Moffie (20 page)

Dorman makes us run the last few kilometres. It is more like shuffling, but it gets us back to base.

 

When your rifle dangling from your shoulder hits you on the side of your leg and the muzzle hits your face like a bruise being beaten for days on end, when your shoulders are cut by the weight on your back, when your feet are raw and blistered and every part of your body is pleading for you to stop, when your skin is boiling with sores . . . it eats into you like acid.

But the body doesn't really remember the suffering. We know it was awful, horrific, but the way we felt in that moment is not remembered—all the minuscule stimuli, the smells and sounds are imbedded like garlic cloves stuck into a leg of lamb. Everything retains the flavour, but we never actually taste the garlic again, and this is good.

 

They don't send us home until most of the outward damage has healed. For some weeks we can't wear shoes. The black-blue bruise where Dorman kicked me takes almost two weeks to heal. Our feet start festering. But it is a relatively easy time, because we have made it and we know we'll be going home.

Inside me I have started a war; or is it a war that was started in me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
hings change more in the way one perceives them than in themselves. This I realise more acutely when I come out of the closet.

 

***

 

‘It's all
your
bloody fault that I'm sitting here.'

‘Shoo-er it is.' Malcolm bounces the words like a ping-pong ball.

‘All this Infantry School shit . . . it's all because of you.' I might as well be hugging him, for the amount of blame in my voice.

‘Would you rather be with what's his name, the head-shitter?'

I laugh. ‘Frikkie. I wonder what's happened to him. Shucks, no way, Mal. I wonder where he is? Just imagine . . .'

‘No,' he says melodramatically, ‘no gratitude, no, no, no grati­tude!' and he feigns hurt for a lack of appreciation. ‘You go to head-shitter, your neeeeew best friend.' He digs his fingers into my side below the ribs. My body doubles up with pleasure, and we start wrestling. I am aware that we are too close, too deep in­side each other's space for the army, but I don't care.

Then he rolls right over me and lies still next to me. High above me is a cloud that looks like a rabbit, and I think that clouds of­ten do . . . rabbits and dragons, shapes with liberal boundaries, one gentle, and one mystical.

With a small shock I realise that I am happy, happy in that moment.

‘It's amazing . . .'

‘What?'

‘Mal, it's amazing, you know. We're sort of coping, aren't we? I mean, we're still here, and so many have dropped out.'

We sit up on the lawn across the way from the wash troughs and both notice Oscar at the same time. He is doing his wash­ing, shirt off, muscles flexing as he twists a browns shirt, and I know we are both thinking what a magnificent creature he is.

 

***

 

After the RTU's of the boys who did not make Vasbyt, the shrink­ing company is reshuffled at random for the departure to the border.

I am allocated to Platoon Two. Mercifully, Malcolm is too. We have a new lieutenant, corporal and platoon sergeant. We are free of Dorman!

Just before everything is finalised, I see Sergeant Dorman talk­ing to my new platoon sergeant. Then he walks over to me, pulls me out of the ranks and places me in his new platoon, Platoon One.

The three platoons that now form what is left of Golf Com­pany are in relaxed formation as the corporals walk down the lines, tak­ing down names. Somehow Malcolm manages to change places with someone in Platoon One without being detected. This seals his fate, for Dorman's hatred of me will surely spill over to him as well.

Gerrie is also in Platoon One, in our bungalow, and I notice how much he has changed since we stepped over from our pre­vious world to this one. His choice of survival has been to attach himself to the instructors, even at the cost of being ridiculed by the rest of us. In my war with Dorman, Gerrie is not on my side.

There is one more important person in Platoon One: Oscar.

 

A man with a similar disdain for others as Dorman leads the platoon. His name is Maurice Engel. ‘Engel' is the Afrikaans for ‘angel,' but this man is a fiend. If one cannot understand why Dorman carries such a deep hate of life and people, with Engel it's clear. Not even his fellow officers like him. In the world beyond these petty rules strung on rank, he is nothing. Engel is simply one of those unfortunate people who will never be popu­lar.

Because he has a primary school teaching diploma in wood­work, he holds the rank of lieutenant. He did not complete the same training that we, or for that matter, Dorman did; yet he has the power to make our lives miserable, and from the outset it is clear that this is his main aim.

 

Dominating everything now is the border, dangling in front of us like a hangman's noose. Until now we have faced only the immediate obstacles, one after the other, with the border lying somewhere behind them. But now it is with us.

We are issued with dog tags and instructed to hand in our last will and testament. Each man's blood type is determined and indicated next to the buckle of his web belt.

During this period of preparation (mastering rifle grenades, hand grenades, Claymore mines and shooting at the Swartberg or camp shooting range) something happens that seems insig­nificant at the time. But perhaps nothing is ever really insignifi­cant.

Gerrie decides to befriend Malcolm, and with the same zeal that he attached himself to Arno and me at school, and later to his superiors here, he pursues this friendship. And then it abruptly ends. After our last weekend pass, Gerrie is chosen as the lieutenant's right-hand man, which means he even sleeps in the same tent as the instructors when we are out in the veld. Gerrie is thus pretty much guaranteed rank at the end of our course, and protection on the border. His position of intimacy with Dorman and Engel does not bode well for us, and on the day of the inspection by the commanding officer of the entire base this is confirmed.

Before an inspection we stand at ease on our taxis until just before the command to brace. Then we step off them and hide them under our un-slept-in, sharp-angled beds.

Mal is at the door and sees Gerrie standing on his taxi.

‘Gerrie, you've got my taxi,' he says, clearly alarmed.

‘No ways, Bateman, it's mine.'

I shout from the other side of the room, ‘Gerrie, give him his taxi!'

‘Fuck you, Van.'

‘Gerrie, for fuck sake, there's no time for this bullshit!'

‘It's mine, Nicholas, and I said fuck you!'

‘Listen, Gerrie, we can sort it out later, just give it to him so that he can get to his bed!'

‘If Bateman is so
slapgat
to lose his taxi, that's his problem.'

‘It is his, you fuck! I can prove it. It comes from the same piece of felt as mine. Look at the green stripe.' Through the window I see the inspection group approaching.

‘Fuck you, Nick, you're always defending Bateman.'

‘Give him his taxi NOW, Gerrie! You're going to get us all into shit!'

‘Bateman is going to get us into shit, not me.' There is deter­mination in his voice. I see he will not relinquish anything, so I step off mine and throw it towards the door. It veers off to the right. Oscar is nearest to it and he shuffles forward, picks it up and flings it to Malcolm.

Malcolm starts his journey between the beds, past the entire platoon already standing at attention, each in his own way silently imploring some higher force for a successful inspection. If prayer could fill space, his passage down the middle of all the beds would be thick with pleading for a favourable reception by the CO. But Mal doesn't make it in time.

The light that shines on the gleaming floor through the open door is darkened by the figure of a man. It is Dorman.

The inspection group passes the last windows, and like a strip of film slipping off its sprockets, everything starts to move too rapidly. Dorman stands in the door. If we fail, it will reflect badly on him.

The CO pushes past him as he calls us to attention. Behind him are the company commander and the platoon commander, Lieutenant Engel. Everybody is standing at attention, but Mal­colm is still halfway to his bed.

The CO walks directly to Malcolm and starts finding fault with everything in his inspection. He doesn't address Malcolm, who is too far beneath him. Instead he insults our company com­mander in front of the whole platoon. This is not good for us. A flame-thrower has ignited under the captain's skin, snaking like a high-pressure hose out of control and turning him red from within.

Very early the next day we are woken by corporals, lieutenants and sergeants. They are all shouting at the same time, shoving us around and kicking the metal cupboards and the beds.

Soon we are running to the parade ground on the outskirts of the camp, on our way to Swartberg. We are going to have a com­pany
opfok
, in
staaldak, webbing en geweer
.

The sky is overcast. This is good, it will be cooler, I think to my­self as we pass the tuck shop. I am already feeling tired. Strange how fear saps one's energy. When we arrive, there is an ambu­lance and a water truck.

 

***

 

My folks wait for me at the Klapmuts off-ramp, the closest point to Banhoek on the N1. From a distance I see the Chevy's rear lights. Then I see the two heads, small on thinner necks in this light, as we pull up behind my parents' car.

My father gets out to talk to my travelling companions, who can't wait to get away. The back door of the Chevy hesitates over the two knuckles of its predetermined positions as I slam the door shut. Inside the car I step back into a small world linked by cables of memory in this space infused with the smell of clean­ing products, vinyl and my parents.

My father asks a few questions, but I say very little. It's all po­lite and very superficial. My mother watches my expression in the light of the traffic sweeping past us, blasting our small space with a sudden flash of brightness. She wants to know how I am, how I really am, without asking me outright. She has a positive response to everything I say, as she mostly does. It is familiar, but at the same time it frustrates me, for I nurse a need for a deeper empathy.

It is the first time since Dylan's death and after the open, if slightly tipsy, expression of my gayness, that I see my folks. I feel strong knowing I have grown beyond their prejudice—one step forward, many steps sideways.

Light catches the side of my father's face, like spray paint catching a raised surface. I see his goatee in silhouette and the lighter hair under his bottom lip bobbing up and down like a switch going on and off, on and off.

Did his sperm make me? Am I linked to this man who is so detached from me? I want him to know as little as possible about me—even the things that might please him, like the fact that I outlasted the toughest.

I sit back in the seat and start fantasising about making love to Ethan, stroking my hard-on through my step-out pants, dirty and sweaty—lust-revenge lovemaking. I picture my father walk­ing in on us and me not cowering, being proud, waiting for him to see the smirk on my face before I turn back to my love. In the dark of the back seat, I enjoy my spiteful fantasy, even though I know that life hardly ever follows desire, for in constructed per­fection we leave out the bits that reality will not.

He sent a closeted child to the army and got a homosexual man back. I will choose the time to tell him carefully, for the best effect. He may have made me feel worthless, but I don't need his approval any more. From now on I will have to look back to see the damage he has done.

Dot comes running out from the kitchen, frantic with joy. Pud­ding, the bullmastiff, has only two settings between sleeping: eating or greeting.

‘Shame, she's getting old now. She really misses you.' My mother smiles down at her. ‘Nick, will you feed them for me, please?'

The farm smells wet and cold. No, it reeks of gloom. Sheets of winter rain start to fall from the black night, close and enfold­ing. On the roof the sound is ominous, and I can almost feel the dampness bleed into the walls.

I hesitate at the threshold of my room. Ahead of me the space is stale with remembrance, with emptiness and waiting. It is as though the empty room is not ready for the change.

So often I have masturbated on this bed, fought my desires, and now the room is the same but I am so different! I will never cower again, never again allow the self-loathing that comes from being caged and tortured by duplicity. If they don't want to hear, I won't tell them, but I will not change or lie to them. Fuck any­body who doesn't accept me.

This weekend before leaving for the border, I reveal so little of myself that I might as well not be there. And soon I am sitting waiting for my lift back to camp.

Pierre is late. My mother and I wait under a bridge on the N1 in the Datsun. From time to time Mom turns the ignition two positions to the right. Red lights glow on the dashboard, and the windscreen wipers complete two swoops. The whirring sound of the little motor and the shuddering of the rubber over the glass grate at my nerves.

This time I'm going back to war—to two wars in fact: one against Swapo and another against Dorman. I will fight and pos­sibly die for an institution that makes laws against me and my kind.

 

***

 

‘Do you guys want to stop for food?' Pierre asks. None of us is hungry, but I know that I must keep my energy up. We will get to Oudtshoorn very late, maybe only at one in the morning.

‘Yes, OK. Where do you want to stop?”

‘Maybe at Worcester.'

‘Shit, we have so far to go still. Maybe Robertson or Ashton. At least it will feel as if we've covered some distance. Or even Bar­rydale. There's a garage . . .'

‘No way, that food is shit. Let's just stop, Vannie. We must just be very quick. I have to fill up before eight in any case.'

If we get there at one, that means I'll probably get to sleep by two, no, one thirty . . . one thirty, two thirty, three thirty and a half . . . shit, that's only two and a half hours sleep.

I think of all the boys who might have died travelling to and from pass. If I die tonight, it must just be quick. I shudder when I picture the car crumpled up and mangled, full of tar and blood—our blood on hard tar—and the flashing lights of police cars and an ambulance. But then it will be all over . . . all gone. Whatever comes must be better than this. Is this how Dylan felt? I picture my bed waiting at Infantry School and the rest of the company arriving, the base, the smells and the depression. Think of Jef­frey's; think of anything but Infantry School, I implore myself.

‘There, that place makes
lekker
chips. Stop there, Pierre, stop!' Jan says from the back of the car.

‘OK, OK.
Fok, hou jou in.
I'll drop you guys off and I'll fill the car up at that Shell station. Hey, Jan, you haven't paid me yet. Have you got bucks on you?' Then to me, ‘Vannie, do me a fa­vour, man, get me some chips and smokes.'