The Smell of Apples: A Novel

by Mark Behr

  'The arm belonged to one of the Ters that murdered a white family on their farm near Gwelo. They first raped the mother and then forced her to watch as they chopped up her husband and two sons . . .' Dad keeps quiet for a while then says: 'We got them on their way to the Mozambique border where they were heading to join Frelimo.' He says things are at least looking a bit better in Rhodesia than in Mozambique. The big problem is that the Portuguese still don't have a clue about Africa. If things carry on the way they're going now, Frelimo could even win the war. At least Ian Smith is getting Rhodesia on the right track.

  Next are a few slides of Dad in Luanda in Angola. Luanda looks like a beautiful old city with big white buildings. Although there isn't a serious war in Angola, we have to help the Portuguese there too. Communism is raising its ugly head everywhere.

  Use comes in, with the coffee-tray. The grown-ups and Use drink coffee, and the General tells us stories about Chile, and about their army's victory over the Communists in September. He says he was one of the air force commanders when they bombed the president right out of his palace. I wonder whether that's when he got the scar across his back. He says there's been war in Chile for many years. First they were ruled for three hundred years by the Spaniards, and then, after they got independence, things

  The Smell of Apples

  still couldn't settle down. But now, since September, the army has taken over and they're putting things straight.

  Mum clears her throat, and signals with her eyes towards Frikkie lying next to me on the carpet. The General stops talking. Frikkie isn't meant to know who the General really is, and now he's heard everything! Everyone has been speaking as if Frikkie is part of the family and as if he knows everything. My heart starts pounding. What if Frikkie says he already knew! First I look at Dad, who's staring down at Frikkie. Then I quickly turn away because if Dad looks at me now, he'll see immediately that I'm hiding something. Frikkie is lying next to me with his face on his arms.

  4 Are you asleep, Frikkie?' Dad asks, and Frikkie slowly lifts his head like someone who's waking up.

  'Are you asleep?' Dad asks again, and now Frikkie suddenly sits up.

  'Nee, Oom" he says, and we all burst out laughing, because any monkey can see that he's just woken up.

  Dad says they still have time for two more sets of slides, and then they must go. The General's bags are packed and ready in the passage.

  When I wake up, I can't figure out where I am at first. Then I realise I'm still in the lounge. There's a blanket over me and a pillow under my head. I'm still wearing yesterday's clothes. We must have fallen asleep here last night and Mum just left us to sleep. In the winter, Frikkie and I sometimes sleep down here in our sleeping bags, in front of the fireplace.

  It's still dark, but through the windows I can make out some grey in the sky. Then I see that Frikkie isn't sleeping next to me. He must have woken up during the night and gone upstairs. I walk down the passage to have a wee.

  Mark Behr

  Dad and Mum's bedroom door is closed, so I go into the passage bathroom. I aim against the side of the toilet bowl, so that it won't make a noise when it hits the water. Mum likes to sleep late during the holidays and weekends. I don't want to wake her and Dad, so I leave the toilet unflushed.

  As I leave the bathroom, I see that the door to the guest-room is also closed. So the General didn't leave last night after all. I'm about to go up the stairs when I hear voices. It's very faint, like someone whispering. I can't imagine who the General could be speaking to so early in the morning. Maybe he's talking in his sleep.

  Quietly I go up the stairs. Frikkie isn't in his bed. I wonder if he accidentally walked into the guest-bedroom because he was still half asleep. Suddenly I'm wide awake.

  Maybe Frikkie woke up and went to tell the General that he knows who he really is. That's why the General didn't leave! It's Dad and the General downstairs, deciding what they're going to do. Frikkie must be with them.

  I don't know what to do. Something terrible will happen if Dad knows that I told Frikkie. I want to go downstairs to Mum. But maybe Mum also knows. Maybe she's down there in the guest-room with them.

  Then I think of the holes in the knotty pine.

  Quietly, so the beams don't creak, I cross to the carpet. I roll it away carefully until both holes are open. I gently lower myself on to the floor. With my one eye shut, I look down into the bottom room.

  I can't see anyone. It's still too dark to make out anything properly, but after a while my eye gets used to the light. It's getting lighter outside, and downstairs the light from the window makes a grey block on the wooden floor.

  I move my eye to the other hole. At first I can't see much. Then I make out a shape moving in the grey light.

  The Smell of Apples

  On the bed, right below me, the General is sitting next to Frikkie. Fm looking down right on top of his head. Frikkie is sitting with his back against the wall. It seems like him and the General are looking at each other. I can't make out what they're doing, but it doesn't seem like they're talking any more.

  The General puts out his arm towards Frikkie, and it looks like Frikkie's trying to push himself up against the wall. The General puts his other hand on Frikkie's shoulder. Then he bends forward and from up here it looks like his face is right up against Frikkie's.

  It's getting lighter. Soon I can make out that his other hand is on Frikkie's John Thomas. Now his face is against Frikkie's and it looks like he's pressing him against the wall and kissing him.

  I want to choke.

  He takes Frikkie's one hand and puts it between his legs. His mister is standing up out of his pyjama pants. I shut my eyes tightly. When I open them again, he's moving Frikkie's hand up and down his mister.

  With his free hand, he pulls down Frikkie's shorts and underpants. Then he takes his hand and moves it all over Frikkie's body.

  I think he's jerking Frikkie off. Frikkie has told me about jerking off. He says you do it when you get older. But Dad says it's masturbation and it's a terrible sin. Dad says it's in the Bible: Rather leave thine seed in the belly of a whore, than in the palm of thine own hand.

  I must go and call Dad! I'm scared because I know what the General is doing to Frikkie is a sin. I must get up and go and call Dad to come and help Frikkie. Now I don't care if Dad finds out about the holes in the floor. I'm going to tell Dad everything. Also about Use in the mirror.

  Without making a sound, I get up from the floor. I

  Mark Behr

  don't know what I'll do if the beams creak. I move to the door, then go down the stairs as softly as I can.

  I glance at the General's door. It's still shut. I cross the passage and turn Mum and Dad's door-handle, and walk across the soft carpet to their bed. It's almost light outside.

  I reach across the bed to wake Dad. But then I see that Mum is alone in bed. I pull my hand back quickly and look down at Mum's hair on the pillow around her neck. She's fast asleep. I wonder where Dad is? The door to their bathroom is wide open and I can see he's not in there.

  Maybe I should just wake Mum, because Frikkie is still in there with the General. We must hurry. I start reaching towards Mum to shake her by the shoulder, but then I pull my hand back.

  Where is Dad?

  Last night he said he was going to take the General to Brigadier Van der Westhuizen's. I shut my eyes tightly and now I'm even more afraid than I was just now. Mum makes a sound in her sleep and turns on the pillow. I look straight down on to her face. I shake my hands around, because I don't know what to do. My eyes burn with tears. I want to run away, but I don't know where.

  I must go back to my room. I must go and make sure. I walk away from the bed backwards, still looking at Mum, until I feel the door behind me. When I'm in the passage I turn round and shut it quietly.

  Upstairs I tiptoe over to the holes. I'll die if the floor makes a sound now. Carefully I lie down.

  It's almost completely light now.

  Frikkie'
s lying on his stomach. His head is covered with the pillow. The General is bent forward over him and his pyjama-pants are lying on the floor, but he's still wearing his pyjama-top. I'm looking down on to his head, and his

  The Smell of Apples

  face is turned away from the window into the dark.

  He pulls Frikkie's legs apart and it looks as if he's rubbing something into Frikkie's bum. Then he goes on to his knees between Frikkie's legs and I can see his mister. It's too dark to see everything, but it seems like he pushes his mister into Frikkie's bum, and then he lies down on top of him. He starts moving around. It's just like the Coloured with the girl in the dunes. He uses his one hand to hold himself up on the bed. With the other he keeps the pillow down over Frikkie's head. With all the moving around, the pyjama-shirt is pushing up. It seems as though the sun is about to come up, because downstairs the room is turning light pink. Even before the pyjama-shirt has moved halfway up, I can see: the scar is gone from the General's back.

  I sit up slowly and unroll the carpet.

  I lie down on my bed and stare up at Oupa Erasmus's koedoe trophy. I pull the sheets up to my chin and stare at the window. On the other side of False Bay I can see Simonstown. The mountains are pink and the sky is very blue, like only the sky is blue.

  I feel like someone who's scared of everything. And scared of nothing.

  When I hear Frikkie coming up the stairs, I turn on my side towards the wall and pretend that I'm asleep. Outside my window the gulls start their noise and I push my fingers into my ears.

  Everyone made it. No one killed or seriously wounded.

  With each one that arrives, we grab one another by the shoulders, clasp each other's hands and shout names, nicknames, towns and curses. For a while we're able to forget that we're still north of the border.

  Mark Behr

  Those that arrive alone look the worst. The ones mho ran alone, hearing the enemy in the hush all around them. And the few who discovered the enemy tangled in their own entrails and heads.

  The last two came late in the afternoon, the national servicemen from Secunda and Port Elizabeth. The roar of relief that went up from the whole platoon was like the extended rumble of thunder. We've made it to Qalueque. Virtually back in South West Africa. We're safe.

  The medics arrived to clean cuts and bandage feet. Blisters were carefully punctured and medicine dabbed on to raw feet, heels and arms. A few of the troops needed stitches and two of them have light shrapnel wounds in their backs, but there's no reason for concern.

  We lie around in the shade, beneath the dam wall. Most of them have fallen asleep. Few are talking. Those that are, softly relive each minute of the run for their buddies. The black section leader comes over and asks whether I have any instructions. No, I answer, let every man sleep until he wakes.

  He lies down on his back next to me in the grass.

  'Lieutenant?' he asks.

  'Yes?'

  'Why did you keep on running, Lieutenant? Didn 't you hear me calling?'

  I look him in the face and slowly shrug my shoulders. I turn over to sleep.

  I try not to look at Frikkie while we get dressed. We go downstairs together. There's no one else in the kitchen and I ask him whether he wants cereal for breakfast. Neither of us are really hungry so we take apples from the fruit-bowl on the table.

  The Smell of Apples

  'These apples are rotten or something,' says Frikkie, and he turns his apple around in his hand after sniffing at it. 'They stink. Smell this,' and he holds the apple to my nose. I smell the apple in his hand. It smells sour.

  'Ja,' I say. 'There's something wrong with it. Take another one.' I sniff at my own apple to make sure it's OK.

  Frikkie brings the new apple to his mouth, but he pulls a face, and says: 'This one, too.'

  'Let me smell,' I say, and take it from his hand. It smells like ordinary apple.

  'No, this one's fine,' I say. 'It's not the apple, man. It's your hand,' and I take his hand and sniff the inside of his palm. It smells sour. He pulls his hand back.

  'What smells like that?' I ask. But he shakes his head and pushes his hand under the open tap.

  He takes some Sunlight liquid from the window-sill, and pours it into his palm. Then he wipes his hand against his PT shorts. He sniffs again, but shakes his head and says it's still not gone. We stand in front of the sink, staring at each other.

  'What did you touch?' I ask, but he only shakes his head and says he doesn't know.

  There's some Dettol in our bathroom cupboard, and I say we should go and wash his hand with that.

  I pour some of the Dettol into his palm, and he rinses it until it has all dripped through his fingers. He sniffs his hand.

  'What do you think it was?' I ask.

  Frikkie's eyes fill with tears, and he looks down at his bare feet and shakes his head, and now I know what it is.

  'Let's go outside,' I say.

  The sun is already high above the mountains, and there's hardly any traffic on Main Road. Soon, when the

  Mark Behr

  holidays really get underway, the road will be full of cars and holiday-makers.

  We decide to take our Choppers for a ride to Simonstown. We haven't been there for ages, and maybe we can stop off at Jan Bandjies' beach and see whether he's got some snoek today. I have to go and tell Mum where we're going, otherwise she worries about us. Mum worries about everything.

  I walk into the lounge where I can hear music. Use is lying stretched out on the couch, reading. Her long blonde hair is loose and hangs across the couch's armrest. She doesn't even look up at me while I'm talking to her. She's reading Moby Dick, and I can see she's near the end. On the cover there's a picture of Captain Ahab throwing his harpoon, and just in front of him, in the bloody water, is Moby Dick. There's a fountain of blood spurting from the little blow-hole on Moby's head and his jaw is open as if he's screaming.

  With her nose still glued to the book Use says that she and Mum are going to visit Little-Neville in Groote Schuur later this afternoon. If I want to go with them, I must make sure to be back home by then. I answer that of course I want to go along because I've never seen Little-Neville.

  'Well, go then,' she says, without looking up. 'Can't you see I'm busy?'

  'Yes, I can see!' I answer. 'You're busy lying here, sulking about the General that's gone! Now we'll see how you practise your stupid Spanish.' And I start walking off.

  'Marnus,' she calls after me, 'why don't you force yourself to grow up. That's all that can save you.'

  I make as if I don't hear her, and go outside to where Frikkie's waiting.

  We fetch our Choppers from the garage. I peep at

  The Smell of Apples

  Frikkie. While I'm holding his bike for him to pump the tires, I try to see what he's thinking. He doesn't look away from the tyres and it looks like he's clenching his teeth. There's something funny about him, but I don't say a thing. When the tyres are pumped we take the bikes and walk down the hill to Main Road. Then we ride along the pavement towards Kalk Bay.

  When we're almost at the harbour, Frikkie says he doesn't feel like riding any more. He stops and gets off his bike. I suggest that we go for a swim, because it's such a hot day. But Frikkie says he doesn't feel like swimming, and when I ask what he wants to do, he says he wants to go home. Not to our house. Back to theirs in Oranjezicht.

  I wish he would stay, because I don't feel like playing with the Spiros. I know he wants to go home because of what happened this morning. I don't want him to go home yet. We're leaving for Sedgefield tomorrow, and that means we won't see each other again until next year. And what if he tells . . .

  'Frikkie,' I start, 'do you remember when we became blood-brothers?' And he says, ja, of course he remembers.

  'We promised to tell each other everything. Do you remember?' He nods his head. I wait but he doesn't say anything.

  'Isn't there something you must tell me?'

  'Like what?' he asks, and i
t looks like he's getting irritated.

  I ask him whether anything important has happened that he wants to tell me, just like I told him about who Mister Smith really was. We're meant to tell each other everything, and the only reason I didn't tell him about the reflection in the mirror was because I wasn't a hundred per cent sure.

  He sits down on the Chopper's saddle, but gets up again. There's a fishing boat leaving the harbour mouth,

  Mark Behr

  close to the lighthouse where Zelda almost got washed off the quay. Frikkie says he has nothing to tell me. He says he must go now or else he'll miss the quarter past ten train, and he still has to fetch his bag.

  We say goodbye to each other and shake hands. Before he goes he says we'll see each other next year in Standard Four. Then we'll play under-eleven A, and Frikkie will be captain again. He's such a good scrum-half and our big dream is to play for Jan Van Riebeeck's first team, one day when we're big. Frikkie wants to become a Springbok, so that he can play for South Africa against the All Blacks. Dad says Frikkie will go a long way in rugby. He says it's rare for such a young boy to play such hard and single-minded rugby. And together, as scrum-half and fly-half, he and I make an excellent pair. I know Frikkie plays better rugby than me. But I'm cleverer than him.

  For a while I look at Frikkie as he walks towards St James pushing his Chopper. Then I get on mine and ride off in the direction of Simonstown.

  I try to see if the fishermen on the quay have been catching. Their rods are all straight and it seems like there's not much going on. I think I can make out the Kemp brothers standing about halfway along the quay, but from the road it's too far to be sure. The Kemps can't afford to go away on holiday. During holidays and over weekends, Zelda's brothers always stand on the side of the road and sell their catch to holiday-makers at terribly high prices. The Transvaalers who come down here for holidays are too stupid to realise they're being ripped off. Dad sometimes jokes about the Transvaalers all being so stupid because their forefathers were all illiterate miners.