Out of Shadows (13 page)

But what could I say? So I said nothing and promised myself I never would.

If they asked me the same question today I'd tell them that
that
was the point at which Ivan waved good-bye to everything forever—the school, his friends, his childhood, his farm. His life. He was curling in on himself and starting to die a long, protracted death.

On the very last day of term, and of the academic year, there was an angry clap of thunder. There'd been many in the preceding weeks; this one, finally, held the promise of rain.

I was in the phone booth at the time. The school was almost empty and my parents still weren't there to collect me. The line crackled loudly in my ear a fraction before the thunder came.

“Yes, Weekend!”

“Ah! Mastah Rhrob-ett.
Masikati
.”

“
Masikati
, Weekend.
Kanjani
,
shamwari
.”

“
Mushi. Kanjani
, my friend?”

“
Mushi sterek
. I'm great, too.”

“So tell me, Mastah Rhrob-ett, what is it that I should do? My new girlfriend says she must have also the gift I have given to my other girlfriend, but I have no more money to buy and now she is ver-ry very angry . . .”

Out of the small window I watched a dust devil play with leaves. The air was humming, the giant clouds sweeping in from beyond the classrooms were the color of charred wood. An almighty storm was on its way.

Fairford paused
, raised a half-cocked arm like they do in the movies, and crouched low. The rest of the line stopped and crouched, too, all except Ivan, who stayed standing at the back and rolled his eyes. We thought Fairford had spotted one of the other groups, but as he fidgeted with his pack we quickly realized he just needed to shit.

He hurried around a rise with a bog roll in his hand.

The remaining six of us groaned and rested up, absorbing the sun. The sky was clear but the high mountain air was taking time to warm, and a night of almost constant downpour had made us damp and tired.

Ivan went and sat on a rock and lit up a Madison. Technically, term had started, but for us the start of fifth form meant this survival lesson up the Chimanimanis, and even though there was a handful of masters on the mountains, there were hundreds of square miles of high terrain for them not to find us for the whole week.

It had always been an annual thing, to send fifth formers up the Chims—a prelude to O levels to inspire resourcefulness
and lateral thinking. The expeditions had been stopped during the war, when it was far too dangerous to be hiking so close to the border. We were only the second expedition to be allowed up here since since the war had ended. The army was fairly confident it had cleared most of the land mines.

“Hey, score us a smoke, china,” I called.

With barely a turn of the head, Ivan tossed the packet over. The sharp taste bit my tongue as I lit one and I threw the box straight back into his open hand. Ivan continued his own smoke in silence.

We were at one of the highest points here. To the left and right, the way we had come and the way we were going, the line of the green and gray mountains stretched on—the granite outline known as Dragon's Tooth jutted out against the southern skyline. Behind us, craggy turrets of rock hunched and loomed like drunken old men, while ahead the ground plateaued right across to the other side of the range. Beyond, Mozambique lay low and flat far into the east.

I sat next to Ivan, dangling my feet.

“So what do you reck the new history teacher's going to be like?” I said.

Ivan made a noise. “Who gives a crap?”

I suppose I should have expected that. For the whole of last year—in fact, from the point Kasanka had done whatever he'd done at the end of our first year in the school, Ivan had consistently declared his hatred for the place. He was leaving as soon as he could. Now we were in fifth form, in the year all of us would hit sixteen, and his end was in sight.

“You hear about Bedford-Shaw? Apparently his old man said it's only a matter of time before the government takes all the white farms, so he decided to sell up and move to Namibia. They'll be gone by the end of term. Do you think Mugabe will?”

Ivan wasn't listening. He pointed over toward the border.

I counted three women moving away from us across the plateau, bare-breasted and bare-footed, and each one balancing a huge sack of maize on her head.

“I hate those nannies coming over to take our food,” he said, “but you can't blame them. See what happens when blacks come into power? Mozambique used to be great, the Portuguese knew what they were doing, but since the Kaffirs won it back the place has crumbled. It's a heap of shit now. You know things must be bad if those three have to cross a whole mountain range for a bag of
sadza
to feed their families, and I bet they didn't pay in cash, if you know what I mean.”

He sighed long and loud. He looked so sad.

“It had better not happen here.”

Fairford came scampering back from his business, waving bog paper over his head.

Ivan sneered, so I said, “Fairford is such a chop. He even looks like one—check, his T-shirt fits him like a giant foreskin.”

I was pleased to see the smile reappear.

“
Guys!
” Fairford whispered loudly. “I found one of the other groups.”

No one moved. Fairford jumped up and down.

“Come on, guys. I'm group leader so you have to do what I say. That's what being a leader's all about.”

Reluctantly, we followed him around the rise. Almost without warning the ground fell away and we found ourselves peering over a fifty-foot drop. In the gorge, seven boys were splashing about in dick-shrinking water, their clothes and packs strewn across the rocks.

“Hey, that's Henchie and Davidson. And Rhys-Maitland,” said Arnold, standing up.

Fairford yanked him back down. “You can't do that, they'll see us.”

“So?”

“So . . . ? They'll know we're here and beat us to Dragon's Tooth, and I want to come first.”

“So?” Arnold was bigger than Fairford. “You're too late anyway; your mother's been going up there for years waiting for schoolboys, and I heard she always comes first.”

We all laughed.

Ivan spotted a load of baboons hiding in the tops of the trees about twenty meters from the pool. Davidson and the rest of the boys from our year couldn't have realized they were there.

Nelson was in that group, too. Ivan grinned.

“Time for a bit of fun,” he said. “Let's rattle the cage.”

“Are you serious?” Fairford looked worried. “Have you ever seen a baboon's teeth close up? Besides, there's no path down.”

“Who said anything about going down?” Ivan's brow darkened. I really thought he was going to hit Fairford. “We use stones, you chop.”

“From here? You'll
never
get them.”

Ivan walked away from the edge and stood his packet of Madisons on a small rock forty feet away. He came back and handed me a stone.

“Show them,” he said.

I looked around. Everyone was waiting.

“Go on, do your trick,” Ivan insisted.

I liked his faith in me. Holding my breath (because that was the only way to be sure of a good shot, keep the body steady), I tossed the stone up a few inches, snatched it out of the air, then flung it hard without pausing because it sometimes didn't work if I thought about it too much. Two seconds later the Madisons box jumped and disappeared.

“Shit, Jacklin! Lekker!”

“Holy crap!”

Ivan grabbed another stone and walked me back to the edge.

“There,” he said. “The big daddy in the middle. You check?”

I pulled back a second time and released.

For a moment I thought I'd pushed it too hard, but gravity did its stuff and sucked the stone down, and I stung the baboon right on its ugly backside. Instantly it let out a loud bark and leaped like a crazy from branch to branch. All the other baboons went berserk.

Those boys needed only one glance. They sprang from the water and we were rewarded with the sight of six skinny white arses, one fat one, and one black one sprinting down the slope. We couldn't see how far they got because we were all bent double. Only Ivan stayed watching, his face belonging to someone who was satisfying an overpowering hunger. I hadn't seen that face in a while, and I felt both pleased and anxious that I'd helped it happen.

“He's called Mr. van Hout.” I tried to distract him and lure him away from the edge.

His forehead blistered into a frown. “Who is?”

“Our new history teacher. That's his name.”

“So what? Jeez, Jacklin, which bit of ‘
Who gives a crap?
' don't you understand?”

We only had to wait
until the fourth lesson to get our first glimpse, but five minutes in and Mr. van Hout still hadn't shown. It was all Ivan needed to decide the guy was obviously as much of a complete gumbie as his name made him sound and he'd either got lost or forgotten his timetable. Of course, Klompie and I agreed.

I gazed out of the open window, to where the heat had brought ominous clouds.

Suddenly the door burst open.

Our illegal whispers evaporated in an instant and we stood dutifully to attention, eyes front, but no one was there. The door hung limply on its hinges. We stared at the hole it had made and after a long thirty seconds there was still nothing more than the walkway and the area of grass beyond it. We began to swap glances.

“All of you sit down.”

We startled and swung around. At the back of the classroom, outside, a pair of intense blue eyes beneath a thick blond fringe peered over the ledge of the window. Bronzed hands
crept over and in the next second he'd pulled himself up and in with one fluid, easy movement.

“Are you guys deaf or stupid?” he said, dusting himself down. He was wearing slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. No tie. “If the answer is yes to either, then my job just got a great deal harder. I said sit down, you're making me nervous.”

We did as we were told. The teacher marched to the front and shoved the door shut, kicked out his chair, and sat with both feet on the desk, one over the other. He pushed back and lit up a smoke.

“Howzit.”

No one said a word.

The teacher got up with a big smile and took another drag before flicking the cigarette out of the window. He snatched up a piece of chalk and wrote MR. VAN HOUT on the board, and HISTORY underneath it.

“Okay, guys.” He stabbed a full stop. “First things first: This is me, and this is what you're here to learn. Any questions?”

None.

“Good, because it's all perfectly simple. Right, harder question coming up. Someone please tell me what this means.”

He underlined HISTORY.

We'd never seen a teacher like him before. For a start, he was years younger than any of the other masters. And then there was . . . well,
everything
.

“
Ach
, man. Deaf, stupid, and mute? They've given me a class of bloody vegetables. Somebody . . . ?”

“It doesn't really mean anything.”

A classic Ivan response.

Sir blinked at him. “ ‘It doesn't really mean anything.' I admire your courage but you can't say something like that without backing it up.”

“It's in the past. You can't change it.”

Ivan put a grin on for the class while Mr. van Hout looked only vaguely amused.

“You honestly believe that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I feel sorry for you. Someone else, an example of history, please. You.”

Fairford rocked in his seat. “The Second World War, sir?”

“Good.” Mr. van Hout's eyes flashed. The blue was captivating, like staring into a fire. “Broad and a little clichéd, but at least we're off the mark, hey.”

“The First World War,” Rhys-Maitland called out.

“Vietnam War,” Osterberg followed right behind.

Mr. van Hout acted a yawn.

“If I had a dollar . . . Anyone give me something without ‘war' in the title?”

A sea of blank. Then: “The first launch of the space shuttle
Columbia
,” I heard myself say.

The class rippled and I blushed.

But Mr. van Hout clapped. “
Ex
cellent. Spot on.”

He turned and underscored HISTORY three more times while Ivan slapped me with a ruler and mouthed, “Bogfly.”

I slapped him straight back.

“Because history,” Mr. van Hout went on, “doesn't just mean wars, and boring kings and queens, and endless bloody dates. It means everything. Everything in the past is history: your breakfast, what you did in the holidays, last year's crap rugby score against Prince Edward . . . All history. The essential element, however, is being able to pick out what's worth remembering because of its importance in the present and impact on
tomorrow
. The launch of the shuttle was a crucial event because it was
important
in the context of Soviet–US relations, and it helped shape the cold war. History affects
the
future
. Remember that. I'll give you another example. My entrance this morning: Was that worth remembering?”

“No, sir.” Ivan again.

“You seem very certain of that. So it hasn't affected you?”

“Not at all, sir. I thought it was stupid.” He paused. “Did you fight in
our
war, sir?”

Mr. van Hout perched on the edge of his desk.

“Well, Hascott, I beg to differ—yes, I know who you are. They told me to watch out for you. For a start, you
will
remember it whether you want to or not because I guarantee no other Haven teacher has come through the window and fired up a gwaai to start a lesson. They certainly didn't when I was a pupil here. Secondly, you will deem it important enough to tell your buddies, for the same reason. And thirdly . . .”