PA IS A FARMER. He is also a hunter. When people come to our farmhouse in Tzaneen, they’re welcomed by a bushbuck’s head nailed to the living-room wall; the buck’s eyes are bugged out, staring into nothing. Pa is proud of it. He always shows it to his friends with a wide smile, playing with his long beard. His teeth are out in the open when he tells them how he shot the buck with the first bullet from his tall hunting rifle. That’s how I know he’s proud, because Pa rarely reveals his teeth. He never smiles at me or Ma. It’s only when he talks about hunting that I see his teeth actually exist; they’re yellow as dark pee.
I was there when he shot it, two years ago. That’s the last and only time he took me hunting with him. I cried that entire afternoon because I heard the buck wail for its Ma and Pa when it fell to the ground.
In his bakkie, with the dead bushbuck lying in the back, Pa scolded me: “Jy is ’n Boer, you will always be a Boer – hunting is in your blood. So stop crying like a klein meisie. Hoor jy my?”
I nodded, sobbing into my trembling hands.
“I said stop crying, Nicolas!” he shouted.
There’s also a young kudu’s horns and a rhino horn on his bedroom wall. But he never shows them to anyone. When the farmworkers cause trouble and the police come over, Pa hides the horns.
One time, the workers stole his oranges. Another time, they protested for a month and said they wanted a pay increase. Pa covered the horns with a sheet before SAPS arrived. After they left, he complained about the “stupid government”, making hunting rhinos illegal.
Today is 22 March 1996, my best friend Kevin’s eleventh birthday. Our school closes early on Fridays, so Kevin and I will have more time to play together. His pa’s taking us to Debengeni Waterfall to celebrate. After swimming, he’ll take us to the Spur, and then to feed the monkeys at the Monkey Foundation shelter, because Kevin loves monkeys. All his stuffed toys are monkeys. I want to see Fingers at the shelter – he’s my favourite. I named him after the monkey in the movie Monkey Trouble. Kevin named his favourite “Baboons”. I think it’s a stupid name, because it’s a monkey, not a baboon. But I won’t tell Kevin that because I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
When we were five, when Pa wasn’t angry all the time and Ma spoke and laughed more often, we’d go to Kevin’s farm. His parents used to throw a braai on the weekends and invite us. When our parents started drinking beer, Kevin and I chased each other around the farm.
We once spotted two monkeys jumping around the banana trees. They disappeared when we tried to play with them, and Kevin started crying. His mother had to put him to bed; she held him in a rocking chair and sang to him until he fell asleep. We went to the same spot each day for the next three days, but we couldn’t find them.
Black people from this area say they own the land we’re living on. Some of the Balobedu people say their ancestors lived here a long, long time ago.
Pa told us this with so much anger, his veins popped out on his eyelids: “Who do these people think they are? My grandfather owned this farm. You know, just because Nelson Mandela is now president they think they own everything in this country. They want the land, they want the mines, and now they want our farms … unbelievable!” He added, “The whole of Natal is owned by the Zulus. But are any whites crying like caged animals about that?”
He also told Ma that he’d shoot someone first before he gave away his grandfather’s farm. I think this is why he’s selling it.
A couple wearing matching African print outfits have just arrived to see the house. I’m having strawberry pops at the dining room table before school when Pa brings them in. I look up and smile. The man smiles back, but the lady doesn’t. Her eyes skip from one corner of the room to the other. She doesn’t seem impressed.
Before they arrived, Ma covered the flag in the dining room like she always does when strangers come to see the house. I once asked her why. She said it’s an old South African flag and that people might find it inappropriate. But Kevin’s father has the same flag nailed up at the back of his garage, and he never hides it when people go to their house.
I wait for Pa to introduce me, except he doesn’t. Ma says it’s bad manners to not greet visitors when they come to our home. “Nico, stop ignoring the visitors, go and say hello,” she always says.
I ask the couple, “You want to buy the house?”
But just when the man opens his mouth to respond, Pa mutters, “Shut up, Nicolas.”
I dump the cereal bowl into the sink and grab my suitcase from my bedroom. I check to see I didn’t forget Kevin’s birthday card. It’s inside my maths exercise book, where I put it the night before.
I made the card myself a week ago. At first I wanted to buy him one, but everyone will be giving him a card they bought at CNA. I wanted to be different this time, because Kevin is my beste vriend. On the front of the card, I drew lots of monkeys. One monkey plays a drum, another one a guitar, another one a flute, while the others dance. I think he will find it funny. He’ll giggle with his tickly voice and say, “Dankie, boet.”
The drawing is not the first I’ve made of monkeys. The other one is of a black-and-white monkey swinging from a thin tree-branch with one hand. Ma likes it. She’s so proud that she pasted it on my bedroom wall and said I’m “gifted”. She showed it to Pa – who didn’t seem proud at all, because he didn’t reveal a single tooth.
Sometimes I think he hates me. He’s mean to me. I also think he doesn’t love Ma, because he always calls her ugly names. Last night, he yelled at her and called her a “dumb blonde” when we were watching a documentary on tigers on 50/50. He screamed at her until his face was red, just because Ma said something to him during the programme. She didn’t yell back though, she never does. She just keeps quiet or walks away.
I wish she’d say something or grab his beard when he hits her in their bedroom. But Ma cries quietly and says nothing. I only know by the banging on their bedroom floor and Pa’s loud, husky voice that he’s doing it again. Then I go into the backyard and play with the ducks in the pond.
Maluka, one of Pa’s farm workers and our security guard who sleeps in the back room, sometimes knocks on the front door when Pa gets too loud. Maluka is a Molobedu man from GaModjadji, just outside Tzaneen. He’s been working here since he was a little boy with his mother, who was my grandparents’ housemaid.
Four days ago, I found Maluka smoking by the pond in the dark. He was wearing red corduroy pants with no shirt on, showing his firm belly. He also had a white spottie – a bucket-hat – on his head, all cut in the middle to show his rough hair. “You can’t sleep, Nicolas?”
“It’s the noise.”
“Ek weet.” He lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke, sucking his teeth. “I am scared that your big father might kill Madam one day, just like my mother was killed.” He shook his head. “My father … he was not a good man. I was just a boy like you when it happened. Doesn’t your father scare you?”
I looked down at the ground. “He does. Ek is so bang vir hom.”
Maluka stepped closer to me, brushed my back and hugged me with his left arm. His trousers smelt of smoke and Sunlight bar soap.
“I am sorry.” He released me and blew smoke out of his nose. “Madam is ’n goeie vrou. It is sad. Very sad.”
When the noise had stopped, I said goodnight to Maluka and went back into the house.
I hate hearing Pa do that to Ma. I hate seeing bruises on her face and neck the next day; they always look like she was attacked by a wild animal, like a cheetah. I hate it. I wish I could help her. She is small as a puppy while he is big as a bulldog.
Kevin’s father is a musician. His parents are now divorced, so his mother stays in Hendrina in Mpumalanga, while Kevin lives with his father. Because Kevin’s father is famous, everyone wants to be his friend. His other friends are coming with us to celebrate his birthday. It will be me, Kevin, Lovely, Machimane, Sam, Kevin’s cousins Piet, Coco and Daniel, and then Sherry.
Sherry is new in our small group of friends. I don’t like her. She always tries to impress Kevin. That’s why she gave him a white sparkling watch as a birthday present. Machimane says Sherry wants Kevin to be her boyfriend, and I think so too, because when we sit together at the cafeteria during lunch break, she always wants to sit next to him.
We’re all wearing swimming costumes when we arrive at Debengeni Waterfall in Kevin’s father’s Mercedes.
Kevin’s pa sits with a ranger by the waterfall, watching us. When everyone else jumps in, Sherry just stands there shivering in her pink bathing suit. “I can’t swim, Kevin.” We all look at her. She was all excited in the car, now she says she can’t swim.
“Liar, liar, get in!” Machimane exclaims, splashing her. Piet says to Machimane, “Look at her, she’s shaking like a leaf, she’s not lying,”
“Get in, Sherry, I’ll teach you,” says Kevin.
I’m annoyed. Instead of Kevin enjoying his birthday, he’ll be teaching Sherry how to swim. I’m not the only one irritated by her little stunt: Kevin’s cousin Coco rolls her eyes and swims towards me.
Coco is chatty, but unlike Sherry, I like her. She has short blonde hair like Ma and deep dimples on her round, chubby cheeks. She lies on her back in the water, cornering me.
“Are you worried that she’s going to steal Kevin from you?’
“No, why should I be worried?”
“Well, you should be careful of this one.”
I laugh, trying to conceal the jealousy bubbling in my throat. “Sy is ’n meisie.”
“Ja, and you are a boy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she dips her head under the water. When she lifts it again, she’s smiling with her cheeks – her dimples even deeper. “Nicolas, you can’t even hide it. You like him. It’s okay, jy weet? I think you might be like my brother Jimmy. You know him, right? He likes boys too. He’s living with his boyfriend in Australia in his big-big house. It has a tennis court, tall-tall pine trees, and a huge pool. Huge, Nicolas. This big …” she widens her arms. “Ma isn’t happy about it though. I think that’s why Jimmy doesn’t talk to her anymore.”
I don’t say anything back. I try to think about what she’s said, shading my eyes with my hand when the sun hits my face. I finally say, “Kevin is my best friend, of course I like him.”
“That card you made for him? Telling him you love him?” She smirks, looking me in the eyes as if searching for lies. Or for the truth. She doesn’t seem convinced. She shrugs. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
We watch Kevin holding Sherry’s arms, giving her a swimming lesson.
The mood in the car on our way home is unhappy. Kevin won’t stop crying, no matter how many tissues we give him. Otherwise it’s quiet; his sobs are all we listen to. I don’t know how to make him feel better. When we arrived at the monkey shelter, we found out that Baboons had died. The nice Indian lady, who always gives us liquorice sweets when we go there, said Baboons had a “short illness” and died a few hours before we arrived. I am sad for Kevin. I wish I could give him Baboons back.
I am sadder that we didn’t even get to feed the monkeys. The bananas we’d bought lie in the back of the car. I didn’t go to see Fingers, either. I didn’t want to make Kevin cry even louder, since my monkey is still alive while his died on his birthday.
At the shelter, Sherry told Kevin to pick another monkey and name it Baboons. This made him angry. “I can’t just replace him, I loved him!” he howled. He didn’t say another word to her, even when we dropped her at her house.
After we leave Machimane in front of his gate in Nkowankowa township, it’s just me and Kevin in the back seat. We enter another township. The dark-green welcome board is scratched and battered. It says, “Welcome to Levenve” in white letters. The name is actually Lenyenye, but the tails of the Y’s have worn away. There’s a huge sewage lake not far from the main road, where birds are feeding off the waste.
The main road has a lot of potholes, so Kevin’s father keeps shouting “Dammit man, these roads are a mess!”
When we pass a tavern, I notice a thin, shiny black dog licking a braai stand outside. It looks like a skinny goat. I see jolly people dancing, talking and drinking. They’re playing kwaito music. I know it’s that because Maluka always plays it in his room when Pa’s not around. I sometimes watch him whistle, spin on his toes and lift his arms in the air, then squat and leap up, as if the floor is a jumping castle.
Out of the blue, four boys with legs that look like they’ve been playing in cement run after our car, waving.
“They want something,” Kevin’s dad says. “They often do this when I come past.”
Kevin lifts his head. He isn’t crying any more. “Pa, we still have the bananas.”
Without waiting for an answer, Kevin opens his window to give the boys the bananas. Seeing his change of mood, I stick out my head as well so I can see. The boy leading the pack is wearing a ripped T-shirt and khaki shorts full of holes. I feel sad inside, like when we found out about Baboons’ death. The kids all seem so poor and hungry.
It’s around 7 p.m. when we get back to my house. There are two police vans and an ambulance outside, flashing their lights. This is not the first time I’ve seen a police van parked in our yard, but this is the first ambulance. There are so many of Pa’s workers talking and shouting in the yard. The people are shaking their heads, some clapping their hands together, looking shocked.
“Stay in the car, Nicolas,” Kevin’s father says. “I’ll go and check what’s happening. It’s probably just some small issue with the farm.”
“No, I want to see,” I say. “Did someone get hurt?”
He closes the car door behind him. “Both of you should stay in the car.”
Kevin looks at me. “It’s okay, Nicolas, maybe it’s nothing.” He grabs my hand, moving his fingers against mine.
“Yes, maybe it’s nothing.”
But when I look out the window, I see two men in red uniforms dragging something out of the house on a stretcher. My chest jumps up and down. “Something is wrong,” I panic, pulling my hand from his grasp and opening the door.
“Pa said we should stay in the car!”
But I run inside.
Kevin’s father comes out of the house. He stops short, staring at me like I’m frightening him. He doesn’t say anything. It’s as if the words have frozen in his neck before he can say them.
Then I see Ma. I almost trip, running into her arms. Her small pink lips are bruised and reddened. She has scratches on her forehead and neck.
A Black policeman exits the house with Pa. Pa’s hands are cuffed behind his back.
Ma says to me, “Ek is baie jammer.”