Moffie

by Andre Carl van der Merwe

  Because he has a primary school teaching diploma in wood­work, he holds the rank of lieutenant. He did not complete the same training that we, or for that matter, Dorman did; yet he has the power to make our lives miserable, and from the outset it is clear that this is his main aim.

  Dominating everything now is the border, dangling in front of us like a hangman’s noose. Until now we have faced only the immediate obstacles, one after the other, with the border lying somewhere behind them. But now it is with us.

  We are issued with dog tags and instructed to hand in our last will and testament. Each man’s blood type is determined and indicated next to the buckle of his web belt.

  During this period of preparation (mastering rifle grenades, hand grenades, Claymore mines and shooting at the Swartberg or camp shooting range) something happens that seems insig­nificant at the time. But perhaps nothing is ever really insignifi­cant.

  Gerrie decides to befriend Malcolm, and with the same zeal that he attached himself to Arno and me at school, and later to his superiors here, he pursues this friendship. And then it abruptly ends. After our last weekend pass, Gerrie is chosen as the lieutenant’s right-hand man, which means he even sleeps in the same tent as the instructors when we are out in the veld. Gerrie is thus pretty much guaranteed rank at the end of our course, and protection on the border. His position of intimacy with Dorman and Engel does not bode well for us, and on the day of the inspection by the commanding officer of the entire base this is confirmed.

  Before an inspection we stand at ease on our taxis until just before the command to brace. Then we step off them and hide them under our un-slept-in, sharp-angled beds.

  Mal is at the door and sees Gerrie standing on his taxi.

  ‘Gerrie, you’ve got my taxi,’ he says, clearly alarmed.

  ‘No ways, Bateman, it’s mine.’

  I shout from the other side of the room, ‘Gerrie, give him his taxi!’

  ‘Fuck you, Van.’

  ‘Gerrie, for fuck sake, there’s no time for this bullshit!’

  ‘It’s mine, Nicholas, and I said fuck you!’

  ‘Listen, Gerrie, we can sort it out later, just give it to him so that he can get to his bed!’

  ‘If Bateman is so slapgat to lose his taxi, that’s his problem.’

  ‘It is his, you fuck! I can prove it. It comes from the same piece of felt as mine. Look at the green stripe.’ Through the window I see the inspection group approaching.

  ‘Fuck you, Nick, you’re always defending Bateman.’

  ‘Give him his taxi NOW, Gerrie! You’re going to get us all into shit!’

  ‘Bateman is going to get us into shit, not me.’ There is deter­mination in his voice. I see he will not relinquish anything, so I step off mine and throw it towards the door. It veers off to the right. Oscar is nearest to it and he shuffles forward, picks it up and flings it to Malcolm.

  Malcolm starts his journey between the beds, past the entire platoon already standing at attention, each in his own way silently imploring some higher force for a successful inspection. If prayer could fill space, his passage down the middle of all the beds would be thick with pleading for a favourable reception by the CO. But Mal doesn’t make it in time.

  The light that shines on the gleaming floor through the open door is darkened by the figure of a man. It is Dorman.

  The inspection group passes the last windows, and like a strip of film slipping off its sprockets, everything starts to move too rapidly. Dorman stands in the door. If we fail, it will reflect badly on him.

  The CO pushes past him as he calls us to attention. Behind him are the company commander and the platoon commander, Lieutenant Engel. Everybody is standing at attention, but Mal­colm is still halfway to his bed.

  The CO walks directly to Malcolm and starts finding fault with everything in his inspection. He doesn’t address Malcolm, who is too far beneath him. Instead he insults our company com­mander in front of the whole platoon. This is not good for us. A flame-thrower has ignited under the captain’s skin, snaking like a high-pressure hose out of control and turning him red from within.

  Very early the next day we are woken by corporals, lieutenants and sergeants. They are all shouting at the same time, shoving us around and kicking the metal cupboards and the beds.

  Soon we are running to the parade ground on the outskirts of the camp, on our way to Swartberg. We are going to have a com­pany opfok, in staaldak, webbing en geweer.

  The sky is overcast. This is good, it will be cooler, I think to my­self as we pass the tuck shop. I am already feeling tired. Strange how fear saps one’s energy. When we arrive, there is an ambu­lance and a water truck.

  ***

  My folks wait for me at the Klapmuts off-ramp, the closest point to Banhoek on the N1. From a distance I see the Chevy’s rear lights. Then I see the two heads, small on thinner necks in this light, as we pull up behind my parents’ car.

  My father gets out to talk to my travelling companions, who can’t wait to get away. The back door of the Chevy hesitates over the two knuckles of its predetermined positions as I slam the door shut. Inside the car I step back into a small world linked by cables of memory in this space infused with the smell of clean­ing products, vinyl and my parents.

  My father asks a few questions, but I say very little. It’s all po­lite and very superficial. My mother watches my expression in the light of the traffic sweeping past us, blasting our small space with a sudden flash of brightness. She wants to know how I am, how I really am, without asking me outright. She has a positive response to everything I say, as she mostly does. It is familiar, but at the same time it frustrates me, for I nurse a need for a deeper empathy.

  It is the first time since Dylan’s death and after the open, if slightly tipsy, expression of my gayness, that I see my folks. I feel strong knowing I have grown beyond their prejudice—one step forward, many steps sideways.

  Light catches the side of my father’s face, like spray paint catching a raised surface. I see his goatee in silhouette and the lighter hair under his bottom lip bobbing up and down like a switch going on and off, on and off.

  Did his sperm make me? Am I linked to this man who is so detached from me? I want him to know as little as possible about me—even the things that might please him, like the fact that I outlasted the toughest.

  I sit back in the seat and start fantasising about making love to Ethan, stroking my hard-on through my step-out pants, dirty and sweaty—lust-revenge lovemaking. I picture my father walk­ing in on us and me not cowering, being proud, waiting for him to see the smirk on my face before I turn back to my love. In the dark of the back seat, I enjoy my spiteful fantasy, even though I know that life hardly ever follows desire, for in constructed per­fection we leave out the bits that reality will not.

  He sent a closeted child to the army and got a homosexual man back. I will choose the time to tell him carefully, for the best effect. He may have made me feel worthless, but I don’t need his approval any more. From now on I will have to look back to see the damage he has done.

  Dot comes running out from the kitchen, frantic with joy. Pud­ding, the bullmastiff, has only two settings between sleeping: eating or greeting.

  ‘Shame, she’s getting old now. She really misses you.’ My mother smiles down at her. ‘Nick, will you feed them for me, please?’

  The farm smells wet and cold. No, it reeks of gloom. Sheets of winter rain start to fall from the black night, close and enfold­ing. On the roof the sound is ominous, and I can almost feel the dampness bleed into the walls.

  I hesitate at the threshold of my room. Ahead of me the space is stale with remembrance, with emptiness and waiting. It is as though the empty room is not ready for the change.

  So often I have masturbated on this bed, fought my desires, and now the room is the same but I am so different! I will never cower again, never again allow the self-loathing that comes from being caged and tortured by duplicity. If they don’t want to
hear, I won’t tell them, but I will not change or lie to them. Fuck any­body who doesn’t accept me.

  This weekend before leaving for the border, I reveal so little of myself that I might as well not be there. And soon I am sitting waiting for my lift back to camp.

  Pierre is late. My mother and I wait under a bridge on the N1 in the Datsun. From time to time Mom turns the ignition two positions to the right. Red lights glow on the dashboard, and the windscreen wipers complete two swoops. The whirring sound of the little motor and the shuddering of the rubber over the glass grate at my nerves.

  This time I’m going back to war—to two wars in fact: one against Swapo and another against Dorman. I will fight and pos­sibly die for an institution that makes laws against me and my kind.

  ***

  ‘Do you guys want to stop for food?’ Pierre asks. None of us is hungry, but I know that I must keep my energy up. We will get to Oudtshoorn very late, maybe only at one in the morning.

  ‘Yes, OK. Where do you want to stop?”

  ‘Maybe at Worcester.’

  ‘Shit, we have so far to go still. Maybe Robertson or Ashton. At least it will feel as if we’ve covered some distance. Or even Bar­rydale. There’s a garage . . .’

  ‘No way, that food is shit. Let’s just stop, Vannie. We must just be very quick. I have to fill up before eight in any case.’

  If we get there at one, that means I’ll probably get to sleep by two, no, one thirty . . . one thirty, two thirty, three thirty and a half . . . shit, that’s only two and a half hours sleep.

  I think of all the boys who might have died travelling to and from pass. If I die tonight, it must just be quick. I shudder when I picture the car crumpled up and mangled, full of tar and blood—our blood on hard tar—and the flashing lights of police cars and an ambulance. But then it will be all over . . . all gone. Whatever comes must be better than this. Is this how Dylan felt? I picture my bed waiting at Infantry School and the rest of the company arriving, the base, the smells and the depression. Think of Jef­frey’s; think of anything but Infantry School, I implore myself.

  ‘There, that place makes lekker chips. Stop there, Pierre, stop!’ Jan says from the back of the car.

  ‘OK, OK. Fok, hou jou in. I’ll drop you guys off and I’ll fill the car up at that Shell station. Hey, Jan, you haven’t paid me yet. Have you got bucks on you?’ Then to me, ‘Vannie, do me a fa­vour, man, get me some chips and smokes.’

  ‘Sure, what do you smoke again, those French ciggies?’

  ‘Yep, Gitanes. But I don’t think they’ll have them. Then try for Gauloise.’

  ‘And if they don’t have them?’

  ‘Then just get Stuyvesant . . . the regular ones, I don’t want those light sissy fags.’

  The car smells of vinegar. I like this part of the drive, from Ash­ton to Montague, weaving between the rocks and the cliffs with the fantastic formations. It’s too dark to see them now, but it’s enough for me to know that they are there and we’re passing close to them.

  In the distance I see the faint light of a farmhouse. I imagine being there, a man undressing in front of me, slowly and delib­erately. I watch his every move, every item of clothing leaving his brown body . . . there in that house, all on our own, in a world that has no army. He has brought me here. A large fire lights the room, forming patterns on the raised stones of the walls. There is a wrought-iron bed in the room, and above us rough, gnarled poles hold the thatch. We are sitting facing each other, our legs around each other’s bodies, warm and naked. We feed each other. I don’t think so much about the sex as I do about the closeness, the light on his skin; that soft, flickering light that makes skin glow.

  Our closeness surpasses sex—it is an unfathomable affection, a tender worship of two lovers. Who is this man I have created? His body is perfect—for what I am discovering, must be well packaged. Ah, his face, so strikingly attractive. And he is the other half of my soul, because he has grown up with me, into me. It is when he listens that I am most intrigued, because he under­stands everything; even the things for which I have no words.

  All the way to Barrydale I rerun the fantasy. I run my nose up his neck and I inhale him. We fit into each other when we sleep, entwined. Now, the image of the first man, the one who eradicat­ed all hope of change in me, burns through my fantasy. When I saw him all those years ago, I knew, yes, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would only ever want to be with a man.

  Some people’s imprint stays on the map of one’s life forever, having nudged it into a new direction—something one has longed for without even realising it. I wonder if Storm ever knew it.

  2

  We approach Jeffrey’s Bay—wild, warm and windswept. The house we have rented seems relaxed about our invasion. Bron­wyn and I run down the passage with Dot following, barking, slip-sliding, her nails scratching on the floor as she tries to keep up with us.

  Behind the kitchen is the toilet, made out of corrugated iron on a wooden frame. Looking down into the pit at the right time of day, the light shines through a hole in the roof, illuminating the brown shit, yellow toilet paper and flies.

  Jeffrey’s Bay in 1970 is a small village. We shop at Ungerer’s for groceries, and Coetzee’s for fish and slap chips. The tanned surfers who stop there in their beat-up VW kombis captivate me.

  Even on holiday, my father is always neatly dressed, with his hair impeccably in place, his comb always ready in his sock. His tight, checked shorts are ironed, and he never takes his shirt off, except on the beach.

  The ‘hippies’ wear no shoes, no socks to house a comb. Their baggy shorts hang low on their hips. Around their necks are beads, and their hair is long and wild.

  They irritate, even anger, my father. ‘I’m telling you, those hip­pies are all queer and they don’t believe in God. They’re like bloody girls with that long hair. They disgust me. They look like hobos. Agge nee, sies, man. Their poor parents. They probably don’t even know where their children are! Just promise me you won’t turn out like that. If you do, I’ll bliksem you. Are you lis­tening to me, Nicholas?’

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ I say, and then, ‘But, Dad, I like their long hair.’

  ‘You’d better believe me, if you decide to grow your hair like that one day, you can find yourself another place to live!’

  ‘How do you know they don’t believe in God, Dad?’

  ‘Well, have you seen them in church?’

  ‘No, Dad, but would they be allowed in?’

  ‘Not looking like that, they won’t! But if they cut their hair and dress properly, well, maybe then they would.’

  To me they look relaxed and happy, and at this tender age I decide to like everything my father dislikes.

  I surf the foam on my lilo. Then I lie and tan and watch for beautiful men with brown bodies.

  A ‘bunch of hippies’ are camping in the dunes close to our house, much to my father’s aggravation. To me their kombi is like a lively puppy inviting a new friendship. The only incon­venience to my parents is that we have to pass them on our way to and from the beach.

  On my way home from my shell-collecting spot, I cut across the beach to the dunes, past the ‘hippies.’ The sun makes its way through the branches of the candlewood and the dog-smelling milkwood. Where it touches white sand, the contrast is harsh against the shade of the old shrubs. The pathway winds ahead, each plant’s smell hanging, waiting to be disturbed as it opens in front of me and closes behind. But today the walk has a new dimension for me. Not only is the car there, but its owners are there, reading in the shade.

  The man is lying on his stomach. As he turns around, he re­veals his naked torso. His hard shape picks at the nerve between my legs, at the base of my penis. I experience this so strongly that it feels as if I’m carrying a sign reading: Look, look at Nich­olas, he has sexual feelings for this man!

  The man is the most beautiful being I have ever seen. He seems to glow, radiating sex. His girlfriend is thin, with long, curly hair. In
the light and on the white sand they belong as though by invitation. The shade is a complex mixture of flecks on their tanned skins. Then he rolls over again and carries on reading. I find myself irresistibly drawn into their space.

  After lunch I wait for my parents to take their afternoon nap, and I climb through my window, lifting Dot out, with a wide-eyed Bronwyn watching us. Charged with excitement, I melodramat­ically swear her to secrecy and walk down to the hippies.

  ‘Hi.’ Not ‘hello,’ but ‘hi’—so sexy I can hardly contain myself.

  ‘Hi,’ I follow suit.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Nicholas. What’s yours?’

  ‘Storm.’

  ‘Storm? That’s a funny name.’

  ‘And this is my girlfriend, Tracy.’

  I stand staring and smiling, but soon I relax and, with uncom­mon bravery, I ask to see the inside of the kombi camper.

  Afterwards, we settle into conversation. He answers all my questions patiently, while Tracy makes freehand drawings of him and me. I tell them about Frankie, school and Welgemoed.

  Storm has light brown hair below the layered, weather-bleach­ed curls that spill over his face and down his back. Around his neck is a leather thong threaded through three shells. From his bellybutton, fine hair runs down his flat stomach and disappears into his baggy shorts.

  Tracy’s hair is a similar colour. She is wearing a sarong around her tiny waist, with a bikini top over small, firm breasts. After handing me the drawings, she makes tea that smells of flowers.

  ‘Don’t drink that, Nicholas! Get home this very second!’ My mother marches up to me and grips my arm so hard that my tea splashes onto the sand. ‘Are you totally mad? Didn’t you hear one word of what I said about these people? Get home immedi­ately.’