The Eternal Audience of One

by Rémy Ngamije

  The bell for the first round sounded. No committed punches were thrown; the two retreated to their own corners, coaches shouting instructions, cut men scrutinising faces for anything that needed patching up, and hype men offering encouragement.

  “Let her control the next round,” said a Séraphin. “It isn’t important. The next round isn’t where it’s won. All you gotta to do is dance. In the third, you drop her.”

  Ding-ding!

  Wolff_Jazz: So I might’ve been a bit tipsy last night when I wrote you that second message. Blame it on the alcohol.

  Sans_Seraph: Hope you left that shit in the last year then.

  Wolff_Jazz: I did. Hence why I texted first.

  Sans_Seraph: Okay.

  Wolff_Jazz: It was actually quite awkward bumping into you, but I am glad I did.

  Sans_Seraph: Yeah?

  Wolff_Jazz: Yes. Been wondering when I would bump into you again. You know, with how things ended.

  Sans_Seraph: Things didn’t end, they just stopped.

  Wolff_Jazz: Yeah…about that…there’s a story for that.

  “Bob, duck, weave! Don’t commit! Move!” screamed another Séraphin.

  Wolff_Jazz: Anyway, I wanted to know if you wanted to meet up or something…

  Sans_Seraph: Is “or something” more interesting than meeting up?

  Wolff_Jazz: No.

  Sans_Seraph: Meet up then.

  Ding-ding!

  “Good round! She’s going to go for the opening in the third round. Keep it open. She’ll swing hard for it. That’s when you drop her, y’hear?” said another Séraphin.

  Ding-ding!

  Wolff_Jazz: Cool. No grand plans for the day?

  Sans_Seraph: Growing older, I guess. Pretending to get started on resolutions which—

  “Give her the bait! Give her the bait!”

  Sans_Seraph: —seems to be the in-thing this time of the year. But I’m not up to anything I can’t give up.

  Wolff_Jazz: Wanna hang out?

  “Now! Hit her with the old pun-two!”

  Sans_Seraph: Like hangman I do.

  Wolff_Jazz: Wow. That was bad.

  Sans_Seraph: Can’t start a year without a bad pun.

  Wolff_Jazz: Going to have to take your word for it.

  “Nice! Now, counter!”

  Sans_Seraph: Everything’s closed in town. Where and when would you like to meet?

  Wolff_Jazz: Is my place okay?

  Sans_Seraph: Sure. Do you still stay with your folks?

  Wolff_Jazz: Nope. Moved out. I’m by myself. Small place in Eros.

  Sans_Seraph: Nice. You upgraded, huh?

  Wolff_Jazz: It isn’t that fancy. But it’s nice to have my own place.

  Sans_Seraph: What time should I come through?

  Wolff_Jazz: Whenever you get bored of whatever you’re doing now.

  Sans_Seraph: That would be now-ish.

  Wolff_Jazz: Works for me.

  Sans_Seraph: Text me your address and I’ll make my way over then.

  Wolff_Jazz: Cool. See you soon.

  Ding-ding! Ding-ding!

  The Super Text-Weight Champion of the World rose from the couch and stretched in victory. He passed Therése, who had just woken up, in the corridor. She asked him where he was going.

  “Just to see a friend. I’m taking the car. And I did the dishes.” The bargain had been struck. He Who Washed The Mound of Dishes was exempted from whatever torturous chores were still to be completed.

  “Okay. Be safe.”

  “But of course,” said Séraphin, walking out of the house, a spring in his step, a gleam in his eyes, a jangle of keys twirling around his finger, and a familiar crinkle in his pocket.

  St. Luke’s Roman Catholic College nestles in the valley of Klein Windhoek, cradled between two small hills which make the setting sun put on an interesting light show as it oozes through the school grounds. It is the school parents send their children to when they want them to waltz into international universities. The school’s fees are commensurate with its academic pedigree and the presence of the saint in its name. While the lives of the saints may have been poor, brutal, short, and, often, martyred, the schools which bear their names are cushy and comfortable.

  St. Luke’s is the school where high-ranking politicians and government officials pay their fees early and contribute generously to the school’s building fund so their vacuous offspring can attend it despite their slipping grades. It is where the hardworking immigrant class strive to send promising children to see the trappings of privilege, to be inspired and wowed by all of the things they do not have, and to be motivated to desire and pursue them. This is the school Therése and Guillome decide their boys will attend, even if they must starve themselves to pay the fees, so help them God.

  God does not help much, but their financial discipline does. It ensures all three brothers troop through the school’s classes, irritating some teachers and becoming fondly appreciated by others in the way siblings who attend the same school do.

  In the year of Our Lord Jizzos Christs, when we flick back to Séraphin’s final year at St. Luke’s the year is nearly at an end. The year of The Great Sulk, as it will later be known, could not give up its ghost any sooner. An acceptance letter to the finest university in Africa, in the city of Cape Town, is the only thing that brightens a year of familial subservience and self-imposed exile from family life. The pressure of the final year is a welcome excuse for being scarce around the house. As the seasons change their fashion the mystery of the continued silence gnaws at Guillome, Yves, and Éric.

  The roots of his silence and his much-changed character were unknown to many except Therése and, as luck would have it, Mr Caffrey, who managed to pry the answer out of Séraphin one Friday afternoon in October after the Quill Club had disbanded for the week.

  “Séraphin, a word, if I may?” he said. He sat on the desk in front of Séraphin, placing his feet on the seat of a chair. The rest of the club had all marched out, abuzz with the weekend’s writing assignment: character motivations for doing bad things.

  “So?” said Séraphin.

  “Err, right.” Mr Caffrey looked for a way to engage Séraphin and elicit something from him other than the usual silences in these situations, which urged the other speaker, eager to fill the void created by lacklustre responses, into headlong ramblings. “Right,” he said again. “I just wanted to have a chat about your writing, Séra.”

  “Is something wrong, sir?”

  In Mr Caffrey’s classroom authority was often relaxed, which he encouraged. He allowed the Quillians to address him by whatever title they deemed fit. Among writers, Mr Caffrey liked to say, there were no ranks; only those who chose to write and those who did not. The use of “sir” spoke of a guardedness which he had noticed in Séraphin throughout the year.

  “There’s nothing wrong, Séraphin. Nothing at all. I just wanted to have a talk about writing and, err, whatever else came to mind.”

  “Okay.”

  Feeling the void opening before him, Mr Caffrey resisted the urge to fill it as quickly as possible. He gazed around the room before attempting to re-engage with Séraphin. “You like being in the club, Séraphin?”

  “I’m here every Friday, sir.”

  “I know. But that’s not what I asked.” Séraphin inhaled slowly. Mr Caffrey suddenly felt like the nagging lover.

  “Yes, I like it here, sir. The Quill Club’s really cool,” Séraphin said.

  “Good to know. I think you’re one of our best writers.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Anyway, let me get to it. I have noticed your silences. They’re quite obvious, you know. Your participation is generally half-hearted, and you seem to be distant on most days. Everything okay with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right.” Mr Caffrey gazed around the classroom. “So what’re you going for with the silences? The tall, dark, mysterious stranger? If I didn’t know your intellect better, I’d say you’d
been reading too many men’s magazines. The pick-up pages, especially. You know, Five Ways to Start Conversations with Women at a Bar. That kind of nonsense.”

  Séraphin let out a laugh which helped to defrost the frigidness of their talk. “That sounds like something Éric would try.”

  “L’enfant terrible. Your brother’s quite creative when it comes to delinquency. Not so much in his essays. I swear if he could channel that energy into the right things he would be unstoppable.”

  “Isn’t that what they say about all wasted potential? It’s a cliché. Maybe Éric is just, you know, Éric. Look, Mr Caff, what did you want to talk to me about?”

  The use of the more familiar title signified some willingness to engage. “Just the silence, Séra. It shows in your writing too. It’s become, how do you say it, detached. Like you’re studying the world in a petri dish as opposed to being down in the gunk and the ooze of everyday life. Not your usual style.”

  “I, err, hadn’t noticed.”

  “Your last essay submission” – Mr Caffrey sprang off the desk and walked to his table, opening a drawer and leafing through papers to find the one he was looking for – “was a clear example of what I’m talking about. Here it is. ‘The Last Ticket Out of Town’ – an interesting title. May I ask why you called it that, Séra?”

  Séraphin shuffled in his seat before saying, “It’s the name of a playlist, sir.”

  “A playlist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “I make them.” Séraphin noted Mr Caffrey’s face which seemed to demand a better answer. “I make themed playlists. And when you set last week’s topic I didn’t have any ideas so I named it after that playlist.”

  “Okay,” Mr Caffrey said. There were stranger ways to find titles for writing submissions. “And this one, this playlist, it’s about leaving Windhoek?”

  “Not really, sir,” Séraphin replied. “Just leaving, I guess.”

  “And going where?”

  “Anywhere.” Séraphin looked around the classroom and then back at Mr Caffrey. “Anywhere that isn’t here, you know.”

  “And when you say here, do you mean Windhoek? Or are you speaking about whatever life space you’re in at the moment?”

  “Is there a difference, sir?”

  “A huge one.” Mr Caffrey walked back towards Séraphin’s desk. “If it’s Windhoek, the situation can be solved quickly. Just leave. If it’s a life situation, then leaving isn’t the answer. Wherever you go you’ll take your situation with you, whether it is London or Minas Tirith. Geography doesn’t solve matters of the heart or the mind. It just provides new coordinates for dealing with the past.” Mr Caffrey took up his seat on the desk once more and scrolled through Séraphin’s essay. “I liked reading this. It was funny. At first I figured that it was just youth being bored. I get the feeling there is a larger underlying disappointment here. Am I near the money?”

  “Close,” said Séraphin.

  “Okay. This would’ve been something I would’ve written a long time ago when I moved back here. But I’m sure your disappointments are quite different from mine. Do you want to tell me what motivated this piece, Séra?”

  “Windhoek is Windhoek, it’s always been Windhoek. It’ll always be Windhoek. I just don’t feel like I belong here, you know. I don’t mean to be arrogant or anything, Mr Caff. Like, I don’t think I’m a big fish in a small pond. I just think I’m in the wrong pond, if that makes sense.”

  “It does. And what pond would you like to be in?” asked Mr Caffrey.

  “A different one,” Séraphin said in resignation.

  “I can understand that. This isn’t the easiest place in which to be young. Not with everything you’re reading or watching telling you and showing you how awesome the rest of the world is. I also felt that way when I was growing up in Nairobi. And that’s Nairobi, that’s a big place.”

  “You’re from Nairobi?”

  “Didn’t you know?”

  “I thought you were British.”

  “I am. And I am not. My accent has changed so much over the years but I still have to focus when I come across juice and biscuit in case I say ‘joo-ee-ce’ or ‘bis-skwit.’ But I’m from Kenya. Not I didn’t say ‘Kinya’ like all the other tourists. I only have the one passport too. Not that dual British citizen shit everyone else has. Have you ever been to Kenya?”

  “My family lived in Nairobi, in Parklands, for a while.”

  “Ah.” Mr Caffrey seemed to lose himself in thought, then pulled himself out of the past and came back into the present. “Anyway, as I was saying, at some point everyone feels at odds with wherever it is they’re living. It either rains too much, or the trains are slow. Or the coffee they want isn’t available. Or their village is getting the shit bombed out of it. Sooner or later everyone feels like home is, as you say, “a haven for less” and they start looking for places of moreness. When they find it they like it for a while, and then they get bored with it too. Tolerance applies to more than just drugs, you know. Then the cycle starts again. That’s what I get from this piece, Séra. But that’s only one part of it.” Séraphin shuffled in his seat but offered no reply. “The other part is either family or a girl.” Mr Caffrey caught Séraphin’s gaze for an instant before the younger man looked away, uncomfortable. “You would think there’d be some sort of creativity with life’s problems, wouldn’t you? Alas, no. So which one is it, Séra?”

  “Both,” said Séraphin in what he hoped was an offhand manner.

  “How so?”

  “If I explain, it’ll be weird,” Séraphin said.

  “Really?” Mr Caffrey looked at Séraphin in disappointment. “In my classroom where I keep telling you that English is the language of power the best you can tell me is that something is weird?”

  “Trust me, Mr Caff, it is weird,” he said.

  Mr Caffrey ran a hand through his hair and then, in a world-weary voice, said, “Nothing is weird, Séraphin. Nothing is bad. Nothing is good, either. Everything is just different. Different from what we’re used to, different from what someone else is used to, different from what came before, and different from what might come after. Just different. Take me, for example. I’m teaching high school English, Séraphin. This isn’t what I thought I’d be doing by this time. Sketchy career trajectory, no house or collateral-worthy property; a divorce under my belt; and, still, a long list of things to do before I turn whatever age I must turn in order for things to click together. A good day is when my lunch isn’t stolen out of the staffroom fridge and a bad day is when I remember what a good is. I thought I would be further than this. Better off, too. I don’t think of it as worse. I just think of it as different. Whatever weirdness you’re going through,” Mr Caffrey continued, “has got nothing on mine. I’m an English teacher. I get to see how young minds think and generate ideas firsthand and I can tell you nothing is weirder than what I read on a daily basis. High school English is like serving on the frontlines of ignorance. You see some weird shit.”

  When he stopped talking a hush settled between them and incubated their separate thoughts. Séraphin’s hatched first, poking at the air hesitantly. “Well, err, my mom, err, walked in on me losing my virginity. And she, err, used the incident to blackmail me into silence at home. And, err, the girl I was losing it to stopped talking to me as well.”

  Mr Caffrey snapped out of his musings and fixed Séraphin with an incredulous look. “Are you serious?” When Séraphin nodded he let out a laugh which exploded across the room and nearly threw him off the desk. Whenever the laughter was about to stop he would catch sight of Séraphin’s serious face and then laugh all over again. Eventually he straightened up. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard – but you need to learn to tell a story like that with more flair, my friend. Your mom caught you? That’s really bad.” Mr Caffrey dabbed at his eyes with his tie. “I thought walking in on my wife was bad, but, shit, yours is bad.” He laughed a little more then co
llected himself. “Man, now it makes sense why you’d want to leave. After that I would want to be as far away from home as possible.”

  “Yeah,” said Séraphin. “It’s just awkward at home.”

  “At least your mom didn’t go full East African and disown you. Could’ve been worse.” Mr Caffrey could not help but laugh again. “And the girl?”

  “She just stopped talking to me,” Séraphin said. “And then she left St. Luke’s.”

  Mr Caffrey frowned. Only two people had left St Luke’s in the last year. One was Jasmyn, the other was a timid Spanish boy called Joaquin. Mr Caffrey let out an impressed whistle.

  “I know,” said Séraphin.

  “And was it love or was it just hormones?”

  Séraphin cocked his head to the side as though trying to pick up an indiscernible answer from the air in the room. “I don’t know, Mr Caff. Maybe.”

  “Hmm.”

  “It’s just weird, you know. It” – Séraphin looked at Mr Caffrey as though hoping the answer would be self-evident – “hurts, you know?”

  Mr Caffrey looked away. “And it’ll hurt for as long as it has to. Until it doesn’t hurt anymore. The shit goes on until the rectum of life runs out; it rains until it stops. The good times come around until they go. You hurt until one day you don’t. You just have to be around for it all. That’s all you can do. I won’t lie to you about that.”

  “Nothing helps, huh?”

  “I’ve heard of some things that are rumoured to help. But they’re the kinds of things I cannot in good conscience tell you about as a teacher. And I wouldn’t even tell you about them as a friend. They don’t work. What I can say is this: you need to be the lead actor in your life. Don’t be a co-star to your excuses. I believe in the parlance of your generation the proper term is, “Own your shit.” I know too many people in my life who’re too scared to do that. Don’t be one of those.” The two looked at each other for a while before a small nod bobbed from Séraphin’s head. “So where to next year, Remms?”

  “If I can get the fees, yes.”

  “What do you plan on studying?”

  “Not sure, sir.”

  “The best thing to be at university. Have you ever considered English? You’re pretty good at it.”