Embrace (84 page)

‘So, if you found that key in your hand — the one you unlocked the door with tonight — four days ago, Karl, when did you have time to slip into Winterton to have a duplicate made?’There was nothing he could say. For this he was not prepared. ‘Or did you walk to Winterton on another night, say, last night and you only lied to me about how many times you’ve been out. It’s actually twice. Twice, isn’t it, Karl?’

The boy didn’t answer.

‘Or, did you send someone to Winterton to cut the key for you? Who could it be that you sent, Karl? One of the servants, or the farm boys? Or was it two keys you found on the parking lot? Not one asyou remembered? Or was it perhaps someone else, someone a little closer to your dorm from whom you stole the key? From Uncle Charlie, didn’t you? There are only so many people with a key to that door, you know. And I know each one of them. You stole this key, didn’t you?’Yet as he said the word ‘stole’ a light played in his eyes, as if, Karl trembled, he knew the boy had not stolen the object. That in fact it had been given. Oh my God, he knows, he knows, sweet merciful Jesus Christ, he knows. Mathison now leant far forward across the desk. His fist folded over the key. Without warning he barked: ‘Now, you are going to start telling the truth! Do you hear me? I have had it with you. You will tell me every word of the truth I want to hear without missing a detail.’

Karl stared at Mathison. Speechless.

‘Or must I bring out the book I brought along from your locker for you to swear on?’

A gasp escaped Karl’s lips. My diary! Jesus, Christ, the diary, he has the diary! He knows everything, everything. No. No. And his eyes brimmed with tears even as he told himself but it’s in Gogga, the worst parts are in Gogga. He can’t understand Gogga. But anyone can decipher that, any Grade One freak can decipher that with a little time. Tears now flowed freely down Karl’s cheeks. His lips twitched.

‘Tell me, you little fool. Tell me everything. I’m going to hear it from your lips. And you may as well stop crying because I will not be taken in by your manipulations. Not in any way.’

The boy couldn’t speak. He stood stupefied. Horrified, knowing nothing but that his life was ended. And that he would live it. That he was at last facing the noose of his own making.

‘My hand is on this phone, Karl. Do you hear me? I can either pick up this receiver and call your parents. Or you can tell me. Everything.’ Not Bok and Bokkie please. Please. ‘I love him,’ the words escaped. Suddenly the tears stopped. He wiped his face with one hand and the sleeve of his dressing gown while the other still clung to the key. He looked Mathison in the eye.

‘What? I love him, indeed.’ Mathison was expressionless. ‘Tell me how it started. The whole truth. From the beginning.’

‘Which beginning, Sir?’

‘The bloody key, Karl, how did you get the key? Tell me where and how you got the key.’

‘It was one afternoon, Sir. In March. He told me he would leave it for me in a book in the library where I always go to read. I was reading Shakespeare’s
Sonnets.
Ma’am lent them to me so I put the book of
Sonnets
beside A of the encyclopaedia and he left—’’

‘Who, for goodness’ sake, Karl? Stop mincing your words and use his name.’

‘ ‘Mr Cilliers.’ In a whisper.

There is a ghostly silence in the room. Karl hears Mathison swallow, sees his Adam’s apple bob repeatedly against his throat. A look of shock, and the boy wonders why the man seems rattled. At first Mathison’s expression doesn’t change. The eyes are enormous behind the glasses. His lips tense. He stares at Karl and the boy stares at him.

When Mathison speaks again he is calm. An overwhelming tenderness has crept into his voice, the anger seeped from his face. ‘Dear Lord, my poor boy. My God. What has he done to you?’ Karl frowns. Not able to answer as he imagines he may be expected. ‘Where did he molest you? How many times?’ Mathison shakes his head. It seems to Karl as if the headmaster is about to weep.

‘No, Mr Mathison, he never molested me. I promise. We were just, we . . . were just together.’

‘What do you mean, Karl? Just together . . . Why didn’t you come and tell me sooner? Dear boy, why, why, why didn’t you come to me? You knew you could trust me? You knew I understood these things!’ Karl looks in bewilderment at the man across the table from him. Why the sudden change in attitude? No, he has it all wrong. There was nothing to fear from Jacques. Never.

‘He was always good to me, Sir.’

‘Karl?’

‘When we were together, Mr Mathison.’

‘What did he do to you? Where did he touch you?’ This was no longer an interrogation. Mathison seemed spellbound in his pity for Karl. Kind, gentle, concerned only for the welfare of the boy in front of him. Relief swept over the boy.

‘Everywhere I asked him to, Sir.’

‘Karl; Karl, Karl! What has he done to you? You are a child and you have been molested. Don’t be afraid of me, Karl. You don’t have to fear that he will ever do anything to you again. Speak to me. I’ll never allow him to hurt you again. Tell me everything from the beginning.’

‘I am never scared of him, Mr Mathison. He would never hurt me.’ ‘And that’s why you’re protecting him?’

‘I went to him at first, Sir, because I thought it would be an adventure, but then I slowly fell in love with him . ..’

‘He forced you to perform disgusting acts with him, didn’t he, Karl?’

‘No, Mr Mathison. I love him.’

‘Karl, he has done the most abominable thing an adult can ever do to a child.’ Mathison’s eyes now darted around the room, cast around, searched for the right words to say: ‘He has indoctrinated you to speak of this aberration as love. Do you know what love is, Karl?’ ‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s a bit long, Sir.’

‘Tell me what you think.’

‘Love is an ever fixed mark, Sir.’

‘Go on, go on .. .’

‘That looks on tempests and is never shaken; it’s the star to every wandering bark, whose worth’s unknown although his height be taken. Love’s not time’s fool, even though rosy lips and cheeks, within his bending sickle’s compass come. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. Love—’

A frown cut Mathison’s forehead. He shook his head.

‘That’s from Shakespeare, Sir.’

Again Mathison shook his head, pursed tight his eyes. ‘No, Karl. No. That’s not what love is! Love is what a parent feels for a child. What we as teachers feel for you boys. It is based on trust and caring. It is what a man feels for the woman he marries. Do you understand?’ Karl looked at Mathison. Could not find in himself a response. ‘Let me tell you what it is, my boy. And mine is from the Word of God, not from Shakespeare.’

Karl watched as Mathison took a Bible from his desk. He placed it in front of him and paged towards the back. The New Testament. ‘I want you to listen carefully, Karl. I want you to never forget what I read to you tonight.’ He paused and cleared his throat.
‘If I had the gift of being ahle to speak in other languages without learning them, and could speak in every language there is in all of heaven and earth, but didn’t love others, I would simply be making a noise. If I had the gift of prophecy and knew all about what is going to happen in the future, knew everything about everything, but didn’t love others, what good would it do? Even if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, I would still be worth nothing at all without love. If I gave everything I had to poor people, and if I were burnt alive for preaching the Gospel, hut didn’t love others, it would be of no value whatever. Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or self~ ish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins its way. If you love someone you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground defending him. All the special gifts and powers from God will some day come to an end, hut love goes on forever. Some day prophecy, and speaking in unknown languages, and special knowledge — these gifts will disappear. Now we know so little, even with our special gifts, and the inspired preaching of those most gifted is still so poor. But when we have been made peifect and complete, then the need for these inadequate special gifts will come to an end, and they will disappear. It is like this: when I was a child Ispoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I became a man my thoughts grew far beyond those of my childhood\ and now I have put away the childish things. In the same way, we can see and understand only a little about God now, as if we were peering in his reflection in a poor mirror; but some day we are going to see him in his completeness, face to face. Now all that I know is hazy and blurred, but then I will see everything clearly, just as clearly as God sees into my heart right now. There are three things that remain — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love.’

Even after he had finished the reading, Mathison kept his eyes in the book. When he spoke, it was in almost a whisper: ‘Do you see, Karl, by these criteria, you could not possibly love this man . . . Would you still say that you love him?’

But Karl does not hear the question. He is caught in some place where he searches for a way to please the man in front of him without betraying the man he feels he is poised to. Knows he already has.

‘Maybe not, Sir, maybe I don’t love him.’ Then, finding filtered from memory a paraphrase of an idea spoken by Jacques, he says: ‘Only pleasure is possible, Sir, not love. But he gives me pleasure, Sir. I never knew how nice it could be to do all those things. So maybe he’s not the one I love, but he is the one who gives me pleasure. The one I love . . .’ It is on the tip of his tongue to say Dominic’s name, when he sees that Mathison’s face has turned purple, swollen and bloated. As if the man’s head is about to explode.

‘What kind of a perverted child are you, De Man! Have you no understanding of what you are saying! Last year Mr Buys punished you in this same office for a similar crime. I told you what it meant. I warned you, I asked you to come and tell me if you heard about any of this business! Instead of learning from your — perversion — you go around engaging in unspeakable filth of the very nature you were meant to be reporting to me! Worse filth!’, Mathison pauses, half rising from the desk before falling back into his chair. ‘You are despicable. Do you realise I am about to call your parents and inform them that you are expelled?’

The boy stands agog. He has no idea what has brought about the renewed anger. He trembles. Silent. But I have tried to tell the truth, he wants to cry. This is what you have asked for. Will I be expelled for telling you what you wanted to hear?

‘Speak to me, Karl.’

Tears again run down his cheeks. He now sobs and he snivels: ‘I don’t know what you want me to say, Sir.’

‘Tell me the truth. It is the truth that will set you free.’

‘I’m telling you the truth, Sir, I swear, I’m telling you the truth, please, Sir, you . . .’

‘Tell me he molested you, tell me everything he did to you, do not stand here telling me about love you don’t understand anything of’ Still Karl cannot speak. And then Mathison, again almost in a whisper, sits forward and spits: ‘How can you, for one moment, think that you’re the only one?’ It took Karl a second to comprehend that Mathison was not asking him a question. He was being told something. No, not something. Mathison was letting Karl understand that he knew of others who either had passed through Jacques’s chambers or had been asked to pass through there. Still, with the doubt, there was now suddenly another: that Mathison was maybe tricking him. Could it be? But he barely cared. He now just wanted it to be over. Was ready to say anything for now. Later, later he could ask Jacques, warn him that Mathison knew or suspected others. And what does it matter if I wasn’t the only one! I don’t care. I love him in my own way and I know he loves me in his.

‘I don’t love him, Sir.’

‘Past tense, Karl. Speak in the past tense.’

‘I didn’t love him, Sir.’

‘Say it again, De Man.’

‘I didn’t love him, Mr Mathison.’

‘Say he . . . abused you.’

‘He abused me, Sir.’

‘Now tell me what he did to you, word for word, moment for moment. How many times, where, when, where did he touch you?’ And the boy weeps as he stands before the man, and he shakes his head and he says he cannot tell.

‘Why not, why can’t you speak?’

‘Because you’re going to chase him away, I know. Like you fired Mr Samuels.’

‘What do you know about Mr Samuels?’

‘Everybody knows. It was even in the newspapers.’

The headmaster sits, his head resting in his hands. It seems he is waiting for Karl to stop crying. He slowly rises from his chair. Karl raises his head and goes quiet. Mathison again sits down.

‘I want you to tell me all the details. Or I will call your parents.’ Exhausted, no longer able to weep, he looks at the man with red, swollen eyes. He no longer fears the man. It is as if he now reads fear from the man’s stare. Mathison is the one whom the boy now sees as afraid. What have I said, Karl’s mind churns, what over the past hour has suddenly hit home to make this man fearful? And then, with the last of his bravado, mustering something of Dominic’s words spoken in a different time in a different place: ‘You can phone my parents, Mr Mathison. You can expel me. I don’t care anymore, Sir. I’m no longer afraid of anything.’

The headmaster stares at the boy in disbelief. Slowly his stare turns to a look of deep loathing. Karl’s hand around the key is sweaty and he drops the object into his gown pocket. Rubs both hands on the towelling fabric. It seems that an hour passes in which the two of them do nothing but stare at each other.

It is Mathison who breaks the silence: ‘Karl, let you and me make a pact today. Do you know what a pact is?’

‘Yes, Mr Mathison.’

‘You are proud of this school, right?’