make sure no teachers or staff are downstairs in the auditorium. When assured — absolutely certain no one is moving about in that vacuous space — I will tiptoe through the library and past the Junior dorms.
The passage door will be unlocked as he had said it would.
I’m a big boy now, I’d think and smile a nervous smile to myself. Within weeks, I’d have my own key: an instrument granting liberty of night movement that would initially seem to cost little more than a weekly stop in his bedroom. But it was not freedom I was seeking. In my own turbulent mind, I imagined that mine was the premeditation of a playful revenge and a little adventure — though those alone would not be my dividends. What came before thoughts of freedom or even the attainment of goals, and what for me became my most special discovery, was that squirt tasted like salted almonds on my tongue and against my pallet, that it burnt, long afterwards, quite pleasantly at the top of the throat. Knowing it neither there where I waited, nor understanding it even as it unfolded around me through that winter when I’d have to wear slippers on the cold linoleum passage, I was about to take myself further into that intimate space that in our mountain school, could not but exist at the obscure intersections of love and betrayal.
16
Jonas and Boy live in huts. Jonas and Boy make things with wood and Jonas beats the drums. Jonas makes faces and masks that you can put over your face and little men and Tambotie tables Uncle Michael buys for 10 cents and he sells them for RI.00 in Durban and gives some to us but Jonas doesn’t know. Jonas says we can get rich from curios. Nkosasaan makes grass carpets and straw mats. She is Jonas’s girl and Jonas says she’s fat she’s going to have a piccanin. Nkosasaan lives in Ulundi. Boy is not married but he has babies. That’s a sin. Jonas and Boy carry guns like Bok. Because Bok must look after them when they’re scared of elephant in Ndumu. Because Jonas and Boy are kaffirs and kaffirs don’t know anything Bok must take care of them. Kaffirs are dangerous. Kaffirs are stupid. Thick like pap and their lips. They also stink because they never bath. Kaffirs are also niggers and wogs and houtkoppe and boys and coons and baboons and Afs and natives and Zulus and Muntus and Sothos and Xhosas and the piccaninnies hang rocks on their filafoois to make them long like black mambas. Bokkie doesn’t allow Jonas and Boy into the house they must wait outside. Me and Lena go to the hut and sit and drink magou with the boys and they teach me the drums and we sing with the drums and how to cut wood for masks and statues. I love Jonas best. Jonas is best on the drums. Jonas teaches me to sing ‘Ihashi igabane’. I love Boy too. Boy carries me on his shoulders and his hair is like Lossie’s feathers and he smells like fire and grass and if I fall asleep he carries me home. Boy is strong and looks after Bokkie when Bok’s away with Jonas on elephant patrols or chasing the poachers. When Bok’s away on Save the White Rhino then Boy sleeps with the gun outside the kitchen wall so we can call him if something happens. In the bush the kaffirs know their place. In town Uncle Michael says the Munts are getting restless like in Tanganyika.
17
Mr Walshe slipped his fingers into the spaces between stomachs and girths; adjusted bits and told some to sit up straight and not look like a sack of mielies. He passed over Lukas and me. The two of us were at the stables as often as the systems rotating roster allowed and Mr Walshe knew us well. Moreover, Lukas was his sometime assistant at the dairy. Occasionally, when Mr Walshe was away, Lukas had permission to supervise Junior rides.
The pages of our Bibles, the inside lids of our desks and our pencil cases were brought to life by photos of us on our favourite mounts. Alongside these were photos of girlfriends and pin-up girls cut from Scope magazine, which came once a
The passage door will be unlocked as he had said it would.
I’m a big boy now, I’d think and smile a nervous smile to myself. Within weeks, I’d have my own key: an instrument granting liberty of night movement that would initially seem to cost little more than a weekly stop in his bedroom. But it was not freedom I was seeking. In my own turbulent mind, I imagined that mine was the premeditation of a playful revenge and a little adventure — though those alone would not be my dividends. What came before thoughts of freedom or even the attainment of goals, and what for me became my most special discovery, was that squirt tasted like salted almonds on my tongue and against my pallet, that it burnt, long afterwards, quite pleasantly at the top of the throat. Knowing it neither there where I waited, nor understanding it even as it unfolded around me through that winter when I’d have to wear slippers on the cold linoleum passage, I was about to take myself further into that intimate space that in our mountain school, could not but exist at the obscure intersections of love and betrayal.
16
Jonas and Boy live in huts. Jonas and Boy make things with wood and Jonas beats the drums. Jonas makes faces and masks that you can put over your face and little men and Tambotie tables Uncle Michael buys for 10 cents and he sells them for RI.00 in Durban and gives some to us but Jonas doesn’t know. Jonas says we can get rich from curios. Nkosasaan makes grass carpets and straw mats. She is Jonas’s girl and Jonas says she’s fat she’s going to have a piccanin. Nkosasaan lives in Ulundi. Boy is not married but he has babies. That’s a sin. Jonas and Boy carry guns like Bok. Because Bok must look after them when they’re scared of elephant in Ndumu. Because Jonas and Boy are kaffirs and kaffirs don’t know anything Bok must take care of them. Kaffirs are dangerous. Kaffirs are stupid. Thick like pap and their lips. They also stink because they never bath. Kaffirs are also niggers and wogs and houtkoppe and boys and coons and baboons and Afs and natives and Zulus and Muntus and Sothos and Xhosas and the piccaninnies hang rocks on their filafoois to make them long like black mambas. Bokkie doesn’t allow Jonas and Boy into the house they must wait outside. Me and Lena go to the hut and sit and drink magou with the boys and they teach me the drums and we sing with the drums and how to cut wood for masks and statues. I love Jonas best. Jonas is best on the drums. Jonas teaches me to sing ‘Ihashi igabane’. I love Boy too. Boy carries me on his shoulders and his hair is like Lossie’s feathers and he smells like fire and grass and if I fall asleep he carries me home. Boy is strong and looks after Bokkie when Bok’s away with Jonas on elephant patrols or chasing the poachers. When Bok’s away on Save the White Rhino then Boy sleeps with the gun outside the kitchen wall so we can call him if something happens. In the bush the kaffirs know their place. In town Uncle Michael says the Munts are getting restless like in Tanganyika.
17
Mr Walshe slipped his fingers into the spaces between stomachs and girths; adjusted bits and told some to sit up straight and not look like a sack of mielies. He passed over Lukas and me. The two of us were at the stables as often as the systems rotating roster allowed and Mr Walshe knew us well. Moreover, Lukas was his sometime assistant at the dairy. Occasionally, when Mr Walshe was away, Lukas had permission to supervise Junior rides.
The pages of our Bibles, the inside lids of our desks and our pencil cases were brought to life by photos of us on our favourite mounts. Alongside these were photos of girlfriends and pin-up girls cut from Scope magazine, which came once a
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