The Smell of Apples: A Novel (8 page)

'Ja! You thought I wouldn't be able to catch you, neV she says.

Frikkie copies her squeaky voice: 'You thought I wouldn't be able to catch you, ne" and he draws the corners of his mouth down like always when he's bullying someone. He carries on, in his own voice: 'Who says it's not us that caught youV

For a moment she looks like someone who doesn't know what she's doing here. She puts on her hat again and stares at us, as if she's waiting for us to say something.

'Leave us alone, Zelda,' I say. 'Go home and play with your doll.' But she just stands there, and I can feel that Frikkie is in the mood for making sport today.

'Let's play chicken,' he says.

Chicken is when you stand on the seaward side of the lighthouse and see who's the first to get out of the way when a wave breaks against the quay. It's a dangerous game, because if you don't move quick enough, one of the bigger waves can easily wash you into the harbour, or even drag you into the sea.

'No, I'm not playing that,' Zelda says, and turns around to walk away from us. Frikkie darts after her and before she can try to stop him, he grabs the hat off her head and runs back to the lighthouse. She jumps around and shouts at him to give it back. But Frikkie swings it around, acting like he's going to throw it into the sea.

Zelda jumps up and down, and begs Frikkie for the hat. She comes closer, but then almost falls over backwards when a wave breaks over the quay between her and us. We cling to the lighthouse.

'Come and fetch the hat. Here.' And he holds it out to her. With his other hand, he props himself against the lighthouse.

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'Your mother is Glenda Kemp, isn't she!' Frikkie calls out to Zelda. Glenda Kemp is the stripper who's always being picked up by the police because they say she does terrible things with men. She was even arrested the other day for keeping a python without a permit. Now the SPCA and the police are after her. Glenda Kemp isn't really Zelda's mother, but Zelda always gets hysterical when we tease her about it.

'Do a bit of go-go like your mother!' Frikkie shouts, and pushes his hips around like someone doing the go-go, and he rubs the hat against his stomach. By now, we're laughing so much, I have to lie flat against the lighthouse to keep my balance.

Tm scared . . .'we hear her say above the noise of the wind and the waves: 'Ag, Marnus . . . please tell him to give back my hat.'

'Come and fetch it,' I answer. 'You can have it, just come and get it yourself.'

'Come on, don't be such a sissy! Come on! The waves aren't so bad,' Frikkie shouts, and tugs at my arm, until we're at the front of the lighthouse, facing the open sea.

Softly I say to him: 'Today's the day we're going to get drowned.'

'Are you coming, Zelda, or do you want me to chuck this stupid hat into the water?' Frikkie calls at the top of his voice, and we peer at her around the lighthouse.

She's still jumping up and down and now she's started crying. I can see she's nearly hysterical, and I want to tell Frikkie that we should stop. Just then a dreadful wave comes down on the quay, right where Zelda is. Before anyone can do a thing, the wave cracks against the concrete like a cannon, and we just hear Zelda scream at the same moment as she disappears under the water.

For a few moments Frikkie and I are dumbstruck. We

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stand frozen, our eyes on the swirling water where Zelda was still jumping around a second ago. Without letting go of the lighthouse, we look for her in the harbour. But when the last water rushes down the side of the quay into the harbour, I see her.

She's lying on the side of the quay, where the force of the wave pushed her. Her hands are up over her face, and the dress has been washed across her stomach so that her white legs and panties stick out. It's as if something tells me: Frikkie and I are responsible for drowning Zelda Kemp. I let go of the lighthouse and shake my hands around. What are we going to do?

We run to her. When we get to her, I can see she's alive, because her mouth is moving! We help her up, and with her wet body between us, we run to where the quay bends back towards the land.

She starts crying and we try to make her feel better. I take the hat from Frikkie and hand it back to her. But she carries on crying and sits down on her haunches in the middle of the quay with her face between her knees. Some men from the fish-market come over to see what's happening, and Frikkie says she's crying because her dress got wet. They warn us to be more careful, and then stroll back to the noise coming from the market.

After a while I can see Frikkie's getting irritated with Zelda, and he says: 'Stop your crying now, Zelda. Else we'll just leave you here. Look, the hotnots are laughing at you.'

She calms down a bit, and looks at the fish-market through her red eyes. Frikkie walks off, and Zelda and I follow.

'If I lost my hat, I would have gotten a hiding,' she says. 4 I must wear it so that I don't freckle.' I'm glad she's started speaking again. 'I'm sorry,' I say softly, so that Frikkie can't hear.

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She starts sobbing again. Then she says: Tm glad we're going to move away from here.'

'Are you really moving?' I ask, because I'm already thinking of Zelda's father coming to tell Dad that I almost drowned her.

'From next year Daddy is going to work in the main post office. But there's also work on the railways.'

'Where are you going to live?'

'In Woodstock. Close to the cinema.'

'So . . . will you be coming to Jan Van Riebeeck?'

She shakes her head and pulls both hands down her plaits to dry them. 'No, we're going to the school close to our new house. I don't know its name.'

Frikkie is still walking ahead of us. 'Are you going to tell your father about the hat?' I ask, because I don't want her to go before I'm sure Dad and Mum aren't going to hear about this.

She shakes her head. 'I'm not meant to play on the quay.'

Frikkie has turned around and says: 'Saggies praat is dui-welsraad?

At the Greek cafe, Frikkie and I turn to walk back to St James, and Zelda goes up the hill towards their house below the fishermen. Halfway home I remember about the snoek. We want to turn back at first, but then I say we might as well send Doreen. We can ask her to get bait for us at the same time.

Before supper Frikkie and I are in the kitchen with Mum. Mum is telling Doreen how to prepare the vegetables to go with the snoek. Doreen was all fat-lipped when I asked her to go to the harbour for the snoek. Mum says Doreen is worried about Little-Neville. He didn't arrive on this morning's train. But Mum says she's sure there's nothing to be concerned about; Doreen probably got the

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dates mixed up. She should go to the station again tomorrow, but for now she should be calm and relaxed because worrying only makes one age before one's time.

I tell Mum that the Kemps are moving into town and that Mister Kemp is going to work for the post office or for the railways.

'That's like music to my ears/ says Mum, and she looks up from the roses and the little white flowers she's arranging for the supper-table. Light from the sunset has turned the kitchen a light pink, and Mum's green eyes look even greener than usual.

'At least little Zelda will get the chance of going to university now. The government looks after our people.' Mum says they can take everything away from you except your education. That's the one thing no one can ever take from you.

Before sending us out to shower before supper, Mum says:

'We have a guest from America, Frikkie. He is Mister Smith. You and Marnus must use our bathroom tonight, OK?'

'Ja, TanmeJ he answers. Mum smiles at Frikkie and ruffles his hair with her hand.

'Well, you go along and shower. Marnus can go when you're finished. And Frikkie - don't forget to wash behind your ears!'

While I'm waiting for Frikkie to have his shower, Dad and the General come in through the front door. I kiss Dad and say good evening to the General. When Frikkie's done, Dad and I take our shower together.

Dad's whole chest and stomach are covered with hair and his John Thomas hangs out from a bushy black forest. Once, after we heard that hair down there grows quicker if you shave it, Frikkie used his father's razor to shave off all

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the fluff around his John Thomas. I almost shaved off mine as well, but then Frikkie got a terrible rash that made him walk around scratching like a mangy dog, so I decided not to. And, anyway, Dad might have seen it when we took our shower and he would have had a good laugh at me for being so silly.

Between soaping and washing our hair, Dad asks: c So tell Dad, does that little man of yours stand up yet sometimes in the mornings?'

Whenever Dad asks me that I get all shy, so I just laugh up into his face without really answering. I saw Frikkie's standing right out of his pyjama pants one morning, but mine doesn't really do it yet.

I learned from Dad to first dry myself almost completely while I'm still in the shower cubicle. Otherwise it gets the tiles on the bathroom floor wet, and that makes unnecessary work for Mum and Doreen. When we've finished drying ourselves off, we tie the towels around our waists and I Comb my hair in a side parting just like Dad's.

It's impossible to sleep for long. The sound of helicopters keeps you awake. Even when you do manage to doze, they somehow manage to make themselves heard in your subconscious.

I must have slept for a while, because when I come to, I remember that I've been dreaming. Only a vague memory remains. Me, with someone else, galloping down a dry river-bed on horseback. We're chasing something across the sand, but I don't know what. It feels as though we're laughing, and I can see his teeth against his dark skin. It seems strangely familiar, and I try to remember, but the sound of a helicopter, just north of us, forces my attention back.

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We're still waiting for the command, and for food. For another two days we should manage to hold out, but after that we must get new ratpacks. Sometimes, when I get up from the ground too quickly, dizziness threatens to overcome me, and I have to fight to retain my balance. We're not eating enough. If there's a contact we're going to need every ounce of strength.

I touch my ribcage through the browns, and realise for the first time how close to the surface each rib now feels. Taking the little metal mirror from my webbing's side-pocket, I peer at my slightly warped reflection: the dust has turned my dark hair to a dull brown. I bring the mirror closer to the face. Across the forehead and cheeks, black soot has drawn deep into the wide open pores. Beneath my beard I can feel how far my jaw protrudes. When I lift my chin I see the underside of my throat. It looks strangely white below the black beard. The folds of the neck are encrusted with solid trails of dust. While I'm looking into my eyes, a fly settles itself on the tip of my nose and I blast it away with a gust of air from my warm mouth. I notice a couple of black hairs growing from a nostril and with one pluck I pull out a whole clump. I sneeze instantly, sending a gust of dry air against the mirror.

I get up and walk a couple of hundred metres from the TB. Halfway to one of our lookout posts I come to a standstill on the shade-side of a baobab trunk to have a pee. With my R4 slung over my shoulder, I relieve myself against the smooth stem and stare up at the strange branches sticking into the sky like open roots.

When I look down again, I realise I'm still holding my dick. The head, enfolded by the soft foreskin, is half flattened from the pressure of thumb and index finger. Curling through the opening of my fly are long dark

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hairs. I stoop forward against the tree-trunk, and push my pelvis up and forward. The object between my fingers is light brown and covered with tiny wrinkles. When I flatten it slightly by pulling it further out through the fly, the powder-blue vein, which runs from the base right up to the head, stands out clearly. I can see the blood pulsing on the inside of the vein, but Vm not sure. I pull back the foreskin and the damp pink head moves out into the light. With the foreskin completely back, the dark pink encirclement of the head turns darker till it's almost purple. At the front I can see the opening clearly, and when I pick it up and squeeze it slightly, it resembles a small mouth with tiny lips in the act of yawning. When I turn it around, underside facing up, as if in fine stitches a shaft runs from the base to where the drawn-back fold of the foreskin begins and it disappears into the softer tissue. I undo the fly's remaining buttons. I push my hand through the cloth and lift out the balls. From the upward tension they are smooth and without wrinkles, like shells of abalone, and in minute tracks the network of veins colour the skin in different colours. Here, the sparse hair is lighter. At the base of each hair, there is a slight mound - miniature walls around young trees to retain the feedwater. Beneath the weight in my sweaty palm, I feel the coolness flowing through the skin, and I move them gently back through the fly.

Before supper, Dad introduces the General to Frikkie as Mister Smith. For the whole meal he and I are quiet, although Frikkie is always fairly quiet when Dad's around. We sit listening to the grown-ups' conversation. Use has to get her money's worth by having something to say to everything. A while back I heard Dad say to Mum that Use

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has become too big for her boots since she came back from Holland. Sometimes she rolls her eyes like a real little lady when Dad speaks to her, and I can see he's getting tired of it.

Dad tells the General that the rest of the world is against South Africa because we have all the gold and diamonds and other minerals. We also have the sea-route around the Cape. He says the outside world hides behind the thing with the Bantus - but at least we didn't kill off all our blacks like America did to the Red Indians and the Australians to the Aborigines. Dad says you can say a whole lot of things about the Afrikaners, but no one can say we're dishonest. We don't hide our laws like the rest of the world.