Beautiful Screaming of Pigs (15 page)

‘So,’ he said.

‘So.’

We looked at each other. Although he was expressionless, I could see he was feeling bad. He moved slowly, stiffly, as though he’d broken a bone somewhere.

‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he said at last.

‘Maybe you will,’ I said, although neither of us believed it.

He managed to come up with a thin smile. ‘You’ll come up here to live, maybe. You’ll live here in exile, till South Africa is also free.’

‘There are other kinds of exile,’ I told him, and only after the words were out did I realise how true they were.

Then, because there was nothing more to say, we shook hands. He squeezed very hard.

‘I’m sorry,’ I told him.

‘There are other women,’ he said.

I hadn’t been referring to my mother, or not only to her, but I couldn’t explain. I went back around the car. As I was about to get in he called my name. When I turned back he
gestured at the scene in front of us.

‘Your future,’ he said.

I looked at what he had shown me. I saw again the hot, dusty square, the half kilometre of waiting people. I saw the booths in the middle, the uniformed officials, the armed soldiers nearby. In
the background I saw the township, the listing walls, the poverty.

A three-legged dog limped past.

I got into the car and closed the door.

‘Is he finished yet?’ my mother said. ‘Can we go at last?’

‘We can go,’ I said.

She put the car in gear and swung angrily onto the road, not looking back. But I turned my head as we reached the edge of the square. He was standing exactly where I’d left him, hands
hanging heavily down at his sides. By some trick of refraction, he seemed larger than he was: an idol carved out of rock. But then he bent down to pick up his bags and became human again. He
started to trudge across the square, to the very back of the queue.

We went round the corner and the whole scene disappeared behind us.

‘I’m glad to see the last of
him
,’ Dirk Blaauw said.

He was sitting next to my mother in the front, wearing his khaki clothes, his hat with the leopard-skin tied around it. I had been staring at his neck through the whole long drive from
Swakopmund: a thick, bull neck, muscled and brown. He had a small wart near his collar.

As Godfrey and I carried our bags out to the car that morning, we had seen Dirk Blaauw and my mother talking on the pavement. They were laughing at something he’d said, but they went
suddenly quiet when they saw us. Then they came strolling over with studied casualness.

‘Mr Blaauw’s coming as far as Malmesbury with us,’ my mother said. She avoided my eyes. ‘His car’s broken down and he’s tired of waiting.’

‘Call me Dirk,’ he said, holding out his hand. Godfrey shook it, but he didn’t say anything in reply.

When we put our bags into the boot, we saw that his luggage was already in there. He had three bulging, fat bags, taking up most of the space. He seemed concerned when he saw us struggling.
‘Can you fit it all in?’ he rumbled. ‘Or have I squeezed you out?’

‘I think we’ll find a way,’ I said.

For the first couple of hours he tried to get Godfrey to speak. It was almost an obsessive point of principle with him, as if he were trying to prove something. The questions kept coming
aggressively: ‘How do you like living here? What’s the future of the country? What if SWAPO doesn’t get in?’ Godfrey gave terse little replies, a word or two at the most. It
was as much a principle with him not to answer. Through all of this my mother and I kept silent, while I stared at the wart on that neck.

Eventually Dirk Blaauw seemed to give up. He turned his attention to my mother and the two of them kept up a flow of light chatter, making jokes and laughing. A web of white words passed between
them.

Now he was shaking his head at the memory of Godfrey. ‘I’m not a racist,’ he said. ‘In my book, black and white are the same. But some people are kaffirs. And that was a
kaffir back there.’

My mother didn’t answer, but I saw her hands tighten on the wheel.

We drove south out of Windhoek, down the centre of the country. All around us, South West Africa was turning into Namibia. The air was shimmering and bright, as if a gigantic energy had been
unleashed somewhere. The people we passed at the side of the road were full of jubilant animation, even in the heat. There was dancing and singing. A stooped old woman, sitting on a rock, waved a
small flag on a stick. A thin, very tall young man was shouting and pushing his fist into the air. Three little schoolgirls, dressed in identical black and white uniforms, ran along next to the
car, shrieking and yelling in a silly abandon, whirling their satchels around their heads.

Towards nightfall we stopped for a meal at a roadside hotel. We sat at a low wooden table in the shade. To the sad German woman who was taking our order, my mother said:

‘I’ll have a steak.’

When the woman was gone I turned to my mother. ‘I thought you were vegetarian.’

‘I need the protein,’ she said. ‘I have a craving for protein.’

‘You’re doing the right thing,’ Dirk Blaauw said. ‘We weren’t meant to eat vegetables. Man is a hunter by instinct. A killer. The world is a jungle.
Nè
, Patrick?’ He punched my shoulder and laughed. ‘I have animals on my farm,’ he went on. ‘Cows, sheep, goats. And pigs. I have pigs. You must come up and
visit my farm.’

‘We’d love to,’ my mother said. ‘Patrick?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Instead of driving through tonight,’ he said, ‘why don’t you stay over? What’s the hurry? Have a good sleep, I’ll give you breakfast in the morning... Stay
over with me tonight.’

‘All right,’ said my mother. ‘Thank you. All right.’ To me she added: ‘That all right, Patrick?’

‘Yup,’ I said.

Later, while we were eating, he got up and went to the bathroom. She leaned toward me. ‘His eyes are amazing,’ she said. ‘So blue. I’m falling in love with his
eyes.’ She giggled.

‘I think,’ I said slowly, ‘I think I might move out of home.’

‘What?’

‘It might be a good idea for me to live on my own. To get a flat by myself.’

She looked at me, then she looked away. ‘You can’t do a thing on your own.’

‘Yes, I can.’

‘Well,’ she said with strangulated gaiety. ‘If you think you’d like that. We’ll talk about it another time.’

When Dirk Blaauw came back, my mother smiled at him. Her steak was underdone and she had a thin line of blood on her teeth.

‘Shall we go?’ she said brightly.

We came to the border at sunset. As we filled out the forms and had the passports stamped, one of the soldiers set his dog on the car. It was an Alsatian, with pale yellow eyes. It snarled
savagely at us through the glass.

The soldier laughed at our fright. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘
Moenie
worry
nie
.’

On the far side of the river we drove back into South Africa. We had crossed a line on a map and were in a different land altogether. Hills of grey stone loomed around us, the sky was thorny
with stars.

Dirk Blaauw made a fist with one hand and struck it hard against his ribs. ‘I love this country,’ he said. His hoarse voice was fierce.

‘Me too,’ cried my mother. ‘I also love it. Me too.’

They looked at each other and smiled.

‘You’re not tired of driving?’ he said.

‘No, not yet. Just keep talking to me and I’ll stay awake.’

‘I’m going to,’ he said. ‘I’m going to keep talking. Do you mind if I smoke my pipe?’

‘As long as I can have a cigarette.’

He took it out of her bag for her. He slid it into her mouth. Then he pushed in the lighter in the dashboard. While they waited for it to heat up, he said to her: ‘I think you’re
going to like my farm.’

‘I have a feeling I will too.’

The lighter popped out. He held it for her, while she inclined her head. The cigarette flared and for a second their two profiles were silhouetted in this tiny red explosion. Then they both
looked ahead. The car was dark again. In front of us, empty and cold, the road travelled on towards home.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Geraldine and Richard Aron, Gavin Lief, Kelvan and Alison Schewitz, and to my agent Tony Peake for assistance rendered during the writing of the book.

Also by Damon Galgut

When a man of the cloth gives up his body, soul and identity to another, who is watching?

On a lonely stretch of road a chance encounter leads to murder. The victim is a religious minister on his way to a new post in a nearby town and the killer decides to steal the
dead man's identity in order to conceal the crime. But one of his first duties as the new minister is to bury a body that has just been discovered in suspicious circumstances. As the corpse is laid
to rest the manhunt begins…

‘There are thrilling images here, powerful themes and almost scarily precise writing... Galgut is at the leading edge of what is turning out to be a brilliant
documentation of South Africa’s post-apartheid transition.’ Patrick Ness,
Daily Telegraph

‘An uncompromising journey into the heart of South Africa’s darkness, written in prose that is at once stark and striking... An impressive work.’ Michael
Arditti,
Literary Review

An extremely atmospheric book in a hazy, raw and entirely realistic sense... A compelling read about guilt and evasion of truth.’ Tom Hiney,
Spectator

Atlantic Books

Paperback Fiction

ISBN 1 84354 295 1

Also by Damon Galgut

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize,

the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the

International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Laurence Waters arrives at his rural hospital posting full of optimism. Frank, the disgruntled deputy, is forced to share his room with the new arrival but is determined to
stay out of Laurence’s ambitious schemes. When the dilapidated hospital is looted, the two men find themselves uneasy allies in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the
present.

‘A lovely, lethal, disturbing novel.’ Christopher Hope,
Guardian

‘Beautifully written, evoking mood and tension in precise and exhilarating storytelling.’ Joan Bakewell,
Observer
Books of the Year

‘Compulsive reading.’ Clare Morrall,
Guardian
Books of the Year

‘The Good Doctor
will be seen as one of the great literary triumphs of South Africa’s transition… by a novelist of great and growing power.’
Rian Malan, author of
My Traitor’s Heart