Embrace Page 5

  ‘I’m sorry, Bok.’

  ‘And the lying? How many times did your mother ask you whether you were feeding the hornbills? How many times did you lie to her?’

  ‘Twice, Bok.’

  ‘Twice too much! You never lie to your mother or to me, do you understand me? Do you ever, ever hear Lena or Bernice lying to Bokkie or to me?’ Licking the salty snot and tears from my lip, rubbing my bum, I shook my head.

  ‘This pot cannot be sold without a handle,’ Bokkie said in front of me in the footpath. ‘That’s one rand gone, flushed down the toilet. One rand that I don’t have.’ By now I felt sorry for her but could not imagine recanting and again being exposed as a liar. Later, I thought, if she was safely back in the house, I’d go and fetch the handle, say I had found it somewhere on the side of the path where we hadn’t looked.

  ‘Your father earns a hundred and twenty rand a month,’ she spoke from ahead of me as we made our way down the path. A rand is worth ten loaves of bread. That’s one-third of our bread money for the month.’Trailing a few steps behind, I cast a glance into the grass patch by the wayside where I had thrown the handle. Every now and again she stopped, turned over a fragment of wood or a stone with her sandal. Eventually, close to the gate and seeming near tears, she gave up, ‘I’ll just have to make two hundred extra surgical masks.’

  Instead of listening to the afternoon wireless serial with Bokkie, I returned with Suz to the grass along the footpath. I went through, inch by inch, trying to get Suz to help. There was no sign of the handle. I had cost my mother the equivalent of ten loaves of bread; had caused the labour equivalent of making two hundred surgical masks. In the long grass — now become sprawling fields where before I had seen only patches — every pebble, twig or piece of dung seemed for a second to be the handle, but was useless other than to fling in anger at thehornbills that now seemed set on tormenting me from the branches. The loathsome object was nowhere. I searched, eventually convincing myself that it must have been in a vast stretch of grass higher up, near the camp. I combed that. The handle had, I felt in despondent certainty, simply vanished. Maybe the plot of land where it had been flung was cursed by the Zulu witch doctors in the olden days. Maybe it was an old kraal or a burial ground and my tossing the handle onto the sacred ground had disturbed the ancestors.

  The wireless was on and Bokkie was listening to Die Geheim van Nantes. The one iron rested against the gas flame and with the other — a wad of cloth around its handle — she was pressing the tissue of another surgical mask. I waited for a commercial break.

  ‘Bokkie,’ I said, on the verge of tears, ‘I’ve looked everywhere. It’s gone.’ She kept her face averted, pushing down hard on the tissue in a deliberate movement that made the ironing-board tremble on its thin wooden legs. She nodded her head, rigorously.

  ‘I’m sorry I lost it, Bokkie,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ She asked, turning to hear with her good ear.

  ‘I’m sorry I lost it, Bokkie,’ I repeated, almost whispering from the lump in my throat.

  ‘It’s nothing, Karl. It’s nothing. What is an extra ten hours breaking a back over an ironing-board when the back has been broken so many times it doesn’t feel any more? Just shows: better to do everything myself than entrust it to others. If I ask anyone to do anything in this house I’m just making extra work for myself. There you have it, Katariena Maria De Man born Liebenberg. This is your life. This is your cross to bear.’

  I stood in silence. Ready to weep. ‘I can help you cut-knot-and-fold-in,’ I whispered.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? I’ll do everything myself from now on. Thank you for offering.’

  For two days she barely spoke to me, calling only when my food was ready, saying my name through stiff lips at night as she tucked mein after prayers. I waited for her to stop being angry; to talk to me and to love me again. Then, miraculously, with no explanation, the pot-handle was, somehow, forgotten and or forgiven. On a bright, starlit night, Bok awoke me from my sleep as I had asked as soon as their alarm clock went off. With the Afrikaans service of Radio South Africa from the wireless by our side, we went out onto the lawn where we sat wrapped in blankets with Suz by our feet. The night was not unlike any of hundreds we spent in the enormous silence of Umfolozi with Bok back from trail and just the sounds of the wild around us. But it was also different from any other; that night we were not looking at the flickering ecstacy of stars and the seemingly close-by haze of the distant Milky Way. Instead, our eyes were straining at the moon, checking whether we could perhaps see a black spot on its glowing surface. We couldn’t, of course, and I suspected Bok and Bokkie had known that much all along. But we heard Neil Armstrong, close to that exact instant he announced to the world: ‘Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The eagle has landed.’ And then, bored from watting for the man to walk on the moon, I fell asleep. I awoke from Bok saying my name and shaking my arm. Just in time to hear it: ‘That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’

  Bok hugged me and Bokkie to him and said: ‘We beat those Russians. I knew we would.’

  Zululand was wiped from the sand-pit. From Bokkie’s green lawn I stepped onto the smooth white sand of the moon — careful to evade the craters — as I practised my message to the world.

  8

  Eyes, as if entranced, moved nowhere but from the face to the hands poised, fingers relaxed in front of his chest. The piano’s introduction neared its close and the fingers retracted, wrists drew closer to the chest, shoulders lifting and now the tension was inscribed in lines on the face, grooved pincers extending around the compressed lips. The eyes closed only to snap into a deliberate glare taking us all in as simultaneously the dark fringe bobbed on the forehead, the arms shot forward and up and in that same instant it seemed one hundred and twenty boys’ voices, in perfect unison, sang:

  ‘Ky-r-i-e’, over four bars, drawn to a slight diminuendo into which swelled Mike van der Bijlt’s second alto Ky-r-i-e, echoing ours; then, a tone higher and with increased volume, we repeated Ky-r-I-e; his finger flew towards Dominic bringing him in over the end of ours; eyes wide, a harsh whispered crescendo over the end of Dominic; we breathed and then, another full tone up, now in complete crescendo to his fists shaking we repeated K-Y-R-I-E, retracting the D sharp into diminuendo as he brought in Louw from second soprano behind us; closing his eyes, fingers into claws showed he wants crescendo on Louws first e-l-e-i-s-o-n, his hand flew at us quivering and we repeated, now pianissimo, after him. Then, the whole choir with the quartet:

  Kyrie eleson

  Christie eleison

  Kyrie eleison

  Louw repeating our penultimate Kyrie. Conradie from first alto was about to take it up, when: ‘Stop! In God’s fucking name stop!’ His eyes, still closed, the last words barked after the acoustics had melted and a familiar silence descended in the hall. No one moved. I was not breathing. We waited for the miscreant to be named. It could be any one. Or all of us.

  ‘Louw,’ he hissed, opening his eyes; black, flashing and terrible, ‘now that you are in Standard Seven and nice and big, let me tell you: you are not singing a fucking death march.’

  Silence. Brief relief. My mouth relaxed and I breathed in, then out, allowing my fingers to unbend from the sheet music.

  ‘This is not a death march. Nor is it a requiem. Stop dragging,dragging behind the piano. And stop scooping from note to note and sounding like Shirley fucking Bassey.’ He paused.

  ‘Do you hear me?’

  ‘Sorry, Sir.’

  ‘Don’t sorry me!’ Glowering at Louw, he took a pace towards the quartet. ‘If you can’t do it, fuck off! As jy soos ’n donnerse meid wil sing, get out of here and come back when you can do it properly. Where’s the Portuguese diva when I need him? Verstaan jy my, Louw?’

  ‘Ja, Meneer.’

  His nostrils flared, his chest heaved. Then, abruptly, immaculately transformed, there was a different voice altogether: ‘Later, later, when we get to the
Agnus Dei — if we ever get there because this is the most useless choir in the history of the universe — in section eleven, then, Louw, you can do your tragic stuff. There you colour your voice black and grey. Just before the Dona nobis right at the end in six months’ time . . . that’s heavy, war-like, guilty, sad. But that’s far away. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Cilliers.’

  All of you, not just him. Do you understand what’s going on here?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Cilliers,’ in unison.

  ‘I want you to think . . .’ And he stopped, turned around and stalked to the far end of the hall. From there, when he spoke at last, his voice carried, echoed from the ceiling along the library corridor and back down to us: ‘The crucifixion. Die kruisdood, Christus aan daardie kruis, verstaan julle?’

  ‘Ja, Meneer.’

  ‘The Mass is a re-enactment of the sacrifice on the cross and through it we gain merit from God. We sinners . . .’ He was quiet for a while and sat on the back of a chair. ‘The Mass continues the work of redemption — throughout time. We are asking to be made worthy through God’s mercy. Worthy through mercy to sup from the body and blood of Christ. Just think of that, boys, just let your minds imagine for a moment that you are asking for forgiveness and mercy so thatone day you will be allowed to take Communion. The Catholics amongst you do it young, the rest of us only when were older. But that’s beside the point. For now, we all imagine ourselves begging to be allowed at the table. The Last Supper. This is a plaintive mood, it is not one of death. Red. Think the red of dawn, okay? Red voices. Brilliant pink on the high notes, sopranos. And altos, purple on the lows. Purple. There is hope of eternal life, even as each of us knows we are not worthy to enter these sacred mysteries.’

  His voice trailed off He walked back to take his place to the side of the pianist. ‘Do you get what I’m telling you to visualise?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Okay. Right. Goed. From the Kyrie before Erskin.’

  Later, I faced him where he was seated behind his desk in the conservatory. Light from open windows rested in squares on the lawn. Warm humidity filling the room seemed to palpitate with the ringing of crickets and frogs from the orchard. The sounds peeled off the walls and resounded back down to the river.

  ‘I asked you to come,’ he said, and paused for a while looking me in the face, ‘because I thought you may have something on your mind.’

  I nodded. Stared down at the linoleum floor.

  ‘What is it, Karl? What’s bothering you?’

  A quick glance at him. Suddenly at a loss for words. Down again at my own bare legs and sandalled feet. Above my knees the hair was standing on end. Jesus. Now that I was here I was terrified.

  ‘Karl?’ Reassurance in the voice using my first name. Baritone.

  I averted my gaze, still unable to look at him. I turned my face, unseeing at the heap of concert posters and programmes before him on the desk. No, I cannot do this. I’m treading dangerous ground and heading for disaster where I’ve been before and no, no, I’m not going there! ‘Sir,’ I blurted, my voice louder and my tone more urgent than Id meant it to be, ‘I’m not doing well in firsts and would like to be transferred to seconds, Sir.’ I kept my gaze on my legs, waiting for him to speak.

  ‘Look at me, Karl.’ Again the voice was gentle, offering measured reassurance. I lifted my head, found him smiling across the desk. ‘You’re saying you’d like to be a second soprano? That you’re finding firsts too much?’

  ‘Only the really high score, Mr Cilliers. I’ll be perfect in seconds, I know, it’s not as though I need to go down to alto or anything like that. I’m excellent between B flat below middle C, up to . . . maybe just above the high G. So to test my voice would be superfluous, Sir.’’

  He chuckled, lifted his hand to his mouth, amused. ‘To test your voice would be superfluous.’ A smile played around his lips. He nodded. Possibly teasing me.

  ‘That’s just my opinion, Sir.’ Spoken in earnest. ‘I’d hate to waste your time this late in the term when I should have told you already during voice-testing in January. But if you prefer to test me, Mr Cilliers, that’s fine.’ But please, please Merciful Father, don’t let him, don’t let him ask me to sing.

  ‘You’ve never really enjoyed choir, have you, Karl?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Cilliers?’

  ‘You may go to seconds, of course,’ he paused. I am ready to shout for joy. ‘But,’ he says, ‘I’d like to know more about how you feel in choir, generally.’

  What must I say? More than a word of truth from me would be suicide.

  ‘I really enjoy the concerts, Sir. I’m not sure why you think I don’t like choir, Sir.’

  He said he’d been watching me over the last month or so, had noticed a marked change in my attitude. He wanted to know what the change was all about, whether it had been merely because I had wanted to soften him up to allow me to change voices. I felt a flush across my face. Warmth radiating around my legs as if from a floor bathed all afternoon in the hot sun.

  Now I would talk for my life: ‘Sir, when I came back in January,’ I paused, picking through the words, ‘I decided I wanted to give my bestto the school. If I have a different attitude, then it’s because I’m a Senior now and I want to get the most out of my last two years here.’ Surely that was good enough. An ample explanation. Whatever the motive for my altered state, surely the point was that I had changed for the better. How wonderful that I had succeeded—

  ‘You can trust me, Karl.’

  ‘Sir?’ Still looking at him, I now frowned. His bottom lip was caught between his teeth. Again smiling.

  ‘Is there something else on your mind, Karl? I believe there is, you know.’ I yearned to melt into the air. He knew, had known all along the real reason for my coming. My alibi of being moved to seconds — no, not alibi, I had wanted that too — had been seen through. As I said, you can go to seconds tomorrow, that’s cleared up and agreed upon. No test . . . As you say, it would be, eh, superfluous.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘But,’ he said and stopped. When at last he spoke, asking for the real issue on my mind, I knew that my being there was because of his precise grasp of what I had been hoping for; had been dreading. Now, the realisation of what I had gotten myself into terrified me. Every signal, every pondering look I had cast him over the weeks had indeed been seen. And as I saw it on his face, heard interest from his tone and his searching open-ended sentences, I longed to either retract everything or at once make him understand — believe — that he had misread it all. No, this wasn’t what I had wanted. Not really. That was just a little game. A silly teenage fantasy. I wanted to deny even to myself what I had been up to. And it was not too late to back off. No. He was still only guessing. I could say that there was nothing, absolutely nothing else bothering me. But then, I could also find out what he was thinking and then back off. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can, I can, can, can, can: ‘Sir, do you remember, last year, Sir?’

  He frowned. ‘What about last year?

  Silence. A drop of perspiration trickling down my back. I must speak. I must. But the possibility, the likelihood, of this thing turninghorrible now threatened to dumb me. I cannot do it. I knew, had all along; cannot go through with it. Speak, Mr Cilliers, you say something. I must get out. It’s all wrong and he’s going to cause endless shit. What am I doing! I must think up something now to make him think he’s misunderstood...

  ‘Have you been doing it again?’ he asked.

  Eyes, terrified on his.

  The face was open, even affectionate. Nothing there to say he would break this confidence. He won’t, he won’t: ‘No. No, Mr Cilliers. I’ve just . . . It’s just that I’ve started having dreams.’ I felt dizzy at the tension, the sight of the man in front of me, the fear, the lies. Lies: saves that came in the very instant of challenge. Not premeditated. Just there, ready to jump like frogs from my mouth. Talk, cunt. Please talk now before I turn and run.


  ‘What dreams, Karl?’

  ‘Dreams of those things, Sir.’

  ‘What sort of dreams?’

  ‘It’s not just the dreams, Sir. Sometimes when I wake up, it’s . . .’ A threshold; another I cannot cross.

  ‘Karl?’

  Yes, yes, yes: ‘Sticky, Sir.’ A faint smile again around his mouth and eyes. Now I dreaded him asking more about the dreams. Of those wet-affairs I knew nothing but for Dominic’s references and the vast little Lukas told, most of which I imagined was boast, anyway; I should have asked Dominic if it’s the same as just plain coming. Please let him not ask; please let him believe me.

  ‘Karl,’ he paused and stared from the window, ‘do you and the other boys still do what you did last year?’

  ‘No, never, Sir, I swear, please don’t tell Mr Mathison, Sir. You know how we were caned . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry. This is between us. I give you my word, Karl.’

  ‘Sir, something else .. .’Terrified, flushed and sweating, I rushed on. He rose from his chair, came round the desk towards me. Sat down on the edge of his desk, his feet a metre away from my sandals. He said nothing, waiting.

  ‘I’m afraid you may become angry at me, Sir. But I can’t help it.’

  ‘I won’t, Karl. I’ve promised you: this is confidential.’

  Again at my feet. Smelt horse from afternoon riding. Passed a hand swiftly beneath my nose. Then quickly, without looking up: ‘It’s you, Sir. In my dreams.’

  I sensed him rising from the desk. Saw his legs straighten and his shoes move off; heard him cross to the big glass doors and peer into the night. I gritted my teeth, too afraid to look at his back. A ridiculous mistake; going to backfire; if only he won’t tell, it’s still okay; if he talks; oh God, Bok; Jesus; the caning, no, never, the humiliation; so much burst through my mind; my hands contorted to fists and arms clasped to sides; what am I doing, what am I doing; going to piss myself; shaking; I want to vomit. Yes, I’ll—