Embrace

by Mark Behr

  ‘O’Keeffe, Ma’am? Georgia O’Keeffe?’

  A victorious smile spread over Ma’am’s face when she looked at Jacques and then back at me. ‘And . . . is it yellow and flat. Ugly?’ she asked triumphantly. From beside her he smiled, staring from the window.

  ‘No, Ma’am. It is exquisite. It took me a moment because I hadn’t understood your question.’

  ‘Can you ever again see the Free State as flat and yellow?’

  ‘No, Ma’am. Imagine if O’Keeffe could ever see this. What she’d do with it?’

  ‘She’s probably a bit too old now, and I hear she doesn’t travel much outside of New Mexico. Anyway, what about you, Mr Cilliers?’ she asked. ‘Would you be able to call it exquisite?’

  ‘It might take me a while, too,’ he laughed. Ma’am thanked me and said I could return to my seat. I told the others about our discussion and Bennie said he hated the south-eastern Free State. That Ficksburg where he was born was good for nothing other than cherries. And also that it wasn’t too far from Maseru in Lesotho where one was allowed to gamble and watch blue movies. He said it was a region of perpetual drought. That they’d stand on their veranda looking out towards Lesotho and see all the rain was falling over kaffir country while the white country stayed dry. Dominic told Bennie there was a lesson inthat and Bennie snarled that yes, the lesson was that Satan looked after his own in the mountain kingdom. Lukas told them to shut up.

  At dusk, close to Bennie’s home town, we began to look out for his mothers car parked on the roadside. She had arranged to say hello to him when the bus passed by. At last we saw the green Beetle and Bennie dismounted with Ma’am and Mr Cilliers. ‘Come,’ Lukas said. ‘Let’s go say hello so we can get some of whatever’s in that parcel.’We piled out to say hello to Mrs Oberholzer. The moment the bus rewed itself back onto the road, we had Bennie’s box open. Inside were large packets of dried fruit, a litre of Coke, a bottle of peanut butter and a tin of Illovo Syrup. While we chomped on the fruit — saying we’d be farting like pigs in a few minutes — I watched the sun from behind us turn the plains and hollows and the distant Maluties and the Drakensberg to a deep purple, then orange, then black. It was remarkable. How had I ever thought this part of the country boring or plain? Bennie didn’t know where the Maluties ended and the Drakensberg began, said he thought they were sort of one. I undertook to look at a map the moment I got back to school.

  The rugby season over and I, physically unscathed by the game and free till the following May, had from an unexpected source indeed been graced with the blessing of a scar. With the tiny one on my forehead almost faded, the new one had come, I told myself, at the perfect moment. Beneath my right kneecap. A sickle-moon lying on its back, this was the mark that could substitute for the lack of the like from the rugby field. New, pink — the stitches removed only two weeks before — it was a bright crease emphasising the kneecap while I stood, then stretching flat, snug and shiny when the leg was bent. Now aware that my injury had not been particularly serious, I retained gratification from the wound being thought grave enough to warrant the stares of Seniors and Juniors as they passed by me on the veranda. For one week only the knee was bandaged; the attention and my overstated limp a source of tremendous pleasure. Only the other four knew that I was overdoing it when I told Jacques that I couldn’t possibly stand during choir, that I had to sit on a chair; when I told Uncle Charlie I couldn’t do PT even though I was back in the saddle; when I told Ma’am that I’d have to have my leg resting on a chair in class for at least three weeks. There was a sense of disappointment when the bandages were removed and the scar turned out to be less impressive than I had been hoping. Only eight stitches. Will you ride again, everyone asked. I glowed in shrugging that of course I would, nothing would stop me from riding, even if there was water on the knee as the doctors feared. The question of whether I would ride again reminded me of one asked to surfers after they’d had close shaves or been bitten by sharks off the Natal coast: will you ever surf again? Of course they’d surf again, even if it meant sitting on the stumps where their hips used to be.

  Why I liked this little scar I did not quite know, though on the most obvious level it was that it had been inflicted by a horse. On our way back from Bushman Paintings, Whiskey — with Alex Snyman on his back and briefly in front of Rufus on a canter — had kicked up. I felt the hoof like a rock through the denim against my knee. Still on the canter, I leant forward, feeling my fingers and the fabric sink into a clammy dent below the kneecap. I brought Rufus to a standstill by the roadside, hollering for the rest to wait. I slid off the horse’s back and as I landed my right knee gave way beneath me. I couldn’t get the denim’s leg up and had to remove my belt and drop my pants. By the time the group was around me, the damage was exposed and my eyes brimmed with tears. The kneecap — a strange pink and white bone like a raw hamburger patty — was half sticking out. I did not wish to cry, but did, shocked at the sight more than from feeling any pain. Mr Walshe dismounted and told me to stay seated in the grass. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I asked whether my walking would too be impaired. Would I lose the kneecap? He told me to look away and, with a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t movement that felt like hell, slipped the kneecap back into place, leaving a gaping and bloodymouth below the knee. Under Lukas’s supervision, the others returned to school from where Lukas was to have a vehicle sent to fetch me. Mr Walshe stayed and alleviated my concern about a permanent limp. He said I would be fine and showed me scars on his own body — among them where an ostrich had kicked him and trampled on his neck, almost killing him. I told him about Lossie in Mkuzi, how tame the bird had been, that he died after being bitten, probably by a green mamba.

  When the bakkie returned, Lukas was sitting in the front beside the driver. I was loaded in and Lukas and Mr Walshe cantered behind us, out of the dust range, as the vehicle meandered its way back to school.

  Lukas and the driver carried me upstairs to where sick-bay had already been prepared. One look at the leg and Uncle Charlie said I needed to be taken to hospital in Estcourt for X-rays and stitches. Perhaps an operation. As I might have to spend time in hospital he sent Lukas to fetch my pyjamas, dressing gown and toilet bag: And bring some PT shorts so he doesn’t have to go into hospital wearing only his underpants. Hang these over his locker,’ he said, handing my jeans to Lukas.

  Uncle Charlie placed a temporary dressing over the wound. Above and below the white gauze, the leg had swollen into a narrow oblong ball. He left to organise a mattress in a canopied bakkie in which I’d be taken to Estcourt. I lay wondering over the horror of limping for the rest of my life. Physical deformity was about the last thing in the world I could imagine living with. A limp for a while — with admiration and pity as its pay-off — was one thing. A permanent deformity was quite another. I thought of my mother’s ear, how her embarrassment at not hearing well seemed to rub off on all of us so that we too felt embarrassed on her behalf.

  Lukas returned, carrying his sportsbag. He sat down on the other bed. Held his hand out to me: ‘Here,’ he said, a key appearing between his fingertips. ‘It dropped from your dressing-gown pocket.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, casting my eyes to the bag by his side: ‘Pass the bag, please.’ He handed me the green canvas bag as I felt a flush spread up my neck. Act normal, act normal, act normal. I knew that he was awaiting an explanation. I had none to offer. I unzipped the toilet bag and nonchalantly dropped the key inside. Our eyes met briefly. He knew or suspected something. He wanted to ask, and I floundered to find words before he could. My mind having been so engrossed in my leg, I was nowhere near finding a believable story about the key. Say something, Karl, anything, clear your throat, scratch your head, rushed through my head. Every possible action seemed contrived, certain to enhance my look of duplicity. I was gagged, cornered in every side of the deafening silence.

  ‘Just a key I picked up. This fucken leg hurts, Lukas . . .’ Since the kick about an hour before, there had actually b
een little feeling besides discomfort when moving and the brief moment the disk had been slipped back. Now, for the first time, the deadness was changing to a light throbbing.

  ‘It looks pretty swollen, can you bend it?’

  ‘No. Uncle Charlie said not to. They’re getting a mattress put in the back of the bakkie, so I can lie down. Did you bring shorts?’ He took the black shorts from the bag and helped me slip them on.

  ‘Do you think you’ll stay in hospital?’ The key, for the moment, seemed forgotten.

  ‘I hope not. Last time I was in hospital was when I had my tonsils out.’

  ‘Who’s taking you, Uncle Charlie?’

  ‘Yes . . . Why don’t you get permission to come along to Estcourt? I’m sure he’ll come back tonight — even if I have to stay in hospital.’

  ‘What about choir? Cilliers wouldn’t let me go.’ At the mention of the name, I heard or suspected an inference, a challenge, a demand, a plea for explication.

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you go ask him?’

  ‘Okay. Can I say you asked?’ Clearly he was hinting; wanting me to respond. He was tormenting me. Or was I imagining it from beginning to end?

  ‘Just say Uncle Charlie may need some help and you don’t think I want to lie all the way there alone in the back of the van.’

  He rose and said he’d run to the conservatory.

  ‘Won’t you see if Dominic is in one of the music rooms?’

  ‘Want me to tell him?’

  ‘Ja, say he must come and say goodbye.’

  With me already loaded into the back of the bakkie, Lukas arrived in the parking lot. Jacques — his face flushed — was with him. Dominic not.

  So you went to war with a horse?’ he asked through the open back of the canopy. His one hand, dropped casually over the bakkie’s side, took hold of my left toes.

  ‘The horse went to war with me, Sir.’ My eyes darting to Lukas, who had turned away to speak to Uncle Charlie. Jacques asked whether it hurt and I said it did, though not much. His hand ran up my calf.

  ‘I told you you were not invincible, you little shit,’ he said, cocking his head, smiling. I grinned nervously, feeling his hand lingering, now back on my foot; a flagrantly public display of affection and tenderness.

  ‘I’ve told Lukas he can go with you . . .’

  ‘Oh, great. Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘Come back soon.’

  ‘I will.’ He withdrew his hand as Lukas turned back to the canopy’s open hatch.

  ‘Bye, Karl,’ he said and stepped away from the vehicle. Lukas slid into the back and propped himself up on his arm beside me.

  ‘Bye, Mr Cilliers,’ I said.

  Uncle Charlie told me to bang on the carriage window if my leg became too painful or if I wanted him to slow down on the gravel road. He dropped the hatch, sealing us in. Then we were driving off, leaving the school behind us in the descending dusk.

  ‘I couldn’t find Dominic, but I told Precious to tell him we looked for him.’

  I said it was fine and changed the subject to speak about horses and the afternoon’s ride.

  Requiring nothing more than local anaesthetic, the wound was cleaned and stitched, the leg X-rayed. I was given a bottle of painkillers and we started on the return journey. It was late, maybe around nine, by the time we left Estcourt. In the back both of us were quiet, not speaking much for most of the way. After we left the tarmac road, somewhere around the time we passed the turn-off to Loskop and the Theron farm, Lukas spoke.

  ‘Cilliers was rather upset.’

  ‘When you asked to come?’

  ‘No. When he heard it was you.’

  My heart sank. I waited a while. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Oh my God, take me to him, quickly . . . Like it was the end of the world, and we almost ran to the bakkie.’

  It was the first time I had been spoken to about Jacques as though he had any form of relationship to me other than that of choir master — with me one of his least interesting voices. I was now suddenly intrigued by what more he might have said. About the way he may have looked when he worried about me. Still present was a nagging in my head that Lukas was on to something. To trust myself to ask another word about Jacques would be stupid. There had been again, in Lukas s voice, the tone of expectation. That, deliberately, is what he wanted me to hear from his telling the incident. To refer again to the key would be crazy. No, leave the key at what I’d said.

  ‘He’s probably worried about me missing choir,’ I said after a silence which had again lasted just a moment too long. ‘I’m quite hotin seconds, these days, you know,’ I continued. ‘Not quite as useless as I was in firsts. Before you know it I’m a soloist.’

  Then we laughed; cracked up at the notion. The tension between us was gone.

  ‘And in seconds, just like Almeida,’ Lukas said. I laughed, but couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was trying to tell me something.

  2

  We packed our things on a Bedford lorry to leave St Lucia, Zululand and the Natal Parks Board.

  Bok had grown tired of what he called the authoritarianism of the Parks Board system — and he wanted to earn more money. Who could ever get ahead on the hundred and seventy rand a month he had been earning as a game ranger. No free accommodation plus weekly ration of impala or warthog meat would put him in a position to give his children a decent education. He was joining White Hunters Incorporated in Durban to take wealthy tourists along the Zambezi and Okavango to hunt for trophies. There were bags of money in organised hunting, just waiting to be collected.

  Few clear pictures remain in my mind of the circumstances under which we left the bush. All I knew was that Camelot was being sold to Dr Ian Player and Simba had to go to another ranger whose name I no longer recall. Everything surrounding the departure seems to have happened fast and memory is now little more than a diffuse haze. No time for long, sad goodbyes to the just-broken Camelot. Nor to Simba, who had to go because we were moving into a flat where dogs were not allowed. I tried to not think about the dog or my horse and whether their new owners were going to treat them well. What had to be focused on was us De Mans moving on, making progress, poised on the brink of material comfort for the first time since Tanganyika.

  In Matubatuba I said goodbye to Guisbert, who had become my best friend. We promised to write to each other but never did, the same as the Pierces, whom, I recall, came to wave as the Bedford, loaded with all our stuff, pulled off. Lena and I sat on the front seat beside Bok while Bernice and Bokkie followed behind in the Peugeot to make sure nothing came off the truck. And so we drove towards a new life in Amanzimtoti, the same South Coast town as Uncle Michael and Aunt Siobhain, where Uncle Michael had just opened up his fish and chips shop at the Toti Drive-In.

  In Toti Lena and I shared a room in Afsaal flats, where we lived while we waited for Bok to make enough money so that we could rent a house. The small holiday flat above the beach cost ninety rand a month. Lena and Bernices turquoise Kuswag uniforms were made by Aunt Siobhain on her new Singer with the electric pedal, and my safari suits were selected from the school’s second-hand storage. Unlike many of the Kuswag children, we always had money for new school shoes and never had to take second-hands from the bin. My new brown Batas were a source of pride and I shined them with Nugget every afternoon. As in St Lucia, we had to change out of uniform the moment we got home. While our home was now a different place, the order of much remained basically the same: making our beds in the morning, never sitting on bedspreads, setting and unsetting the table, rotating dish-washing responsibilities, saying grace before meals, and ‘Thank you, Bokkie, the food was very nice’ before we left table. Then it was homework, after which Bokkie allowed me to go off and play and swim on the Toti beach.

  Lena and Bernice had friends living in Brigadoon Flats across the road. My sisters were rarely with me in the afternoons. Down Beach Road lived Robbie Merwe, whose father owned the Seahorse restaurant, and he and I be
gan spending time together at school and on the beach. Sometimes Bokkie dropped me off at the Toti library where I spent hours and took out books on loan for the first time. With

  Kuswag being a new school — we were still accommodated in pre-fab classrooms — the library there had few books and hardly any in English, which were my favourite.

  We attended the new Dutch Reformed church that had recently been built at the bottom end of Dan Pienaar Drive. There was now no escaping either Sunday school or church. Stripped of our excuse about living far out of town, our Sunday mornings were now gobbled up into two solid hours of monotonous worship: Sunday school followed by the murderously boring sermons of Dominee Lourens. Now were right on the inside of civilisation, Bokkie said, and we have to take serious stock of any bush behaviour we might unwittingly exhibit: ‘Keep your eyes on the other kids and the teachers, so that you can see how things are done in the city. You, Karl, especially. At least the girls had the time in boarding school already before Matubatuba. But I’m worried about you.’

  On the very first day during sang perie, my new Juffrou Sang said that the new boy had to stand up and introduce himself. I stood and said I came from Matubatuba, where my father had been a game ranger, but that he was now a white hunter. Juffrou Sang teased that a pretty boy like me had to have a pretty voice and she let me stand on a chair and sing. I said I’d sing my favourite song, ‘Under My Skin, by Frank Sinatra, but Juffrou Sang said I’d do no such thing. Since when did an Afrikaans boy sing English songs at school? I said Matubatuba had been dual medium. She said this was not Zululand and I had to sing in Afrikaans. After a moment’s thought I started with ‘Bobbejaan Klim Die Berg’, swinging my hips and clicking the beat with my fingers. Her face lit up and she broke into a smile. Afterwards she said I had quite a voice and that she wanted to enter me for the Durban eisteddfod.