Embrace (40 page)

Dominic and I were placed with an old couple who, for their entire adult lives, had been missionaries in Malawi. One evening, when we were in bed after a concert, Dominic asked whether I ever tossed off. Unease pounced onto me like a cat. No, I said. He asked why. I answered that it was sinful. Dominic chuckled and said he had recently started doing it. I kept quiet, hoping we could simply fall asleep. He was venturing into territory I knew to be deadly; he obviously not.

From the bed beside mine came his voice; ‘Why have you gone quiet?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. That’s all.’ Then added: ‘It’s a sin.’

Dominic laughed, again: ‘That’s pure unadulterated rubbish! Where did you hear that?’

For only an instant I could imagine telling him about the caning. Instead I said I’d read it in the Bible and what the Bible said was the Word of God. I had of course read no such thing, had inferred it merely from one of Dominee Steytler’s sermons on the sin of Onan and then there was June with Mathison. And Dr Taylor. And Mathison asking me to report on what I heard. All the same. It all went together, was all intertwined with where Dominic was heading. Where angels feared to tread. Perspiration began to run from my armpits; my palms sweated.

‘For shit’s sake, Karl,’ came his voice, ‘there are all kinds of things in the Bible that have zero relevance in modern times. And as Dad says, the Bible says we should love our neighbours as ourselves and no one in stupid South Africa does that! So, why would we worry about jerking off! Is it in those commandment things?’ It was more a statement than a question and I offered no response. Inwardly I cringed at the blasphemy. He continued: ‘We aren’t living in ancient times. Moses has been pushing up daisies for thousands of years. My Dad says masturbation is the most natural thing in the world and I can do it as much as I want. It’s magic when you use an orange. Just dig a hole in it with your finger, heat it up under the hot water tap, and voila! Off to paradise.’

Horrified, I turned my back on him; felt my face hot against the pillow.

‘And Bok, what does he say?’

‘I haven’t asked him about it. But I know what he’d say.’

‘You know why Friday the thirteenth is meant to be bad luck?’ ‘It’s a heathen superstition, that’s why,’ I said.

‘No! Exactly the opposite, Dad says. It’s a Christian superstition, because in the olden days, before Christianity, the pagans were allowed to have sex with anyone they wanted to when it was Friday the thirteenth. Like a special treat, sort of thing. Just imagine howmarvellous! Until the Christians came along and because they hated seeing people having a good time, the Christians started saying Friday the thirteenth is bad luck.’

I clicked my tongue, then thought of something: ‘If the Christians are so bad, why does your dad let you sing all this religious music? Why doesn’t he send you to a school where you can dance around the fires with the pagans at their feasts?’

‘The fuckin’ Christians have some of the best music because the churches had the money to commission composers, that’s why,’

I didn’t respond.

‘Karl...’ came his voice, now quieter.

‘Yes?’

‘Can I get in to bed with you?’

Eyes, squeezed shut, could make none of the panic disappear. I wanted to tell him about the caning; I wanted to say that he had no idea he was walking into a fire; that Mathison had appointed me — chosen me, because he trusted me and because he knew I understood the bestiality of such acts — to report on this sort of thing. But to speak seemed impossible: I saw everything like a long unbroken line of dominoes; if I said one thing, explained one thing, a chain reaction would be set off, everything, my fine artful act of doing and saying some things and not doing and not saying others would tumble. I must just say no; and let him be satisfied with that. What if he grew angry if I said no without explaining? It would have to be a risk I’d take. I was not going to tell him about Buys or anything that happened while he was in Europe. Mathison, Harding, Jesus, a day before we left for Malawi! When for the first time since August Mathison asked me about ‘that business’. ‘Have you heard anything more about that business?’ ‘No, Mr Mathison.’ ‘You didn’t hear anything about Harding and Reyneke?’ Fear. What if he knew I knew and hadn’t told him? I could say I hadn’t been sure. ‘I’ve heard things about them,’ Mathison said. ‘What do you think? You heard anything, Karl?’Then, grasping at straws, knowing the Standard Sevens were leaving theschool for good, that I’d never see them again, and Mathison probably neither: ‘I heard someone say that Reyneke did it with his girlfriend.’ And Mathison laughing, said: ‘Oh that’s okay, Karl, that’s normal. I only want to hear about that other kind of business.’

‘No, Dom. You must stop that. You must never do that. If anyone finds out that you do it — toss off — or this business of getting into bed . . . Dominic, they’ll kill you.’

I could hear him sit up in bed. He was quiet for a moment: ‘Karl, what has gotten into you? Were thirteen! Boys toss off when they’re thirteen. It’s nature’s way of saying you’re ready to screw.’

‘That’s a sin unless you’re married.’

He fell back on his back. A faint light from some form of moon fell across his bed. ‘You’re clueless. Damn clueless, Karl.’

Suddenly, unable to control myself, I turned my head on the pillow. Wanting to hurt him, seeking to invoke an authority outside of Buys and Mathison and the events of that June, I blurted: ‘In July, while you were overseas, Bok took me to a man who specialises in education. He’s a doctor, and he told me to be cautious of boys like you.’

He was silent. I again heard him sit up; could see the shadow of his shoulders and head above the white sheets.

‘What are you talking about, cautious of me?’ he now whispered. ‘You’re girlish, Dominic. I’m a real boy.’ I saw no reason to whisper. Call me clueless; I’ll show you who’s clueless.

‘I’m not interested in that shit, Karl. Biiiig boy, Karl. You and Superman. What I want to know is why did Bok take you to see this . . . this doctor?’

‘To speak about my career, my subjects for high school, what I’m going to become when I grow up.’

And in the process of growing up you’re not meant to be friends with me?’ He snorted and again fell onto his back. We were quiet.

‘That was a shrink, do you realise that?’ He paused. ‘Bok took you to see a psychiatrist or something.’

‘Rubbish, Dominic. He’s an education specialist.’

‘Well, tell me what you spoke about?’

‘About how I was going to become a lawyer, how I’m going to lead my life, attain my goals.’

‘Yes? And?’

‘Why I was doing so badly at school.’

‘You do better than me! And I don’t do so badly. Or get dragged off to psychiatrists,’

‘I’m not doing my best, that’s why. I used to get nineties, now I’m in the mid-seventies.’

‘And how did you get to the girlish part?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. Let’s sleep.’

‘Fine, Karl,’ he hissed, sarcasm in his voice. ‘Let’s sleep. Sleep away your worries, dear friend. Sleep away our friendship too, for all I care. But let me tell you one thing: it’s not you that needed a psychiatrist. No, it’s your father.’

‘Fuck you. You don’t know Bok. Keep your mouth off him.’

‘I’ve heard enough to know he’s a bloody lunatic.’

‘Dominic, say one more word about my father and I’ll knock your teeth out, I swear.’

‘And Bokkie, what did she have to say about this little exercise?’ ‘Leave my mother out of it.’

‘So, if I’m so girlish, why did you stay friends with me, even after the big education specialist, hey? Education specialist, my arse! Why are we still friends if he told you not to be friends with me? Can you tell me that much? Surely you owe me that?’

I wished only that he’d now leave me alone. Beneath the anger I could hear the hurt in his voice. I wanted to tell him about the caning, to tell him that he didn’t understand, about the Terylene-covered weights in the suitcase on the table beside the door to our room, about why I now wrote in a slanted hand.

‘It was the presents, hey Karl!’ he snapped. ‘It was the sentimental Abba tape, the shit, crap, cheap music you love so much, and the chocolates and the T-shirt I brought you from overseas. Thirty pieces of silver, Karl, enough to make you forget your education specialist.’

I wanted to weep. What he was saying was devoid of truth. No, it was not, nowhere, near true. If anything the T-shirt... I squashed my face into the pillow. It was because you came back and saw that I was unhappy; it was because you knew I wasn’t really ill; it was because you’re my best friend; because you accept me the way I am; because I trust you because you’re everything no one else in my life is; even if you had not brought me presents, because I know you love me; and I’m leaving, next year, I don’t want to be in Cilliers’s choir, I’m not coming back. But I didn’t say any of that. Only felt my face contort, knew I was going to cry.

‘The presents. Jesus Christ, you’re cheap, aren’t you?’ Again sitting up in bed, his words pounding me. I could hear him turn from me, heard the bed sigh as he fell back and turned to the window. Away.

‘It wasn’t the presents, Dominic. That Paris T-shirt is in my case, you can take it back. I swear,’ I tried to say, voice crumbling, tasting the tears, hearing myself answer: ‘I’m here because you’re my friend. Because I love—’ I choked on the words and turned around and sobbed into my pillow.

I felt him beside me, his arm tightly across my back and his hand tucked beneath my chest, his breathing into my ear.

Halfway through a concert, during break, we’d change from the grey flannels, white shirts, blue waistcoats and white bibs into long red cassocks with white overgarments. Much of the second half of the tour programme consisted of Christmas carols. One night in the middle of the first half of the programme, before carols, first Bruin, then Meintjies fainted of the oppressive heat. The Central Africa Presbyterian church, with its enormous dome, built a hundred years before, seemed to smoulder like a massive hothouse. Even with the stained-glass windows opened, still not a breeze stirred. Perspiration stuck the white shirts to our backs. Fringes were plastered across foreheads. Mervy looked as though he’d run a marathon. Plans for cossacks, garments and candles were cancelled. Before the choir went on for the second half, Mr Roelofse and Dominic went on for Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’. It had become customary for Dominic, like Steven Almeida with ‘Oktobermaand’, to get an encore. The audience, as usual went wild. After three or four bows Dominic and Mr Roelofse walked off. They hovered around us outside to see whether the applause would abate or whether they’d have to go on for the encore. Bennie used an LP cover to fan down Mr Roelofse. The audience kept clapping. There would have to be an encore. Dominic asked Mr Roelofse whether he could do something a cappella. Roelofse, obviously exhausted and delighted at the reception in spite of the heat, agreed. Hastily finding me amongst the first sopranos, Dominic whispered that I should stand at the door and listen: ‘This is for you.’ He walked back to the front of the pulpit as the audience roared. A hundred times from backstage I had heard him and Steven sing. There was nothing new to it. But this time it was for me. And it was without accompaniment. With his voice alone, he began a song I knew, though I’d never heard him sing it before. Aunt Siobhain had taught me the words and the melody some time at St Lucia. The song had never been anything but a part of her small Irish repertoire together with the others we all joined in: ‘Old Danny Boy’, ‘Molly Malone’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Dominic’s voice, spiralled in the acoustics, up to the dome and melted through the warm air:

Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone

Noflow’r of her kindred

No rosebud is nigh

To reflect back her blushes

Or gire sigh for sigh

I’ll not leave thee

Thou lone one!

To pine on the stem

Since the lovely are sleeping

Go sleep thou with them

Thus kindly I scatter

Thy leaves o’er the bed

Where thy mates of the garden

Lie scentless and dead

With Steven and Mervyn in the shadows beyond where the open doors’ light fell, surrounded by first and second sopranos, I felt tears in my eyes. For happiness. For something moving. For something so beautiful. A terribly intimate relief.

So soon may I follow

When friendships decay

And from love’s shining circle

The gems drop away

When true hearts lie wither’d

And fond ones are flown

Oh! Who would inhabit

This bleak world alone

Again the audience roared. People were on their feet, again calling for an encore. This time, when Dominic came off, he said he couldn’t do more. He was exhausted. The rest of the concert — ‘Silent Night’, ‘Deck the Halls’, ‘Greensleeves’, ‘Away in a Manger’, ‘Auf die Gruen Au’, ‘Joy to the World’, the latter in which the audience was allowed to join — was a raving success. Mr Roelofse glowed red from the heat and gratification. Outside, Ma’am Sanders and Mathison too seemed overjoyed and Mathison shook forty boys’ hands.

At home that night, I knew something had changed between Dominic and me. Neither of us said anything. We undressed and got into bed, still sweating. We spoke for a while about the concert. I said that his and Stevens ‘Happy Wanderer’ had been better than Gilbert and Sullivan could ever have intended it to be. He said breathing in the heat and humidity had made the challenge of joining notes for ‘Bel Canto’ a hundred times more difficult than it already was. We need black voices in this choir, he said, did you hear when they sang along with ‘Joy to the World’? It was as if the heat didn’t affect black people in the same way as it did whites. ‘Dad will be furious for me saying something like that, but maybe their diaphragms or their lungs have evolved differently from ours. Maybe because they’ve lived in Africa for millions of years.’ He spoke almost as if in thought to himself. I turned off the bedside light.