Moffie by Andre Carl van der Merwe Page A

platoon. At that point I decide: I will know this beautiful boy.
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    ***
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    In the following days Ethan and I grow steadily closer. I do not hurry the acquaintance—we have plenty of time.
    Optimistic thoughts flood into my diary:
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    I stand on the perimeter of a calm pond, just letting my feet be touched by the stillness, savouring the expectation of submerging into the mystery.
    He is so engaging that I don’t feel I can absorb much at one time, or I sense I may miss some rare sensations of the experience. I think of him as a rediscovered ancient city, lying with its shrouded civilisations’ secrets beneath desert sand. Walking in darkness, running my fingers over the unusual textures, touching walls as slightly as I can, before I look—no sound, no sight, just something lighter than feeling. I want to get to know him slowly, and the army makes this possible, because neither of us is going anywhere . . . for some weeks at least.
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    I can march or stand at attention for an eternity when he is in front of me. Gazing at his neck and the pattern of his hairline cannot be limited by time. The fine hair curls as if with joy for having been born there. I step out of myself and walk there—brushing just the top of the skin like breath; as in life drawing, where you have to concentrate intently on a line to render it so sensitively that it communicates the full structure of the person you are drawing. Only later do I add smell and touch.
    We have tea, and he dunks his rusk five times. Unhurried, he allows the tea to run from between the compacted crumbs, and then brings it to his mouth. There are veins under his brown skin that fork on his forearm where the muscles play as he twists the rusk and puts it in his mouth. A drop stays on the middle of his bottom lip. He lets it linger and sucks it in, his top lip moving over the fullness of the bottom one.
    Our surnames, both starting with V, result in us being in the same place during the week of queues. Friendships forge easily under mutual duress, but equanimity assures a more permanent meshing. Foundations of wet concrete do not know the building that will stand on them, or the souls that will occupy it.
    Ethan is my first army friend, and for the first week my only friend. Ethan is whom I want; Ethan is the drug to see me through—my medication. We are reshuffled, and by the grace of God we are put in the same tent. For the first time I believe I am going to get through it all.
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    ***
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    On Sunday we choose the small Catholic Church in Middelburg for compulsory Church Parade. The old Irish priest sweats underneath his heavy cassock and robes. Beside me, high up, the fourteen Stations of the Cross line each wall. I search for the three where Christ falls with the cross. That is where I somehow find a gentle Jesus, as opposed to a God of wrath. The Christ in these low-relief tableaux shows a distorted body in bitter agony. My mind drifts . . .
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    We stand up to say the creed.
    â€˜We believe in one God the Father . . .’ I say the words without thinking of the meaning of any of it. The small stained-glass windows seem unusually bright from the African sun blazing through them. I wonder if they were imported from Europe, made for a darker, cloudier climate? Imagine if Ethan and I were in a small chapel somewhere, all alone high up in the Drakensberg. Would that appeal to him? What does he think of God? What are the chances . . . what are my chances with him? Like all the others? Just when I’m completely in love, will he turn out to be straight? Forget that, you can’t think about that now; just enjoy the fantasy. I know so little about him. Have I ever seen anybody quite as good-looking? No! We will be friends. I need this friendship. I need this beauty!
    â€˜Are you going forward for Communion?’
    â€˜Yes, you?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜So, you’re Catholic? I thought you only came ’cos the