A Trojan Affair

by Michael Smorenburg

  With this in mind, he’d enthusiastically waded into the details, trying to inject excitement into his delivery.

  “My strange accent…?” he had begun as jovially as he’d planned to, while pinning up posters of huge radio dishes superimposed onto their desert landscape. “It’s from England.”

  The class had reflected a few mild smiles dotted a sea of blank or suspicious faces, the smiles mainly from the girls he’d chatted with earlier. For daring it, the teacher had given each of them a withering look to extinguish their welcome.

  “My mother’s an astrophysicist, studying the physics of the universe. She’s from Boston, but she graduated from Caltech. Now she’s on contract from the European Space Consortium and will be here for the next five years. My dad’s from India… he graduated from Oxford and studies Evolutionary Anthropology, so his work has him travelling a lot. He’s in America right now promoting his newest book and doing a lecture tour, but he’ll be visiting here soon.”

  He’d finished fixing the posters to the board.

  All the while, the teacher had been pacing the class irritably, deliberately drawing attention away from Dara and to himself.

  “So… mine is a family of scientists; the first of many new residents who’ll soon come to this area to work on one of the greatest scientific infrastructures ever—the SKA… I’m sure everyone here knows what it is?”

  From the back of the class had come the response, “Ja… ‘n rooinek duiwel gedoente.”

  “A foreigner’s devil contraption,” someone quickly translated for his benefit.

  The class had erupted with laughter and out of years of habit, van der Nest had scowled, trying to pick out the culprit and decide what to do. Since he’d agreed with the sentiment, he’d done nothing but growl, “Stilte!” The class had instantly gone deathly quiet.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand…?” Dara had asked.

  “It’s nothing… Jus’ get on with it! We know what it is—that telescope,” van der Nest had snapped. “Your SKA. Hurry this up!” He’d stalked to the window and looked out at the nothingness beyond the parking lot.

  Dara had seen how the class minutely scrutinized the teacher for his smallest reactions, hardly watching the presentation at all.

  Van der Nest’s demeanour had begun hostile and steadily deteriorated from there. To ensure there’d be no misunderstanding, he’d huffed and clucked noisily, making a scene out of advertising his disinterest and irritation.

  “Well, sir… Yes, the SKA. It’s a radio telescope, not an optical one. Radio’s a longer wavelength of light so you don’t use lenses like a normal telescope; the SKA uses giant dishes, like satellite TV dishes, but these are as big as houses. South Africa’s sharing the project with Australia; eighty percent of it is being built in South Africa and…”

  Another disruption flared; a heckler shouting out again in Afrikaans led to a short but enthusiastic discussion with derogatory overtones about the raging sport rivalry between South Africa and Australia. Van der Nest had reluctantly shooshed this more interesting diversion.

  “SKA, Square Kilometre Array. It gets its name from the total collecting area of its three and a half thousand dishes spread all over Southern Africa and out as far as Madagascar, Malawi and even Nigeria. Together they make up a square kilometre… that’s a million square meters of collecting area. Now, here’s what’s amazing: It will collect more data per day than the Internet produces in a month. So much data that if it was written to compact discs, the stack would grow by a kilometre a minute. That’s sixty kilometres an hour.”

  By this time, van der Nest had retired to his chair where he’d sat with his knee jumping incessantly on an arched foot, irritated and enduring this offensive boy with only a slender veneer of self-control.

  The unpleasantness had gotten to Dara, and his own voice had seemed to him to be coming from outside his body; his vision had bounced to each pound of his heart but he’d pressed on.

  The facts of his mother’s career and the instrument she was helping to build had stunned him when he’d first learned of them. But though he’d used simple language, the teacher’s reaction and blank stares he’d received had convinced him that a cultural disconnect in his telling of it must have been the reason, so he’d tried another tack from his prepared pitch.

  “Three hundred years ago when Galileo pointed his telescope to the sky, he increased our resolution of the stars by ten times—but the SKA will increase our knowledge not just by ten but by ten thousand times. As you know, Galileo was nearly burned at the stake by the church for being right. This is going to be a lot bigger and Carnarvon is going to be its very centre.”

  The silence had crackled with that statement—all eyes had gone to van der Nest, whose face had cragged, his eyes slitting with building outrage at each word that Dara had uttered.

  Seeing the unmistakable fury, Dara had shuffled and stammered, not knowing what he’d done to offend nor how to turn it around, so he’d pushed deeper into the features of the unit and deeper still into the morass of the teacher’s wrath.

  “The scientists don’t even know how they’ll manage all the data, but when it comes on-stream in another decade or so, computer technology will have increased according to Moore’s Law so tha…”

  But this boy goading Van der Nest’s deepest mistrust of foreigners and their motives had been all too much for him. Like a thundercloud on sweltering day, the teacher had stood from his chair to his full height cutting Dara off mid-sentence. “And what will this donnerse ding… what will your damned thing do, hey? What is it reeeeally going to do, this fantastic masjien you like so much? What trrrruble is it looking for?”

  Van der Nest had stammered the question, too blinded by wrath to find the English words, his heavy accent rendering it almost incoherent. Dara had stumbled into the literal answer with trepidation.

  “We… we’re… looking for the origins of the universe—fo… for where everything; the sun and stars, earth and life… where it all came from and how it happened. We’re looking for other life in the galaxy or univer…”

  “And where-is-our-God in all of this?” van der Nest had snarled, his voice low and rumbling like thunder with menace.

  Dara had seen an angry vein snake its way across the man’s forehead and it unnerved him. “I… I… I don’t know sir.”

  “I’ll tell you then you… you little boy.” The cautions Principal Louw had only just impressed upon him to avoid racial slurs at all costs with this foreign boy had reined his mouth in, but left it with not much else. “Our God is nowhere in there and that… that…” His hands had balled into fists. “That means…”

  He’d not finished his sentence; face red, eyes bulging, the words had dried in his mouth. His jaw had worked but when all sound had abandoned him, he’d slammed his fist into the desk and a classroom full of hearts had leapt as high as the pencil tin that clattered to the ground, spewing its contents across the floor. He’d turned and stomped to the door. A moment later it slammed behind him with an echo and the click of his heels had strode away down the corridor.

  “Jislaaik!” a small nervous voice somewhere in the class had said.

  The low burble and murmur of children unsure of what to make of the situation had been punctuated by a few nervous giggles. Dara had shuffled his feet and slowly made his way to his desk, careful not to catch anybody’s eye, careful to keep his hands closed to fists so they didn’t fidget.

  A few moments later, the bell had rung in the corridor outside and everyone had begun to file out until Dara had been almost alone.

  The last to pass him had cleared up the matter, “Meneer van der Nest is die Dominee… the town preacher.”

  Dara had listened till the corridor outside had become quiet and deserted.

  He’d quietly collected his belongings into his bag and left the classroom. School rules so recently impressed on him required all learners to vacate the building for the duration of breaks but given the sudden crisis
, he’d preferred some solitude to think, so he’d sought out a quiet corner that nobody would be likely to check.

  It hadn’t been long before the patrolling teacher ferreted him out and quickly identified him as the newcomer who didn’t know any better. He was spared further sanction and unceremoniously ejected onto the playground.

  Now outside, the heat was wearing on Dara. His emotions frayed, the effort of keeping up a brave attitude sapped his energy and he felt exhausted.

  Just then the school bell rang again, calling an end to lunch break and everyone began traipsing back toward the squat-face brick school building.

  Tjaardt and the other boys went directly inside but Dara lingered a little talking to Dawie, reluctant to be in the throng, and delaying the misery of yet more tension as long as possible.

  “Whether you think you did or didn’t talk against God doesn’t matter,” Dawie was explaining. “If Dominee van der Nest thinks you did, you did… he makes those decisions for us.”

  Dara couldn’t grasp the blind herd mentality of it. “Nobody around here ever thinks for themselves?”

  “On this topic? No. I do, but I’ll never talk about it.”

  “Well if none of you talk about it, perhaps everyone disagrees with the preacher?” Dara suggested.

  “Perhaps some do but I’m not going to find out.”

  “Kom julle… OPSKUD!” shouted a teacher from the parking lot. He was pointing an accusing finger at them and motioning them to Get A Move On to the building.

  Their short delay had the two new friends entering the corridor, briefly within view of the distant adult, then swallowed by a clutch of stragglers from the field who had accelerated to catch up, all speaking Afrikaans.

  Before he realized it, Dara was shouldered apart from his new companion and swallowed by the mob, the ominous laughter peculiar to boys in a horde pummelling him as they closed ranks around him, a sea of tall uniforms walling off and screening his view on all sides.

  A sense of foreboding gripped Dara, but he committed to ignoring it and winning his way to the next class through bluff alone.

  The press of bodies surged as they funnelled through the unlit passage, so cool and dark after the brightness of the African sun.

  When it came, he didn’t feel the punch—it detonated solidly at the base of his skull with a thunderclap of sound and he collapsed like an imploded smokestack.

  Looking up, blinking, his vision reverberated; a sea of faces leered back. An acrid smell from the impact stung within his nostrils. The ring of faces looking down on him jabbered excitedly, jostling and shoving over him lying prostrate, the din in his ears from the impact of the blow obliterating all hope of comprehending a word.

  Through the fog, he realized two camps: one half trying to move the other half away from him, the antagonists trying to get past them to land new blows.

  There was a timid and testing kick in his ribs and someone stamped on his ankle, but he hardly registered these as pain; he only felt the nausea.

  Then something wet, a glob of thick liquid smacked him in the face.

  Instinctively, he wiped at it with the back of his hand and a roar of laughter went up as it clung to his wrist; the unmistakable opaque muck of spat mucus.

  Looking past it through the strobe and swirl of vision, he saw the girl with the hair from the playground. She was fighting mightily, wrestling to push someone back, giving it her all to stop the figure reaching Dara.

  He felt revolted to see the ferocity she endured for him, ashamed to be lying so helpless while she fought. Then she was gone, flung aside. Through the haze, surging into view where she’d been a moment before appeared the smirking culprit—as ugly as a fortress with close-cropped hair squaring off a head like a block of granite, his nose crooked across his face.

  His name was Vermaak, Neels Vermaak—the ringleader from the playground ball game, the “bad news” Dawie had just moments ago warned him about.

  “Mister Prrrrretty boy…” said the piece of granite with a drum-roll to his rrrs, “Jou klein swart moffie duiwelaanbidder. Kom… staan… ek klap jou weer.”

  The throaty challenge to stand up for another smack needed no interpretation. Dara had already picked up enough of the local dialect to know he was being goaded with accusations of homosexuality and devil worship.

  The words washed over him in a dream state, all in slow motion as the boy deliberately wiped his own mouth to emphasize who owned the gob.

  Then, suddenly, the crowd evaporated, and a lone adult was looking down on Dara.

  Lying in the sick bay, Dara found himself being attended by the kindly old secretary in a hideous blue floral dress who acted as nurse. She had an icepack to his neck.

  “Now you jus’ lie still, you hear?”

  She was plump and genial and thick of accent. “Poor thing. I’m sorry for you but it’s your own fault… this is why you’re forbidden to horseplay in the corridors.”

  Principal Louw, judge, jury and executioner, had quickly convened an impromptu hearing close by; the girl with the blonde hair was among them, the block of granite was absent.

  The principal wagged his finger sternly at the girl’s bowed face severely admonishing her. “Wat sal jou Pa se? Staan jy nie op vir jou eie mense nie?” His tone said it all—the disappointment her father would feel and questioning why she wouldn’t stand up for her own people.

  Judgment was swiftly delivered. Dara’s clowning had caused the slip and fall that had cracked the back of his skull on the floor. He was firmly reprimanded for putting the school’s good name at risk. Conduct like this strictly contravened school regulations—he would be dealt with and learn the consequences once his concussion had been assessed.

  Dara was in no position to argue against the gang of witnesses hastily assembled. He didn’t care to, as he had no intention of returning to face sanction anyway.

  His mother, who the secretary said was on her way, would be relieved with this decision, he thought. Marsha had been against him enrolling in the first place.

  Now what he most dreaded was Marsha’s inevitable “I told you so!”

  “I told you... I warned you! You know I’ll always back you up but why must you confront these people?” Marsha scolded Dara as they arrived at her car. She stopped and hugged him before she opened the door. “This is terribly upsetting.”

  They got into the BMW, its sleek air-conditioned interior an oasis of familiarity.

  “I didn’t confront them, Mum.”

  “The principal just gave me an earful, how very insulting you were in class, no respect for your hosts…”

  “What?”

  “I’m merely repeating….”

  “That’s ridiculous, Mum. I already told you what happened.”

  “They see things differently—this is what I alerted you to.”

  They rolled in silence through the school gates and she put her hand on his knee and squeezed it.

  “I’m not attacking you. I’m just concerned you don’t quite understand. They’re different to us… different to anyone you’ve met.”

  “I didn’t try to change them, Mum. I didn’t even bring it up. The teacher asked me to talk about your work.”

  She was silent a moment. “How’re you feeling now?”

  “I’m fine Mum, you’re making a big deal over nothing.”

  But she knew he wasn’t and saw how he kept his hands pressed firmly to his thighs as he replayed events though his mind in the silence, tension in his shoulders.

  They stopped at the clinic where, after an hour’s negotiation, Dara triumphed and was discharged.

  “You’re making such a big deal of it,” he griped as he opened the car door. “It was nothing, Mum.” He got in and shut the door. “I’ve had worse playing soccer.”

  “Enough, Dara,” she admonished. “The doctor agreed—an overnight observation is normal.”

  “But not around here.” Dara repeated what the doctor had conceded after Dara had used every argumen
t to escape a whole night in a hospital bed for observation. “I’ll sleep in your bed and you can watch me all night,” he had bargained to win his discharge.

  A few blocks later Marsha turned the car off the broad main street onto a side road and parked outside a drab pale-blue building, fenced from the street with coiled razor wire topping its perimeter.

  Flagpoles stood outside, the flags flaccid against the dazzling blue of the sky. A “South African Police” sign jutted above the charge office door.

  “Why are we stopping here?” There was alarm in Dara’s voice.

  “We have to lay a charge.”

  “No Mum! No way! I’m not a coward.”

  “We have to do it, Dara,” she asserted, knowing that fears of cowardice were his demon.

  A hulking man in a straining blue police uniform filled the doorway, his back to the road. As they stopped, he peered at them over his shoulder, a cigarette smouldering between sausage fingers held outside behind his rump.

  Slowly, he turned and studied them more closely. Lifting the cigarette to his mouth, he drew on it thoughtfully. The smoky exhalation appearing slowly through his nose as his ice-blue eyes explored the contents of the vehicle, scanning its occupants as a predator picks prey from a herd. He puffed the last of the plume and a hint of an approving smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.

  The giant nodded a barely perceptible greeting to Marsha; it seemed more ominous than welcoming.

  “Men don’t lay charges,” Dara was insisting.

  “It’s not about being a man and it’s got nothing to do with cowardice, Dara. The ones who ambush from behind are the cowards.”

  Since Marsha and her husband had begun spending extended periods apart, each involved in careers that forced them to different continents, Dara had assumed a fiercely protective role.

  He bristled at what he took as a misguided suggestion from his mother that he was somehow weak. “I’m seventeen! I can handle this.”