Saturday, March 3, 2018

SAPPEUR FIJN AND THE COW


LYING ON ARMY beds in an army tent in the showgrounds in Bloemfontein, they hear the cow: mnooooo. And fall from their beds, laughing
            Nooit, he didn't. He didn't.
            He did. He did, ek se. Fijn did it.
            Fuck. He must have stood on a bucket.
            Sappeur Fijn is short and stocky with sly slant eyes and a sailors' swagger. Sappeur Fijn likes to leave the big generator loose in the back of the Bedford. When Fijn breaks hard at a robot, the generator rumbles forward under the force of its inertia, and the inertia of the taxpayers who paid for it, and commits suicide against the cab. When we unpack for the shows, Sappeur Fijn throws things as far and hard as possible of the back of the Bedford in the hope that they'll break and the Minori will have to say, ag nee fokkit man Fijn, wattie fok doen jy.
            Sappeur Fijn gets letters which he claims are from a girl and smirks and sniggers over them before fucking the tangled gritty pile of pipes which leans up against the water-purification system. In so far as I fear Sappeur Fijn I believe I should bend over whenever I see him in a baboon's gesture of sexual submission. Sappeur Fijn is a member of the Engineers, the Genieschool of the Suid-Afrikaanse Weermag. Sappeur Fijn is a soldier who works night and day to protect us from the dark ruthless AK-47 bearing terrorists who are fighting night and day to become voting South Africans like Sappeur Fijn. At the Bloemfontein showgrounds Sappeur Fijn greases his hair back and drinks and drinks and offers girls ice-creams in a smarmy deviant unsettling manner which makes the girls suspicious and scared so that they giggle and refuse the ice-creams. Then Sappeur Fijn disappears.
            The lieutenant is tall and ginger and worried. He wears a neat ginger moustache and gold-rimmed spectacles. It worries the lieutenant when Pike and Donaldson give black power salutes when they drive past black people in the Bedford. The lieutenant is tremendously fit and worried and proud of his two stars which are a commission from the State President who had to resign because he lied to the taxpayers who paid for the lieutenant's training. The lieutenant once smoked a joint at a party at the university where he became an architect and he enjoys talking to Pike and Donaldson who are graduate engineers with strange ideas and no rank. It worries the lieutenant when Pike and Donaldson say they would shoot better if they painted the State President's face over the faces of the dark cut out monsters they use as targets on the shooting range.
            In Bloemfontein the lieutenant is worried because the corporal drank a third of a gallon bottle of Tassenburg which Pike and Donaldson claim they found at a hotdog stand and took the section into town in the Bedford and drove over a Porche and damaged the Bedford's bumper. The lieutenant is worried and ginger and scared about what the major will say when he arrives to inspect the exhibition and finds that the Bedford is damaged and that the lieutenant has lost Sappeur Fijn. The lieutenant wants to phone his mother, but he doesn't. He goes round to see the MPs.
            More Sersant, says the lieutenant. Hey jy iets van Sappeur Fijn gehoor.
            O, says the MP sergeant. Daai ou wattie koei genaai het.
            It's already six years ago that these things happened. In those days they weren't sending soldiers into the townships. In those days the border was pretty much on the border of the country. Now the border goes all over the place, sometimes straight through the middle of families. Which is, I suppose, what civil war is all about.
            Sappeur Fijn was charged and found innocent in a civilian court. I don't know what the charge was. I saw him in camp afterwards and he told me that his defence when like this:
            I was too drunk to get it up, so I couldn't have fucked the cow.
            I heard later that Fijn was killed in a motor accident in Welkom. I've no idea what happened to the lieutenant, but the cow gave birth to a roaring monster, half man, half beast, who shrieks and jabbers over my shoulder when I watch the news on TV.

***

Sappeur Fijn and the Cow was first published in Forces Favourites, TAURUS, 1987.
It was republished in  The Penguin Book of Contemporary South African Short Stories, Penguin Books, 1993

Sunday, February 18, 2018

The Excavations - Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll

25
 Uruk at Play

ON THE EVE of the equinox, the Partner gave Hob a pair of loose trousers and a shirt of fine white cloth and a pair of soft NanoHide loafers and told him to have fun and be careful and remember that his chip knew the way home and when Hob had left he addressed himself to the properties of the stone.
            Hob went out onto the street as the day was fading from the dome in a lurid mockery of the sunset outside. The lights came on among the trees and cybertabs appeared about the square and flashed their messages of endorsement for NektaPop and Grownston Flooring and Ghandi Cottons. The squares were crowded with youths and girls and older persons also and some were dressed extravagantly in the costumes of times and peoples past and many were masked. Hob sat on a bench on the pavement and he watched the people throng about and in half an hour he counted four who were dressed in imitation of himself as he had appeared on the tab. The people spoke and laughed and drank at the tables outside the eating places and it was not long before Hob was noticed for the very normality of his garb.
            Dude, you look so like that bushman guy.
            The youth who spoke was accompanied by two girls. He had a dark and chiselled face and he wore the costume of a pirate on the Spanish Main in days of old. He sported a thin and expressive moustache upon his upper lip and it served to emphasize the wryness of his smile.
            Like who?
            That bushman guy on the tab. That like, wasted those outsiders. Harvesters. What's your name? Have some of this.
            What is it?
            Hash. It's like, organic.
            Hob stared at the thin silver cylinder which was offered. A tendril of steam drifted from it. It carried a sweet peppery fragrance to the perceptive nostril.
            We'll call him San, said the girl with dark hair. She had a round face and the nails at the end of her plump fingers were painted red.
            Professor Dzugashvili will be totes impressed.
            She turned to her companion.
            He's super cute. Don't you think?
            The blonde girl nodded and smiled at Hob. A lithe figure with a wide mouth and eyes like a cat.
            Where's your girlfriend, she said. You must have a girlfriend somewhere.
            Her shirt hung open a little and Hob glimpsed her breast and he saw that her nipple was pierced with a silver stud.
            Don't stare San, said the dark girl. You'll get warts.
            Sorry, said Hob. He lifted the silver cylinder to his lips as he had seen the youth do and he inhaled.
            Do you know, said the blonde girl, that it actually means thief? San? It's actually a Khoi word for thief or vagabond.
            They study anthropology, said the pirate. With Professor Dzugashvili. It's incredibly boring.
            Which are you San, said the blonde girl. Thief, or vagabond?
            Vagabond, said Hob.
            Are you really, said the dark girl.
            She looked at her friend.
            I bet he's an accountant. You are, aren't you, San. A pretty accountant. You work in logistics. In the fresh produce segment.
            Someone, said the pirate, has to bring in the asparagus. Or what are we to eat with our Pinot Gris?
            What do you do really, San, said the blonde girl. Do you sit around all day, doing data capture in a virtual office?
            I work for COOL, said Hob. Why is the ground so far away?
            That would be the hash, said the pirate. Okay, he said. Drink. Who's got units ?
            There came a silence. A little hiatus in the throng and the dark girl sighed.
            I have, said Hob.
            The pirate assumed a careful yet hopeful demeanour.
            How many?
            I think… fifteen thousand, said Hob. I'm very thirsty.
            The pirate stared at him.
            Fifteen thousand?
            I think so. Something like that.
            Dude, said the pirate. You're like, the mother lode.
            We like you, San, said the dark girl. We like you a lot.
            The youth led them to a square and they found a table and sat and a waiter came to them and put menus down.
            Who's paying, he said.
            He is, said the dark haired girl. And she pointed at Hob. He works for COOL.
            We like him, said the blond girl. She smiled at the waiter. I want a double vodka. Stols. Do you have Stols?
            Yes, said the waiter.
            With cranberry NektaPop
            Two of those, said the dark girl.
            And we'll have beer, said the pirate. Ur Ale.
            He smiled at the dark girl.
            Because Sumerians did it first.
            The waiter took a tablet from his pocket and held it out to Hob.
            Chip, he said.
            Hob put his thump on the flashing square and the tablet beeped and the waiter looked at it and nodded and went away to get the drinks and the silver cylinder passed once more about the circle.
            You have to admit, said the pirate, that this is some good shit.
            My name's Cass, said the blonde girl. It's short for Cassandra.
            She leant forward and she smiled and she touched Hob upon his cheek with the backs of her fingers.
            You're hot, she said. What's your real name?
            Who needs names, said the pirate. On a night like this.
            He looked at Hob.
            You going to the conception?
            The big…
            Shindig, said the youth.
            You have to come with us, San, said Cassandra. It's going to be epic. Come cut a caper.
            I've never been outside, said the dark girl.

            Neither have I, said blonde Cassandra. It's my first time.