Moffie (33 page)

It is his job today to sign people up for a base called the
Danie Theron Krygskool,
and I am duly enrolled.

 

***

 

The passing-out parade, which my parents attend, is over the weekend of 13 and 14 December, the parade on the Saturday morn­ing and Church parade on the Sunday. On Saturday evening there is a military tattoo in which each company takes part.

Golf Company gets to do the best part of the program. We are to enact a contact situation on the border, where a section of the SADF completely annihilates a group of terrorists, with only one wounded soldier on our side, who is then speedily casevacked. The contact is complete, with blanks, smoke grenades and heli­copter. I am the medic who administers a drip, and the person helping me harness the ‘patient' to the helicopter winch is Os­car.

I feel an obscure sense of pride, mainly for having succeeded in completing a year so totally against everything I stand for. But the satisfaction makes me feel as if I'm betraying myself—allow­ing this system I hate to make me a part of it.

I am also confused about being pleased that my father is given the opportunity to be proud of me—that I'm excelling at some­thing he believes in after all the shame I caused him by failing at school, cricket, rugby and everything that is important to him. But strange as it is, despite our destructive relationship, I still harbour a subconscious desire to gain his respect.

There is obviously no way for him to know exactly how huge this achievement really is, or how difficult the year has been; least of all my ‘coming out,' Dylan's death and falling in love with Ethan. But it is enough for him to know that I am now part of a small elite, of which all the parents and visitors are constant­ly reminded during this weekend.

After the tattoo, we clean the black-is-beautiful from our fa­ces, shower, change into step-outs and are allowed to spend the evening out. My passbook is signed, I get into the Chev Con-stantia and go to a restaurant with my parents. The collective excitement of the camp and being part of the ‘stage production' is carried into the car, and not even the news that some distant family members are joining us for dinner can spoil my mood.

‘Nick,' my mother says, ‘don't you remember them? You met them in Jeffrey's once.'

‘No, Mom. When?'

‘You were in standard three.'

‘Mom, really, I was ten. How are we related?'

‘Uncle Dirk and aunt Fran.'

‘Just not them!'

‘No, uncle Dirk's brother, Jan.'

‘They call him Jannie,' my father corrects my mother.

‘No, it doesn't ring a bell,' I say, sounding disappointed at the prospect of spending an evening with uncle Dirty Dirk's family.

‘I'm sorry, darling,' my mom says, ‘but we had no option. Their son is also here and they don't have very much, so we offered to take them out. Just make the most of it, OK?'

‘Is he in Infantry School?'

‘Yes. I can't remember his name, but they call him Blackie.'

‘No, I don't know him. I don't really know the people from the other companies. We hardly ever mix.'

Parking outside the restaurant, my father says, ‘Are we late? They're here already.'

‘No, we're not,' says my mom.

‘How do you know they're here?' I ask.

‘Because that's their truck,' my father says, pointing to a black breakdown truck with the words
Jannie and Son
dramatically sign-written on the door. Below it, in a straight line, are the words:
Best prices, speedy & honest.

I am appalled, picturing a drunken version of uncle Dirk be­ing rowdy in the restaurant, in the presence of other members of my platoon or company.

‘Where do they live?'

‘Somewhere in the Transvaal.'

‘And they travelled all the way in this!'

‘Yes, uncle Jannie said the car was not reliable, or something like that.'

‘Nick, it's the right thing to do, OK? Be nice to them.'

‘Of course,' I say, mildly irritated.

The establishment is in a beautifully renovated old house that once belonged to a wealthy ostrich farmer.

‘Yes,' says the maitre d', ‘Van der Swart! The rest of your party is already here. Please follow me.'

I stand back, like a well-mannered boy, to let my parents seat themselves, and only then do I see Oscar sitting at our table. My immediate reaction is one of embarrassment that he might see my distant relatives, but when my folks greet the two people sitting with him, I realise that Oscar is their son. He gets up to introduce himself to my folks. Then he shakes my hand, smiling. ‘Howzit, Vannie.'

It takes me a glass and a half of wine before I am relaxed enough to respond to Oscar's attempts at small talk. My father directs most of his questions at Oscar, as if I have never had any­thing to do with the Defence Force. Oscar answers politely, until he too has emptied a glass of wine, when he says, ‘Uncle Peet, do you know that of all the troops in Golf Company it is actually Nicholas and a friend who have had the most combat experi­ence?'

‘What?'

‘Yes, he and a friend were the only ones to actually go on pa­trol with Koevoet and have a major contact!'

‘I don't believe it!'

Everyone is quiet. My father looks away from Oscar, appears to think for a while, and then starts talking to uncle Jannie.

I am flushed with wine and Oscar's support. Our parents start conversing in twos—the women with each other and the men too. Oscar smiles, notices that I see the smile and says, ‘Let's go for a jol tonight, you and I.' Then he turns to his father and says,
‘Pa, ek wil vanaand die trok gebruik, OK?'
(‘I want to borrow the truck tonight.')

The adults decide to travel back together so that the young­sters can go and ‘chase some chicks,' and without waiting for dessert we leave.

After trying the bars and finding them too crowded, we decide to go to the Holiday Inn. We order a bottle of wine in the lounge, where it is quiet enough to chat. We talk mostly about the past year, and particularly about the border. I am keen to talk about the time he kissed me, about helping me after the land mine ex­plosion, and the last day of Vasbyt, when he picked me up. As Oscar pours us a second glass of wine I say, ‘Listen, I just want to say thanks for the times you've helped me.'

He smiles and says, ‘It's nothing, Vannie, nothing.'

I look at the condensation on the silver ice bucket, run my finger over it, look up at him and say, ‘I know it was you who helped me after the land mine.'

‘Oh, man, forget it!'

‘And I won't forget Vasbyt either!'

‘Oh, that.' He is slightly embarrassed, but I look straight at him and manage to say what has been uppermost on my mind. ‘And what about the day you kissed me!'

He bursts into nervous laughter.

‘I just had to thank you, man. I tell you, it meant so much to me. It was so fucking brave of you. It like blew me away.'

He looks down smiling, then the smile fades, and with an in­tense look he says, ‘It had to be done.'

This gives me the courage to go on. ‘Oscar, there is something I want to tell you.'

‘Vannie, you don't have to. It's cool with me, whatever it is.'

‘No, I want to.' I wait a while. The silence between us is not awkward; it is a moment we both need to prepare ourselves for a revelation. ‘I . . . I'm gay. I just wanted you to know that.'

In a split second, I become completely sober. I sink back, as if I have used up all my energy, and sigh, ‘I hope you understand.'

‘That's OK.' He leans over, straining to get closer to me, and says, ‘It really is OK, I promise you.'

‘Shit, I'm relieved. I don't know why, but I needed to tell you.'

‘I'm glad you did. Just to put you at ease, I want to tell you about this guy I knew. Probably the most important person in my life. He sort of helped me see life differently. You see, where I grew up it was a bit rough. Well, this guy was my Art teacher and became a close friend. He is gay, and I tell you he was, and I guess still is, like a guru to me; definitely the most amazing person I have ever met. He told me early on that he was gay, and I spent a lot of time with him. Sometimes it would even be just the two of us in a tent, because we did many hiking trails together. Think about it, me a schoolboy and he a gay man, on a five-day hike, and I tell you I never ever felt the slightest bit threatened.'

‘Wow, I knew a guy like that too, sort of my mentor as well.'

‘Van, there's something I must tell you too.' Seeing my expec­tant look, he says, ‘No, no, I'm not gay. It's something else. Do you remember that we spent a day together many years ago?'

‘My mom told me you visited my uncle when we were in Jef­frey's. But I don't remember meeting you.'

‘Well, we were staying in the caravan park that year. And that uncle . . . well, he's not a nice man.'

‘I hated him.'

‘Do you remember that wrestling match?'

‘Yes, of course! No way, NO WAY . . . You're
that
Blackie! Black­ie, no way, man, no way!'

‘That's me.'

‘Wow, man, I can't believe it. Shit, and we were together in the army this whole year and never . . . What a coincidence. I also bumped into a cousin of mine here.'

‘It's actually not such a coincidence, Vannie. I mean, most of the guys who matriculated the same time as we did are in the army now. Do you remember how you beat Michael that night?'

‘Yes, but it was a fluke, I think.'

‘It wasn't. I remember it like it was yesterday!'

‘Oscar, I hated that man. I could go to hell for the thoughts I've had about him.'

‘He tried to feel me up, and my sister too, the sick cunt.'

‘What? In Jeffrey's?'

‘No, we went down to Margate on a family holiday with them. He was a pain, trying to touch me and shit, but I wriggled away each time. I never really felt threatened because I knew he stood no chance. But then one afternoon, while everybody was resting, I went to the loo and passed my sister's room. I heard her sort of talking, but more like moaning. I could hear she was distressed, so I opened the door and, shit, there he was, his hand down her . . . front.'

‘Fuck!'

‘I lost it, Vannie, totally. There was a lamp next to the bed. I grabbed it and started hitting him. And then,' Oscar smiles and sniggers softly, ‘the shade went flying and how exactly it hap­pened I don't know, but it was one of those lights with the switch under the bulb, you know. So the switch went on and the next time I hit him the bulb broke and I shocked him!' We both burst out laughing. ‘So he tried to get off the bed and block the strikes, yelling at me to calm down, but I just went on hitting and hit­ting, using the broken bulb like a cattle prodder!'

‘And the rest of the people in the house?'

‘Aunt Fran was first on the scene. She knew immediately what was going on, so she got me to stop and sent him out of the room. The next minute my mother is there asking what's going on, and poor aunt Fran says there was a little accident with the lamp. But the way she looked at me, almost pleadingly, I knew that she knew.

‘Later I felt bad that I hadn't done something about it. Some­one like that is sick and needs help, man. What if there were oth­er kids, or even his own? But you know what it's like with family and shit. Plus, I was only about ten or eleven, so what would I have been able to do?'

 

Before we go back to the base, Oscar gives me a gift—something that means more to me than material things ever could. We drive out of town and turn off the tar onto a gravel road. He drives on for about two kilometres, stops on a small rising and says, ‘Let's get out.'

The Milky Way is so powerful above me that it feels as if I'm looking up at one enormous, solid, heavenly body, and the vast energy of our entire galaxy comes flooding towards me.

‘Listen to this, Vannie,' he says and puts on a tape in the truck. And there, on the edge of the great expanse of the Karoo, with the smells of the veld where I had slept and trained for nine months, under the stars that I watched for countless hours on guard duty, we listen to
Beim Schlafengehen
, one of Richard Strauss's four last songs.

The music swirls around me, then cuts into me and seems to link me to the cosmos—to the greatness of friendship, my ad­miration for Oscar and the love I have for Ethan. The Karoo air, with just a hint of dust and the scent of the bushes carried within its cleanness, gives me a feeling of unshakable power.

On our way back to camp, we drive through Oudtshoorn. The town is emptying out after its brief siege of army personnel, jun­ior leaders and their families. Taking a shortcut past a late-night bar, the truck's lights fall straight on Dorman, walking down the street. He is drunk. Oscar slows down and follows him. I ask why, but when he doesn't answer, I don't ask again. Dorman's Datsun bakkie is parked in a side street, next to a pine tree. He fumbles for his keys, finds the right one for the door and gets in.

Then he looks down, trying to find the ignition. This man that has caused me such endless hardship looks small in his drunken state. He doesn't look up at the lights blazing on him and flash­framing his image into me as Oscar completes the turn and lines up directly in front of his bakkie. He eases up against the Dat­sun's bumper. Dorman's head immediately snaps up and he tries to block the light from his eyes. Oscar gently pushes the vehicle back until it is sandwiched between the tree and us. There is the sound of metal buckling, glass breaking, and the revving of our vehicle's engine, but it is so gentle it's almost muffled.

Then Oscar gets out, walks over to Dorman, and I follow.

‘Come here, Vannie,' he says quietly as he stands looking down at Dorman, who is sitting in the car without a sign of the malevolence for which we have known him all year. In fact, he starts talking, and it sounds pretty much like pleading. Then he stops, and both he and I look at Oscar, who is undoubtedly the one in charge of this situation.