Moffie

by Andre Carl van der Merwe

  ‘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.

  23

  Uncle 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 f
orgotten 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.

  24

  I get up to go to the bathroom and when I get back into bed, I hear a change in Malcolm’s breathing. He rolls over.

  ‘Shit, Nick, I’m sorry, I fell asleep.’

  ‘No problem, you sleep. I’m almost asleep too,’ I lie. ‘Good night.’

  ‘Sorry, man. Good night.’

  ‘Night.’

  When we do training with bayonets, stabbing into bags, I know what it will look like when someone tries to pull the rifle out of his punctured abdomen.

  ‘Troops, if the bayonet gets jammed, just fire a shot. It will dislodge your weapon immediately.’

  He takes me to dinner at The Bali Hai restaurant in the Landdrost Hotel. We get drunk on white wine and then I say it. ‘I’m gay.’

  ‘Really!’ Smiling, looking at me closely, he says, ‘Wow, I thought so. I mean, I hoped you’d be. So am I!’

  ‘No way! Ssshit, are you really? Oh, thank heavens. How did you know? About me, I mean.’

  ‘I reckon because, well, because I am,’ he smiles, suddenly confident. ‘And of course it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist.’ He laughs. ‘When one listens to what you talk about . . . no, who you talk about all day long! Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.’

  Later on, serious for just a moment, he asks, ‘Nick, was there anything between you and Dylan?’

  ‘No, no, nothing.’ This is not the time, I think. Besides, we’re gently drunk, happy, stranded for the moment on this small island of ours before we have to jump into the torrent again. There will be a day when I will share what I believe to be true about the death of my quiet, dark friend. Now is not the time.

  Malcolm, who is determined to make everything perfect for me, says, ‘Let’s try and see Ethan, Nick, c’mon, let’s just go!’

  ‘OK, let’s!’

  ‘He’s little more than an hour away. Tomorrow we’ll phone and ask when they’re allowed visitors. Ethan, Ethan, Ethan!’ he singsongs, laughing.

  ‘Shit, Mal, that would be great. Just imagine if I could see him.’

  ‘I know! And I have another surprise for you tonight!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m taking you to a gay club, Scankie.’

  ‘No way!’ But my tone says ‘YES way’ and I start shaking ever so slightly.

  ‘The Dungeon. It’s the oldest gay club in Africa.’

  ‘Gay clubs are illegal, Malcolm! What if we get caught?’

  ‘I say fuck ’em. Tonight we live! Nick, just think about it: when will we have the chance again? Besides, it’s Vasbyt next, and then the border. I mean, we’re in for hell, man. I need some cherry to think of when I’m on the border. Come on, let’s do it for volk en vaderland.’

  ‘What? Have sex with a man?’

  ‘Yes. We can’t go to the border without spreading a little of our gooorgeousness around . . . for volk en vaderland! Tonight they’re having Mister and Miss Dungeon.’

  I’m trembling, but inside I’m experiencing a wave of exhilaration.

  ‘Hey, listen, are you going to tell him how you feel?’

  ‘No, never. Are you mad?’

  ‘Just tell him! What do you have to lose?’

  ‘What do I have to lose? How about everything.’

  ‘What’s the point of being so in love with someone and you can’t even . . .?’

  ‘Mal, don’t tell me you haven’t fallen for a straight guy before.’

  He sighs. ‘You’re right. It’s the story of our lives. Fuck, if only we could know; always hoping, thinking they’re cute and nice and sensitive, but never having the courage to ask.’

  ‘Especially at school. Shit, if they as much as suspected you were gay, the whole school would persecute you. I mean, you just couldn’t take the chance. So I reckon the club is the answer, hey?’

  ‘Yep, Scank-maaaaaaster!’

  ‘Well, although I’m leaving a nineteen-year old closet behind me, I want you to know I still want everything to be right when I eventually get lucky. I’d want the feelings to be mutual. I guess that’s why I’ve never made a move on a straight guy. I mean, not since puberty.’

  He laughs. ‘Oh yes, do we have a slut in the house then? Ah, a man with a history.’

  ‘Well, I . . . er, we were just experimenting.’

  We trade stories about early high school, about the boys we were in love with. Then I become serious for a moment. ‘Malcolm, I can’t tell you how important it is to me to know there is someone like you. You know, I mean, normal.’ We both burst out laughing at the word ‘normal.’

  ‘Yes, me too. You secret agent, man, whore you.’ Then, laughing loudly he says, ‘Agent man-whore!’

  ‘I wish!’ He holds out his index finger, I do the same and we lock them together.

  ‘Our handshake, OK?’ For a moment we look at each other, the wine, the drunkenness and our fingers locked together, and I feel a new happiness about this friendship—something I have always longed for.

  ‘It’s time. Let’s go and look for some “mutual feelings” OK? Or do you want to drink some more? Shall we have another bottle?’

  ‘No way, or we’ll be the ones who won’t remember a thing.’

  Mal bribes the waiter to give us a bottle of wine, to open it and replace the cork. He steals two glasses, and we leave with the wine under his jacket.

  We finish the bottle in a park. We giggle about everything—stupidly drunk. Through the murkiness of the alcohol I feel a happiness so different from the manic, insecure sexual love I feel for Ethan.

  ‘So, who do you think is the cutest in our company?’

  ‘I don’t know, you know I have eyes for only one man. Shit, I can’t believe I’m saying these words out loud, it feels so good!’

  ‘The little prince . . . Ethan, Ethan, Ethan. Come now, whoooo . . . iiisss the cutest?’ Mal is in no mood for seriousness.

  ‘OK, there’s no competition, without a doubt . . .’

  ‘Who, come now, I won’t tell Ethan. Who?’

  ‘Oscar.’

  ‘You betcha. Shit, he must be the most stunning boy in Infantry School.
Nothing like a cute boereseun with a lekker boerewors!’

  On the way to The Dungeon a memory that was triggered by a word Malcolm had used haunts me. Around me the music plays and the Johannesburg lights block upwards in their concrete stacks. I listen to Malcolm talk but I hear the word punching within me . . . Homo.

  Over a weekend in high school, on Arno’s farm with a group of friends, reading, listening to music and talking, there is a discussion about an article in a popular Afrikaans magazine—“Homosexuals: The Shocking Truth.”

  Homosexuality is described as an evil cult, practised behind closed doors. The journalist ‘exposes’ some people in society posing as ‘normal.’ Gay men are portrayed as ‘despicable and subversive,’ perpetrators of the vilest acts.

  It is the word ‘homo’ that for some reason chills me.

  There are photographs, grainy long-distance photos, taken into people’s private homes—two men kissing. They appear desperate and sad when they are arrested. It disturbs me deeply, because in a way they have photographed me, arrested me.

  There are many references to the Bible and opinions from Dutch Reformed ministers. Sodom and Gomorrah—God’s only solution for them.

  My friends agree with the article and recount, with glee, stories about gay bashing. With sadness I realise I have no friends here, for if they had to know who or what I really am, they would despise me.

  The building looks a little like a rundown castle. To my surprise most of the men are just regular guys like Mal and I. Some I find really attractive. As we walk towards the building, I repeat to myself, over and over, like footprints into my new life, ‘Out and proud, out and proud. I am gay, I am gay,’ and for the first time in my life, ‘I am OK.’

  I feel lighter, intoxicated by the open admission, the madness of words that have now broken free, out in the light, beyond my own bigotry.

  ‘Dolla! Dolla!’ A severely wigged, sequin-dressed man swirls around and calls in falsetto to a friend who is some way behind us in the queue, ‘Doll-aaaaaaa, did you hear the one about the bi who was looking for a couple?’ Hysterical laughter and highpitched screeching follows while he pivots on his stiletto heels with frightening dexterity.