The Boy Who Could Keep a Swan in His Head

by John Hunt

  Phen closed the book and placed it back on the shelf. From the cover, a sacred grey langur from the Himalayas stared back at him. The black face was marooned in a thick mane of steely white hair. Its deep eyes would not let him go. They mirrored an honesty Phen could not ignore. It was time to admit he couldn’t spend his five rand because he wasn’t looking for a book, or magazine or comic. And the bare walls of his bedroom would stay that way because he wasn’t looking for a poster either. He was searching for Heb Thirteen Two.

  When he reached the park it was already dusk. Time in bookshops behaved differently to anywhere else. When he’d stepped outside and realised the whole afternoon was gone, he’d started to run to Nugget Hill. Down Banket and into Kapteijn, he began to sprint. By the time he’d crossed Catherine and reached Primrose, he was panting heavily. Everyone he passed looked behind to see what he was running from; no one presumed he was racing to something. Finally he arrived, gasping and wheezing. He bent over and stuck his fingers through the wire strands of the fence.

  It was a silly barrier more for show than anything else; the fence was barely a yard high. Anyone could grab the metal posts and use the diamond-shaped mesh as footholds to climb over. Besides, on the south side, near the waterfall, there was nothing at all. You could scramble up from Hadfield Avenue and just step over a single row of logs. His mother had explained that decent people didn’t go into parks at night. Once, he’d seen an excited sleeping bag worming itself across the lawn as it battled to get traction on the night-time dew. The moon had supplied just enough light for Phen to watch the bag rise and fall faster and faster as the two bodies inside slapped at each other.

  He was tired of being told what to do and tired of not understanding why. Most of all he was weary of always being on the outside, of having to wait for permission to be invited in. He had five rand in his pocket and he was the man of the house. With one crisp leap, Phen was over the fence.

  Away from the streetlights, his eyes had to adjust to the dark. The park was the last outpost of black left. Its unlit strip ran the whole length of Primrose Road, defiant even as tenants flicked switches and turned their apartments into boxes of light. They peered out to confirm the darkness then drew their curtains shut to keep it at bay. Phen moved to the edge of the park and looked down at Saratoga Avenue. Even the huge Catholic Cathedral of Christ the King looked small, the roadhouse dinky. The park felt much, much higher than it had ever been before. He was on the Hillbrow high sierra. He parted the branches of the young willow tree and stepped inside.

  “Heb. Heb Thirteen Two?”

  Inside it felt like a heavy blanket had been thrown over him. No light penetrated. He sat with his chin on his knees and held the five-rand note tightly in his palm. Where there should’ve been fear, a growing feeling of sanctuary emerged. His senses calmed and, at the same time, became more acute. Far away, a man demanded his dog return and a car radio arrived and departed within one chorus of “Strawberry Fields Forever”. He was alone, yet in the right place. His job was to wait. Patience turned to serenity. It was the first time in his life he could honestly say he wasn’t afraid of the dark.

  Like its behaviour in the bookshop, time once again lost its normal calibration. Phen had no idea how long it took for the light to pierce his leafy shelter. It broke in from above and wrapped his head in a faint gold. Like Mr Lansdown, he held out his palms and let it do the same to his hands. The purple five-rand note turned transparent. Jan van Riebeeck’s middle parting and the Voortrekker Monument glowed. The oxen pulling the wagon in the right-hand corner started to move, eager to complete their journey north. He looked up into the light but it was too bright. Blinded, he broke from the willowed womb and made his way through the drooping branches. Using the line of logs that marked the park’s perimeter, he stumbled into the darkness.

  Distance gave perspective. When he turned, there, high up in the acacia, he saw the molten glow. At first he thought the branch was on fire, but as his eyes adjusted he realised the source was contained, even as it breathed shafts of honeyed yellow. The light burst out and down, yet somehow was cocooned. Its form was human, although not totally so. As it stretched, a whiteness spread from both sides of its body to the edges of its unfurled arms. Two wings gleamed momentarily before folding inwardly again. On top of the head that stared straight into the night was a felt hat, tilted slightly to the left.

  14

  Enigmatic

  /in-ig’mat-ik/ adjective

  No one had to tell Phen that what he’d seen was to be kept a secret. He knew that instinctively. Who would he tell anyway? Besides, he could never trust himself to do the job. It wasn’t the stuttering or stammering that worried him; he knew the words did not exist to explain what he saw. No one could describe the inexplicable or wrap a mystery in sentences stripped and borrowed from the world of the normal. What he’d seen was his alone to keep. The moment came with that deep vow. In the telling, the magic would seep out anyway. It was enough that he knew the truth.

  This knowledge didn’t necessarily make Phen more courageous; however, it did allow him to put his fear somewhere else. He now knew a parallel universe existed not just in his mind but in reality. It provided a place of safekeeping to store his deepest anxieties and his most exhilarating dreams. He’d often been chided for having too much of an imagination. Now he wondered if he had enough. Clearly there were other truths, other worlds that lay beyond his tiny, cramped existence. What he’d seen, what he’d witnessed, was big and powerful and full of light. The secret made him feel anchored, even if he didn’t know to what. And that pushed much of the panic to one side. He now knew, even if you couldn’t always glimpse it, that the world was more than the mundane detail it pushed in your face every day. Now, he felt if you changed your angle, perhaps you could see forever.

  Phen needed a new, unimpeded perspective. He was standing in the middle of an intersection. School and the school play were driving full speed down one road. On the other, his father’s ill health kept its foot on the accelerator. There were no stop streets as he waited for the inevitable collision. His mother spent more time at home than at work. Mairead continually circled, sometimes the flat, sometimes the entire block. Shopping for lunch could take her two hours. Uncle Edward popped in every night and sometimes even in the mornings just to check up. The man of the house spent one entire evening behind the large curtain listening to “Consider Your Verdict” and no one noticed.

  To his utter shame, his thin frame, with tight fists, still lay awake at night and worried about the play. Phen knew he should be above this. He was a boy who’d seen an angel. He’d glimpsed the other side, pierced the veil, yet stayed chained to his potential humiliation. It was meant to be a comedy, although as Oberon and Titania danced around his trunk, it felt as if the purpose of the play was to mock him. He was hidden and on full display. As Puck and Peaseblossom swung from his sagging branches, how could they not be sniggering at his skinny arms? It didn’t matter that Miss Delmont told them not to hang on for too long: Philip Denton was nearly thirteen and weighed a ton.

  It also didn’t help that Philip was jealous because Margaret Wallace, as Titania, spent a lot of time leaning against the tree. It was the closest Phen had ever been to her. The warmth of her body made his imagination boil. At one rehearsal she’d been forced to hug the trunk. His body had stiffened and his branches had shot up in surprised surrender. Two leaves unglued themselves and fluttered to the stage floor. In the changing rooms afterwards, Denton had thrown his fairy hat into the corner and asked if trees got woodies.

  The only positive of the play was that Jimmy the Greek seemed prepared to talk to him if he was wearing his donkey head. He’d been a surprise choice for Bottom since the part involved a substantial amount of talking. Mrs Smit had been particularly mortified. Miss Delmont had, however, reminded her of the need for volume, especially with a head encased in cardboard. Besides, she had taken the role of narrator and would ensure the audience didn’t lose track.
Jimmy’s eyes peered at Phen through the long tunnel of the donkey’s mouth. A papier mâché knot in the tree allowed his left eye to look back.

  “Crazy, crazy play!”

  “I know.”

  “Old-time pixie story like hippie-drug party in garden. Love potion same as Durban Gold and crushed pills you get upstairs at Narnia Cafe behind counter. Also make you fly with the fairies … Be happy you don’t have to say ‘shivering shocks shall break the locks’. Delmont say I’m the donkey Bottom, the Leb call me the horse’s arse. He’s sour ’cause minstrel don’t say much. Wear stripy pants too big. Look like he shat a brick in the back. Not even strings on his guitar.”

  Phen agreed. He peered through the wooden hole and hoped Jimmy could see him nodding. The donkey’s head came closer and tilted upwards. From a distance it must’ve looked like he was trying to eat what little greenery remained.

  “I heard,” he whispered, “Mrs Smit make Leb’s costume so he looks extra stupid. Hat like crashed flying saucer.”

  Phen was thankful for any conversation. Normally he just stood alone in the middle of the stage while people moved around him. Sometimes even Miss Delmont forgot he was in there. He’d stand for hours before she’d remember and suddenly shout, “Get that tree a chair.” Now it was a little different. Wrapped in green felt, planks of wood and paper leaves, he thought about the acacia tree in the park and the light that had shone from it. Time didn’t matter too much. Even as his legs became leaden and his arms chafed under the wooden struts, he didn’t mind. He was somewhere else.

  “You’re a trouper, Olivier junior. Have your roots grown through the stage floor and found the water they were seeking?”

  As he stood with outstretched arms and wrapped legs, Phen wondered what to do next with his revelation. It had been nearly a week; the golden light burned as fiercely in his mind as ever, yet he feared a revisit might extinguish it. What if Heb was no longer there? Would that make the memory stronger or weaker? What if Phen had witnessed some metamorphosis, a precursor to Heb disappearing entirely? Maybe that yellow light was now travelling through space, its glow registering for a moment in the lens of some vast telescope. He’d read somewhere about an observatory in Hawaii that could look all the way to the beginning of time.

  Phen peered through the knot in the trunk to the clock on the far wall. The school day was nearly over. Besides his fear that Heb might no longer be there, he worried if this was a planned manifestation or was he culpable of the act of spying? He was sure of what he’d observed but this didn’t stop his growing pangs of guilt. Confused and contrite, he pulled his eye from the hole.

  “Right!” Miss Delmont once more clapped her hands high in the air. This time she dramatically brought them together above both shoulders with a Spanish spin of her body. “Let’s finish off with the grand finale! Everyone on stage with your accoutrements. Mr Visser, esquire, bring your crutch too. We shall wrap it in purple crinkle paper. The strange beasts of the forest are allowed to hobble, provided they are colourful.”

  Margaret Wallace tucked in closely. Philip tugged the tree’s branch down painfully. Jimmy the Greek played for laughs with his donkey head worn sideways, and the Leb strummed his banjo like an exaggerated Elvis. Hettie Hattingh rearranged the flowers on the front of her head while Vernon MacArthur undid them from behind.

  “When you are all quite ready? … Thank you … Now where is my Portuguese Puck?”

  Carlos de Sousa made his way to the centre of the stage. He had been another surprising piece of casting. His thick Lisbon accent would normally have banished him deep into the background. Two orange horns grew from his Brylcreemed wedge like the tips of carrots seeking air. He was not comfortable in a leotard and was very conscious of where it bulged. He held a flute which was really Leana van Wyk’s recorder. Every time he put the instrument to his mouth she pulled a face. He centred himself in front of the tree and sighed.

  “Now remember you are a mischievous sprite. Full of cheek and humour. You’re shrewd, a merry wanderer of the night. This is your chance to wrap up the whole play. You talk directly to the audience and apologise for anything that might have offended them. And you suggest that they all pretend it was a dream.”

  Carlos wiped his mouth then blew a few mournful notes on the recorder. He bowed, the tightness of his leotard stopping him from bending too low.

  If we shadows have offended,

  Think but this, and all is mended,

  That you have but slumb’red here

  While these visions did appear.

  And this weak and idle theme,

  No more yielding than a dream,

  Gentles, do not reprehend.

  If you pardon, we will mend.

  Before Miss Delmont had even dismissed them, Phen knew what he had to do. He would not pretend it was a dream; he hadn’t slumb’red there. It was no weak and idle theme. It was time to go back to Nugget Hill. He would confront this Arthur Murrayed angel who kept Life Savers in his hair. His oak had evolved from costume to carpentry so only Mr Swindon, the silent groundkeeper who was good with his hands, could de-tree him. He wedged apart the tongue–and-groove planks from around the base with a screwdriver, then quietly circled Phen as he unwrapped the felt. Finally, he gently pulled the brown-painted tubes off Phen’s arms, careful not to lose any more leaves.

  “In a rush.”

  Phen nodded. Not that it was a question. This three-word statement was the first time he’d ever heard the groundsman talk when not spoken to first. The pleasant smell of earth and grass surrounded him as he stacked the wood into two neat piles. Here was a man who moved at his own pace, who didn’t let time bully him. Mr Swindon detached a piece of sticky tape from the schoolboy’s sock and pointed to the cap folded in his blazer pocket.

  “Once that’s on your head and your tie is straight, you’re ready to go.”

  Pal was, unusually, behind both the Grundig and the curtains. On hearing his master drop his school bag, it took some time to untangle himself. By the time he sniffed at the scuffed black school shoes, the front door was open again and his collar attached. To ensure his master couldn’t change his mind, he tugged at his leash until they were well within the park gates. Once released, he immediately charged after a bulldog with a scarf around its neck, the coral-coloured linen a little feminine for its muscular body and squashed face. Suddenly it was important for Phen to feign casualness. He remembered Mr Swindon’s steady, relaxed step and likewise tried to make time his own. His heart was pounding as he instructed his legs not to rush. He would amble with intent as he made his way towards the acacia. He’d read that rivers meandered and wondered if he could do the same.

  “Greetings, Earthling.”

  Phen stopped in mid-stride and spun around. Heb was sitting on a park bench deep in the shade of the huge jacaranda. His legs were crossed, his arms spread wide. The sun reflected off the buildings that lined Primrose Terrace and backlit him slightly. The silhouette cocked its head, the hat tipped forward. Phen stalled. As excited and as relieved as he was to see Heb, he realised he’d been hoping for a more rapturous and euphoric reunion. A little levitation perhaps, or a glow that didn’t come from the sun. All he could see that was different was Heb’s placemat under his chin, which was now in a diamond shape.

  The leather lead he’d been trailing behind him lay on the ground. It pointed towards Heb but had no source of energy at the end of it to draw him closer. He felt awkward with one end wrapped around his hand and the other lying in the freshly cut grass. He wasn’t sure if there was some protocol he should follow. Should he slowly go down on his knees? Flatten himself entirely and spreadeagle himself on the ground? Did Heb know he knew? Did it even matter?

  “Come here, boy!” Heb motioned to the invisible dog and slapped his lap.

  Ridiculously Phen moved towards him, stood while Heb patted nothing, then sat down on the bench.

  “How’s the play going?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine te
rrible or fine fine?”

  “Fine okay.”

  “When’s the big night?”

  “Friday.”

  “Anyone coming to watch?”

  Phen looked sideways down his top, searching for a pulsating light.

  “My father is too ill. My mother has to look after him. Uncle Edward has a business meeting and Mairead doesn’t like theatre. She doesn’t like the movies either, unless it’s The Sound of Music, even if Julie Andrews looks like a boy.”

  “Everyone know their words?”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “I meant for those who have to speak.”

  “Miss Delmont says it’ll be alright on the night. We have to trust the god of the theatre.”

  Heb began to sway from side to side as if in a trance. His eyes rolled so far back, the brilliant blue was replaced by a crisp white. He started to drool as he gnashed his teeth and whipped his head faster and faster from one side to the other. His face contorted horribly as a sneer cut across his mouth and stayed there. The locked jaw didn’t stop the constant moaning of a man wanting to vomit. His hat fell onto the bench, then onto the ground. His hair became static and desperate to leave his head. His whole body jerked and jolted as his arms punched mindlessly in different directions. As instantly as he started, he stopped.