought in those moments, because my children are going to read these memoirs.
I was angry with Sofia Bergman. Angry at the poor sportsmanship, angry at the abuse of my goodwill, angry at my own naivety, but above all because I knew: that was exactly the sort of thing that Domingo would love. His lips would curl into a thin, mean, half-smile and he’d tell her, ‘Welcome to the Spotters.’ And he would smirk at me and say, ‘Sorry, Storm. You are not my sarge. Better luck next time.’
That wasn’t going to happen.
Rage is a powerful engine. But the knockout blow and the blood in my eyes and the concussion took their toll. I was closing the gap, but I didn’t know if I was doing it fast enough.
And what was she going to do when I reached her? Hit me again?
We had to pass through the gate at the Havenga Bridge. She was still nearly three hundred metres ahead. I heard her shout to the guards, ‘Open up, open up!’
I saw the guards run out to see what was happening, how they laughed and hurried to push the gates open so that she could run through.
‘It’s Nico, it’s Nico. He’s bleeding!’ I ran past. My dignity in shreds, once again.
Across the bridge. She still had a lead of over two hundred metres, but I heard her boots on the tarmac, and I knew she could hear my footsteps too. She was going to look back. Looking back is bad. It robs you of your rhythm and speed. Then I would catch up some more.
We reached the south bank, on the other side of the bridge. Just over a kilometre back to base.
The bridge guards would have radioed ahead. The entire Special Ops would know we were coming. And that I was losing. And I was bleeding and tired, the pace relentless. But fury fuelled me.
A kilometre to go. She was a hundred and fifty metres ahead.
She looked back.
Sofia Bergman
I heard him coming, I heard how quick his stride was. I knew I didn’t have any gas left in the tank, I was dead tired, my entire body burned like fire. He was right behind me, I wanted to surrender, I was afraid he would hit me or knock me down or something.
I looked back.
He was still more than a hundred metres behind. I was mistaken. I had a chance. I ran, I gave everything I had, up the slope, that dreadful steep slope to Special Ops.
I looked back again.
He had halved the distance, he was closing in.
Through the gate now. I was still ahead, his boots hammering behind me. Domingo was standing there, I had to reach him before Nico. The soldiers stood watching, cheering and yelling. I was going to win.
And then Nico tackled me. We crashed to the ground. He was on top of me; I was winded. He swung his leg across my belly and pinned me down with his weight, his hands on my forearms. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, I gasped, I made strange croaking and hiccupping noises, just like when I shot him with the crossbow, only our roles were reversed. I saw his forehead. The massive purple mark, the broken skin, the cut, long and ugly, blood all over his face, in his eyes, it had run right down to his neck.
Hit me again, you disgusting swine, hit me again, he said. He echoed what I had once said to him – it must have made a lasting impression on him.
I said to her, ‘Hit me again, you disgusting swine, hit me again.’
And in that moment it felt as if my universe was back in balance.
Chapter 79
Sofia’s SpOT test: IV
Sofia Bergman
There is a part of this story that nobody knows. Nobody except Nico, and I only told him a long time afterwards.
At the moment it happened, it made no sense at all.
As I lay on my back on the parade ground, winded, heaving and gasping, I was afraid of Nico, he was furious with me. He was sitting on me, holding my arms. I looked up, saw his broken face, and I saw the aircraft.
It wasn’t Hennie Fly’s aeroplane. It was an airliner, a big airliner, though small now, little more than a speck, because it was flying so high. It winked brightly in the clear deep blue sky, a flash of light on metal, gone in the blink of an eye.
I couldn’t say anything, I had no breath. I couldn’t even point my finger, because my hands were pinned down.
The airliner flew north, towards Europe. And then it was gone, and Domingo’s shadow fell across me.
Domingo said, ‘Get off Bergman, Storm.’
I climbed off, stood up.
He looked at me. I didn’t know how deep the gash on my head was, how terrible the blood looked, I just knew it was bad, and it was there, because I had to wipe the blood from my eyes with my hands.
Domingo looked at her. ‘Bergman, you’ve passed the test. Fall in with Team Delta.’
He waited until she stood up and was out of earshot. He looked at
me intently. I could see myself in the mirror lenses of his dark glasses. I looked pathetic.
Domingo sighed. ‘Happy to see you have an anger management problem too. You’re not yet ready for sergeant, Storm. I’m moving you to Team Charlie, until you learn to control that temper.’
I waited for him to dismiss me. I could see there were still words in his mouth. He held them back.
‘Dismissed,’ he said.
Chapter 80
In the Year of the Pig I learned humility.
I was just another one of the troops in Special Ops Team Charlie, the weakest team of the Spotters. And the Sofia Bergman story obliterated my reputation. Overnight she became an Amanzi sensation, a legend, a heroine, thanks to her hit-him-with-the-rifle strategy to earn SpOT selection. When Domingo found out about her background, of the Bushman who had taught her to track, he let her share that knowledge with the Special Ops troops as a sort of informal instructor.
Overnight I became a figure of ridicule.
It was deeply painful for me, on more than one level. My prestige in the unit went out the window. I was still the top shot, the second fastest and a strong candidate for promotion. My own legendary tale – interwoven with the diesel Cessna and Okkie and the twelve KTM men who I had shot – was eternally besmirched now. There is a special pleasure people take in cutting down tall poppies: the arrogant son of the chairman, the founder, the author of the pamphlet. Everywhere I saw heads bowed together, the giggles and gossip hidden behind cupped hands, the way their eyes followed me with a mixture of fascination and pity.
But the greatest injury of all was the damage to my relationship with Sofia. Or rather, the damage to the potential of our relationship.
Just seeing her every day broke my heart all over again.
In the Year of the Pig I saw how my father’s love worked.
A Tuesday late in October, a little more than a week after my fall. We worked hard at SpOT, from early in the morning. But nobody worked harder than I did. I was hell-bent on making Team Charlie the best team of all, even if I had to do it all myself. I may have been just another soldier, a humble private, but I gave it my all. I’d show them. It sapped my energy, because I tried to help everybody, I tried to push and pull. I was dog-tired every night.
I’d just come out of the shower next to Team Charlie’s first-floor dormitory and was getting dressed before mess when through the uncurtained window something familiar caught my eye. Looking out, I saw Pa and Okkie walking away, past the edge of the parade ground towards the gate.
What were they doing here?
I hadn’t seen them at all since the Sofia episode, as we didn’t have weekends off any more.
My father and Okkie walking hand in hand, in the soft light of the setting sun. Pa gesturing with his free hand. He was explaining something to Okkie. The meaning of a word? The geomorphological history of the river down below? That the bats that swooped over them were mammals?
My heart melted, my body flooded with emotion. I jumped when someone shouted ‘Storm!’ in the corridor. I turned away from the window and nodded.
‘Parcel for you at the front door,’ I heard.
Pa had brought it.
I dressed quickly, and went to fetch it. A sturdy cardboard box. I carried it to the dormitory, put it down on my bed, and opened it.
The moka pot that Pa and I had used in the Volvo. And the little gas stove. And a mug. And four packs of ground coffee, vacuum sealed.
The universe was merciful to me, because thankfully I was alone in the dormitory – something that didn’t happen often. I was intensely grateful, because I couldn’t help but weep, silently, but irresistibly, the tears rolling down my cheeks. Because of the way my father reached out to me. He must have heard the gossip. He must have known how that made a young man of seventeen feel. And he couldn’t make contact. He couldn’t come in here and ask for Nico to come home on Sunday. That would have humiliated me more.
But he took his most precious possession and brought it to me. I didn’t know he had hoarded coffee like this. It was a secret he had kept very well.
I wept over the love of my father, despite all that I had done to him. I wept over the memories of the moka pot, the months and months that Pa and I were on the road performing our little coffee ritual every morning.
I wept a little out of pity for myself too. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It also heals.
And I put away the moka pot and coffee for another day.
In the Year of the Pig, summer was very hot and dry.
It didn’t rain in October or November. In December it was so scorching hot that the grazing in the veld shrivelled and 30 per cent of our hens died. We hadn’t planted pastures for the livestock, but there was enough straw and stubble to keep the herds and flocks alive.
In the Year of the Pig, Birdy finally agreed to go on a date with Domingo.
Apparently she told Nero Dlamini that ‘he just wore me down’.
On Christmas Eve he came to pick her up with the Jeep, and they drove across the Havenga Bridge and out of the gate in the late afternoon. They only returned the following morning. Nobody knew where they went, but Sarge’s patrols reported seeing Jeep tracks on the road to the old Otterskloof Private Game Reserve, on the northern bank on the other side of the dam. The veranda of the old guest house had recently been swept, and it looked like the biggest and best guest room had been thoroughly cleaned.
I didn’t want to hear about it. I begrudged Domingo his luck in love. Especially because it was Domingo, of all people.
The Year of the Pig was the last that my father was chairman of the Committee. Because Amanzi adopted a constitution, and in January of the Year of the Lion we would vote, and my father would become the first President of Amanzi.
The constitution took months of work to edit and tweak until everyone was happy with it. It began with:
We, the people of Amanzi, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this constitution as the supreme law of our community, so as to create and establish a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law. Our constitution will strive to improve the quality of life of all citizens, free the potential of each person, and build a united and democratic society able to take its rightful place as a sovereign entity in the post-Fever world.
May God protect our people.
Along with the new constitution came new titles. Pa was the President. The Committee became the Cabinet. It was bigger, every member was a minister with a portfolio. Sarge was elected as Minister of Safety and Security, which meant he was head of defence and police, but everyone still referred to him as Sarge X. He didn’t mind. Domingo refused point-blank to accept a more notable rank or title. He said captain was sufficient, he wasn’t a Cabinet member, he didn’t take part in the elections and he remained head of Special Ops. He was still the person with the most power in Amanzi, despite his humble title.
In the Year of the Pig we produced enough diesel for all our agricultural and military requirements.
In the Year of the Pig people started paying tax for the first time.
We completed construction work on the mill in Gansie Street, opposite the Forum and started operating it. We used electricity to mill grain – our own wheat, for our own bread.
The old OK store was far too small to store all our surplus food. They redesigned and converted all the buildings in Disa Street into one big solid food warehouse.
Birdy Canary ensured electricity supply to Petrusville. Seventy houses in that town were repaired and equipped, and people moved in. Birdy said we would have to increase our electricity supply in fourteen months, because the two-hundred-and-twenty-megawatt hydro-electric generators would not be enough for the industrial and agricultural expansion that we planned.
There was much debate over the possibility of repairing the hydro-electric power plant at the Gariep Dam and diverting it here. But Domingo said we would h
ave to protect and defend the power stations and that required too much manpower.
Pastor Nkosi Sebego supported Domingo. It caused quite a stir; people wondered what his agenda could be.
The result was that the Committee decided to start moving the wind turbines at Noblesfontein near Victoria West as soon as possible and erect them in the mountains of Amanzi’s reserve.
In the Year of the Pig more than five thousand souls formed part of the Amanzi community. They lived in the town, in the SpOT barracks, in Petrusville and on farms along the river, as far as Hopetown. It seemed that Hopetown would be the next settlement to be revived.
People began to speak of the Republic of Amanzi.
The Year of the Lion
Chapter 81
Annus horribilis
That was the final year of my father’s life.
I so wish I had known it then. As I reminisce about those last months before his death, I think January, January especially was a good month for him.
Despite the heroic name, the Year of the Lion was an annus horribilis. It was the one that confirmed the rule: everything always happens at once, just when you least expect it. Betrayal and war, destruction and murder, and the excruciating pain that comes with knowledge. About everything.
January was hot and dry, just like the December and November preceding it. Crops were shrivelling, we needed rain badly. The election was on 5 January. There were three thousand four hundred and nine people over the age of seventeen who were eligible to vote, according to the new constitution. Altogether three thousand four hundred and eight turned up to vote. Everyone knew the single voter who abstained was Domingo. He didn’t believe in democracy.
Free Amanzi, my father’s party, gained 58 per cent of the votes, the Mighty Warrior Party won the rest. I was there, that night in the Forum when the pastor made his speech. He was a dignified loser. But he closed his speech by assuring his supporters, ‘Don’t worry. The night is darkest before the dawn.’