Embrace

by Mark Behr

  Then, miraculously, for a few days a week, the world would again look light and beautiful to him. He would awake in the morning and the ominous pressure from the sky had abated as if it had been but a dream and he would know it was gone at the instant — even before — he opened his eyes. On days when with luck or fate on his side his favourite subjects and lessons arrived in those window periods, he felt himself again passionate, excited, playful, even ready to love. He ventured to Dominic’s music room, fooled around on horseback, went swimming with Bennie, competing to see who could do more than a length underwater without surfacing for a breath. If this can last, hethought, I will be fine and I will still come to something in the world, I will paint something spectacular, I will write an unforgettable poem. But then, just as suddenly as the sun had risen on a different day, the thick clouds rushed in and he again barely saw the mountains, the colours. Am I sick, he wondered. What is wrong with me? Is there a diagnosis other than the blues and a treatment other than death? He was no longer afraid that Bok and Bokkie would come to hear of Jacques. No, he seemed to fear little, but then little seemed of interest to him anyway. The world did not so much pass him by as oppress him. There seemed little to live for. Yes, this is what’s wrong, he thought. Trying to stay alive is all a terrible waste of time. I want to die. At night, in these moments, he lay in bed thinking about the tam-botie seeds in his toilet bag, wondered how long it would be before they took effect. Whether it would be a painful death. Knew it would. He dwelled on Bernice in Mkuzi. Vomiting up bile and blood that resembled pieces of raw meat. Saw her again as she was when she came out of hospital: a yellow, shaky praying mantis. But he had to ensure that he could not be found and saved. He would scream in pain, he knew. As she had writhed like a snake wounded by the wheel of a car. He could do it in the bathroom, take his pillow to muffle the cries. Or on a Saturday afternoon, when everyone was at the river, he could sneak to the stables or to the farthest part of the orchard, above Second Rugby Field, and do it there. If only he still had the key he could do it after lights-out anywhere in the veld and they’d take days to find him. How long would it take for the poison to work? This was his only question. These thoughts were unlike the flights of fancy which he had had in sick-bay after the Dr Taylor holiday. In those he had sort of died while still being able to attend his own funeral, there still somehow alive to watch people grieve and to smile a bittersweet smile at them, as in doleful remorse at the memory of how they had treated him they fell upon his grave clawing at the red soil, weeping. Then he had feared hell, for he knew, to kill yourself was the surest one-way ticket to eternal damnation. But now it wasdifferent. Rather than think beyond death, his thoughts of swallowing the jumping beans stopped at the moment of their effect. Of completion. That was all he could imagine. He had slipped into the world like an overeager bird, Bokkie said, and now he wanted to slip out with the same haste. Beyond that moment of exit was the big oblivion into which the dark clouds would finally descend and take him away. Out of Bok’s testicles into the shaft, out of the glans into Bokkie’s womb, out of Bokkie’s vagina into Arusha, out of Tanzania into the Republic of South Africa, out of South Africa into the where and what of death. But that every out had to have an in no longer mattered. He wanted out of the world, no matter what its concomitant in. With everything over and gone he would not have to worry about anything that had concerned him here, ever again. Least his own funeral.

  Dominic seemed to find his friend’s altered state excruciating. After the success with his exams the occasion arose that he again wanted to come to Karl’s bed. His suggestion was met initially with resistance and finally with a flat refusal. At first Karl told him to wait a few days, but when Dominic insisted, Karl told him that that part of their lives was over. That he had outgrown the pleasure of being in bed with another boy.

  ‘What’s going on, Karl?’ became a refrain, at least once a day, from Dominic. ‘Why don’t you ever come to my music room anymore? Why don’t you draw anymore? Why can’t we be lovers anymore?’ All of which Karl deflected, saying in different forms and with different words that things change, that relationships alter, that boys turn into men. And Dominic looked at Karl and said: ‘People don’t change so suddenly. Circumstances do. What’s changed?’

  ‘For one thing, I’m leaving this school and you’re staying.’

  A few days later Dominic announced that his family would be emigrating to Canada. That he would be attending piano classes with a professor at the University of Toronto. He said his parents haddecided three months earlier but had kept it from him from concern that it could influence his concentration. And then when a discussion of the coming Parents’Weekend arose, Dominic asked whether Bok and Bokkie were staying on the farm and Karl had said no, they were not coming because Bernice was writing matric and he was staying at school for the weekend.

  ‘Why don’t you come with us? My parents are staying at Champagne.’

  ‘No, I want to stay here and do some Latin. I’m falling behind.’ ‘You’re lying, Karl. You’re feeling sorry for yourself about something, aren’t you? Cutting off your nose to spite your face. Well, come back to me when you decide to stop your shit. And you’re welcome to join us for the weekend. My parents would love it. And I would too.’ The discussion was left at that, but Karl silently resented Dominic. Hated the way the Websters could throw around their money, live as though they were in control of the world, able to dish out cash and charity as the whim took them. On a day when Karl again awoke feeling the joy of the world around him, he returned to Dominic’s music room. He said he would very much like to join the Websters. Dominic, perhaps taking this as indication that all was again well, put his hand on Karl’s shoulder and tried to pull him close. Karl recoiled. He asked Dominic to stop, to promise that he would never do that again.

  ‘No,’ Dominic said, ‘I will not promise that. I’ll wait till you decide you want to come back to me. And you will, I know.’ But I didn’t, Dom. I didn’t come back to you and now I won’t. It is all gone and flying off with you in the Clemence-Gordons’ plane later tonight or tomorrow morning depending on the weather. And then I now try and picture you after all these years, in the snows of Toronto where you must have fallen in love with the splendid university and the green landscape without fear. Fallen in love, like falling pregnant. Why did we call it fall, Dom, like you’re hurting yourself? And did you do what I could not allow myself to imagine then: fall in lovewith another boy and when you became men did you live in a Montreal apartment and speak French? And were you bourgeois and happy? Bourgeois. How I too wanted to be that word, Dom. More than almost anything in the world.

  For five days Karl and Lukas stayed in the Berg when the Mass choir went off for the Johannesburg rehearsals. The school was empty and Lukas moved from G Dorm to F beside Karl to sleep in Fat DuToit’s bed. With Uncle Charlie also away, the two of them took showers for as long and as often as they chose. They stayed for hours in the steam of the Junior showers where they had to go as the hot-water geysers in the Seniors’ bathroom had been turned off. On the long shower floor they skidded, shooting themselves from wall to wall. Then they scrubbed again to clear off the clingy fragments of red floor paint that had come off on their foot soles and white buttocks.

  They rode bareback all day in the warm November sun. They asked Matron Booysen for sandwiches and fruit and Mr Walshe for his lighter as they wanted to light a fire to make tea — and for the off chance of finding the hidden cave. Then for hours they explored paths and trails on which they had never been before, stopping for lunch in the shade of enormous cabbage trees and yellow-woods, their bases hidden by brambles and tree ferns hundreds of years old. Here they made a fire and boiled an empty can of water and dunked a putrid teabag. Above Copper Falls they followed antelope paths neatly cut along the mountainside’s contours and when they reached the plateaus they cantered across the veld, green, undulating like new corn in the breeze. And they had the time to search for and find the hidden caves.
Hisses carried into the back from where dark shadows returned whispered promises of deeper entrances. From the moment they entered with Mr Walshe’s Bic ablaze, the cave had become a black cavern filled with flickering ghosts. Without looking back at the entrance, they moved through a narrow opening into a second chamber. They heard the twitter of bats and the rapid wings fluttering; shadows collided as they took to the air and exited the cave.

  ‘Look, they’re dancing . . .’ said Lukas, and the echo carried: sing, ing, ng

  ‘It’s a hunting dance . . . look, this one is pretending to be an ostrich and those are sneaking up on him.’

  ‘It’s a woman . . . not a him . . . look . . .’

  ‘Maybe, but it looks like it’s the rock, not part of the painting.’ ‘There,’ Lukas said, taking the lighter from Karl and stretching his arm up towards the ceiling, which remained in darkness. ‘What’s that up there? Can you see?’

  ‘Looks like a bird... Maybe a lammergeier. No, it’s too far, lift the flame higher.’

  He tried to hoist himself up a narrow ledge but couldn’t keep his footing.

  They took in what seemed to them the tale of a big hunt or a war. In it were ox-wagon and horses, above it what seemed like an odd and meaningless series of circles and stripes.

  ‘Looks like they played noughts and crosses, here,’ Lukas said, lifting the flame to the tapestry of criss-crosses.

  ‘Maybe it’s their language,’ Karl countered. ‘Maybe that’s how they wrote.’

  ‘The Bushmen couldn’t write, Karl, jissis, that much we know.’ No, no, o

  ‘No we don’t and anyway, these must be signs, saying something.’ ‘Well, I wish we had found bows and arrows and more Stone Age implements instead of their silly signs. But there’s nothing here. This damn thing is getting hot. I better give it a rest.’

  He flicked off the lighter and they waited in pitch darkness.

  ‘Karl?’ Kaal, kal, al

  ‘Karl?’ Kaal, kaal, kal, al, a

  ‘Shhh . . .’ Shh, sh, s

  ‘What?’What, wat, at, a

  ‘Listen.’ Isten, issn, sn ‘What?’Wat, t

  ‘The silence.’ Slince, lince, snss ‘What about it?’Whatait, whatit, uit, uu

  Karl found Lukas s arm. He stood on his toes and brought his lips to Lukas’s ear. To cheat the echo, he tried as softly as possible: ‘Beautiful.’ But he knew the darkness, the earth, the rock was an, ear and a mouth and a rib-cage around him. Barely, barely audible, came the’ clicks of the returning t.

  At night Karl’s thighs ached. Lukas laughed when he noticed that he could hardly bend his legs. It was as though clutching Rufus’s back had demanded the use of muscles he had not known the existence of. But the next day they were out again; bareback again. They let the horses wade in the river while they sat naked above pools where they swam, then lazed in the sun. Lukas spoke about returning to Indwe, being back with Harlequin, about his father importing two new American saddler mares for Swaargenoeg’s breeding. Going to school in Queenstown where his brothers had matriculated would probably be a bit of an ordeal at first, with everyone thinking you were a pansy if you came from the Berg. But that would pass once the rugby season started in May. And when Karl spoke he passed over the near future as though the next four years either did not exist or were impossible to imagine. His dreams began at university where he was studying law. Poring over books in an enormous library. There he would be free. Life for him would begin there amongst bright and stimulating lecturers — all of whom were as intelligent and creative as Ma’am.

  And the army?’ Lukas asked.

  ‘I’ll go after university, once I’m a lawyer.’

  ‘You don’t want to be a soldier, do you, Karl?’

  He didn’t answer. If he spoke he knew he would He. The warm sun beat down on his face, his arms and chest. The mountains above them rose amber, brown and blue. Birds whose names he didn’t knowcalled from every angle around the river. He felt the day and the world light and glorious. He was not going to lie on a day like today. Just for once I’m not going to lie. He looked downstream to where Rufus still stood in the water. King was tugging long strands of kikuyu from the bank.

  ‘Karl?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. About not wanting to be a soldier.’

  Again he remained quiet. Then he felt Lukas s hand against his shoulder and their eyes met.

  ‘It’s okay, Karl. I understand you better than you think.’

  ‘Of course I want to be a soldier, Lukas. Jirre jissis. I just want to get my degree first, that’s all.’ And he rose to retrieve his shorts and underpants.

  Returning to the fort for the first time since Mathison’s night, he saw — smelt — at once that Uncle Klaas and the Silent One had left. The fort smelt again of decaying poplar leaves and thatch. Rains had cleared the covering of any smoke scent that may have lingered. As if they had never been here, he thought. Where were they now? Who knows if they’re even alive.

  Lukas had procured slingshots from the farm workers, and he and Karl shot across the river at a row of empty Coca-Cola cans. For every five cans Lukas toppled, Karl felled one. He thought again of how Bok had taken him down to the Umfolozi to fire the revolver. He saw again Bok walking from the round boulder on the opposite bank, his mpategas crunching into the white sand of the dry riverbed while he waited in the shade of the reeds. Held in both his hands was the tray of copper bullets with their little grey lead heads. And he’s sure he sees his fingernails unbitten.

  Bok knelt beside him and flicked open the revolver’s chamber. ‘You see, it’s empty,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to fear a revolver. But you must treat it with respect. Here, hold it, Philistine. Both hands.’ And Karl passed the narrow tray of twenty-four bullets to Bok. He placed both hands around the handle, felt the cold metal weight of the open weapon in his fingers, pulling at his shoulders.

  ‘It’s heavy, Bok.’

  ‘It won’t be, once you grow accustomed to it. Here, let me show you how to put in the rounds.’ He took the revolver from Karl’s hands.

  ‘Can I shoot now, Bok?’

  ‘Be patient. Watch now, look closely at how I do it because you’ll be doing this for the rest of your life.’

  One at a time, Bok said, you remove one bullet at a time from the tray and you slip it into its little groove. Like this, you see. They look like a bee’s nest, Bok. Ja, but believe me they do more damage than any wasp. These things kill, Karl. Do you understand me? This thing is not something you play with, ever. Okay? Yes, Bok. You don’t go near this revolver without my permission, ever. Do you hear me, Philistine? Yes, Bok. And he watched as his father’s fingers skilfully filled the honeycomb with bullets before flicking the chamber shut. And now you get yourself into a comfortable position, like this, Bok said, and Karl emulated his father: legs slightly apart, shoulders back. Because you’re still small you can take a dead aim on my arm. Bok knelt beside Karl. He held the revolver and told the boy to lean into him so that he could explain the lining up of the sights with the target. This gap here, shut your one eye, Karl, these two little teeth, do you see them? Yes, Bok. Through them you find this little one at the front, do you see it? Yes, Bok, as he squinted, struggled to keep the right eye shut, and tried to line up the little ant between the little teeth. Then you must see the little one at the front of the barrel, and the target — the jerry can — through the two teeth at the back. Okay? Yes, Bok. So, when all three are in place — can you see all three — keep your one eye closed, Philistine, can you see all three? I think so, Bok. Then, if you keep them lined up and you draw the trigger in, like this, you never pull it, okay, because then you lose balance. Gently, you draw it in sothat you don’t lose the line-up of the revolver with the target. And you keep your eye on the target, always. The target is like a magnet and your eye doesn’t waver, not even for a second, okay? Yes, Bok. Okay. Now I’m going to sit here and you stand behind me and you can rest your hands on my arm as a dead rest, ok
ay? Yes, Bok. With his father half in front of him he took dead aim across the hairy arm. Take your time now, Bok spoke softly, almost into his ear. Remember don’t pull the trigger, just draw it in gently — after you have the jerry can in your sights. That’s good. Beautiful. Can you see it, close your right eye, Karl. Yes, yes, that’s nice. Beautiful. Champion. Keep your eye on the target.

  Suddenly nervous, Karl said he didn’t want to shoot. Bok told him there was nothing to be afraid of. Come on, Karl. Try again. You can do it, you’re a big boy. You don’t want Lena and Bernice to hear you were too afraid to fire a few little shots, do you? And Karl, fearful but sure that he had the necessary three things lined up, tugged violently at the trigger. A boom and the revolver came alive, jumped from his hands, dropped; sand flew up no more than a pace beyond his father’s arm.

  Are you out of your mind! What the hell did I tell you? Keep your eye on the target. Do you want to kill me? Karl? Why don’t you listen to me, for God’s sake? Look at this revolver, now. Covered in dirt.’ When Bok turned from retrieving the revolver where it lay with its barrel in the sand, Karl was weeping. After pacifying the boy, he knelt down behind him. With his hands around Karl’s hands, holding the boy’s steady at height and around the revolver’s handle and placing his finger over the small forefinger already around the trigger, he helped the boy fire the remaining five rounds, each hitting the opposite bank a little closer to the jerry can.

  ‘You’re very good for a five-year-old, Philistine. With practice you’re going to be as good as your father.’

  ‘I’m almost six, Bok. I’m going to school next year,’ he said as they made their way back to where Bokkie waited.