Embrace (18 page)

‘Here,’ I said to Dominic and Steven Almeida, extending my open hand, ‘from the bottom.’

They each took two; left one in my palm. After studying the black and white markings, Steven smiled at me and flicked his back into the water. Dominic dragged his shorts closer, slipping the pebbles into the inside pocket. I passed the one remaining in my hand to him.

Buys told us to stay out of the water so we’d dry off before getting dressed: ‘I don’t want the conductors whining you got colds.’

He commanded us fall in for roll call. Number off to ensure everyone was there. From one we counted all the way up to 118.

Two short. Numbered again.

Still only 118.

‘Who’s missing?’ He barked over the rush of water. No answer. We followed his eyes skimming the ridge above the waterfall and along the pool.

‘Great stuff! All I need now is for two little ones to be drowned!’ He hit the inside of one hand with his fist. ‘Standard Two and Three . . . Fall in from short to tall and check who was washed downstream.’ They scuttled into dining-hall order. All there. Again he demanded: ‘Who of your mates are missing? Come on, dammit, were not leaving here if anyone’s lost.’ Still no one spoke.

‘Okay. Into dining-hall order the rest of you. Four to Seven, move!’

We checked the Standard Fives. All nineteen of us were there.

Standard Sevens; only thirteen.

Reyneke and Harding. A hint of excitement rippled through me.

‘Waar’s julle maatjies?’ he called. No one answered. He continued: ‘Come on, were they here? If they’re lost we need to organise a search party.’

At last someone broke the silence. ‘They didn’t come, Sir.’

‘And with whose permission did they stay?’

Silence.

‘Okay. Okay. Okay. So two of the Seniors are gippoing and no one wants to rat. We’ll sort this one out when we get back. Start moving there at the front...’ He sighed: ‘But when you get to school, fall in outside. I don’t want anyone in the dormitories. We’ll see what those two have to say for themselves . . . and to you all when you don’t have a movie tonight.’

It was an almost two-hour walk back. Around us boys angrily speculated on how many cuts Reyneke and Harding were in for. Some guessed six of the best. In our group no one except Dominic spoke. In hushed tones he bemoaned the fact that we were getting it for the transgressions of others. None of us responded. Noticing, he too fell silent. Leaving the single file of the footpath, the six of us moved into an extended line on the road.

From
Buys,
I thought to myself: the worst of the worst. Four that will haunt me, make me flinch for the rest of my life, whenever — if — I allow myself a memory. I felt my eyes burn. How I hoped he would give them four. Even three. Two, forget about six! Just two from Buys was the same as twenty from anyone else. I wondered what the others were thinking: were they too sunk in a place none of us had spoken of to each other since that June night, when Dominic was safely away in Europe. For a second I resented Dom; wished he would leave us, for perhaps then we would speak. I wanted to look at them, but feared the looks, suspicions, angers — combinations of these — that might be found there. Buys, Mathison, Cilliers. Monsters, sitting over desk, don’t think, they don’t know, no one knows, forget it, it’s over, don’t think, never again. It was almost sunset. On my one side was Dom. On the other Steven Almeida. More than from the others, I desired and dreaded to know what was going on in the silence of the beautiful Portuguese boy’s mind.

It was almost dusk when we reached school. Light red sunset hung in the clouds above the hills. Into Standards beneath the stoep’s arches. Buys instructed us to be quiet while he went in search of the two culprits.

Soon he came down, followed by Frans Harding and Johan Reyneke.

‘Look what I found under the beds in G Dorm,’ he announced, grinning and telling a sheepish Harding and Reyneke to face the arches as he led them into the quad. He called for someone to fetch his cane from the Standard Three classroom. Bennie muttered from beside me that Buys was going to give it to them right there, where we could all watch. I felt a pinch of pity for the two. Or for myself. Even as I hoped he’d beat them half to death, I did not want to witness his brutality again. When a grin spread over Reyneke’s chops I again felt my heart harden. By the time the cane was brought, Buys seemed to have altered his plan. He instructed Frans and Tommie to drop to the paving stones for push-ups. He looked at us and said: ‘You will not be seeing a movie tonight because of these two. Who call themselves
prefects 
. . . You will all be punished for the disloyalty of these indolent scinnivers. Say after me: “Suffer, suffer,” then I want you to clap twice, then say, “Suffer, suffer,” again.’

It was, I told myself, God exacting revenge for Harding and Reyneke s reign of terror. We began: clap, clap, suffer, suffer. One hundred and eighteen boys together with Mr Buys. Clap twice then ‘Suffer, suffer’ each time Harding and Reyneke went down. Clap-clap up, suffer-suffer down, clap-clap, suffer-suffer, clap-clap, suffer-suffer, and our voices and the clapping resounded up into the empty dormitories and down into the stillness of the black orchards.

After forty, Reyneke was struggling to keep going. At fifty he collapsed. Buys told us to quiet down.

‘You better get up, Reyneke. Your Rooinek buddy is still going.’

We laughed. Reyneke got up and started again, as did we, clap-clap as they went up and suffer-suffer as they went down, clap-clap suffer-suffer, clap-clap suffer-suffer. I raised my suffer-suffer above the throng, now wanting Harding to hear me; I didn’t give a damn if he killed me later. He had to know how I was thriving on every clap-clap, on every syllable of what was changing to suffffer-suffffer. I hoped Reyneke would outlast Harding; add that shame to this. Clap-clap suffffer-suffffer, clap-clap suffffer-suffffer, clap-clap-clap suffer-suffer-suffer. An entirely new beat. Harding was slowing down; it was now so dark we could barely see, but it was clear the two could no longer remain in synch. Someone turned on the lights. At once Reyneke fell to his stomach, panting into the paving stones beneath his face.

‘Kom aan Reyneke!’ I shouted, egging him on, oblivious as to whether it was to see him disintegrate or to have him beat Harding. My two most hated enemies; Standard Seven prefect bastards. My hands flamed. Beside me Dominic was wiping his over his shorts. Behind us Lukas was grinning: dap-dap-clap suffer-suffer-suffer. I wanted to ask Mervyn to take a photograph; decided against it. Mr Buys had his foot on Reyneke’s bum, telling him to straighten his back. Harding strained against gravity, now tiring fast, arms barely able to hold his weight. Just a matter of seconds before he too would be spent and down. When Harding collapsed our incantation turned to a long jeer.

‘You will carry on until you vomit,’ Buys called. We joined in applause. The two boys elevated themselves back on trembling arms. Beneath them wet stains marked the paving. Reyneke was crying, tears glistening in the light, giving him away even as he kept his head down, turned from us.

I felt nothing. Not a moment of pity. Clap-dap suffer-suffer, I got everyone around me going again. Reyneke was on his knees in front of Buys, the sandal again on his bum. It was no longer possible to distinguish sweat from tears. Cry, you bastard. Cry, cry, cry. Then Harding too could no longer come up and the dap-dap disappeared as our chant changed to sufff-er, sufff-er, sufff-er. Mr Buys shouted that they had better start pushing up or the whole school would go for PT. Our chant deepened and the dassroom windows vibrated. They tried. Reyneke sobbed. His black T-shirt was drenched and his arms a shining brown with perspiration. I wanted Harding to weep; if only, if only Harding would weep I’d be satisfied. But he didn’t; held out. Slowly, barely, but going on. Nothing but voices now chanting suffer-suffer-suffer to yet another different beat. We began a new tempo, improvising, first sopranos almost in sing-song style suffer-suffer, followed by the seconds suffer-suffer-suffer, and then a suffer-suffer-suffer-suffer staccato from the deep alto voices. Harding cracked and fell to his knees. Crescendo forte from the arches. Harding covered his face and his stomach heaved as he sobbed into his hands while we were almost in a three-tone harmony that hadcaught immediately. I leant forward and looked up and down the lighted arches. Faces slighdy obscured by the light from behind us, I could see only the outline of heads moving, bodies swaying, bobbing up and down; all of us.

From nowhere Ma’am — Miss Sanders — had appeared in the lighted quad. She walked over to Buys and our sing-song chant grew louder. She seemed to speak to him quietly. He grimaced. She waved her arms around and put her finger to her head as she spoke. It now looked as if she was shouting at Buys and I wished everyone would pipe down so that we could hear. She pointed at the two boys sobbing on the ground. Buys pointed at the main entrance, telling her to leave. From the arches the volume intensified. Yes, they were arguing. She obviously wanted him to stop, but the more she gestured and shook her head, the louder became our throng. Buys laughed in her face. She brought her finger up, shaking it close to his nose. He brushed her hand away. A roar of approval from the arches. We could see she wanted him to let Frans and Tommie go. Finally she turned around and headed back through the front door. Behind her, Buys half turned to look after her. With his free hand he gave her an up-yours sign that broke up the suffer-suffer as we burst into spontaneous applause.

It was years later, when as an adult the scenes arrived to replay themselves over and over in my mind, I realised that our oratorio of suffer-suffers had happened at least a full year after Ma’am had caught me performing ‘The Moth and the Flame’ in Marabou’s class.

‘Living under the English was out of the question. Like cookies in a concentration camp,’ Mumdeman said, compressing her chin sidewards and down to show her disdain. The lake’s quiet schlock was just audible over the crackling fire. Skip’s ears twitched at Mumdeman’s feet. An owl hooted from somewhere in the mango trees.

‘Just before the Peace of Vereeniging — Peace, my foot! — Oupa Mostert called the family together and read the story of Abraham and Sara going to Egypt to escape Canaan’s famine. That’s what it was, here, after the English burnt our farms to the ground. Scorched-earth policy Milner called it. Murdered twenty
thousand
women and innocent children in the concentration camps — and kaffirs too, mind you — killed almost as many poor kaffirs in the camps. Now they’re all lovey-dovey of course, making like none of it ever happened. Slaughtered our livestock: famine, starvation, suffering; poor whites where before the Boers had been a proud and self-sufficient nation. Anyway, to cut a long story short: Oupa told us there were Boers getting together to move north — to our Canaan — out of the evil Union that was nothing but a conspiracy by the English to keep us Boers enslaved. We were being sold down the drain by Botha, Smuts and Hertzog. Big-shot pseudo war heroes; not heroes at all, I tell you, turncoats, gatswaaiers, jackals, de laaste een. But what else could they do, I suppose, the concentration camps were our undoing. Always the English, damn imperialists; like the rinder-pest, impossible to escape once it’s taken hold. It was only God’s mercy that your Ouma and her four brothers and sisters got out of those camps. Rounded up the Boer children and women while the men were on commando, burnt the farmhouse near Senekal to the ground. But they couldn’t break our spirits or our faith. Not the Boer spirit: Not the Mosterts, Van Rensburgs, Labuschagnes, VanWyks, Lategans and the Brinks. Later the De Mans, De Beers and the Cloetes joined us. It was time for the New Great Trek and we were going to be part of it; just like them a hundred years before us; like the Israelites two thousand years ago; on our way to German East Africa.’

Dademan sprinkled water over the grille. He winked at me as he sipped from his beer while turning over the pork chops. My eyes again fixed on my grandmother.

‘And then, Mumdeman?’

‘Oupa and Ouma Mostert packed up the little that could be salvaged and we hitched the wagons. Left the farm; just left it there for the kaffirs and the English. Your Ouma was born somewhere just through Mozambique on our ox-wagon, no doctors and nurses like you had in Arusha, Karl’tjie . . .’ She paused and smiled at me: ‘My birth was the first registered birth of a white child in the whole of East Africa. Ja, your grandma isn’t today’s child. Ouma-Grootjie Mostert had eight children: four already in the concentration camps and four more of us in the years after the Anglo-Boer — no! the Second War of Liberation, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, Karl’tjie my child. Not a damn must you ever call it the Anglo-Boer War. It was a war of liberation and we lost because of what the English did to us. Two of my brothers and sisters — Susanna and Joachiem — died on the trek north. Your Ouma-Grootjie never got over it; yellow fever in Mozambique. Ag, it was just like it was in the time of the Voortrekkers. New frontiers bring new diseases; new challenges.’

‘Tell of the concentration camp, Mumdeman.’

‘Ag, no, my boy. That makes your Ouma too sad. Another night, okay, Karl’tjie? Pour another sherry for me, please Angel.’

As I occupied myself pouring the brown fluid — later she would be bound to allow me a sip — I asked Dademan to tell about the World’s Fair in America. Chronologically the World’s Fair came before the Trek, but Mumdeman had been on a roll and I hadn’t wanted to break her stride. On the braai the chops and boerewors sizzled and Dademan cut into the sausage to test whether it was ready. A fountain of juice ignited the flames, and Dademan tipped beer to prevent the meat scorching.

‘I was five,’ he began, ‘just a little older than you are now. It must have been about 1905 and we were still licking our wounds, counting our dead, trying to make do on the farms the English had levelled. One day General Cronje came to ask Oupa De Man if Oupa would go with them to America for the Worlds Fair in St Louis, Missouri. It was to be something astronomical. More than six hundred veterans off to take part in a restaging of the war. Of course the English tried to stop it; didn’t want the world to see what they had done to us. You know, the world was on the side of the Boers — I mean we didn’t really call ourselves Afrikaners then, it was the olden days, so we were just Boers, plain and simple. The world was on the side of the Boers against the British. The imperialists were worried that the thing at the fair would be one-sided, you know, show the concentration camps. All the generals went to America: De Wet, Viljoen, Kemp. Big show. First the cavalry of both sides came together separately, then there was the Battle of Colenso in which we shot the shit out of the pommies. Anyway, we didn’t show the concentration camps but we re-enacted Paardeberg — where General Cronje had to surrender because of what they were doing to the women and children in the camps. To this day I can remember how angry Oupa De Man was because that story was never told — about
why
Cronje had to surrender. Forget about the truth, just put on a show so that the English and the Americans can be happy. Tell the story the way the victors want it.
Might is Right.
Thousands came to see the show. Over twenty acres on a hill overlooking the whole St Louis exhibition; horses, cannons, ammunition, the works. In the middle of America, I ask you. And not a word about the concentration camps. Bloody disgrace. But the rest was made to look as real as possible, like dincum battles. It was actually there, even before talk of Union, that Oupa De Man and Brink and Conradie started speaking time to trek north again. The English, the English, the English. Like leeches. One day that story will be told.’