LITMIR.BIZ

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recently.) It’s a fucking disgrace, says one (a big, solid man with shaggy sideburns). Just for that, says one of the others (with bushy, white moustache), just for fucking that. They were fucking cretins, says number three (with gold neck chain). I wouldn’t have let myself be caught like that. They should have known they could never pull it off that way. Were fucking not thinking straight from the start. Which still doesn’t mean it was okay, says Sideburns, not the hell. Shows you the savagery. Godalmighty, says Bushymouth, if I could climb in there, jesus, I would go ballistic mowing down that lot of pissheads. It was a ballsup, says Chainman, they should have moved in from the Bosfontein direction, around, they should have crossed the border further along, but then they went and fucked across at Witwater. Shit move, says Bushymouth. Shit. Old Nick was never one of the brightest. Not crafty enough. Crafty, that’s what you have to be. Crafty as a crocodile. I know him, he was my cousin. They all thought it was fun and games. (They order more beer.) We saw it all. On television, says Bushymouth. Fuck, says Sideburns, I couldn’t believe my eyes. That’s no way for a Christian to go. Fucking blood everywhere. Old Nick was shot in the chest. He didn’t die straightaway. As he was sliding down like that you know, half-slipping out of the car seat, his fucking hands in the air, they say he was still saying the Lord’s Prayer. But no, those people don’t understand Afrikaans do they, never mind the Bible. So-called police. Give him a gun, and he shoots anything that moves. Barbaric. No mercy. Pot him just like that while he’s praying. Blood everywhere. I’ll pot the lot of them in the trot, says Sideburns. (They laugh.) Blood everywhere, Bushymouth says again. The car’s a write-off. Merc 310 Diesel. Old Nakkie, reckon, bought it second-hand from the garage in Ventersdorp, so then he lent it to them for the occasion. Good condition it was in. Only seventy-six thousand on the clock. No, man, says Sideburns, it was also a blue Merc, but it wasn’t that one. So which one was it? asks Chainman. Which what? asks Sideburns. Which garage? asks Chainman. Man, that garage on the corner opposite the church. Oh yes, but that man went bankrupt, didn’t he? No man, that was the garage at the far end of town. Only seventy-six k’s on the clock. Yes, says Sideburns, but in any case, who wants to buy a car full of fucking bullet holes? And that blood smell you’ll never get out of the seats, you can have it valet serviced till you’re blue in the face, says Chainman. Fucking disgrace, says Bushymouth. Fucking disgrace, don’t think we’ve forgotten. We’re biding our time. Those buggers will never ever again get away with such a thing. Let one, let just fucking one put as much as the tip of a shoe over the border. Not that they wear shoes with their loincloths (Karl doesn’t hear very well). Laughter. They’re talking about something else. Karl can no longer hear very well, their heads together. He thinks they sometimes look in his direction.

      And it’s not long before Bushymouth gets up and comes to his table. Ponderously he approaches, a big, overweight guy with a T-shirt that doesn’t look particularly clean, till he’s standing next to Karl.

      ‘Do we know each other, friend?’ asks the man.

      He’s wearing a two-tone shirt, a copper bracelet, his moustache takes no prisoners, a mole on his right cheek and his hair was surely blow-dried with care this morning.

      The man extends his hand. ‘Ollie,’ says the man, ‘Ollie of Steynsrus.’ Karl hesitates a moment before shaking Ollie’s hand.

      *

      Ollie was born in Kroonstad. His father worked for the municipality. After school he went to an agricultural college in Pretoria. It was his ambition to farm. His grandfather had a farm in the Heilbron district, between the Klip and Wilge Rivers. In the last few months Ollie has been feeling stitches in his prostate when he walks, but he can’t very well stand in one place all the time. He inherited part of his grandfather’s farm; the rest was lost to a land claim. His neighbours on an adjoining farm were recently murdered. Now his wife no longer wants to live on the farm. She says she doesn’t want to be scorched with an iron and strangled with an electric cord. That after being raped and dragged all over the house by her hair. No thank you, she says, then she’d rather die of misery in town. In the early morning he sometimes dreams of other women. Their skins gleam like copper in an unnatural light – the light of alien heavenly bodies threatening to destroy the earth. Sometimes he feels dizzy when he suddenly stands up straight. Sometimes it feels as if there’s a little hair at the back of his tongue all day and in his mouth there’s a sweet, metallic taste. Eating meat helps, and drinking beer. A cousin of his was one of the guys who were murdered that time in Bophuthatswana, when the AWB invaded the country just before the elections. In primary school Ollie was a Voortrekker. In high school he played in the cadet band. Three years ago he joined the Orde Boeremag, and rose quickly through the ranks. Now he is one of the executive officials, but what he’s really aiming for is one of the top positions.

      *

      ‘What brings you here?’ asks Ollie of Steynsrus.

      ‘I’m on my way to Cape Town,’ says Karl.

      ‘You look familiar to me, friend,’ says the man, ‘I’ve come across you somewhere. Come and drink something with us,’ he says, gesturing towards the corner table, where his three pals are gazing at them expectantly.

      ‘Sorry,’ says Karl, ‘I’m in a hurry.’

      ‘Now I recognise you – you’re one of the chaps helping with the programme. You’re with subsection C, not so?!’ says Ollie.

      Before Karl can reply in the negative, one of the others also comes up to his table (Sideburns).

      ‘This is one of the chaps from subsection C,’ Ollie says to him.

      The other man also extends his hand. ‘Hercules of Senekal,’ he says, ‘pleased to meet you.’ He is big, his paunch precedes him, he has nose hairs and sideburns that would be the pride of any walrus. There’s a bit of food on his upper lip. It looks like egg, or chutney, it could also be bacon, or a bit of boerewors from the mixed grill. Or a piece of tomato, or toast, or onion, or a bit of kidney. Or liver. Minced liver fried with an onion. As children neither Karl not Iggy would put their mouths to liver. Hercules has a small mouth of which the upper lip has an unhealthy red tinge. His T-shirt reads ONS VIR JOU, we for you. To the left of the U there are three grease spots.

      *

      Hercules’s grandfather’s name was Hercules. He fought in the Anglo-Boer war and was seriously wounded at the battle of Senekalsdrift. His grandfather took him on his knee and told him about the war, and about the battle, and about all his comrades who fell in battle, and how they fell in battle, and about the pebbles and the blades of grass and the little footpaths and the sparse bushes and the low hills and the rock formations of the battlefield. Evidently it was all indelibly imprinted upon his grandfather’s memory. His grandfather said that the English were their arch-enemies and the blacks betrayed them. His father’s name was also Hercules. His eldest son’s name is Hercules. Hercules likes Karate Kallie’s videos. He likes Wild Life magazines. He likes liver and kidneys and tripe. Curry tripe. He likes meat potjie. He likes Kurt Darren. He has the hots for Patricia Lewis. He sometimes has filthy, filthy dreams. Sex with chickens and that kind of stuff. He likes large dams at sunset. The light on them is fucking awesome, especially when there are large trees on the opposite bank. Between three and four o’ clock in the afternoon is his worst time. Sometimes he thinks he’s going mad. He’s terrified that he’ll start hearing voices. The voices of women wanting to get filthy with him. He slips away from the office, he takes up position next to the wall behind the garage, and listens attentively. He can defecate only when he leans far back on the toilet; then sometimes he starts trembling inexplicably. His urine flows sluggishly. Sometimes at night his footsoles are sensitive and they itch, then he has to crawl to the toilet on his knees. Then he thinks: Now I’m an honest-to-God chicken-fucker.

      *

      Ollie brings his head up conspiratorially close, Karl edges back, on the man’s breath he smells beer and mixed grill. ‘Kleinfontein’s entrance is now also manned.’ He brings his head even closer. ‘You people are doing good work in the mobilisation section. Keep it up. Remember, our deliverance from uhuru will not depend on weapons and guns, but that doesn’t mean that we must not be fully deployed militarily.’

      Behind Ollie of Steynsrus stands

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