Rusty Bell

by Nthikeng Mohlele

  That’s all.

  Love,

  Rusty B.

  From: Michael@campus.ac.za

  To: RustyBell@campus.ac.za

  Subject: I am Serious

  Rusty,

  Great discoveries are often born out of catastrophic confusions. One small correction: my life and thoughts are not limited to self-starvation. I have no comments about all other matters you raise, except to say I will, to preserve clarity of thought and feeling, not be responding to any emails or phone calls of any kind, until such time that I have made compelling sense of some rather personal and therefore private quests. These might take a lifetime.

  Brotherly,

  Michael

  I spent seven days in Room 306, David Webster Hall, surviving on a jug of water, observing it cooling and heating to the whims of Johannesburg weather, expressing boredom the only way water knows how: with those undecided bubbles. It was only when hunger ceased to be a craving, a sensation, that the world blurred into streaks of white light, that sounds seemed faint and distant. I at times feared I was losing my mind, worried I had pushed too hard into the unknown.

  The world seemed to be swarming with insects, tiny silverish things hovering in mid-air, threatening to steal all the oxygen, leaving me weak and breathless. Palesa – whom I shall tell you more about – understood my predicament and, with feather-light cautions, encouraged my fifteen-day fasts. I asked if she thought I was losing my mind.

  ‘No, Michael,’ she said. ‘You’re just hungry. Bodies are designed to want food.’ I smiled meekly. ‘We have a new elephant,’ she reported. ‘I named her Moxie. It doesn’t have any special meaning or anything, just seemed to me an elephant-like, playful, graceful, circus-like kind of name. Moxie. It has a ring to it, don’t you think, a ring of a dependable friend?’ I nodded. She was suddenly passionate, reflective: ‘She’s a beautiful animal. Calm-spirited. Wise. I have a feeling she knows things we will never fathom. That trunk. Hovering over things. Silently sniffing. What do you think? D’you think Moxie is a cute name?’ I smiled, said I needed to rest. Palesa pressed my palm, like one bids farewell to a comatose, dying patient. ‘I will leave these grapes and yoghurt here,’ she said, ‘in case you decide to nibble something.’ I nodded. I supposed she went back to work, to the Johannesburg Zoo, but I didn’t ask. I must have dosed off.

  The fast was draining. First there were the fading hunger pangs, a microscopic throbbing of the bone marrow, a plunge into what seemed like warm fog. It was in the depths of that world, which was like walking through angry clouds, that I was besieged by the most colourful of dreams: children playing with hoola hoops on sand dunes, donkeys roaming free through expansive vineyards, that jacaranda-lined dirt road that led to my school, its gardens adorned with purple flowers and buzzing bees. I was, in my mind’s eye, that eight-year-old who ran carefree around school grounds, my eyes fixed on a kite fluttering above, once again that twig-legged rascal who dreaded thunder claps, whose nose remembered each teacher’s perfume, the dash of onion that lingered in their breath as they pressed their cheeks to mine, knowingly saving me from the horrors of mathematics.

  I once again heard Teacher Moleleki, the crucifix of her rosary hovering inches above my sums, say: ‘Four minus two equals two. Minus means we are taking away. Taking two away from four leaves us with two, because two twos make four.’ Her patience was partly her knowing, her refusal to accept that I hated mathematics, that I found it pointless. An unwelcome strain on the mind. I was, in my starvation, once again in that revered choir, marching with Gestapo precision, around the school block, singing: ‘Bajuda ba bolaile Jesu/ Bajuda ba bolaile Jesu/ Ba mmapola sefapanong/ Ba mmapola sefapanong/ Taba ye ke taba e bohloko/ Ba mmapola sefapanong.’

  I wept every time we sang it, every time I pictured the horrors depicted in its lyrics. It amazed me that I still awoke, fifteen-odd years later, heartsore at the memory of our Gestapo-like choral passions. Dr West’s face lit up at the discovery of this detail and, after two hours of probing yet open-ended questions, said he understood why the Jews killing Jesus and nailing him to a cross would, given Jesus’ admirable virtues, be traumatic to a child, confirmed by the song’s resolution: that the killing was painful news indeed.

  So it was that Dr West added ‘over-sensitivity’ to my diagnosis, cautioning: ‘Some people are a touch too tender-hearted, Michael. It is not an ailment, not in the medical sense, but a gift of sorts. Problem is, the world is indifferent to such people.’

  I drifted in and out of dream states – completely lost track of time, of the world and its murderous Jews, of the distant rumble of thunder, a rumble that hinted that something great and unknowable lurked in the universe. I drifted back to small discoveries: tyrant winds that could blow birds’ nests from the long limbs of jacaranda trees, leaving shivering pink chicks helpless in advancing dust storms; the effortless pleasure of sharpening a pencil, how the pencil peel folded itself into a miniature flower impression; how inky pens ruined shirt pockets; how army ants terrorised sickly praying mantises; the subtle crack of sand granules under soles of our polished shoes. It was during those dreamy states that a cat visited me, unhinged such an elaborate tale that left me perspiring, gasping for breath. It frustrated me a great deal so that neither Rusty Bell nor Dr West believed me when I told them of the visit from the cat. Dr West laughed, shrugged it off as some unlikely piece of information. But I know what I saw and, though Dr West dismissed me as ‘going through mental difficulties’, I have no doubt in my mind that, yes, generally speaking, cats cannot speak, but equally that this particular one was something quite different. An arrogant cat, I must add: thoughtful, brisk in temperament and such a gifted teller of tales.

  It was after my criss-crossing visions that I, very faintly, heard my dorm door open, someone walk in. It closed with a hesitant click. I, though half conscious, sensed a presence. The intruder slid in beside me, caressed my forehead with an open palm. I could tell, from the long fingers and mint hand cream, that it was Rusty. Palesa’s hands were on the warm side, considerate in their touching and grabbing of things. A tongue moistened my ear lobes, slithered its way to my shut eyes, before embalming my dry, scaly lips. There was at once heavy breathing, as that tongue left a moist track along my forehead, as those long fingers helped themselves to the only organ morally and philosophically supposed to be mine – until I felt sudden exposure, those intrusive fingers fishing my firming organ from its slumber, positioning it for entry. The siege did not end until my asset collided with the coarseness of hair, a moist orifice, the contracting squeeze of a famished cunt, as she mounted me like a jockey; said I was the loveliest creature alive.

  I was too weak to answer, too hungry to even open my eyes. She, even with my tears rolling down my temples, continued her assault, all the while moaning, whimpering: ‘Forgive me, Michael. Forgive me.’ I must have drifted out of consciousness then, for I woke up lost, with a lingering soreness, distant pain pricking my defenceless rod. I thought, so this is how it feels. To be defiled. There was, even in my dream state, my weakened hibernation, punctuated only by Palesa bringing custard, demands of the bladder, the odd shower, a furious rage, a fragility of spirit against my assault. It wounded me greatly knowing that Rusty Bell held keys to my secret bunkers – that there was, even there, in my ocean-deep escapes, the possibility of brutes on the lookout for weakness, on a mission to steal passions denied them by starving idealists, to wreck others in the name of love.

  I was again plunged into toddler-like sleep, my rage blunted by memories of childhood sympathies: pity felt for the one-eyed boy named Moses (mercilessly teased), heartache for half-hatched chicks blown from nests ravaged by devilish winds, a knotted throat for a horse mercilessly lashed for visibly and not unreasonably being tired (blazing sun, tonnage fit for eight-wheeler trucks), clenched teeth for my then desk mate Palesa, who survived torrents of epileptic fits. But there were light-hearted moments, good memories, too: a breeze whistling through Alexandra Primary�
�s rose bushes, love-struck pigeons cooing bird affections, jacarandas drizzling their purple magic on school grounds. I woke momentarily, sipped water, before submitting to the refuge of my meditative sleep.

  I was, because of my excavations of the mind, not conclusively sure if Rusty Bell had indeed defiled me. I could have imagined it, hallucinated. Yet my soul confirmed otherwise – that something dreadfully sinister had taken place. It was in the way I remembered vague details, the long fingers locating and grabbing things with impunity, that I knew there were compelling grounds to break the fast – to return to the world, as most know it. Besides, my excavations unearthed all sorts of assaults on sanity, and it was only a matter of time before there would be a drift into the unknown. The body revolted against food, the mind against false logic of egg revolutions, the heart against Rusty’s love snares.

  Palesa told of charming incidents of her deepening friendship with Moxie, away from circus throngs, private moments of munching oranges and trunk rubbing, gentle murmurs and tusk holding. The weeks that followed were vague and purposeless, detached, in that I had – in my starvation – learnt a sobering truth: that the mind, like sex, is too great, too deep an ocean to be known: its sandy confusions, the vivid coral reefs of its entombed yearnings, shark nests of nightmares past, the swirling waves of its power, mercilessly out of step with the blind faith of the heart. A certain clarity emerged, excavating elaborate but unrecognisable treasure troves from the seabed, a discovery that said: for all its expansive tricks, life remains sand-granule-sized portions of existence. Sobering. Sacred almost. Worthy of starvation.

  This, I reasoned with myself, was not some lame discovery arrived at when choking on McDonald’s burgers or dabbling in matrimonial equations, but a cold stare at the near-worthless sum total of all human knowledge. The universe laughs at humans, Masters of Creation, battling to understand the purity of things: the crystal perfection of a hailstone, the momentary glow of distant lightning from behind clouds, the distinct scent of a newborn baby. An email, however, sent shockwaves through my new-found life equations:

  From: RustyBell@campus.ac.za

  To: Michael@campus.ac.za

  Subject: Good and Bad Things Happen

  Hello Michael,

  I know you probably never want to ever see me again – something I totally accept and understand. But, but – though clearly wrong and shameful – I did what I thought to be the best for our future. Please accept my deep-set regret and apology for sneaking up on you like that – practically almost committing a crime. But there is some good news: what a treat! You are as manly as I had imagined, only a thousand times better.

  Yours,

  Rusty B.

  I was, four months later, still dazed and appalled by the matter-of-fact confirmation of my rape when Abednego rang me to say Rusty had left campus (without saying a word) to be in her mother’s care in Eldorado Park. She had taken ill and had been rushed to hospital. Tense and instructive, Abednego said he expected me to take responsibility for my actions. Or else.

  I took exception to this veiled threat – told him point blank that I was, if anything, considering going to the police. I was, to the best of my knowledge, not a father to anyone, and therefore not expected to sprint to hospital wards at a moment’s notice. Days crawled by, with me surviving on custard and jelly, the occasional fruit, steamed vegetables. But bodies are not designed for custard; custards are there to fool bodies and taste buds, not to truly sustain a life. The fast made lectures torture: vague, hazy, long-winded. It was Dr West’s medical note (mental strain, recommended bed rest) that bought my freedom, the privilege of receiving lecture notes and reading lists to ponder and absorb in my own time. Rusty’s veiled confession weighed on me, demanded increased solitude. Another eight weeks, blurry and detached, snailed oppressively past, my life dreamy, sleep patterns erratic.

  At the Braamfontein police station a sleepy mood lingered – sleep owed to uniformed bodies dozing to crackling sounds of two-way radios, announcing capture of fugitives, some Alpha-Charlie-Tango gibberish. Nothing spectacular to note, just normal police-station scenes: a lone soul in handcuffs, the thud of stamps on myriad statements under oath. It then dawned on me, as I exchanged greetings with a policeman sipping coffee from a mug designed for the greedy, that I was about to set a criminal trial in motion. She handed me those official papers, to set down my grievance, her pink and red and blue stamps at the ready, to ignite a chain reaction sure to end with Rusty Bell caged in some facility somewhere.

  Yet I was hesitant. The longer I stood in front of the police officer, pen in hand, she looking blankly at me, the more I felt drained, suspicious of the avenues that lead to justice. The wall clock struck 3 pm, and I – at exactly 3:15 – changed my mind, and decided to let it all go. Still wounded. Still raw. Still offended.

  I handed Officer Ntuli her pen and statement, with only the date and two incomplete sentences: ‘3 September, two thousand and whatever. My name is Michael, a third-year student at the University of the Witwatersrand. I was in day eleven of my fast when Ms Rusty Bell, a close friend of mine …’ All that scrutiny. The cross-examinations. Review of the facts. Review of review of the facts. Adjournments. The unfair, intrusive prosecutor’s questions. Was it the first time you and the defendant were intimate? What would you say was your state of mind at the time of the alleged rape? Are you telling this court that you starved yourself for several days – that you cannot tell if it was in fact a rape or consensual – except the single email from the defendant? Should this court prosecute Ms Bell because she has conscience, because she is remorseful? You, in your email here, speak of quests that might take a lifetime. Kindly enlighten this court as to what those quests might be. Is it correct that you are undergoing therapy, that is: multiple consultations with a psychiatrist? For what reason, exactly? Would it be unfair to conclude that you are mentally under strain, depressed even and, therefore, not in a position to make such an accusation, with far-reaching implications? You have, on more than three occasions, checked Ms Bell’s breasts for cancer lumps – an intimate act of trust and caring, I must add, because that was the nature of your relationship! Doesn’t it follow, therefore, that it was not completely unreasonable for the defendant to expect intimacy from yourself?

  Why shouldn’t this court conclude that all your submissions are malicious – noting that you are in fact happily seeing or used to see another woman, a certain Palesa, I believe? You are, by all indications, a wise young man. I have no stomach for philosophy myself – but judging by the content and insight of your notes on the margins of these books, it is not every day or a coincidence that Pascal and Nietzsche are given such painstaking reading and reflection.

  Enlighten this court, if you will, why the selective and self-serving acts of starvation and celibacy? I put it to you: the reckless manner with which you make this grave accusation is not consistent with your IQ. Why should this court waste valuable time pursuing petty ego trips? What are you not telling this court?

  The assault, of course, would continue – with worse intrusions, designed to engender doubt and nonexistent probabilities. All I knew, all I wanted to conclude and say, was that Rusty had wronged me. That is all. It was peculiar how time suddenly flew past, before I could make sense of my life, make sense of the loose ends that were supposed to reflect me to me, as a complete being, not fragments, at the mercy of would-be wives and prosecutors.

  The second-floor wards at the Milpark Hospital were, except for a few unfortunate patients, deserted. Where had all the sick people gone? All the people with ruptured appendixes, with prostate issues, those thrown off motorbikes, others at the mercy of gastric whirlwinds, souls tormented by low blood pressures and renal failures, bleak tales of ovarian growths, of bone fractures, butchering of various kinds, lifelong tobacco abuse finally collapsing lungs, hearts skipping beats, their arteries clogged by fat and blood clots, neurological tremors, as well as inferno survivors mummified in bandages, zoo keepers mauled by lio
ns, cases of vindictive malignant tumours – all reminders of human mortality, fragility?

  A sign that read ‘Maternity Ward’ pointed towards elevators at the end of a long corridor. Once inside the elevator, I held its doors open for three nurses pushing a yelling old man. The man, a Mr Faizal, was apparently sick and tired of having latex-gloved hands explore him and, in his own words, was ‘outraged by the indignities of fucking morphine’. Why couldn’t he be left alone to die? he protested.

  I overheard, as I exited the elevator, one of the nurses – the Indian one with bushy eyebrows – say I looked like I had seen a ghost. I followed the wall signs that led through automated glass doors, into a world of innocence: newborns in the throes of sleep, temperamental ones yelping, beaming mothers and grateful fathers in tight hugs. Babies held against bosoms turgid with human milk, babies yawning in solitary cots, babies vomiting on well-wishers, babies swarmed by beaming next of kin, a baby sucking a thumb, boy babies getting acquainted with breasts and nipples, things they would desire and chase over lifetimes, bottoms being cleaned, babies nestled in incubators.

  The ward had a newness to it, a purity of sorts, an otherworldly pulse. It was a world charmed by the scent of baby shampoo, powders to welcome those toothless new arrivants from a multitude of wombs. Art on the walls was equally innocent: rabbits cuddling, sleeping lambs, fire engines exclaiming beep beep. It was a beautiful world, a world of regulated noise, an existence brimming with palpable bliss, bliss that seemed to radiate from creatures that knew nothing about anything, so blissfully and temporarily shielded from the barbed wires of adult worlds. The new arrivants, with their clear consciences, beaming beings without the slightest of secrets, without wants and yearnings, lovers or foes, without as much as something as worthless as boredom. It was with these reflections that a Matron Khumalo, grey-haired and full-figured, fatigued yet pleasant, asked whom I had come to see.