Embrace (76 page)

‘Who wants to go to Israel, anyway?’ Dominic throws his hands in the air. ‘And why do you think we’ll always be welcome there!’ stressing the last four words dramatically,

‘Israel is South Africa’s friend,’ Mervyn says from his seat near the window. ‘And it’s the home of my people. The Jews and the Afrikaners have very similar histories.’ Dominic rolls his eyes while Mervyn speaks. ‘It’s true, Dom,’ Mervyn goes on. ‘Both suffered the horrors of concentration camps and both overcame adversity because they were chosen by God. Do you think it’s pure coincidence that Israel became a state in the same year as the government was elected here? 1948 is a great year for both countries.’

‘Israel... Our home away from home.’ Dominic almost sings the phrase.

‘You can stop being sarcastic, Webster.’

‘Yes, Bennie!’ Dominic turns to face the back of the class and snarls, ‘Sarcasm is too indirect! I should say: our racist fascist home away from our racist fascist home!’

‘Millions of Jews were murdered in Hitler’s concentration camps, Dom.’ I speak softly, not wanting to join in the discussion but hoping Dominic will stop before he has everyone up in arms.

‘How can you speak to Mervyn like that?’

‘Ignore Webster.’

‘Easy for you, Dom, you’ve been overseas how many times?’

‘Fokken kommunis.’

‘Kafferboetie.’

‘Anti-Semite.’

‘Big shot soloist. Wise guy.’

A glow has spread up Dominic’s neck. Suddenly he interrupts the fiery antagonisms: ‘Why must you always revert to name-calling? Why don’t you argue with me? Give me fucken arguments instead of silencing me with names.’ All heads are turned towards him in the centre of class. ‘I am not the one who’s disappointed by the cancellation of this tour. As far as I’m concerned were only getting our due.’ His eyes fly from Bennie, to Lucas, to Mervyn, across the rest, up and down the rows, and eventually settle on me: ‘If you all are so upset: why don’t you think? Think for a change, instead of running like lemmings towards the cliff. If you can’t feel with your hearts, then at least think with your heads. The one thing my dad has taught me is the difference between treating symptoms and addressing causes. The cancellation of this tour, like all the shit with the sports boycott, this ugly war in Angola, is but a symptom, idiots! It is a symptom of the rotten state in which we live. And don’t think for a second, not one ‘moment, that this will end here. No ways! Dad says it’s going to get worse and worse and worse, until this fascist government is brought to its—’

‘A good morning to you too, Dominic.’ Silence as we turn to face Ma’am, who has stepped into his tirade.

‘You use the word fascist too easily,’ she says as her skeletal frame glides towards her desk. Her blond hair is tied in a bun at the nape of her neck. She no longer seems to be speaking to us. A soliloquy to the walls, covered in our art, our various projects: ‘Such use of the word slights the trauma of every victim of the Second World War. In particular, the suffering of the Jews who died and of their families who survived.’ She pauses, and again, now almost as if in contemplation to herself, continues: ‘South Africa is not systematically murdering people as Hitler and Mussolini did while the othercountries of Europe were expelling their own Jews to be sent to Hitlers ovens. Other things may be wrong here, indeed they are. Severely wrong.’ Her gaze shifts from the back walls, to her desk, then runs across us. Again she pauses, stares from the window into the sun up the embankment. In profile it is clear how thin she has grown: the side of the face shown to us is sunken, the chin angular and jutting. ‘So much of what’s happening in this country is wrong and cruel.’ She now places her satchel and basket on her desk, turns to look at the class, then at Dominic: ‘You will not use the words fascist or Nazi in my class when you talk about what’s going on in South Africa. Not unless you use them with enormous circumspection. What is happening here is hardly different from what happened under European colonialism in the rest of Africa, the East and the Americas. And time will show that as bad as this system is, it does not rank with the major crimes of world history, let alone of this century. You may want to take a look at Uganda. Or Biafra. At the Defiquane. Stalin’s pogroms. The conquest of America. And even then, you may want to use words like authoritarian, autocratic, despotic. Yes, racist. Not Nazi, not fascist.’Then, with the timbre of an exhausted voice, she says: ‘It’s good to see you all again. Good morning, boys’

‘Morning, Ma’am.’

‘I’d like to thank you all for singing at Graham’s funeral. It meant more to me and my family than words can ever say.’ No note of selfpity or pain in her deadpan voice. If behind the composure there lies fragility — as there must — she hides it by walking up and down the aisles, handing out our essays, apologising that she’s taken so long to get them back to us, asking whether Mr Loveday did a good job and whether we behaved ourselves. I smell her as she glides past me: talcum powder and a faint trace of perfume.

From my reports A in English I know I must have done well with ‘His Name Was Henk Willemse’. Smiling a nod, she hands me my book. 19/20. While she tells us to get out our Natural Science textbooks, I skim through her lengthy commentary, excitement like bubbles in my blood:

Karl, I always look forward to reading your essays and once again your rich writing has filled me with consummate joy. And also a little regret at my own lost dreams of being a novelist. This is your first essay without a single spelling error or a split infinitive! You have come so far this year that I’m want to say you’re even more talented (and infinitely more disciplined!) than I thought atfirst. Having said that: I am not sure what to make of your use of a Bosmanesque voice: remember you must develop your own artistic signature. As an exercise (such as those we’ve occasionally done in Art), emulating the elements of style of another’s work is very effective. Just he cautious that you do not stifle your individual development and creativity in the process. Find your own voice. Now is the time. It’s time for you to fly the roost! I quote here for you from an essay by Isaac Bashevis Singer. It is from the foreword to
Hunger,
the exquisite novel by Knut Hamsun, something you may want to read:
‘Writers who are truly original do not set out to fabricate new forms of expression, or to invent themes merely for the sake of appearing new. They attain their originality through extraordinary sincerity, by daring to give everything of themselves, their most secret thoughts and idiosyncrasies.’
Dare to be sincere in your writing Karl.

S. Sanders

Evaporation and condensation. Only snatches reach my ears.
It’s time for you tofly!The
longest commentary she has ever written me. It’s time for me to fly! I return to her red-ink handwriting. Over and over, hiding the Essay book behind
Natural Science For Standard Six.
Only that one sentence matters to me. I hardly see the rest. A rush of adrenalin that makes it almost impossible to sit still. Through Maths. Through Latin — Karl are you paying attention? Yes, Ma’am. In front of the class she gives scarcely a hint of her emotions. But for the loss of weight, the tired voice, there is no evidence that she has suffered or continues to mourn. At the funeral pain was all over her face, borne on her hunched shoulders. Now that is gone, and the old, steely resolve is back in her eyes in the upright, graceful carriage. When she turns to write on the blackboard, the gauntness of her profile is again obvious, her nose seeming more pronounced than I have remembered. Under what circumstances did she mark my essay?

And also a little regret at my own lost dreams of being a novelist.

The saddest line, I think. Is it in there, somewhere, she tries to relate to me a hint of her heartbreak? How I want her to know that she is always in my thoughts. How I adore her. I should get us all to make some gesture of condolence, for we all must see that she is not over it. As Bokkie says: A parent never gets over the death of a child.’ Kaspasie and Lynette can speak about the death of their father, even Aunt Barbara can laugh and tell anecdotes about how Uncle Gert was. But Oupa Liebenberg only weeps. Uncle Klaas. Are they still here! I think of taking the essay for him to read. No, I’m not going to sneak out. I’m going nowhere until Jacques tells me to come. In front of me Dominic has been quiet since Ma’am broke him off. Is he angry about her intrusion into his outburst this morning? I would love to speak to Ma’am alone. Let her cry against my shoulder, to give her strength, to say she may take me as a son. That she is the mother I always wanted. Through Geography. r

At short break I hand Dominic Ma’am’s commentary. He is wearing new jeans, a new charcoal black T-shirt, new veldskoene. His entire wardrobe has been replaced. Struggling to suppress his anger at her, he none the less congratulates me on Ma’am’s evaluation, saying hard work always pays off. He himself has to practise like hell. The Grade Eight is weeks off.

The question about spending Parents’Weekend with the Websters I put off for now. When the time comes, I’ll use the Bernice-is-writing-matric excuse.

Are you angry with Ma’am?’ I ask.

‘Disappointed in her.’

‘It must be a difficult time for her, Dom.’

‘That doesn’t give her the right to treat my opinions like shit. Andshe’s not the first mother to lose a child.’ He speaks about black mothers, hundreds, grieving all over the country for their young children who are being killed because they’re fighting for the right to learn. Hoping to still his rage at Ma’am, I suggest he see her intervention merely as her giving her opinion. Just as he was giving his.

The bell rings for choir.

Staring at the floor, he sits listening from a chair behind Raubenheimer, who takes us through the warm-ups. Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hooo, breath, semi-tone up, hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hiii, breath, semi-tone up, mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mo-mooo, breath, semi-tone down, fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-fi-fiiiii, breath, semi-tone down. His hands are folded, fingers plaited into a clasp. Ankle resting on his knee. Beige longs, leather shoes. A green long-sleeved shirt rolled up, exposing his hairy arms and the curls on his chest where the shirt is unbuttoned at the throat. His hair has been cut. The stirring of desire, again at seeing him. Feel myself go stiff, from just looking. My legs feel warm and heavy, waiting for him to look up and tell me something with his eyes.

‘Okay,’ he says, rising. Raubenheimer immediately falls into the front line.

Someone, now filling the tallest spot in the back formerly held by Lukas, asks Jacques whether there’s any chance of us still going overseas. He smiles and says no, it is definitively off and there’s nothing to be done about it. Shrugging his shoulders. We must get on with it and put everything we have into the Prime Minister’s concert and the album recordings. A mere six weeks away. He tells us to open our scores at the Agnus Dei.

My spirits soar as we begin to sing. Our voices fill the hall, the windowpanes rattle in their frames, it is only a wave of sound, harmony as we take up
Dona nobis pacem.
There are moments I hear my voice carrying the second sopranos. He notices and gestures to me tobe careful, lifts his hand towards the second altos, nods his head vigorously. The sombre and painful B minor key is in direct contrast to the way I am feeling: I am on a high, I am ready to fly. I take him in, miss his fingers up my spine, yet its as though nothing really matters other than the richness of our singing and beating within it like wings Ma’ams opinion of my essay. Into E minor. He stops us.

‘Beethoven wanted it to be clear here. Look at the orchestration, can you see the trumpets and the drums — that were struggling with the tensions between war and peace. The resolution is unclear.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
And then here,
Give us peace.
Here,’ he points from bar 268 onwards, ‘remember that from that B flat we’ve got trumpets and war, almost like a march from the orchestra, and from there it is again the deep, deep prayer for peace that takes over. Were prostrating ourselves before God, begging for peace in a time of war.’ He touches the accompanist’s shoulder and lifts his hands. And I’m wondering whether there is a chance I could spend Parents’Weekend with him, rather than with Dominic. Maybe a part with him, a part with Dom.

Along the broad gravel road to Champagne Castle, at a canter, slowing to a walk in single file as we reach the S bend, cautious of possible vehicle traffic coming from above. Somewhere in my mind there’s a memory of a rider and horse being struck by a car — a movie, a book — maybe still a Secret Seven or a Famous Five, a short story — making for disease whenever were riding along a road. My fingers in the reins above Rufus’s main are blue. From rubbing graphite dust into paper to create gradated tones of blue for the table-cloth around the empty vase Ma’am had us draw.

She has become more aloof as the week passed. Art class, the last on a Friday afternoon, has always been the source of pleasant concentration, discussion, and occasionally laughter. Today’s mood was quiet. No whiff of the passion I usually sense she controls or is holding back, giving it to us in small select doses. Today it was notpassion she was holding back, instead it seemed like more sadness and more of the sharpness that has been growing towards Dominic. In contrast to the way she treats him, my every word is taken seriously. She answers me, engages, smiles, encourages. But Dominic she virtually ignores, though not so obviously that one could be certain. Curt. She is curt to him, not sharp. Always leaving room for doubt as to what she means when she acknowledges something he says. Were doing pencil, charcoal and carbon drawings. The history of graphite. How pencils are graded according to their hardness and softness: 8B, the softest, to B and up to 8H, the hardest. Different textures of paper. She showed us how to combine pencil and crayon, shade and texture by rubbing lines, blending different colour pencils. The illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s
Alice in Wonderland
and sketches by Degas, ‘Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso and Rodin. When Dominic said he had visited Rodins home in Paris, where the Masters sculptures adorn the garden, and that he had seen the original sketches for
The Kiss,
Ma’am looked at him with tired, irritated eyes and said: ‘It is an education to travel, isn’t it, Dominic?’ And then she’d gone on, leaving Dominic and the other four of us perplexed. She told us to draw the huge metal milk jug around which she draped a piece of blue velvet. Our prac was done in silence. She barely moved around to look at what the five of us were doing, offered no suggestions, no comments. Today she may not even have been there.