Stargazer. Jan van Tonder

Day. That day everyone, from Pa right down to the teachers and Dominee Van den Berg, was bursting with pride because we were no longer a Union. All but the English people. They’d wanted us to remain a Union, under the queen’s flag. We had a big celebration at school and every child received a small flag. Dominee opened the proceedings with a prayer and our principal, Meneer Gertenbach, introduced a stranger in a dark suit and hat who delivered a speech. I wasn’t really listening to him – Elsie was next to me. I didn’t care whether we stood under the queen’s flag or the flag of the Republic. One of the other boys grabbed Elsie’s flag, so I gave her mine. We’d almost reached home before I managed to ask whether I could carry her schoolbag. When she handed it to me our fingers touched. After that our fingers touched every time I reached for her bag, and when I gave it back to her as well.

      But last year, in standard five, I suddenly became nervous. About something Martina said out of the blue one day: “I see Elsie’s growing up. She’s really pretty, hips and titties and all. You’ll have to watch out when you go to high school, Timus, she’s going to be a hit.”

      I was annoyed. But scared too.

      “I’m the one who carries her schoolbag, man.”

      Martina nodded as if she knew something I didn’t. I hated it when my sisters did that.

      “OK, so you carry her schoolbag, but do you hold her hand?”

      I was going to tell her about the fingers, but she went on.

      “And have you kissed her, Timus?”

      Martina had been right. This year, in high school, Voete Labuschagne was soon talking to Elsie during break. The minute I saw them together I knew. Voete’s voice had broken and he shaved and he’d been playing in the first rugby team since standard seven. Voete had failed standard ten. Some people said he’d done it on purpose so that he’d have another year of playing rugby for the school.

      Anyway, Elsie became Voete’s girlfriend. And there was nothing I could do about it. If I was Zane, I could have, but I’m not – I’m me.

      When Mara and I reached home, she took out her purse and gave me ten cents. “Go buy yourself an ice cream,” she said.

      I took the money, but I didn’t want ice cream any more.

      “Timus, my boy,” Ouma Makkie said, “if Zane is as strong as you say, why can’t he keep Joon away from Helen?”

      “And Oom Rocco away from his mom,” Martina added.

      Ma flicked her on the bum with a wet dishcloth.

      “Eina!”

      “Keep your nose out of grown-ups’ business, especially if it’s monkey business, and especially where Timus is present.”

      If I hadn’t had my ears wide open, I probably wouldn’t have known about Zane’s mom and Oom Rocco in the first place. And how wary people were of Joon. When he was around, they left their scheming for later. Once, when Zane’s mom and Oom Rocco had been on their way somewhere, Joon suddenly appeared, barring their way. Oom Rocco was rich. He drove a convertible. He called on Zane’s mom when his dad was working day shift. Sometimes they went for a drive and then Zane’s mom wore her prettiest headscarf so that the wind wouldn’t mess up her hair.

      But that day, with Joon suddenly standing in front of them, she hung her head and went back into the house and Oom Rocco was so angry that his tyres squealed as he pulled away.

      When Ma heard the story, she said she wished Joon could be everywhere. Then perhaps there’d be less monkey business in this place where she was trying to give her children a decent upbringing.

      “If Zane really wanted to,” I said, “he could knock out both Joon and Oom Rocco.”

      Ouma Makkie put a pinch of snuff into her nose. “Then why does he take out his frustration on those poor, innocent bats?”

      “Hmph! There’s nothing innocent about a bat,” Ma said.

      It was the fruit bats that Ma couldn’t stand, not the ordinary ones. When the fruit on our wild fig tree was ripe, you could see them hanging among the leaves during the day, larger and uglier than ordinary bats. At night they ate the figs and as they flew past they splattered our walls with their shit. In the morning Gladys had to hose down the walls and then she always said: “Zane is killing the wrong bats.”

      It was impossible to predict when it would happen, but one day at dusk someone would hear the whistling of the cable, and before long the entire railway camp knew: tonight Zane would be hunting bats.

      Usually you came home from school and Ma was doing the normal things around the house. You could hear dogs barking, and Riempies was curled up on Pa’s chair. You heard the noise of the shunting yard and the loco. You had your coffee and sandwiches, changed out of your school uniform and went outside to play.

      It would be an ordinary day until the cable began to swing. By the time there were three dead bats on the ground, Zane had a string of children trailing behind him.

      He would walk on top of the wall that kept the steep grounds of the houses on the hillside from washing away when it rained.

      Zane spoke to no one, but every time the cable connected with a bat, he’d mutter: “Bastard.”

      We helped him collect the dead bats and put them in a box. Every single one had to be picked up.

      Joon hated it when Zane swung the cable. He said bats did no harm. But Zane listened to no one. Not even to Joon Stargazer.

      The darker it got, the more difficult it became to retrieve all Zane’s bats. Some fell into shrubs, and we’d only find them the next day, on our way to school. Some were still alive, crawling around with broken wings, baring their teeth and squeaking when you reached for them. Once I was bitten and thought I might get rabies. I was lucky that I didn’t.

      We never knew when Zane would stop. It always happened suddenly. He’d lower his arm and the cable would fall to the ground. Then he’d go to the lamppost where King Crescent rounded the bend at the Gouwses’ house, near our own place, and he’d wait there for the box with the bats. The street lights were smashed regularly by boys with catapults. Then the Corporation had to come and fix them. But the one in front of the Gouwses’ house was never broken. I think the boys were afraid to break that one, because it was Zane’s bat light. When the box arrived, he’d empty it in the street and the bats would fall out – flop, flop, flop. Twenty, thirty of them. He’d step on those that were still alive. “Bastard, bastard, bastard!” Then he’d turn and walk away.

      Sometimes Joepie would pick up a dead bat and chase the girls down the street. He’d hold it so that the wings were spread out like Dominee Van den Berg’s robe when he held up his arms to bless the congregation.

      The next day not a single bat would be left; only a small pile of white bones. At first we thought it was the work of cats, but we knew a cat didn’t pick a bone clean, like ants do, and not even a whole colony of ants could have done that overnight.

      “Something happens to them during the night,” Joepie said. “A miracle or something.”

      He belonged to the Apostolic church. Ma said they were greater believers in miracles than we were.

      3

      Never before had I taken a pee that had lasted so long. I must have drunk a gallon of water. The stream glistened in the moonlight. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop, not even if all the girls at school formed a circle around me, no matter how ashamed I was, not even if my willie shrivelled right up between my fingers. Not that it would take a lot, in the first place, for it to vanish completely. And no matter how much it shrank, it would still be out in the open, for there wasn’t a single hair it could hide behind.

      It was Hennie’s fault that I’d drunk so much water. Hennie was a policeman who called on my sisters. Railway police, not SAP. Hennie was quick to declare that he wasn’t an ordinary “station flowerpot”; he was