Moffie

by Andre Carl van der Merwe

  8

  Bronwyn is a good girl, you know, Peet,’ uncle Dirk says with deliberation. ‘She’s going to make some man a good wife; such a well-adjusted child.’ My father returns the compliment, paus­ing between sentences, which seems to add sincerity to what he says.

  Then uncle Dirk says something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. ‘Such a pity Niklaas is such a flop.’

  With a ringing of amplified emotion in my brain, I look at my father. I’m sitting right here next to you. How can you let him talk about me like this? I ask wordlessly.

  My father avoids my stare and busies himself with stoking the fire. The wood releases sparks that rise in a twirl and light my father’s face, revealing a frown; but there is no protest.

  Flop, structureless, nothing forgiving about it. Flop, flop, flop, soft and spineless like jelly, tormenting me, over and over, each time hating him more, and my father for not defending me. I can’t tell my mother, I’m too embarrassed. I start obsessing that there is something really wrong with me.

  The Afrikaans pronunciation of my name—Niklaas—is inten­tional, to stress his dislike of me. He emphasises the last part—Klaas—which is what Afrikaners call a slave. Then he drops the first syllable and calls me Klaas.

  9

  We have a gift for you, Nicholas,’ Storm says with a smile. He places a loosely folded paisley bandanna in my hand. Wrapped inside are three shells threaded on a thong. It is like the one he wears, and there is something almost sexual about the gift. He hangs it around my neck and adjusts the length for the shells to lie in the indentation of my breastbone.

  When I walk back to the house, I take my shirt off to feel the movement of the shells against my skin. I bend over to the side to see if they can touch my nipples. When they do, I feel a hard­ening, a tingle in my pants, and my nipples become erect with excitement.

  I know this gift is going to cause a reaction. Uncle Dirk’s Zephyr is parked outside. They are all in the lounge having tea when I walk in, dressed only in my red swimming trunks, with the shells lying on my tanned skin. They are in dark suits, dressed for church, filled with restraint.

  At the window the thin curtain billows, then the moving air can no longer hold it, and it falls back—for a few moments the only thing moving in the room.

  In uncle Dirk’s mouth is a biscuit, and he stops halfway stuff­ing another in. It just waits on his lips to be worked in.

  They stare at me. My mother’s face drains, and suddenly I feel as if I’ve betrayed her, driven by my need to show how different I am. In my father’s face is the shame I see so often. Then the room fills with cousin Michael’s shrill, ‘Look, Pa, Nicholas is a moffie, a hippie, just like you said!’ There is another squeal of glee from Michael. My father gets up and moves towards me.

  ‘Take that thing off, you bloody little girl, you disgust me!’ My mother jumps up and moves towards me. My father reaches me first, grabs the necklace, but it holds and my neck gets jerked down. One of the shells breaks in his hand. Then he takes the thong on either side of my neck and rips it apart.

  Clearly on his way to get rid of the necklace, my father starts heading for the back door. I have sunk to the floor and grabbed his leg. He walks with me like a weighted shoe, my mother in tow, begging. The Hoffman men jostle for position to watch the spectacle.

  Nothing can stop my father from opening the corrugated door of the outside toilet and dropping my beautiful gift into the stink­ing, dark mess.

  In the evening I watch the sun set over the distant hills. The haziness allows me to look directly at the sun. Far on the horizon the deep red disk hovers above a hill in perfect complementary contrast. Then it distorts to an oval slipping into a void. Even­tually only a sliver hangs over the horizon, not letting go of this day, as I never will.

  10

  I only hear him once he’s in the bunker; the sandbags block sound as well as bullets.

  ‘Hey, Oscar, you still have fifteen minutes to sleep.’

  ‘Hey, Vannie. Howzit, my man? No, it’s cool, I was awake anyways.’

  ‘Lekker, howsa sleep?’

  ‘Kief.’

  ‘Where’s Mal?’

  ‘Trying to wake Pieterse. Here they come now. You guys can go, you have min tyd before roll call and first light. Lekker slaap, ouens, good night.’

  Pieterse is less willing to start his guard duty earlier. He has been bitching with Mal for waking him. When we leave the little tunnel of the bunker, Pieterse says, ‘Enjoy your wank, Bateman!’

  Malcolm stops, turns around and with a glint in his eye, he says, ‘Fuck you, Pieterse, druk jou vinger in jou hol en kielie jou kak, man.’

  ***

  With my head on the ground, I lie looking at the Milky Way, obscured on one side by the embankment that encircles the camp. I turn to Malcolm lying next to me and pull my knees up into a foetal position. There is a smell of stale diesel on my kit and webbing, and I try to block it from my senses . . . make it like when we used to play house; when we used to make a tent contraption out of an eiderdown at the old house in Welgemoed. I remember the feeling of cosiness, the security, Gran, Mom and Frankie.

  I think of my mother with an ache of longing. Strangely, I don’t get the same feeling about Frankie. I wish he were here, to share all of this with me, but I don’t miss him or long for him like I do for my mom. Maybe this is what they mean when they say time heals. But at the same time it gives me a dull sense of betrayal. I wonder if all the troops are as mixed up as I am and go through the same kind of emotions.

  All through the night I am haunted by fears and questions, memories and doubts. Will I still be able to do my art? What will people think of these elongated faces I’m drawing? What if the army gets hold of my diaries? DB for sure. Maybe I should destroy them . . . but what about all the stuff I’ve written and drawn? I can’t just destroy it all. Gerrie and Dorman are the ones who shouldn’t see them.

  Malcolm . . . will our friendship last? Not after the army, never. But I can’t tell him that. We’ll probably drift apart. I mean, with him in Johannesburg and me in Cape Town, how will we see each other? It’s a different world after the army.

  When I eventually fall asleep, I have my recurring dream about flying—drifting effortlessly over vast stretches of the Free State, floating faster, with the exquisite scenery lit by the warm light of the sun as it completes its daily journey.

  I wake up, and the contrast of the hard surface and the lightness of where I have just been is overwhelming. Then I turn around and dream of Oscar.

  When I walk to the toilets the next morning the dream is close and inside—there is a fragile casing that just coats the soft centre that will be my nourishment for today.

  ***

  We go on another random patrol. When we return, we hear that Platoon Three was involved in a contact. They are elated and wear the event like rank. I am pleased that I wasn’t one of them, but most of the troops wish they could have had a part in it.

  During the night there is an explosion outside the bunker walls. As usual we are told nothing, but then mortars start flying over the embankment from our side and explode in the no man’s land that surrounds the base. For about half an hour we hear the metallic sound of mortar sliding down the tube, the explosion as it fires and rockets over the wall and falls with an earth-shattering thud on the other side.

  Three more days before we leave for South Africa.

  ***

  Today was meant to be an easy day for us, preparing to leave Koevoet and start the journey home. After breakfast our platoon gathers for the morning briefing, which is of little consequence, as we are leaving within a day. Dorman asks for two volunteers to accompany a Buffel to make a ‘delivery up north.’ He usually nominates Mal and me, but today we are out of his line of sight, sitting beside a diesel tank. All eyes try to avert his as he scans the faces, and then I see Gerrie leaning over and whispering something to him. Dorman’s face lights up and he shouts, ‘Bateman, Van der Swart! Wh
ere the fuck are those two naaie?’

  We are told to accompany a Buffel to deliver a gift to a chief in a village ‘just around the corner.’

  ‘You’ll be back for morning tea. You two must just help unload the stuff.’

  We ask someone to watch our kit, then take our rifles, webbing, ammo, bush hats and water bottles, and walk over to the vehicle.

  On a trailer attached to the Buffel is a forty-four gallon drum, tied to the one side, weighting it unevenly. We clamber up the metal steps and wait. Four Ovambo Koevoet members climb on after us, and a fifth one approaches the vehicle with a radio, rifle and attitude—clearly the leader of the pack.

  For a moment I wonder why it should take seven people plus a driver to deliver this drum, but in the Defence Force you don’t question a command. ‘It is not for you to question who or why, but to do and die!’

  The leader climbs on the first step, whistles, and the driver pulls away. Then he casually completes the climb and swings over the side, unslings a radio, which he balances on a seat, and places his rifle in the rubber-based rack. There is a constant crackling and clicking sound from his radio. The flat metal aerial rattles like a metal tape measure, slightly concave. To shorten its length it has been bent over and tied. Unlike our other patrols and excursions on the border, where we were hardly ever informed of anything, the leader talks freely. He doesn’t buckle his harness, and after a few kilometres we all undo our safety belts and hold on to the roll bar in the centre, the warm wind tugging at our clothing and short hair.

  He tells us he was trained by Cubans in Angola, to fight for Swapo, but didn’t like the way they treated him, so he changed sides. He is young, with open features. He wears a balaclava rolled up into a hat. His shirt is army issue, but there is a rectangle less faded than the rest, where the nametag has been removed. His rifle is a battered looking AK-47 that looks as if it has a long history. I look at it and wonder how many lives it has taken—from some Russian or Chinese firearm factory to Swapo, and now used against its creators and first owners.

  On his chin are unshaven black curls. They appear to be screwed in at random. He looks like a boy, but his eyes seem older. He is wearing shorts, and the skin on his blue-black legs is so dry that it has a scale-like quality.

  He tells us the fuel we are carrying is for a sympathetic local chief.

  I decide to enjoy the ride. The hot, dry air buffeting me, and the freedom of driving through this wild country, remind me of uncle Hendrik’s farm.

  I tilt my head down, facing my hair to the road, the follicles tingling as my hair moves from left to right, combing the sensation over my scalp.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I ask the leader, knowing that he knows I’m not entitled to ask him his name. But on the border, in ops, they often don’t wear rank, because it draws the first fire. He tells me his surname, which I try to pronounce, but then he smiles and gives me his English name: Ben.

  ‘I’m Nicholas, and this is my friend, Malcolm.’ We shake hands.

  ‘Friend?’ Mal feigns annoyance.

  ‘I mean best friend.’

  Ben moves away, and Malcolm and I start talking about what we want to do on our first pass after border duty. We decide that I will go to Johannesburg with him again—not home to Banhoek. I feel the tingle of reckless independence. I will see Ethan and tell him how I feel about him. That’s what I’ll do!

  The freedom of invented possibility excites us and we start singing songs we hardly know, creating our own lyrics, humming where we fall short. Ben looks at us quizzically, smiles and looks away.

  The Buffel slows down and we turn into a narrower, less used road. Ben indicates to the straps dangling from our seats, and we buckle up. There is clear apprehension on his face and an almost imperceptible move towards his AK-47, now balancing in the gun port.

  ‘What happens if we suddenly hit a contact?’ I ask Ben, who says that there has never been contact here, but there is the possibility of land mines in the road.

  How rapidly things change. Just a moment ago we were having a good time, and now we are reminded of the real possibility of being maimed. It feels as if we were given a gift, which we had to rewrap and return.

  ‘Mal, teach me the words.’

  ‘Which words?’

  ‘The gay ones.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think from the airlines. Right, you know dora . . .’

  ‘Yes, drink, drunk, booze, wine.’

  ‘And nora . . . nora no brain . . .’

  ‘Yes, dof, stupid.’

  ‘And HILda,’ he says, stressing the hil-part.

  ‘Hideous, ugly old hilda, right?’

  ‘Yes, like hilda army, hilda Dorman and . . .’

  ‘Hillll-da Gerrie!’ The longer the ‘L’ is held, the uglier the person is!

  ‘And grizelda . . .’

  ‘What? Grizelda?’

  ‘Yes,’ he laughs, ‘Gri-zelllllda is even UGLIER!’

  ‘Ah! Gri-zellllda Gerrie!’

  ‘Beulah is beautiful, like me!’ he says, smiling. ‘Beulah blond!’

  He thinks for a while. ‘Oh yes, priscilla is the police . . . and iris is irritating, like if you iris someone, like Dorman irises us.’

  ‘How do you remember them all?’

  ‘Vera is vomit, cilla you know . . .’

  ‘Yes, cilla cigarette!’

  ‘Clora is coloured. Bella is bash . . . see, I’d like to bella-bash that iris grizelda Gerrie till he veras all over the fokken hilda Dorman!’ We laugh.

  We reach what seems to be a small town. There are a few buildings, which are used as kuka shops, and a post office. There is a booth that once housed a phone. People are sitting around as if that is all they have ever done.

  On either side of the buildings there are kraals—bundles of existence, with huts seemingly growing out of the soil, their rough branch-pole fences holding parcels of lives. The square flat-walled structures appear to have been placed uncomfortably on top of the landscape.

  The driver slows down, pulls to the side of the road and goes down a small embankment. I glance back to see the lopsided trailer strain against the pull of added gravity. Then we stop.

  There is constant talking on the radio next to Ben—a broth of hissing and fuzzy chatting. The men get off the vehicle and talk to the gathering villagers, while the driver, Mal and I stay behind. The scene is extraordinarily calm in the overwhelming hush of the shut down engine. The little community seems weighted by a sheepskin of heat draped over it. I feel the urge to paint or sketch the scene.

  Mal unbuttons his shirt and sinks down in his seat, legs apart. His dog tags are gleaming between his pecs, on a chain that, with its hundreds of ball links, looks like it should hold a bath plug. The two tags are stuck together with Prestik to prevent them from jingling. His abdomen reveals three rows of bumps where no fat, only skin, covers his stomach. My friend looks unexpectedly sexy.

  The driver gets out of the Buffel, squints at us, and then walks across the road and past the shop. To the right of the structure he picks a spot. He glances around, moves his arms to the front of his pants and widens his stance to have a pee. Everything is quiet, except for the high-pitched choir of the insects—the Africa sound of heat and waiting.

  ‘Zulu Delta, Zulu Delta, this is Zulu Alpha, come in, over.’ Why do I hear this clearly when all the other talking on the radio was just a hiss? Then again, ‘Give us your position, over.’

  ‘Shut that thing up, please, Nick. You’re closer to it. It’s interfering with my well-being,’ says Mal, smiling and squinting against the sun.

  I lean over the seat and turn the volume down slightly. I couldn’t possibly reply to the radio call, because even though we’re using an army Buffel, this is strictly a Koevoet operation—Ops K, as it is called.

  ‘I’m not turning it off. They’ll know it was us.’

  The driver is walking from the opposite side of the roa
d, chewing a twig, which he rolls around to the side of his mouth. He stops in the middle of the road, places his hands behind his neck, looks down at something, then up, and moves from side to side as though he is looking down the road and stretching at the same time. He drops his arms and continues crossing the road. With every step there is a crunch under his boots. His stride seems choreographed to the whirring insects. In slow, slow steps his boots displace the grit on the road in pleasing, crackling sounds that change as he walks off the road and stands in the shade of the silent Buffel—except for the radio that is babbling quietly to itself. Then he flies up the side, grabs the radio, turns up the volume and shouts, ‘Are you two fucking deaf?’

  He presses the button on the handle. ‘This is Zulu Delta, go ahead, over.’ Now every word from the apparatus is clear—they have been looking for us for some time.

  ‘Stand by, over.’ He drags the radio over the side and runs to where Ben has disappeared into a hut.

  When they return there is a new urgency. The driver reverses the trailer to level ground and instructs us to unhitch it.

  ‘Aren’t we supposed to unload the fuel?’ I ask, wanting to buy time, hoping that somehow everything will return to normal.

  ‘No, no, just leave the trailer here.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We’ve been called to help in a contact.’

  ‘Why us?’

  ‘We are the closest. It’s just a few clicks north of here. Get in, quickly!’ We scramble onto the vehicle. The driver keeps the revs high, waits for the instruction and releases the clutch. The vehicle leaps forward on its long coil springs. Ben talks on the radio, leaning over the driver, shouting directions. Then he sits down and listens . . . and talks as if he can see the people in front of him. I look at Mal for comfort, but he is angry.