Moffie

by Andre Carl van der Merwe

  They are stunned. Hanno is enjoying this—my behaviour vindicates him.

  ‘Nicholas, get out,’ my father hisses. I don’t move. ‘GET OUT NOW, THIS MINUTE! We’re eating. Get that dog out of this house. Did you not hear what uncle Hendrik said? No dogs in the house. What in heaven’s name is wrong with you?’

  Still I don’t move, which is unheard of. In this house things operate within the parameters of the rules laid down by the men, generation after generation. But there is weakness in their disbelief, feebleness in their overreaction. How can something so small cause them such angst? This gives me the courage to speak, and I direct it at the only person who seems sane to me.

  ‘Mom, please, the dog and the puppy are suffering.’

  My mother surprises me by turning to uncle Hendrik. ‘Hendrik, will you please do something about those animals?’ Now everybody starts talking at the same time, in disbelief, wondering why everything seems to be spiralling even further out of control. There’s a dog in the house, even worse, in the dining room. Where is the discipline? How dare these people break the rules like this? What’s with this child and this Catholic woman?

  ‘For the love of God, please,’ my mother asks again.

  Eventually uncle Hendrik seems to regain his composure. ‘Will you please see to it that I’m not disturbed at MY table, by YOUR child, while I’m eating? Then, and only then, will I consider looking at the bloody dog. Does your child have no manners? Who is in control, you or him?’

  ‘GO NOW! Get out this minute! Do you want another hiding? Embarrassing me like this,’ my father shouts, red in the face. His words are desperate and angry, but there is also an air of pleading. He is in a corner, and I realise that I too have power.

  ‘Please, my boy, wait outside,’ my mother asks, beyond caring about their rules. She just wants this to be over.

  15

  The train stops at Colesberg. There I have to wait for the rest of the day and night for the next train to Port Elizabeth. I spend the time in a rowdy two-star hotel, hiding in my room one floor above the bar. From PE I change for the last time at Klipplaat, to an ordinary passenger train to Oudtshoorn.

  Next to the brownish grey station building there is a tickey-box. The black rubber earpiece smells of dirty hair, but it is my only way of connecting to 1 Mil, to Ethan and news of Malcolm.

  The unhelpful voice tells me he doesn’t know where Ethan is. After asking him to connect me to anybody who can give me news about Malcolm, he keeps me holding on for so long that I run out of coins.

  With a heavy heart, I wait on the slatted bench for the duty driver to pick me up. I move my bum over the slats, bending for­ward to find a moderately comfortable position.

  Unbuttoning the flap of my shirt pocket, I take out my little book. Thinking of Pranks makes me write:

  She possesses something sad, a cold wisdom when completely stripped down. I wonder if there is some freedom in that.

  By the time the army minibus arrives, I am exhausted, and the driver’s news that the entire Infantry School is on pass doesn’t help my mood. I missed the pass by one day—the first pass since border duty.

  The driver’s chatter is negative and empty. Delighting in my misfortune, he says, ‘You are shnaaied, broer . . . naaied in the eye, my mate!’ And again, ‘You’re fucked, bro, all the way back from the border and fucked out of a pass. Now that’s a bum­mer.’

  ‘It’s Friday. The army will give me a train pass.’

  ‘No way, you’re out of luck, man. There’s nobody to issue it. Besides, I know the schedule, and there are no trains to get you to Cape Town in time. You’d better hike.’ I know he is right. It will take longer than the pass to complete a return trip. If I had to start hiking tomorrow, I’ll have two days on the road and two days there, if I’m lucky with lifts. I decide to rest first and to make up my mind tomorrow.

  The clothes I have worn for three days, stick to me like grease. Looking around the streets of Oudtshoorn, I get that strange feeling of having been away for a long, long time, yet it feels as if I’d left only yesterday. We enter the camp gates, and everything I look at has an uncomfortable memory.

  It is strangely humid for late winter; strange . . . maybe it’s spring? Or early summer . . . what’s the date?

  I’m waiting to report to the lieutenant on duty, but he is shout­ing at a troop who has driven into his car with an army Land Rover. Every expletive, every possible form of verbal degrada­tion, is used to belittle the young man in front of all those present in the duty room. He was one of the first troops to drop out of the course. Suddenly the lieutenant turns to me, points and says to the troop, ‘You see this man? He is the elite. You don’t deserve to tie his shoelaces, you fucking failure. He has done the whole course; not a wimp, piece of shit loser, like you. Look at him and give him fifty.’

  The young man turns to me and stamps his foot. His face is red and sweaty, there are tears in his eyes, but not enough for him not to recognise me—and a wave of shame passes across Hanno’s sorrowful face. Instead of enjoying the moment, as he is doing fifty push-ups at my feet, all I think of is how strange it is that we haven’t bumped into each other before.

  Later I feel a sense of triumph. My cousin Hanno, against whom I always seemed to fall short, could not make it here, yet I did. I have all but completed this course, an even greater achievement considering my nature. And suddenly I am filled with pride. For the very first time I feel that I will succeed, that nothing, not even Dorman, will stand in my way.

  The old face-brick barracks of Golf Company stand deserted. I take four steps into the room where I spent my first months in Infantry School. The bunk beds are as they were, the mattresses rolled up as if dried out without human contact. I look at the bunk Dylan and I shared, our grey metal cupboards and the pol­ished floor.

  This is where my trommel stood. Right here I sat praying dur­ing our ten-minute quiet times, morning and evening, where I pleaded with God to save me from this. Here I scrambled for the working parts of my rifle and struggled with the combination lock, losing vital seconds during drills. Over there is where I slept, and that is where Dylan slept . . .

  The atmosphere holds more than just my memories. The angst is still here, clinging to the walls, waiting in this deserted space to seep into you when you enter.

  The ablution block next door looks dark and wicked, but some­how smaller than I recall. Then I go back to the bungalow of Pla­toon One, from where I left to go to the border.

  The kit of those who were wounded was put on their beds. I sort through it and pack everything back into the cupboard with the clanging doors. I notice that much of my gear has been stolen. I put Malcolm’s kit in my cupboard as well, lock the stain­less-steel handle, and gather my toiletries and clean clothing to go to the shower complex.

  In the distance I hear thunder; some of the crowns of the clouds are shining brilliantly against the dark sky. There is the promise of rain—Little Karoo shrubs releasing their scent to the wind running ahead on the breath of the storm.

  I choose the shower we used, drape my towel over the basin we shared, recalling a strong Dylan and trying to still the turmoil inside me. The shaft of light from the high windows sparkles in the cold drops deflected by my chest. I stand there with an in­explicably mixed feeling of joy and sadness, an expectation of some undisclosed promise.

  As I walk to the Kamp Kafee across the road from the duty of­fice I hear the words, ‘Hey, you!’ floating towards me. ‘Hey, you,’ the duty driver who collected me from the station shouts again, ‘there is someone for you at the front gate. Shit, I didn’t know where to find you. I was just going to forget it; never thought I’d find you.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Fucked if I know. Go down there. I’m off duty now.’

  On the way to the front gate, the rain starts coming down. There is a whipcrack and white light and then a sharp boom that rumbles off between the valleys.

  When I get to the duty room I am
drenched, water streaking from my hair and running into my shirt.

  The person leaning on the duty counter looks around as I en­ter the room.

  ‘Ethan!’ I blow the water from my lips, blink, and wipe my eyes to see if it’s really true.

  ‘Hi, Nicholas,’ he says softly. ‘I’ve come for you.’ The duty room and the people in it have ceased to exist.

  Tears are streaming down my face, but the water of the storm outside hides them.

  ‘Come with me.’ He turns and I follow. Outside, it’s raining harder and we run to his car, laughing out loud as we close the doors.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come for you!’ he says again. The rain coats the windows of his MG, and the drops fall loudly on the canvas roof. With his arm over my backrest, he turns to me. He moves closer, smiling, his skin wet, like mine, rain on his eyelashes; and then he kisses me.

  The earth revolves around moments like these: feeling the firmness of his lips, taking in his smell and his taste, my hand on his neck—that neck I’ve watched and studied for so many hours. He pushes his beret off his head, his tongue licks the water and the tears from my face, and then he finds my mouth again.

  I hug him, hold on to him, not like I did before, but with all the need for him released—released on a lover, my lover.

  ‘I’ve booked us into a guesthouse . . . very romantic, actually.’ He laughs and starts the car. ‘I was hoping just to see you for a bit, to tell you . . . Then I got here and heard that the whole camp was on pass, and I thought I’d driven all this way for nothing. And then the driver said you were here!’

  ‘This is so, so good Ethan. Your timing is perfect. Just drive, nobody in my company even knows I’m here. I have the whole weekend—four days. I can fetch some clothing tomorrow.’ He smiles, rubs his leg, revelling in the mischief as he says, ‘You won’t need any. By the way, we must phone Malcolm when we get to the guesthouse. He must be climbing the walls by now.’

  ‘Now I understand. He told you!’

  ‘Yep. Why did we wait so long, Nick? We’ve wasted all this time.’

  ‘I’ve loved you since the day that bastard cut your hair and hit you. Do you know that? Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to tell you that?’

  ‘Me too, shit, me too. And there’s good news, Nick. Mal­colm’s hand is going to be fine. It seems the army doctors did a good job—full use, they reckon. Looks a little scary, pins and metal good­ies and all, but he’s going to be fine.’

  ***

  Early Monday morning I watch Ethan’s MG leave through the Infantry School gates, and I feel invincible. I seem to have all the answers, having been divinely anointed, touched by the finger of God and having had a glimpse of eternity. I feel the sim­ple wisdom of utter happiness, when all else seems inconsequen­tial. At the same time, there is the dramatic pain of parting, still camouflaged by the bliss of the weekend; a pain I dwell on, take in in large swigs, using it to remind me of our time together.

  This is different from the pain of our previous separations which were without hope. This is an exquisite pain made un­bearable by the promise of return.

  Past the main parade ground where they divided us into com­panies all those months ago, climbing the embankment to the tuck shop, I realise that I have no ammunition against this feel­ing. Even if he should be lying in my arms, get up in the middle of the night for a wee, I would immediately feel empty, craving him until he folds into me, knowing exactly how far to pull up his legs for mine to fit in behind them; every single body part like a void waiting to be filled—arm over chest, hand in hand, cheek against shoulder, penis against bum.

  It is for this that we were born. So when it arrives, we know it, we recognise it as our ultimate destination.

  ***

  When rank is handed out, it is no surprise to me that I become a corporal and not a one-pip lieutenant—Engel, Dorman and Ger­rie’s last show of power. How much of it is Gerrie’s doing, I don’t know. However, making me an NCO is not enough revenge for them. They also manage to place my name on a list that I only find out about when base allocations for our second year are done.

  Some weeks before the passing-out parade, we are allocated to bases around the country, or sent for active border duty. The method of allocation is nothing short of barbaric. We take posi­tion on the grandstand, and on the cricket field in front of us is a number of tents, each representing a base. There are only a few places one would want to go to. The rest are bases on the border one wants to avoid at all cost. A person with an intercom shouts out the name of a base, and we have to sprint to that tent and stand in line. Only a few candidates are chosen, and the rest have to return to the grandstand. The officer enrolling the members at the ‘new’ base doesn’t indicate how many men he requires, which leaves one waiting in a line where you might not be placed, thus giving up the chance of getting into a second or third choice of base.

  This must be how the gladiators felt—walking out into a ring, fighting their own for a chance of survival, depending solely on physical ability to outrun and outshoulder the others.

  After my third try, I manage to get to the front of a queue for a training base. I am one person away from the front when I hear my name being called over the intercom, with other names I don’t recognise.

  Being singled out for anything in the army spells danger. My brain races through questions and possibilities. Should I not just get my name enrolled here before I respond? Then my name is called again, with number and rank. The person in front of me has completed his enrolment and the officer calls, ‘Next!’ Before me are two roads, completely different in direction, but I have no choice because the person shouting over the intercom is now instructing people to look for me.

  At the podium, an irate staff sergeant informs us that we are the only group not allowed to ‘choose’ our base. We are allocated to one which, of course, nobody wants to go to, as it is infamous for its high contact rate. The answer we are given when we ask why we have been singled out is, ‘Fok, ek weet nie, maar julle moes kak drooggemaak het! Julle op hierdie lys is diep in die oog genaai!’ (‘Fucked if I know, but you guys must have fucked up badly! The ones on this list are really fucked in the eye.’)

  The tent we have to go to is on the furthest corner of the crick­et field. I am brimming with panic and hatred, but even more with humiliation, as I walk behind the staff sergeant with this bewildered group, trying to figure out some kind of solution and praying furiously.

  We are halfway across the field, and I am lagging behind by about two metres, when I notice our company commander some distance away. Without a second thought, I turn and walk to­wards this man who has been my leader for a whole year, but to whom I have never spoken.

  From the way I halt, stamp my right boot down and salute him, the man must detect my desperation. As I speak, I cannot believe that I’m addressing an army officer in such a way. I don’t say I ‘cannot,’ or ‘please, could I not,’ I simply say ‘I will not’ go to the border. He looks at the symbol on my arm—the black and green triangle with the semicircle like a parachute above it—and sees I’m from his company, Golf Company.

  He looks at me and then past me, and all I can think about is the way he spoke about Dylan and the two boys who were caught kissing in the laundry room. He doesn’t look at me again, not even when he says, ‘Follow me.’

  It is his job today to sign people up for a base called the Danie Theron Krygskool, and I am duly enrolled.

  ***

  The passing-out parade, which my parents attend, is over the weekend of 13 and 14 December, the parade on the Saturday morn­ing and Church parade on the Sunday. On Saturday evening there is a military tattoo in which each company takes part.

  Golf Company gets to do the best part of the program. We are to enact a contact situation on the border, where a section of the SADF completely annihilates a group of terrorists, with only one wounded soldier on our side, who is then speedily casevacked. The con
tact is complete, with blanks, smoke grenades and heli­copter. I am the medic who administers a drip, and the person helping me harness the ‘patient’ to the helicopter winch is Os­car.

  I feel an obscure sense of pride, mainly for having succeeded in completing a year so totally against everything I stand for. But the satisfaction makes me feel as if I’m betraying myself—allow­ing this system I hate to make me a part of it.

  I am also confused about being pleased that my father is given the opportunity to be proud of me—that I’m excelling at some­thing he believes in after all the shame I caused him by failing at school, cricket, rugby and everything that is important to him. But strange as it is, despite our destructive relationship, I still harbour a subconscious desire to gain his respect.

  There is obviously no way for him to know exactly how huge this achievement really is, or how difficult the year has been; least of all my ‘coming out,’ Dylan’s death and falling in love with Ethan. But it is enough for him to know that I am now part of a small elite, of which all the parents and visitors are constant­ly reminded during this weekend.

  After the tattoo, we clean the black-is-beautiful from our fa­ces, shower, change into step-outs and are allowed to spend the evening out. My passbook is signed, I get into the Chev Con-stantia and go to a restaurant with my parents. The collective excitement of the camp and being part of the ‘stage production’ is carried into the car, and not even the news that some distant family members are joining us for dinner can spoil my mood.

  ‘Nick,’ my mother says, ‘don’t you remember them? You met them in Jeffrey’s once.’

  ‘No, Mom. When?’

  ‘You were in standard three.’

  ‘Mom, really, I was ten. How are we related?’

  ‘Uncle Dirk and aunt Fran.’