Out of Shadows

by Jason Wallace

  When we were done, and as Ivan drove us back through the sleeping city, I felt the familiar mix of emotions I’d often felt after one of the games come seeping back. Shame and joy, nausea and relief. I was all powerful, top of the school, and all I wanted right then was to be back in the comfort of the house where I really belonged. I was safe there, I was a somebody, while out here I was just Robert Jacklin that nobody knew. But we were going into our last ever term, and, with the image of a bloody and gibbering Greet still vivid, I was suddenly being haunted by a whole new thought.

  I was Greet.

  When I was with Ivan like this I became what Greet had been. Whether I secretly claimed to dislike it or not, I’d still done it, and all those other times before, I’d consumed the thing I’d despised and I spewed it from my position of power.

  Then, more terrifyingly: What was there for me after school? What purpose? Where was I heading and how was I getting there?

  Back at Klompie’s I jumped out and immediately chundered into the flower bed.

  Ivan slapped me on the back and laughed. Apparently he didn’t worry about such things.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Pulling from the main road. Through the stone pillars that bore the school’s name. Moving slowly along the willow-lined drive.

  But this time, because it was the last first day of term I’d have, I made my old man drop me at the gate. I sat in the silent car and gazed across the fields and at the buildings that had been my home—my true home—for the past five years, and I wondered: Was this what it was like to get old? A sudden, heightened awareness of your surroundings and of the things that really matter?

  My dad made the usual gesture, pulling out notes from his wallet. I surprised him by ignoring the money and shaking his hand instead. It felt like the right thing to do.

  “Thanks,” I said, holding him.

  “For what?” he asked, surprised.

  How could I answer that in such a short space of time?

  “All this,” I told him. “It means a lot.”

  He frowned, perhaps wondering if there was a trick.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “You once said, after Mum died, that you’d only wanted the best for me. Well, I got that. You gave me the best. This place has taught me so much, and I don’t mean just in the classroom. It wasn’t always good, but now, today, I think . . .”

  I grappled with words, not quite knowing how it would end, so I just said, “It’s taught me a lot. So thank you.”

  “I tried,” he said.

  “You did.”

  “But you realize it doesn’t stop here.”

  I liked that I could have predicted his response, it felt familiar and secure.

  “I know, I know: still one last term to get through. I promise to keep pressing on until exams are over, Dad.”

  He smiled.

  “I meant the learning, Bobby,” he said. “That never stops. Not for any of us.”

  As usual I was earlier than I needed to be. I stood and watched my old man drive away through the early summer heat and then drank in the silence.

  I bottled the moment, making a promise to myself that I would never forget this place. Of course, I never would, but as I stood motionless there I didn’t know the lasting memories would be born from an instant other than this. I was completely unaware of what was coming, and that in a matter of weeks I would be running along this very road for my life.

  In the sun’s full glare, I pulled on my blazer (now with the white edging of Full Colors, for continued excellence within and successful captaincy of the Rifle Club) and began to walk. It was a slightly different journey from what it had once been thanks to the new boardinghouse being built close to the upper tennis courts, almost complete. The school was expanding and looking to the future, not wilting and dying as Bully had once feared might happen. The rumor was that the house had been another of Ivan’s ideas. I didn’t know if that were true, but at the very least I was certain he’d had an influence with its name.

  Mugabe House.

  Of course! What better way to win favor than by flattering the country’s leader? What better way to protect the school than by making him part of it? One thing was for sure: It wouldn’t go unnoticed.

  Ivan had known what he was doing, all right.

  Within the first week we had a special assembly, but it was Reverend Kent who was waiting on stage, not Bully, and sitting alongside him were a doctor and a priest who’d driven in from town to tell us about a new deadly disease called AIDS that was spreading rapidly around the world.

  The priest stood up and talked about how this was clearly a message from God, warning us against the perils of homosexuality and multiple partners and delayed marriage.

  The doctor seemed embarrassed by that and explained how no one knew quite where this disease came from, possibly monkeys in Africa, but the one certainty was that there was no cure. It was “a killer.” To the sound of much amusement, he went on to demonstrate the practice of safe sex with a condom and a banana.

  It was unfortunate that the very next lesson was history. Ivan had barely sat down before he opened up a salvo on Miss Marimbo.

  “They reckon it came from monkeys.” He slouched in his chair, spreading his legs wide.

  “Yes, that’s what they say.”

  Miss Marimbo spoke English without a trace of an accent. She was young and had traveled all over Europe, so she didn’t look like most of the local black Africans—she straightened her hair, for a start. She’d also seen enough during her teacher training days in London to know how to handle the likes of Ivan.

  “Isn’t that a bit unfair, miss?” he went on, grinning.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, with you teaching us. Aren’t you putting us at risk? You might gush a period and bleed infection all over us.”

  Miss Marimbo’s light brown skin flushed but she managed to stay calm. She walked to the door and pulled it open.

  “Get out.”

  “What?”

  “I said, get out. If you can’t be civil then there’s no point you being here.”

  Ivan leaned back on his chair and stretched. “You can’t do that. I’m Head Boy.”

  “I’m well aware of your status. All the more reason for me to dismiss you—leadership is by example. Please leave.”

  Ivan looked at her, then around to the other six of us in the class. I kept my head down. In the end he had no option; he kicked his chair back and swaggered slowly out, lurching at the last moment and putting his face right into Miss Marimbo’s.

  I knew how he’d be.

  Sure enough, when I got back to the house Ivan was lying on his bed, hitting a hockey stick against the wall with feeling. Klompie sat on the seat by the desk fiddling with the cassette player and Pittman stood in the middle swinging a cricket bat. It was like I was that new boy again, walking in to make tea for Greet.

  As soon as he saw me, Ivan stopped and swung his legs to the floor.

  The other two waited. Klompie turned off the tune. I wanted to walk straight back out.

  “That black bitch pissed me off. We’re going for a walk down past the village,” Ivan told me. “Coming?”

  I’d known it was coming. I reached for the first excuse I could find.

  “I have to clean out the rifle room this arvo.”

  “You’re captain of the club; get a squack to do it.”

  “I have to supervise.”

  I could see bubbles rising.

  “What’s the matter with you, Jacko?” He came up close. Not quite as tall as me, but still giving the feeling he was towering above. “I thought we’d been through all of this. Why are you avoiding us?”

  Behind him, Klompie and Pitters both grinned in a way I wanted to forget instantly.

  “Like I said, I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy being a poof. I thought we were buds.”

  “We are.”

  “You’re not acting like one. Why don’t yo
u want to come? And how come we never get to play games with the blacks around your house in the hols? Are you bored with us?”

  “No.” It was a half lie—the truth was I was bored and a bit scared.

  “Maybe you want to poke my missus.”

  “No ways!”

  “Why not? Are you calling Adele a dog?”

  He was in that sort of mood. I just shut up.

  “Well, maybe we’ll get bored with you, Jacko,” he went on, “and we won’t want you around us in future.”

  If only, I thought, but it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “So?”

  “So, what?” I said.

  “So are you coming with? You’ve been missing out, we play different games now. Much better than before.”

  Games.

  His eyes glinted like cold steel.

  “I told you, I’d like to but I can’t.”

  He turned. I thought to go back and lie on his bed but instead he plucked his mug from the desk, gripped it like a baseball player, then launched it straight at me. I saw it coming and I ducked to one side. The mug exploded behind me in a shower.

  “See you then, Jacko,” he sneered. “Jacko Jerk-off.”

  He laughed at his own joke, and the other two quickly joined in.

  The rifle room was actually overdue for a clean but that didn’t matter, nothing I did could sweep away the gnawing sense of guilt as I hid out in the small and lightless room. In the end I tossed the brush into the corner and sat mulling in my chair.

  I thought we were buds.

  I’d wanted to get away from him, absolutely. Now that I was, however, I didn’t know quite what to do, like a dog that had struggled to slip its lead and finally won. The truth was they were my only friends in or out of school. I had no one else. Yes, Ivan had chosen me ages ago, but I had let it happen, I’d desperately wanted to be a part of him, and so before they’d had a chance anyone else had been demoted to the level of “just someone I knew.” Even the other boys in the rifle club, most of whom were younger than me anyway. Bizarrely, other than the gang, Jeremy Simpson-Prior and Nelson Ndube had come the closest, except those friendships hadn’t lasted long. Ivan had seen to that.

  Did I want to be cast completely adrift? What would it be like?

  That thought of having no one and nothing was too much to bear.

  I locked up and went back to the house. They still weren’t back, still out on their “walk.” I definitely did not want to do that, but maybe I didn’t have to. Why couldn’t I just be their friend without having to join in all the time? I could explain. We weren’t kids any longer, surely they’d understand?

  I decided to go and meet them, excited by my sudden awareness and ability to make sense of things—I was growing up. I put on my whites for a run and made sure my route took me down by the squash courts, then onto the path toward the village because I knew they’d be there.

  The rains hadn’t started yet that summer and October’s afternoon sun was strong and uninterrupted. I was ready to stop when I thought I glimpsed them ahead. I skirted around the edge of the compound where children had once played so freely and went on to the smoking spot.

  I paused to catch my breath. The insects buzzed. Under the cover of the pines the air was dark and obscure, something about it made me not want to go in there.

  I thought I caught a faint whiff of cigarettes.

  “Hey! You guys in there?”

  I got nothing back. Did something scamper across the ground?

  “I thought I’d join you for a gwaai.”

  Now there was definite movement, but the glare of the sand around me made it hard to see beyond a few feet. Above, a scurrying sound through the dense branches.

  I glanced up and saw something coming down at me. Then again. Huge pinecones started to land around me, thudding to the ground as I jumped from side to side.

  The scurrying sound again, only these new missiles were being thrown much higher, hitting something else up there. Almost instantly the air was filled with a different noise altogether. At first I couldn’t place it—rasping, grating, singing. Then I spotted the hive the size of a man’s torso swinging from a bough and I knew.

  As I watched, the hive detached itself and fell, and when it struck the ground it disintegrated into a swirling cloud that rose like a departing spirit.

  The bees were on me. At first all I could feel was them bumping into me, and I remember thinking, Is that all? They were harmless. Maybe it was panic, because very quickly I started to register the sting that came with every hit. In no time the swarm was all around, all encompassing black shapes whichever way I went. A suffocating cloak. I ran faster, and they were still there. I darted left and right, and they followed as though they were part of me, attacking my arms, my legs, my neck . . . any bare flesh they could find. I slashed at them with my hands; they stung my fingers, which started to swell. My breath labored in my throat, a strangled cry escaped. With every new attack the energy sapped from my limbs until, in the end, I did the worst thing and stopped to fight them.

  Their noise crescendoed. I could feel them everywhere: under my shirt, up my shorts, smothering my face, working through my hair. Stabbing, always stabbing. Their sound was deafening as they flew into my ears. I opened my mouth to cry out and they got in there, too, pricking my tongue with their poison.

  I spat and started running again, slapping every part of me with each new flare of pain. And then I realized the pain must have got too much because they were still around me only I couldn’t feel them any longer.

  My feet dragged in the sand. My chest wheezed as I struggled for any breath I could get, and with every step I could feel my airway closing and closing until finally, inevitably, I couldn’t breathe at all.

  This time there was no resistance. My legs buckled and my body sagged, I could feel myself going horizontal but the point at which I hit never seemed to come. And as the light dimmed I could have sworn I heard the sound of human laughter through the angry buzz.

  TWENTY-NINE

  At first the darkness was where I wanted to be, but gradually I fought with it, and a mingle of wood smoke and gentle voices I couldn’t understand began to break through. When I finally opened my eyes I saw a colorless ceiling of corrugated iron. The voices stopped and the face of a man filled my view.

  He grinned hugely.

  “Mhoroi, shamwari.” Hello, my friend.

  My body was aching and tired; it took all the energy I had to winch myself up onto my elbows. The gloom was thick in here—wherever here was—the only light coming from a dim, naked bulb, but it was enough for me to see I was in a small room with no floor, just dirt, and that the walls were the same rusting metal as the roof. Along the far side, a time-beaten armchair and a set of decaying dining chairs around a table, while the mattress I was on was grime gray and full of holes.

  From somewhere else I heard the high guitar twang of Jit music, the Bhundu Boys or someone like that, the sort of music we wouldn’t have been caught dead listening to.

  The man pushed back on his haunches and sat in the armchair. He was slight, with a wide and cheerful face that shone unstoppably beneath an uneven sea of hair. His temples were silver, so perhaps he was older than he looked, and I couldn’t help noticing how long and slender his hands were as he held them, like a vicar about to deliver a sermon.

  He unlocked them briefly to take a swig from a bottle of cream soda and said something toward the open door. A small child appeared with a bowl. Keeping his head down so I couldn’t see his face, he placed the bowl on the table and hurried out again. Something about him disturbed me.

  “My son is most shy.” The man beamed an apology. He leaned forward again and rested the bowl on my stomach. “You must eat more. It is goodness for you that will make you bett-ah.”

  I flinched as he came near. “What is it?” My throat was still swollen, my voice wasn’t my own.

  “You must eat,” he gestured. “This will help you, for sure. Number one m
uti, make you bett-ah bett-ah one time.”

  It looked like black porridge and tasted bitter and sharp like mulched leaves. I tried spitting it out but he gently kept the spoon in place so that I had to swallow.

  He chuckled softly to himself.

  “You feel it here?” He rested his comforting palm flat on my chest.

  I did. Almost straightaway my heart began to pump hard and fast, and my strength ebbed back.

  “What is it?” I still wanted to know.

  “This is number one muti against the bees. Makes you bettah in quick-quick time, you will be straight back to school like nothing has happened. You feel it?” he said, and sat back, looking pleased. “You are ver-ry very lucky, you nearly died.”

  I pushed myself upright.

  “Where am I?

  “You are in the workers’ village still. This”—the man gave a proud wave—“is my home, Mastah Rhrob-ett.”

  I looked at him. “How do you know my name? Do you know me?”

  “I do not know you other than your voice. I have heard it ma-ny many times before.”

  “When?”

  “On the tellyphone, of course. I know the voices of all the peoples.”

  “Weekend?” I said, relaxing at once.

  “The one and the truly.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  He found this amusing. “It is my home. But we have not spoken for a long time, my friend. I have missed you. Why is it that you are not tellyphoning anyone? Your father? A lady friend?”

  “I don’t have anyone I want to call,” I answered.

  “Ah, yes. But maybe perhaps if I had a tellyphone that would let you talk to those in the sky . . . ?” I realized he meant my mother. “I was most saddened when I heard this news. You must miss her.”

  I didn’t answer.

  Weekend’s son came back and hovered by the door, daring himself to peek half a face, then snapping quickly out of sight whenever I looked.

  “How’s your wife?” I asked.

  “They are well, but sometimes . . . sometimes they fight so very much that I cannot hear myself thinking what is going on in my head. Always they want money, or a new hat, or to know where are the children.” The grin came marching back. “I have three daughters now. Tuesday here is the big brother to them all. He is seven years.”