Out of Shadows

by Jason Wallace

  I gave in. Now I was on my back and helpless, lying over my books with Ivan pinning an arm across my chest. I could barely see his face. He was an outline as the lamp blinded me, coming closer, its heat getting stronger and stronger until the searing bulb was eating into my skin. I shouted out, twisting. Ivan’s hold was too heavy and my cheek burned.

  “You picked the wrong chick to steal, Jacko,” he said over my cries. “A fine mate you turned out to be.”

  I spluttered. “I didn’t . . . I wasn’t trying to . . .”

  The heat vanished. He hauled me up and tossed me onto the bed. Two quick punches and I was curled in agony.

  “Don’t bullshit me. Why else would you have gone there? Tell me. What were you doing if it wasn’t to try and take my woman?”

  What could I say? The truth?

  He backed away. Almost as an afterthought he lurched forward and slapped me several times around the head.

  “I trusted you. Despite my better judgment I took you in and made you my friend, and this is how you repay me. Why, Jacko?” He kicked my feet. “Tell me why. What have I done to you?”

  I groaned.

  “I wasn’t . . .”

  “Don’t lie to me,” he yelled. “I knew you were lying. I didn’t want to believe it. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you had to go and screw it all up. And I’m the idiot with egg on my face for opening the door and inviting you to come and be one of us. Well, not any longer. You can fuck off and die. You’ll regret this, I promise you. I’m Head Boy; you have no idea how miserable I can make your final days here.”

  He headed out. At the door he paused without turning.

  “Don’t you get it? You needed me. You could have been part of something great. You still need me, but now you’re going to find out what life’s really like.”

  Since then I’ve gone over and over those words in my head, poring over the irony of how it was actually completely the opposite of that. For what he had planned, Ivan needed me, and he’d known it. He was in far greater agony.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I probably could have made it.

  Despite everything they threw at me—the names, the jibes, the stares, ants’ nests in my bed, glass under my pillow, the shit smeared on my study walls, even a snake in my wardrobe—I reckon I could have kept my head down, focused on my studies and got through relatively unscathed.

  The problem was Weekend.

  Every night I saw his face as I tried to sleep, and I’d hear the words again and again, always the same.

  And then there are the children who do not return.

  In my dreams I saw the piccanins with burned and acid-scorched skin—and Tuesday, of course, with his missing eye—and I would invariably wake chasing a cry into the darkness. I didn’t like sleeping anymore, so I didn’t mind that, increasingly, I couldn’t. But my studies were suffering, too, and all I could think about was Ivan.

  In the week that marked the midway point, with half term approaching, I returned from class to find my study turned over again, although this time was slightly different because it was as though they’d been looking for something.

  What did I have they could possibly want? I thought as I put the room back together.

  My heart beat faster and faster when I realized I couldn’t find the keys to the rifle room.

  I heard Ivan’s study open. There was a murmur of voices and a snigger before they drifted off. I dared to crack open my door; off on one of their walks, by the looks of it, Klompie and Pittman each with a hefty stick.

  And then there are the children . . .

  I gave them another fifteen seconds before slipping out in their wake.

  My stomach rolled as they headed straight for the rifle room. But they didn’t stop, instead carrying on through the classrooms, past the woodwork shops, right on out of the top gate. Now they were on the dirt track there, a popular back route for smokers because it was rarely used and, more importantly, it met the main road right opposite the Zama Zama bottle store, far away enough from the school’s official entrance not to be spotted.

  They veered off the track and hovered under a msasa tree to light up, and when they were done they moved on again, digging out coins from their pockets.

  Just coming for a smoke, picking up more illicit supplies. That was all.

  Zama Zama was little more than a concrete block under a tin roof, the front wall splashed red and white by a giant Coca-Cola logo. The coast was clear. Ivan stole into the gaping black mouth that was the way in while the other two hung about around the side. Apart from them the place was deserted, it was too hot, everything was still.

  I watched and waited.

  Eventually Ivan emerged with a couple of bottles. The store owner was right behind him, also carrying beers, and Ivan indicated for him to go ahead.

  “Mazviita, shamwari.” Thank you, my friend. “You are number one.”

  The owner—a short man of about sixty with eager eyes and a boyish face—beamed. He’d be making a buck out of this, maybe even two.

  He walked on.

  Out of the man’s sight, Klompie and Pittman were waiting, tapping their sticks on the ground, getting ready for something.

  Ivan let the man get to within a few feet of the corner then paused to quickly put his beers down. Now he crept up on the storekeeper’s back.

  I didn’t like it. This wasn’t right. I looked around for anything and found it.

  The stone hit exactly where I wanted it to go: not at them, they would have known for sure it was me, but into a stack of wooden crates. Sound ricocheted and instantly the three of them were scampering into the bush, scarcely pausing to glance at the bewildered store owner. By the time they passed me, heading back to school, they’d started to laugh and joke.

  Would they have actually done anything? Was it all in my mind?

  Yes, I decided as I ran back, and no. In that order. And I had to do something about it.

  Bully looked over his half-moons and I knew I was wasting my time. I hadn’t really expected anything else. Ivan wasn’t just Head Boy, he’d been Mr. Bullman’s outright choice. An attack on Ivan was an attack on Bully. Bully was, in short, in league with the Devil, a fact made more terrifying because he had no idea.

  He sighed.

  “Our head pupil,” he said, “harassing local Africans at the bottle store. And workers from the village.”

  His chair made a sound like grinding teeth as he leaned back.

  “And the keys to the rifle room—over which you, the Captain, have responsibility—have gone missing.”

  “Yes, sir.” I felt the ground falling away. I saw myself as he saw me: red faced and covered with sweat and grime.

  “Do you realize how ridiculous your accusation sounds? Ivan is Head Boy, and he has proved himself to be nothing more than an exemplary example of such to me and the rest of the staff. He has helped this school tremendously, so to have you here today telling me these things . . . Well, I’m surprised. I thought you and Ivan were friends.”

  “We were, sir . . .”

  Slowly, he removed his glasses.

  “I see. You’ve fallen out.”

  “No, sir. I mean yes, sir, but that’s not why . . .”

  “These things happen between boys, Jacklin, I understand, particularly at a time of exams when pressure is high. But that is no reason to make matters worse by creating fanciful stories about the other.”

  “But, sir, I’m not making it up. You’re not listening. You have to believe me.”

  Mr. Bullman was Headmaster and he didn’t have to do anything unless it was the government that told him. The glasses went back on. The battle was lost.

  “I’m not expecting to find anything, but I shall look into these allegations of yours,” he said. “In due course. Right now, with mere days to tie up preparations for Speech Day that will be engraved into the school’s history, I’m too busy. In the meantime I advise you to focus on what you should realize are the most
important examinations of your life.”

  “But, sir . . .”

  Bully threw his pen onto the desk, where it lost itself in a river of papers. Briefly, I saw official letterheads and the government coat of arms and the word SECRET stamped in big red letters.

  “I am busy, Jacklin. I have very important matters to address, arrangements to make. If the keys to the rifle room are lost—not stolen or missing, lost—then recover them.”

  He waved me away.

  As I reached the door, he added: “You know, I am not only surprised by your appearance here today, but sorely disappointed. If you and Hascott have fallen out, then there are other ways to rectify the situation.”

  I waited, but there was nothing else.

  I left and found Ivan coming down the corridor toward me. He eyed me up and down.

  “Jesus, you’re a mess. You been playing in the dirt with your friends again, Jacko?”

  His heavy shoulder clipped mine, spinning me around. I watched him saunter down to Bully’s office and go in without knocking.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Half term came to release me.

  My old man met the announcement that I wouldn’t be going anywhere over the whole weekend with little surprise.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask: Whatever happened to that friend of yours?” he asked. “Ivan, I think you said his name was. And the two others. You used to talk about them all the time.”

  “Exams, Dad. My studies are more important at the moment,” I explained.

  “If you don’t know it now you never will. What have you been doing for the last five years?” was his response.

  “Dad!”

  “Sorry. Just joking. Maybe you’ll have time for a game of cribbage later?”

  “You bet.”

  I thought it would be different—better—but I felt as much a prisoner at home. More so, because at least at school there were people to talk to, even if it wasn’t about what I wanted to talk about any longer; here, there was only my old man and Matilda, and I couldn’t tell them, so I had no one. I was alone.

  A dozen times, possibly more, I picked up the phone to dial Adele’s number, though could never quite turn the last digit. What was the point? She’d be with him. And what would Ivan do this time if he found out?

  What would Ivan do?

  I thought of our meeting at Mermaid’s Pool and worried. I hadn’t seen or heard from her since that day.

  On the back of a lie about wanting to catch some movie, I took the car and drove into town, but instead of keeping straight for the center I headed toward Avondale and parked under lilac shade at the top of Adele’s road, fully aware that if Ivan was around I was dead. It was a chance I was willing to take. I cut the engine and waited, heat and jacaranda pods tapping on the roof.

  After two hours I saw her, a brief glimpse as her mum’s Datsun Cherry emerged from the gates. Adele sat meekly in the passenger seat, head low, hair shielding her face. There was something different about her, a change, she seemed so small and fragile that I almost didn’t recognize her. And when she lifted her face to slip on dark glasses was that a bruised smudge beneath her eye? Or just the light?

  My fingers dug into the seat. What had he been doing?

  I fired up the engine, pushed first gear, and started to follow. By the end of the road I saw what I was doing and how impossible it was. I couldn’t confront her, not again.

  I would have to find out another way.

  “Sorry, Dad. It was a long movie.”

  I turned right and headed out of town, and as fast air blasted at me through the open window I wondered for the first time: What exactly was I hoping to find out?

  An hour later I was through the school gates and parking up outside Selous. It was locked, of course.

  I walked around to Mr. Craven’s front door. I didn’t know if he was more surprised to see me or by the fact that I’d caught him with a cigarette in his hand. I was shocked, but I supposed teachers had to be human sometime.

  I fed him a line about having forgotten a book and that I’d left my key behind, and he handed over his bunch of spares.

  Inside, the bone rattle of keys echoed loudly along the corridor as I tried each one in turn. My palms were slippery. Finally, the lock turned and Ivan’s door swung open. The room was dim and unwelcoming, as though it knew I shouldn’t be there.

  Now what?

  Hurry. Hurry up, before . . .

  . . . Before . . . ?

  I went through every drawer, between every item of clothing, under every loose piece of flooring. I even reached up the chimney.

  Nothing.

  No rifle-room keys, and not a single piece of evidence to prove he was far from the model Head Boy he pretended to be. I stood in the middle of the room and exhaled, a part of me relieved.

  As a final check, I went through his rubbish and found exactly that, and in frustration I kicked the wastepaper bin to the other end of the study. The tin clattered loudly as paper strew all over the place. I regretted the action instantly and rushed around to collect the mess, wondering if anyone had heard, wondering if Ivan would notice the difference. It was with the last piece in my hand, however, that something made me stop to look at what I was retrieving.

  An envelope.

  Addressed to Ivan.

  With a South African stamp.

  Nothing remarkable about that, it could have been from his folks. But I noticed the Nelspruit postmark and his parents were all the way down in Pietermaritzburg; they weren’t anywhere near the Transvaal.

  The envelope had been ripped open in a way that made me picture frantic, eager fingers. I turned it over, and the sender’s details shone out in a heavy, angular hand I’d seen before.

  MvH, PO Box 3447, Nelspruit,

  Transvaal, South Africa.

  MvH.

  Mark van Hout.

  It had to be. It could only be. All this time . . .

  I delved back into the trash, but of course the letter itself was nowhere to be found.

  I swayed, adrift yet again. My eyes fell on the collection of toy cars the piccanins made from coat hangers and bottle tops. It had grown along Ivan’s windowsill over the months. It was as though I was noticing them for the first time. You could buy toys like this anywhere, a few cents on the side of the road, but was that likely? Ivan?

  I picked one up and remembered children playing down at the workers’ village, and a shudder gripped me.

  There was a noise.

  Outside, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Dunn as they walked between the houses. Dunno glanced up and I stepped quickly out of sight. He didn’t spot me and carried on walking, now moving across the grass and heading toward the Admin Block.

  I left the house and made sure he was out of sight before following his trail, stopping short of the school’s main building to check the rifle room itself. Using my own spare, I released the giant padlock and checked inside for the hundredth time. Everything was still in order: all rifles present and standing correctly, all bullets accounted for. Again, I questioned if I hadn’t simply mislaid or lost the keys after all, maybe Bully was right. Or maybe they were just playing with my mind. Or maybe . . .

  . . . Maybe, maybe, maybe . . .

  In the cool of the windowless room I slumped to the ground with my head in my hands and reminded myself repeatedly that there was only half a term left to go, fighting the other voice that told me that was still half a term to endure.

  More footsteps. I sprang to my feet and got out of there, and just managed to snap the bolt shut before Miss Marimbo emerged down the steps from the dining room. She was barely a foot away when she spotted me lurking in the doorway and she startled with a small shriek. Any other teacher might have then asked why the hell I was here, over half term; Miss Marimbo just turned and walked the other way, her feet breaking into a trot.

  “Miss Marimbo. It’s me, Jacklin.”

  She knew perfectly well who it was, though: Robert Jacklin, aka Ivan’s friend, aka one of t
he gang. Hadn’t I seen that same look on so many faces over the years?

  I went after her. “Miss Marimbo.”

  “Stay away from me.” Her voice was high and thin. She looked around to find we were the only two people in sight. “I’m warning you.”

  “Miss?”

  “What are you doing here? Is he here with you?”

  “Who?” I asked flatly.

  Miss Marimbo stopped.

  We’d reached the Admin Block. Upstairs, Mr. Dunn appeared at the staff-room window. Naturally, he looked surprised to see me. Miss Marimbo hovered with one hand on the door, visibly reassured.

  “What are you doing here, Jacklin?” she asked again.

  “Ivan and I,” I told her, “. . . we’re not friends anymore.”

  She seemed to relax more.

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I came for something.”

  “What?”

  The heat of the afternoon pressed around us. We were both still conscious of Dunno’s gaze. Miss Marimbo smiled up and he went away.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  Miss Marimbo began to push open the door. She opened her mouth and for a moment I thought she was going to tell me what I wanted to hear.

  “You are young,” she said instead, “and I believe you’re actually a decent person. Ivan? He isn’t like you and, if you must know, your friendship with him always mystified me. Finish your exams, leave this place, then forget it and forget Ivan.”

  She started to go.

  “Wait.” I held her arm, and immediately let go again. “Has something happened? Has Ivan done something? Please, I need to know.”

  And when she didn’t reply, “You can do something. You can tell Mr. Bullman. The police, even.”

  “Neither of whom would believe me. Me, an African woman, whom Mr. Bullman has employed as more than a maid only because he’s scared the government will shut his school down. He still treats me as a maid.”

  “But the police—”

  “Are all Shona tribe. I am Matabele. If they thought I was under threat they would be happy. Police and soldiers mistreat the Matabele all the time and everyone looks the other way.”