by Mark Behr
‘Everything I want is here,’ he said, and told how his parents hacl once taken a European vacation only to cut short their trip as they had so missed the farm.
It’s easy to love something you own, I thought. And yet I saw at once the error of my thinking: I thought to myself that the only place I had loved as he seemed to love the farm was the Mkuzi low veld and Umfolozi. Even though we hadn’t owned one inch of the land and the bush, not a single wild animal, and even though we hadn’t money to wipe our arses or even dream of going on European vacations, and even though we lived in a reed house without ceilings and doors, I could not imagine that Lukas’s passion for their farm, their land, their gullies, their ruins, their horses, their everything, could be any more intense than whatever I had felt for the wild thorn bushes, the ficuses, the Mkuzi River’s dry bed, the yellow flakes peeling like skins off the fever trees, the impala, steenbok, nyala, vervets, baboons and the warthogs. January’s sweet scent of acacias in bloom. And that was lost. One need not own something in order to lose it. No, loss was not the preserve of those who owned. And what of Tanzania, I wondered. There we owned. And lost. Could ownership enhance the feeling of loss?
Harlequin had been retired from racing after an injury from which he had since recovered completely. I rode a mottled filly, Tarentaal, who had a mouth harder and a stride more powerful than Id ever felt in my arms. Giving her free rein on the gallop to keep up with Harlequin brought on a dizzying rush of fear and excitement. Lukas laughed as my admonitions gave away my nervousness. Getting the filly to slow down as we neared a fence was like fighting the devil, both hands struggling to saw the bit, my shoulders pulled forward. My hands were trembling. We walked the horses down a barbed-wire fence, leading towards where Lukas said the road ran between Indwe and Dordrecht. Up inclines and down eroded gullies, chatting, looking at the occasional lizard and at flowering aloes and birds; after a brief reassurance from Lukas, giving Harlequin and Tarentaal free rein to walk where and as they pleased.
Below wherever the horses were taking us lay a little valley overgrown with shrubs and trees. A flock of sheep dotted the opposite hillside, some looking up at our slow approach. With my trembling hands on Tarentaal s saddle, I thought of how I had arrived in the Berg and joined the advanced riders after telling Mr Walshe I’d been riding all my life. That had of course been a lie, for other than my time with Bok on Vonk’s back in Mkuzi, I had never been on a horse for longer than between two and thirty seconds at a time. Camelot had been broken in too late for me to ride. The lie about my skill with horses, like my fear and terrified concentration during those first rides, was never exposed. While I did on occasion come a cropper, it happened to me no more than it did to any of the others.
Lukas suddenly raised his hand, bringing a finger to his lips.
‘Look,’ he whispered, pulling a conspiratorial face, ‘the makwedini.’
Through the trees we could see two teenaged boys on a small ridge clasping an ewe. From behind, a third standing with bare buttocks on a rock below, was thrusting at the sheeps behind, clearly engaging in an act of copulation. We quietly dismounted, tied the horses, and snuck up on the three whose laughter was the afternoons only sound. The two holding the ewe looked up. Huge grins spread over their faces and they pointed at us, making the one who was copulating turn his neck to see.
Lukas greeted them in Xhosa and they spoke back, I able to recognise only his name amongst the foreign and beautiful clicks, clocks and tstsssts. They let go the sheep’s head — I could now see that a thin orange rope tied her neck to a tangle of forest bramble — and the copulator rose and hoisted the tatty trousers around his waist. What was going through Lukas’s mind? How could he be so informal with boys just caught in this act? They chatted and laughed with Lukas, walking up to us and nodding at me, acknowledging my presence without saying a word I could understand. All three were taller than us, possibly a year or two older, I thought. I found it difficult keeping my eyes off the copulator’s unbuttoned fly, knowing that what was behind the fabric had just been extracted from an ewe. The discussion trailed off and after lifting their open hands towards us, they left, laughing and shoving each other as they disappeared amongst the trees.
‘They didn’t untie the sheep,’ I said. I went up to where the ewe stood quietly tugging at sprouts of green amongst the yellow grass.
As I fiddled with the rope, Lukas asked: ‘Want to give it a try?’
I looked down at him. Snorted in disbelief. Letting go of the orange rope I said no ways, I wasn’t sticking my thing in where a black dick had just been digging around.
Would I tell, if he did? Of course not, but I couldn’t believe he really would.
He told me to hold the sheep and then proceeded to drop his jeans and underpants. At the sight of his penis dangling out frombeneath his black T-shirt I shook my head, smiling. ‘You won’t do it, Lukas. I bet you won’t do it!’
‘Watch me, watch me. Want to take a bet?’
‘A hundred Hills when we get back to school,’ I said, still disbelieving his intention.
We giggled and I rolled my eyes while he massaged his penis. ‘Two hundred Hills,’ he countered, ‘and if I don’t do it, two cans of Condensed Milk for you.’
‘Fine!’ I said. ‘Lukas, your dick’s going to fall off from VD!’
‘I’ve done this fifty times and never got VD. Very delicious!’ he said, putting on a black accent.
‘Bullshit! Have you really done it before?’
‘I’m telling you, more times than I can remember.’
Losing two hundred Hills, I thought to myself, is worth every moment for what was happening before my eyes. Who knows, maybe I’ll do it too. His penis was now erect, and I again shook my head and smiled as the blue-grey glans nodded from between his fingers. ‘Jou piel lyk soos ‘n bloukop-koggelmander.’
‘Die koggelmander soek ‘n bietjie skaap-poes,’ he sniggered and we cracked up. My fingers slid into the cool layers of the ewe’s fleece. Now an the rock, Lukas manoeuvred his penis into an opening I could only picture from where I sat on my haunches above him. The ewe’s body didn’t move, only her long bottom lip, side to side as she continued to chew.
‘Jissis, this is nice,’ he said, moving while his hands rested on his hips. I too was now going stiff, conjuring the feeling of my penis slipping into the slimy hollow of the ewe’s vagina.
‘What’s it feel like?’ I asked.
‘Come on, Karl, have a try. It’s just like fucking a girl.’
I rose, letting go of the ewe whom in any event seemed unperturbed by what was going on. I pulled down my jeans and Lukas made way for me.
‘Already ready, you shit!’ he said, a knowing smile as his eyes tookin my erection. ‘Parmantig, ne. Talk of a blue-headed lizard! Purple more like it.’ And he suddenly sang out: ‘The purple-headed mountain, the river running by . . .’
Moving aside the tail I stepped onto the rock. I had to lift myself onto my toes to reach and slid my penis into the pleasure of tight, warm, moistness. I at once began moving my hips, in and out, staying still for a moment, then again moving. This, as far as it depended on me, could go on eternally. Barely had I started, when Lukas said he wanted another go. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Go and catch your own sheep.’ His laughter broke the afternoon quiet and he told me to stop being greedy and move over. Reluctantly I withdrew and allowed him back. My penis had now taken on a will of its own, bobbing its head, shiny with the ewe’s juices, seemingly begging to be held and stroked by my hand. Holding onto the ewe with one hand, I could not let go of the demanding source of pleasure between my thighs. It was emitting sensations, sensitivities and pleasures I had never suspected it of hiding.
Amidst grunting and shuddering before he finally pulled out, Lukas said: ‘I wish I could squirt.’ He pulled up his pants and fastened his belt. It was the first time I heard the word, though in the moment said nothing of it. Again I took a turn, going for it till it felt my head was coming free from my shou
lders and I thought I was about to pee like in the old days with Stephanie. I pulled out. Inside my jeans the erection still strained against the nylon underpants, now alive with need. We untied the ewe. Lukas stroked her head and kissed her on the forehead, patted her on the rump and she trotted off through the trees, bleating towards the flock.
Back on the horses he asked whether I had come. I asked what he meant.
He explained that coming was when you squirted the fluid that makes the girl pregnant. Any time within the next few months or year, we would be able to come after tossing off for a few minutes. His brothers had started coming around the age of thirteen. They told him thatcoming was akin to an out-of-body experience, like losing your mind and going to heaven.
‘If you lather your hand with soap, in the shower or in the bath, and just keep doing it, you’ll feel, at a certain point, something wants to happen and you have to stop. It’s at that point that you’re supposed to start coming.’
‘Can you see the sperms?’
‘No, but there are millions in the squirt. My brothers showed me what it looks like under a microscope.’
‘I’ve seen them in books, but I thought one could see them swimming in the squirt like tadpoles,’ I said.
‘No ways, they can’t be seen with the naked eye. Each time you squirt you shoot out billions of sperms. So you could populate an entire country with one squirt.’
Until Lukas imparted this information, I had been certain that pregnancy resulted simply from inserting a penis into a vagina. To my mind, ever since the days in the bush, a man or a male animal reached a certain age at which the penis secreted an emission that resulted in pregnancy. And that the pleasure of sex lay simply in the gripping warmth of penetration. Now I was hearing about an additional level of ecstasy: coming, squirting, shooting, pumping. The climax. That was needed for pregnancy. ‘What if the ewe got pregnant?’ I joked.
‘Well, we didn’t squirt. And it’s impossible, anyway. Animal seed isn’t compatible with human semen. Although, you know, my dad says there have been tests with gorillas in laboratories that show that kaffir semen is compatible with gorillas’.’
‘That’s complete rubbish,’ I said.
‘Ask my father. I’m telling you, they’ve done tests in America.’ ‘How can theirs be different from ours? What about coloureds? White and black semen is the same because were all Homo sapiens.’ ‘More sapiens than Homo,’ he laughed. ‘Anyway, why do you think coloureds look like gorillas?’
‘They do not.’
‘No Hotnot woman ever became Miss South Africa, has she?’ he asked.
‘They and the blacks have their own competition. Miss Africa South.’
‘Better that way,’ he said. ‘Keep all the gorillas in their own zoo . . .’ ‘Lukas, you’re a pig. They’re people just like us.’
‘Maybe like you, not like me,’ he sang.
‘Have you ever seen Somali or Maasai women? My father says there are no more beautiful women in the world than those in northeast Africa.’
‘Sounds to me as though your dad’s a kaffir-boetie,’
‘He’s not.’
‘Is he a Prog?’
‘No, he’s a Nat. But he and my mom don’t agree that blacks should be treated badly. My father once took Gatsha Buthelezi on safari.’ ‘My dad hates the Nats more than the Progs. He’s HNP. The Nats took one of our farms to give to the Transkei,’ he said. ‘And my mother too. It’s easy for you people in the cities, you don’t have to work with the numbskulls every day.’
‘When I grow up I’m going to vote PFP, like Dom’s parents,’ I said. ‘What? They want to give everything to the kaffirs.’
‘Not true. They want a federation, with a qualified vote for blacks. It is not right what were doing to black people in this country,’ I said. ‘Letting them live in locations and everything.’
‘They don’t have to live in locations,’ Lukas countered. ‘Why do you think the government gave them the Transkei? It’s their own choice to come and work in South Africa. Fucking parasites.’
Ahead of us brambles and a row of prickly-pear cacti broke the monotony of yellow grass, the pear’s bright purple ovals clinging like Easter eggs to the sides of the thorny leaves. I asked that we stop to pick some of the fruit as they were my favourite. Lukas said we were late and had to get back, that he’d send one of the housemaids to pick and clean some for after the concert. To me saying I had thoughtforest bramble grew only in the Drakensberg, he responded that it was all over the farm, a pest, really, ripping at the sheep’s wool. The Xhosas, he said, call it umQunube. On the Q his tongue clicked loudly against His pallet. Rubus pinnatus, I said, from the family Rosaceae. I said the word umQunube aloud. Lukas laughed, showing me where and how to place my, tongue, upturned into the hollow of my pallet, rather than at the front, close to my teeth. I practised, corrected by him, saying the word aloud, until he told me I had it right.
We galloped home, reaching the house just as the others were rising from the afternoon sleep. Astonishment, anger, envy on all the faces at our daring. Almeida, quiet and with sleep-filled eyes, shook his head. Dominic smiled: only he knew that I never slept; not once during the hundreds of hours of compulsory afternoon naps when I instead lay reading.
In the shower, regretting the loss of Tarentaals smell from my hands, I brought the bar of Palmolive soap to rich lather, then, penis in hand, fantasized about moving it in and out of the compliant ewe.
Blue velvet curtains, the orange blue and white flag, proteas in beasdy symmetrical arrangements. The new Indwe school hall was filled with farmers, wives and children from the surrounding district, all smardy dressed. It was rare for the small town to receive a visit from a group as renowned as we were, and the choir was given VIP treatment. Halfway into the first half I yawned on stage and Mr Roelofse glared at me. I wondered whether I’d be caned during intermission or after the concert.
During intermission Dominic and I left backstage to sell record albums. Neither Marabou nor Roelofse said anything about the yawn. In the foyer Lukas introduced us to his girlfriend Maryke. I could not believe she was the same girl who looked so attractive on the photograph in his Bible. This Maryke had hair like straw and terrible acne crusting along her jaw and temples.
Halfway to Port Elizabeth next morning, the bus pulled off onto the roadside. From beside Marabou, Mr Roelofse rose and peered over the seats towards the back of the bus. He said that there were two amongst us who had not slept the previous afternoon. The Two had not brought their side for the choir. One of The Two had yawned throughout the Indwe concert and ruined the school’s reputation. Were The Two going to speak up or was the whole choir going to be caned?
Sitting one forward from the very back across the aisle from each other, Lukas and I stood up.
‘De Man, again, leading Van Rensburg astray.’ I held Roelofse’s gaze. ‘Why are you here in the first place, De Man? Your voice is useless, you should rather go home and recite “The Moth and the Flame”. And you, Van Rensburg, just because you were on the family farm, doesn’t mean you’re free from your obligations. Rammetjie-uitnek.’
He told everyone to disembark and line up on the tarmac. Baking-oven! Jesus, I couldn’t believe he was going to let us crawl through there.
Thirty-eight boys disembarked and fell into line on the tarmac behind each other, facing the two of us. Ahead of us, legs apart, torsos inclined slightly forward, was a tunnel that didn’t worry me. The tarmac did. There was no way we were going to crawl hands and knees. Baboon walk, instead. We went through, hands and feet, occasionally lifting one of the shorter boys, while they beat us on the buttocks and back. It was not the burning bum that angered me, nor the occasional flat fist on my back, it was the damage to my palms from the tar road. I seethed. Angry at myself and desperate to know who had gone and told. The bus was already winding its way along the road again when I realised that all the while I had been saying a word over and over to myself: umQunube, umQunube, umQunube. Like a
verbal amulet.
In PE Marabou announced that Dominic and I would not be staying together. Instead, Lukas and I were placed out with Mr
Roelofse. In our hosts’ home — the Morrises, I think — Roelofse stayed in the room right beside Lukas and me. We were already lying down for the two-hour sleep, whispering guesses about who had chirped, when Roelofse came in and said he’d come in every few minutes to do spot checks and ensure we slept the full, traditional two hours.
I had not slept once the previous year. Try as I initially had, sleeping during the day eluded me. At night I was able to muster no more than six or seven hours at most. So, during afternoon sleeps, I had taken to reading rather than tossing around. My buddies slept through the countless afternoons of host family bedrooms in towns and cities as we criss-crossed the country. And I remained alert through the adventures of Heinz Konzalik, Louis Lamour and Robert Louis Stevenson. Drifted into thoughts of life alone or with one or two friends on an American ranch or on a South Sea island. I introduced Lukas and Bennie to Louis Lamour, whose name they later kept dropping into conversations. I would eventually try and convince them to read ‘more complex’ works. ‘More complex’ was the concept I would eventually use to undetectably turn my ascent of ‘higher literature’ to a boast. Now I lay contemplating the ease with which Lukas had gone through the bakoond, how he had come out smiling; while I had felt little pain, but could choke on the force of humiliation. Resenting Lukas and whomever had split, exhausted from the baking-oven, loathing Roelofse for referring to my recitation, I did eventually fall asleep — the one and only time in the years at the school I was able to in the afternoon.
