Moffie (17 page)

‘I don't know. I haven't been there.' When they see him grin, everybody laughs, too loudly, for too long. But he does seem to know. He is the captain and he knows
everything
. ‘They treat them with sophisticated techniques, I am told, and eventually they give society a perfectly balanced individual who can inte­grate, get married and have children. What they should fucking do is shoot the fucks! So if there is anybody here who has even the slightest doubt whether he's a moffie or not, talk to your cor­poral and we'll help you. But God help you if later on this year I find more moffies here. I swear to God I will personally see to it that you're sent to DB if you as much as touch another man, so help me God. So now is your chance.' He pulls his nose up by puckering his mouth, and his bushy moustache exaggerates the movement.

‘Remember, it's against army rules to take your life. You're not allowed to harm yourself, because you have no right over your­self. Touch army property and I'll see to it that you go to DB. That's a promise on the lives of my children. I swear I'll see you go to DB.'

 

The army chaplain is a Dutch Reformed minister and he talks to our platoon in one of the instruction rooms. His tone is pseudo ­kind and he talks about the sin ‘this boy' has committed, the pain he has caused his parents and his loved ones, and the cost of this selfish deed to the army.

He looks at me and says that I, as he is told, was the boy's best friend and I should be angry for what he has done to me. I say that I'm not. My anger is so patent that he doesn't address me again. Besides, on my records it states that I'm Catholic, which means that I'm beyond redemption.

 

Never once do I lose control. I am well trained in such matters—Frankie, failing at school, my religious conflict and my sexual wiring, to name but a few.

Numb perseverance, experience, genetic make-up? I wade through the un-wadable. Unlike in mutual suffering such as my brother's death, I don't have the luxury of being cradled by the sorrow of others, of being inside shared pain.

 

In the small mirror in the shower complex I look at my own im­age. Dylan and I showered here . . . just the other day. If I look closely, I can feel him here, in the dark distance of my peripheral vision. He is here in a strange, unfilled way. His words push and strain inside me; all the things he told me, closed, continuous echoes.

I cup my hands under the tap and splash my face. Then I do it again and again, but it doesn't help. I lean on the basin and stare into the small square mirror until it frames my face and I can see nothing else. Just my wet face. Everything else is cut off. But it is not. What I want to remove, I can't. I'm breathing . . . in and out, in and out . . . for how much longer, I wonder?

I look at my eyes as though for the first time. They startle me, for I see inside them something ethereal. Yet all they really are, are round shapes in different browns with small black holes in the centre, from where little flecks dart as if on fire. They are just shapes, that's all, just shapes, but they have the ability to disturb me.

What would they still see? I wonder. Behind my eyes, that's where it all is. In there are the images.

The mirror starts clouding up and I write on it
Dylan, Forever Young.
As I write the words, they evaporate.

Around the building the wind is groaning, cold and agonising. It breathes in and bemoans its fate, incessantly, like a colic child. But this is no sound from a child—it's a beast with an unending ability to express its wretchedness.

 

***

 

Malcolm becomes a patient comforter. He stands by me, next to my emptiness . . . no, my fullness, overfull of emptiness.

The comfort of this closeness and understanding is what makes me decide to join Mal on a pass to Johannesburg. It would be easier not to have to face my folks now. Or is the real reason that Johannesburg is so close to Pretoria, so close to Voortrek­kerhoogte . . . so close to Ethan?

 

Instead of giving two more guys a lift to Johannesburg to help pay for the petrol, Malcolm decides that we should travel alone and make it part of our holiday.

He has planned a weekend jam-packed with activities, all de­signed to help me forget. If Mal doesn't succeed in healing me, he definitely starts the process with this dizzy weekend, filled with so much excitement that I have no time to dwell on any­thing else.

We scamper from movies to restaurants, sometimes three in one night for different courses, even on different sides of the city. We play and sing a selection of songs over and over, so loudly that the speakers distort.

He calls me Scank and later puts our songs on a tape that he calls Scank Tape One. Every new day starts with, ‘I
must
show you this,' and we burst forth into the next adventure. For this weekend Johannesburg becomes the most exciting city in the world to me.

 

***

 

‘Nick, are you awake?'

‘Yes.'

‘Shit, aren't you tired?'

‘Exhausted.'

‘Well? You must get your beauty sleep, boy, so we can scank it up tomorrow. I've got lots planned!'

‘I know. I wish I could.'

‘Is it . . .' I don't answer, ‘you know . . . Dylan?'

‘Yes . . .'

‘Try to think about something else.'

‘I do, but I haven't been able to sleep since the . . . Sometimes I sleep a little, but it's a restless sleep. I have nightmares and it's like I'm not asleep or awake, you know . . . terrible, half-asleep nightmares.'

‘What kind of nightmares?'

‘The sight of him lying there, dead. I can't get it out of my mind, Mal. And then all the things he said to me whirl around in my head. It's like I can hear him, I know exactly what he's saying, what he thinks, everything.'

‘Maybe you should go for therapy.'

‘No, that would be the end of Infantry School, I tell you. They don't want a
malletjie
as a junior leader. Remember, we're sup­posed to be able to kill. We can't be freaked out by death.'

‘Yes, but this is different.'

‘I'm not sure they'll see it that way.'

‘What is worrying you the most?'

‘Well, that I could have prevented it. Shit, Mal, I really think I could have. I really do.'

‘Well, you could NOT have, so stop thinking you could. Abso­lutely, you could not have.'

‘I miss him, and you know . . . he was such a gentle guy. I mean, he really was special. And he was intelligent and kind and mature. I just can't . . . I guess I just don't understand it.'

‘I never really got a grip on him, to be honest, just couldn't make a connection.'

‘Most people couldn't.'

‘But you did. You must be grateful for that.' Again we are quiet. I am overcome by the need to tell Malcolm that I think he was in love with me and had I been more sensitive I could have pre­vented this tragedy. But to do that, I'll have to tell him that I'm gay.

‘Malcolm . . .'

‘Yes, talk as much as you like, I'm here.'

‘What hurts me the most is, I was with him just before . . . you know . . . and he drank some water. I mean, why drink water, what for, if you're going to kill yourself? It just doesn't make any sense, man . . . fuck!'

‘Don't think about it. There are things we'll never understand. What did you talk about?'

‘Just before?'

‘Yes.'

‘New York.'

‘New YORK? Why?'

‘I think it had something to do with people who live a certain kind of life, you know, really spoilt people. He seemed to detest wealthy people. No, not wealthy people, rather people who are ruined by wealth; people who get bored because they have so much. But then, maybe I didn't understand what he was trying to say. I know he was really freaked out by those two guys who were caught kissing!'

‘Fuck, that was bad. I wonder how they beat the
blouvitrioel
.'

‘Copper sulphate doesn't stop one from falling in love, just from being randy. But maybe they didn't drink tea or coffee. In any case, Dylan was freaked out about that incident. He said stuff like that changes one's life.'

‘Nick, you must admit he was a little . . . odd. I mean, one doesn't kill oneself 'cos one doesn't like rich folk!'

‘No, Mal, there was other stuff.'

I want to tell him about the cigarette burns, but decide not to.

‘Shit, Nick, you've got a strong streak of oddness yourself, you know! Just promise me . . .' he giggles, ‘you must know, I'll kill you if you die.' I realise that Malcolm wants to lighten up the conversation, but I'm not ready yet. ‘C'mon, Nick, tell me a story.'

‘You know, he used to ask me that.'

‘What?'

‘To tell him a story. But at the moment I only have nightmares to tell.'

‘Are your nightmares only about him or about other stuff too?'

‘Yes and no. Some are, but mostly they are incidents from my childhood that I seem to relive again. They come up as if they are somehow linked, but they aren't, if that makes any sense. I'm having a recurring dream again. I last had it as a child, after my brother's accident. I swear I haven't had it for years and now I'm having it again, exactly the same! And then I have these memories that seem so clear, from my youth, like it happened yesterday. I don't know if it's the training, or the lack of sleep, or the thoughts about the border, or what.'

‘Like?'

‘Like this one thing that happened to me years ago.'

‘What? Tell me. It'll be good for you. And at least you won't be thinking about Dylan.'

 

I lie on my back looking up at the ceiling. Here I am, in a house in Johannesburg with a friend, and my old life knows nothing of me. They never really knew anything about me, did they? Now they don't even know where I am. Maybe it's a good thing, I think, so that if I don't return from the border it will help them that they've let go before.

‘Nick?'

‘OK. I have an uncle who lives in Namibia. Once upon a time, I had an uncle who lived . . .' I laugh and so does Mal. ‘My moth­er's brother, stunning farm, shit, Mal, wild and unspoiled. Well, one day my uncle and I drive out with this black guy on the back. Mal?'

‘Yes, I'm listening.'

‘He let me drive; I loved it, this old Landy. You know, the one from the sixties, the one with the lights in the grill, not like the
garries
we use in the army. They have a face, with little cheeks, and he would remove the grill and use it as a braai grid when we did meat over the fire. So clever, those old ones . . . with the dashboard in the middle, all metal, no plastic.'

I lower my voice. Next to me my friend's breathing has be­come deep and rhythmic.

 

This room of Malcolm's is so different from Ethan's—like two different worlds. Ethan comes from such wealth and privilege. Clearly Malcolm has had a much harder life. I guess that's why he is so streetwise, so life-wise.

Strange how the army throws us all together, how many dif­ferent lives become intertwined. Good thing actually, otherwise I would never have met Mal. Under different circumstances, I would probably not have given him the time of day. And now he is the most important person in my life—yes, more important than Ethan.

I wonder what Dylan's house looks like. I'm sure it's really grand. I must go and see his folks, but not now, not this week­end. I need time. Actually, I felt more equal to him than to Ethan, like he judged the world by other standards. I guess I'll never know.

Oh God, take my friend's soul and give him peace and forgive me, forgive me . . .

I must stop thinking of this now. I must sleep, must sleep . . . think of something else.

 

 

U
ncle Ben and I are alone in the Land Rover. It's the same model used in the movie
Born Free
. Bright light is blazing through the dirty windshield and hot air rushing into the cabin through the large openings where the doors used to be. On the back stands a black man with the darkest skin I have ever seen.

Uncle Ben stops and asks me if I want to drive. He knows I would love to. He warns me that it will be difficult driving and if we get stuck it will be a long walk back to the farmhouse.

‘It's probably more than a day's walk, and we have very little water. We'll be travelling some distance in a dry riverbed, through thick sand. Do you think you can handle it?' I am blindly confident, not the way I feel when people ask me to play cricket or rugby.

‘I'm sure.'

‘We'll need the red lever—that's low range—for the next stretch.' The yellow lever pops out as I move the red lever back. It hooks. I move it forward again and back, and then it slides in.

The concentrated torque causes the vehicle to leap forward.

‘You hardly ever need first gear when you're in low range, Nick. Try pulling away in second.' The transfer case gears whine, and the Land Rover is thrown from side to side as it cuts through the deep sand.

‘Now build up speed.' There is urgency in uncle Ben's voice. ‘We need to get up that embankment. Faster, faster!' Before me an almost vertical riverbank looms, the engine races, and the vehicle starts climbing. Some of the wheels lose traction, then grip again, and we crest the bank.

‘Well done, Nick! You're good at this, aren't you!'

We follow a track up the side of a plateau, over large mounds built to cope with the slim possibility of flooding. As we reach the top I look back. Below us the plains stretch as far as the eye can see, and the dry river looks like a darkened line scribbled untidily on the immense expanse.

We drive towards a windmill that has been erected in the middle of nowhere to feed the concrete water trough providing a lifeline for animals of all kinds. Next to the trough is a wire cage. I can smell sheep droppings, and there is a smell of decaying meat in the air.

Uncle Ben walks around to my side, looks down and shakes his head. ‘Those bastard baboons,' he says and I walk towards what is left of a lamb. Like a spineless fluffy toy, I think. There is still fur, dirty dull-wool covered skin shrinking around its putrid frame. The animal's head seems hard and old. The eyes have been pecked out and the mouth is open. The expression the lamb now carries is of a forgotten tiny death.

The black man takes a metre long metal rod from the back of the Land Rover and walks over to the cage where a baboon is pacing back and forth in a space probably no more than twice its size. She becomes highly agitated as we approach, exhaustion and thirst forgotten, for she has never been this close to humans. From her back an infant crawls around her for protection—it knows its mother is distraught. When it reaches her chest, her arm moves instinctively to cradle it.

Uncle Ben takes the rod from the black man and carefully chooses a position in the wire mesh of the cage. He rests about ten centimetres of the spear on the bottom V of the mesh and moves the rod so that the point aims directly at the baboon's chest. My uncle and the animal move continuously, as if in sync.

The baboon hesitates for a fateful moment, and the spear drives into her chest. She grips the steel shaft, but the force pushes her against the back of the cage. The metal slides through the fine muscles around the animal's chest, finds a path between two ribs, tears them apart and punctures her left lung. Now she grips the spear with both hands but doesn't have enough leverage to pull it out.

The baby clings frantically to the stricken mother, its eyes wide as they follow the attacker's movements. The third stab penetrates the mother's organs again. The rod is pulled out, coated with mucus and blood. The lung boils through the hole, making gurgling sounds. White, red and pink froth bubbles out over the black hair, and then sucks back. Now the rod gets shoved into her abdomen, lacerating her organs, and eventually the mother's body can take no more shock and she collapses. The baby silently clutches its lifeless mother.

They open the cage and drag the mother out, with the bewildered infant still holding on tightly. The black man tears it off its mother by its back feet, swings it, screeching, through the air and brings it down on the edge of the concrete base. It takes only this one movement to pulverise the little animal's skull.