Moffie by Andre Carl van der Merwe

their white clothing, clutching their rackets, they left hurriedly, my mother carrying an ice bucket, sweatband, jersey and peak. It’s like a big blob of noise that has popped out of the house.
    First I select ‘Bella figlia dell’amore’ from
Rigoletto
. When the Duke starts to chat up Maddalena, I am seized by the music and forget to choreograph my fantasy to it. I play the track again, until I have sung it a few times. Then I sit down, close my eyes and allow the music to thread through my daydream. My fantasy will be of a man proclaiming his love, not the revenge of a court jester or Gilda watching her lover seduce another.
    I rise dramatically onto an imagined stage in front of a spellbound audience to act out the drama of the aria. In falsetto I sing the parts of Joan Sutherland and Huguette Tourangeau, not knowing the meaning or the structure of the words I’m pronouncing. Then again I do Pavarotti’s part, unconcerned about jumping between the two parts, and at the same time I’m directing the London Symphony Orchestra. Needing more space for my theatre, I move the ball-and-claw table out of the way and swoop-dance to the wave of men’s voices and the shorter peaking of the women’s.
    By the fifth replay I start searching through the pile of LP’s for
Turandot
and remove it from the sleeve. When I put it on the turntable the needle moves up and down so violently on the deformed record that it looks as if it may become airborne, but ‘Nessun dorma’ blasts forth at maximum volume.
    The most romantic opera and closest to my fantasies of galloping over green hills on a white horse is Offenbach’s
Tales of Hoffmann
. Riding bareback, I am holding on to my man with his shirt open, my hands clawing at his bare chest in the evening light.
    In the meantime a sow has escaped from her pen, followed by seven hundred others to the green pastures of our front lawn, where they are now exploring their burgeoning new world, digging the air with their round disc-snouts.
    My heart sinks, and for a moment I toy with the idea of leaving them there as punishment for my father, but the thought is shortlived. It would take me all afternoon to get my parents’ biggest investment back into their pens, so I start the arduous task with Puccini’s ‘Un bel di vedremo’ drifting towards me through the dusty lace curtains of the lounge.
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6
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    I t is both an escape and a burden, this relationship with Ethan that I tend to so carefully. I count every word, and each moment is measured, analysed and guarded against over-exposure. I wonder whether this unnatural atmosphere we’re in is what keeps us together. If we were in a civilian environment, would we still be so close? How difficult it is to develop a relationship within such complex dynamics. And after all this nurturing it may all be in vain. But my time with Ethan is my cure, the exquisite amidst the dreadful.
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    The first stage is almost over. I have more than survived; I have fallen in love and made a new friend. Given the choice, I probably would not have had it any other way.
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    Walking through the rows of neatly spaced tents on my way back from the ablution block, one of my favourite tunes comes drifting towards me. I stop to listen and decide to find the owner of that song. If this is the kind of music he listens to, we will have a lot in common.
    The tune is mesmerising. When it ends I meet the owner and we listen to it repeatedly until the batteries of the tape recorder have no power left. We ignore the protests of ‘hippie, blaspheming music’ from the other tents.
    Leaving, I think-hear the words of
Highway 61
:
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    Oh God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son,’
    Abe says, ‘Man you must be puttin’ me on,’
    God say, ‘No.’ Abe say, ‘What?’
    . . .
    Well Abe says, ‘Where do you want this killin’ done?’
    God says, ‘Out on Highway