Moffie (23 page)

 

M
y mother left us when we were very young.'

‘Mal?' His bush hat is rolled up under his epaulette. The wind catches his hair, which jerks in sudden movement. He looks far ahead into the bush, not focussing. ‘I know I told you she had died, but she met someone else and left. She's dead to me, so I guess I didn't lie to you. I've never told anybody the truth; no friend, I mean. But I can't keep secrets from you.' I see the chain holding his dog tags below the top two buttons, which are un­done, his skin sunburnt and young, his mouth firm.

‘In a way my father died the day she left; just opted out of life, started drinking. He was always too gentle . . . I hated her.'

‘Hell, that must have been shitty.'

‘It had its good side too. We had total freedom. We raised our­selves, actually. My father didn't even know whether we were at school or not. Don't think he even knew which high school we went to. But he always gave us what he could.'

‘And your sister, Mal?'

‘My sister and I hardly see each other. She's married to a chau­vinist fuck-face and all she thinks about is him and the children. He hates me, calls me a moffie, so I don't see her. Not that I want to in any case. They're reborn hypocrites; think I'm evil.' Then he is quiet.

‘Were you two close?'

‘Yes, very. We did everything together. I used to think that is why I'm G-A-Y.' He spells the word soundlessly, glancing around to make sure that no one else sees it.

‘I also only had a sister after my brother died, but I know that's not why I'm gay. I was born this way, no doubt. We were so dif­ferent. She always split on me. It was like having three parents. Did you have many friends at school?'

‘Yep, but never really close ones. I was always hiding who I really was from them, so there was always a kind of barrier. Ter­rified of being identified, being called a moffie, you know.'

The drone of the engine and the buffeting of the hot air blend with our voices, with what we are sharing.

‘You are my best friend, Nick. I want you to know this. We must look out for each other.'

‘I will be there for you, Mal, I promise.'

‘Best friend.' We do our two-finger greeting. To my right Os­car sees it, but says nothing and carries on reading amidst the shaking.

Looking into the shrub, it seems ominous, dark with mystery, and dense. Strange to think that killing takes place in there . . . all this is so bizarre. In bush like this I will walk, with my rifle, with full magazines and a live round in the chamber.

‘So, Nick . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘How did you deal with your G-ness? I mean you are a believ­er and all, aren't you?'

‘Well, I had this mentor . . .'

‘Yeah, the guy who was accused of being G?' We now no long­er use the word ‘gay'—it's G, with H for homosexual and M for moffie.

‘Yes, and he taught me to just have blind faith, against all odds, blind faith. So, over time I have developed this totally honest re­lationship with God. I reckon that is the most positive thing that ever came out of my “affliction.” I decided that if God knows everything, well then He must know I didn't choose the way I am, or He must change me if it's so terrible. I just told God every­thing: my fantasies, infatuations, everything.'

‘Even your fantasies?'

‘Yep, every single thing. I trusted God completely with every­thing. And over time I just thought, bugger what the church peo­ple say, God is quite cool with it, and He understands.'

‘Well, you should have got some help, 'cos you sure as hell don't seem well to me!' he laughs.

‘Yeah, and you? You would need an army of psychologists, Blondie.'

 

We stop for ‘lunch' or smoke break or piss break, whatever we need to do.

Mal and I sit in the shade of the Buffel, against a tyre, sharing our rat packs.

First, we lay out the contents to see what this unlucky dip holds: biscuits (which we call dog biscuits), instant porridge, coffee, tea and sugar. For the main meal, we have three small tins (mince and noodles; steak, onion and potato ‘salad'; and a compressed meat spread) plus an energy ‘milk shake,' and an energy orange drink we mix with lukewarm water from the wa­ter car that is towed by a Buffel. For dessert, there are sweets and the only worthwhile thing in the whole pack: condensed milk. Our cutlery is our
piksteel
or
fokken
knife and spoon, as it's called.

Not far from us, Corporal Smith joins a group of men, and we overhear their conversation.

‘So, when an instructor gives troops a hard time, I believe they put a shined-up bullet on his pillow, which means he's a marked man.'

‘Yep, if we don't like you, we can kill you here.'

‘You can shoot one of your own buddies if you have some beef with him, like if he stole your chick or something, and you'll never get into trouble. “Killed in action,” is what they'll say.'

‘Ja, why do you think there are so many casualties up here. Guys get shot by their own
tjommies, ek sê
.'

‘No shit,' someone says, and I hear Dorman say, ‘But remem­ber, it also works the other way round.'

‘What do you mean, Sarge?'

‘Well, if I get fed up with one of you little cunts, I can take you out.' Then he turns around and looks at me. I hold his stare until he turns back to the group.

‘I think you should talk to the captain, Nick. Dorman has it in for you big time.'

‘He's just trying to scare me.'

‘No, Nick! You don't mess around with shit like that . . . fuck it, man.'

‘What can I tell the captain that won't make me look like a fool?'

‘Well, if you don't do something, I will.'

‘OK.'

‘I'm so
gatvol
of this Buffel. How much longer before we get there?

‘No one knows.'

‘Tell me a story, will you?'

‘OK, I'll tell you something I thought of when we were talking about our sisters.'

‘Is it a true story?'

‘Yes, now listen. I have this uncle—my mother's brother. Uncle Ben lives in the southern part of Namibia, on a beautiful farm. Well, I like it, it's real desert. He had a problem with baboons, so he speared them to death by hand.'

‘Bullshit. I thought it was a true story.'

‘No, it is. He trapped them in cages first, but that's not my story. He had captured this cheetah on the farm and kept it in a cage behind the shed where he fixed the trucks, and there were some pigsties and storerooms and trash. Anyway, this cheetah fascinated me. I tell you, Mal, this animal was so unbelievably beautiful, you know, up close. I couldn't bear to see it in a cage. So I decided to free it.'

‘What? You crazy fuck!'

‘Well, I reckoned if I attached a long cord to the latch I could wangle it loose from a distance. In fact, I could do it from a win­dow in the shed. But I didn't think the plan through properly, because when I pulled the latch, I thought I'd be able to pull the gate as well. But there wasn't enough leverage. So the latch opened but the gate wouldn't budge. Eventually I plucked up the courage to go outside, and just as I get to the cage, the chee­tah flies at the fence. Shit, my heart stopped. So I thought bug­ger this, I'm not dying for this cause. But the cheetah flies at me again and this time it hits the unlocked gate, and it opens. And I'm standing this far away from it.' I point out a distance quite a bit shorter than it really was, of course.

‘So?'

‘The cheetah slowly pushes past, scampers out and runs off in the opposite direction. I nearly shat myself. A few minutes later, I hear this
moer
of a commotion behind the house, dogs yelping and screams and shouts—huge drama. I managed to get back to the room unnoticed, but just as I slip into bed, Bronwyn asks, “What have you done now, Nicholas?” Not “Where have you been?” but “What have you done?”'

‘Go on!'

‘I gave her some bullshit story and swore her to secrecy. But shit, Mal, I was shitting myself. The next day I find out that the cheetah has mauled uncle Ben's staffie. Man, he loved that dog like a child. But the best was that he thought it was some guy who worked for him who was pissed off and wanted revenge, so I was off the hook. What does the Bron bitch do? She goes and tells my folks.'

‘You must have been in deep, deep sheila!'

‘My father beat the crap out of me. Eventually my mother came into the bathroom and begged my father. “Why don't you just shoot him if you want to kill him,” she said.' Malcolm finds this highly amusing.

 

By this time, the sun has moved behind the trees, changing to a deep red. Suddenly I'm overwhelmed with a desire to hold on to it. Up to now it has always been ‘before.' But tomorrow it's the real thing. If only I could hold on to this day. But through this bush of death, the sun just carries on sinking and the convoy seems to gain urgency as darkness starts to fall around us. Or is it simply the uncertainty that dusk brings? Why we go on travel­ling at night and when we will arrive at our destination, is not for us to know. Not that I think anybody really cares in this state of fatigue and with the noise of the demons in our heads.

Just after eleven, we stop at a base, where we are instructed in muted tones to line up. We march into an area surrounded by high ‘walls' made out of sand. There is no light. In the walls are guard bunkers, and I also notice a lookout and water tower sil­houetted against the inky-blue sky. This is where we will spend the night, amidst the smell of unwashed men and diesel—diesel from a spill, which penetrates every fibre of my kit and will for­ever remind me of my time with Koevoet.

 

Where the base now stands was probably once a prosperous cat­tle farm. Parts of the buildings are blown away, and others dam­aged by shrapnel. What is left of the buildings is for the officers and a sickbay; out of bounds for us.

There is a baobab tree with a trunk that splits into two close to the ground. I find it the most beautiful of plants. The Bushmen believe it has mystical powers and medicinal properties, but this poor tree has chosen such a bad place to grow. Now, hundreds of years into its life, man has decided to have a war here, and it will bear huge scars of this short time in history. Three quarters of the way up the tree, the two thick trunks have been cut off to be used as a base for a lookout post and to house a machine gun.

At times discipline can furnish one with a sense of security, es­pecially when it feels as if the world around you has gone mad. But in Koevoet there is no such sense. There seems to be no discipline, and the men are completely wild. They have estab­lished their own methods and seem to be accountable to nobody. When we ride in the vehicles, we have ways of climbing on and strapping ourselves in that are rehearsed so many times that we can do it in our sleep. Not Koevoet. They ride on the sides or on the roofs, anyway they care to. Our vehicles are all exactly the same, always parked as if in a platoon, ready for parade. Their vehicles are left haphazardly wherever they have stopped. The cars are dirty, painted and personalised, with parts missing and crude modifications, like machine guns fastened to the tops of the Hippo APC's.

Their personal appearance entails whatever makes them feel comfortable—long hair, torn clothing and a scruffy craziness.

 

Towards the evening we are told to go and look at the ‘kill' of the day in a roofless, battered building. There isn't always a kill, but today there are five.

 

***

 

The Hippo comes to a screeching halt in a cloud of dust. Shout­ing soldiers waving their rifles hang over the top rim of the ve­hicle, and along the sides are hanging what look like half-filled sacks, but they are in fact bodies dangling awkwardly, doubled over. Then the bodies get thrown from the vehicle like trophies, as uncle Hendrik's workers used to do with the springbok after a hunt.

Parts of the bodies are missing where machine guns have eat­en away at them like chainsaws through soft timber. One terror­ist's head is completely crushed, with varying shades of yellow pulp squeezed out where bone has torn the skin. A twisted jaw pushes teeth through the one cheek. His face is held together only by skin, covered in dirt from being dragged through the sand.

How resilient God has made human skin. But where is He now? I wonder. Why is He looking the other way?

Here I see a new kind of death. Not a family shattered by the loss of a loved one, not the pain and guilt of a suicide, but a death flirted with, scoffed at, celebrated. I am not observing something from some other civilisation, but one I am trapped in. My subconscious sprays it into me—this colour of brutality.

It is critical that I guard against this with all my might, be­cause I'm dealing with a force that is staring at me. And I'm star­ing back, knowing I've been changed by it, and I sense it smil­ing. I feel my brain shaking me, telling me to take note.

The corruption is swift as I notice how many of the boys start joining in the perverse rejoicing. There is a quiver in their laugh, which is like a taut cable binding the hate inside them.

Two of the victims lying at our feet are teenagers. We have heard stories about the terrible conditions in which they live in Angola. I've dismissed it as propaganda, but here are the exam­ples—wasted bodies, dressed in rags.

 

***

 

It is our third day at the Koevoet base, and our platoon leaves early for the first patrol. It would have been tedious if it hadn't been that we were hunting people and they were hunting us. Even so, during the long hours on patrol the initial fear of find­ing a terrorist behind every bush starts eroding.

At midday we dismount and start walking. The vehicles wait for us as we make our way through the thicker vegetation. There is a Koevoet tracker in front and we follow in a V-formation. We are following a spoor none of us can see. The tracker, we are told, can tell everything about the person he is following, what he is carrying, as well as his physical stature and condition.