Up Against the Night

by Justin Cartwright

  ‘Ek verstaan, Oom,’ he says in Afrikaans to demonstrate his sincerity. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Jaco, nog ’n ding, did they put up the gravestone for Tannie Marie?’

  ‘Ja, they did that. It looks great. Beautiful job. Just by the chickens’ house.’

  ‘She was good to me. Okay. Got to go.’

  Jaco feels his anger rising. Why does my cousin think I will make trouble at his place disturbing Lucinda? What is a fruitcake as far as I know. And was I asking for money? No I was not, even though I am a little short. His cousin paid a lot for a gravestone, nearly a hundred thousand. Fuck all to Jaco. All his dosh is from England: a hundred grand is nothing to him, the rand is up to shit. What about giving something to those who are not under the earth?

  At the farm Jaco bursts through the fly screen and hastily packs some clothes in an old suitcase. None of the family, thank God, is at home. They don’t like me. They want me to fuck off. I’ll show them.

  A maid makes him a flask of tea and gives him something to eat for the journey. Her name is Hester. He fucked her once or twice when he was drunk, but we don’t talk about that. He thinks she can still be in love with him.

  Now she gives him boerebiskuite, which is rusks. He hates them. In California he liked cheesecake. Jewish cake. Still, very tasty … No question, Jews knows how to make money and cake.

  14

  My call to Jaco, intended to deter him and, from a safe distance, to advise him, has now had unwanted consequences: Jaco will be in Cape Town. I should have said I was in Brazil, or New York. My phone rings as I am sitting on the veranda watching some zebra coming down to drink. They have an unusual brownish tinge to their formal stripes. It’s Jaco.

  ‘Can’t hear you. Very poor reception here, Jaco.’

  I turn the phone off and activate call blocking. Jaco is like a dog that comes and buries its nose in your lap, or tries to hump your leg. (Maybe I, too, am reverting to the archetype – crude and insensitive.)

  Little Isaac, Nellie and Bertil appear over the sand hills. I have insisted that they walk with a guide. Nellie waves. Isaac waves and runs gamely after Bertil down to the lodge. His hair is like a halo. I pick him up. The guide hangs back, so as not to intrude on this moment.

  ‘Hello, Grandpa.’

  ‘Hello, little Isaac. Did you see anything interesting?’

  ‘We saw whales, Grandpa.’

  ‘That’s great. Would you like some cookies and juice?’

  ‘Yes please, Grandpa.’

  I go to the kitchen, holding his hand.

  ‘These are Marie biscuits – cookies – Isaac, or you could have Baumann’s Lemon Creams, which are my favourite.’

  ‘Can I have Lemon Creams, like you, Grandpa?’

  ‘Of course you can. And here’s your juice. It’s red grape juice.’

  ‘Umm, lover-ly. Awesome.’

  He slurps strongly on the straw, his cheeks hollowing. Nellie watches him, a devotee.

  The guide is called Blikke. I invite him to have tea with us, but he will only stand at the edge of the deck. He takes five spoons of sugar in his tea. He also accepts a few Lemon Creams.

  He checks if we have enough firewood and he offers to bring some fresh fish tomorrow. I ask him what he has. He can get galjoen, which means galleon. Yes please. It has a resemblance to a galleon under sail. Blikke can also get lobster from local fishermen. I order two. He says he will put them in the kitchen early in the morning in a coolbox.

  He walks off into the distance. He carries a carved stick and he has bottled water in a rucksack in case we should be thirsty. I wonder if he enjoys his work. Nellie says he is incredibly knowledgeable; he knows every bird and every plant. He showed us some leopard tracks, she says. There are three leopards in the area at the moment, but they are solitary and very shy. He’s only seen them twice. One may be pregnant; the tracks show that it has been mating with a big male. Blikke is hoping for cubs. It seems Nellie wants leopard cubs too, to regenerate the natural world. She says that numbers are rising fast, and they are now able to sell once-threatened animals like mountain zebra to private game reserves and to other national parks.

  Bertil has changed subtly in the last few days; he is more relaxed and also unexpectedly witty. He has taken to this place, the unfamiliar birdsong, the mountain behind the house that pours cloud down its sides like cream running off a tarte Tatin, the crashing waves on the beaches. The air too is liberating and congratulatory.

  He spends a lot of time talking to Vanessa on his phone, but not obtrusively. He passes on her good wishes. Vanessa, he says, saw a lot of whales just below the house. He asks me where they are headed and I say that they migrate to the far north and come back in April for five or six months to mate and calve. They only have one calf every two years. They are the second biggest whales on the planet.

  We are all being drawn in to this fairy story; it is essentially a tale of a more innocent time. In a way we have the same longings as my ancestor Piet Retief had when he set out looking for his own Eden on the other side of the wild mountains. His joy at looking down in imperial fashion from his horse onto Zululand was his epiphany – and also one of his last days on this earth.

  I tell Nellie about Jaco’s call; she thinks I should avoid him: I’ve done my bit and after all we are on holiday. I agree, but deep down I believe that blood is thicker than water. In the morning we are off to see the Elephant Reserve, staying two nights. We are all looking forward to seeing the elephants. Like whales, they have qualities we should take on board. Lucinda seems to be utterly content as if she has been enrolled into a more soothing world, one that puts you directly in touch with the elemental.

  My secretary, Liz, calls me. Should she send a scan of a letter from Georgina, she asks, in which Georgina accuses me of being the father of her forthcoming child? I ask Liz how wild and mad it is. Pretty bad: apparently I insisted on adding my semen to the mix. No, I don’t want to read it. Just send it on to the lawyers.

  This is the sort of behaviour that almost unhinged me towards the end of our marriage. Now I am more or less immune to her accusations. Maybe her latest accusation is evidence of a truly paranoid personality disorder. At times I wondered how I could have created such disturbance in Georgina’s mind. Or if I am guilty of disturbing her mind. Now I don’t want to hear a single word from her and I particularly don’t want to think about her baby, however it is to be brought about. Yet, strangely, I remember fondly the scents that accompanied her and I can recall an image of her when she was young, her thick blonde hair tied in a loose twist and her breasts almost escaping from a cheesecloth blouse. But I am recalling an entirely different person. I remember that I bought the blouse for her on the King’s Road for her twenty-second birthday. These places had passed their heyday, but they still offered more than clothes; they suggested that they were selling an enticing, carefree philosophy. In every song that filled the shops, there were subtexts – and in every book and magazine you read, there was a promise of a better world.

  Liz also sends me the copy of William Wood’s diary that I asked her to trace. I can’t wait to read it. William was a remarkable boy. Liz has found more, an account of what happened to him after he sailed away from Port Natal. He is thought to have gone to Brazil after twenty years of Africa; one source suggests he was married there, returned to England for a while and then emigrated finally to America. Young William is very real to me. It’s intriguing that he may have talked with Piet Retief.

  I think about William’s conversation with the Boers at Dingane’s kraal on the day before the massacre. He calls these men ‘farmers’, the literal translation, but ‘Boers’ has a much wider resonance. To this day many blacks use the word as an insult indicating a rough and unregenerate Afrikaner. There are plenty of those around, and my Cousin Jaco is one of them.

  On the morning of the third day, I perceived from Dingaan’s manner that he meditated some mischief, although from his conversation with his captains I could not pe
rceive that he had given them any orders prejudicial to the farmers. I, however, watched my opportunity to warn them to be on their guard. This occurred when some of the farmers strolled into the kraal, and, having come near the place where I was standing, I told them I did not think all was right, and recommended them to be on their guard; upon which they smiled and said: ‘We are sure the King’s heart is right with us, and there is no cause for fear.’

  William also describes in detail his last meeting with Dingane, who seemed genuinely to like the boy:

  I must here observe that Dingaan was averse to my going, and told me that during the time I had been with him I had received nothing but kindness; that I had been allowed to do as I liked; that he had given me a herd of cattle, and a number of boys as ‘companions’; and he then asked why I wished to go away from him, telling me at the same time that I could do just as I liked, but he would much rather that I should stay. I told him that, having seen the farmers killed, I was so filled with fear that now I could not be happy any longer, and wished much to go to my father at Natal.

  ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I am sorry you are going; but if you are not happy, I will not detain you.’

  This remarkable boy made his escape. The Zulus were known to be heading for Port Natal after defeating the revenge party. William and all the other whites, including the Reverend Francis Owen’s wife and retainers, boarded a ship called the Comet, which was fortuitously tied up in Port Natal. The ship headed south for safety. The Zulus held the town for nine days before going back into the interior. The small settlement was destroyed. Zulu warriors were reported to be wearing the women’s crinolines they had salvaged.

  ‘What are you reading, älskling?’ Nellie asks me.

  ‘It is something I asked Liz to scan: she emailed it. It’s about William Wood, the boy who witnessed the massacre. He was twelve. It’s made me think that we should go on a road trip to where the massacre took place. I want to see the site of the kraal and the grave of Piet Retief.’

  ‘Frank, do you feel some sort of relationship with him?’

  ‘I do up to a point. It’s a mixed feeling. And also I feel there is more to this story.’

  ‘I would like to come with you, but not with Isaac. Maybe Lucinda will come and I can look after Isaac. You could talk to Lucinda. It worries me that we don’t even know who Isaac is. We can’t take him around the country. How long is Lucinda staying? I mean when will she take him home?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can you ask her?’

  ‘I have, Nellie. It’s not easy; I love her but she drives me to distraction. The good news is that she says she is now totally laid-back. She’s chilling, like totally, to use her exact words. Let’s just take it easy and see how the kids are.’

  ‘Bertil is keen to get back to Cape Town, I think.’

  ‘I wonder why? I once read someone describing young Parisians as kissing carnivorously. That’s them.’

  ‘Are you a little jealous?’

  ‘I am not jealous. A little envious of how young they are, maybe, but not jealous. I have you.’

  ‘Did I save you from a sad old age?’

  ‘Probably. But I am still a beast in bed.’

  ‘Can you demonstrate that one day? How does that work?’

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘I’m happy. I am going with the flue.’

  ‘The flow.’

  I am terrified that Bertil or Lucinda will hear us making love. They will think it is entirely inappropriate and embarrassing.

  ‘How’s the flue?’

  ‘Oh, very good. Very, very good. Tack så mycket.’

  ‘Tack to you.’

  The door opens and Isaac walks into our room, clutching a teddy bear. His face is slightly damp – it has a sheen – and his eyes are fevered.

  ‘Hello, Grandpa, how are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, little Isaac.’

  ‘Can I get in the bed with you?’

  ‘Of course you can, darling,’ says Nellie, sliding as unobtrusively as possible off me. We help him into the bed and we feel blessed.

  For the first time I notice his hands; it strikes me that they are out of scale. His fingers are long and delicate, as pianists’ fingers are said to be. Although I once saw Alfred Brendel play and his fingers seemed to me perfectly normal. I was four rows back, so I can’t be sure. Nellie goes to get Isaac a damp cloth for his face and some water to drink, but by the time she comes back Isaac is asleep. He lies on his back, clasping the bear. And I think here, in our fastness, of the comforting role of the teddy bear in English literature. Some of my English friends had made a fetish of their teddy bears at boarding school, allotting them soothing properties and finding them good listeners. The bears were a substitute for lost family life. Sebastian Flyte’s Aloysius, Baloo, Paddington and many more – they were all good eggs, standing proxy in their woolly disguise for the best qualities of human beings.

  And so we sleep, fitfully, because Isaac kicks every so often as if shocked by an electric charge.

  15

  Jaco has had an issue for some time with the names of buildings and roads and so on being changed.

  Johannesburg Airport used to be called Jan Smuts, now it’s called O. R. Tambo. Jan Smuts was a traitor to his people but never mind. What Oliver Tambo knows about aviation is anybody’s fucking guess – also he spent most of his life in England. Oom Frank went to Lusaka with other big businessmen to meet Tambo and Mbeki and all them in Zambia years ago. It was a con. Verneukery. We was asleep while they was lining themselves up for big jobs and directors of mining companies and so on and guess what, the Jews what owns the big companies is delighted to hand over shares, even whole companies to these top ANC cunts so as to make sure they forget everything they learned in Moscow about communism so they can become fat cats. That is the true story never mind the fucking rainbow nation. So I says Oliver Tambo – my gat. My arse.

  When a check-in dolly tells me I must not go on board because she says I is drunk I tell her to fuck off – half the people on the plane is pissed anyways, it’s all free so what’s the fucking difference. She is black but she speaks deftige English like some of them does now. Would you mind waiting for a few moments, sir, while I call my supervisor, she calls, and ten seconds later security arrives running and they only tells me I must take a breathalyser test fuck that. Then one of the security outjies takes me by the arm. Kom boet, he says, he is an Afrikaner like me and he says just sit down for a while, my bru, and I will make it come right for you but you must drink a whole bottle of water then we try the breathalyser again. The Afrikaans guy is quite old he says he lost his job in the pass office in ’97 and now he is a security ouk. Ons is nou die kaffers, he says. We are the kaffers now.

  He gives me his card and takes me to another check-in and I get my boarding pass. He tells me not to drink on the plane. I can take this from him but it’s sad the kaffers have him by the short and curlies, where’s he going to go at fifty-seven? Cape Town International Airport is the only one what does not have the name of some so to say ANC hero on it. I call Oom Frank and he says he is on his way back from scoping the elephants and we can meet tomorrow at Groot Constantia under the trees by the café at 10.30. Great view, he says. A great view is just what I want. Don’t worry, he will pay for a taxi. Great, I says, but I am thinking he can ask me to stay the night after I have seen the radio peoples. I would ask you to come to stay, he says, but my daughter is in a very fragile state. Give her a klap is my advice but of course I doesn’t say that. There’s a lot of things I can’t say no more.

  A pretty girl meet me by the studio, what a pleasure to meet you, she says, my name is Ashlee. She asks if I want a coffee. For why, I wonder. Maybe she thinks I am pissed. Yes please. White please four sugar. Okay, Garry will come down soon to brief you and then it’s straight into the studio. Are you all right? Bakgat. Scuse me. No fine. She says aren’t you the guy who was half eaten by a shark? No, not me. She is a bit confused an
d turns over her notes then she looks at me: I thought you had lost a leg. No, they is all here all two. I’m the guy who filmed the great white shark and poked it in the eye. My name is Jaco Retief. Two million hits on YouTube. She says two million, omigod that’s like amazing. Wow. I will tell Garry. Can you wait here for a bit, Jaco. Chelsee will bring you the coffee and some biscuits if you want. Okay, lekker. She has a very short skirt and a tight butt, they always have beautiful girls in these studios. Cherries. She comes back: I forgot, the researcher said you was saying great whites should be shot if they come near a beach, please go a bit easy on that kind of thing. Garry says let’s hear the pros and cons of conservation before you say that sort of thing, okay. What is the pros for allowing huge sharks to eat swimmers I ask her. Just saying, she says, just saying take it gently we don’t want everybody shouting at once in the studio and don’t drink please. Who says I am drinking? Nobody, it’s like one of our rules here, no alcohol in the studio.

  16

  I am waiting under an ancient oak tree, in front of a café, also hundreds of years old, part of the original wine cellars. Resting behind us, magnificent and at its ease, is an old Cape Dutch house. This antiquity is what gives Cape Town its distinction.

  I am not looking forward to seeing Jaco. I listened to his programme about sharks on the radio and he sounded as if he had drunk too much, way too much. He made no sense at all and enraged some of the other participants. One of them was a professor from the University of Grahamstown, following in the footsteps of Professor J. L. B. Smith who first recognised the coelacanth for what it was, a fish believed to have died out thousands of years ago, the missing link of fish.

  Two ichthyologists and some conservationists argued that the habits of great white sharks should be better understood before slaughter was encouraged. Shark nets were being tried out at the beach where most attacks had taken place.

  Jaco intervened. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You are talking rubbish, total kak. I have nearly been eaten by one of these bastards. I have seen them close up. It’s on YouTube. Two million hits. Great whites is killers. That’s their job, to kill. It’s them or us. You tree-huggers think everything will turn out just fine. These fish is never going to change, either we kill them or we accept that they will go on killing two, three, four, ten people every year. If that’s okay with you it’s okay with me. Studying their habits is not going to change nothing. They has evolved theirselves for thousands of years. They is made to kill. You can’t speak to them or train them like dolphins.’