Indecent Exposure (17 page)

As they drove back to the police station, Sergeant Breitenbach complimented Verkramp on his cunning.

“It’s all a question of psychology,” said Verkramp smugly. “Divide and rule.”

At Fort Rapier Mental Hospital Dr von Blimenstein was unaware of the effect her advice about aversion therapy was having on the lives of Piemburg’s policemen. She still thought about Verkramp and wondered why he hadn’t contacted her but the outbreak of sabotage suggested an explanation which did something to satisfy her vanity. “He’s too busy, poor lamb,” she thought and found an outlet for her sense of disappointment by trying to cope with the influx of patients suffering from acute anxiety following the bombings. A great many were suffering from Bloodbath Phobia, and were obsessed by the belief that they were going to be chopped to pieces one morning by the black servant next door. Dr von Blimenstein was not immune to the infection, which was endemic among South African Whites, but she did her best to calm the fears of her new patients.

“Why the servant next-door?” she asked a particularly disturbed woman who wouldn’t even allow a black orderly into her room at the hospital to empty the chamber pot but preferred to do it herself, an action so extraordinarily menial for a white woman that it was a clear symptom of insanity.

“Because that’s what my kitchen boy told me,” the woman said through her tears.

“Your kitchen boy said the servants next-door would come and kill you?” Dr von Blimenstein asked patiently.

The woman struggled to control herself.

“I said to him, ‘Joseph, you wouldn’t kill your missus, would you?’ and he said, ‘No missus, the boy next-door would kill you and I’d kill his missus for him.’ You see they’ve got it all worked out. We’re going to be massacred in our beds when they bring the tea in at seven o’clock in the morning.”

“You don’t think it might be wise to give up morning tea?” the doctor asked but the woman wouldn’t hear of it.

“I don’t think I could get through the day without my morning cup of tea,” she said. Dr von Blimenstein refrained from pointing out that there was a logical inconsistency between this assertion and her previous remarks about being cut up. Instead she wrote out her usual prescription in such cases and sent her to see the Gunnery Instructor.

“Occupational therapy,” she explained to the woman who was presently happily engaged in firing a ·38 revolver into targets painted to look like black servants holding tea trays in one hand and pangas in the other.

Dr von Blimenstein’s next patient suffered from Blackcock Fever which was even more frequent than Bloodbath Phobia.

“They’ve got such big ones,” she mumbled to the doctor when asked what the trouble was.

“Big whats?” Dr von Blimenstein asked although she could recognize the symptoms immediately.

“You know. Hoohas,” the woman muttered indistinctly.

“Hoohas?”

“Whatsits.”

“Whatsits?” said the doctor who believed that part of the cure consisted in getting the patient to express her fears openly. In front of her the woman went bright pink.

“Their wibbledy wands,” she said frantically trying to make herself understood.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to make yourself clearer, my dear,” said Dr von Blimenstein, “I’ve no idea what you’re trying to tell me.”

The woman screwed up her courage. “They’ve got long pork swords,” she said finally. Dr von Blimenstein wrote it down repeating each word. “They … have … long … pork … swords.” She looked up. “And what is a pork sword?” she asked brightly. The patient looked at her wildly.

“You mean to say you don’t know?” she asked.

Dr von Blimenstein shook her head. “I’ve no idea,” she lied.

“You’re not married?” the woman asked. The doctor shook her head again. “Well in that case I’m not telling you. You’ll find out on your wedding night.” She relapsed into a stubborn silence.

“Shall we start again?” Dr von Blimenstein asked. “A pork sword is a wibbledy wand is a whatsit is a hoo ha, is that right?”

“Oh for God’s sake,” shouted the woman appalled at the catalogue of sexual euphemisms. “I’m talking about their knobs.”

“Is a knob,” said the doctor and wrote it down. In front of her the woman squirmed with embarrassment.

“What do you want me to do? Spell it out for you?” she yelled.

“Please do,” said the doctor, “I think we should get this matter straight.” The patient shuddered.

“Pee, Are, Eye, See, Kay, spells prick,” she screamed. She seemed to think it was the definitive term.

“You mean penis, don’t you, dear?” Dr von Blimenstein asked.

“Yes,” screamed the patient hysterically, “I mean penis, prick, pork sword, knob, the lot. What’s it matter what you call it? They’ve all got huge ones.”

“Who have?”

“Kaffirs have. They’re eighteen inches long and three inches thick and they’ve got foreskins like umbrellas and they-”

“Now, hold it a moment,” Dr von Blimenstein said as the woman became more hysterical. Coming on top of her previous embarrassment the suggestion was more than the woman could take.

“Hold it?” she screamed. “Hold it? I couldn’t bear to look at it let alone hold the beastly thing.”

Dr von Blimenstein leant across the desk.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “You’re taking this thing too far.”

“Far?” shrieked the woman. “I’ll say it’s far. It’s far farther than I can take it. It’s instant hysterectomy. It’s -”

“You’ve got to try to see this-”

“I don’t want to see it. That’s the whole point. I’m terrified of seeing it.”

“In proportion,” shouted the doctor authoritatively.

“In proportion to what?” the woman shouted. “In proportion to my creamy way I suppose. Well I tell you I can’t take it.”

“No one is asking you to,” said the doctor. “In the first place-”

“In the first place? In the first place? Don’t tell me they’d try the second.” The patient was on her feet now.

Dr von Blimenstein left her chair and pushed the patient back into her seat.

“We mustn’t let our imaginations run away with us,” she said soothingly. “You’re quite safe here with me. Now then,” she continued when the woman had calmed down, “if we are to do any good you’ve got to realize that penises are merely symptoms. It’s the thing behind them we’ve got to look for.”

The woman stared wildly round the room. “That’s not difficult,” she said. “They’re all over the place.”

Dr von Blimenstein hastened to explain. “What I mean is the deep-seated … Now what’s the matter?” The woman had slumped to the floor. When she came round again the doctor revised her approach.

“I’m not going to say anything,” she explained, “and I just want you to tell me what you think.”

The woman calmed down and pondered.

“They hang weights on the end to make them longer,” she said finally.

“Do they really?” said the doctor. “That’s very interesting.”

“It’s not. It’s disgusting.”

Dr von Blimenstein agreed that it was also disgusting.

“They walk about with half-bricks tied to the end with bits of string,” the woman continued. “Under their trousers of course.”

“I should hope so,” said Dr von Blimenstein.

“They put butter on too to make them grow. They think butter helps.”

“I should have thought it would have made it difficult to keep the brick on,” said Dr von Blimenstein more practically. “The string would slip off, wouldn’t it?”

The patient considered the problem.

“They tie the string on first,” she said finally.

“That seems perfectly logical,” said the psychiatrist. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me? Your married life is quite satisfactory?”

“Well,” said the woman doubtfully, “it could be worse if you see what I mean.” Dr von Blimenstein nodded sympathetically.

“I think we can cure your phobia,” she said making some notes. “Now the course of treatment I’m prescribing is a little unusual at first sight but you’ll soon get the hang of it. First of all what we do is this. We get you used to the idea of holding quite a small penis, a small white one and then …”

“You get me used to doing what?” the woman asked in amazement and with a look that suggested she thought the doctor was insane.

“Holding small white penises.”

“You must be mad,” shouted the woman, “I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. I’m a respectable married woman and if you think I’m going to …” She began to weep hysterically.

Dr von Blimenstein leant across the desk reassuringly.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll cut out the penises to begin with.”

“God Almighty,” shouted the woman? “and I thought I needed treatment.”

Dr von Blimenstein calmed her. “I mean we’ll leave them out,” she said. “We’ll start with pencils. Have you any rooted objection to holding a pencil?”

“Of course not,” said the woman. “Why the hell should I mind holding a pencil?”

“Or a ball-point pen?” Dr von Blimenstein watched the woman’s face for any sign of hesitancy.

“Ball-points are fine with me. So are fountain pens,” said the patient.

“How about a banana?”

“You want me to hold it or eat it?” the woman inquired.

“Just hold it.”

“That’s no problem.”

“A banana and two plums?”

The woman looked at her critically. “I’ll hold a fruit salad if you think it’ll do me any good though what the hell you think you’re getting at is beyond me.”

In the end Dr von Blimenstein began treatment by accustoming the patient to hold a vegetable marrow until it ceased to provoke any symptoms of anxiety.

While the Doctor wrestled with the psychological problems of her patients and Verkramp served his God by casting out devils, Kommandant van Heerden passed uneventful days in Weezen, fishing the river, reading the novels of Dornford Yates and wondering why, since he had called on the Heathcote-Kilkoons, they had not got in touch with him at the hotel. On the fourth day he pocketed his pride and approached Mr Mulpurgo who, being an authority on everything else, seemed the most likely person to explain the mysteries of English etiquette.

He found Mr Mulpurgo hiccuping softly to himself in an old rose arbour in the garden. The Kommandant seated himself on the bench beside the English lecturer.

“I was wondering if you could help me,” he began. Mr Mulpurgo hiccuped loudly.

“What is it?” he asked nervously. “I’m busy.”

“If you had been invited to stay with some people in the country,” the Kommandant said, “and you arrived at the hotel and they didn’t come and visit you, what would you think?”

Mr Mulpurgo tried to figure out what the Kommandant was getting at.

“If I had been invited to stay with some people in the country,” he said, “I don’t see what I’d be doing at a hotel unless of course they owned the hotel.”

“No,” said the Kommandant. “they don’t.”

“Then what would I be doing at a hotel?”

“They said the house was full.”

“Well is it?” Mr Mulpurgo inquired.

“No,” said the Kommandant, “they’re not there.” He paused. “Well they weren’t there when I went the other day.”

Mr Mulpurgo said it sounded very odd.

“Are you sure you got the dates right?” he asked.

“Oh yes. I checked them,” the Kommandant said.

“You could always phone them.”

“They’re not on the phone.”

Mr Mulpurgo picked up his book again. “You seem to be in a bit of a quandary,” he said. “If I were you I think I’d pay them another call and if they’re not there go home.”

The Kommandant nodded uncertainly. “I suppose so,” he said. Mr Mulpurgo hiccuped again. “Still got flatulence?” the Kommandant asked sympathetically. “You should try holding your breath. That sometimes works.”

Mr Mulpurgo said he had already tried a number of times without result.

“I once cured a man of hiccups,” the Kommandant continued reminiscently, “by giving him a fright. He was a car thief.”

“Really,” said Mr Mulpurgo, “what did you do?”

“Told him he was going to be flogged.”

Mr Mulpurgo shuddered. “How simply awful,” he said.

“He was too,” said the Kommandant. “Got fifteen strokes… Stopped his hiccups though.” He smiled at the thought. Beside him the English lecturer considered the terrible implications of that smile and it seemed to him, not for the first time, that he was in the presence of some elemental force for whom or which there were no questions of right or wrong, no moral feelings, no ethical considerations but simply naked power. There was something monstrous in the Kommandant’s simplicity. There had been nothing even remotely metaphorical about the Kommandant’s “Dog eats dog.” It was no more than a fact of his existence. In the face of the reality of this world of brute force, Mr Mulpurgo’s literary aspirations assumed a nonentity.

“I suppose you approve of flogging,” he asked knowing the answer.

“It’s the only thing that really works,” said the Kommandant. “Prison’s no good. It’s too comfortable. But when a man has been flogged, he doesn’t forget it. It’s the same with hanging.”

“Always assuming there’s an after-life,” Mr Mulpurgo said. “Otherwise I should have thought hanging was as good a way of forgetting as you could think of.”

“After-life or no after-life, a man who’s been hanged doesn’t commit any more crimes, I can tell you,” said the Kommandant.

“And is that all that matters to you?” Mr Mulpurgo asked. “That he doesn’t commit any more crimes?”

Kommandant van Heerden nodded.

“That’s my job,” he said, “that’s what I’m paid to do.”

Mr Mulpurgo tried again.

“Doesn’t life mean anything to you? The sacredness of life, its beauty and joy and innocence?”

“When I eat a lamb chop I don’t think about sheep,” said the Kommandant. Mr Mulpurgo hiccuped at the imagery.

“What a terrible picture of life you have,” he said. “There seems no hope at all.”

The Kommandant smiled. “There’s always hope, my friend,” he said patting Mr Mulpurgo’s shoulder and levering himself up from the seat at the same time. “Always hope.”

The Kommandant stumped off and presently Mr Mulpurgo rose from the arbour and walked into Weezen.

“Extraordinary number of drunks there are about these days,” Major Bloxham remarked next morning at breakfast. “Met a fellow in bar last night. Lectures in English at the University. Can’t have been more than thirty. Blind drunk and kept shouting about a purpose in liquidity of all things. Had to take him back to the hotel. Some sort of Spa.”