Embrace (24 page)
Jonas and Boy, only occasionally on trail with one of the other rangers while Bok was away, had to listen repeatedly as I told them that my father was in America and of how important he was as was the mission to save the white rhino from extinction. I showed them the clipping and read it to them. Showing off my pre-school skills with the word I realised for the first time that neither Jonas nor Boy could read. Using a twig in the sand outside their kaja, I set out at once to teach them how to write their names.
‘Look how easy it is,’ I said, writing J-O-N-A-S and, a distance away, B-O-Y. They then had to copy their names below where I’d spelt them out. I let them practise, eventually clearing the letters from the dirt and having them do it without my example. They both got it right and days later, wherever we were, would carve their names in the dirt.
The ship barely over the horizon, I started asking Bokkie how long before Bok returned. Soon reaching her fill, Bokkie showed me how to read the almanac. Every morning I was allowed to draw a cross over the day we were in. Then, seven days before he was due back in Durban and after Bokkie had gone up to Mr Watts’s to phone Aunt Siobhain and make arrangements for us to stay over, she told me that Bok was going to be a day or two late. Instead of seven days to go, there were now eight or nine. I set my elbows on the kitchen table, sulking.
‘You’ll just have to be patient, Karl’tjie. Patience is the seed of genius. I’m sure Bok will bring you and the girls presents. Now just bear that in mind.’ Sure enough, the prospect of a gift from America contained my frustration. And I had learnt a new word, a new phrase. I stopped moping.
Long before we approached the outskirts of Durban North I had asked Bernice how far to the Blue Lagoon swan. Nearing Virginia Airport, Bokkie slowed down so we could watch the small aeroplanes land. Then, a few minutes later, as we saw the Umgeni Bridge, I looked out for the enormous wooden swan-boat with its long bowed neck and wings coming up its side. We begged to go for a ride and Bokkie said we could ask Aunt Siobhain to go later during our visit.
In Toti, Stephanie put on her record of
The Sound of Music.
At my request she donned her ballet shoes and powder-blue ballet tutu. While Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer sang ‘Edelweiss’ she glided and pirouetted and plied across the lounge floor. How graceful I found the loose-limbed movements — a blue crane spreading her wings, throwing back her long neck in the veld. I longed to join her. She said I could, and we waltzed. When the dance was over I asked whether she would teach me ballet. She said she would, when next they came to visit. She said that if I was a good boy she would lend me
The Nutcracker
— real ballet music — to take back to Umfolozi.
Aunt Siobhain suggested we take a drive to Louis Botha to watch the planes take off and land. It would be a treat for me as I had never seen real landings Or take-offs. We went in two cars — our Peugeot and their Cortina station wagon. At Louis Botha Airport we stood upstairs on the open-air balcony. The day was grey and looked as if it might rain. Only one aeroplane was parked on the ground and Uncle Michael said it was a DC 10 that would soon be taken out of commission. Across the airfield the huge orange and blue flame from the Shell & BP refinery plumed from its furnace. Bernice recalled that Bok had worked there when we first Came to South Africa. A plane that Uncle Michael said was a 707 from Johannesburg dropped into view and we watched its approach to the runway. Its underside was enormous. We watched its wheels fold out. I jumped up and down and shook my hands as its belly descended. Aunt Siobhain touched my head and Bernice told me to calm down. I was certain it would fall and crash into the tar. This was the biggest thing I had ever seen in the sky; a million times bigger than it ever looked in the movies. The wheels screeched, sending up sparks and white smoke as it touched the ground. It careened down the runway and slowed down to turn. A gigantic moth with spread wings — trembling in anticipation of a mate — it came crawling towards the airport terminal. Uniformed men wheeled a set of high stairs out onto the runway and pushed them towards the plane. James said it was for the passengers todisembark. Just like in the movies, only better. Amongst the passengers stepping down onto the tarmac, my eye caught something. For a moment I wavered, then shouted, ‘It’s Bok! Look there’s Bok!’ Around me, my sisters, cousins and the grown-ups burst out laughing. They had known all along, had wanted to surprise me.
Bok came across the runway wearing a long white safari suit. I wanted to run downstairs but was told to wait so that we could all make our way together. It was the longest he had ever been away from home since he and Bokkie were married. Uncle Michael teased Bokkie, saying: ‘Tonight’s going to be like a second honeymoon, or what am I saying, Bokkie?’ And she smiled coyly, trying not to look too excited.
When Bok came through the door I saw him see us — I glanced at Aunt Siobhain, who nodded — and I ran past the incoming passengers and jumped up, grabbing him around the neck. He carried me to where the others were waiting and put me down so everyone could say hello. He and Uncle Michael shook hands and he kissed Aunt Siobhain, the three girls and James. Last, he smiled at Bokkie and gave a pace towards her. We all watched. She smiled and he smiled at her. They looked at each other. Then her eyes brimmed with tears and she put her hand over her mouth and started crying. He took her in his arms and held her while she cried and laughed and smiled again, all at once. Holding onto Bernice and Stephanie’s hands, watching Bok and Bokkie in the Louis Botha terminal, I thought the excitement would make my flesh burst through my skin.
‘From Durban, all the way around the Cape and a week into the Atlantic, the weather was foul as all hell,’ Bok said. ‘The crew said it was one of the worst voyages they had experienced. The bull and the younger cow were well behaved, but the old one, jirre Jesus, she was a pain in the arse from start to finish. Called her Shetani. Gave me a hard time all the way to Texas. Every day, clockwork, she threw a tantrum when I tried to give her water and eventually she knocked her horn off against the crate. For them to drink I had to push a baby-bath throughthe bars at the front of the crate. I fed the baby-bath with a hosepipe. As the journey went on she just grew angrier and more temperamental and the wound on her snout grew bigger from banging it on the side of the crate and against the bars. In the middle of the Adantic the planks of the crate started to loosen and split. I nipped, I tell you, I nipped. I had no M99 tranquilliser, only the antibiotic I had to inject them with to prevent infections. The captain and I shat ourselves about her crate falling apart.’
Bok had brought me a hunting knife in a black leather sheath; two Red Indian dolls for Lena; a record of Perry Como for Bernice; an American flag for Stephanie; a small chemistry set for James; an electric carving knife for Aunt Siobhain; a James Michener book for Uncle Michael, and a gold wrist-watch for Bokkie.
‘They knew well when it was feeding or injection time because they heard my whistle coming along the deck. I became very attached to them, you know, three weeks at sea without any real conversation. Can be boring as all hell. Meal-times for me was an ordeal because the crew didn’t speak to each other or to me — real sea-dogs, the lot of them. The radio operator and the second engineer were reasonably okay, could make conversation and had the occasional something to say. But the rest, no, I gave up after a few days. When the weather calmed down I spent my time on deck with the rhino or watched a wandering albatross that followed us for two weeks. A wingspan like this . . . Incredible to watch as it glided above the ship. And there were dolphins, often, swimming alongside the ship or playing in the wake.’
‘What about the cow and the crate? What did you do about her?’ Uncle Michael asked.
‘Ah, Shetani! She soon began anticipating the injection. Her rumps started quivering as she waited for the burning antibiotic to be injected. Burns like hell, apparently. She pranced, snorted and buffeted the sides of the crate and it was impossible to be gende with her. It was interesting, really, each of them had their own personality, just like domestic animals. They were captured at about the same age — amonth to three months — kept at the bomas in Umfolozi for the same period of time to be tamed down, treated identically. But still they were different. By the time we were in the middle of the Atlantic Shetani s crate was threatening to come apart and the Captain and me had visions of a broken-out rhino dashing around the decks causing havoc. I had the radio operator call the US coast guard to fly out some M99 but they refused. So we decided that if worse came to worst we would use one of the ship’s cranes to pick up the crate and drop her over the side into the sea. The thought horrified me — imagine telling Ian Player I’d thrown a rhino overboard and the hullabaloo from the newspapers! That’s when I made the plan with the dung dam. The baby-bath — that’s what seemed to make her crazy — so I devised the alternative and scraped together enough dung to make a small dam in the front of the crate. If I inserted the hose gently she seemed okay. But bring the baby-bath near the crate and she’d go berserk. I was glad to deliver three rhinos as promised to the drive-through zoo in Dallas.’
And America, Uncle Ralph, what was it like?’
‘In Texas I was treated like a VIP. Texans are just like South Africans, I felt right at home. Meat-eaters, like us. But of course they call their braais barbecues. And a barbecue is a smart affair over there, not like us who just throw some meat on the grille and have some pap and garlic bread. No, over there it’s fish, chicken, steak, all kinds of salads and snacks, ’n Hele gedoente. Lots of millionaires in Texas and they dress up to come to the barbecues. There’s one ranch, man, I’m not sure how big it is, but you can’t drive around it in a day. Huge farms — ranches they call them — with what, two, three thousand head of cattle on average.’ And then Bok told how he flew from Texas to Philadelphia to see Nada and Rashid. The grown-ups and Stephanie and Bernice all knew Nada and Rashid from when they had come on an elephant safari to Tanganyika. Nada was the cousin of the Shah of Iran and they were very well-to-do. Later, Bok said, when he had had the slides developed, we could watch them and geta better idea of everything. About a month later we would see New York from the sky; Bok with Nada and Rashid in Philadelphia; Bok with the rhino on the ship; Bok sitting on a lawn with newspapers about the rhino’s arrival in Texas; Bok with a beautiful dark-haired woman who appeared on a number of slides whom he said was Nada and Rashid’s niece; Bok with the Texan millionairess for whom the Gladys Porter Zoo was named; Bok fishing with the millionaires in Texas.. But already that night at Uncle Michael and Aunt Siobhain’s, weeks before we saw the slides, I knew America was an adventure I wanted.
When Bok had finished telling the trip, we went outside to play with our presents and to jump on the trampoline. Lena got to be first on the trampoline and she left her dolls between James and me where we sat on the metal frame. While she gained height, she said that I was really dumb for not knowing immediately that Bok was the reason we had gone to the airport.
I said I’d known all along.
‘Ja, I suppose that’s why you were so surprised when he got off the plane. Liar.’
‘Liar, liar, pants on fire,’ chimed James.
‘My knife can cut off your stupid dolls’ heads! And cut up your stupid chemistry set,’ I snapped.
‘You’re only jealous,’ Lena called, jumping higher, ‘because I got the dolls.’
‘You’re jealous because I got the knife!’ I said and grabbed a doll and pretended I was going to chop off its head. She bounced towards me and tried to wrench away the doll. I pushed her back onto the moving mat and dragged her down, then punched her against the chest. She bounced a few times then took a sidelong swipe that struck me against the chin, throwing me backwards. I sat up and folded my head into my arms, feigning sobs. The moment she came close I brought my head up into her stomach. She fell forward onto me,pinned me down and pounded her fists against the back of my skull. Screaming, I kicked her on the back with my heels; we grabbed each other by the hair and rolled around on the trampoline.
‘Get off the trampoline if you want to fight,’ James shouted. We ignored him. In spite of my worming around, Lena got her legs around my waist and clasped me in the dreaded scissors grip. I squealed that she was going to break my ribs; that a broken rib would puncture my heart and I’d bleed to death. I took another swipe at her head, catching her against her forehead. She started pummelling the knuckles of her fist against my chest. James had disappeared.
Suddenly Bokkie was there: ‘Fighting like dogs, again! Lena, let go of him!’ Lena unwrapped her legs and we sat up.
‘Go to the bathroom and wait for me.’
‘It was her, Bokkie! I didn’t do anything,’ I pleaded from the trampoline.
‘He’s lying. He’s the one that started cutting up my doll,’ Lena countered.
‘You are brother and sister. Have you no shame! The day your father gets back and you’re like animals. He brought us all those lovely presents and this is the thanks he gets. Ingrates! Get off that trampoline and get into the bathroom. Give me these,’ she grabbed the knife from where I had dropped it. She lifted the dolls. ‘You can have these when you’ve learnt to behave like human beings.’
United in our fear of what was coming we were silent. Off the trampoline, passing James, who tried to hide behind the door. ‘Snake!’ I whispered, knowing at once he had gone to tell. Bokkie came into the bathroom with Aunt Siobhain’s zebra-skin slipper and beat Lena first. When Lena started screaming, I too began to cry and beg, ‘Please don’t hit her, please, Bokkie, please.’ And when the first sting caught my bum I could scarcely hear Bokkie over my own screaming, ‘Please, I won’t do it again, I promise, I won’t do it again, please, please, I promise, we won’t fight again.’
Our mother’s face was flushed and she glared at us each in turn asshe scolded, ‘We are in Uncle Michael and Aunt Siobhain’s house. Your father has been away for six weeks. He could have died on that ship! Where are you two from? Makoppolanders! Uncivilised little savages from the bush. That’s where you’re from. Why can’t you be like Bernice — or James and Stephanie? How come they have manners like other civilised people? Tell me, Lena, why?’