Before I Forget

by Andre Brink

  The weather was still perfect, except that it was much colder than the previous night. But then, thanks to your vile smoking habit (to which I had, by now, become a happy convert), we had lighters, and so could make a fire. There wasn’t much time before dark to collect wood, but at least we could protect ourselves against the cold for most of the night. After having wolfed down all the provisions we had brought along for lunch, there was no food left to stave off the hunger; there was only the little stream to drink from. We huddled tightly together, this time with you in the middle, and roasting our fronts and freezing our backs, we sat through the night.

  To help us forget about the cold George tried to entertain us with a story about a fall he’d once had on the slopes of the Rigi in Switzerland. He hadn’t gone there to ski, he quickly assured us—‘that would have been a shortcut to hell’—only to take a walk along the sleigh track. But engrossed in taking photographs, he didn’t look where he was going, and to make it worse he was wearing leather-soled shoes. Within a few meters he slipped and started falling. ‘I fell,’ said George, his face a caricature of suffering at the memory, ‘and I fell, and I fell, until I thought it was impossible to fall any further, and then I fell some more. I lost my cameras. And still I went on falling. After some time I saw my arse coming wheeling past my head, but still I fell and fell. It just wouldn’t stop. I tell you, if I’d brought a book along I could have read it from cover to cover before I got to the end of my fall.’

  ‘And when you did,’ I asked, ‘were there any unbroken bones left in your body?’

  ‘Quite a few,’ he said with a sly grin. ‘Because I’m pear-shaped I have a fair amount of built-in protection. And I realized that in future my best safeguard would be to put on more weight. So I’ve been working on it. What I did…’ His voice trailed off. It was getting too cold to go on talking. Silence was insinuated into us with the cold, as our wood ran out and the last few flames died down. And sleep was impossible. But there was more than enough time to think.

  Through the biting cold I remained conscious of the shadow of warmth coming from your body on my left. If I hadn’t hurt my leg, I thought, the two of you would have been together again now, lying in each other’s arms, sharing the warmth you were now sharing with me. You might be making love. You with your warbling call. Last night you were a couple, I was the outsider. Now we were all together. I had taken up some of your space. I had come to belong. I was being acknowledged, drawn into your generosity. Meager as this warmth was, we were all sharing it, a primitive osmosis, a fusion, body to body.

  I grimly reminded myself of a story that used to warm me through much of my childhood: the sad and heroic tale from some time after the Great Trek, when a twelve-year-old girl, Rachie de Beer, a little Snow White of the veld, had wandered about with her small brother in search of a strayed calf and got lost in a snowstorm, and saved the little boy’s life by pushing him into a hollowed-out anthill and curling herself up in front of the hole to keep out the snow and the wind; and as it got colder, she took off all her clothes, bit by bit, dress and petticoat and small woolen vest and broekie, to keep him warm. In the end she was wearing only her little veldskoens, which must have made her nakedness appear even starker. When they were found the next day, the little boy was still alive, if only barely; but she had frozen to death. To my eternal shame I used to derive during much of my boyhood a guilty thrill from the idea of the thin naked girl curled up in the snow, and imagined myself in a weird act of heroism, approaching in the blinding storm, also stripped of my clothes, and lying down behind her, putting my arms tightly around her, tucking up my bare legs into hers from behind, my knees under her cold thin thighs, and feeling the darkness of death enveloping us together. There was something shameful about the memory. But I could not ward off the lurid imaginings that chilling story set alight inside me.

  On this occasion, at least, you had George on one side and me on the other, all of us wrapped in many layers of clothing, to save you from a lingering white death. This was probably the closest I would ever be to you, I thought. For one night our separateness was suspended. We were part of a single formation in the mountains, returning to our own elemental beginnings. I was aware of tears that stung my eyes, a vast reservoir of gratitude welling up in me to you, woman, merging for a few shining black hours with all the women I have been with in my life, all of you together saving my life, redeeming me. And then even the thoughts seemed to go numb inside me.

  We were close to frozen by the time the first grey dawn came filtering down the mountainside and we could unbend our seized-up joints to go in search of more wood to rekindle the fire and revive our bodies before we set out again on the last stretch to the camp. My ankle was swollen to a monstrous size. I could not put my boot on again and had to stuff it into the rucksack in which I’d carried my share of food and water up the mountain.

  It took three more hours to get back to the camp. But it felt like returning home to Ithaca after years of wandering in the wilderness. We gulped down several glasses of neat whiskey (good, Irish) before we even thought of making breakfast. Then we devoured all the food that remained, and which had been meant to last for three more days, washed down with a bottle of red wine. A rich full-bodied Merlot which I shall never forget. An intense aroma of cherries and ripe strawberries, a liberal dash of cinnamon and vanilla, a wealth of ripe plums and mulberries on the palate (even after the whiskey), with generous mocha tones and firm, supple tannins. And an aftertaste that lasts for ever.

  It was afternoon before we finally packed up and left. I felt guilty as hell for cutting short what had been meant to be a long and adventurous excursion full of walks and climbs and discoveries. And yet the atmosphere in the car on the way back was unrestrainedly jolly. We sang silly and bawdy songs, and laughed, and told filthy stories, all the way to the Cape, where in spite of my protestations you took me to Vincent Pallotti Hospital to have the ankle X-rayed. To my relief it turned out to have been, indeed, only a sprain. Even so, both of you refused to take me home and leave me there on my own (even though I assured you that Frederik could cope). I was forcibly taken to Camps Bay with you and put to bed in the room that was by now generally designated as mine. My only compensation was some of the most lurid dreams I’d had for many months, and I woke up with a morning glory still staggering in spasms of uncontrollable delight, which is not something that happens to me very often these days. I couldn’t remember the details of the dreams, but they were all about you; and at some stage all of us were involved in a threesome in a single sleeping bag, with stars raining down and shimmering on us like quicksilver. After that, in the vain hope of being granted a repeat of the dream—which, if not unequivocally ‘wet’ as in my days of full potency, at least could qualify as ‘damp’—I accepted to stay in your home until the ankle was fully recovered.

  ***

  It was after the scorched earth that followed in the wake of the Soweto uprising in ’76, and after the murder of Steve Biko the following year, that I met Aviva at an exhibition of her photographs in Johannesburg, where I had gone to the launch of my book Intimate Lightning. Not even a launch. After some unpleasant previous experiences the local representative of my London publisher had merely arranged a small private function in the bookshop of a friend in Braamfontein. Even so, the Security Police turned up in full force. A phalanx of very polite, very broad-shouldered, very shallow-eyed gentlemen in sports jackets and ties and flannels, who confiscated all the copies of Intimate Lightning imported for the occasion, and wrote down meticulously the names of everybody in the bookshop. Not a word was said about the book. They were merely acting on a complaint, they explained with smiles like knife wounds cutting across their Aryan faces, that the shop had not asked permission to be open after hours; and that it was a mixed gathering; and that liquor was being served.

  I was supposed to leave for London the following day for the official launch of the book. But I was already seated
in the plane when a very apologetic gentleman—whom I immediately recognized as one of our visitors in the bookshop the night before—came on board, approached me in my aisle seat, leaned over and invited me to accompany him. It wouldn’t take a minute, he said.

  He was right. It didn’t. In the airport building I was ushered into a small room behind a panel which didn’t look like a door and where no one would ever have expected an office. Several of the other sporty men from the previous evening were already assembled around a low table of imitation sapele mahogany on which sat the black Samsonite suitcase which I had checked in an hour before.

  I was invited—that word again—to list on a sheet of paper all the contents of the suitcase. Afterwards, without bothering to look at the list, the primus inter pares opened the case. They all stood back in silence as if expecting a detonation. When nothing happened, they opened up a narrow gangway for me to approach the suspect piece of baggage, and I was—yes—invited to unpack it. Each item brought to light—every shirt and handkerchief, every pair of pants and underpants, every jersey, every book, every condom, every little box or bottle of medication—was passed from one investigator to the next, inspected from several sides, probed, sniffed at and finally, with what seemed like sincere regret, put down on the unencumbered end of the low table. This took almost an hour. Then I was—so help me God—invited to repack the suitcase, while the surrogate Inspector Clouseau left, holding between a thumb and a forefinger, with obvious distaste, as if someone had ejaculated over it, the list I had compiled. We waited. From time to time I looked at my watch. Whenever I caught someone’s eye, my look would be met with a smile of deep understanding, but clearly also of satisfaction. Long after the scheduled departure time of my plane Inspector Clouseau returned, nodding at me with an expression of real contentment, as if he had just concluded a very successful quickie with a colleague, presumably female, somewhere in the entrails of the sprawling building.

  ‘It is all right,’ he said. ‘You may go now.’

  I clenched my teeth in a very tight imitation of a smile. ‘Thank you,’ I said frostily, then stopped. ‘Would you mind telling me just what all this was about?’

  All of them, as if by prearrangement, looked at one another, and the spokesman said, ‘We have been tipped off.’

  ‘I see. Tipped off about what?’

  ‘That you might be trying to smuggle copies of your book out of the country.’

  ‘But the book is being published in London,’ I pointed out. ‘Why would I smuggle copies to London?’

  ‘One never knows,’ he said, unfazed.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, still trying to meet their deadpan stares with one of my own. ‘Well, I must commend you on your thoroughness.’

  I went out, carrying my neatly repacked black Samsonite suitcase, found my way to the rent-a-car section, and returned to the hotel from which I had already checked out. Not having anything else to do for the night, I went down to the lobby, flipped through a newspaper and came across an advertisement for an exhibition of photographs by Aviva Scholnik which was to be opened that night. I had seen some of her work in newspapers before, but never in the flesh. And that was how I turned up in the Carlton Centre an hour later.

  The first person I recognized in the throng inside was one of my charming friends from the SB, who had been at my gathering the previous evening, but not at the airport that afternoon. One cannot attend every single cultural event in town. Not expecting him there, I actually greeted him before I realized who he was, and then quickly lost myself in the crowd. There were so many people that it was difficult to get to the photographs on the walls, but I jostled my way through. And the exhibition was more than worth the effort. This was an artist who could capture the fleeting, revealing moment, poignant or shocking as the case might be, but in such a way that something lasting was burned into the mind of the spectator. Most of the photographs had been taken in the wake of the Soweto upheavals, and it was a miracle that they had actually been allowed to go on show: it was only later that I heard about the link between Aviva and her friend Claudie who’d had the liaison with the secretary-to-be. They were either under constraint to allow her some scope, or—more likely—they were giving her rope and waiting for the moment to pounce.

  It was some time before I came across Aviva Scholnik herself, in a back room close to the toilets, where she was having a quiet cigarette on her own, out of the crowd. The place was rank with dense blue smoke. I’d had to ask several people before I found her; but having seen the work, I felt the need to speak to her personally.

  My first impression was of a half-developed photograph: a few stark blacks (hair, eyes), the rest a Rorschach assortment of greys still undecided about which way to go. An incredibly small person, even more incredibly thin, a mere wisp of a girl. Not exactly a girl either, she must have been thirty-four or thirty-five then. I, of course, was in my early fifties.

  ‘You have some unexpected visitors here,’ I said.

  ‘People just gatecrash.’

  ‘I was referring to the SB.’

  A quick shadow flitted across her eyes. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I just recognized one of them. They came to my book launch last night.’ I told her about the event, and its sequel.

  ‘Well, good for them. Perhaps some of the culture will rub off on them,’ she tried to quip, but it was clear that she was extremely nervous, smoking through an oversized cigarette holder, like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She did remind me somewhat of Hepburn, the eyes especially. But also of a Filippo Lippi madonna: one of those naughty girls he was reputed to pick up in the back streets at night when he slipped out of the monastery, and whom he would paint, after they had disported themselves, as the Holy Virgin.

  She knew about me and my books in the same way as I knew about her and her photographs; so it was easy to get talking. And the pressure—the crowd, the police lurking—inspired a closeness which might not have been there under more normal circumstances. I have no doubt that the air of vulnerability surrounding her (although I soon found out how tough she could really be) was an added attraction. So it was not only as an artist, but as a woman, that she held my soon quite passionate interest. This was compounded when after barely half an hour of talking in the thick cloud of smoke that seemed to swirl in a slow, deadly whorl through the small room, a stranger made a rather brusque entry, grabbed her by the arm and said in a snarling whisper, ‘For God’s sake, woman, you’re not hiding away again, are you? Come with me!’ He was young; younger, it seemed, than she. With shoulder-length hair, not recently washed, and a pale ascetic face that seemed permanently fixed in a dissatisfied scowl. Rather beautiful long hands, and he clearly was aware of that. He tugged at her arm. ‘Come on, sweetie!’ The possessive endearment offended me more than anything else.

  She pulled back. ‘I’m talking to someone, Wayne.’ (As it happens, no male name pisses me off more than Wayne; so the hostility in the thick air must have been as tangible as the smoke.)

  He looked at me as if she had just scraped me from her pointed shoe. ‘And who might this be?’

  I did a very rude thing, which I hope is not in my repertoire of customary reactions. I said, ‘None of your business, sonny. Buzz off.’

  To my surprise and delight she burst out laughing. That, as far as young Wayne was concerned, was the last straw. He seemed to consider lunging at me, but must have suddenly decided to take the dignified way out—presumably because he did not have the build of a pugilist—and strutted off like a young rooster with a long white thorn stuck up his arse.

  That guaranteed us another half-hour of talk, before she decided of her own accord that she owed it to her guests to make a reappearance. I remained behind for another few minutes to finish the glass I hadn’t touched during our eager conversation, before I followed her into the exhibition space, which was by now less congested than before.


  Just inside the door I could see the SB man still hovering, and for a moment I was tempted to go over and engage him in some heavy cultural conversation, but then decided against it and made another, less pressurized, turn through the hall. I was quite prepared to see her go soon, although I was resolved to get her number before she did; but Waynie-boy did us an unexpected good turn by coming over just at the moment when she was writing her number on the back of an empty cigarette packet for me. He must have seen what she was doing (he was the kind of vulture that never missed anything; he should have joined the Security Police), for he went a shade paler than before, raised himself to his not very considerable height, and hissed, ‘I see you are otherwise engaged. So I’ll just fuck off.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I said.

  This time I was sure he was going to hit me. But as several other guests chose that moment to come and say their goodbyes, Wayne had to make a most unimpressive exit on his own.

  This put me in a generous mood. I even asked her, ‘Are you sure you shouldn’t go with him?’

  ‘He can go to hell,’ she said. But the next moment, looking round with a frown of worry on her forehead, she added, ‘Now what am I going to do?’ She turned to me. ‘Do you think you could call me a taxi?’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I’ll take you home myself. I rented a car at the airport.’

  ‘But you…’

  ‘I promise I won’t place your virtue at risk,’ I said with mock solemnity.

  She laughed, and I took her all the way to Greenside, where she lived in a somewhat ramshackle old house. Sadly not on her own, I deduced from some items of male clothing lying about.

  Aviva was clearly exhausted, so I did not accept her invitation to a good-night drink, and drove back to my hotel. I knew already that I would not be taking the next plane to London the following day after all (I would phone the publisher in the morning, using the SB as an excuse), nor would I return home to Cape Town. Instead, I phoned her late in the morning and proposed meeting for dinner.