Moffie by Andre Carl van der Merwe Page B

Catholic aunties make such nice cakes!’
    â€˜Shh,’ and he smiles. But I tell myself he has come because I did.
    I bless myself and cup one hand under the other, holding them forward as the priest makes his way towards me.
    â€˜The Body of Christ.’
    â€˜Amen.’
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    Free on a Sunday is free from training, not free to come and go as you please. We lie on our stomachs on our beds, facing each other and chatting, while others spend hours in queues for one phone call, wash their kit or write letters home.
    Just before roll call one of our tent companions, Frikkie, walks in and demands that we clean his boots. We ignore him. Ethan is lying closest to him. Frikkie flings the boots at Ethan. They are tied together and come to rest on either side of his body, with the laces stretched over his naked back. He lifts his body and allows the boots to roll to the floor.
    Frikkie walks over and jumps on Ethan, grabs him around the neck and digs his knees into his back. This arouses excited interest from the rest of the guys. I get up protesting, to defend my friend, but it’s not necessary. In an instant Ethan has released himself and flung Frikkie off him, over the side of the bed, where he connects with the ground sheet with a thud, Ethan on top of him. Frikkie’s face is red with surprise, embarrassment and the discomfort of the fall. Ethan holds him down for a second, asks him if he is all right and quietly tells him to clean his own boots. The whistle for roll call sounds . . . somehow less shrill than before.
    â€˜Hell, Ethan, you sure are full of surprises.’
    â€˜I did judo; never really used it. But this is one of the last nights we’re sleeping in the same tent as those guys. I don’t think Frikkie has matric, so he won’t be chosen for Infantry School. I reckon he’ll be moved out within the next few days.’
    We line up for roll call, Ethan next to me. However long it takes tonight for Van der Swart and Vickerman to be called, I don’t care. Just standing next to him is enough. Ethan can ask me to leave the army tonight, to risk everything, and I will question nothing; I will obey. In heightened melodrama I fantasise about it.
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3
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    D on’t be a sissy, man.’
    â€˜Peet, let him learn in his own time.’
    â€˜No, he’s going to learn now. I don’t have time to teach him in
his
time,
our lordship
. How difficult can it be? Nicholas, do you want me to sell the bicycle, hey?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜I can’t hear you. What did you say?’
    â€˜For heaven’s sake, Peet, the child is four years old.’
    â€˜NO!’ I beg.
    â€˜Well then, come. I’m taking the bicycle to the corner and then you cycle back.’
    â€˜No, it’s too high!’
    â€˜I’ll hold you.’
    â€˜Promise?’
    â€˜Yes, yes, I promise. Come now. Are you ready?’
    â€˜Dad, promise you will hold me.’
    â€˜Yes, I promise, just pedal.’
    â€˜Not so fast . . . you aren’t holding!’
    â€˜Peet, what are you doing? The child can’t ride yet, are you mad? HELP, FRANK, CATCH YOUR BROTHER!’
    â€˜MOM, PLEASE, PLEASE CATCH ME!’
    At the bottom of the rise in the garden is the sandpit where Frank and I play. We have collected bricks to build with. It is in the direction of these bricks that my momentum takes me. By the time the front wheel snags in the sand I have gathered such speed that I summersault over the handlebars, into the bricks. A moment later Frankie and my mother are there. Every­body is shouting. Frank and I are crying. My face is bleeding and there is a deep gash in my knee.
    My mother is furious. Some of the wounds are treated at home, but for the others she has to take me for stitches. My father tells me that when he was my age he was not ‘so scared of everything,’ and his parents could not even afford to give him a bicycle. If I want to grow up to be a