The Smell of Apples: A Novel (23 page)

Mark Behr

epaulettes from the bed next to him, 'so that Dad can fit them for you.'

I shake my head.

He frowns and says again: 'Come, let's fit them on now, Marnus.' But I stay where I am, in the middle of the floor. I can't move.

Mum and Use have also stopped talking.

'What's up with you, Marnus?' Mum asks. 'Go on, let Daddy fit the epaulettes for you.'

I shake my head without taking my eyes from him. I know that if I try to speak now I'm going to start crying. His eyes are narrowed into slits that look different from anything I've seen before. He speaks again. This time his voice is very soft:

'Come to me, Marnus.'

I'm scared of him. He speaks again, but I can't hear what he's saying. There's a silence all around me and I can only make out that his lips are moving. In my head there's the sound of something like the sea, or of birds flapping their wings.

I should never have come down from my room. I should have stayed there. I shouldn't have looked through the holes in the floor. It's God punishing me now for all my lies and because Frikkie copied from my homework. I should never . . . but before I can finish thinking, he's next to me.

He picks me up by my one arm and carries me into the bathroom. He carries me with one hand and hits me with the other. He hits me on my bum and across my back, and it feels like I'm losing my breath. He's shouting at me but I can't hear what he's saying. All I hear is the sound of the sea and hundreds of birds around my head.

Then I start crying, and I hear his voice again.

I scream at him to stop, but he carries on beating me and says I must listen when he speaks to me. He shouts at

The Smell of Apples

me: 'What's gotten into you?' But I can't answer, I'm crying and trying to speak all at once. I think I'm going to choke because I can't breathe. I start gasping for breath.

Then suddenly he stops.

He puts my feet down on the bathroom floor, and turns me around to face him. I'm still struggling to breathe. And then I see for the first time that Dad is crying. His eyes aren't angry any more. There are tears running from his eyes and his mouth is pulled down at the corners. He kneels in front of me and brushes his hands over my cheeks and my hair. He's trying to say something through his tears. I hear him say he's sorry for beating me.

He hugs me and holds me tightly against his chest, until I feel his tears through the shirt of the camouflage suit. I put my arms around his head and we both cry, holding on to each other. We stay like that for a long time, Dad and me together, with him kneeling on the bathroom floor.

When he's stopped crying, he pushes me away gently. He looks at me through his wet eyes and slowly he starts to smile.

Then he says: 'Well, well. What's up with all this crying? Bulls don't cry.' And he pulls a funny face at me so that I start laughing.

Mum and Use are standing at the dressing-table. Mum is holding both Use's hands. Dressed in her long paisley dressing-gown, Mum looks like on the photograph against my window-frame where she's singing. But now she's just standing there looking at me. She looks at me the way you'd look at someone you're seeing for the first time, in a place where you never expected to find them.

Dad sits down on the bed with me in front of him. He picks up the epaulettes and fastens them on to the shoulders of my camouflage suit.

*

Mark Behr

The black section-leader's face is beside me. He asks whether I have any feeling in my legs. He tells me I will be fine. I try to shake my head, to warn him. I try to speak to him, to tell him that I knew all along, just like all the others.

But I am dumb.

I feel Dad's face against my chest and my arms around his head, and I feel safe. But now it is a different safety. Death brings its own freedom, and it is for the living that the dead should mourn, for in life there is no escape from history.

In my room I don't feel like taking off my camouflage suit, and I stand looking at myself in the mirror for a long time. I get into bed, camouflage suit and all.

While I'm lying in bed, I hear soft footsteps coming up the stairs. I wonder who it is. Someone comes into the room and the floorboards creak softly.

'Who is it?' I whisper.

'Shhh,' says someone. 'It's me.' It's Use's voice.

'What do you want?' I ask, and she sits down next to me on the bed.

'Marnus,' she starts, 'I'm sorry I said you should put on the camouflage suit. I'm really very sorry . . .'

'What's it with you?' I ask. 'Leave me alone. Anyway, I'm glad I put it on.'

'Marnus, you don't understand what happened just now . . .' But before she can finish, I say: 'Get out of here! You know nothingV

She stays on the edge of my bed for a few seconds and it looks like she's frowning. She shakes her head slowly from side to side, but then she leaves, quietly down the stairs.

The Smell of Apples

I lie on my back and I think of the holiday and of Frikkie and of next year. Then, it's as if I suddenly know: it's better that Frikkie didn't tell me this morning. We know everything about each other. We don't share our secrets with anyone except each other. If I want to tell anyone something in the greatest secrecy, I tell Frikkie. And I know if he wants to tell someone something, something that he doesn't want anyone else to know, then he tells me, and only me. If he didn't even want to tell me about Dad, then he'll never tell anyone. And it's right that way.

Between us the secret will always be safe.

While I lie in the dark, waiting for sleep to come, I feel something between my legs. My John Thomas is hard and it feels warm and nice when I push my hand into my pants to hold it. With the moon falling through the window and with the sound of waves on the other side of the tracks, I fall asleep. And for the first time, I dream the dream of me and Frikkie galloping along Muizenberg Beach. We're in uniform and the horses are right up against the water. It sounds as if somewhere a woman is singing. In the distance I can see someone running from the horses. Now it sounds like the woman's voice is coming from the red waves, or from under the horses' hoofs or from the dunes. I hear nothing except the voice singing. Then we get closer to the person who's running away from us. Slowly the horses are catching up. Through the mist I can see it's someone wearing a hat, and when she turns around and screams, it's Zelda Kemp. She tries to get away, but the horses are almost on top of her. When she sees we're going to catch her, she runs up the beach towards the dunes. I laugh and turn to look at Frikkie. But it's not Frikkie on the horse next to me. It's Little-Neville.

And all I hear is the voice of the woman singing.

*

Mark Behr

In the morning Dad and I pack the suitcases into the car, and I help him hook the boat to the Volvo. I tell him that I'm looking forward to the holiday and to the two of us going fishing every day. While we're fastening the sail across the boat, I ask whether I can't go along next year when he goes tiger-fishing in the Okovango. He smiles at me across the boat and asks: 'Tell me first, my little bull, is there froth in the water yet in the mornings when you have a pee?' I smile and nod my head. Dad laughs and says yes, I'm big enough to go tiger-fishing now, and Mum should stop worrying about me.

As always when we're starting a long drive, all four of us stand on the front veranda and Dad prays for a safe journey. He prays that the holiday will bring us back rested and strengthened. He prays for Little-Neville and Doreen and asks God to be with them during the festive season. He prays for Mister Smith and Chile, and he prays for our men in uniform. He asks God to bless our country in 1974, and to strengthen the defence force so that we can conquer the enemy bearing down on us from all directions.

While Dad is praying, I open my eyes and look out across the bay. I don't know whether there's a more beautiful place in the whole world. Even with the railway-line. It's a perfect day, just like yesterday. One of those days when Mum says: the Lord's hand is resting over False Bay.

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MARK BEHRwas born in Tanzania in 1963, and later moved to South Africa with his family. He was educated in South Africa, Norway, and the United States, and currently lives in Johannesburg, where he works as a lecturer in English literature.

Jacket design by Melissa Jacoby Jacket photograph by Paul Chancey/Graphistock

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