“So I got this cool plot nearly worked out for my new blockbuster novel,” I grinned at Dylan, Marion’s Kiwi grandson.
“Blockbuster?” the eleven-year-old said. “You mean like it’s selling lots?”
“Well, I haven’t got there yet,” I said with a mock bruised ego, while he was busy painting his Warhammer toy ogres. I grimaced at the slogan that seems everywhere on the Warhammer kit and guide books that accompanied his toy soldiers and war machines. “There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgiveness. There is only WAR.” I continued with the story of my novel: “What happens is this boy Tom, when he’s about sixteen is supposed to be killed, murdered, you know, by this mysterious man, Richard. But Tom doesn’t die. Richard thought he did.”
“You mean he comes back to life?” says Dylan, now intrigued, putting down the ork he was painting green and red.
“No no no, he was left for dead. Richard thought Tom was dead. Tom recovers in ICU, gets on with his life, marries, other plot-line stuff I won’t go into now. Anyway, the novel changes to about thirty years later. Now Tom, divorced, is hiking in the Cederberg Mountains near Cape Town and holes up in a mountain hut he rented for two weeks. While there he goes for a walk and hears someone moaning in the bushes or a ravine. He rescues this man who apparently walked away from a car accident and collapsed in the bushes. And by the way I have written the story you as the reader know that the car accident survivor is … ta daahh … killer Richard. From thirty years ago. Tom hauls Richard up to his hut, not knowing who he is. Tom has a first-aid kit. Richard’s injuries aren’t that bad and he recovers quickly. The next evening Richard, resting on a couch, takes out a mouth organ and starts playing tunes which remind Tom of his dead father who was actually close friends with Richard (the reader already knows this from earlier on in the novel). Tom takes out his harmonica and they swap memories and stories about each other. Of course, you as the reader are fascinated about when these two characters are going to find out who the other person really is and what will then happen.”
“Another plot line is developing. There is a black man, I think I might make him a guy from Mozambique, who is a refugee or illegal immigrant in SA. I knew a couple of them when I was growing up in a farming area in Boksburg. He is a mountain reserve warden of sorts or caretaker in this part of the Cederberg. He’s herded cattle, seen a lot of grief in the old SA. I won’t go into all that now. I have called him Benoni because when I was a kid there was a great old guy from Mozambique who could fix anything and his name was Benoni and he disappeared like a sprite whenever the cops did a raid on the farm for illegals.”
“Why is he black; is he a criminal?” asked Dylan. That stopped me dead in my storytelling tracks. I mean, who did Dylan think Richard was? “Why should he be a criminal?” I replied, appalled. “Just because he’s black? That’s bloody racist.” “Well, he comes from SA,” said Dylan, who was born there but left with his parents when he was five. What are they teaching our kids? Who are “they”?
I patiently point out to Dylan the obvious: that the majority of people in SA are black. If the vast majority are black it is common sense that crime stats are going to reflect that most crimes are done by blacks.
“Anyway. Back to my novel. Benoni is busy collecting wood for the evening fire the evening after Richard and Tom meet each other. He sees the crashed car in a gully. He opens the car to see if anyone is still inside and under some tumbled hiking gear and a blanket on the floor in front of the back seat he finds a woman who he is sure is dead. Maybe from the car accident. He doesn’t want to tell the cops; he is very suspicious of them. He’s had enough trouble with them. His fingerprints are now all over the car. The narrative echoes Benoni’s thoughts: ‘The police, even though they were now mostly black, also could not be trusted like their white predecessors, and that included the inspectors. He had met one inspector and although they could speak the same languages, Xhosa, English and Afrikaans, it was just the sounds that were the same, not the heartbeat behind the sounds.’ Benoni notices the footprints from the car trail up in the direction of Tom’s hut which he can see up the hill. He decides to go there and tell Tom about the car accident, see if he knows anything about it. He decides to forget he saw the ‘dead’ woman. He just saw the car. He has learned the hard way not have any more involvement.”
“So now I am pleasantly stuck with these three men sitting around a rickety coffee table in Tom’s rented hut, enjoying the end of a day with whiskey. Richard’s leg has been treated and bandaged by Tom. Tom has also brought out his harmonica and they are swapping tunes, remembering the old times, their different African childhoods. Richard is eyeing Benoni and wondering if he knows anything about the woman he left in the car. Benoni is eyeing Richard. So … what happens next? I have a few ideas, but that’s what exploring themes through writing is about: exploring.” “What’s closure?” asked Dylan. I explain this. “One idea I have is for Benoni to stay over the night because the three of them get drunk on whiskey, all taking turns on the harmonica and I will probably have them reminiscing about their very different childhoods. Tom’s old mouth organ belonged to his father. The reader knows surely Richard is eventually going to recognise the old mouth organ which his old friend, Tom’s dad, used to play in pubs and ask where did Tom get it from. Pretty sure I will stick with that idea. Benoni is, according to post-Christian, Eurocentric thinking a bit disturbed. Not according to his half-forgotten traditions. For example, he hears his ancestors and his dead children (the latter victims of apartheid) and talks with them. When he hears in the middle of the night a harmonica playing and can see it is not Tom or Richard, he looks out the window and sees a woman disappearing through the trees. He recognises her as the woman in the crashed car. Of course the reader questions the validity of his experience. Which of course in turns questions what is real and what is not and if there ever can be such categories.”
“What are categories? Why does Benoni have to be black?” asked Dylan, his Warhammer orks drying in the sun. I gave up trying to explain. He was only eleven. Dylan turned back to his Warhammer hobby: toys, computer games and thematic “There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgiveness. There is only WAR” slogan. I was uncomfortable with Dylan’s second question because of Dylan’s previous remark about blacks. It’s good to feel that kind of discomfort; it means you are being pushed out of “carbon copy thinking”. I just knew that it suited my character Benoni to be an ex-pat and an alien in his adopted country, South Africa. Nationhood and a sense of rooted ancestry is identity for many. So Benoni’s childhood displacement is an emblem for a broader angst felt by other main characters: Tom’s unresolved rage for the man who attempted to kill him as a youngster (associated with his abusive father “killing” his sense of growing manhood, selfhood, creativity as a young artist). Tom and Richard are both fictions to each other, aliens, not in touch with their inner selves. There’s Tom’s need to forgive and Richard’s need to feel remorse, find forgiveness. They both may come to realise they are searching for something that used to be called grace.
Dylan’s “eleven-year-old” question about my character being black then made me realise I could not think about South Africa in the bitter-sweet, sensitive way I believe I do if I had not left my home country six years ago. Developing objectivity is only part of it. The rest I can’t explain. And that is what I am trying to understand through some of my writing. Writers can only draw from their own experiences, write their own inner autobiographies, just only in symbolic or metonymic form, or autrebiographies.In the last six years words and images have taken on fresh meanings for me. This is especially so when I am chatting with other ex-pats, buddies from years ago, re-discovered through Facebook, now also in other countries. Those words and phrases are sometimes like innocent but collectible pebbles that are suddenly strange, haunting, found on a childhood beach that I had thought was as familiar as the palm of my hand. For example, one such friend, now in Australia, casually remarked via email to another friend in South Africa in answer to a question, “what are you doing, is it dark there now in Oz?” on an email thread. He casually answered, “Busy cooking curry, and yes, it’s dark outside.” I would never have noticed those plain, innocuous words before. I would have walked over those pebbles. But their possible meanings, coloured with the context of being an ex-pat far from home, just would not stop resonating in me. I experimented with the sentence and came up with the following poem, repeating and re-fashioning Garth’s simple reply.
Busy Cooking Curry
- For Garth and Radmila
My wife’s not home yet. Wine glows in me, a moonlit tide,
Like history after the rain has smoothed its sadness away.
Busy cooking curry for dinner, and yes, it’s dark outside.
Spice, onion, garlic: odours have nothing to hide
Like history, after the rain has smoothed its sadness away.
My hands are clean, open as the smile of my bride -
They’re cooking curry for our dinner, and it’s dark outside.
What hands can do, words like “blood” and “loss” cannot say,
But my fingers murmur over plates, calling her to my side.
I grew up beneath a gleam of clouds which slowly glide
Over khakibos, barbed wire, townships of tin and clay.
But today I’m in Sydney, and it’s dark outside.
Her fingers are the rain. Its music will always stay.
Try not to think of what other hands, bloodied, do every day.
Busy cooking curry; and now my love’s come inside.
Hi Rod, always looking forward to your writings. Miss you when you are not contributing. Wish your family well.
Oh dear, the poem did not appear in the tercets (3-line stanzas) it should be in. Try imagine this as a poem divided into three line paragraphs without double-spacing. See the version on my book.co.za blog to see what I mean: http://rodmackenzie.book.co.za/blog/
Hi Ron, Glad you are back. Sorry to be a pedant, but you spell “ork” as “Orc”. Old habit from my AD&D days. Best, J
A lovely story Rod, Consider not hiding the truth with half-truth, as the kid will become confused. I agree that the “.. vast majority are black it is common sense that crime stats are going to reflect that most crimes are done by blacks….” But then should you not tell him about the stats in other countries where the population majority are not black but they make a disproportionate part of the prison population. LOL.
Hi Rod, A wonderful post. Thank you for sharing this with us. I think that some of us who remain under those skies also sense from time to time a nostalgia for what is past. This does not mean one wishes to return to those times necessarily merely that the memories are bittersweet lessons which we passed through. I know that I personally would only change one thing about my life if I had the chance and that would be my decision to have all my teeth removed. What lead up to their removal I am at peace with but my daily struggle with dentures continues. So it is with leaving behind yesterdays sweet and ugly memories. We have to get on with living today and making the best of what it brings us be it good or bad. We have to learn the lessons and make the choices now and face the consequences in a possible future. Life is an unceasing series of lessons to learn and choices to be made. The earth continues to spin the time wheel and even if we do reverse our course it will continue and the places we wish to return to are particles spinning in the universe.
By the way the article in your heading should be “a” and not “an” as in a South African not an South African. I’m sure you know why but thought I should mention it.
Hi Joel, in the Warhammer games/franchise they are referred to as orks. A vague attempt of the creators to try and be original I suppose.
Thanks for this wonderful piece, Rod. I always enjoy your writing!
Fertile imagination Rod. Enjoy your postings when you write. Keep writing, and stay close to your inner voice and conscience about what you teach young minds about race and difference. The ‘demographics explanation’ you gave to the young man is inadequate and you know it. Why not explain the full history of abuse and violence that created generations of abused and illiterate population groups around the world… and roots of negative perceptions and how they are reproduced, spread and sustained across generations.
And Hugh Robinson… you cannot be serious with your tongue’n cheek and gleeful insinuation of why there are more of black people in prisons in countries where ‘they’ are not in the majority. Its not about black and white Hugh… With that kind of thinking, I’m not sure you’d even be able to figure out what its really about… Now you can LOL !
Hi DumZA agreed on your observations on demographics (their statistical truth still obtains)and crime but then there is only so much I can fit into a post that is already long. I have noticed my posts tend to be longer than other bloggers and that is not such a good thing. Never bore the readers; the general consensus seems that blogs should be short and sweet. Not my strong point but readers seem happy and I do try read all my comments unless it is an abecedarian’s.
Hi Gail, thanks for sharing. I am a sucker for nostalgia. One of my best cures for anxiety is to meditate on the sea in my mind or in reality and think about the fact it was massaging the beach for hundreds of millenia before I was born and will be doing so long after I die with all my fretting.
On indefinite articles. Yes, it would be “a South African” but no, it is “an SA crime” because of the vowel sound “es” and the vowel sound rule determines the article a instead of an. Hence we have “an honour to meet you” because although honour begins with an h (an h, not a h, h being “aitch”), it is a silent h and so the vowel sound rule applies on “o”.
Dusts chalk off trousers and exits classroom.
Thanks Rod, for capturing an essence of exile.
In the 60′s 70′s and 80′s citizens who left SA went into exile – now if they do – they are so called expats.
Tonite it is pasta, and yes it is dark outside.
“…a moonlit tide, like history after the rain has smoothed its sadness away.” – what an image! really powerful.
Dylan is right… why does anyone have to be green, khaki or whatever ?… what does it have to do with the plot… this is unclear. Are you writing an SA racial stereotype book hoping to generate a blockbuster… [boring... done to death] or are you writing a story about murder most foul, bereft of confusing and irrelevant sub texts… why for instance is the story not about two South African ‘refugees’ and a Maori [sic] on a “Lord of the rings” type mountain on South island… where murder may not be as common as it is here, and the issues more intriguing and unworked…
Finally: farming in Boksburg? Really…? is this an historical tale? And Benoni… ‘son of sorrow’ … in what way does a Mozambican refugee become a ‘son of sorrow’ or did he ‘acquire’ the name as a convenience because he is on the run after beating a baby half to death in a Robertsham house robbery?
You have said that you have to write from your experience and your experience is no longer SA except in retrospect… It was China and is now NZ. Write where your experience is, not was. Novels are not written overnight,but over months that often morph into years. South Africa as depicted on Thoughtleader is not the real place we have all just experienced with the recent festival of football, for instance.
Otherwise cool… keep swimming upstream.