The Smell of Apples: A Novel Page 2

  I made as if I didn't care, even though I wasn't sure what would happen if he told his father. I caught up with him and said: 'If you tell your dad, then I'll tell my dad that you said bloody cock.' When he didn't answer, I added: 'And I'll tell him that you smooched with Zelda Kemp.'

  'You liar! When did I smooch her?'

  'At the tidal pool. Last time we were there. I saw you, you were holding her hand underwater.'

  'You liar! It's you she's after. You felt all sorry for her when she howled about nothing at your birthday party . . .'

  'You're crazy, Frikkie,' I said, and we walked home in silence.

  As we went through their garden gate it was Frikkie who spoke first: 'If you don't say anything about the cock, then I won't say anything about the hell.'

  It's over.

  Southern Angola, which forces you in other seasons to search for a dry spot, has become a sea of dust and desperation.

  Mark Behr

  The explosions and thunder of Cuban MiGs, invisibly shattering the blue sky just north of us, get closer every day. I don't know how long we'll be able to hold out. The messages coming in from the South African side of the border are disordered and riddled with contradictions.

  No one knows what to believe any longer.

  We were instructed by radio to get the troops battle-ready. It seems we 're going to attempt breaking through. In the distance we can hear increased bombing and artillery movement. The commander's voice over the radio said that we should prepare ourselves for The Battle of Africa.

  I called together the sergeants and section leaders and instructed them to prepare the extended platoon. While I spoke, I could see the flicker of simultaneous thrill and fear in every set of eyes. After weeks of aimless waiting for a sign - anything to relieve the deadening listless-ness - the time has come. Again there is reason to understand our presence here. Once more it is a choice between life and death. Gone is the heavy lassitude of heat, the smell of dust, of merely awaiting the instruction from above.

  At Newlands, Eddie Barlow's team is doing a good job of showing the British how cricket was meant to be played, but because the whole world hates South Africa, the Springboks were forced to postpone their tour against the All Blacks.

  Dad says Nixon will be out of the White House before Christmas and it looks like the Americans are going to lose the war against the communists in Vietnam. Dad says it's typical of the Americans to try and prescribe to the Republic how we should run our country while their own

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  president is such a rubbish. Dad says you don't tell someone else how to make his bed when your own house looks like a pigsty.

  Use is almost six years older than me and on her way to Standard Ten at Jan Van Riebeeck High. At the annual prize-giving on the last day before the December holidays, she'll hear if she's going to be head girl for next year. The head girl business is a big thing, not only because Jan Van Riebeeck is the oldest Afrikaans school in the country, but also because Dad was head boy when he went to school there.

  Mum says that Use is very mature for her age, and that she can even teach her teachers a thing or two, specially about literature and classical music. Even though Use never gets her nose out of her books, she isn't a drip like other bookworms, because she plays netball and does athletics, and besides that she's also very pretty. Drips have to be ugly, like the Jewish twins, David and Martin Spiro, who live down the road from us. Every year at the eisteddfod, Use also walks off with all the Golden Diplomas for singing and piano. Last year she was even awarded a scholarship from the Dutch Foundation to study singing in Holland for six weeks. Ever since she went overseas, she fancies herself to be all grown up, and she irritates me with all her claptrap. Because she's so good at everything she does, she's much too big for her boots and she always treats me like I'm still a pipsqueak. When she ignores me, or when she belittles me, I wish I could be older, just to give her a good dose of her own medicine. But if I could be older, I'd want Frikkie to be older as well.

  I'm still in primary school and after the December holidays I'll be in Standard Four. Dad says I'll have to deliver the goods if I want to follow in Use's footsteps. But he says he's not too worried about me, because I'm doing well in

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  all my school subjects, and I've also been the vice-captain of my rugby team every year since Standard One.

  Just before my birthday, Dad became the youngest major-general ever in the history of the South African Defence Force. After his promotion was announced, Mum cut her long blonde hair so that it just touched her shoulders. Before that she'd always worn it stacked on top of her head in big curls.

  'The short hair is my gift to myself. They swept the hairspray right out of the door with the chopped hair,' Mum said, on the evening of Dad's promotional dinner. She stood in front of the mirror, slipping her long golden earrings through the holes in her earlobes. She tossed her blonde hair to one side, and pushed the tiny hooks through, first left, then right. She was wearing the long purple evening dress she'd had designed specially for the occasion by Elsbieta Rosenworth. It was Mum's first real designer dress since she and Dad were married.

  Because of Dad's important work, him and Mum have to go to lots of dinners and all kinds of official functions. Sometimes we go and sit on their big double bed and watch as they get dressed before going out. Because the promotional dinner was such a big to-do, and also because Mum was wearing her new dress that night, Use and I went into their bedroom to watch them get ready. While Use watched Mum doing her face I went into the bathroom where Dad was shaving.

  Dad was using Oupa's old shaving brush to lather his chin in quick little circles. The handle of Dad's shaving brush is inlaid with ivory from the bottom ends of tusks of an elephant that Oupa shot next to the Ruvu in Tanganyika. The tusks are mounted on either side of the fireplace in our lounge. Dad's hair was combed back with tonic. Even though my hair is still fair, I know it will go

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  dark like his when I get older, because on Uncle Samuel's photographs and slides of Tanganyika, where Dad is still a boy, you can see his hair also used to be light.

  I watched Dad in the mirror, and I wished I was old enough to shave. The shaving cream always smells so fresh and strong. Because Dad is six feet tall, he has to bend forward to see into the mirror. The razor crossed his chin and slid down close to his white collar. I watched it closely, and every time it went down I wondered if a drop of bright red blood might appear on the stretch of cleared skin. Dad's chin is almost completely square and Mum says you can know by just looking at it, that a man with a chin like that should be in uniform.

  'Aren't you scared of cutting yourself, Dad?' I asked, and he peered down at me, and stretched his eyes wide as if he was really scared of cutting himself.

  'No, my boy. When you start shaving one day, Dad will show you how. Once you've drawn blood a couple of times you'll quickly get the hang of things.'

  'Did Oupa teach you how to shave?' I asked while Dad wiped the last shaving cream from his face.

  'Oh yes, in this same bathroom. But then of course the shower hadn't been put in.' And he nodded his head towards the cubicle where we usually take a shower together.

  'Without those curls you look much younger, Mummy,' Use said. Both of us sat on the bed looking at Mum dabbing perfume behind her ears.

  'Thanks, my girl.' She smiled into the mirror. Mum looked so pretty in her purple dress, that I couldn't help staring. Not that Mum isn't always pretty. But on that night she looked even more beautiful than Frikkie Delport's mother who came second in the Miss South Africa competition. Everyone in Jan Van Riebeeck thinks

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  Frikkie's mother is the prettiest woman in the Cape, but on that evening I knew they'd think differently if they could have seen Mum. And anyway, Mum's hair is naturally blonde, not like Frikkie's mother who sometimes has black roots showing under her false hairpiece full of curls. I've heard that they make
those things of horses' hair or corpse hair. But I'd never say that to Frikkie, because we've been taught that unless we have something good to say about someone, we shouldn't say anything at all.

  Mum leaned forward to put on her lipstick. The purple dress fell open slightly and I could see into the dark valley between her breasts. They looked big, white and soft. I shot a quick glance at Use to check whether she saw what I was looking at.

  'Mum, you look like Miss South Africa tonight,' I said, and Mum turned back from the mirror to smile at me.

  'Thank you, my little piccanin. That's a big compliment!' And Mum and Use laughed, maybe because they didn't really think it was such a compliment. Mum says it's mostly a certain kind of woman who goes in for things like the Miss South Africa competition. Of course Mrs Delpprt is an exception and Penny Coelen as well. Penny Coelen is one of the few decent ones, and the only one who became Miss World. These beauty queens usually get married to rich casanovas. I heard Mum say that Mitzi Stander, who was also Miss South Africa, died in a car crash the other day. She was hardly in her grave when Die Burger had an article about her husband already going out with the new Miss Orange Free State. Mum said we could only pray that Mitzi's own slate with the Lord was clean when she died.

  Dad came into the bedroom dressed in his black penguin suit.

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  'And how do I look?' he asked, and crossed over the carpet so that we could take a good look from all sides. His dark moustache was trimmed and his mouth stood out more clearly.

  'Daddy, you look like Sean Connery,' said Use.

  'Ja,' I added, feeling so proud because Dad was becoming a general, 'Dad looks just as pretty as Mum.'

  'Handsome is probably a better word,' he said, and smiled at me, and tapped lightly with his fist against my chin. I could smell the Old Spice aftershave he uses for special occasions.

  'Handsome,' I said, and, 'I wish we could go with you and Mum.'

  'Just wait, my little bull,' Dad said a while later, when we were saying goodbye to them at the front door. 'Your time will come. For tonight, I just want you to take good care of your sister.' He winked at Use who snorted, and turned her eyes up in their sockets. She's forever rolling her eyes when someone speaks to her, and if she wasn't a girl I'd have slapped her ages ago.

  'My girl,' said Mum with a frown, 'please keep the doors locked. You know how I worry when you're at home on your own.'

  'Enjoy the evening and don't worry about us! Tonight belongs to you and Daddy,' Use said as they got into Dad's white Volvo. The two of us stood on the wide front veranda, waving at them until the car reached the bottom of St James Street at the station, and disappeared down Main Road. On the other side of Smitswinkel Bay, from the direction of Cape Point, the mist was sinking down the mountainside. Main Road was quiet and you couldn't hear anything except the waves breaking on the other side of the railway line.

  It was early spring. Soon the oak trees behind the house

  Mark Behr

  would turn green again, and next to the driveway Ouma Erasmus's gardenias would start making their white curly-head kids. That's what Chrisjan always used to call the white gardenia flowers: wit-katjiekrulkopkinders.

  One grows accustomed to the dust. When I opened the last of the ratpacks this morning it took just seconds before everything was covered in a layer of dust. It's useless trying to get rid of it. The radio is positioned beside me on the ground. When I turn the frequency knobs, there i the grinding sound of grains rubbing against metal. We wait for the command to move. And for food. With the food there may be mail. I stroke the leg-pocket of my browns with Mum's last letter.

  While Use was writing her big exams, Dad told us about the visitor. Because Dad knows a lot of important people in America and England it's usual for us to have big-shot guests. Dad said that this visitor was also coming from America. But not the real America. He was from South America. Dad met him last year when he visited New York. They had gotten to know each other quite well over there. Dad said that this visit had to be kept a secret, just like some of the others, and that we should just call him Mister Smith. If any of our friends asks who our visitor is, we should say he is Mister Smith who's on business here from New York. Everything considered, he shouldn't stay at our house, Dad said. But because him and Dad became friends overseas, it would only be right for us to show him our hospitality.

  'You know now that no one is supposed to know who he really is. I take it as clearly understandable,' Dad said at

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  dinner that night, speaking in the way he does to make sure that Use and I won't ever think of telling a soul. Dad always says duidelik verstaanbaar, which means 'clearly understandable', when he's not going to repeat himself.

  'When can we expect him, Johan?' asked Mum. Til have to get the guest-room ready and plan for meals. I at least want Doreen better prepared than when the Frenchmen were here in July.'

  'He'll be here during the first week of December,' Dad answered, and Use looked up from her dinner and groaned. 'I hope you remember my prize-giving at the beginning of December, Daddy.'

  'I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world, my darling,' Dad said, and assured her he'd be there when she became head girl.

  Mum said the garden wasn't looking all that great, because the Coloured boy who came in Chrisjan's place doesn't even know a spade from a pick. Mum would have to ask Doreen to look out for someone else, because the garden had turned into a jungle since Chrisjan left. Whenever Mum speaks about Chrisjan, you can see she's still angry with him. Chrisjan worked in the garden ever since Oupa's time. But, a while back, he just stayed away from work and never came back. A few days after he disappeared, while I was looking for the fishing tackle in the garage, I discovered that the fishing kit had vanished into thin air. I looked everywhere, even under the boat's sail, and if I didn't know better I'd have thought it had just grown feet and walked off. I went inside to Mum, at the piano, to ask her whether she had seen it. But even Doreen, who always knows where everything is, couldn't sniff it out anywhere. Because Chrisjan liked fishing, Mum knew immediately that he must have stolen our stuff.

  Mark Behr

  Mum says that's exactly the way the Coloureds are. You can never ever trust them. After all the years of supplying them with a job and a decent income, they simply turn around and stab you in the back. Just like the Mau Mau in East Africa. 'Thus the viper sucks from your bosom without you even knowing.'

  If it wasn't for the visitor, we would be leaving for our holiday-cottage at Sedgefield, day after school ends. Because of the visitor we're going to have to stay on a few days longer. With all his work, Dad usually stays for another week before he comes to join us at the cottage anyway, so I wanted to ask whether he and Doreen couldn't just look after Mister Smith so that we could go ahead. Besides, Doreen doesn't go along to Sedgefield because Mum believes Doreen should also get a vacation. Most of Mum's friends take their maids along to do the washing and make the beds. Gloria goes along every year when Frikkie and them go to Plettenberg Bay. Frikkie says Gloria was so boozed-up at New Year that his mother almost gave her the sack.

  The day Mum told Doreen to prepare the guest-room, I thought about the visitor again for the first time. The spare bedroom is right underneath mine. To begin with, it had been one big bedroom, until Dad made it into two. He could do that, because the original room had such a high ceiling. He divided the room in two after Ouma died, and Mum wanted an extra room for guests. They didn't want to wreck Ouma's beautiful garden by building on outside, so instead they turned the room with the high ceiling into two bedrooms.

  High up in the passage wall, they made an extra door with a set of yellow-wood stairs with a blackwood banister, and they built a square window with wooden frames into the slanted roof upstairs. So where I used to sleep down-

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  stairs, the high ceiling of big white tiles with wonderful patterns, became a low ceiling of knotty pine. I wan
ted to be in the new room with the roof-window very badly, and when Mum got tired of my nagging, she gave in and let me move upstairs. From then on Use and I have shared the passage bathroom next to the staircase, and Dad and Mum have theirs to themselves.

  Our house is at the top of St James Street. On clear days you can stand on the veranda and look out over the whole of False Bay. You can see from the mountains of Cape Point, to where Hangklip hangs over the sea in the south. From my bedroom upstairs the view is even better.

  Oupa Erasmus built the house himself when they came to the Union. That was after they came out from Tanganyika when the war started and Oupa sold all his East African properties. Dad says Oupa was a wise man, who predicted well in advance what chaos would come to German East Africa once the blacks took over. So, when the war came, they left Dar es Salaam with bag and baggage for Kenya, and sailed from Mombasa straight down to Cape Town. Before leaving, they sold off all their land and the hotel they owned. The British Consulate bought the house in Dar es Salaam.

  At least Oupa was lucky enough to sell his things. Most of the others, like Uncle Samuel and Sanna Koerant's family, really got a raw deal. In the end they got away with nothing except their lives. By the time they left, the blacks hadn't only taken over everything, they had even changed the country's name to Tanzania. From then on, the country just kept going downhill.

  Oupa had made lots of money from selling his properties, and also from gold he and Ouma prospected on the Lupa goldfields in Tanganyika. Oupa had even discovered

  Mark Behr

  rubies. So by the time they left Tanganyika, when Dad was as old as I am now, they weren't struggling as much as when they first got married. Ouma couldn't have any more babies after Dad was born, so he was their only child when they arrived in Cape Town on the Victoria Ship. Oupa decided to buy a piece of land in St James. Originally, they bought the plot of land in St James because Oupa wanted to see the warships coming into Simonstown. Another reason was that the long beach at Muizenberg reminded Ouma of the white sand at Mombasa and Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam means City of Peace and Ouma said that at last this was going to be their place of peace.