Roots of Outrage. John Davis Gordon

had in common: their enthusiasm for girls. That year both of them had their first sexual experience. Justin had been through the Abakweta ceremony, living alone in a grass hut for six weeks, daubed in white clay and wearing a grass skirt and mask before emerging on the appointed day to be circumcised in cold blood with a spear: he was now a man, eligible to buy a wife when he could afford the cattle to pay lobola, the bridal price. Justin had lain with women. ‘Is it nice?’ Mahoney asked, agog. ‘Ooooh,’ Justin said.

      Luke had been circumcised as an infant but his customs forbade him to lie with a woman yet; Luke’s earliest memories seemed to be of having a persistent erection he was incapable of doing anything about, and he was desperately determined to do something about it in his final year at school. Oooh is what Luke felt climbing the stairs behind the girls in their short gym skirts – if you contrived to be at the bottom of the stairs as they were approaching the top you could see right up to their bloomers. Oooh is what he felt sitting in class waiting for the girls to reveal a bit more thigh (‘beef’ it was called). Oooh is what he felt when he was allowed to grope his girlfriend of the moment but never allowed to take his cock out for a bit of reciprocity. Ooooooh is what he felt as Miss Rousseau unfolded the dramas of history with her creamy smiles, her breasts thrusting against her sporty blouse as she stretched to jot her ‘lampposts’ on the blackboard, her skirt riding a little higher up her lovely legs – for Miss Rousseau was also the girls’ gym mistress and came to school in short athletic skirts.

      Luke wasn’t in love with Miss Rousseau as his sister teased – not yet – he was only madly in lust with her. All the boys were, and the girls idolised her: ‘She’s such fun!’ And she didn’t have a boyfriend! Oh, she had all the young men in town after her but there seemed to be none with brains enough to hold Miss Rousseau’s interest. ‘She says she’s very hard to please,’ Jill reported with the breathless smugness of one privy to royal confidences – ‘and she says we must all be when we grow up. None of these men are capable of having an interesting discussion, she says, she expects a real man to hold meaningful conversations, not just play sport, she says. She wants her mind wooed, she says …’

      Her mind wooed … Miss Rousseau was very sporty and played a dashing game of hockey (you could often see right up to her bloomers as she dashed) and she loved watching rugby. Luke wasn’t really a rugger-bugger but he played so hard that year to impress Miss Rousseau that he made it to the first team. And on Fridays after school when he and Justin fetched his parents’ horses for the weekend from the country stables he rode the long way round into town in order to pass the girls’ hostel (that veritable cornucopia of beef bums and tits) because Miss Rousseau sat on the verandah marking books in the afternoons – in the desperate hopes of impressing her with a meaningful conversation about horses. But no such luck; she gave him a cheery wave, that’s all. He read in bed late into the night (with a hard-on) surrounded by history books, trying to dredge up obscure points to discuss with the wonderful Miss Rousseau, to have meaningful conversations about with the divine Miss Rousseau. (It wasn’t easy concentrating on all that heavy-duty history with all those hard-ons.) But it didn’t work. When he did manage to put one of his obscure points to her there was no discussion because Miss Rousseau knew all the answers and all he ended up saying was, ‘I see, Miss Rousseau. Thank you, Miss Rousseau.’ And there was no privacy for a meaningful conversation because he could only catch her in the school corridors. And she wasn’t interested in fuckin’ horses. So how the hell could a real man get to discuss anything? And then, one night, he thought of those family journals his great great grandfather Ernest had started, and all the obscure points therein.

      But of course! What historian wouldn’t be interested in those rare journals? Their obscure detail was a goldmine for meaningful conversations. Burning the midnight oil, he feverishly dredged up a stockpile of obscure points before he made his move to grab the divine Miss Rousseau’s interest. And it worked.

      ‘What an interesting detail, Luke – I’ll have to look it up in Theal.’

      ‘I’ve checked Theal, Miss Rousseau, and he doesn’t say anything about it. Nor does Walker, Miss Rousseau.’

      ‘Where did you get your hands on Theal? He’s not in this town’s library.’

      ‘My father’s got the whole set of Theal histories, Miss Rousseau.’

      ‘I see. How lucky you are, even I don’t have the whole set. But where exactly did you get this detail, Luke – your great grandfather’s diary, you say?’

      ‘My great great grandfather’s journals, Miss Rousseau.’ (Stop saying Miss Rousseau every sentence!) ‘He was on the Great Trek and fought at Blood River. His son, and his grandson, fought in the Boer War, and they kept the journals going. My father kept them up, starting with World War I.’ He shrugged airily. ‘And, of course, I’ll keep them up, Miss Rousseau.’

      ‘Fascinating …’ Miss Rousseau said.

      He blurted: ‘You can look at them any time you like, Miss Rousseau,’(Oh you tit …)

      ‘Oh wow – will you ask your father’s permission?’

      It had worked! With or without his father’s permission she would see them!

      ‘Well, all right, seeing she’s a teacher,’ his father said, ‘but don’t encourage it, son, they’re very personal records.’

      ‘My father says he’s delighted you’re interested, Miss Rousseau,’ he said the next day when he delivered the first volume.

      And was Miss Rousseau interested? ‘Fascinated’s the word, Luke! I sat up in bed all night!’ (Ooh, Miss Rousseau sitting up in bed – while he sat up in his bed with a hard-on dredging up more obscure detail to woo her mind with meaningful conversation – ) ‘What priceless glimpses of living history you’ve given me!’ (He’d given her!) ‘These belong in the archives. You must keep them up yourself, Luke.’

      ‘I will, when I’ve done something to write about, Miss Rousseau.’ (Cut out the Miss Rousseau!)

      ‘Start now! You’ve seen the introduction of apartheid, which is the culmination of the Kaffir Wars and the Great Trek and the Boer War! Seen it through the eyes of a very intelligent young man of the times – your youthful evaluations will make fascinating historical material one day. I can’t wait to read the next volume.’

      A very intelligent young man of the times! Young man … ? And she couldn’t wait? He couldn’t wait. He hurried home from school, on air, locked himself in his bedroom and jerked off over the heavenly Miss Rousseau. The next day he delivered the next volume, reeking of aftershave and toothpaste. ‘This one’s written in an old cash ledger that Ernest Mahoney’s grandfather gave him for accounts, Miss Rousseau. It starts when Ernest accompanies Retief to visit Dingaan.’

      ‘Does Sarie wait faithfully for Ernest?’ Miss Rousseau demanded.

      ‘Not only that, she … They have to … well, they get married, Miss Rousseau.’

      ‘Oh, what fun,’ Miss Rousseau sparkled. (Fun?! That’s pure sex talk!) She put her heavenly hand on his arm impulsively. ‘Luke, I’ve been thinking – these journals, I really think your family should make a copy, in case they get destroyed in a fire or something. And I would love a copy for myself. Now, I’ve got a very good typewriter. Would you ask your father if he minds if I type them up? It’s quiet in the hostel while the girls are doing their prep, and in the holidays I’ll have the whole place to myself.’

      Luke said casually to his father, trying not to blush: ‘Miss Rousseau thinks those journals are so valuable we should have them typed up in case they’re ever lost, and she’s offered to do so but she hasn’t got a decent typewriter and that girls’ hostel is so noisy, she says, and I thought maybe she could come here and use Mother’s typewriter –’

      ‘Well,