 
# THE MAN WITH NO NEEDS

# By

# Vincent Gray

Copyright © 2019 Vincent Gray

First Edition

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. All the characters developed in this novel are fictional creations of the writer's imagination and are not modelled on any real persons. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

## Author Biography

As a son of a miner the author was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He grew up in the East Rand mining town of Boksburg during the 1960s and matriculated from Boksburg High School. After high school he was conscripted into the South African Defence Force (SADF) for compulsory national military service at the age of seventeen. On completion of his military service he studied courses in Zoology, Botany and Microbiology at the University of the Witwatersrand. After graduating with a BSc honours degree he worked for a short period for the Department of Agriculture in Potchefstroom as an agronomist. Following the initial conscription into military service in the SADF, like all other white South African males of his generation, he was then drafted into one of the many South African Citizen Military Regiments. During the 1970s he was called up as a citizen-soldier to do three-month military camps on the 'Border' which was the operational theatre of the so-called counter insurgency 'Bush War' during the Apartheid years. Before and in between university studies he also worked as a wage clerk on the South African Railways and as a travelling chemical sales representative. The author is now a retired professor whose career as an academic in the Biological Sciences has spanned a period of thirty-three years mainly at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Before retirement he lectured and carried out research in the field of molecular biology with a special interest in the molecular basis of evolution. He continues to pursue his interest in evolutionary biology. Other interests which the author pursues includes radical theology, philosophy and literature.

## eBooks by Vincent Gray also available on Smashwords as Free Downloads

The Girl from Reiger Park -The Barracuda Night Club Trilogy. Book No.1

Who was Oreithyia? -The Barracuda Night Club Trilogy. Book No.2

The Barracuda Night Club Mystery - The Barracuda Night Club Trilogy. Book No. 3

The Girl from Germiston

The Tale of the Sakabula Bird

Rebekah of Lake Sibaya

Segomotso and the Dressmaker

Devorah's Prayer

Hotazel: Journal Writing of a Lipstick Lesbian

Farewell to Innocence: The full uncensored saga of Hannah Zeeman

Send Him My Love (Short Story)

Three Days in Phoenix (Short Story)

The Soccer Player (Short Story)

Raghavee: The Immoral House Keeper (Short Story)

Waterlandsridge (Novella)

The Man with no Needs

## Dedicated to my wife Melodie and my daughter Ruth

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE - BACK FROM THE PAST

CHAPTER TWO - THE BIRTH OF A NOVEL

CHAPTER THREE - GABRIELLA

CHAPTER FOUR - RAIZEL

CHAPTER FIVE - JOE MAGEE

CHAPTER SIX - THE FAR EAST RAND CAULDRON

CHAPTER SEVEN - A SOCCER PLAYING DEBAUCHEE

CHAPTER EIGHT - BEING HOMELESS

CHAPTER NINE - MY EDUCATION

CHAPTER TEN - DIEPVLEI FARM

CHAPTER ELEVEN - OFF TO THE WILDWEST SHOW

CHAPTER TWELVE - VERTIGIOUS HEIGHTS OF JEALOUSLY

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - SUBTERFUGE AND SCAMS

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - DEATH LURKS IN THE MARSHLANDS

CHAPTER FIFTEEN \- DEATH OF A HANGMAN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - PARIS 1968

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - UK 1969

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - FOR THE RECORD

CHAPTER NINETEEN - THE PROTÉGÉE

CHAPTER TWENTY - SHE WROTE

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE - ROOTLESSNESS AS A STATE OF BEING

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO - FLASHBACKS AND REFLECTIONS

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE – REUNION

EPILOGUE

POSTSCRIPT

PREFACE

As an activist Jesuit linked to the Roman Catholic Church in Nigel, and being the parish priest of Our Lady of Sorrows, I have ministered to Professor Quinn Magee who has been a devout and generous member of our small parish of mainly proletarian black township dwellers. I have also enjoyed a lifelong friendship with Quinn, initially as a school friend, but also as his travelling partner backpacking through Europe, as a fellow student at the University of the Witwatersrand and then later in life as his parish priest, and now in our old age as his birdwatching companion. I believe that I have got to know Quinn fairly well. In fact he has been like a brother to me. While Quinn has always been an intensely private person to the point of secrecy, I think that I must be the only person in the world who he has ever spoken to about his personal life. On our hiking trips and regular birdwatching expeditions especially to the Marievale Bird Sanctuary and the surrounding wetlands of the East Rand he spoke freely about his life, often with passionate intensity and urgency, as if to get everything off his chest and to exorcise his demons. Quinn reminded me of a personality who could have stepped out of a Dostoevsky novel or even out of a novel written by Herman Melville or Albert Camus. We both love Dostoevsky, Melville and Camus. Anyway be that as it may, I have taken it upon myself to write Quinn's story which will be published when we have both passed on. After our deaths, including the deaths of Raizel and Gabriella, nothing will remain of us, except what we have written, and what we have written remains an extension of ourselves, and being an extension of ourselves, what we have written will form part of our dead bodies, and this book too will become the corpse of its author (or authors). And what will remain of us will continue to live on in the form of our spectral existence haunting the pages of this book.

CHAPTER ONE - BACK FROM THE PAST

1

In the Central News Agency in the main street of the decaying business centre of Nigel, a small town located on the furthest edge of the East Rand, Quinn Magee, professor emeritus, a lean man of medium height with a full head of short cropped greying hair, a masculine chin and angular lower jawline, covered in stubble, a handsome man by all accounts, still youthful looking, physically fit, and exceedingly sprightly for a sixty eight year old man, immediately recognized the portrait of the woman on the cover of Time Magazine. As serendipity would have it the glossy picture of the attractive and sophisticated woman now in her early sixties was none other than Raizel Kolitz. Her smiling face, her penetrating eyes which seemed to fix their gaze on the viewer, virtually leapt into the present from the past out of the magazine cover seizing Quinn's attention, literally ambushing him, catching him completely unawares. We all have an intuition of what it must be like for someone to return without warning from the shadows of the past. Her sudden appearance was not in the form of a warm vital flesh and blood bodily materialization, yet nevertheless it was no less real, for Quinn it was very real and in a sense also uncanny. Why? At that very instance, in the CNA, she was both present and absent, present and absent in the form of an ineluctable premonition, in the nature of an augury to be sure. Again why? Because sometimes it feels that we can divine the future. We are able to prophecy. In the case of Raizel Kolitz, she had fulfilled all prophetic expectations which Quinn could have possibly entertained with respect to her destiny. As strange as it may seem, while I knew about her I never had the opportunity to meet Raizel when she and Quinn were together. The period that they were together overlaps with a hiatus in my own life.

2

As it so often happens for many of us, especially in the autumn of life, with the falling of dusk, with the gathering gloom, one's thoughts start returning to the past with increasing frequency. And finally when we reach the very twilight of our existence, for whatever reason, we often find ourselves taking stock of our lives, trying to make sense of our past. As we unpack the memories, we find ourselves thinking about those who had once touched our lives, we ruminant over those events which played a significant role in shaping the way our lives turned out. We also often find ourselves over-analysing, even obsessively, those events which changed the course of our lives. There is often a sense of poignancy, a sense of loss, when we find ourselves reminiscing over certain individuals who had once featured quite significantly and meaningfully in one's distant youth. And as it so often happens, it is precisely when we become reflectively preoccupied with that certain special individual who had once featured in our past, that that very person suddenly breaks into one's life once more, maybe in the form of news from a friend or a telephone call or an email or even a friend request on Facebook. We now live in an age where technology can bring about the convergence or re-intersection of our life-trajectories even after they have become separated in time and space, diverging further and further away, drifting by forces of circumstances into their own detached orbits. Digital technology provides the means and the occasion for reunion. Reunions can become opportunities for rediscovery, renewal, rekindling, and revitalization of forgotten friendships, for the reawakening and possible restoration of love unwillingly foregone, for remembrance, for reminiscence, for letting go of regrets. They may even help us gain a new perspective on who we have become with the passage of time, possibly even helping us to re-conceptualize or re-configure the significance of our own lives, especially when mirrored in the eyes of a friend returning to us from the past, a friend who is able to remember who we once were, a friend who is able to merge the images of our past with the present, recognizing who and what we have become, a friend who can see the composite picture, fully integrated, a seamless synthesis of past and present, which we by ourselves are unable to even imagine. So a reunion of old friends brings together the past, present, and future.

3

Building and expanding on the ideas in Jorge Luis Borges' short story 'The Garden of Forking Paths', we can envisage the advancing present like a journey into a panoramic vista in which the horizon constantly opens up before us a realm of infinite prospects, forcing us to make choices between alternative possibilities. All the likelihoods which the future may hold lies before us like a shimmering spectrum, like constantly shifting kaleidoscopic mirages, discernible and yet indiscernible, unrealized but imaginable, thinkable and yet unthinkable, conceivable and yet inconceivable, prospects, potentialities, possibilities, laying there before us, as so many forks in the road ahead, as so many decisions, as so many choices, every fork representing a lost opportunity or an unexpected windfall. In the end we become our decisions, we become our choices. We have all had our fair share of lost opportunities, having taken the wrong fork in the road, and in this sense we have all suffered multiple deaths by not becoming something who we could have been. All these spectral strangers, who exist as different versions of ourselves, individuals who we could have become, now return to haunt our lives as the unrealized possibilities of our existence. I am not a believer in destiny. Destiny does not exist. How could destiny ever exist if lived life consists of an infinity of bifurcating paths, as an infinity of forks in the road ahead, representing a multiplicity of different futures. This means that nothing is certain, nothing is predestined, nothing is settled, the future always remains open to all kinds of possibilities, even in the face of shrinking horizons. In a nutshell this is the essence of the story I wish to narrate. Without the co-existence of multiple possibilities, there could be no such thing as providence, and also no such thing as freedom. Providence is the servant of freedom. Freedom is the condition of possibility for the thing called providence. Yet in a way we all hold the seed of what the future could become in our hands. We plant the seed of our future. Providence lies within our grasp. This is the gift of freedom which has been placed in our hands, freedom to mould, freedom to shape and to give form to our lives. Freedom to believe, freedom for faith. OK, I sound like a priest giving a brief homily.

4

With the emergence of the internet, driven by curiosity, Quinn eventually gave in to his need to investigate what had transpired in the life of Raizel Kolitz. Long before her meteoric rise to global eminence, he had spent many hours late into the night surfing the internet in search of any snippets of information or news which would provide some snapshots of Raizel's life. Initially there was no information or news regarding her public or personal life. Until the late-1990s nothing about her had found its way into the digital universe of the internet's public domain. Then suddenly she began to appear on the radar, her signal started growing stronger and stronger, registering a very definite signature or profile of an influential personality whose voice had struck a chord with millions, a voice expressing critical views that were germane to the times, a voice articulating a prophetic message of anarcho-communism which resonated powerfully with the millennials. It was an unexpected surprise that the voice of this sixty-something Australian woman spoke in a trans-national and trans-ethnic fashion to the hearts and minds of the global youth, who had become disillusioned with capitalism, nationalism and religion, just when identity politics had become all the rage. The number of 'Raizel Kolitz' hits began to steadily increase with every new Google search. With the turn of the millennium her prominence as an activist, academic, scholar, public intellectual, artist, film maker and writer began to grow exponentially. In Google scholar her citations soared. As a high profile personality, she began to feature regularly in the spotlight of controversy on Al Jazeera and also on the Russian 24/7 English-language news channel RT, making international headline news as an anarcho-communist activist fighting for any cause which furthered the interests of the marginalized masses of the global south. While having impeccable Leftist credentials her criticisms of Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Angola, and South Africa, not to mention her criticism of Vladimir Lenin or the Bolsheviks or Fidel Castro or twentieth century communism did not make her very popular with a significant majority of the so-called Left or cultural Marxists who belonged to an older generation when compared to the more open minds of the youthful millennials. She did not spare Israel or the Palestinians. With regard to her personal life he learned that she had never married, but she had a daughter who had become a prominent individual in her own right, ironically in the role of a pro-Israel Zionist activist.

5

It was her dystopian movie 'The Dreaming' which catapulted Raizel into international prominence. The movie was based on her book by the same title written shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, a book which challenged the core assumptions of Fukuyama's best seller 'The End of History'. She had become the new voice for anarchism and socialism in a world desperate to escape the quagmire of a collapsing global civilization. In her scholarly opinion the significance of Marx's entire oeuvre lay in the radical meaning of the words 'autonomy' and 'freedom'. The essence of communism lay in the 'concrete materialization' of those two words. In all the interviews Raizel reiterated that what she was advocating was nothing new, she was merely expanding and elaborating on what has already been advocated by Simone Weil. All political parties should be abolished. The realization of autonomy and freedom was impossible without the prior abolition of all political parties. Political parties perpetuate the existence of oligarchies, social hierarchies and inequality through the destruction of individual sovereignty, autonomy and freedom. Political parties can only function as hierarchical organizations. It was coded into their DNA. It was what constituted their essential nature, possibly even metaphysically, which means epistemically and ontologically, such was the 'being' and 'essence' of all political parties, they could only exist by virtue of being hierarchical. In practice, political parties as hierarchically structured organizations, internal competition and struggle for power between individual party members for top positions within the organization is a fact of party life, it is a defining principle, an integral and constitutive dynamic within any political party. Like an unbreakable Law of Nature, political power inexorably becomes concentrated in the hands of a single person or a cabal or a party elite. As power-seeking organizations or movements, all political parties are inherently or essentially totalitarian and criminal in nature and in practice. As such the political party is the incubator of totalitarianism. The organization of the polis, the body of citizens, or the social formation in general, can be characterized on a binary basis as follows: hierarchical versus non-hierarchical, oligarchical versus non-oligarchical, totalitarian versus non-totalitarian, non-egalitarian versus egalitarian, non-autonomy versus autonomy, non-self-rule versus self-rule, non-self-governance versus self-governance, the rulers versus the ruled, the governors versus the governed, the ruling class versus the non-ruling class, differentiation of power versus non-differentiation of power, and so on. Any social formation or polis which is hierarchically organized is essentially by nature an oligarchy. All oligarchies are ruled by a powerful political elites and by virtue of that fact alone, all oligarchies are organized in terms of their structure and functioning as hierarchies of psychological, social, economic and political domination. In this sense all oligarchies are essentially totalitarian in nature, differing only in degree and kind along a continuum of increasing tyranny and decreasing autonomy for the individual citizen.

6

In summary, paraphrasing Simone Weil, the ultimate goal of any political party is the expansion of its own growth, power and influence without limit in terms of electoral support. Electoral support equals power, not for the electorate but for the party elite. The electorate remains essentially powerless, without autonomy, agency, sovereignty or freedom. This means that all political parties are driven by totalitarian aspirations, if not obsessions, making political parties by nature essentially socio-pathological or predatory or criminally predisposed organizations. In this sense political parties are by their very nature vehicles for totalitarianism. It is a supreme irony, and a political paradox that totalitarianism is able to flourish with such impunity in a representative multi-party electoral based parliamentary democracy. On the basis of her critique of political parties which revolved round the nature of their intrinsic and essential role and function in the perpetuation of oligarchies, Raizel was also advocating a complete rethinking of revolutionary praxis within the theoretical framework of Marx's critique of political economy. Her understanding of the nature and goal of revolutionary theory and praxis which was the destruction of the oligarchy in all of its diverse manifestations and materializations, were informed by ideas and principles regarding the actual nature of the revolutionary process, and of nature of revolutionary actions, which would be necessary for the materialization or concretization of individual autonomy and freedom. What is meant by the word 'praxis' you may ask? In short praxis means action and action means materialization or concretization of something, where something also includes theory. In short revolutionary praxis brings about the destruction of the oligarchy in all of its manifestations in space and time through the materialization of individual autonomy and freedom. The universal and lingering problem of social revolution is that revolution more often than not ends up reproducing the very hierarchies of social domination that it was supposed to have abolished. This was something which Marx was unable to foresee or imagine. To circumvent this possibility revolutionary praxis requires the construction of a particular institutional form of a collective subject which is centred on making all the elements that are commonly important for the flourishing of human life non-appropriable or transformable into private property or political power or weaponized into political power in the hands of a post-revolutionary oligarchical elite operating under the aegis of vanguardism or democratic centralism. The elements that are commonly important can be conceptualized in the idea of the commons or something like the 'principle of common'. What is commonly important is everything that is necessary for the flourishing of human life. And what is commonly important embraces a multiple and diverse range of elements such as: technologies, resources, work, education, healthcare, shelter, food, transport, recreation and so on. Having access to the benefits of these elements is critical for the materialization of autonomy and freedom. The violent revolutionary conquest of the state does not by itself translate into having access to all of the elements which are necessarily for the flourishing of human life. Not having free access to these elements is equivalent to the absence of autonomy and freedom, it is also equivalent to oppression, and signals the failure of the revolution. A critical dimension to understanding the radicalness of autonomy is power, the power to control not only means of production, but the means for the flourishing of human life. So far all revolutions have dismally failed to achieve this anarchist ideal. Hence revolution as a human flourishing enterprise can only be realized under the flag of anarchism.

7

I have here distilled or crystallized the essence of Raizel's anarcho-communism programme. As a Jesuit priest, I cannot fault her ideas, in fact I endorse them, I embrace them. Why? Because they embrace and capture the unadulterated essence of 'Catholicity' and the sacral or sacramental understanding of the Catholic idea of reality and the totally of the human vocation. I can vouch for Quinn, this is also what he believes in as a Catholic. Of course, I realize the paradox, the contradictions, of Roman Catholicism. Catholicism as such has become the paradigm of hierarchical organization. The clergy as an elite presides over the faithful. This is the burden of pain I bear and endure as a Catholic priest especially in the role of the presiding celebrant of the Mass. In reality I am called forth from the community to lead the Eucharist prayers as the representative of Jesus before the assembled congregation, I am supposed to be the guide into the mysteries of God as revealed in the person of Jesus, the messiah, the lamb of God, the God who died on a Roman Cross. God died, this is the mystery of Christianity. Like Quinn I was born into Catholicism. But I was not born a Christian. It is impossible to be born a Christian or to be a Christian by birth. I consciously became a Christian, a convert to Christianity in my confirmation. I am a convert in the most radical sense. But I am not in the converting business. I am a priest to Catholics. If someone comes to me in my capacity as a Catholic priest wishing to become a Christian, a believer in Jesus and the good news of the Gospels, I will explain that his or hers conversion is entirely a matter between them and God and not with me. My instruction: go read the New Testament and then decide what it means to be a Christian. Then I will Baptist you if you pass my interrogation. You have to prove to me that your reasons for wanting to be a Christian are valid. Redemption and salvation and following Jesus is something exceeding complex. It involves a lot more than simply answering an altar call in a Pentecostal or Evangelical outreach campaign and reciting something called the 'sinners prayer'. The Eucharist or Mass is the centre of Christian life, without participating in the celebration of the Eucharist or the Mass you cannot be a Christian.

8

The idea of civilization and its north-south differentiation: The global south, otherwise known as the Southern Hemisphere, represents the antipode or opposite of what is believed to be the 'civilized world' or even the antipode of the order of things, that is, contrary to the way that things should be. In contrast to the global north, the global south exists as another kind of 'order', in the form of an inversion or perversion or transgression of the global north. In the Western mind, when the epic Homeric voyages into the unmapped expanses of Terra Australis first began, the upside down face of the world was where the primeval with all its savagery, perversity, depravity and barbarity was perceived to have reigned in all of its pristine and sublime malevolent strangeness unchanged since the dawn of the world. To head southwards was equivalent to taking a voyage from the present or the future into the past. To the Western mind within the confines of these ahistorical zones an eternal presence reigned in those 'empty' (empty of what) continental and oceanic spaces which stretched from horizon to horizon, a heavy silence dwelt in this unchanging vastness of space, time itself seemed to have stopped, trapped in a time warp, the unchanging and the unbecoming was mirrored in the universe of this Palaeolithic primordiality, in the anthropological and zoological gaze a spectacle of humanity in a state of nature emerged out of the mists of the past. To those early intrepid European explorers who had embarked on those southwards oceanic voyages, including Darwin's Beagle voyage, nothing seemed to have changed for tens of thousands of years on those far flung remote shores. Each day the same sun rose in the east and set again in the west, and yet from day to day, no day was any different from the next. The chances are that had it not been for the southwards voyages in the Beagle, Darwin's books such as the 'Voyage of the Beagle' published in 1839, 'On the Origin of the Species' published in 1859 and then his controversial work 'The Descent of Man' published in 1871 would never have been written. It was with the return of a duly enlightened European mind, enlightened by virtue of these southward voyages and southern sojourns that theory of evolution broke onto the shores of Western Civilization, and the reducibility of history to nature became thinkable for the first time, it was discovered that man was an animal.

9

While the 'historical' events leading to humankind's evolutionary descent unfolded in the southern clines of the great African continent the emergence of post-Neolithic civilizations and modernity followed in the wake of the humankind's northward migration. North as History and South as Nature still represent the antipodes of the world, and northward migration persists in spite of or rather because of the ambiguous juxtapositioning of opposite polarities or binaries in the form of centripetal versus centrifugal forces which drive the south- to-north migration of populations, other factors that play a role in determining the moral compass of migration include the polarities of hospitality versus inhospitality or assimilatory versus dissimilatory conditions or opportunity versus the dearth of opportunity or hope versus hopelessness, the vector of human migration steadfastly pointing northwards confirming that the West is still the best if one counts the numbers who vote with their feet regarding the selection of the most hospitable and hopeful destination, so pinning their hopes on the West they have sealed their fate and destiny, no matter what, Western civilization still rocks ironically and paradoxically. Yes, ironically, paradoxically, ambiguously, enigmatically and mysteriously it somehow (why?) remains the crowning glory of humankind's highest achievement, highest good, desire, quest, and the eternal beacon of hope. Or so it seems. Young man, young woman, your quest for whatever it is you are questing, for whatever it is that your truly desire, lies northwards, your journey or voyage or destiny, metaphorically or metaphysically, seems to lie in that fabled or mythological land, which always lies northwards, due north on the compass bearing, no deviation, across the Mediterranean, there it exists, there it lies, like a mirage, like a dream, reachable in desperate overcrowded unseaworthy leaky vessels. There on its shores all your human needs, longings, desires, and yearnings will be satisfied.

10

What kind of person was Quinn Magee? I think it is important for the reader to know. He was companionable, friendly, or in other words very likable. He was interesting. He had a way with words, he was incredibly articulate, especially when he talked 'about' something from a scientific or technical perspective. Whenever he talked about some topic which fell within the ambit of science he could easily enthral and enchant, or even mesmerize, any listener remotely interested in physics, quantum mechanics, string theory or cosmology. I intentionally emphasized the word 'about' because he seem to know an inordinate amount 'about' all kinds of stuff or any kind of stuff which happened to part and parcel of the physical Universe. Listening to him, you could not help wondering how on earth he could possibly ever have got to know so much. He was erudite and eloquent. His brain literally boiled with ideas, ideas about almost anything and everything. It goes without saying that he was a prolific reader. A deep thinker. A person given to reflection. And as you may have guessed he was consumed by an insatiable curiosity. Both girls and women liked him, were drawn to him, in fact he was the kind of person you could easily fall in love with, whether you were male or female. He was definitely not garrulous, or given to verbal diarrhoea. Even though he was never at a loss for words, the words which he never used were personal pronouns. This redeeming feature of his personality needs to be emphasized. The pronouns I, me and myself were mostly absent, enigmatically absent, curiously absent, from his speech wherever he spoke. Whatever he spoken about, it was hardly ever about himself. For example, if you happened to sit next to him on a long haul flight, at the end of the flight after conversing with him for many hours, you may certainly have learnt about a lot of interesting stuff, but nothing about him personally. He cloaked himself in the aura of the mysterious stranger. This was his gift or acting talent. He was the proverbial ship passing in the night. The point is, he never spoke about himself, he never allowed himself to become the topic of conversation, he always steered the conversation away from the personal, the biographical, the intimate, always focusing on something which was interesting for its own shake. After a while you couldn't help becoming conscious of this. It was actually something quite remarkable, something very difficult for anyone to sustain when engaged in any kind of conversation, it is something that requires incredible skill, power, focus, wit, self-control and discipline, yet something which he was the master of, something which necessarily required a mysterious conversational sleight of hand, accomplished with great finesse and aplomb. You could not pierce the mask as it were. He could readily engage in a conversation about some or other topic without ever revealing anything about himself, as I have said, this was his talent. His talent was to smile like he knew something which you could never guess or fathom, he would have this smile while looking at you, and subtly imprinted on that characteristic smile there would be that ever present but barely perceptible, possibly enigmatic, oblique invitation at play in his eyes, on his lips, in his whole demeanour, which seemed be expressing something like: 'Can you guess the answer, can you solve the riddle, can you see, do you understand'. The way he looked at you made you feel as if you were being quizzed, almost subliminally, and you would feel compelled to say something about anything, but mostly about yourself, because most people find it easier to speak about themselves than anything else. You would feel this need to say something about anything, no matter how superfluous. And you would start speaking and he would listen attentively, never interrupting. This was the gift which made him so engaging and interesting to the point of enchantment. Girls and women loved this about him. But there was a dark side as well. He could withdraw, dissociate, becoming detached and even remote, and it would seem that something was troubling him, and this could be quite unsettling. Above all else, he was human, this means that there were inconsistencies and contradictions in his views and behaviour. Like all of us there were cracks and blemishes and shortcomings in his otherwise enchanting personality. I have learnt to read him, like a wife who is able to read her husband, to see into his mind.

11

So having said all of this about Quinn, you can appreciate that his sudden obsession with Raizel was completely out of character, and very revelatory. It goes without saying that with his growing obsession over Raizel, Quinn read and re-read not only all of her novels, but also every paper that she had ever published. Assuming that her mind was mirrored in her writings he thought he could discover through the act of reflective reading what kind of living personality she had developed into compared to who she had been. Was she still the same person he once knew or had she become a complete stranger? His bid to link the authorial mind with a real person through the act of mindful reading failed to give him that tangible lively or vital access to the living and breathing person hidden behind the wall of written words. Her emergence on the global stage as an eminently influential figure exceeded all his expectations. He was conscious that it was possible that there existed a complete mismatch between the young woman he had once known so intimately and the public figure which she had become. All this time the person he had imagined her to be could be nothing more than a phantom of his own imagination and not a real person. The phantom of his imagination was the seventeen year old girl with whom he had had a love affair a very long time ago. Long before her rise to fame. Fear of rejection had prevented him from attempting to re-establish any kind of communication with Raizel. How do I know this? It was an accurate guess on my part. As I have said, I have learnt to read his mind, like a wife eventually learns to read the mind of her husband. I will elaborate later on the reasons why their relationship eventually withered away. After his retirement a few years ago he began to experience an untimely yearning for Raizel. But not only for Raizel, but also for Gabriella. Gabriella will feature in my story, and in time I will speak more about Gabriella. But now for the time being let's focus on Raizel. He began to toy with the idea of rekindling the emotional bond of friendship which they had once shared in their youth in that all too brief window of time. Yet he also felt that he had no right now to intrude into her life. So to preserve the pristine sweetness of the memory of their mad romance he refrained from contacting her. She were not on Facebook. But he had found her mobile number, email and postal address. And in a manner of speaking through the medium of the cover of Time Magazine she had now inadvertently, unknowingly broken into his life. Theoretically speaking I don't think she could ever have entertained the impact that her cover picture would have on Quinn. I don't think it would even have crossed her mind that Quinn living out the autumn of his life in some small-time mining town, a town in the process of undergoing a slow death at the edge of an exhausted goldfield, would be experiencing a storm of emotions at the sight of her face and name.

12

This is what he recounted to me a day later while we sat in a hide at the Rondebult Bird Sanctuary: Deep down he admitted that he was not really surprised when seemingly out of the blue her photograph appeared on the front cover of Time as one of the hundred most influential persons in the world. Her name, Raizel Kolitz, boldly emblazed below her portrait caused his heart to skip a beat making him feel the kind of emotions only a love-struck teenager would experience at the sight of his heart's desire. Which on reflection, at his age, it was quite an awkward state to find oneself in, especially given the reality-check that they had lived separate lives, independently of each other for most of their lives. They had separate histories. And in all likelihood the vicissitudes of time would have transformed her into a total stranger, into someone else, someone who could have become completely indifferent to his existence or their shared past. But there was some irony in Quinn's appraisal of Raizel's prominence. What surprised him most was that she had been featured as an Australian. This was what seemed to have made her celebrity status so miraculously unique. Her portrayal by the journalist as an Australian bestselling novelist, avant-garde painter, human rights activist, prominent feminist, an ironical and paradoxical fashionista, film maker and a public intellectual of note was incongruous to Quinn. Picking up the magazine he gazed at her picture, she seemed to exude an overpowering magical-mystical-mysterious allure. These were her words which she had used to describe him in a letter she wrote to him after their holiday romance. He bought the Time Magazine, the Mail and Guardian and the Star. While the article in Time made no mention of the fact of her South African origins, both newspapers, that is the Mail and Guardian and Star reported on her South African origins, mentioning that as the daughter of prominent farming family she grown up in South African. Among all the other details of her personal life included the facts that she had never married. The Mail and Guardian run an interesting story which featured her daughter in a separate article. Her daughter self-identified ethnically as both aboriginal and Jewish, going by the name of Anmanari Kolitz Guiemagerra. Raizel had always played down her Jewishness. It did not seem to be of any importance to her. As you would have guessed Quinn has been a practicing Catholic all his life.

13

In contrast to Raizel's meteoric rise to international fame as an anarcho-communist, Quinn intentionally sought the shadows of obscurity. He gave the impression to his family, friends and colleagues that he was in fact jealous of his anonymity. In contrast to Raizel's personal and public life which seemed to been have unaffected by the sufferings and traumas of failed relationships, Quinn's adult life left a trail of wreckage in its wake. The rocky passage of his personal-private life included three failed marriages which left him financially broke. Jealousy played a big role in the breakdown of his marriages. Each wife in turn accused him of being unfaithful, of committing adultery with a string of young and delectable female PhD candidates under his supervision. Maybe there was some truth to the Socratean pedagogical insight that the growth of knowledge in the academy can only be achieved through a genuine and authentic 'erotic union' between teacher and student, between mentor and protégée, between professor and PhD candidate. Is this not an exemplary example of the nature of true love or the proper goal or purpose of erotic desire? Can anything be known non-sensuously or non-erotically about the material Universe where the intimacy of empirical accessibility is the foundation of scientific knowledge? By extension can we truly know someone in a non-erotic fashion? In the case of Quinn's troubled marital relationships it would seem that Quinn's collaborative search for knowledge in theoretical physics was filled with all kinds of delightful ambiguities, which could be have been misconstrued by possessive and jealous wives. The wives, each one in turn, confused Quinn's pedagogical role as a midwife of knowledge with being the begetter of knowledge. The difference is between the assisted birthing of new knowledge as opposed to the begetting of knowledge through the process of conception, and conception would be impossible without penetration. As a celibate priest I fully acknowledge the erotic dimension and erotic quality of the Christian faith and Christian theology. Faith, knowledge and Eros are inseparably intertwined. Staying with Eros and the erotic, it is undeniable that Quinn unknowingly or unconsciously exuded or exerted an erotic attraction, it was not only physical but also something about his manner and personality. His father was aware of this and observed the impact that Quinn had on both sexes, including myself, but I will say more about this later.

14

Following his retirement after a successful career as a theoretical physicist at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) he managed somehow to get by on a miniscule pension, living alone in a small house in Nigel the town of his birth. As a retired professor he continued to do theoretical research, publishing several papers a year, but seldom using the office given to him in the School of Physics at Wits. In all likelihood, he will eventually die where he was born, in a blighted landscape made toxic with the soft diffuse glow of radiation. So he has not managed to escape his origins in more ways than he would care to enumerate. Penury being the driving force behind a life which has gone full circle. He seems to have reconciled himself to the prospect that his life will eventually end where it first began, a downward spiral. The landscape of his early childhood has changed, the mine dumps which were so much part of his childhood vista are now all but gone. Their latent hoard of radiative treasure extending the afterlife of the goldmines which have been long dead by the uranium extraction process plants which have popped up like mushrooms in the shadows of rusting headgears. All that now remains in the once thriving Far East Rand are the radioactive wetlands, decaying towns, and sprawling informal settlements otherwise known as squatter camps.

15

After procrastinating for several weeks he finally sent Raizel a congratulatory email. He assumed that Raizel would have a secretary or public relations officer who would manage and administer all her email communications and correspondence. He sent the email using his Wits email address rather than his Gmail address. Weeks passed into months but he received no reply from Raizel. I will come back to this later, but first let me present some background biographical details regarding Quinn's and Raizel's life, how they first met, how they drifted apart, the events which shaped their respective lives up until the moment of the appearance of her picture on the front cover of Time, and what eventually transpired following the email he sent to her.

16

On the brighter side of things, Quinn became the father of five grownup children born from three different women. I am happy to report that he managed to put all five through university. They have become the generation of Magees who have managed to break the spell of the sins of the fathers. He has now also become the grandfather of a tribe of well-adjusted grandchildren all of whom I have baptised. Like Raizel he too has had a highly successful career, in spite of everything including the unmentionable troubling darkness which had haunted his youth. In their separate ways, there was a kind of symmetrical or comparative-contrasting symmetry to their lives, both Quinn and Raizel had journeyed through their own separate dark valleys of a troubled and traumatic youth and an equally traumatic, tragic and troubled adulthood, both eventually finding redemption in later life. Now he happily lives the reflective life of a retired academic, a professor emeritus, passing the days tinkling with the mathematic edifice of string theory. Having shared his modest estate, including his pension, with three different women, what little he has left over has proven to be more than sufficient to sustain him in a minimalist kind of existence for the duration of his old age. In fact he practically lives the life of a monk. He reduced his consumption to the level where he is able to live the life of a man who has neither needs nor wants or hopes or fears, a man neither fearful of life or death. And now for the first time in his life he knows what it feels like to be the happiest man who has ever existed, to paraphrase a line from Henry Miller. He has no worries or stress, in fact his situation has become so perfect that it is impossible for him to have a single worry about anything. He now basks in the golden glow of happiness. He passes each day following a strict routine of reading, thinking and writing. As have already eluded, both he and I have read all the novels which Raizel has written. After her rise to fame he also made a point of seeing all movies which she had made. He studied and reflected on all her paintings and he downloaded the pdfs of all her journal articles. His obsession with Raizel worried me.

17

Quinn sometimes complained that his powers as a theoretical physicist were no longer what they used to be, but he continued to do productive work on various problems. He has spent the greater part of his life living inside his mind, absorbed and engrossed with abstract problems in theoretical physics, theorizing, writing and publishing papers on string theory, searching for that final theory of everything. It has been a lifelong intellectual exercise which in a manner of speaking should have left him defeated. In fact he was far from defeated. He has realized that physics cannot answer the ultimate questions regarding the nature of reality or the meaning of existence. After retirement and especially after learning about Raizel's rise to international fame, Quinn seemed to have acquired a new lease on life. Inspired by Raizel's achievement he began to re-discover so many new things, forgotten things which having been resuscitated become a source of immeasurable pleasure. Also armed with such a deep knowledge of physics he was able recoup the purity and innocence of a state of being which had become lost. He confessed that he was able re-experience things like the flittering flight of a bat at twilight with that same sense of excitement and magic we usually associate with childhood wonder. And the capacity to feel wonder and enchantment regarding the existence, nature and significance of the Cosmos helped him to regain his sanity and sense of well-being, which had all the hallmarks of absolution, redemption and salvation. I must quickly add that Quinn never betrayed any sign of insanity even though he kept describing himself as being completely insane or half-mad. Maybe Quinn's self-diagnosis of insanity may have some warrant. Living a self-imposed solitary life as a retired professor he has found solace by switching his attention from the steadily shrinking horizon of his own finite existence to the expanding horizon of infinite possibility. In his own words: 'an awareness of the infinite expanding horizon of possibility can be inspired by the simplest of things, such as the familiar smooth effortless gliding motion of a marsh harrier over the vast marshlands at the edge of my dilapidated home'.

CHAPTER TWO – THE BIRTH OF A NOVEL

1

When Quinn first read about Raizel's international celebrity status as a thinker and cultural trail blazer, all the sweet feelings which he had once felt for her, feelings that had been buried for so long in the depths of his soul were re-awakened. Their reawakening triggered an aching poignancy in his heart. Quinn confessed to me that apart from Gabriella she was the one other person, the one other woman, whom he had never really stopped loving. He said to me: 'Raizel has been the one person who I have thought of obsessively throughout my life'. I don't think he was exaggerating. Of course he knew that with the passing of so many years, a lifetime in fact, it was perfectly natural to presume that with the passing of so many years, the inexorable flux of time and becoming would have in all likelihood created an unbridgeable chasm between them, possibly making them strangers, remote and estranged from each other. If we are indeed in a constant state of becoming then we will not remain the same identical person that we were once. He admitted that they had become strangers to each other, having long ago broken off all contact, and having lived separate and independent lives on different continents. He often reflected after receiving no reply to his email: 'Nothing can be rekindled between us. Yet just maybe there still does exists some vague shadowy recollection at the dim margins of her memory of what we once shared as a couple for that brief period of time'. But then Quinn would say: 'I do not seek a reconnection of my life with hers. I think that both of us don't want this'. I learnt from Quinn that Raizel had been a prolific letter writer. He also mused that he should have guessed from the exuberant literary quality of her letters that she was destined to become an artist and thinker of unquestionable statue.

2

He confided: 'Unfortunately, but inevitability, as the years passed the letters we exchanged became increasingly intermittent, spaced by longer and longer intervals of silence which widened until we eventually stopped writing altogether, and I never made that journey to Australia to join her. The revolution of the internet with email, Facebook, LinkIn and so on came too late'. After learning of her fame Quinn retrieved her letters and re-read each one, trying to re-integrate the contents of the letters and the memories of their love affair with the person that she had eventually become. He also confided: 'I cannot not help myself. I wanted to re-experience something, something which has become irrevocably lost in the past. I admit that I have always lived with the expectation that she would eventually become a larger than life personality'.

3

Quinn spoke about his lost opportunities in life and love. The truth was that he could have enjoyed a life with Raizel as his partner. He even admitted: 'We were made for each other, but I allowed circumstance to hold me back. I messed up and I have had to live a life burdened with this regret. I think this played a big role in my failed marriages'. Raizel could never understand why Quinn was so reticent to talk about himself. She often said: 'I don't really know you. At first this mysterious enigmatic side to your nature drew me to you, but now I wish you would stop being so evasive about yourself and allow yourself to be more open and more vulnerable'. In response to her pleas Quinn promised to disclose everything about himself, everything which had shaped him into the person that he had become. He made a commitment to write her an autobiographical account of his life, similar to the one she that had written about herself to him after she had settled down in Australia. He did actually write that autobiography but he never posted it, and consequently it would never be read by Raizel or by anyone else for that matter. He retrieved the document from the box in which he had stashed Raizel's letters. It was in a sealed brown A4 envelope. The document was a typed manuscript of more than 150 A4 sized pages. He gave it to me saying: 'You can have it, this is the story of my life, and my relationship with Raizel, and it also includes the story of my relation with Gabriella'. I was very reluctant to even touch it or hold the package in my hands, in fact I protested vigorously, raising in defence the open palms of my hands to ward off the proffered gift, while shaking my head energetically. 'No I don't want it, this is crazy, this is really weird,' I uttered in alarm. It was completely absurd, why would I want to take ownership of something so personal, something as private as Quinn's intimate letters to Raizel or Quinn's heartfelt autobiographical investigatory confession of who he was and who he had become? I was not interested in the intimate details of his love life with Gabriella or Raizel. I agreed that it would now be presumptuous for him to post his autobiography to Raizel. He should have done that a long time ago. He should have gone to Australia when he had the opportunity. I couldn't imagine how she would response to this unsolicited 'letter' arriving out of the past. A 150 paged letter written more than forty years ago. It had been laying in this box all this time, unknown to the world. For both Quinn and Raizel a lifetime had passed, the letter no longer had any relevance to anyone. In fact the letter could be treated as a work of fiction, only as a work of fiction would be relevant to anyone. Yet he firmly insisted that I take the box. This is what he said:

'You are my best friend, you are my only friend that I have, you are dear to me, I am an open book to you, you know the secrets of my soul, and there is nothing about me which I have kept from you, I want you to have her letters as well, I want you to read them, she is now a famous person. Maybe she will be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, maybe her novels will eventually be included in the pantheon of the great Australian Novel, she has already earned critical acclaim as a great Australian writer, maybe her work will eventually become part of the English canon of literature, and students of literature will study her work and her life. Who knows what heights of greatness Raizel could possibly ascend to? I want you to read everything in this box as if I had already died. Surely there is nothing wrong with reading the correspondence of a deceased person?'

4

He grabbed another bulky A4 envelope. 'These are the copies of all the letters that I wrote to her, take it.'

'Maybe it is better if some secrets go to the grave with the body of the deceased,' I replied.

'No I disagree. Why should our secrets die with us, why can't they have an afterlife in the mind of some reader, wouldn't that give the departed some kind of immortality?' he argued.

'Well it depends on the nature of the secrets or the kind of immortality you seek for yourself?' was my response.

'No, I don't really qualify for immortality in the form of some exemplary biography, but there is a story in this box which could be fictionalized, it does not have be about Raizel or Gabriella or me, you don't have to even use our names, you could fictionalized everything, I am not asking you to grant Raizel, Gabriella or me some kind of afterlife, I am definitely not asking you to write our biographies, I just what to give you the opportunity to write a novel, just do it for a lark,' he laughed.

'But you have already secured yourself an afterlife in your work on string theory and cosmology. An extension of yourself will live on in the form of all the papers that you have published,' I responded.

'You are wrong. I have not earned immortality in physics. I am just one of the many thousands who have toiled in the vineyard of physics, I don't deserve any everlasting memorial for what I have done,' he said with an ironical grin on this face.

Everything about this conversation was totally out of character with the Quinn I knew. It did leave me feeling mildly apprehensive. What was going on with him I wondered? Why was he so insistent that I read the correspondence between him and Raizel or Gabriella for that matter?

5

The thought which flashed through my mind was: 'What kind of story does Quinn want me to write?' Quinn seemed to have read my mind. He became sombre and serious: 'As I have said there is a story in this box, I think you are the best person to write it. I don't know what kind of story will emerge from the box. In a sense it is the kind of story which can never be told. I am not only thinking of the kinds of story which should never be told, make no mistake my story does not need to be told. The writing of this story or any other story changes nothing. Eventually everything will turn to nothing in a manner of speaking, including all the books that have been written. They will all vanish, every story will vanish, when the sun of our solar finally burns out. But letters and the manuscript in the envelope tell everything, I have left nothing out,' he said.

'What happened in 1967, and in the preceding years, are not something which any person would want to talk about, even if what happened did have a profound and lasting effect on my life. This is not the real story that needs to be told. You have to discover the real story. The facts are not self-explanatory. The story cannot be reduced to the bare facts. Facts by themselves do not tell any story. The facts may anchor the story in a probable or a possible world, but any story should transcend the facts and not be held captive to the facts, and this does not make it any less true, whatever happens to be true, beyond brute facts, in an ultimate sense must be the objective of the story. Surely our lives are more than the same total of facts which we can attached to our lives, there must be something more to our lives than mere facts, our lives should be a witness to some transcendental truth,' Quinn said. Quinn had guessed what was going on my mind. This was also more or less what I was thinking. Like me he wanted the story to narrate much more than the facts. He continued to elaborate:

'It must be a story out of which the unintelligible sighs of yearning nostalgia for the indiscernible erupt from the melancholic depths of the heart. It must be the story which shows that the meaning of any normal person's life can only be written in that intangible and inexpressible language of feelings, hopes, despair, disappointments, memories, thoughts, images, mental pictures and ideas which flicker furtively and momentary like a dying flame at the very edge of that ephemeral apprehension which we experience fleetingly in the forlorn and futile lyrics of the fadista. I want to say something about something which cannot be grasped, possibly only grasped as a revelation. This is why my story cannot be told or written. But even if it is about something which cannot be easily or readily grasped, the hint of what the indiscernible actually embraces should haunt the story. And to this end we may have a glimmer of what otherwise might have been possible in another universe, in another time and space. And the story should be told as if it were a silent prayer for something one has always hoped for but knew not what. And it is this seeking what one really needs in order to be free from anxiety, stress, depression and a debilitating sense of emptiness. The man who does not know what he needs is the man who suffers the most. Sometimes we don't even know that we are suffering. We don't even know what our needs are. We have to be needy to be desirous. We have to be needy to experience the absence of satisfaction. What is it that we truly need? I think we need to know the truth. The truth sets us free. If we know the truth, what more do we need? I have to admit that writing that autobiographic letter has been a therapeutic exercise, but I cannot interpret what I have written by own hand. In writing it and having written it and having read it, I originally thought it should remained sealed and unread for all eternity. It was supposed to be story of those details of my life which I hide from her and the world. Raizel kept on saying that I was a mystery to her. But I was also a mystery to myself. 'Who am I?' was the question which has haunted me. She knew nothing of me even though we had been so deeply intimate, we felt that our souls had merged into the kind of bond which could never be undone. It was wonderful to have enjoyed such a deep emotional and intellectual connection, it was an experience which was rare between young people. Those were more or less her very own words. She recognized that something special had happened between us, even though she said that she was in love with a stranger, someone who she did not quite know'.

'Don't we go through life being in love with a stranger?' I asked.

'Yes we do! We are all strangers. We are strangers to ourselves,' Quinn replied ironically.

'How is that?' I asked.

'Haven't you ever surprised yourself, discovering something unknown about yourself, like discovering you could do something which you would have previously guessed as being impossible?' Quinn asked.

6

And so I left Quinn's home carrying the box filled with all kinds of secrets, imponderables and intangibles mingled and blended with indiscernibles, to my car. I had been given the task of unsealing and making public the secret lives of Quinn, Gabriella, and Raizel in the world of fiction. This was going to be my first work of fiction after a life time of procrastination, now this box which I carried to my car contained everything that I needed in order to write a novel. 'Rock me baby!' was all I could think of for some strange reason. 'Hold me tight'. But what kind of novel was it going to be? 'Take me in your arms.' I remember our journey to Durban in December 1966, so long ago, a life time ago. In the nineteenth century when the literary critics first read Herman Melville's Moby-Dick the consensus seemed to agree that Melville had not really written a novel. However, to us Moby-Dick counts as a novel. Which means that every age inherits its own idea of what a novel should be. Every age sets its own theme. Every age has to settle accounts with its own history, its previous life, and has to face the many forked roads into the future, and whatever branch we chose to take, we become our choices. Now into the second decade of the twenty first century the form and content of the novel has undergone a 'literary adaptive radiation', in the process breaking every literary or novelistic or aesthetic or artistic rule or convention which has been set up to legislate what constitutes a novel. To be honest, I don't think we know what constitutes a novel other than it being an artistic work of fiction whose sole purpose it to enchant the reader. Artistic work necessarily has to enchant in order for it be art. So enchantment is important. What else should any novel embody to be a novel or an artistic work of fiction? These are the problems which every generation of writers or novelists have to solve. The novel is in constant need of having to be reinvented. Why? Well, we are not always absolutely sure what fiction really is. Yet paradoxically what I am about to write is not strictly speaking a work of fiction or a novel. Paradoxically, ambiguously or ironically or whimsically, or whatever, my novel is a work of fiction in which the people are real enough, and the events are events which really happened or could have happened anyway, and the geography within which the drama of the story unfolds happens to also be real enough, but having said that, I am requesting that it should be entertained only as fiction, but not only as a work of fiction but also as a work of art and not a documentary or an exercise in social history. Maybe fiction and non-fiction do indeed merge and in many instances we cannot always differentiate clearly between fiction and non-fiction especially when reading some written account about some state of affairs whether it be in the realm of art or science, in all of these instances fact and fiction are often difficult to disentangle. What is real and what is imagined, real or imagined, can we really in the act or performance of writing draw the line of demarcation between fact and fiction, doesn't fiction depend on fact? Does not fiction have this strange relationship with facts, and therefore with the actual, with reality? The answer to this question can be treated as my disclaimer. Fact or fiction? Maybe source criticism will settle the issue. Source criticism may attempt to answer questions such as? How have I (as the author) used my literary resources and what motivated me to use them in this way and not in another way? What were my authorial intentions? What if I had none, other than to speak or write the truth? The truth about? What kind of truth does fiction speak? What makes this kind of truth different from the truth of facts which science seems to be speak of? I don't know. Time does not only transform memory, time also transforms landscapes, towns, cities, monuments, and these transformations of the past represents a subtraction, an erasure, an absence, a loss through erosion. And what if it is only through the work of fiction that all that once existed can be restored and refurbished and renovated and resurrected and resuscitated and revitalized and renewed and reconstituted in the form of a living memorial, as a re-enactment, as a remembrance, aa a return to the origins, as a return to the beginning, ultimately making something present once more? And so, what if it is only through the work of fiction that what has become lost, can now be redeemed, reclaimed, revived, re-appropriated, repossessed, retrieved or even rescued? It is possible that the work of fiction cannot escape its salvific intentions. Salvation from what? From the past, from the deeds of the past, from the crimes of the past? No it is not that. What is it that we seek in any story? Is it only enchantment? What if it fails to enchant? The Bible for example is full of stories, stories which enchant. But apart from enchantment, what do these stories tell us? What is my story going to be about? What possibly could be the story that is contained in this box? The box or archive which I have now placed on the desk in my study. What is documented in the archive apart from some kind of recording of the passage of time? To open the box and read its contents, it will be difficult to separate fact from fiction due to my own forgetfulness and fading memory. The process of fictionalization in unavoidable, it cannot be circumvented, it is intrinsically and inextricably and immanently and inevitably conceived in the intimacy of the performance of, in the very depths of the act of reading and writing, it arises as a consequence of all kinds of imaginative and inventive intrusions, it arises as a consequence of the embellishment of memories or the re-construction of memories. Fictionalization is also aided and abetted by deletions, forgetfulness, insertions, inventions, transformations, imaginings and the ambiguous, paradoxical, ironical and enigmatic metamorphosis of the past into the present. Can our lived lives be restored through the medium of fiction? Can fiction restore and redeem my life, and Quinn's life, not to mention the lives of Gabriella and Raizel. Can I perform this salvific miracle, this redemption, this absolution by opening the box, and infuse its contents with the vitality of life renewed though the act or performance of reading and re-writing? In other words, through the work of fiction? It is true that with the passage of time the stories or biographies which we wish to attach to the lived lives of persons who we have known, and who have in a manner of speaking become buried, overlaid by the sedimentary layers of various kinds of strata, embedded and frozen in the silent stratigraphy of hidden and invisible topologies, geographies, demographies, milieus, eras and epochs which were once part of actual landscapes, cities, towns, and suburbs, which through the archaeology of fictional excavation can be made to speak once more, to speak volumes, the silences, the muteness can be broken, speech can be restored, but this requires more than archaeology, it can only be achieved through the imaginative magic of the ventriloquist, but who can be the ventriloquist to speak on behalf of the dead souls and who are the addressees?

7

As Quinn knows it was always my ambition to be a writer, a novelist. Instead I became a priest. I will say more of this later. But now I have up taken up the challenge to write Quinn's story and to some extent the story of Gabriella and Raizel. Where should I start? Where does any story begin and where does it end? And what should a story be about? Well, I more than anyone should know that there are no recipes or rules or guidelines or manuals for writing stories or novels. The birth of a story is always a mystery, a kind of Immaculate Conception, a miracle indeed, the Word become Incarnate! Of course as a Roman Catholic Priest all meaning is a transubstantiation of God's Word. I had no idea or premonition that I was ever going to write a story some day in the future. But now that day has arrived.

8

A day later, on my day-off, the day we usually go birdwatching, I opened the box which Quinn had insisted I take. I took his manuscript from the envelope, flipping through the reams of pages I soon realized that he drafted an updated introductory chapter which read as follows:

'...Now that I am retired I have all the time in the world to tell stories. We all tell stories which are fictions. We have rightly honoured the heroes of our history by naming buildings and rooms after them. At Wits University we have new names for old buildings, lecture auditoriums and meeting rooms. The grey, concrete, eleven storey building previously called Senate House (SH) which provides a panoramic view of the city has been renamed Solomon Mahlangu House (SMH). The building previously referred to as the Great Hall or Central Block (CB) has been renamed Robert Sobukwe Block (RSB). A meeting room which I think had no name before has been baptised the Bessie Head Meeting Room. I am ashamed to admit that I had never before heard of Bessie Head. As a writer she deserves to be honoured, and I am happy that we have recognized her legacy as a writer. Anyway, what I also wish to say is that the MA dissertations and PhD theses which have been made available in the public domain in the form of downloadable PDFs for free, represent some of the most amazing and valuable intellectual resources. I have been reading such a PhD downloaded as a PDF which explores the idea of autobiography as fiction in the writings of Bessie Head with an over the shoulder look at Virginia Woolf who may be characterized as a writer of fiction who leaves the reader wondering about the possibility of autobiographical elements which seem to bounce like echoes from the author's past into the writing. To the idea of autobiography as fiction we can add the names of Henry Miller and Kerouac and so on and so forth. And then there is the literary project of intentionally inventing a fictionalized autobiography - which involves giving a voice to a person who is an invention of one's imagination. There are also those semi-biographical or the obliquely-biographical fictionalized accounts of historical persons who actually existed as real persons (Socrates and Jesus) and the putatively historical personages whose existence could be construed as doubtful (Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samson, Jonah and Job). While Plato expresses his ideas through the mouth of Socrates in the Platonic dramatic dialogues, we do believe that we can also hear echoes of Socrates own voice in these obviously fictionalized scenes. So here we have instances where the communication of truth by historical figures become intertwined with fiction. In the case of the Gospels we know that we dealing with a fictionalized biography of Jesus – yet as in the case of Plato's Socrates, here too we hear truth intermingled with fiction. Fiction becomes the medium for the proclamation of truth, whatever that truth may be. Fictionalization of personages and events fills the pages of the Bible. Without the medium of fiction there can be no proclamation of truth. The Bible as a whole, and the Gospels as well, putatively speak the truth through the medium of fictionalized events and fictionalized dialogues, the subject matter of which also includes a continuously revisited and re-updated fictionalized biography of God. The Biblical conception of God is not fixed, it has been in a constant state of revision. The same goes for metaphysics, philosophy and theology. God cannot be captured in words, nor can reality be capture in words. Word suffer from a profound deficiency. Taking all this into account, the Bible like the writings of Woolf, Miller and Kerouac are works of fiction, and which we believe as works of fiction they are all saying something about something which has the ring of truth. If we stretch the Hegelian idea that truth is a system, in which individual claims are true by virtue of their dialectical relations to the whole system of truth, then it is reasonable to see the project of writing fiction as a performance in which the writer is engaging with the truth claims at a certain level – especially if it is literary fiction...' Well, well there you go Quinn, old chap. Just look at you! You have pre-empted me. But to be fair to Quinn let me finish the task he has given me. If it were not for Quinn this novel would never have been written. I am only the messenger.

9

Let me begin at the very beginning. But first: As you will see, in my appointed role as the author or redactor or compiler of this narrative, which you happen to be reading, I have inserted myself into this novel as a character, as one of the polyphonic voices, one whose role includes being the imaginative ventriloquist. By virtue of my role as the compiler of the narrative I have also become a player in the unfolding game or drama of this story. If for some reason I wished to give away the game of the story by disclosing upfront the critical sequence of moves of the chess pieces on the chess board which will be eventually played out, then I could hint that it was the attempted murder of someone's nemesis which becomes central to or pivotal to or even the fulcrum of the story. In Nabokov's 'Lolita' in parenthesis we read: ('a bad accident is to happen quite soon'). Without the intrusion of a tragic episode the story would never be able to unfold inexorably to its eventual denouement. Yes an unfortunate accident did happen. This is what the story turns on. It is the fulcrum, the axis. Anyway Lolita makes me think of Lola. In my dreams Quinn could have fallen in love with Lola. And in another Universe I could have been Lola. 'Say it now!' A Russian woman directs traffic through the Brandenburg Gates in Berlin in 1945, I could have been that woman, in a uniform, wearing a beret with the red star, a rifle slung over my shoulder, and I could have been the proprietress, and the lover of Quinn. Instead I am a Jesuit priest. Quinn's faithful and best friend in the bosom of Roman Catholicism. Quinn a Catholic to the core of his being. Faithful as ever to the faith into which he was born. The theatre in which the drama of this particular story unfolds is the global south where metaphorically speaking when compared to the global north, everything down below under the Southern Cross presents itself as the reverse of what is taken to be the norm or the order of things in the global north. In the global south we live by standing everything upside down, we live in a contrariwise fashion. Quinn's ancestors like mine and like Gabriella's and also like Raizel's where drawn to Africa in search of a new kind of life, a kind of life which no longer existed as a possibility in the mother country. For Gabriella's parents it was an opportunity for a new more prosperous life as British expats in Africa. For Raizel's ancestors it was to escape the uncertainties of rural life in Poland. For Quinn's ancestors and mine, the McGuire's, it was the gold bearing conglomerates of the Witwatersrand which drew our forefathers to the continent of Africa. Gold mining towns sprung up like mushrooms along the Main Reef. Viewed from the eagle eyed altitude of the deep blue African skies the Main Reef Road is a tar road running from Springs to Carletonville, it traces out the contours of a gold rich conglomerate outcrop intrusion which broke the surface baring its promise of unimaginable hidden treasures to the bright sunlight which kissed the virgin plains, not yet shattered by the ploughshare or dynamite, the plains or steppes which we now call the Highveld. The plains were bathed for eons in that extraordinary light which seemed to have shined so silently and peacefully and brilliantly over of the southern hemisphere until that terrible and fateful day finally arrived. But it was also one of many such days which ushered in a new dawn or a new age. After that particular metaphoric day in the history of this continent, a day which broke with the unspeakable and horrifying suddenness of an invading army, a day which was marked by the ravaging of a virgin beauty, laying waste to the once pristine plains. In the wake of the great gold rush the gold mines and the towns which followed the ancient conglomerate sprung up overnight like mushrooms. Mine shafts with their headgears broke the skyline of the once featureless steppes, and the Main Reef Road traced the outline of the head of a male lion which rose above the high swards of the grasslands which once filled the horizons from east to west like a vast ocean, an ocean of secrets, like the secrets of why the grass plains had been treeless for eons, like the America Prairies, the Argentina Pampas, or the great Russian Steppes. Fire and large grazing wild herbivores have left their imprint. And it was across these plains that the impis of Mzilikazi had rampaged, laying waste to everything in his path as he fled the wrath of Shaka the king of the Zulus. In the wake of Mzilikazi's devastation, a new devastation in the form of gold fields erupted at the rocky edge of the plains, and the plains became occupied by settlers who arrived like swallows at the dawn of a new spring on a foreign continent, never to depart again to more temperate climes, and the theatre of violence which had laid its grip on the hinterland exerted itself once more in waves upon waves.

CHAPTER THREE \- GABRIELLA

1

Gabriella's background: In 1911 the place which eventually became Zambia used to be known as Northern Rhodesia. Northern Rhodesia was established as a protectorate administered by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) on behalf of the British Government. In 1928 copper was discovered in Northern Rhodesia resulting in the development of the Copperbelt. Gabriella was born in Manchester in 1936, in 1938 Gabriella's parents migrated southward from Britain to Kitwe, a town located on the Copperbelt, a town which was close to what was then known as the Belgium Congo. Kitwe in the centre of the copper mining region was founded in 1936. Gabriella Walsh (who become Gabriella Yeoman later in the story) started her school in Kitwe at the strictly whites only expatriate Frederick Knapp Primary School. In 1954, after finishing highs school in Kitwe she went to The University of Rhodesia in Salisbury in what was known as Southern Rhodesia. After graduating with MA in English literature she became an English school teacher at Eveline High School in Bulawayo in 1960 at the age of 24. In 1962 while on holiday in what was Lourenço Marques in Mozambique she met freshly divorced Kingsley Yeoman who was also a guest at the Polana Hotel. Kingsley proposed to her and in that same year they got married. Also that year Yeoman's bought the farm next to the Magee farm, but I will have a lot more to say about the Magee farm later on.

2

However, I need to alert the reader that Quinn's father who I will refer to as Joe Magee from now on made his acquaintance with Kingsley and Gabriella shortly after the newlywed couple took ownership of their farm. Noting the age difference between Kingsley and Gabriella he assumed that Kingsley's trophy wife was the kind of attractive female species which belonged to that femme fatale gold digging genus. Perceiving her as a predatory enchantress he reckoned on her being fair game. After befriending Kingsley he invited the couple to dinner and Kingsley in turn reciprocated Joe Magee's hospitality inviting Mr and Mrs Magee to the social functions he often hosted at their newly built mansion on their farm. At one of Kingsley functions, Joe Magee was introduced to Kingsley's business associates as 'Joe Magee my good friend and neighbour'. It was at a braaivleis on a late October Sunday afternoon under the convivial azure skies of summer with everyone in a pleasurable state of mild intoxication that Joe noticed that a bored looking Gabriella with glass in hand had wondered off without anyone noticing across the spacious freshly mown kikuyu lawns to a purpled petalled arbour in a secluded nook at the far end of the Yeomans' b sprawling garden. Seizing the opportunity he followed her into the jacaranda bower. Surrounding the small circular white paved piazza were lush leafy beds of Agapanthus, monocotyledonous plants belonging to the family Amaryllidaceae, their umbrella inflorescences subtended on tall stalks were in full bloom, with their purple floral perianths matching the shaded purple carpet of petals which had collected beneath the purple canopies.

3

'Lily of the Nile,' he uttered as he stepped into the arbour. Her back was turned towards him. The hem of her pastel blue sleeveless slip of a dress made from nylon and Lycra cleaving to her body was elegantly provocative, barely covering her thighs. With its natural waistline the soft fabric accentuated the outline and contours of her body. The V shaped neckline exposed a tantalizing glimpse of her cleavage. The fragrance of her shoulder length dark burgundy hair was intoxicatingly erotic. Full bodied and lustrous, shimmering in the shafts of golden rays filtering through the petalled canopy, emitting sunlit kaleidoscopic scintillations, with every movement no matter how subtle, her rich opalescent coiffure, a multi-hued blend of dark ruby and burgundy cascaded like a vintage cabernet sauvignon. Turning round she faced him her dark hazel eyes took in the full measure of the man who had followed her. Her demeanour was unwelcoming. The man smiling broadly was nattily dressed in a white golf shirt and dark flannels, crocodile skinned shoes, gold watch on his left wrist, in his right hand a wide rimmed crystal tumbler, filled with a generous portion, a single malt whiskey swirled, and cubes of ice clinked. She was well aware that for his age compared to Kingsley, he was surprisingly virile by all accounts according to the rumour mill, and he was it should be added, in remarkable good shape, having a trim waist, powerful thighs, arms which embodied all the signs of physical strength. The myth that he was irresistible to any woman he decided to pursue was never questioned. Like all myths this myth was founded on an element of truth. His face a portrait of persuasive energy. His comportment, especially with regard to women, happened to be the very embodiment of physical confidence. A man fully assured of his prowess in the physical realm whether in bed or in a duel. Ambushed in the bower her sensually shaped nose and full lips made her appear ripe and ready to be plucked. She took her time to respond. Turning her head deliberately away, she gazed at the vast expanse of the Highveld steppes framed between the leaning trunks of the jacaranda trees which were almost as old as the mines on the far East Rand. For as far as the eye could see under a dazzling summer sun which had now moved past its zenith, in languid repose lay a featureless landscape covered with a patchwork quilt of different shades of green, grasslands, wetlands and marshes, fields of maize, lucerne, sunflower, which seemed to go on and on forever. A light breeze filled the air with that distinctive aroma of braaied wors sizzling over charcoal embers. Somewhere in the canopy above a masked weaver's harsh swizzling-twizzling-sizzling call mingled with the distant whinnying of a horse.

4

All this time he did not take his eyes off her. What did he see? This is what interests me. I have to mention how she was dressed. But bear with me on this matter concerning the clothed body. Clothes in the eyes of the wearer and viewer reveal more than the mere outward visual appearance. How she viewed herself and how Joe Magee appropriated her clothed body are not necessarily co-incidental constructions of the same projected image. From the perspective of the mirror versus that of the external independent viewer the dressing of the body, especially the female body involves both the making and unmaking of identity. What kind of signification does the dressed body mediate, what ambiguities regarding the demarcation of boundaries could the clothed body excite in the viewer? Let me pose the question differently. What does it mean to be 'dressed up' as opposed to 'being all dressed up'? Let's leave out the 'all'. Without the 'all' one can still be dressed up. Gabriella was dressed up in a revealing slip of a dress. She was not 'all' dressed up in the sense of covering up. She was not all covered up, how could she be, she was dressed up in a mere slip of a dress. Do you see where I am going? I want to distinguish between the 'all' and the 'mere' in what it means to dress up. We distinguish between the 'all' and the 'mere' when we conceptualize dressing up as something more than simply clothing the body with various kinds of fabrics and materials. Dressing up should be conceived as act or even as an event. Her dressing up represented an act, an event, a performance, an intention, of self-expression which destabilized the erotic boundaries between mind, body and clothes, thereby making and unmaking the identity of self and the perceived subject, creating uncertainty and ambiguity in the face of the libidinous gaze. Was this her deliberate intention? You will have to judge for yourself. You may believe that the erotic dwells within the sensual interfaces of ambiguous boundaries. And you may agree that the existence of ambiguous boundaries is what awakens and excites desire, because desire can only feed on what the imagination imagines as possible.

5

'Agapanthus the flower of love. I have no idea why it should be called the flower of love,' she said testingly with her eyes now fixated on a black shouldered kite hovering over a spot in a nearby field close to the boundary of the garden, suspended in suspense, five meters above a field mouse, knowing that he would take the bait, who would take the bait, the bird of prey or the man whose loins were in a state of arousal. Five meters above the field mouse, was the distance calibrated. Could it be more or less? He had become Kingsley regular golfing partner, they were both members of the Springs Golfing Country Club, and Kingsley had jokingly referred to him on more than one occasion as a regular Casanova, a philanderer of note, any skirt being fair game. A philanderer of note? Who was taking notes? He took the bait that she had offered as a conversational piece.

'Well you have taught me something new. Agape means love and anthos must mean flower. Am I right or not?' he asked.

'You are right,' she replied watching the raptor drop from the sky.

'Well you gave me the clue, I would not have guessed otherwise,' he said.

With regard to his confession of ignorance, she shrugged her shoulders indifferently. Lifting her head she pointed to an epiphytic orchid growing in a crevice on the jacaranda. He did not know that growing and collecting orchids was her hobby.

'Do you like erotic fairy tales?' She asked while looking up at the orchid.

'What do you mean?' He asked. She had caught him by surprise at his own game, and she was not at all coy about it. She was razor sharp, he filed this insight in the back of his mind.

'Look at the orchid and tell me what you see,' she said.

'What am I supposed to see?'

'You will not see any agape, orchids are mainly about sex, tell me what you see.'

'I see a flower that is all I see, nothing more.'

Of course he saw everything, what else was he supposed to see. The black shouldered kite had disappeared. Her obvious disinterest in pursuing any further small talk did not dampen his ardour. Beneath his calm exterior his imagination was running riot. What was he suppose say? I see the vulva of a woman, I see the outer and inner lips of the labia (labia majora and labia minora), I see the clitoris rising up like a hooded cobra, I see openings to the urethra and vagina, I see the whole damn shebang!

'You look bored with the party,' he said feigning empathy. She didn't answer.

'We should get together sometime for lunch. I don't suppose you have heard of the Angelo Hotel in Boksburg,' he said throwing out an invitation, casting his bread upon the waters. The die was now cast, he knew, and she knew that too, they both knew that the point called the point of no return had been reached in this brief encounter in the bower. They had been engaged in a duel, in a joust. Call it courtship if you wish.

'No, I don't think I have,' she answered now turning her head to look at the man.

'Well many people haven't,' he hastened to answer, not sure whether he was about to reel her in. In for a penny, in for a pound, there is no going back, he mused to himself. I have made my move and she has not yet rejected my invitation, or so he thought, hope born of lust springs eternal. Well he must have thought that. What else could he have been thinking? Keep the conversation going, she is going to be more than a handful for sure, but nothing which I cannot handle. I am going to give it to her that is for sure, I going to give all of it, hard and rough, I am gonna grind her like she has never been screwed before, I am gonna fuck the living daylights out of her. In his own mind things were looking up with Gabriella. After lunch at the Angelo they would go up the stairs to the room which he would have been booked and prepared in advance, champagne, a bouquet of orchids, satin sheets and red rose petals scattered all over the place.

'The hotel which is now under new management was built in 1887 shortly after gold was discovered in Boksburg. Anyway the hotel manager has converted the original dining room and kitchen into an upmarket restaurant. They serve everything from lamb shank to crayfish thermidor. I can recommend the lamb shank. They have a wine cellar with some of the best wines in the country.'

'Sounds like an erotic fairy tale to me. I think we should go back now.' She had read his mind.

Well out of curiosity Gabriella did eventually accept Joe Magee's lunch invitation. Did Joe Magee seduce Gabriella or did she seduce him? I will give more details about the lunch and what transpired later in the story.

CHAPTER FOUR \- RAIZEL

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Raizel's background: Raizel Kolitz's great grandparents fleeing persecution in Poland boarded a ship in Hamburg. On a circuitous voyage to Argentina via the Cape of Good Hope, the ship slipped through the Suez Canal. In 1884 when the ship docked in Lourenço Marques her great grandparents decided to disembark and search for their fortune in Southern Africa. Travelling by ox wagon they soon found themselves in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic, later Transvaal) of President Paul Kruger. In wake of the rural devastation which followed the Anglo-Boer War Raizel's ancestors found themselves providentially placed to acquire highly fertile and productive farm land in the Delmas-Ermelo region. Raizel was born in 1956 in the Far East Rand Hospital in Springs.

2

In 1961 she began her primary school education which happened to be at Afrikaans medium primary school in Ermelo. She was one of ten Jewish children who had been enrolled at the same school who also happened to be born from families who were members of a predominantly Jewish enclave of wealthy maize and dairy farmers. Every day they were ferried to and from school in an old faded blue VW Kombi van. Nineteen sixty one was an eventful year in South Africa. The English Pound was replaced by the Rand. South African left the British Commonwealth and on the 31st of May that year South Africa, previously the Union of South African, became a republic, the Republic of South. On that auspicious occasion each child was given a small SA flag fixed to a stick and a medallion attached to an orange, white and blue ribbon corresponding to the colours of the South African flag. On that morning Raizel wearing her SA republic medallion round her neck and carrying the little SA flag, dressed in black shoes, white socks, yellow school gym and green blazer, marched in rank and file with the entire primary school to the local rugby stadium to celebrate the birth of the new republic. At the stadium they joined the local high school who were already assembled in ranks of five. Before taking their seats on the covered grand stand they first marched round the rugby pitch led by the high school cadets and the cadet school band, with the band playing. Raizel being drawn as a child into the enthusiasm and spirit of the celebrations had no inkling of the irony of her participatory presence at this sublimely joyous occasion in the history of Afrikaner Nationalism, a species of nationalism which displayed all the attributes of an ethnic nationalism strongly blended with a religious sense of election and destiny.

3

All nationalisms are cast in some version of the Manichean mould and all share similar mythologies, that is mythologies which embody renditions of the same basic Manichean trope, a trope involving the reproduction and repetition of founding myths, founding myths of ethnic nationalist origins, origins which are rooted in struggles for national or ethnic liberation, struggles which are ideologically conceptualized as one been between good and evil in which evil comes in the form of dispossession, enslavement and oppression. In later life Raizel's writing and artistic work would be based on counter-Manichean narratives, but more of that later. Anyway, an observation, the significance of which I have yet to process, the Jewish families of the enclave whose settler ancestors were Yiddish speaking, having originated from the so-called Pale Zone, now in the fullness of time being able to enjoy the fruits of their labour had become non-religious and secular rather than observant. Furthermore, they had become a significant and respected presence at agricultural shows and agricultural days as fluent Afrikaans speakers. Yet even in those halcyon days of undreamt prosperity in the country which had adopted them they still kept their eyes ever anxious on the horizon, ever watchful for the gathering storm, but remaining secure and safe in their knowledge that money is a Jew's only weapon especially when the day of uncertainty eventually arrives knocking on their door step on that appointed day of reckoning.

4

In 1968 due to her remarkable artistic abilities her parents enrolled her in The International School of the Creative Arts which offered an A-Level curriculum. The high school located in the leafy suburbs of Saxonwold offered day school and boarding options. As the art teacher it was Mr Karl Brozin's job to help students, in a very liberal and enabling environment, to explore and develop their artistic skills. It was his job to encourage, foster, nurture and cultivate their creative artistic expression and aesthetic understanding of textures, form or shapes, and colour. The so-called plastic arts was Brozin's area of speciality. I use the term 'plastic arts' in its broadest sense to embrace all visual expression of art. Hence I include painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, video, film, photography and also architecture under the rubric of the plastic arts. It did not take long for art teacher Brozin to discover that Raizel was precocious in ways which one would not normally have expected from a thirteen year old farm girl. While having been exposed to situations where a mutual attraction between a pupil (female teenager of course) and a teacher (himself, a thirty something married man) which due to a lack of vigilance on his part had developed almost quite inadvertently to its discernible nascent stage he had never once felt any compulsion to act upon or encourage or indulge their infatuations beyond the incipient stage of its life cycle. Post-conception the foetal monster was usually aborted without any further ado. Raizel was the one who had referred to herself as a farm girl. What could she possibly have been implying by this admission? Brozin could only surmise that Raizel by identifying herself as a farm girl was signalling in code that she knew far more about things of the world than most town girls could dream of. He guessed that she had possibly learnt quite a lot about the things of the world from having watched the copulations of many kinds of farm animals. Maybe the spectacle of a bull mounting a cow or a stallion mounting a mare had aroused her as an adolescent girl. She had witnessed in graphic detail, at close range, the penetration of the vulva of the female animal by the male intromitting organ. To breach, to penetrate, to ingress are the kinds of words we associate with the sexually charged process associated with the intromission of the erect mammalian sex organ. Even the word 'intromission' is a sexually charged but rarely used noun. It refers to the action or process of sexual intercourse which requires the insertion or ingress or penetration of the penis into the vagina in sexual intercourse.

5

For a water colour exercise he asked them to draw and paint a dynamic and dramatic pastoral scene. To create the mood and the appropriate artistic sensitivity he spoke at length on the aesthetics (or what we would now call the trope) of the pastoral scene as an artistic genre, using the medium of a slide show to give visual effect to his talk. In broad brush strokes he dealt with the essential artistic elements or trope associated with the nature of the pastoral especially as depicted in the pastoral literature and pastoral paintings. He dealt briefly with the basic elements of what he called 'Pastoral Theory' such as the frenetic energy of the city as an urban and industrial centre versus the tranquil and peaceful life we associate with the rural space or country side. He spoke a bit about the writings of Thomas Hardy referring to 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' and 'Far from the Madding Crowd'. The class was instructed to read the two novels.

6

Raizel produced to two paintings. One was of a Basotho herdsman wrapped in a blanket mounted on a Basotho pony set in a bleak, stark and frozen sleeting landscape. The other was a 'pastiche' of Pablo Picasso's 'Guernica' depicting a farmyard scene of copulating farm animals: fowls, horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs in shades of grey, black and white. In the foreground instead of the dead person, a man and women were having sexual intercourse. The first painting stunned Brozin and the class. The second painting both stunned and horrified Brozin and the class. Raizel's water colour paintings revealed the depth of her creative imagination, technical proficiency and mastery of the medium. Brozin was incredulous. He could not believe that a 13 year old girl could produce this quality of work. A week later she came to his class while he was alone to announce that she had read both of the books which he recommended. He realized she wanted to give her impressions regarding the two books. He pulled up chair for her and sitting back in his own chair leaning backward with his hands interlocked behind his head he indulged her.

7

That night he had an erotic dream in which Raizel featured prominently. When he woke up from the dream it was still dark outside. His wife Prof Freida Aronson a medical specialist in oncology and a professor of oncology at the medical school of the University of the Witwatersrand was still sound asleep. Kicking off the bed covers he sat on the edge of the bed bowed over resting his forehead against the palms of his two hands. For days now after he had first viewed her two pictures he could not get her out of his mind. He got up, went downstairs and sat on a sofa in the dark. He whispered to himself: Raizel, Raizela, Rivka, Riva, Raquel, Rachel, Rae, Raphael, Raphaella, Raphaelle, Rozanne, and Rosemary, how many female names begin with R? Raizel my rose, yes Raizel is Yiddish for rose, for my rose flower, for my rose bud. Raizel my rose bud, no one has ever had the opportunity to touch you or love you or kiss you or caress your lovely body. I have become obsessed with you. I am in love with you my beautiful rose bud.

8

Of course Raizel was no longer merely infatuated with Brozin, she was head over heels in love with the bearded man. 'He has not sold a single painting in a year now,' he overheard Freida whisper to her sister at a family gathering of his in-laws. The name Freida (פריידא), Yiddish, for joy, satisfaction, comfort, possibly originally derived from the German word 'freude' described everything that he lacked in his life at that moment. Experimenting with new drugs for the treatment of cancer that had been induced in mice, the animal model she was using, Freida's career was undergoing a meteoric rise, nothing short of specular.

9

Ra-izel, REY-Zehl, RAY-zel. Or simply Raaisel, meaning mystery in Afrikaans, those were her exact words, pronouncing the lovely name with a beautiful Afrikaans inflection. 'Raai wat (guess what or simply guess),' she teased flirtatiously with an unmistakable element of wantonness. What must he guess? That she was in love with him? She had sketched a closed rose bud on a slip adorned with leaves and thorns, and a voluptuous rose also at the end of a cut slip bearing both leaves and thorns, The opened rose had been intentionally drawn in a state of erotic repose, curvaceous, shapely, opulent, full-figured, well formed, well proportioned, Junoesque, ample, Rubenesque, buxom, full-bosomed, lush, luscious, no end to beautiful sounding adjectives which collectively conspired to capture in a web the seductive enchantment of its essence. Dumbstruck by this enigmatic precocious Lilith, he asked: 'What have you drawn?' 'Every rose no matter how beautiful or how desirable has its thorns, can you imagine a rose without thorns,' she replied, this child-girl, child-genius, child-prodigy, child-seductress, child-nymph that had wafted uninvited into the most vulnerable stage of his life like an elusive butterfly sailing in on a fresh bright morning breeze from the corn fields of Ermelo. 'Raai-wat?' It was the easiest riddle to solve. Raizel-Raaisel-Raai-wat?

10

Erotic provocations comes from women. Was not this the cornerstone of Patriarchical Wisdom throughout the ages? In many ancient pastoral cultures the erotically-poetic lyric couplets or canticles sung at wedding festivals have been composed mostly by women. In the Song of Songs the Shulammite woman is urged to dance. She dances for the benefit of the masculine libidinous gaze: 'Dance, dance, O Shulammite woman, dance, dance, so we can gaze, even feast our eyes on the beauty of your gracefulness, on your sharply and beautiful sandaled feet, on your legs, on your thighs that are so lithe, so shapely, so elegant, which are like spinning jewels, the work of master jeweller, your hips are like rounded chalice brim full of wine, your hips hold a goblet, filled with delicious nectar, your waist, your belly is mound of wheat, adorned with lilies, your breasts are like fawns, twins of a gazelle.' The poetic imaginary or artistry of the pastoral poetess is not ambiguous, it is intentionally transgressive, its poetic or artistic license invites, no it does more than that, it prompts the breeching of boundaries, it goal is the incitement of passions. The Shulammite woman was no Aphrodite she was not a Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation, the mother of Eros. Who was she then? Some believe that the young woman was in a shepherdess who actively takes the initiative in the pursuit of her beloved within a pastoral setting. Could the shepherdess have been a Semitic woman like Raizel? Did Raaisel cast a spell on Brozin making him more erotically brazen? I will have more to say later about the affair between this girl-child and her art teacher. It would be natural for the reader to fall into the trap of constructing Raizel in the role of a Lolita. I would like to express a word on this matter.

11

That Nabokov's 'Lolita' is an exceptionally refined work of art there can be no doubting this. I would like to remind the reader that Raizel was no Dolores Haze nor was Karl Brozin a Humbert Humbert. Nabokov's 'Lolita' is a counterfeit book. It is full of borrowings, imitations, pastiches. Borrowings of scenes, settings, characters and plots. Imitation also means descriptive realism, the kind of writing which strike the senses. But we distrust the voice of Nabokov's narrator in 'Lolita'. Is there any reason for you to distrust my voice or any of the polyphonic voices in this book which you are reading? Is my work an imitation, a counterfeit book in other words? I can only pray that I have not committed this sin. Did Brozin pluck Raizel rose bud? Did Brozin deflower the thirteen year old Raizel? Did he commit the cardinal sin of a teacher? Read on dear reader. But let me be clear, Brozin was not a callous predator of under-aged girls. He was a tormented artist, but does this exculpate him? I am not trying to rehash a sanitized version of the sexual encounter trope between a young girl and a sexual predator disguised as a benevolent father figure. The sexual encounter trope can be aesthetically or artistically destabilized through a disharmonic intrusion or an off-beat syncopation disrupting of the regular flow of the polyphonic erotic harmonization of melody and rhythm. Lolita had no voice. But Raizel has. We live in the full glare of banality in a real world which resists 'aestheticization' (the word embodies a concept invented by Walter Benjamin) which means we are unable to intentionally render our lives as something which is aesthetically pleasing or artistically beautiful or even enchanting, if not gripping. This is the job of the writer of fiction. On second thoughts we can live our lives as a spectacle, or even as a parody, depicting this in words is also the job of the writer of fiction. Maybe our lives are indeed lived as a parody. A parody of what? Only the writer of fiction can answer this.

CHAPTER FIVE \- JOE MAGEE

1

Like Quinn, our working class ancestors, originally coal miners, were Catholics who migrated from Ireland to seek work on the goldfields of the South African. The goldfields which sprung up all along the margins of a wide arc of a gold bearing conglomerate outcrop called the Main Reef eventually evolved into the industrial region called the Witwatersrand. We both have deep roots in the Witwatersrand, especially in the region referred to as the Far East Rand. To get a visual sense of the mines which had become established along the Main Reef a good place to begin would be the water colours which the architect and artist Kenneth Stanley Birch had painted of the many of gold mines which were still in operation in the 1960s all along the Main Reef, stretching from Randfontein in the west to Heidelberg in the south east. His collection of mine paintings are under the curation of the University of Pretoria. By 1910 with the beginning of deep level gold mining the 100 or more mines of the Witwatersrand Gold Fields began to be consolidated and amalgamated into about 45 mines which collectively formed the backbone of the Witwatersrand gold mining industry which drew thousands of immigrants from Europe, America and Australia to what became known as the Union of South Africa which was formed shortly after the Boer War. As background research for this novel I went to view the paintings of Kenneth Birch. All the mine dumps are now gone and a good many of the headgears are gone. Today after so many years it is difficult to re-imagine or re-create the world of the Witwatersrand Gold Fields even though Quinn, his three brothers and I grew up on the Mines.

2

Quinn's immediate ancestors and family: Quinn's great grandfather, Brendan Magee, arrived on the golds fields in 1886 and his wife joined him in 1888. Quinn's grandfather, Thomas Magee was born in 1892 and Quinn's father Joe (Joseph) Magee was born 1915. Quinn's father or old man went to Wits in 1934 to study mechanical engineering. In 1938 Joe married Vanessa who at the age of 18 she was a child-bride. Sean was born in 1939, Reilly was born in 1942, Dillon was born in 1944, and Quinn was born in 1950. Catherine was born in 1953, Mary was born in 1954 and Elizabeth was born in 1961when Vanessa had just turned to 41.

Shortly before Joe's birth the First World War broke out. His father Thomas signed up as a volunteer to fight with the allied forces against the Germans, abandoning wife and new born son he boarded a troop ship in Durban. After the war Thomas did not return home but ended up staying in Paris until 1930 living a hand to mouth bohemian existence as an artist, painting, writing and playing the saxophone in nightclubs. The 'Crazy Years' also known as the Les années folles reigned in Paris from 1921 until 1931. Paris once again became the fermenting centre of the creative universe for art, music, literature and cinema attracting leading painters and artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Josephine Baker, of course Thomas Magee was in the thick of things in Paris. Out of money Thomas eventually returned to South Africa in 1928, divorced Joe's mother and moved to Durban. Being left destitute by Thomas, Joe and his mom had no option but to move into the home of Joe's grandparents. Grandfather Brendan had done well on the mines, moving up the rungs until he attained the position of general manager of a mine. Joe was sent off to a Catholic boarding school for boys, spending most of his childhood years away from home. Sexual abuse of boys by priests and brothers was rife in Catholic boarding schools and orphanages during those days. However, a kind hearted brother taking pity on the boys taught them to box and wrestle, and fight dirty, so that the boys could protect themselves from being ravished in the orgies of rape and sodomization which accompanied the regular nocturnal predatory dormitory visitations of paedophilic brothers and priests.

3

Shortly after matriculating Joe ran away to Durban, cycling all the way from Johannesburg, to look for his father who continued to live out the dissipated and reckless life, ala Henry Miller, of a painter, writer and musician. In the Union of South Africa in the 1930s the national roads connecting major cities in South Africa had not yet been completely bituminized. Roads with tar or asphalt surfaces only connected major towns which were not more than 80 miles apart. The main roads between towns usually ran alongside the railway lines. The route of the main national road between Johannesburg to Durban which was mostly untarred passed through Heidelberg, Balfour, Greylingstad, Standerton, Vrede, Warden, Harrismith, Ladysmith, Colenso, Estcourt, Mooi River, Howick, Maritzburg, Inhanga, and Pinetown before you eventually caught your first glimpse of the rolling surf of the great Indian Ocean lapping onto the beaches of Durban. Our intrepid cyclist equipped with a bicycle pump, bicycle spanner and puncture repair kit in the bag strapped to the saddle, a rucksack packed with a minimalist collection of clothing and personal items, four filched British pounds in his pocket, completed his incredible 414 .5 mile journey in seven days, sun tanned, fit as racehorse, ready for anything which the world had to offer.

4

As chance would have it when Thomas Magee, arrived in Durban from Paris he became friendly with a young Indian woman, going by the name of Abhilasha (Hindi अभिलाषा, meaning desire) Kapur (Hindi कपूर, kapūr), the wayward daughter of a wealthy Indian family whose ancestors were originally from Punjab. After finishing her schooling at a private school in London she went on to graduate from Cambridge University, where she had studied for a BA degree in the fine arts. As a rebellious maverick armed with her BA degree she had planned on moving to Paris to live the life of an artist. But being completely dependent on the financial support of her parents the closest she got to her dream of living in Paris was living with Thomas in Durban who had learnt to speak French as fluently as a native speaker, and who also exuded the aura of a Parisian bohemian. Like Thomas she was also painter, discovering that she had so much in common with him, she decided to move in with Thomas who was then staying in a seedy hotel in some shady end of Durban. Her family disowned her, but when she gave birth to a daughter both she and Thomas became reconciled with her family who began to subsidize the existence of their wayward daughter and cheeky disrespectful granddaughter, with Thomas living as a parasitic hanger-on. Thomas and Abhilasha moved into a house in Warwick Avenue which her parents owned. They became members of a multi-racial enclave of artists, poets, musicians, writers, dreamers, anarchists and revolutionaries known as the Warwick Avenue Commune. The enclaves somehow managed to resist the racial segregation laws in the form of The Durban Land Alienation Ordinance, No 14 of 1922, which was passed by the Durban Town Council, enabling it to exclude Indians from the ownership or occupation of property in all White designated areas. Setting eyes on each other for the first time ever it was a strange re-union between father and son. Abhilasha who spoke English with a posh upper class British accent took an instant liking to the boy who was the splitting image of his father. When he indicated an interest in making a career as a professional boxer, she managed to persuade him not to throw his life away, but make something more meaningful of his life by going to university. To Joe Magee's amusement Thomas and Abhilasha only spoke in French to each other and also took to answering him only in French so while he had done some French at boarding school, having to wrack his brains for words each time he wanted to communicate with them, he decided to find English speaking digs elsewhere in the Warwick Avenue Commune.

5

From 1924 to 1933 scores of lumpen proletarian whites, expatriates mainly from Britain and Ireland, who were seen to constitute a real threat to the stability of racial boundaries, disappeared into a twilight underworld of illegality to escape D F Malan's deportation dragnet, who was the minister of the interior during that time. It was a time of severe economic depression and poverty, circumstances which also forced them to resort to crime in order to earn a livelihood. They became involved in all kinds of racketeering, bootlegging, illegal gambling and prostitution. As an eighteen year old runaway in Durban Joe Magee, mingling with the marginal community of Irish, British and Eastern European Jewish reprobates, seeking employment opportunities for the aptitude and skills which nature had gifted him, he drifted into the shady mainly illegal immigrant populated underworld. At night he worked in the barely legitimate entertainment sector, mainly in bars, nightclubs, gambling dens, boxing events, dancehalls and brothels which as venues of licentiousness they had by dint of incredible ingenuity managed to evade or circumvent the shadow of the long arm of the law. He worked the nightshift to the beat of the big band music of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Glen Miller, working mainly in the very violent or physical role as a manual labourer, strong man or bouncer. During the day after getting up at midday he spent the remaining hours of daylight amusing himself on the Marine Parade as the consummate peak-up artist. In this topsy-turvy international and cosmopolitan microcosm, a satellite community drawn from the four corners the earth which had wobbled off its colonial orbit found itself entering into a forbidden universe, in the process engaging in miscegenistic mingling with Indians and Aboriginals, existing as a transient community with no future, like on a sinking ship everyone lived for the moment, and to use a cliché, the band played on, and in this world Joe Magee felt at home as a true citizen. He rubbed shoulders comfortably with anti-Stalinist Jewish Trotskyites, trade unionists, sailors from every country, conmen, pimps, criminals, in the process not only becoming an inventive entrepreneur but also acquiring a taste for a being a show-off, especially to an appreciate audience, dancing the Charleston 8-1-2-3 cow tail first with the right leg and then with the left leg , and then dancing the fall of the log, his fluid graceful movements a perfect mimicking of the most talented Cotton Club dancers.

6

It goes without saying that as a good looking lad with an insatiable appetite for violence and sex Joe Magee was never found wanting, but took full advantage of the situation whenever the occasion arose, like an experienced connoisseur he indulged in the eroticism of sex and violence to the level of over-brimming excess of which most men could only dream of. After being arrested for beating up a patron in an illegal brothel he was released with a stern warning by the magistrate into the custody of his grandfather. So after a year in Durban the runaway prodigal grandson returned to his grandfather's home. Joe Magee had the crafty animal blend of a cynical wisdom and instinct to realize what was ultimately in his best pecuniary interests, so when given the opportunity by this grandfather, he enrolled for a degree in mechanical engineering. Having sown his wild oats he was able to focus on his studies while still finding time to partake in reactional activities (Wits Amateur Boxing Club and various Social Clubs), diversions (bridge and the Wits Jazz Club) and amusements (universities balls and student parties). Joe Magee who had now grown up into a young cynical man was rarely surprised or astonished by anything, but was surprised and astonished to discover that dental student Uri Radziechowski who had become his friend and regular sparring partner at the Wits Amateur Boxing Club and fellow member of the Wits Soccer Club was a Jew. How do I know this? Well Quinn's father often entertained us with the stories including those of his student days at Wits. It slipped out that at Wits he was known as Jomogee. He was never addressed as simply Joe. When introduced he would say: 'Joe Magee.' We have two names and two characters. Jomogee was the charming, charismatic and entertaining Celtic personality.

7

It was at the Wits Jazz Club evenings which he enjoyed with Uri who had become his regular male companion that his social horizon expanded to include other Jazz enthusiasts, including a string of female friends such as the likes of Avigail a medical student and a Trotskyite, Aviva a fine arts student and a member of the Communist Party, Chava a law student, Golda a fine arts student, Leah studying English and philosophy, Rivkah and Rhoda both studying law, Shoshanah studying economics and political science, and Zelda studying fine arts. Joe Magee or rather Jomogee in the role of a talented and entertaining raconteur regaled them with sanitized versions of his year in Durban, including humorous stories of dirt poor Trotskyites who could never agree amongst themselves on everything regarding Marxism or communism or the revolution. A party was not a party without Jomogee being present so he became a regular fixture on the guest lists of all the beautiful people of Johannesburg, inadvertently recruited into the social circles of the affluent northern suburbs. No one especially the young women in the above list had ever met anyone quite like Jomogee, a rough but truly exotic and rare diamond that dazzled like the brightest galaxy in the universe, they all had their turn to become putty in his hands, and he had his way with each one of them in ways they could never have dreamt possible, even in their most erotic or sordid dreams. It appeared to all who made his acquaintance that Jomogee was a man of incredible intelligence, grace, physical strength and sexual potency. The first time he took Rivkah he impaled her in the garden of her parent's Houghton mansion at a multi-racial New Year's Eve party at which luminaries of the National Union of South African Students and Communist Party were also present. Just as was he savouring the full measure of an exquisite ejaculation witnessed by a congregation of croaking toads, a chorus of chirping crickets, a squadron of flittering bats and the entire audience of the star bejewelled universe, Aviva also stumbled onto the scene of the conjugation of the pair, the image of flagrante delicto forever burnt into her brain. Rivkah unaware that her deflowering by Jomogee, the fulfilment of her New Year's resolution had been duly witnessed, stamped and certified as genuine and irrevocable.

8

Following my lurid debriefing regarding the character known as Jomogee, the following thought occurred to me: Am I writing for an exclusive audience who have to be sufficiently initiated in order to decode the intentional and unintentional (subconscious or unconscious) allusions that I am guilty of? As a priest I may have fallen into this trap. Am I fulfilling the true and authentic purpose of art? Am I proclaiming the Gospel or the Good News through the medium of the Novel? Or should art be engaged in doing the opposite? Meaning that it should not be used as a medium or vehicle for moral education or moral enlightenment or salvific purposes. What am I hoping to convey by allusion and ellipsis? I really don't know to be honest! This could be the mystery of this Novel for the reader to unravel. According to Tolstoy true art should find its paradigmatic exemplification in the narratives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or Homer or the Gospels.

9

In 1938 after graduating with a BSc degree in mechanical engineering Joe Magee started his engineering pupillage at Crown Mines, Johannesburg. Also in 1938, 18 year old Vanessa O'Donoghue started working as a wage clerk in the Crown Mines head office administration building. Vanessa a daughter of a middle class Catholic family grew up in Belgravia Johannesburg, matriculating from the Dominican Convent School in Belgravia at the end of 1937. From a purely visual physiognomic perspective the genetic origins of the rare, haunting and captivating beauty of this young raven haired blue eyed Catholic Celtic woman was an unsolvable mystery. It was rumoured that she had Assyrian or Persian blood running in her veins. Of course Joe Magee on first encounter became erotically obsessed with the young virginal woman who was almost still a school girl. As an aspirant in good standing, having undergone several interviews, being in a state of readiness to be accepted into a postulancy she spoke about becoming a novice by the end of the year, she had prayed for guidance, and was awaiting a sign from God, she was serious about entering the novitiate in preparation for the monastic life of nun, and that was the reason why she was unable to accept a date to the movies with Joe Magee. Joe Magee ironically felt that he was competing with God for the possession of this ravishing virgin. In his mind he reflected: 'If I have to compete with the creator of the Universe for her, then so be it!' And metaphorically speaking he must have made that Faustian pact with the devil, exchanging his soul for one night in bed with the virgin Vanessa. Maybe the Devil's agent Mephistopheles looking for an interesting bargain eventually arrived at Crown Mines one day after walking here and there, roaming around the ends of earth in search of a worthy deal. And so after being relentlessly pursued and wooed and being finally smitten by the beguilingly charming Joe Magee she eventually relented, exchanging the novitiate for the sacrament of marriage. With a government ticket (professional engineer certification) in his pocket and a pregnant wife by his side he arrived to take up the position of resident mechanical engineer at Sally's Mine in Brakpan.

CHAPTER SIX - THE FAR EAST RAND CAULDRON

1

Quinn's early childhood years: Like Quinn I was also born in 1950. In 1950 the ages of his three brothers, Sean, Reilly and Dillon, were 12, 9 and 7, respectively. Like myself, Quinn was born into the blighted landscape of the Far East Rand, an urban conundrum in which violence boiled incessantly in the rough and ready mining towns of the Far East Rand. From the very beginning the Witwatersrand goldfields was a violent place, violence was ubiquitous both underground and aboveground, but more so underground. On the goldfields it was impossible to disentangle the pervasiveness of violence from the expression and embodiment of masculinity for white and black men, and the relationship between white and black men was one that was pre-eminently shaped by violence. For African men at the existential level the nature of white masculinity was defined by violence. Yet at another level violence also defined African masculinities within an African social setting making violence both endemic and multi-layered. By the 1940s most of the gold was being mined in the Far East Rand. As a child Quinn, like me, grew up on the various housing estates of the Far East Rand gold mines. His old man never managed to stay at one mine for very long, so the family's trekking from one mining town to the next became a way of life until the end of Quinn's adolescence. Rootlessness was the hallmark of his childhood years. And the experience of rootlessness eventually reached the climax of utter homelessness, but more of that later. He was born in the small town of Dunnottar which fell within the municipal boundaries of Nigel. In the late 1940s and early 1950s his father worked on the following cluster of mines within the Nigel-Springs municipal districts: Nigel, Marievale, Daggafontein and East Daggafontein mines. In his pre-adolescent years Quinn grew up in the mine townships linked to Marievale and Daggafontein mines. During the 1940s and 1950s there was a marked rural or even pastoral quality to life on the mines in the Far East Rand. The towns of the East Rand which included Boksburg, Benoni, Brakpan, Springs and Nigel were strung along the gold bearing reefs of the Witwatersrand. Geographically the towns also marked off the north-eastern reaches of the Highveld. As you may have guessed by now, the Highveld is the name given to the vast featureless, treeless grassland plains, ideal for maize and dairy farming. A patchwork of shallow topological depressions within the grasslands of the Far East Rand formed the natural drainage catchments into which waters from the ridges of the Witwatersrand escarpment, and from rain, springs, streams and rivers collected, giving rise to a vast mosaic of wetlands and marshes which were rich in avian biodiversity. Before the discovery of gold the rich ecosystem of wetlands and marshes were pristine and unpolluted. In the 1950s the many wetlands which were a prominent feature of the surrounding rural landscape of the Far East Rand mining towns began to suffer the toxic impact of acid, heavy metal and radioactive contamination, due to the, collection of rain run-off waters from the slopes of the yellow coloured slime dams and mine dump tailings, the ubiquitous man-created mountains of mining spoilage which has marred and defaced the surrounding landscape, monuments colossal and hideous, the legacy of more than seventy years of gold mining.

2

As a spatial phenomenon the Witwatersrand exists as a stretched out sprawling conurbation of cities, towns and suburbs having no direct organic, cultural, communal or historical connection with the surrounding countryside or its ancient history. A complete disjunction existed between the rural and the town or the city. Historically, culturally and sociologically, the two spaces, the plains of the surrounding countryside and the elevated plateau of the sprawling Witwatersrand metropolis have over time become populated by different communities. The white urbanites who populated the Witwatersrand where ethnically heterogeneous with regard to their ancestral origins, they were mainly of Afrikaans descent, British descent, Irish descent, Italian descent, Portuguese descent, Greek descent, Lebanese descent and Jewish descent, and within a generation or two the umbilical cords which originally connected them to their ancestral countries had become severed and while they could be designated as settlers, those who were born of settler stock into the Witwatersrand effectively ceased to be expatriates or colonials, metamorphosing into a naturalized or indigenized community, bearing in its collective identity the cultural, psychological and sociological imprints of the great conurbation in which they had become imbedded by dint of birth and upbringing. It is no exaggeration that the Witwatersrand as a human created artefact also represents one of man's most visible and impressive achievements of plunder, looting, sacrilege, pillage, despoliation, corruption, theft, exploitation, oppression, repression, and massive environmental degradation. In many ways the attributes of shamelessness, debauchery, violence, heartlessness, crookedness, licentiousness and depravity which Joe Magee embodied as a black hole singularity faithfully mimicked the essential nature of the necropolis which has not only ruled and governed the earth since the dawn of civilization, but also ruled the Witwatersrand, which had indeed developed into an exemplary microcosm of an earthly civilization, the kind of civilization which can only exist in the form of a necropolis. Joe Magee was indeed the model of the civilized man, in much the same way that Nero and Caligula were models of the civilized man in that age, but on a grander scale, and we can argue that they all shared in common the mark of Cain and the spirit of Prometheus, both builders of cities, and founders of civilization. Joe Magee was not only the progeny of civilization, born from the violent cauldron of its womb, he was also the progeny of modernity. He possessed all the attributes of the archetypical civilized man, and also of a truly modern man if you wish. He possessed all the attributes which fully defines the essential nature of the modern man. What do we associate with modernity? This question is germane to my story. Joe Magee was a modern man in every respect. I challenge you to repudiate this. But let's not argue about that, let it slide. The emblem or icon or symbol or model of modernity is the city. And what is the City? In general we associate the following not only with modernity, but also with the city, with the oligarchy, and ultimately with the birth of what has been called civilization: depravity, energy, recklessness, inventiveness, ingenuity, creativity, initiative, fearlessness, sensuousness, narcissism, violent impulses and a death wish. In a word the city, as the embodiment of modernity, is both Promethean and Dionysian in predisposition. Can the necropolis be Promethean and Dionysian? Yes I believe so. Why? Because the rebellion of Prometheus and Dionysian is nihilistic. If you looking for a modern nihilist, then Joe Magee was that nihilist if there ever was one. How could Joe Magee be all of these things? I will tell you why. He was an educated man. He was a civilized man. A resourceful man. He was well read and he was also a very clever man, a sensuous man, a lascivious man, a serious man. Yes a serious man. He was smart. Smart in the ways of the world.

3

What about Quinn's mother, Vanessa Magee? Physically speaking she was and always remained a beautiful woman. Spiritually speaking she was also a beautiful woman. She should have become a nun. A supremely devout Catholic woman, her faith in God was her strength and joy. She suffered the abuse of Joe Magee with the quiet and long suffering dignity of a saint. From Daggafontein the Magee family moved to Grootvlei Mine in Springs. And then they moved from Grootvlei to the following mines in order of succession: Geduld Mine, Sally's Mine in Brakpan, and Modder Deep Mine in Benoni. The Magee family had hardly put down roots in one school or mining township before they were uprooted and moved to a new school in another mining town. And the three older Magee brothers, in their teenage years became tough and shiftless. During the late 1950s lacking a strong and reliable father figure or a consistent fatherly role model, from the ages of seven to about ten the prepubescent Quinn began to hang out with his brothers and lived under their protection and example, becoming exposed to many of their adventures. In spite of the regular upheavals in the Magee home, the years from 1957 to 1961 were wonderful years for the young Quinn. There was the Dunnottar Drive-In, which in 1959 had the second largest screen in Africa at the time. Friday and Saturday nights were Drive-In or soccer nights. The Magee family watched soccer matches at the Pam Brink Stadium in Springs and also at the Prince George Stadium in Boksburg. The white National Football League included the following clubs: Rangers, Germiston Callies, Arcadia Shepherds, Benoni United, Randfontein, Pretoria City, Brakpan United, Southern Suburbs, Hellenic, Durban City and so on. The three older Magee brothers played for Brakpan United. They were also members of the Brakpan Amateur Boxing Club. His younger sisters grew up to be shy, reserved and studious, coping miraculously with the constant disruptions and upheavals. They compensated for all the uncertainties which seemed to rule their lives by becoming academic high achievers at school in spite of everything. The same applied to Quinn. Here he did not follow the example of his three elder brothers. But like his three elder brothers Quinn too also faced the challenge of having to constantly re-invent their lives as the new boys on the block. However, unlike his three elder brothers Quinn was exempted from having to escape the shadow of previous delinquencies with the bonanza that a fresh start offered with each new school. Like their father, the three brothers, Sean, Reilly and Dillon, always welcomed the future with the open arms of the newly born. They were in a constant need of a fresh start in which they could shake off the legacies of the past. Like the old man who had a history of achievement in soccer and amateur boxing, the three brothers were also well known in the East Rand amateur boxing and soccer fraternity.

4

One Christmas, before Quinn was born, the old man bought sparing boxing gloves and a punch bag as presents for the boys. The punch bag was rigged up in the garage. As an adolescent when Quinn began to hang out with his brothers it was natural that he would be drawn into sparing with them in the garage and began to learn the skills of boxing. Initially he was forced to box against his will, but after a lot of coaxing and encouragement he was finally persuaded to don the boxing gloves and soon he was trading blows with the old man and his brothers. By the time he turned nine in 1960 Quinn had lost all fear of fighting or being hit. Sean was twenty one, Reilly was eighteen and Dillion was sixteen. Both Sean and Reilly were doing their apprenticeship as motor mechanics, and Dillon had just started his apprenticehip as a tool-maker. A watershed had been reached in the balance of power or monopoly of physical violence between sons and father in the Magee household. In Quinn's words: 'I was eight years old during those days. When the old man got drunk on a bottle of rum in the kitchen he would want to box with us, he would challenge us to real fights, and he would put money on the kitchen table which we could take if we could outbox him or knock him down. But as we got older the drunken boxing bouts became too punishing for him and the duels came to an end. While under the influence he would talk freely about everything. He would talk about his childhood and teenage experiences at a Catholic boarding school where he and others was taught by one of the brothers on how to box and how to wrestle, and how to fight dirty, so that the boys could protect themselves from being raped and sodomized during the night time by the homosexual predations of the brothers and priests. I think I have already said this. It does not matter. Read on.

5

As they got older, Sean, Reilly and Dillon, did not spend much time at home. Our home had become their boarding house. We would see them briefly for supper in the evenings before they went out and then again we would see then in mornings for breakfast. On occasions when Joe Magee was in his cups he could become loquacious and hold forth the whole night on some philosophical or other topic if he had an audience which usually ended up being me. My mom and my sisters would lock themselves up their room. My three older brothers would make a quick duck into the night leaving me behind. I was only a kid, I would go to my room which I shared with Dillon. The old man would inevitably come to my bedroom door and knock on it and ask if he could come in. After a moment's silence he would push the door open and in the dark sit down on Dillon's bed:

'Quinn are you awake? Hey Quinn it is only us left in the world, just you and me, we are alone in this world, always remember that. The others have gone. They have abandoned us. Quinn I am still your father. You know I try hard to be a good father and a good husband. You know that the old girl and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of stuff.'

Then there would be silence for a while, and he would start talking again.

'I just want to tell you that there is nothing you have to fear in life, nothing at all. You can take my word for that. Quinn you got to be fearless. You know I worry a lot about your brothers. They are good boys, but I still I worry a lot about them. Quinn you have to look out for them, you have the brains in the family, looking after your brothers is going to be your job one day. Quinn you have got the brains. You are a smart kid. Dillon is smart with a ball, he has soccer on the brain, which is good, and there is nothing wrong with that. But I worry about him Quinn. And Reilly I worry a lot about him too. He can box. There is no doubt about that. He talks about become a professional boxer. He must get that out of his head. But you know, I still worry a lot about Reilly, he is a good boy, he is good with his fists, and there is no doubt about that. Quinn are awake?'

And then he would repeat:

'Quinn it just us in the world, just you and me. There is no one else, you and I are alone. You must be fearless my boy, there is nothing to fear in life. Quinn you know we are taught to fear God. You know Quinn in spite of everything I still believe in God. Deep down I am a good Catholic. You know that. Honest to God I am a good Catholic. But I have no time for priests, they are all a bunch of faggots. This is the Goddamn truth, believe me. If anyone should fear God it is the fucking priests. You know I worry a lot about Sean. He is a good boy. He is good with his hands, he can fix any bloody thing. He takes after me. You know I can fix any fucking thing, if it is broken just give it to me and I will fix it.'

Sean was the eldest. As a teenager, after a lot of nagging dad bought him an ancient Anglia which with some help from the old man Sean completely restored. They overhauled the engine, redid the upholstery, and resprayed the body work. Reilly the second eldest was a real charmer, handsome and dangerous, and the girls ran after him. Dillon was the third eldest. He was the sportsman of the family. And as you know I am number four. My sister Catherine was number five and Mary was number six, and Elisabeth was last but not least.

CHAPTER SEVEN \- A SOCCER PLAYING DEBAUCHEE

1

For as long as he was working on the mines Joe Magee played football for one of the mine football clubs. All mines had soccer pitches, usually located close to the mine workers compound. There was an inter-mine football league, a white league and a black league. He would attend practice once week and the white team would practice against the black team. He was the one who instigated this practice which was frowned upon by the white mining officialdom. No one in the family was interested in supporting Joe Magee, so from the age of five it was usually only me who accompanied the old man to his Saturday afternoon football league fixtures. Sundays he played golf. I could see that he was popular among his soccer team mates. He was the only senior mine official who mingled at the social level with blue collar white mine workers. This is what made him different from his peers. Anyway he would practically beg me to go with him. Usually there were other kids and also wives accompanying the fathers to the football fixtures, and with the other kids we would end up exploring the surrounding mine property for the afternoon walking around the mine neighbourhoods, visiting the mine workers compound or climbing the nearby mine dumps.

2

After the match there would be a braai and fraternizing over beers. And then after the braai as the sun was setting Joe Magee and the single men would drive off to the nearest hotel bar usually located somewhere close next to the Main Reef Road. I can still remember some of the names of the bars: Caledonian Hotel, Balmoral Hotel, Angelo Hotel, Boksburg North Hotel and so on. According to the Statutes of the Transvaal the only hotels which qualified for a liquor license next to a main public road were the hotels on the Main Reef Road. This statute has been place since 1902.

3

It was late, past 8.00 pm, it was also 1959, I was miserable and hungry, I had fallen asleep on the backseat of the car, it had been a long day, another football match at the Angelo Mine football pitch which ended with the car parked outside the Angelo Hotel Bar. When Joe Magee eventually woke me up he was in the company of a pretty young woman, possibly only 21 years old who could not stop giggling, who also being very tipsy clung to my father, who had his arm around her waist supporting her. I still remember her name it was Fredericka. The story was that Joe Magee had offered to give her lift home because she had been abandoned by her friends. The real story: She had come with a group of friends to have drinks at the Angelo Hotel lounge, bumped into the charming Joe Magee, falling almost immediately under the spell of his dazzling wit she abandoned her friends, joining him at a corner table where he plied her with drinks while regaling her with amusing stories, bringing her to a state of reckless hilarity, her laughter filling the lounge. Thinking in retrospect about the whole incident it was possible that he had forgotten that I was in the car, which was a problem. Plan B: We were going to the new roadhouse called The Fire Place for milkshakes and hamburgers, which was just down the road. After drinking some of her milkshake and eating a bit of her hamburger, she said she was going to be sick, the old man quickly leaned over to open her door, leaning half out of the car she began vomit. She turned out to be a nurse who worked at the Boksburg Benoni Hospital. After the roadhouse debacle we drove her back to the nurse's residence at the hospital in Plantation, Boksburg.

4

Joe Magee was definitely not finished with the pretty Fredericka. She was going to be his guinea pig. He had a plan, he decided to set up a secret predetermined rendezvous where Fredericka and he could have their erotic trysts. He began to wine and dine her on lavish dates, taking her to movies and theatre and nightclubs like Ciro's in Johannesburg. He bought her clothes, lingerie, and even a 1947 Morris Minor which she parked at the hospital. He would book a room in advance at the Angelo Hotel where she would wait for him.

5

In Quinn's words: 'For me 1960 was the turning point. And after Fredericka there were others, a seemingly never ending procession of other young winsome women becoming entangled in our father's life, and so at the height of my father's glory, we had to contend with the passing pageant of Fabricia, Farica, Faricka (see Farica), Fecelia, Fedelma, Fedila, Fedora, Fedra, Felicia, Fericka (see Farica), Fideila, Fidelia, Fidelina, Fidelita (see Fidelity), Flicka, Franciska, Franziska, Freda, Fredalena, Fredda, Freddi, Freddie, Fredella, Fredelle, Fredi, Fredia, Fredie, Freeda, Freida, Friedalinda (see Friedelinde), Friedelinde, Fyedora. My brothers having grown sick and tired of the old man drunken debaucheries and peccadillos, which had made the domestic situation unbearable, moved out later that year, effectively abandoning mom, my sisters and myself. When they had gone we no longer had a buffer to protect us against our own father. He became increasing unpredictable, living what seemed to be a double life, carousing from Friday night to the early hours of Sunday morning spending almost every weekend lost in the fog of an alcohol binge. I began to see things in their true light. He was a shady character who could not be trusted. He never kept his promises. There was always this veil of secrecy and mystery regarding the things that he was 'up to'. I could not fathom what he could possibly be up to. His departures from one mine to the next were always tainted with the unmistakeably whiff of illegality revolving around money illegally obtained through various nefarious corrupt dealings and general malfeasance. Yet with the instinctive shrewdness of a feral animal he always managed to land on his feet, again and again. Most of the time when things started becoming a bit too hot for him, he would resign before he could be fired. Time and time again he proved himself to be a persuasive genius, a consummate crook when it came to the invention of plausible arguments, arguments fully embellished with all kinds of believable reasons, and water tight alibis, arguments justifying with unmistakable prescience the wisdom of his decisions to move on. And so moving on became the constant in his life and also in our lives. We were always moving on.

6

I soon realized to my shame and dismay that my father was not only a drunken womanizer but he was also a small time crook. He was fired on two occasion before he could resign. In the one instance he was fired because he had almost killed a fellow miner in a fist fight at the mine rec pub. Our father was having an affair with the man's wife. I think he had impregnated her. In one of his drunken binges a few weeks later after we had packed up and moved on to another mine he asked if we would be happy to have another little kid brother or sister. I guessed then he was eluding to that woman as the expectant mother of our new half-sibling. On hearing this disclosure our mother in a fit of screaming rage began to beat him with her little clenched fists. Crouching under the cover of his arms with his fists protecting his face like a boxer he allowed her strike him. He laughed uncontrollably as her blows rained down on his head, shoulders, arms and back until she collapsed onto her knees on the kitchen floor, physically exhausted, sobbing, her hands covering her face. He was a gentleman in the sense that he never raised a hand to her and in his own mind he felt that he had fulfilled his parental duty by teaching his sons to box so that they could take care of themselves in a hard and unforgiving world as he put it.'

CHAPTER EIGHT \- BEING HOMELESS

1

Homeless. In Quinn's words: 'It was in June 1961 when he was fired once more for beating up a man in the rec pub. We were given twenty four hours to vacate the mine house and remove ourselves from the precincts of the mine property. In a mad rush the furniture removals cleared the house of all our belongings. All our furniture and other bulky household goods were going to be placed storage. We packed clothes, blankets, pillows, cutlery, crockery and cardboard boxes of food into the Austin Cambridge. We had a cat and dog, they too were also loaded into the car. Late that afternoon after the furniture removal truck drove off, we too drove off. Catherine was 8 years old, Mary was 7 years old and Elizabeth was three months old. Catherine did not understand what was going on. Mom told her that we were going on holiday. I quickly became aware that we were driving to no particular destination. The old man tried to make light of our situation by joking that for the foreseeable future we were going to eat at roadhouses and sleep at driven-in movie theatres, where we would use the drive-in public ablution facilities for washing and so on. And that is just what we did that very first night. But first the old man stopped at a bottle store in Brakpan to buy the best bottle of whiskey on offer. My mom asked whether we had enough money to see us through. I wondered: to see us through until when? She was worried that he would spend everything on an alcoholic binge over the next 72 hours or so. He came back to the car with a broad grin on his face carrying a bottle of Chivas Regal. Anyway our next stop was the road house. While we looked at the menu board he opened the bottle and started swigging slugs of whiskey straight from the bottle. In answer to mom's queries regarding the family finances, he told her to relax, adding that money was the least of our problems. He said that he had plenty of money, we could order anything we wished.

2

While we ate our hamburgers and chips I asked the old man if I was going to be dropped off at school in the morning. His answer was that I should forget about school for the time being. I began to cry. Catherine began to cry hysterically. Mary sobbed her heart out. My mom intervened, stating emphatically with the conviction of a saint that none of us would be missing a single day of school because she will organize my enrolment into a private Catholic School for Boys and Catherine and Mary would be enrolled into a convent. The old man immediately threw cold water on the idea. 'Over my dead body will Quinn go to a Catholic Boys school? Who is going to pay?' My mom replied that the church would pay for our education. God will take care of us, she was adamant about that. My dad scoffed at the suggestion that the church would pay for my education. But out of respect for mom he did not question God's ability to look after us. I also think, in keeping with the devious person that he was, but also because he was a person also given to irrational superstitions at times, I guessed that his silence on the matter of God meant that he was hedging his bets on the possibility of divine intervention, such was his faith in Vanessa's faith, to this extent as an irreligious person and lapsed Catholic he ended up in believing in magic, even if its sources lay somewhere hidden in the mysterious workings of the cosmos or the cosmic spirit.

3

As the sun set we drove to the Brakpan drive-in, joining the long queue to pay for our tickets at the entrance. The first feature was the newly released 'The Guns of Navarone'. The movie for the second show was 'The Magnificent Seven'. The old man passed out before the end of 'The Guns of Navarone'. It was a bitterly cold night. My mom was wearing her black coat with a blanket covering her legs. She had fallen asleep holding baby Elizabeth wrapped up like a sausage in baby blankets on her breast. Catherine and Mary, both warmly dressed and wrapped in a blanket laid snuggly together stretched out fast asleep on the back seat with their heads on pillow pressed against my thigh. When the roll of closing credits finally ended, when the projector light died and when the screen turned grey under the moonless sky, when the music on the speaker stopped, when the last car drove off, I waited in the pitch darkness behind the opaque misted up windows, I waited while everyone in the car slept, including the cat and the dog. I waited until someone knocked on the car window. I rolled down my window. The man, possibly the drive-in manager shown his torch into the car. I got out of the car. Opening the front door I began to shake the old man shouting 'Dad we got go, the man says we can't stay parked here all night.'

The man kept on saying 'Meneer, meneer...'

My dad could not be roused and my mom pretended to be asleep. All I could say to the man was 'we mustn't wake the baby'. The man stood there for a while with a perplexed frown on his face, scratching his head. The old man reeking of alcohol, laying with his head thrown back, his mouth wide open, began to snore.

4

At first light I managed to wake the old man. He woke up in a cheerful mood, completely unfazed, in a state which contrasted sharply with how I perceived our situation which bore all the existential similarities and fearful equivalences to being stranded as castaways on some remote God forsaken deserted island or on a rudderless ship with broken masks drifting aimlessly in the doldrums of a boundless infinite ocean. Now standing at the threshold of the great unknown, and having no one else to turn to our fate was firmly in the hands of this man, Joe Magee. This rebellious Prometheus of ingenuity and inventiveness who could be relied upon to find ways to circumvent the reign of order, could he possibly now also save us from the debacle into which he had landed us. For him order was not the highest good, nor a moral imperative to be blindly observed. Order meant bending to the will of others, the enforcers of rules and regulations. But the order of my life had been shattered. It felt as if I was now living on the outside, outside as being beyond the reach of order, which means existing outside any kind of routine, regulation, organization, predictability and expectations. Outside of the existing order of things, outside of the everyday arrangement of life is what it means to be looking at the world through the window of a car which had become our home. From this side of being outside of the world, we sitting inside the car, seeing the world from this perspective on a cold winter's morning left me feeling what it is really like be an outsider. Looking through the frosty window at early morning wintery landscape the voice in my head said: You are either on the inside or the outside. You have those who inside and you have those who outside. We were very distinctly outside in more ways than one could imagine, which in turn made me feel disconnected from the world, disconnected from normal life or normal living. I was very much aware that now sitting in the back seat of the Cambridge in the grounds of the drive-in that I was no longer a part of a world which I had taken for granted as being part and parcel of my existence, such as going to school, belonging to a neighbourhood or being a known and identifiable member of a stable community. I was now an unknown person with no immediate fixed address. There was no place at that moment which I could call home. In truth we were homeless. Everywhere people were getting up, getting dressed for school, having breakfast, getting ready to go to work. And us? We were stilled parked in the grounds of the Brakpan drive-in. We were not really getting up, we were not getting dressed, we were not really get ready to go anywhere as far as I could ascertain. Mary woke up. Realizing that she was not in her bed in her bedroom but still at the drive-in she wanted to know whether we would shortly be going back home. I remarked facetiously like a typical precocious adolescent that we were not going home because we were in fact actually already on holiday. 'Mom are we really on holiday,' Mary asked looking perplexed and perturbed. 'No my little angel,' mom answered. Catherine grasping clearly the situation we were in began to weep uncontrollably. 'What is going to happen to us, we have no home and we can't go to school anymore,' she cried. Elizabeth began to cry, she was hungry and her nappy needed changing. The old man brightly reminded us that: '...foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.'

5

The car was covered in a brittle mantle of frost. Rolling down the frosted iced-up window the early morning weak wintery sun revealed an icy landscape wrapped in a shroud of crisp crystalline whiteness. Wearing a greatcoat and balaclava the night watchman breathing clouds of fog unlocked the gates and we drove to Boksburg. After eating breakfast at a Café across the road from the Transvaal Hotel in the locale of Boksburg Station we drove down Commissioner towards Boksburg Lake. At the robots by the intersection next to the Lake we took the left turn, following the road which wound past a circus like encampment where in place of the conventional circus tent an oval hessian enclosed arena with open air grandstands had been erected on the lawns at the western edge of the Lake. The words 'The Wild West Show' were emblazed on a large sign. Spotting an entrance gate which allowed for vehicle access to the lake we drove past the children's play park with its slide, swings and merry, parking at the edge of the Lake side promenade. We sat in silence in the car staring vacantly at the lake. After a while the old man announced that he had business to attend to. He suggested we spend the day at the Lake. He retrieved Elizabeth's pram from the car's boot. Digging into his pocket he gave me a fist fall of lose change suggesting that I go see The Wild West Show in the afternoon. He gave mom some cash for food before driving off. Holding the cat while standing next to mom, Catherine, Mary and the dog next to the pram on the promenade I asked my mom: 'Do you think we will ever see dad again'. Looking at us, wide eyed, Mary asked: 'What are we going to do now?'

6

Glancing at her watch she said: 'Quinn put the cat in the pram we are going to Mass.' St Dominic's Catholic Church was a short walk away in Trichardt Street. We arrived at the Church shortly before the start of morning Mass. After Mass we met with the parish priest who taking pity on us got onto the phone. Our most immediate need was shelter. He found a place for us to stay rent free which happened to be the premises of a vacant shop next to a bus terminus diagonally across the road from the Church and opposite the Boksburg Town Hall. The shop, which used to be a fruit and vegetable shop, had a toilet, basin, a backroom and a small backyard, was owned by a Portuguese businessman who was also parishioner of the Church. That same day the people of the parish organized beds, a small kitchen table, chairs, stove and fridge. For privacy I helped mom papered up the shop's front display window. When all was done. I went off to see The Wild West Show. At the end of the two hour American styled rodeo show of bucking broncos, lassoing of calves, steer wrestling, bull riding, barrel riding, all kinds of horse riding tricks, a mock gun fight and a mock Indian and USA Calvary battle, I walked back to the shop. Mom had prepared spaghetti bolognaise for supper for Catherine, Mary and myself. At five, just before the onset of twilight I returned to the Lake to wait for the old man. I sat on the bench next to the promenade. It was already dark with the evening star high in the sky when the Austin Cambridge drove through the gate with headlights blazing. He spotted me standing alone on the promenade at the same spot where he had left us.

7

When I got into the car, I blurted out in surprise: 'You are sober!' He laughed and then said: 'I am cutting back on the booze, I have got big plans, I need a clear head, you think I can't do without booze, if you thinking that, then you are wrong, anyway tell me old chap how was the 'Wild West Show'?' Before he started the car he asked where mom, the girls and the baby were. He obviously expected that we would all be waiting for him like sad orphans in the dark next to the lake. I could see that he was surprised when I told him that mom had managed to find a place for us stay. When I asked him what he had been up to? I was curious about the big plans he had in mind. He answered with his typical ironical grin: 'Traveling all over the earth, going from one end of the earth to the other, going here and going there, going to and thro, checking out everything, thinking, scheming, you can rest assured that things are going work out better than I could ever have imagined, so don't worry old chap about anything, has your mother made supper?' And to repeat: He was in an ebullient mood and sober, not so much as a whiff of alcohol on his breath.

8

Over the next few days he set off each morning to roam the ends of the earth smartly dressed in a clean starched white shirt, tie and suit, disappearing for the entire day, coming back only after 8.00 pm in the evening. After a week or so he informed us that he had obtained employment with the government as.an industrial and mine safety inspector. He told us that his job required extensive travelling which would also involve him being away from home from time to time. He didn't tell us that he would also be moonlighting as a freelance sales representative for the supply of various items of industrial and engineering equipment such as electrical motors, compressors, pumps, crushers, cyclones, centrifuges, rotary dryers, piping, boilers, furnaces, ventilation and refrigeration, all of which he sold on behalf of suppliers for a commission. Paradoxically as a government inspector he became the custodian of order. Now he could make the upholding of order work to his advantage. Order was now the highest good in more ways than one and he was the guardian of that order, and the beneficiary of all the good that flowed therefrom.

9

Joe Magee a man of extraordinary entrepreneurial talent, a man of beguiling charm, a man unafraid to indulge his darkest desires, a man who seemed to be fearless and was feared by others in turn. Yet Joe's notorious reputation was his undoing, no gold mine on the East Rand would dare employ him, no matter how good an engineer he happened to be. Now he had came back to haunt and harass the mine bosses as an employee of the public service in the role of an exceedingly conscientious, dedicated and diligent government industrial and mining inspector bent on doing his job in accordance with the highest professional standards. The letter of the law was his guide and light, not to mention delight. Nothing untoward in a factory or a mine escaped his eagle eyes. In his official capacity as a servant of the public he now possessed the power, a power reinforced and equipped with extensive and comprehensive engineering knowledge, a knowledge which empowered him to shut down a mine or a factory. Joe's willingness to do his job well meant that free reign was given to his power as the bearer of the sword. And to be a true and faithful bearer of the sword, will and power should necessary converge or merge, giving new meaning to what we call 'will-power'. Joe certainly had will-power or a will to power, but he was not a man who was given to any kind of abstention when it came to the gratification of desire or sensuous appetites. He felt no 'need' to abstain from sensuous pleasures. In this sense he was truly a man without needs when it came moral compulsions. The full meaning of 'need' can only be expressed in terms of the idea of a double edged sword or as two sides of the same coin. To be in need is to confront a paradox: The need to indulge versus the need to abstain from indulging. Strictly speaking in the economy of needs we can only conceptualize the satisfaction of needs through the consumption of utilities or use values. And in this context, possession of exchange values gives us the power to consume use values, the objects of our needs or the object of our desires, where need collapses into desire. Can this dynamics of need satisfaction be separated from the economy of desire? Without power the economy of desire collapses. As an irredeemable womanizer Joe understood the role of power in terms of the economy of desire. Power is the most sublime aphrodisiac.

CHAPTER NINE \- MY EDUCATION

1

We lived in the shop for a couple of months. I was in standard three and during that time I did not attend school. Instead my dad had taken over my schooling and he had given my mom strict instructions to make sure that I adhered to the pedagogic regime which he had designed. He had bought school textbooks from Juta Book Store in Johannesburg on arithmetic, science, biology, English, Afrikaans, geography, history for adolescence between the ages of 10 and 12. He also got the collected works of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain's 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. He had also bought what he considered to be appropriate educational books for Catherine and Mary. We were all including my mom strongly motivated to follow the work schedule which he had set up for us. We trusted him. He was a university graduate with a degree, which he had been awarded with distinction. He had a BSc degree in mechanical engineering. If anyone was educated it was Joe Magee. We all wanted to impress my dad, we desperately wanted his approval and praise.

2

After morning Mass we all sat at the kitchen table reading the text books and doing all the exercises that he marked with an X. My mom would tell me that my father was a brilliant man and that it was in my best interests to listen to what he tells me to do. We worked until lunch. After lunch we worked again until three-o-clock. He had paid gym fees for boxing, wrestling and judo. Three afternoons a week I went to the gym in Commissioner Street. Each evening he reviewed the school work that I had done. He was pushing for me to complete all the work. Then I would have to demonstrate what I had learnt in wrestling or judo. I would wrestle with him on the floor or use a judo move to unbalance him.

3

For the short period of time that we lived in the shop life was idyllic. I enjoyed my anonymity as I walked through the streets of Boksburg. No one knew who I was. The old man was not drinking. But still there were nagging worries which left me feeling very uneasy. Not going to school was especially worrying. I was concerned about that. Of course the priest was also concerned that we was not going to school. Each time my mother explained to the priest that our schooling was definitely not being neglected, but in fact we were actually get excellent schooling at our home in the shop. To prove this she even brought all the books in a big bag to Mass to show the priest. And then mom would insist that I tell the priest what I had learnt and what I could do in arithmetic, how advanced my learning was compared to the school syllabus for standard three. But still he would shake his head: 'The boy and his sisters needs to go to school.' She would defend my dad: 'His father is a far superior teacher compared to any of the teachers that Quinn has ever had, he is getting excellent education at home.' The priest remained unconvinced: 'The boy needs to go to a school.' 'As soon as we are more settled down then we will immediately enrol Quinn and his sisters in a school, but at the moment I not even sure how long we will be in Boksburg, Mr Magee is working on some big plan, and in due time we will know what the future holds,' mom said as she tried to reassure the priest.

4

The old man was generous, he gave us pocket money, every Saturday morning and sometimes even on Saturday afternoon we went to the Plaza Bioscope (cinema) diagonally across the road from the shop we were living in. Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday morning we went to Mass, like the church, the Plaza was practically on our doorstep, and just round the corner was the Lake, our playground. And a few blocks away was the Boksburg Municipal Library, and behind the library was Prince George Park with its floodlit football and rugby stadiums and playing fields. Fridays nights after Mass we often went to watch football with Joe Magee. Joe Magee also joined the Library, and at least once a week we (Catherine, Mary and myself) accompanied him to the library to return books and take out new books. Mom stayed at the shop looking after Elizabeth. The old man was taking out books on bee keeping, animal husbandry and natural history. He recommended that I read 'The Jungle Book' by Rudyard Kipling. Catherine took out an illustrated edition of 'Peter Pan and Wendy' by J M Barrie, which mom read to us. I remember both Joe Magee and I were greatly entertained listening to Peter Pan. As I said, life was idyllic and Joe Magee had found it in his heart to be a father to us.

5

For some or other reason the old man also took me along on his week-long government inspection trips to the Eastern Transvaal. We visited mines, power stations, timber and paper mills, sugar mills and power stations. We stayed in hotels and even spent nights in the Kruger National Park staying over in a rondavel at the Sukuza rest camp. Before having a shower he would first do his press-ups, sit-ups and squats, which had been his routine for as long as I could remember.

6

From beginning to end, 1961 was a year filled with headline news. Joe Magee had always taken a keen interest in currents affairs, and it was usually at supper that he would deliver a commentary on the latest news, mostly reported in the Star newspaper. It was his custom to read the newspaper while we sat at table. One of the big news items was the swearing in of John F. Kennedy on the 20th of January 1961 as the 35th President of the United States. Buried in the newspaper on the third page was a single column article reporting that the anti-Portuguese colonial war in Angola had been launched on the 4th of February 1961. Headline news on the 13th of February covered the murder of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. The colonial war in Angola appeared to be gathering momentum, the political liberation movement called the Union of Peoples of Angola and led by Holden Roberto had attacked strategic locations in the north of Angola on the 15th of March. Proving the superiority of communism over capitalism the Soviets put the first man in space on the 12th of April 1961. Headline news again, the USA became involved in the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, launched on the 17th of April; by April 19 the invasion turned out be a military debacle. On the 18th of September the United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in an air crash en route to Katanga, a province in the south of the Congo. Fidel Castro announces the commitment of Cuba to Socialism and Marxist-Leninism on the 2nd of December. Also in 1961 the trail of the kidnapped Adolf Eichmann in an Israeli court. His trial lasted from April 11 to December 15, 1961. He was sentenced to death, the only death sentence ever imposed by an Israeli court. Eichmann was eventually hanged on May 31, 1962. Other news worthy items included South Africa declaring itself a Republic and exiting the British Commonwealth. Of course Joe Magee hated the Nationalist Party. For a white person he was surprisingly liberal for the times that we were living in. October of 1961 Dr Albert Lutuli the president of the African National Congress was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace. 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' by Shirelles hit the top of the charts. It becomes Joe Magee's favour lyric, singing in the car to himself: '...But will you love me tomorrow...' Also in 1961, box office movie hits include 'West Side Story' and 'The Parent Trap'. And then there was another hit which became Joe Magee favourite - Edith Piaf's 'Non, je ne regrette rien'.

7

It was on Friday in mid-October 1961 when the old man came home with a bottle of Glenfiddich. We knew straight away that he had good news. Keeping us in a state of suspense he first carefully unscrewed the bottle of whiskey and poured a teacup to the brim. He insisted that mom have a shot as well. He poured her a small tot. Then raising his cup of whiskey he triumphantly announced: 'I have bought a farm. We are going to be farmers. I am finished with mining and engineering. From this day onward I am going to live like an aristocrat, like a lord on my own land.' Apart from his government job we knew that he was doing other kinds of business on the side. What other kinds of business he had been involved in all these months was a mystery. Because he was not working a typical 9 to 5 day like everybody else, mom knew that he had more than one pot on the fire. Whenever mom asked where he had been or what he had been doing or why he had to get up at 4.00 am and came home at 2.00 am in the morning, he remained vague. She would often mumble 'he has more than one pot on the fire'. Catherine: 'What is he cooking?' 'Yes, what is dad cooking up this time for us?' Mary added.

'Do we have any money?' She would often ask, especially towards the end of the month.

His answer: 'Yes we have more than enough money to tide us over.' He would then give her a roll of cash.

'But for how long?' She would ask.

'As long as it is necessary,' was his standard answer.

'So does this mean we have lots of money?' She would ask in reply.

'How much is a lot of money?' He would ask in reply.

'I don't know how much money would count as a lot of money,' she would reply.

This question made him burst out laughing. 'One can never have enough money. It is like asking how much power does one need or want, you can never have enough power. Money is power and this is what money can buy, it can buy you power, it can buy you souls, you would be surprised how many people are willing to sell their souls for what they consider a good price.'

'Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,' she quickly replied.

'How much does a soul cost?' I him asked out of interest.

'A soul cannot be bought or sold, all souls belong to God,' mom interjected.

'In tsarist Russia the ownership of serfs by landowners was viewed as being equivalent to the ownership of souls, read Dostoevsky,' he replied ignoring what she had said about ownership of souls or power and corruption.

'In tsarist Russian the landowners were taxed on the number of serfs that they had on their land and in this the number were included the souls of all the serfs who had once lived on that land and who had subsequently died. So by placing a tax on the soul of any serf who had died the state could increase its tax revenue collections. The dead souls of serfs had acquired monetary value,' he said.

Turning to Quinn he said: 'Quinn my boy I will buy you a book by Nikolai Gogol called 'Dead Souls', this is a promise I make to you. The point that I wish to make to you and your mother is that living souls can be bought. The living souls of women and men are for sale, you just have to make them the right offer and they will sell themselves to the highest bidder, body and soul.'

'A person who has no needs cannot be bought,' Vanessa parried.

'What kind of person has no needs, everyone has needs, name one need which does not need to be satisfied?' The old man asked with a grin.'

'We don't have to sell our souls to satisfy our needs. God will satisfy all our needs. In the Lord's Prayer when we pray 'give us our daily bread' Jesus promises us that God will look after our needs,' she said.

'Has God answered your prayer,' the old man asked.

'Yes he has. We have a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs,' she said.

'The church has put the roof over our heads but I am paying for the food. God is using my money to answer your prayer for your daily bread,' he argued with an ironical smile.

'It does not matter because everything comes from God,' she said.

It was pointless trying to get an answer out of him when it came to the source of all his money. He would give vague dead end answers or would answer a question with another question.

Then there was a knock on the glass shop door. It was the priest. The old man shook his hand, welcoming him in. 'Come in father, you have come just at the right moment, we have something to celebrate tonight. The Lord has truly blessed us.'

'Please sit down father,' Vanessa said

'Let me pour you a shot of whiskey father, Vanessa get another cup, do you want some ice with your whiskey father, Vanessa see if there is any ice in the freezer box, please sit down father.'

'Please forgive us father we are only poor peasants with no class,' the old man said as he sloshed whiskey into the teacup.

Vanessa hovered at his side with the ice cube tray. 'Crack the ice Vanessa,' the old man commanded. She cracked the ice by running cold water from the sink tap over the tray, and then tipped two ice cubes into his cup. The priest raised the cup to his nose and sniffed the whiskey before taking a sip.

'So what are we celebrating?' Asked the priest, after smacking his lips.

'Take a guess father,' the old man said.

'You got a raise.'

'No father, better still, I have bought a farm, I am going to become a farmer.'

Caught by complete surprise the priest was momentarily at a for loss words, his demeanour a picture of incredulity. 'This is truly amazing, hard to believe, I have to admit, but nevertheless I suppose congratulations are in order, well what else need I say, good luck and all the best with the farming venture,' he announced a perplex frown fixed on this forehead.

'Vanessa fill father's cup, pour yourself a shot as well and sit down my darling.'

'Father I was just telling Quinn about Gogol's book 'Dead Souls'.'

'Dead Souls?' the priest asked.

'Yes Dead Souls, Gogol's book,'

'Oh yes Gogol,' he replied.

'Father I have to tell you that I am proud of my boy, he is a true Magee, he can take care of himself, I have brought him up well, I have tried to be a good father, someone who he can look up to. Vanessa has been on my case about the boy's schooling, I know, I know, she has told me everything, I know you disapprove. But you need not worry, the boy is doing algebra. You will not believe it. He can solve quadratic equations, Quinn bring me an exercise book and pencil,' the old man instructed. Joe Magee scribbled a quadratic equation on one of the pages.

'Quinn sit down and solve the equation,' he said pushing the exercise book over to me.

I solved the quadratic equation. The old man gloated triumphantly: 'You see father! He is more advanced than his peers. Educationally speaking going to school now would mean going backwards. What does education in schools and universities achieve? Very little! And I will tell why. In the process of formal education in school and universities the acquisition of real and meaningful knowledge is constantly postponed. With Quinn we have circumvented the eternal postponement of knowledge.'

CHAPTER TEN - DIEPVLEI FARM

1

In his short-lived role as a civil servant Mr Magee had spent his days on the road, criss-crossing the length and breadth of the Transvaal visiting mines and various heavy industries. The Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging mining-industrial complex, also known as the PWV, was the main theatre of his operations as an inspector. Long hours on the road gave him time to reflect on starting his own legitimate business enterprise. The idea of becoming a farmer became increasingly appealing. On his way back from a tour of inspection of the Witbank collieries he stopped at an estate agents office in Delmas and made inquiries about farms for sale in the Delmas- Ermelo area. Out of the list of farms for sale there was a farm called Diepvlei which was 15 kilometres from Nigel which seemed to be one of the most viable prospects as a going concern. I can't remember the precise date but in late October in 1961 Quinn was enrolled at Nigel Primary School. It was on that day that our lifelong friendship began. As McFate would have it the new boy in our class was placed next to me. Sweet Jane. Sweet Jane.

2

I suppose it would be in order to say something about myself. As you already know I am an ordained Catholic priest. My full name is Patrick Marcus MacGuire. I belong to the brotherhood of Jesuit priests. Our society is grounded in the love for Jesus and the mission of our order is to fulfil the Christian vision of the founder of our society, St. Ignatius of Loyola. As Jesuit priests we are committed to the service, articulation and defence of the Christian faith with respect to every dimension of life and to help others and to encourage everyone to seek God in all things and to promote justice in the world. By training and profession I am a theologian and a philosopher. For my PhD thesis I studied the writings of St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Gottlieb Leibniz, Spinoza, Dostoevsky and Albert Camus in relation to the existence of evil in a Universe created by an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God. The solution to the question regarding the existence or non-existence of evil depends on how the essential nature of reality is conceived. What if we were to conclude that nature or the physical Universe is governed by order and regularity, and furthermore, what if at the same time we were to conclude that the existence of disorder and chaos is real, that order and disorder coexist, co-occur and cannot be disentangled. In thermodynamics the emergence of order is necessarily accompanied by a simultaneous creation of disorder, and entropy is the name we have given to this phenomenon. My ministry now involves working for social justice in the Far East Rand and especially in the black township of Kwa Thema.

3

My claim to fame, I think it was June or July in 1986, I knelt before a bulldozer hoping to prevent the demolishment of squatter shacks. Two burly policemen grabbed my arms and dragged me away, dumping me unceremoniously in the veld. As I struggled to get up from the dirt in order to lay my body before the bulldozer I was held down by the boot of a burly constable, pressing his boot down ignominiously on my chest, pinning me down like an insect. I was not even arrested for obstruction. The photo made the front page of The Rand Daily Mail.

4

The myth that work is the wellspring of wealth has been woven into the fabric of modern capitalistic existence. No one had been more aware of this truth than Joe Magee. It was a fundamental premise in his philosophy of life that no one ever got rich by working hard at some job for a wage. For Joe Magee there was no glory or dignity in hard work, especially when all work existed solely for the purpose of enriching someone else. Under capitalism the real wages of hard work is alienation and dehumanization. For Joe Magee, work as in being employed in some job, represented nothing more to him than an opportunity to tap into the various streams of cash which flowed in and out of the business. It was his business to tap into that stream of cash, by diverting some of its flow into his own pocket. He made it his business to be fully appraised with every facet of procurement. All businesses had to buy goods and services, which represent the necessary factors of production. Inserting himself as the invisible middle man within the complex web of business transactions was his real work. The more complex a business happened to be, as in the case of a gold mine for example, the easier it was for him to work himself into the position of the invisible middle man. The idea of the doppelgänger, that is, the ghostly counterpart or evil twin or double as in double personalities or double roles or dual roles, can become manifest in different situations under a variety of guises. In the world of espionage we have the double agent. With regard to the existence of good and evil we have the theological and philosophical problem of double or dual agencies with respect the nature of the Divine Being. How is it possible that God could be both the agent of good and evil? To get round this apparent double agency of God do we have to deny the existence of both good and evil? I would like to postpone this discussion for much later.

5

It was not long before Quinn started inviting me to spend weekends on the farm. I learnt how to ride a horse. As a ten year old boy I was awestruck with the place. It was one of the biggest dairy and maize farms in the district. When I initially asked Quinn how big the farm was, Quinn said he wasn't quite sure but it was over a 100 morgen of pasturelands, maize fields, lucerne fields, sunflower fields, plus pristine Highveld grasslands, streams, wetlands and a huge marsh which we referred to as the swamp. The previous manager of the farm a Mr Dirk Hanekom was dismissed. Joe Magee did the most unusual thing possible in the conservative platteland, he appointed the person who was referred to as the boss boy, Mr Daniel Moeketsi, as the new farm manager. Mr Moeketsi was a highly literate Basotho, a supreme horseman, a very knowledgeable herdsman and a gifted agronomist, plus he had a heavy duty driver's license. As the boss of all the farm's operations, its day to day governance, he moved into the farm manager's house after Hanekom vacated it. Furthermore, Joe Magee had a farm school, a church, and clinic built on the farm, which in turn became the centre for a Catholic mission overseen by the Dominicans. The Magees, a family of English speaking Catholics, surrounded by a farming community of Afrikaans speaking Protestants, soon made its heterodox presence felt, as the farm flourished under the capable hands of Mr Moeketsi.

6

I came from a very ordinary working class home. My dad worked as a fitter and turner on the mine. I assumed that the Magees were incredibly wealthy. But they did not behave like very wealthy people, this was my impression, even though I was not too sure how wealthy people should behave. My impressions of Joe Magee: I perceived him as completely eccentric, but also as a physically and intellectually intimidating person. He was exceptionally erudite and confident, and above all witty, there seemed to be nothing which he did not seem to know something about or could not do. To be honest I had never met anyone quite like Joe Magee.

7

I first meet Gabriella in 1962 when I was twelve. The Yeomans were the new neighbours of the Magees. To remind you, they had bought the farm next door to the Magees. As you will remember, the then 26 year old Mrs Gabriella Yeoman, had become the wife of Kingsley Yeoman, a fifty-five year old millionaire. He was the owner of a string of garages and car dealerships on the East Rand. He had also become the proud owner of a string of race horses, a hobby and status symbol for which he had the money to enjoy. For his beautiful wife who was crazy about horses and country life Mr Yeoman had built her a palatial home with a huge swimming pool, and bought her a brand new Porsche. I accompanied Quinn several times to their farm to deliver bales of lucerne and hay. Even though Quinn was also only 12, having no drivers licence, he was allowed to drive the three tonne truck laden with bales of lucerne and hay to the Yeoman farm. Mr Yeoman also gave Quinn the go ahead to gallop the Magee horses with his friends on the 16 furlong dirt track which was maintained for the training of his own race horses. Being a regular visitor on horseback to the Yeoman farm especially during the school holidays a friendship developed between Quinn and Gabriella. In fact Gabriella also became a regular visitor to the Magee farm, arriving on horseback to do some cross-country hacking on the larger more extensive Magee estate. Quinn would often accompany her on these rides and afterwards she would be invited in for tea and cake at the Magee's home. In the Magee home as usual, LM Radio played continuously on weekends from morning to night. Whenever 'Sugar Shack' came on, Catherine tuned up the volume.

8

On one occasion, a Saturday afternoon in 1963, when Quinn and I were in standard six in high school, I accompanied Gabriella and Quinn on a long cross-country ride, negotiating all kinds of natural obstacles, steep river banks, felled blue gum tree trunks, streams and so on and so forth, and it was great fun. Afterwards as usual she accepted Quinn invitation for afternoon tea. Quinn's mother would act as the host, serving tea while we relaxed in the lounge or at the pool side. On that occasion which I distinctly remember Quinn's father joined us for tea, and I immediately sensed that he was jealous of Quinn's relationship with Gabriella. It was strange because Quinn was a 13 year boy. I was also becoming increasingly confused regarding the nature of Quinn's friendship with Gabriella. Something about it did not gel with me. Gabriella conversational engagement with Quinn in the presence of Joe Magee was overly friendly to my mind. I became acutely aware of the frosty chill in the atmosphere between Joe Magee and Gabriella. Joe Magee just sat there with a dark scowl on his face (which frightened me) sipping his tea at the other end of the large lounge while Vanessa fussed about serving everyone with slices of freshly baked chocolate cake.

9

What did I truly think of Gabriella? OK my first impressions: I could also sense that a lot more was going on between Gabriella and Quinn, beneath the surface. At first I did not want to believe what I could plainly see. I tried to explain it away, I tried to convince myself that it was just my imagination. But still when the three of us were together out riding I felt like an intruder. It was plain that she adored Quinn. She was almost twice his age, she could have been his mother. Knowing that a little coquetry could reap a windfall of dividends, had Gabriella used her considerable seductive powers to get her way with Kingsley? Had he in turn as a successful businessman become a prisoner of his own illusions? Did he believed that his wealth was the seductive lure which he could wield at will to get what he wanted? Was Gabriella a gifted connoisseur of seduction? Was wealth an aphrodisiac? It was clear to me that Joe Magee was lusting after Gabriella. It was also evident that Joe Magee believed that wealth was the most potent of all aphrodisiacs? It was also evident to me that Gabriella had rejected him. But more of this much later.

10

I slept over that night. The Magees house had seven bedrooms and when I stayed over both of us slept in one of the large fully furnished guest bedrooms which had two divans and en suite bathroom. While we laid in the dark chatting I broached the topic: 'Gabriella is really an amazing person.' I announced.

'Yes she definitely is,' he immediately answered.

'She is stunning,' I ventured.

'I agree,' he replied.

We lay in silence for a while.

'Where are you going with this line of questioning,' he asked breaking the silence.

'I don't quite know to be honest but both of you seem to be awfully friendly if you know what I mean?'

'No I don't know what you mean,' he responded immediately.

'But you do like her a lot?' I asked him teasingly.

'Yeah of course, but you also like her a lot don't you,' he said.

'Yes I do, I like her a lot, she is an amazing person,' I answered. I could sense he was not getting annoyed with me. He was being frank with me. He was not at all defensive or evasive, so I put it to him:

'Do you have feelings for her?'

'I don't know. Does it seem that I am in love with her? Is that what you want to know?'

'Well sort of,' I replied.

'Maybe I am in love with her, I don't know.'

I did not what to push the matter any further. I was satisfied. He had confirmed what I had suspected all along, he was in love with Gabriella, a grownup woman. I wondered if she was also in love with him. I never again broached the issue. Our friendship was based on trust. I would never betray Quinn's secret

11

Now I have become like Hermes the bearer of messages from the gods. First it was Gwen, then Cecilia, then Sonja, then Jessica, then Moira. I had been appointed to be the bearer of their messages of love to Quinn. I know that they cannot compete with Gabriella for his affections. I am also not comfortable in my new role. If we had to choose a patron divinity or daemon for Joe Magee then Hermes would be most qualified to fill this role. Hermes is the divine trickster, the god of boundaries, the god of the transgression of boundaries, the god or patron of merchants, traders, thieves, herdsmen, commerce, roads, trickery, sports, athletics and graves. Hermes moves freely between worlds of the divine and the mortal, he is the conductor of souls into the afterlife or underworld. Aphrodite the goddess of love and beauty rejected the advances of Hermes. Hermes did not relent on his desire to have Aphrodite, he went as far as to seek the help of Zeus to seduce Aphrodite. Did Hermes succeed in seducing Aphrodite? I leave that for the reader to find out. I will not tell nor will I show. Let the reader deduce for him or herself.

12

It is the Advent of 1964. The sacrifice of the Mass, re-enactment of the same sacrifice of Jesus on the Roman cross, the transubstantiation of the host, the wine, represents the sublime summit of Catholic life. Father Ballantyne the priest from Ireland who is fluent in Sesotho has been invited to lunch after celebrating Mass, baptizing infants and hearing confession at the farm church. Also invited are Kingsley and Gabriella. Of course yours truly, the narrator-compiler-redactor-scribe of this story, Patrick Marcus MacGuire, is also present. We are all seated around a huge table in a starkly furnished baronial dining room, the whole Magee clan is present Sean, Reilly, Dillon, Quinn, Catherine, Mary and Elizabeth. Joe Magee is seated like a lord at the head of the table. Vanessa who has cooked lunch is doing the serving. Gabriella offers to help. But the hostess insists that she is a guest. Instead Sharon and Kirsten, the wives of Sean and Reilly, jump to help with the serving. Kingsley is a non-practicing Methodist and Gabriella belongs to the Church of England, she does not say Anglican Church. Church of England sounds so quaint. The rest of us including Joe Magee self-identify as Roman Catholic. Joe Magee makes sure that everyone's glass remains filled with their alcoholic beverage of choice wine, whiskey, gin and tonic. A 25 year bottle of Chivas Regal is almost half finished: Father Ballantyne, Kingsley, Gabriella, and of course Joe Magee are knocking back the whiskey. Quinn turns down the offer of an alcoholic beverage. I accept a full glass of Shiraz which I enjoy and which is refilled. I am feeling a bit intoxicated. I am taken in by the scene. It is so surreal, it becomes impressed in my brain for ever. I should not be drinking but no one seems to be bothered. I hear the metallic click of pots. In the adjoining kitchen Betty Leballo is up to her elbows in foam washing pots and pans. The table is laden with roast chicken, leg of lamb, pork fillet and a huge medium-rare beef fillet. I have never seen so much meat in my life. On the wall above Joe Magee's head hangs a crucifix. In the background Beethoven's 'Pastorale'. In spite of the Shiraz I am feeling out of my depth. I realize that parents are simple peasants.

13

As I was saying the lunch was surreal. I saw Gabriella smile and wink at Quinn. Let me continue with the scene, the scene before me bore no resemble with Djuna Barnes' 'Nightwood' in which Dr Matthew O'Connor, an Irishman from the Barbary Coast whose interest in gynaecology had driven him half around the world, was holding forth as the host in the absence of the count, yet when I recall that lunch it excites in my mind that scene in 'Nightwood'. I don't know why I connect them because Joe Magee while having a gynaecological interest was not a Dr Matthew O'Conner. Unlike the table talk in my home, the topics of conversations in the Magee household were lively, wide ranging, with Joe Magee being the catalyst. Joe Magee mentions something which he had read about Freud getting all his ideas from Greek myths. The priest adds that scientists have disproved Freud's theories, which are just a bunch of fairy tales anyway. Everybody wants to know what Freud actually said. Gabriella gives a quick summary of Freud's ideas. We learn about all the psychosexual stages oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital. The priest pronounces: 'Fairy-tales!' Gabriella continues, outlining the gross anatomy of Freud's iceberg model of the mind, which views the mind as being made up of the consciousness, preconsciousness and unconsciousness, and to complicate matters further the mind also includes things like the ego, super-ego and the id. Again the priest pronounces: 'Fairy-tales!' Everybody wants to know more. Gabriella gladly indulges everyone's questions. Joe Magee becomes Gabriella's intellectual sparring partner. The two engage in a series of verbal jousts. She wins each contest. In the process we all learn about psychoanalysis, the life-instinct, the death instinct, the libido, transference and the Oedipus Complex. The priest pronounces: 'Fairy-tales!' Everyone bursts out laughing. Joe Magee has the last word: The Greek dramatist Sophocles based his play Oedipus Rex on the myth of Oedipus. In the myth Oedipus learns from the oracle Dephi the prophecy that he will kill has father and marry his mother.

14

Call it Thanatos or a death wish or even the desire for the sensations which only the imminent risk of danger can excite or the stifling monotony of farm life or his failure to initiate a romantic adventure with Gabriella, or maybe all of this acting in concert, but Joe Magee felt that he could no longer suppress his appetite for adventure and risk. He had hoped for an exciting pastoral ménage à trois with Vanessa and Gabriella. Only the thrill of adventure could fill the vacuous void which made him feel lifeless or dead inside. It was this vacuous void which made him reach for the bottle. Joe Magee was wired up differently from any other normal person. There was nothing metaphysical about his quest. He was possessed by inclinations which fed on risk-induce states of arousal, risks which would fill the void, adventure functioned as a palliative for the agony of his soul. Advice to authors of fiction: 'Show it don't tell it'. I am providing the reader with information. I am guilty of informing the reader, rather than allowing the reader to deduce his or her own conclusions. I am failing as a story teller! I have committed the unpardonable sin which the writer of fiction should avoid at all costs. But I have a valid excuse. The novel is not about Joe Magee. Nor is it about a naturalistic account of human behaviour. OK, I accept Quinn's view that the Universe is causally closed, but that does not exclude the occurrence of infinite possibilities all of which are consistent with the laws, uniformities, and regularities of nature which govern the order of the Universe. Joe Magee represents one such embodiment of the infinite possibilities which McFate or contingency or chance or randomness introduces into a Universe which from a materialist or physicalist perspective happens to be causally closed. Maybe the possibility of a character like Joe Magee has been built into the Universe. Anyway to add another layer of complexity to the story I am trying to write, I have to confess at this stage of the narrative that I too don't know exactly what this story is about. Writing it has been like shuffling a deck of cards.

CHAPTER ELEVEN - OFF TO THE WILDWEST SHOW

1

Joe Magee led his family to believe that the farm had run into financial difficulties. Forced by the threat of eminent bankruptcy Joe Magee explained that he needed to find ways of generating additional income. He managed to win a tender as an engineering consultant in the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam construction project. Having worked on the gold mines he had expertise in tunnelling. But as expected, he became involved in a series of scandalous incidents not directly related to the project. Incidents involving someone's wife, coloured women and a bar room brawl in a nearby small Karoo town hotel. Fortunately, he was not kicked off the site, but managed to complete the engineering contract. In the next job he was awarded an engineering contract with one of the platinum mines in Rustenburg. Quinn's mother found a clerical job in Springs. It was believed by Vanessa that any additional sources of income would help keep the farm afloat and the creditors at bay. Quinn felt that Joe Magee as the captain of the ship had abandoned the ship in a stormy sea of uncertainty allowing it to drift wherever the current flowed or the wind blowed

2

It was impossible for her not to notice that Quinn had grown into an incredibly good-looking teenager. It was also evident that the responsibilities of the farm had matured him, but also did not allow him to have any social life. She looked at his full lips, his broad shoulders, the dark weekend stubble on his jaws, his well-proportioned body, his skin tight water polo speedo and felt like kissing his lips. She realized the big irony, in spite of everything, his reckless cowboy father, his chaotic home-circumstances, Quinn was still so innocent, so trusting, that he did not even know or realize what a huge turn-on he had become for her. She knew that he admired her and could sense that he had become attracted to her from their first encounter. At first it worried her. Coming from a dysfunctional family he may be looking up to her as a mother figure or a surrogate parent. This was the last thing that she needed in her life. But she need not have worried the signs of sexual attraction were becoming increasingly recognizable. She began to take pleasure in the way that he looked at her and the way he responded to her subtle sexually flavoured exploratory forays with which she tested the waters between them. She in turn could not help herself, she began to bask in his voyeuristic gaze. He had not been very successful in hiding his infatuation for her, maybe he has gone beyond boyish teenage infatuation with an older woman, maybe he has indeed fallen in love with her, it was not impossible, especially giving his situation of social isolation. To be honest with herself, she could not deny the fact that she took pleasure in the possibility that he was in love with her. It was undeniably enjoyable to be loved, especially by someone who was so good looking. And why shouldn't she take pleasure in being the subject of love, all women love to be loved. Nothing escaped her attention. Her finely tuned female antennae picked up all the giveaway signals emanating from Quinn's behaviour, comportment and demeanour. 'What was she going to do with this boy?' Erring on the side of caution she decided to let him make all the moves. It would be less risky to sit back and enjoy the thrill of being pursued that is if there was going to be any pursuing. And why shouldn't there be? She was not doing anything to discourage him. He has to be really dense to not realize that she was attracted to him. Francoise Hardy – Say it now, It's my heart, It's getting late, Just call and I'll be there. Rolling Stones – I can't get no satisfaction.

3

'Do you have a girlfriend?' Gabriella asked, while smiling that coquettish smile; her curious eyes hidden behind her dark glasses. She enjoyed flirting with him, and why not? Was it not that she was feeling increasingly attracted to him, she was beginning to feel aroused by his presence.

'Not really,' answered a bashful Quinn. His voiced had deepened.

'What do you mean by not really?' The flirtatious smile still playing on her lips. The sunlight danced on the pool. The sounds of Francoise Hardy wafted through the open glass sliding-doors – 'Say it now'. She had seen him grow up from an adolescent boy into an awkward teenager. Now he had turned sixteen and was in standard nine, all the awkwardness had gone, he was innocently so erotically sensual. She was also aware that the burden of responsibility for the farm had fallen on his shoulders even though the day to day management was handled by Daniel with Sean always hovering in the background exercising the necessary business oversight. Every day after school between 14:30 and 15.00 Quinn arrived back at the farm on his 50cc Honda moped. Diligently checking up on things as per the schedule of instructions that his father had written down.

'You have never had a girlfriend! I don't believe you. It is not possible. I supposed you going to tell me that you have never kissed a girl in your life,' she exclaimed, emphasizing her mock incredulousness with a whimsical toss of her loose, thick, glossy sensual coiffure.

'I think I have had enough sun for today,' she said getting up. Taking off her sunglasses she pulled a T-shirt over her head. After her head reappeared she glanced at him in an appraising fashion while she adjusted the large T shirt so that it covered her black bikini. 'I think you have also had enough sun, let us go sit inside,' she said placing her sunglasses over the top of her head.

4

Two weeks passed before she saw or heard anything from Quinn. She became increasing aware of the depth of her feelings towards him, especially when she started to feel anxious about the prospect of a cooling off of their relationship. As she entertained this possibility she began to feel that familiar rising tide of disappointment. It was a Saturday midmorning when the phone rang. It was Quinn calling. 'Hello, its Quinn, how are you?'

'I am fine, how you?' She asked (rejoicing, pulse starting to beat faster and faster).

'I am fine too. I was just thinking, would you like to go riding? I am alone, my mom and sisters have gone to spend the weekend in Rustenburg with my father,' Quinn elaborated.

'That would be nice,' she replied.

'Should we meet at your place or my place?' Quinn asked.

'Your place,' she immediately recommended.

'Is this date?' She asked.

'I don't understand what you mean.'

'I mean are you asking me out on a date,' she said.

After a few seconds silence: 'Yes,' he replied.

Then another few seconds of silence passed before she said:

'I will see you then in about an hours' time.'

5

He meet her at the paddocks. His horse was already saddled. She dismounted to adjust the saddle girth. When she was finished she turned round and smiled at him. He noticed that her face was made up and she was wearing lipstick.

'Long time no see,' she said.

'I know,' he replied feeling awkward and a bit tense. He stepped forward and kissed her 'politely' on the lips, a brief mere butterfly flutter of a kiss, their lips barely touching. She immediate responded kissing him fully while grabbing hold of his hand.

'I missed you,' she said.

'I missed you too.'

6

Deeply engrossed in the wild roller-coaster momentum of their thoughts they cantered briskly across the smooth cattle cropped grasslands. Experiencing an unexpected tumultuous rush of emotions surging to an unbearable but exhilarating crescendo, Gabriella's shouting suddenly broke the silence of the advancing southern autumnal equinox which had begun to engulf the vast treeless steppes which seemed to stretch to all eternity. 'Race you to the edge of the marshlands.' Rising out of her saddle, leaning forward, hand bridged across the front of the saddle, knees pressed against the sides of the saddle, the weight of her body resting on the balls of her feet in their stirrups, perfectly balanced, suspended like a jockey above the saddle for the horse's comfort of mobility, Gabriella's seventeen hand high thoroughbred broke into a smooth free flowing gallop. Quinn galloping a few lengths behind her could not close the gap. From the saddle she took in the surprising warm sun-bathed vista of a landscape dressed in the Highveld hues of autumn, every shade of brown, gold and yellow. She gazed up into the boundless heavens. A cloud moving overhead dazzling bright against the deep fathomless blue, reeds bending in the light breeze, bark peeling from the white trunks of the towering blue gums, the ever present marsh harrier gliding silently over the wetland's dense forest of Phragmites australis, reaching upwards four metres high, dwarfing the swamp's fringe of Typha capensis, adorned with swaying velvety-brown flower-spikes, the Sakabula Bird trailing its long tail, floating over an ocean of pristine veld below which hidden from sight lay buried plough breaking barren conglomerate, before her the boy had suddenly grown into a young man, were had the time gone? Engulfed in all this space, she felt intoxicated by a rush of breathless excitement, her heart was thumping, and the horses' hearts were thumping while they swished their tails. Everything seemed to be in motion. The rhythmic movements of the horses' rib cages, their nostrils flared, breathing heavily after the gallop. From her childhood days in Zambia the swamps had always frightened her. There the reed beds were filled with menace and danger, in the form of crocodiles, hippos, and maybe a lurking elephant, it grey bulk hidden, or even a pride of lions feasting on the bloated carcass of a hippo or buffalo laying half submerged. Then in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), especially at night the shroud of reeds shivered and quivered with terrifying nocturnal secrets. Thinking about this always sent a shiver down her spine. What kind of madman will dare wade into a marshland, into that dense dark impenetrable thicket bedecked with ethereal wraithlike ghostly plumes, swaying, beckoning the multitudes of lost souls into the murky underworld laying submerged in the black muddy bed at the bottom of the swamp, in the dead of night? But today the reeds seemed to have shed their sinister foreboding of unimaginable horrors, horrors hidden from plain sight.

7

She shuddered. 'Are you OK?' he asked. 'Why shouldn't I be?' She suddenly smiled. She thought: 'I am married but I feel free, I feel that the horizon of my life is limitless.' In his eyes she was radiant, she was the most beautiful woman on earth. His whole life lay before him. Now at this very moment she was the centre of his life. It was plain in his eyes, it was written in his face the way he looked at her. 'I want to show you something,' Quinn said. At a slow canter she followed him. Hidden behind a barrier of bulrushes the marshland opened before them revealing an open expanse of blue-green water. Coming to a halt he pointed to something in the bulrushes. A frown on her forehead, an expression of intense concentration on her face, her eyes narrowed, she wasn't sure what she should be seeing. After gazing down in silence for a while from the height of her vantage point in the saddle concealed among the reeds an untidy raft of sticks and twigs suddenly materialized in her field of vision. She realized it was the nest of a marsh harrier and sitting quietly atop a clutch of eggs was brooding the raptor.

8

After walking the horses until their temperature had fallen to normality they let the horses loose in one of the paddocks. The farmhouse doors were unlocked. Quinn escorted Gabriella into the kitchen. Mixing concentrated fruit squash with cold water they sat down with their glasses at kitchen table. Placing her empty glass into the sink she said: 'I would like to see your bedroom.' It was a small bedroom with a mat on parquet flooring, a north face window, a built-in cupboard, a single bed, a dresser with draws and mirror, a small desk with draws, a chair and a bookcase with all the shelves stacked with books. She opened the cupboard doors. Hanging on the metal rod were his school clothes, grey flannel trousers, white shirts, blazer and stuck in the corner was a cricket bat and tennis racket. Neatly folded on the shelves were jerseys, T-shirts, shorts. She closed the cupboard doors. Glancing round the room the stacked bookshelves caught her attention. She took off her black velvet covered riding helmet and placed it on his desk. Bending down she began to examine the titles of his book collection. Apart from a very odd assortment of book titles there were the usual detective and western paper backs that one would expect to find in any household. There were also surprises such as: 'The Rise of the Novel' by Ian Watts, 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville, 'The First Circle' by Aleksandra Solzhenitsyn, 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad, 'A Burnt Case' by Graham Greene, 'The Power and the Glory' by Graham Greene, 'The Naked and the Dead' by Norman Mailer, 'As I lay Dying' by William Faulkner, 'Notes of a Native Son' by James Baldwin, 'Old Man and the Sea' by Earnest Hemingway, 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' by Hemingway, 'The Castle' by Franz Kafka, 'Catcher in the Rye' by J D Salinger.

'I must say I am impressed with your library. Where did you get all these books?' She asked.

'I bought them at school and church fetes.'

'Please forgive me for asking but have you read all these books. Have you read 'The Castle' and 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'Heart of Darkness?'

'Yeah, I have read everything, all the books that you see on shelves.'

'Including this one 'The Catechism of the Catholic Church' ' She asked pulling out the Catechism and flipping through the pages.

'Yes I have read and have studied the Catechism.'

'What can you tell me about Article 10?' She asked.

'Article 10 deals with the forgiveness of sins,' he answered solemnly.

'Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins?'

'Yes I do.'

She put the Catechism back.

'I suppose you have read this little book on riding by Lieut-Colonel C.E.G Hope.'

'Yes I have!' Quinn said, laughing.

'Tell me about 'Heart of Darkness' and 'A Burnt Case', no never mind I am being over curious, I am prying where I should not, it makes me feel too much like a school teacher,' she quickly said.

'I don't mind. Ask me any question about any of the books, I am happy to share my thoughts with you,' he answered.

'I am sure you will surprise me with your answers. You are a very interesting person Quinn,' she said as she continued to scan the titles.

'Thank you,' he answered feeling slightly bashful for the first time, not knowing whether Gabriella was patronizing him.

'Don't be embarrassed, I am being serious with you, I am not saying this in jest. It is natural for me to be interested in you as person, you are that kind of person. And need I remind you, this is our first date after all, and if you have been truthful to me then I am the first girl you have ever kissed, and also the first girl you have asked out on date. To be truly honest I feel special being with you, this is the beginning of something between us'

'Yes this is the beginning of a lot of first times I suppose,' Quinn said.

'Yes and as it turns out we are both finding ourselves in a very delicate situation, trying as best as we can not to spoil it,' she said with a serous frown on her face.

The words 'delicate situation' and 'not to spoil it' made Quinn laugh against his will and better judgment.

'Why are you laughing, am I that funny to you?'

'No that is not the reason.'

'Then what is the reason?'

'I laughed because I am feeling quite nervous and overwhelmed I suppose, I think the words delicate and not wanting to spoil it sums everything up.'

'Well I also feel very nervous now that you mention it,' she said.

9

Taking stock of the situation, she decided to take the initiative. She sat down on his bed. 'Help me take my boots off.' As he bent to down to pull the boots off she lay back on the bed. Unzipping the zip on the side of riding breeches. 'You can pull off the breeches.' While Quinn neatly folded her breeches, placing them on the chair, she sat up, pulled off her blouse, undid her bra and lay back again on the bed in her panties. In a ritual which she began to find funny, he also folded up her blouse neatly, placing it on top of her breeches and then placing bra on top of the blouse. 'You can pull my panties off.'

She lifted her buttocks slightly so that he could slip them off over thighs, knees, calves and ankles, a delicate task which he executed deftly with an expression of studied solemnity of face normally reserved for the realm of the sacred. He folded her panties neatly and placed them beside her bra.

'Take off your clothes.'

Sitting on the bed next to her he pulled his riding boots off. 'Stand up, I want to watch you undress.' Standing up Quinn peeled off his T-shirt, unzipped his fly and pulled down his jeans. Stepping out of his jeans he removed his socks. He then pulled down his scants, exposing a magnificent erection. In contrast to her neat pile of apparel, his own clothing, T-shirt, jeans, socks and scants, lay discarded in a conspicuously jumbled lifeless heap on the carpet between the bed, dresser and desk. Standing naked before her she gave him no opportunity to gather and fold up his clothing into a neat pile, interrupting his ritualized enactment of order and tidiness, she spoke:

'Turn around please, I want to see your butt.' 'Come stand next to me.' Leaning on her left elbow she grasped his phallus tightly in the palm of her right hand. 'You are so exquisite my darling, so beautiful.' 'And so hard and stiff, like a rod.' She laughed. Moving over she made space on the bed so that he could lie down next to her. Stretched out on his side alongside her, with her arm around him she pulled him tightly against her breasts, running her fingers through his hair, a soft smile playing on her lips, her faced filled with tenderness, wide eyed she stared close up at his face. He gazed searchingly into her eyes. The flicker of vulnerably and uncertainty in his eyes did not escape her notice. While locked in this intimate visual embrace she chuckled mischievously, breaking the tension, she kissed him. He breathed in the fragrance of her hair, the perfume of her neck, the sweet bouquet of her breath, he felt her breasts pressed firmly against his chest, he smelt the pleasant scent of horses on her arms and from his own body, and from their clothing filling the room. A rooster crowed, the lowing of cattle drifted through the still morning air, the long trill "di-di-di of crested barbet mingled intermittently with deep coo-roo of rock pigeons from huge poplars, plane trees and blue gums in the yard.

10

'How strange is life, brimming with the miraculous and the mysterious, making it possible for our most burning desires, our deepest heartfelt yearnings, our most secret and most intimate fantasies, to come true like an unconscious wish, so unexpectedly, yet so inevitably, leaving one gasping with the pleasure that comes with the blossoming of a beautiful surprise, like a flower opening, leaving one spellbound, and it is this which makes the dawning of an eventuality, an inevitability, so unreal and yet so wonderful, more wonderful than could be imagined, yet so natural, so natural that it could not be otherwise, like destiny, this was meant to happen! ' she said.

'Are you saying that I featured in your fantasies and burning desires?' Quinn asked eyes wide with feigned astonishment.

'What I have just said comes from my heart, I am serious. Maybe I should ask you the same question. Did you not fantasize about me, did you have erotic fantasies about me, did you not feel a burning desire for me, did you not passionately want me?' She said, her tone of voice half serious and half teasing.

'Tell me honestly,' she urged.

'I think we are both guilty of the same thing,' he parried.

'Guilty of what?' she countered.

'You know what I mean, I don't have to spell it out,' he said.

'No I don't, I want hear what we are both guilty of, spell it out in full, I want to hear,' she pressed.

'We guilty of having a burning desire for each other, a desire which stokes our fantasies, we have deep feelings for each other, we are happiest when we are together, we are constantly in each other's thoughts,' he replied.

'Kiss me darling,' she said.

'Can we change positions,' he asked.

'Yes of course my precious darling angel,' she laughed gaily.

11

After clambering over her, his right free he could fondle and caress her breast, while they continued smooching. 'Touch me between my legs my darling,' she urged him. 'Put your fingers in me, rub up and down, yes that feels so good.' After a while she started breathing heavily, panting gently and softy moaning, eventually pulling her lips away. 'I ready for you, you can get on top of me,' she said, adjusting her position, she moved under him, spreading her legs, gasping his erect penis, she guided it into her vagina. 'Push.' He felt himself sliding deep into her. 'Go slowly baby, don't rush my darling, hold your climax my precious angel, push, push, there you go, off to the Wild West Show,' she said, letting out a soft chuckle as she clamped her legs tightly around him while he rocked her with powerful penetrating thrusts.

CHAPTER TWELVE - VERTIGIOUS HEIGHTS OF JEALOUSLY

1

From Quinn's manuscript in his own words: Almost every weekend my mom and sisters travelled to Rustenburg to be with our father. The back of the blue VW Variant would be packed with groceries. I had no desire to spend a weekend holed up in flat in Rustenburg. 'He is still your father, you should at the very least visit him with us every second weekend,' she pleaded with me. Going to Rustenburg for the weekend meant I would not be able to see Gabriella for that entire weekend. 'You got to see your father,' Gabriella said, agreeing with my mother's sentiments.

2

Anyway reluctantly I agreed to spend the Easter Weekend in Rustenburg. Skipping school we left early on Maundy Thursday for Rustenburg. It was our plan to attend the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services at the Roman Catholic Church in Rustenburg which my mom had been attending since my dad started working in Rustenburg. I was shocked to see the conditions under which he was living in a rented two bedroom flat. The flat which was on the fourth floor had a tiny kitchen, combined dining room and kitchen, and two bedrooms plus a toilet and bathroom. There was hardly any furniture in the flat, it was literally bare, not a single carpet anywhere. What furnishings existed were minimalist, catering only for the most basic utilitarian functions in an absolutely Spartan fashion, there was a small kitchen table with four chairs in what was the dining room, a mattresses on the floor in each room, there were no other domestic amenities other than a stove, kettle, fridge, dustbin and broom. My sleeping quarters turned out to be the bare floor of the curtainless and furnitureless space which served as the lounge. Newspapers, towels and blankets were used to create a mattress for my bed. A rolled up towel served as a pillow. Apparently there were towels and blankets aplenty. Once again the Magees where living in two different kinds of worlds simultaneously, worlds which were in such stark contrast with each other, a modern farm with a large farmhouse and a platinum miner's hell hole. Could there be any more two disparate worlds, the one public and respectable, and the other best kept a dark secret.

3

He was still at work when we arrived. Mom had a set of spare keys for flat. It had become the families second home. I had a dreadful premonition that the next four days and four nights were going to be worse than living hell. Thinking of Gabriella I fell into a deep depression. My heart ached for her. I have never felt so frustrated and helpless in all my life. When we came back from the Maundy Thursday service the old man was already drunk. That night I endured my own Gethsemane walking until the early hours of the morning through the deserted streets and suburbs of Rustenburg. Apart for the Good Friday service and it being a public holiday there was nothing to do. That night mom suggested that my sisters and I go to the drive-in in her VW Variant. I had no driver's license because I was still under aged but that did not seem to matter with my parents. The movie we saw was Doctor Zhivago.

4

That Saturday it was decided that we would spend the day at Rustenburg Kloof. While mom and my sisters planned to spend the day at the swimming pool my old man I decided to hike up the kloof, which was a boulder filled gorge carved into the side of mountain over eons. A small stream was responsible for the erosion which led to the creation of the gorge. Water welling up from springs on the mountain plateau decanted into the stream which flowed into the gorge or kloof. As one progressed up the gorge, the gorge narrowed into a deep ravine. The easiest route up the mountain was to follow the small stream all the way up to the summit of the Magaliesberg. Clambering over and between boulders we finally reached the plateau of the summit. Sitting on rocks next to a crystal clear pool into which mountain spring water flowed before decanting into the ravine we ate the sandwiches my mom had made, washing it down with water from the spring.

'How are things going with Gabriella?' my father suddenly asked with a lascivious grin on his face.

'I suppose it is going fine with her,' I answered noncommittally.

'I suppose you are fucking her?'

'My friendship with Gabriella is none of your concern.'

'As your father it is actually my concern, she is old enough to be your mother, it is not normal for a teenager to have a relationship with an older woman, you should be going out with girls your own age. Your mother also thinks that it is unnatural for a teenage boy to be spending so much time in the company an older married woman, and I share her concerns. Look to be blunt with you I don't like or approve what I think is going on between you and Mrs Yeoman.'

'As I have said it is none of your business, I don't care what you think or feel.' '

'In fact it is very much my business. And this business with Mrs Yeoman has to stop, I don't like it and I will not tolerate it, I will not allow my son to fuck her.'

'I don't believe it, my own father is jealous of my friendship with Gabriella.'

He laughed an ugly haughty laugh. 'There is a helluva lot you still got to learn about life. You know nothing. You have done nothing. You have achieved sweet fuck all. You live by my grace, my abundance and my goodwill. I am the one who feeds you, clothes you, puts a roof over your head and pays for your every need and want, so don't try pull that stunt on me, thinking that I am obsessed with wanting to fuck Gabriella or that I am jealous of you. God why would I be jealous of you! You just a kid, still wet behind the ear. Now you listen to me mate, you not such a smart Alec, if you were such a smart arse you would have taken a leaf out of your brothers' books. You still have to achieve what your bothers and I have achieved in life. You know nothing. So don't you try be smart with me, I can knock your block off, I can go the full round with you if you really want to have it out with me, and I am also warning you don't you judge me or look down on me. I drink, so what if I drink, you know nothing about me. You should be grateful, you have had a good life, a far better life that I ever had or could have even wished for at your age, so don't judge me, I am still your father no matter what.' He was annoyed because I had called him out, and he did not expect that I would.

5

We sat in silence for what seemed an eternity. We were both seething mad with each other. He then got up, turning his back on me, ignoring my existence, he began to walk off following a narrow path along the mountain ridge. I called out to him: 'Shouldn't we go down the same way that we came up?'

'I am going to climb down the side of the ravine,' he said.

Walking fast so that I could catch up him I called out: 'Don't you think it would be dangerous.'

'What do you care?'

'I do care, I care about you dad,' I shouted.

'Fuck you!' He shouted angrily, showing me the 'zap sign', thumb clenched between middle and forefinger.

6

He started climbing down the steep side of the ravine. I followed closely behind him, the aspect or face or gradient of the ravine became increasing steeper or more inclined as we descended down the sides of the ravine. We used the woody and shrubby vegetation growing between the rocks as holdfasts as we negotiated our passage downwards. Unknowingly we had brushed our and legs several times against the bushy foliage of the Rock Tree Nettle (Obetia tenax). We both began to feel an intense burning and itch on our arms and legs caused by the stinging hairs on the leaves of the bushy shrub growing among the rocks. The perspiration on arms and legs skins aggravated and intensified the sting. With our limbs on fire we arrived at a narrow ledge at the edge of sheer cliff face. He stepped carefully along the ledge clinging to trees and brush growing out of the rock face of the ravine. I followed him. The ledge became increasing narrow until it was about 5 cm wide with no vegetation holdfasts growing out of the rock face. Finding holdfasts in the form of cracks in the rock we inched our way along the narrow ledge until it petted out. We found ourselves trapped on the rock face unable retrace steps back. About twenty metres below us was another ledge which was about three metres wide. It was impossible for us to scale down the rock face to get to that ledge. Clinging to the rock face Joe Magee' mood had become unpleasantly sullen and sulky. However apart from the discomfort caused by the stinging nettles he was seemly unperturbed about how our dangerous predicament had become. We definitely did not possess any rock climbing skills or experience. In fact we were untrained and completely ignorant regarding the ins and out of rock face climbing. We were trapped on a very narrow ledge clinging to finger-wide cracks in the rock face. Opening up below was a vertiginous drop into the ravine. I had followed Joe Magee to the brink of a yawning abyss, the gaping jaws of a gigantic monster. Or maybe he had led me intentionally to the edge of the abyss. The thought crossed my mind that he planned to kill me. The abyss held both of us in its deadly thrall. The symbolism of our situation was not lost on me. Our fight over a woman had brought us to this threshold of possible death. Gabriella had become the deep chasm between us, breaking the last vestige of filial bonds.

7

'I am not unafraid to die, I am not afraid to fall to my death, I welcome death with open arms, I have no reason to live, it has all been so futile, I am a man that has become nothing, my soul has become a vacuum and there is nothing in the Universe which can fill it,' he said.

I felt the chill of panic. I was convinced that he was going to let go of his holdfast and fall backwards into the ravine, killing himself in the process, and leaving me to also die.

I began to plead with him: 'Don't be stupid. I don't want you to die, I don't want us to fall off the cliff. Think of mommy, think of your family'.

'You don't really know me, you will all be better off without me. You know why I don't have a gun. It is because I would have blown my brains out a long time ago. Now standing on this ledge over the ravine, feels like I am holding a gun to my head. I can end it all right now. It will be the same as pulling the trigger. I can end your life too. I can pull you off the ledge with me,' he said.

'This is crazy, why would you want to kill yourself, why would you want to kill me?' I said.

'Are you scared of dying, does the prospect of imminent death terrify you?' He asked.

'I am not scared of death. But I think it is stupid and selfish to kill oneself or murder someone else.'

His face was white with anger. He stared at me with the most terrible hate in his eyes.

'You are the exact double of your mother, you are just like her. You are not like Sean, Reilly and Dillon, they take after me. When I wanted to divorce Vanessa she told me she was pregnant, she was pregnant with you. It is you who stopped me from leaving her. And then when I wanted to leave her after you were born, she again informed me that she was pregnant with Catherine, and it was the same story with Mary. She used the three of you like a ball and chain, she is a manipulative bitch. You don't really know your mother. She knew that she could count on me being a man of honour, she knew that I would not leave her in the lurch if she was pregnant. She makes me sick. She is as loyal as dog, but I don't love her, I feel trapped by her, I am not living, I feel stifled, there is no pleasure in my life, I don't get any satisfaction, I don't feel any joy, the best years of life are gone forever, I have achieved nothing, it has all been a waste of time and effort.'

8

His outburst stunned me. It felt like he had plunged a knife into my heart. I was completely shattered. He had become a stranger. Below us growing precariously out of the crevice which had formed within the broad ledge-shelf below us was a huge Kirkia Tree (Kirkia acuminate) almost thirty metres tall. From our vantage point we had a bird eyes view of its leafy canopy, like the black eagle which glided past a few meters above our heads looking for rock hyrax. A mere metre behind the old man, within foot reaching distance was the sparse upper canopy of a twisted and crooked rock fig growing out of a crack in the sheer rock face below us. From the same tree, almost in line with our ledge a white smooth forked branch presented itself as a ready foothold. By swivelling his right leg outwards while holding to the rock hold fast above his head he could place his shoe quite easily in the fork and step away from the cliff ledge and then shimmy down to the contorted trunk until he reached the exposed gnarled roots which locked the base of tree in tight embrace with the rocky cliff-face. From that station it would be easily to get into the canopy the Kirkia Tree and then shimmy down its trunk. The old man leading the way, we managed to climb down to the ledge shelf. The sudden dryness in my mouth, the slight tremor in my hands and the feeling of a rubbery laxness in the tension of the muscles of my legs alerted me to fact that I was experiencing the receding tide of a massive adrenaline rush. Without exchanging a single word we completed our descent down the mountain ravine in silence.

9

I had just finished reading Moby-Dick for the second time (Gabriella who had never read Moby-Dick before was now also reading the book, and we had been sharing our thoughts on the story), and I started thinking about Ishmael and Queequeg's team effort in threading the yarn through the strings or threads of the warp in order to weave a sword-mat (a passage which Gabriella had spoken about in a deeply illuminating fashion). In warp weaving, the warp consists of fixed strings or threads which are held stationary in place under tension like the strings of a harp by in a frame called a loom while another thread, called the weft, is threaded at right angles repetitively over and under across the warp threads which being fixed to the loom frame under tension are able to vibrate when touched or stroked in the over and under threading of the weft thread cross-wise through the longitudinally placed warp threads. The shuttle is used to carry the weft thread in the weaving the weft thread cross-wise over and under through the threads of fixed warp. Melville in this passage mentions the Loom of Time with shuttle weaving. On the loom with our own hands we ply the weave shuttle in executing the cross-wise inter-weaving together of weft and warp threads creating in the process a woven fabric, and selecting the appropriate colours of weft and warp threads different patterns or figures or images or signs can be woven into the fabric. Melville uses the process of weaving with the shuttle and the loom as a metaphor. For example, with our own hands we ply the shuttle to weave our own fate or destiny on the loom of life. In the weaving of the fabric or tapestry of our lives the threading and processional motion of the shuttle across the loom's warp down freely with our hands, in this image the fate of our lives is in our own hands. In the weaving of the loom of life we encounter in the form of the fixed unmovable threading of the warp the following: necessity, the order of material and physical Universe, the legacy of history, the existence of state of affairs beyond our control and so on and so forth. But some of the threads on the warp have been laid down contingently, the products of chains of causation against which the play of my hand on the shuttle can do nothing to change, and so many of the forms of the images emerging in the tapestry arise from the chance interblending of colours in the cross-weaving of weft and warp. The template laid down for the weaving the fabric of our destiny or fate is not preordained or predestined, the template itself bears the dual on interactive imprint of our free decisions and shaping forces of necessity and order, in fact it is the products of the interactions between chance and necessity or contingency and necessity. It is the same as saying that even though we exist in a causally closed universe there still exists an infinity of unpredictable but possible outcomes all of which are consistent with the laws of nature, they can happen without violating the laws of nature or even the order of the Universe. Some of the fixed immovable warp threads on the loom of my own life, the threads of chance, contingency, chains of causation, which gate crashed into my existence happened to be Joe Magee and Gabriella Yeoman.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - SUBTERFUGE AND SCAMS

1

From Quinn's manuscript in his own words: To recap by the end of 1965, possibly because of the onset of a mid-life crisis among other predisposing factors which were too many to enumerate, our father abandoned us in more ways than could be counted. He had not set foot on the farm since February. He had abandoned us so that he could continue leading a double life. While not knowing the full details of our family's finances I came to the conclusion that the farm's apparent financial problems was a welcome excuse, a reasonable alibi for him to make some big personal sacrifice for the sake of farm and for our sakes as well, so that we could continue to live the kind of life which we had become accustomed to. As he explained to us, we stood to lose the farm if he did not continue to make up the financial shortfall by working full time as an engineer on some or other engineering project like on the platinum mines in Rustenburg. It seemed that the farm's financial problems could only be alleviated by dark nefarious activities involving clever and well-orchestrated scams linked to ripping off the platinum mines, while at the same living it up in a secret double life which we know nothing of, with the exception of Reilly, who was the go between the old man and my brothers. I had an inkling that Reilly, Dillon and Sean were in cahoots with the old man. He was steering engineering work and contracts their way. With the onset of winter my three brothers and their business friends would organize bird shooting weekends on the farm after the maize and sunflower harvesting had been completed. It was round the camp fires at night when booze had loosen tongues that I heard all kinds of stories. One evening when I arrived to join one such wintery campfire evening after a day of bird shooting I caught snatches of the tail end of a conversation which involved the financial milking of the mines, and I also heard snatches of talk about huge investments on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in which they and the old man was making an absolute killing. Apparently they (my brothers and father) also owned flats in Hillbrow, this also came as a great shock to me. Having inside knowledge of the way the mines operated the old man was able to work the system. The old man could influence the channelling of engineering and procurement contracts to front companies which my brothers and business partners would set up. My mom, sisters and I did not know it but the old man was flush with cash, a helluva lot of money was passing through his hands. It goes without saying that the old man was living a life of riotous dissipation, wine, woman and song. Of course a lot of this money was also flowing into the business accounts of the older Magee brothers who had now become a kind of institution in the southern suburbs of Johannesburg especially with regard to their stock car racing at Wembley Stadium next to the Turffontein Racecourse. It is no exaggeration to state that the Magee brothers had become an institution in the southern suburbs of Johannesburg. They had become prominent community figures in a southern suburbs ethnic enclave where social cohesion was not only based on Catholicism but also rooted in small engineering, panel beating, electrical, plumbing and building based businesses, in which an artisan class had become the nouveau rich. Members of this ethnic enclave included not only Portuguese and Italians but also the Lebanese Catholic Maronite Community, and the ethnic allies of this enclave were the Greeks whose religious roots was the Greek Orthodox Church. The community was not typically English speaking white Anglo-Saxon. The Magee brothers were revered not only as smart businessmen, devout Catholics, but because of their history as sportsmen, soccer and boxing. And of course Joe Magee was the dark enigmatic patriarch, deeply respected and revered, and also feared. He was respected and revered because he was an educated man, who had the common touch, who could fix anything mechanical, but also because he could brutally beat a man to a pulp. Another thing, Sean after visiting Ireland started collecting LPs of Irish folk music, which would became the background music he played when he held a braaivleis at his home. All of this made me feel different. Sean wanted to communicate the fact that as a family we had a culture to which we belonged. His efforts seemed to work, I became self-consciously aware that we were not the same as other white English speaking South Africans. We had different tribal roots. Going back to our situation on the farm, as far as I could ascertain the farm bills were being paid. Our schools fees were being paid and for once in my life I actually wanted for nothing. So I could not figure out why my mom had to work at some menial office job in Springs in order to save the farm, and why we had to buy the old man groceries and visit him every weekend on the pretext that he needed his family. Spending our weekends at that dismal flat in Rustenburg was just part of one big sham which he had scripted.

2

I now know that from the start we were never going to lose the farm. It was just a ruse. Yet Joe Magee's subterfuge made our sense of abandonment something absolute. We had been left to live alone on a farm which sort of run by itself. Our presence was not really needed for the farm to exist as a going concern. I did not really know what kind of underworld made our actual lived world possible. Originally we were led to believe that the farm was everything. It was our future, our inheritance and so on and so forth. It was in the depths of winter, June 1966, when a prize pedigree heifer contracted tetanus. The vet did not have the heart to tell me that it was a hopeless case, the heifer would die no matter what. Instead he gave me, a mere sixteen year old teenager, a cocktail of oral medication and other medications to be delivered by hypodermic injection. The heifer was isolated in a stable. For several days with Daniel standing by we applied the recommended treatment to a dying animal. I was assisted by two black farm labourers who dutifully assisted me with the futile efforts to rescue the heifer from a certain death. That morning they were waiting for me in the stable, we did not have the fatherly presence of Daniel, he was preoccupied with some other problem. The heifer was lying on its side. They did not have the heart to tell me that she was dead, we were alone in the stable, we stared into each other's eyes, I had the syringe and the oral medication ready, they lifted the dead heifer's head, but the heifer was dead, we spoke in Afrikaans, a foreign language was our medium of communication, they were men who spoke Sesotho, and English was my language. They knew about cattle, cattle was part of black culture, the heifer was dead. Apartheid was alive. They were grown men and I was a white boy. They worked for us, and Daniel was practically running the white owned farm, he had been made the boss of all the farm's operations and its day to day governance. He was the eyes and ears of my old man and brothers. Once a week in my absence, while I was at school, Sean would have his weekly meeting with Daniel. There was an underlying absurdity to the farm. The black labourers run the farm without any direct white supervision. As a consequence of the circumstances surrounded the death of the heifer I experienced at first hand as a white boy the depths of black humanity. Humanity demonstrated under the most unbearable of circumstances. In spite of the absolute wretchedness of their lives on our farm and on the surrounding farms their unfathomable black humanity remained unshakeable. A rich white man's cow was dead and they worked for that white man, and they witness the vulnerability of a white boy in a seemly utterly helpless situation, yet in spite of their own wretchedness they the men showed incredible kindness and sympathy, even though it was only an animal that had died. But the suffering and eventual death of the heifer had an effect on us, we shared a bewildering experience, which resulted in a human bond being formed between us. They could see I was just kid completely out of my depth when it came to saving the heifer.

3

After not seeing him since the Easter Weekend debacle at Rustenburg Kloof he pitched up at the farm out of the blue on a Friday evening just before sunset during the July holidays. He practically fell out of a battered barely roadworthy bakkie barely alive. He said he had been attacked by several men who tried to beat him to death. To the questions: 'Why had he been attacked, why did they want to kill him, where was he attacked, did he report the attack to the police?' Only vague answers that boarded on the absurd were given. Mom said she was going to phone Sean. No don't phone Sean he insisted. What about we take him to the hospital. No he does not need to go to the hospital. All he wants is to lie in a hot bath. Mom runs a bath. We help him undress. We help him into the bath. I stared at his naked body which was covered black and blue in bruises. He could scarcely breathe from the battering that his ribcage had sustained. Both his eyes where black and his lips were swollen and broken, his knuckles were raw, the skin stripped away. From the bath he looks up at me. He manages to smile at me. We talk, he asks how things are going with me. Not a word about Gabriella. We help him out of the bath. We help him into his pyjamas. He sleeps most of Saturday. Sunday morning when we wake up we discover he has gone. He leaves a note stating that we are not to visit him under any circumstance in Rustenburg. The situation is too dangerous and he does not want any harm to fall on his family.

4

A month goes by. It is a Thursday afternoon in August, the phones rings. I answer the phone. It is the old man. I freeze, but he is friendly to me. He speaks in hushed tones requesting that Daniel fetch him at the flat on Friday afternoon. I must come with. That afternoon we arrive in the VW Kombi bakkie and park in the courtyard of the block of flats. He instructs us to load the few chairs, a table, mattress and everything else onto the back of the bakkie. I can sense that he is anxious that we get going as soon as possible. He tells Daniel to drive. We all sit in the front cab, with me between Daniel and the old man. My old man speaking to me in a coded manner informs me that the suitcase he stashed behind the seat contains about R 250 000.00 in cash. I am shocked to learn how much money he has. He tells me all our troubles are over. What troubles do we have I ask? He does not answer. We stop at a garage while the bakkie is being filled with petrol he sends Daniel to buy fish and chips at the shop across the road. It seems to be the same old story all over again, always a mystery, a shakedown, a fight and then the flight with lots of money, hard cash in big brown envelopes or suitcases stuffed with cash, our salvation in the form of crisp banknotes saving us from the brink of some catastrophe, the details of which are always a mystery, the main being is that we have been saved, and things are going to get better. The old man becomes all philosophical while waiting for Daniel to return with our fish and chips. He muses that all needs are reducible to the want for more money. Money is the ultimate, final and only real need in the world. Our needs are proportional to our lack of money. Without money you can never be a real man. Money paves the way to a woman's heart and vagina. The amount of money you have defines who you are in terms of power. Money is power. There is a cynical grin on his face. The expression on his face softens, his eyes become all dreamy. He starts speaking about starting all over again. I think to myself: We were always going to start all over again. A fresh start was all that was needed. Things were going to change, things were going to be different this time round, and we were going to move on, maybe we will even have a well-deserved long holiday at the sea, fishing in the surf, maybe we will even buy a boat, a fishing boat, maybe we could fish for a living, make a business with fishing, maybe we should sell the farm and leave our troubles behind. It is money which makes it possible for us to start all over again. We can buy a new life. With money we can buy a new world. I am waiting for him to say something about Gabriella. But she does not come up in our conversation. I feel quite stressed. Is he going to let me see Gabriella? Has he got over Gabriella? Is he going to turn a blind eye? He looks at me, searchingly, there is an intensity in his face. Then he grins, his eyes sparkle, the expression on his face is conspiratorial, it seems to say: 'You are just like me, don't judge me.' But instead he says:

'Mom tells me that you are top of the class. The teacher says you are brilliant at mathematics. I am proud of you Quinn my boy. Mathematics is the key which unlocks all secrets. Focus on what is important, forget about all the other shit. Focus on your school work, being excellent in mathematics is your only salvation, you have a good mind, don't waste your mental powers, you are going to be the scholar in the family, I don't think you are cut out for business, we have enough businessmen in the family, leave the business to your brothers, you and your sisters must study and achieve something worthwhile, you and your sisters will want for nothing, you have been taken care of,' he said. I listen in silence. I am not going to give up Gabriella. The words 'you are not cut out for business' makes me feel like a looser. How to make lots of money will be the mystery that was going to elude me for the rest of my life. Of course Sean, Reilly and Dillon would never know how to solve Schrodinger's equation for any problem in quantum mechanics but like Joe Magee they will know how to make a fortune out of nothing.

5

On the 6th of September 1966, we hear the news that Verwoerd has been assassinated. We are all very happy. In fact the old man is ecstatic. He sends Danial off with a bakkie to buy booze and an ox. When he comes back with the ox they kill it and butcher it. That night I join the old man at the spit braai being held in the farm compound. At the old man's prompting I have a beer. It is a festive occasion. Everyone is happy that Verwoerd is dead. Joe Magee has paid for the booze, and in Joe Magee fashion the liquor flows freely. He stands amongst the farm workers, talking freely with them, telling them never to trust a white man, everyone gets blind drunk that is everyone except for Daniel, who aware of his status as the boss watches the revelry as a non-participant from the side lines.

6

Even though the old man seems to be back at home for good we hardly ever see him. He and Sean own several engineering businesses and have other business interests which we know nothing about. He leaves early in the morning and comes back late at night. On weekends he plays golf with Sean, Reilly, Dillon and Kingsley. I am seeing Gabriella regularly. We meet on horseback at a remote blue gum plantation on the farm boundary at the far end of the farm.

7

In November Gabriella left for the UK to spent time with her parents. Kingsley will join her for Christmas and they will be coming back in February in the New Year. At short notice, on the afternoon of Boxing Day, Patrick's brother Mark who is nineteen years old having just completed his national service in the South Africa Defence Force invites Patrick and I to join him and his best friend Colin on a holiday to the Natal south coast for the remainder of December holidays and for the first week of January 1967. We plan to travel down in his 1959 Volvo which he had restored. We all chip to pay for the petrol and subsistence. Patrick and I are still 16 years old, we have just completed standard nine in high school. I have R 25.00. In those days you could fill a car tank with R 2.00. In order to save money we plan to fish for our dinner, anyway just in case we don't catch anything we raided our respective pantries filling a huge cardboard box with canned fruit, canned mixed vegetables, canned beef, canned beans, canned sausages, canned spaghetti bolognaise and canned pilchards, enough food for three weeks. Also into the box we packed powder milk, tins of coffee, cereals and sugar. Another box we filled with plates, cutlery and cooking utensils. They arrived at the farm just before sunset, and it is dark when we eventually leave for Durban after the fishing rod carrier and four fishing rods were fixed to the car. Once on the main road to Durban Mark switches on the car radio and tunes into LM Radio. Durban is 575 km away. The Supremes – 'Someday we'll be together' starts playing. We all sing along together. Later that night the Supremes again – 'Where did our love go'. The drone of the car has lulled Patrick to sleep. Colin is nodding off. 'Are you still OK for driving,' I ask Mark. 'Yeah, I am OK for now. We will stop and fill up in Harrismith. We can stretch our legs and have a bit of break.' We drive in silence to Harrismith, lost in our own thoughts. LM Radio stirring up sweet and melancholic thoughts and yearnings, I am missing Gabriella terribly, she is on the other side of the world, so far away. We speed through the night, the road is deserted, the full moon at the very beginning of its phase rose shortly before sunset, it now baths the Highveld plains in the silver glow of its aura, the road aiming at the Southern Cross rapidly and monotonously unfolds unceasingly before us, every now and then we past the beckoning lights of sleeping small rural towns rooted deep in the maize growing belt, the road signs flash by, Villiers, Cornelia, Warden, and the car radio plays on: Them - 'Here comes the night', Bob Dylan – 'Its all over now, baby blue'; The Troggs- 'Wild thing'; Los Bravos – 'Black is black'; Wilson Pickett – '634-5789'; The Kinks – 'Sunday afternoon'; Simon & Garfunkel – 'I am a rock'; Bod Lind – 'Elusive butterfly'; Beatles – 'Paperback writer'... I am lost in thought as I unpack the events of 1966 in my mind. I don't know whether I should be elated or depressed. All that I know is that I am lovesick. I am stricken with forlornness. Gabriella is infinitely faraway in the UK, and now in her absence the world is filled with an unbearable emptiness. No one in the car is aware of my condition.

8

We stop at the garage in Harrismith to fill the tank. We have been on the road for three-half hours, it is eleven thirty. The car won't start. We assume that the battery is flat, we try to push start the car, the engine cranks but there is no ignition. We diagnose the problem. The generator is not working. We are stuck at the garage on the corner of Alexandra Street and Warden Street. I look at my watch it is 12.00, midnight. We realize we will have to wait until the morning to replace the generator. We sit in the car, we roll down the windows, and we shift around trying to get into comfortable sleeping positions. I can't sleep. I go to the gents to wash my face. I stare into the mirror, I have not shaved in two days. I stand on the pavement outside for a while watching the moths flittering round the street lights. It's a pleasantly warm evening, even though we are experiencing a grim start to our holiday. I find comfort in thinking about Gabriella, the feeling that I am now enjoying is that I have someone, we love each other, the only wish I have in the world is to be with her right this very moment. Lovesick I trudge into the night, walking down Warden Street until I reach Debora Retief Park. The streets are deserted, the town is dead. The park is named after Piet Retief's daughter. At the entrance of the park is a memorial to the Boer commandos who lost their lives in the Boer War. Inside the park is 33 meter long fossilized tree estimated to be 250 million old. I sit down on a park bench and gaze up at the Milky Way.

Early the next morning we discover in terms of availability and affordability that we have only one option and that is to visit the different scrapyards in Harrismith. Eventually we find a second-hand generator which will work for the Volvo. We all chip in to cover the cost. Two o' clock we are back on the road again, LM Radio blaring, our spirits buoyant. Durban is a mere 291 km away. We should get there by five-o-clock or earlier. Leaving the Highveld plains the road ahead climbs the steep Drakensburg escarpment via Van Reenen's pass. After Van Reenen's the road descends into the Savannahs of Natal. Anxious to get the last leg of the journey over before sunset we speed past Ladysmith, Colenso, Frere, and Estcourt into the Natal midlands of Mooiriver, Nottingham Road, and Howick. After Howick we descend down the steep and winding road flanked by gigantic blue gums, in the humid afternoon heat the plantations quiver with the never ceasing shrill of cicadas, freewheeling into the sleepy hollow of Pietermaritzburg we stop to fill up the tank. We finally arrive in Durban feeling extremely famished. Down a side street in the City of Durban we locate a Portuguese fish and chip shop. Our hunger satiated we drive down the south coast highway, bypassing Isipingo and Umbogintwini before reaching the seaside resort of Amanzimtoti at five-o-clock on the dot. Just before the sun disappeared behind the dunes we changed in our costumes in the visitor's parking lot, charging over the still warm beach sand we plunged into the surf. While in the sea twilight descends rapidly. Once more we see the full moon rise, now over the Indian Ocean instead of the Highveld plains. In the early evening moonlight we make our way back to the car. Across the street from the parking lot the streetlights glow yellow. Everywhere the crickets are chirping, the frogs are croaking, and the bats are flittering about. With our knapsacks slung over our shoulders we headed for the ablution block in the caravan park across the road from the parking lot. The hum of hurricane lamps and the aroma of braaivleis filled the caravan park. After shaving, brushing teeth, and enjoying a rejuvenating hot shower, and donning a fresh change of clothing, clean but old T-shirts and faded jeans, we headed back to the car. After moving the car to a secluded spot hidden from view within the parking lot, we set up camp on top of the woody vegetated dune overlooking the beach and the sea. Spreading out the large tarpaulin on the sand beneath the leafy canopy of the dune brush, we laid our sleeping bags on top of the tarpaulin. Under the bright moonlight from our elevated vantage point we can see the white surf and the silent silhouettes of lonely fishermen standing like sentries, their fishing rods bent towards the moon like lances. Shortly after sunrise the dune vegetation became alive with the chirping of birds and the chattering of a troop of vervet monkeys. We decided to make this spot our permanent camp site to which we would return each night under the cover of darkness after a hot shower at the caravan park. Breakfast was freshly made cold powder milk, sugar and Kellogg's Corn Flakes. Our plan was to spend each day at a different beaches, fishing, swimming, chatting about stuff and just generally lazing about. On returning to our camp site at night we fried the fish, heated the tinned food, and boiled the water for coffee on a camping Cadac gas cooker, afterwards washing the pots, pans, plates, cups and cutlery in the sea. We spoon fished mainly for shad at Kingsborough, Winklespruit, Illovo Beach, Umkomaas, Scottburgh, Pennington, Hibberdene, Port Shepstone, Shelley Beach, Uvongo, Margate, Ramsgate, Trafalgar Beach and Port Edward.

9

When not fishing or body surfing we sat under our beach umbrella, the transistor radio constantly tuned into LM radio, while we chatted about stuff. What kind of stuff did sixteen to nineteen year old South African white boys chat about in 1966? Mark and Colin who had completed their military service as Parabats had spent six months on the Caprivi Strip at Katima Malima. They spoke about the ordeals of their basic training in Bloemfontein as paratroopers. On the Caprivi Strip most of the counter-insurgency operations were being carried out by special units of the South African police. Mark and Colin spoke about SWAPO and PLAN. SWAPO was the South West African People's Organization and PLAN was the People's Liberation Army of Namibia. SWAPO was infiltrating PLAN guerrillas through the Caprivi Strip from south east Angola and Zambia into South West Africa (Namibia). Did they have any 'contacts' with SWAPO guerrillas? Answer: 'No'. They spoke about weapons and fire power. They spoke about sex. But not of their own personal experiences of sexual adventure. We listened to stories about the sexual adventure of other boys with girls at our high school, girls who were definitely no longer virgins, but were in fact veritable sexual predators with insatiable sexual appetites. Patrick frowned darkly as we listened to the lurid tales of peccadilloes that girls and guys who we knew of, had got up to. As the Gospel of Luke chapter 12 verse 2 states: 'There is nothing covered up that won't be exposed and nothing secret that won't be made known'.

10

This was Quinn's version of our holiday which is not an accurate rendition. However Quinn has humorously portrayed me as prude. Well I am definitely not a prude. With regard to prudishness let me have my say the following. Popular Christian conceptualization of sin has been formulated in terms of actions which are perceived to be offensive to God's holiness and purity. In this context sin is presented as breaching standards of decency particularly in matters of a sexual nature. Of course this is a very narrow idea of sin. What is the essence of sin? The essence of sin involve any action which results in the destruction of human solidarity. Sin has nothing to with holiness and purity. To understand the true nature of sin we need to understand the real meaning of human solidarity. We are living in the age of Google. If we Google the word 'solidarity' we get the following list of synonyms: unanimity, unity, like mindedness, agreement, accord, harmony, consensus, concord, concurrence, singleness of purpose, community of interest, mutual support, cooperation, cohesion, team spirit, camaraderie, esprit de corps. The noun solidary also incorporated the following: affinity, connection, empathy, kinship, oneness, rapport, sympathy, understanding, chime, comity, compatibility, harmony, peace, amity, companionship, compatibleness, congeniality, fellowship, fraternization, friendship. All of these synonyms of solidarity encapsulate the singularity of mutual reciprocity and agreement over matters of common concern. Coercion is inimical to solidarity. Control and domination destroys solidarity. Autonomy is state of affairs consonant with solidarity. Genuine solidarity if preserves autonomy.

11

On Friday 31st December 1966 we spent old year's eve fishing in the surf at Amanzimtoti. Quinn had made each of us a new set of steel traces with three triple hooks on which we could bait sardines, the first hook through the head, the second hook through the middle of the body and the third hook through the tail. Old year's eve at 8.00 pm I caught my first fish, a seven kilogram Kob. We immediately gutted and scaled the fish right there and then in the surf, seasoning it with lemon, pepper, garlic, herbs and spices and tomato before wrapping it up in tin foil. We made a fire on the beach, laid the fish in the embers, we then sat round the fire drinking our beers while waiting for the dawn of the New Year.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - DEATH LURKS IN THE MARSHLANDS

1

In March 1967 Gabriella informed me that Kingsley was dying of prostate cancer. She also informed me that Kingsley was in serious financial difficulties. He had warned her that they were going to lose the farm. Towards the end of 1967 in spite of business being good for Joe Magee things began to get progressive more chaotic and unpredictable on the Magee farm. Joe Magee's bouts of binge drinking increased in regularity and his behaviour became increasingly erratic. He was constantly morbid and morose. The previous year he had bought Quinn and his sisters a stereo Hi Fi as a Christmas present. Now he started to hog the Hi Fi spending hours on end drinking alone in the lounge while listening to jazz, classical music and big bang swing LPs, records which he had also started to collect in great number. But then, things began to get really strange and weird, he started playing Quinn's LPs , mainly the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, playing them at maximum volume, full blast, playing them over and over also for hours on end, right into the early of the morning, during which time the rest of the Magee family had to endure sleepless nights. He played the Rolling Stones track 'You can't always get what you want' repeatedly. And then he stared playing the Francois Hardy LPs which Gabriella had bought Quinn as a birthday present. Lifting the stylus while the record was still in play on the turntable he would select the track 'Only Friends', listening to it repeatedly in a state of moody and drunken fascination. As he moved the needle back to track, the needle would make a terrible ear-splitting screech, scratching the record in the process. Unable to bear this any longer Quinn jumped out of bed, it was two in the morning, in a state of boiling anger he rushed to the lounge, a struggle between the two ensued when Quinn tried to retrieve the LP, and in the process Joe Magee smashed the Francois Hardy LP, flinging the vinyl LP like a Frisbee Disk across the lounge into the wall. Breaking free from Quinn's hold he began to taunt Quinn, challenging him to a bare knuckle fistfight. In response Quinn turned his back on his father, Joe Magee struck him with a resounding flat hand palm slap on the side of his head. Quinn then turned round to face his father, who rushed at him, like a deranged madman, wildly swinging blows at Quinn's head, which Quin deftly ducked and dodged, before landing his own stinging jab which felled Joe Magee.

2

Two weeks later, after this incident, on a Sunday night, the 31st of December 1967 to be precise, after returning from the Old Year' s Eve Mass, on that new moon night, after the remaining thin sliver of the crescent had vanished completely from the night sky, the figure of Joe Magee suddenly appeared out of the blackness stepping into the head lights of the car, blocking the road to the farm house, a long sand road cutting across a wide stretch of veld which separated the farm house from the main tar road. Wearing only a pair of boots and shorts, carrying a fixed blade Bowie fight knife in his right hand, he started running towards the now stationary vehicle. Not knowing what to do Vanessa had brought the car to halt. He stood momentarily in front of the car before lunging forward and stabbing the blade of knife right through the windscreen on the passenger side were Quinn was sitting. Ripping the knife out from the windscreen he pulled open the unlocked passenger door, grabbing Quinn's left wrist in a vice grip, like a lion grasping its prey in its jaws, he viciously dragged Quinn out of the car. Once he had been roughly extricated from the car Quinn managed to unbalance his father so that in his drunken state he fell to his knees. But in an instance he was up again on his feet, and lunged again and again at Quinn, slashing the knife at Quinn, with Quinn swiftly stepping back each time, barely escaping the razor sharp blade. They were now in the front of car, dancing around in the blaze of the headlights, Quinn dodging his father, always just escaping by millimetres, miraculously moving just out of range of the slashing blade, as it cut a deadly flashing arc though empty space. Catharine, Mary and Elizabeth let out blood-curdling screams of sheer horror at the terrifying life and death struggle unfolding before their eyes. Vanessa flinging her door open scrambled out the car, just as Joe Magee lunged to stab Quinn she jumped between them, and blade plunging into her chest, penetrating to the hilt, piecing her heart, she slumped into heap, the knife's blade remaining deeply embedded in her chest. Quinn began to beat his father who crumbled under the rain of his blows, Quinn began to kick has father's body. Joe Magee tried desperately to roll away from Quinn's potentially lethal kicking and stomping. Realizing that his own life was now in imminent danger, he started yelling, shouting all the time, his voice sounding strangely hoarse, almost animal like, like an old lion coughing: 'You going to kill me, you going to kill me...' In his drunken state he managed to get back onto his feet and with Quinn hot on his heels he run blindly into pitch black veld towards where the marshlands lay. Quinn suddenly realizing that his mother had been stabbed, gave up the pursuit, turning round, he run back to the car. Quinn kneeling next to her, now bending in panic over her lifeless body, frantically searching deeply into her face for any sign of vitality, a face now pallid, expressionless, with open eyes unseeing, in the beams of the car's headlights, no breath from her parted lips, no rising of her breast, his three sisters helpless, huddled round the body, crying hysterically. Realizing that she was no longer alive he sprinted to the farm house. After phoning the police and the ambulance he run back to the car. While comforting his weeping sisters they stood by their mother's body until the police and ambulance arrived. It was about 10.00 pm when police flying squad and ambulance arrived. After the ambulance drove away to the morgue with Vanessa's body Quinn instructed his sisters to go back to the house and phone the brothers. Quinn informed Constable Visagie and his colleague that Joe Magee had in all likelihood disappeared into the reeds beds of the dense lush marshland. He added that his father was an extremely dangerous and devious man, nothing would stop him from killing as he now had nothing to gain or lose, and he was not scared of death, it was pitch dark, he could easily kill possibly by ambushing, incapacitating and drowning his assailant, if he had taken refuge in the swamp like a wounded buffalo. This analogy of a wounded buffalo lying in ambush in the reeds failed to stir or impress them. They may have been amused by the idea. But they showed no sign of being amused. Unfazed and without empathy, the demeanours of the two young policeman, possibly numbed, habituated by frequent exposure to human death and tragedy, failed to hide ironic expressions of incredulity in response Quinn's warning. Quinn seeing their scepticism, he warned them solemnly that he was not exaggerating the danger they faced. They had no idea who the adversary was. 'I know my father, he is going to take as many down with him now that the die was cast,' Quinn said. But Quinn seemed to have succeeded in convincing of the gravity of the situation. So erring on the side of caution Visagie radioed for additional police reinforcements, plus dogs, so that a manhunt could be launched. Before the arrival of the reinforcements the two constables searched the house and all the out-buildings of the farm. Quinn retrieved all the vehicle keys and hide them in a shoe in his cupboard. An hour later Captain Botha and six constables and one police dog arrived at the farm. They conducted another thorough but futile search of the surrounding grounds and farm buildings in the vicinity of the farm house. At 1.00 am the posse under the directions of Quinn drove via a two track farm access road to the edge of the marsh. An hour later after they had reconnoitred the full extent of the margins of the extensive marshlands illuminated under the searching beams of powerful torches and spotlights they returned to the parked police vehicles just in time to meet the arrival of Sean, Reilly and Dillon in their cars.

'What makes you so sure that he is hiding in the swamp?' Captain Botha asked.

'Yes how do know that dad is hiding in the swamp,' Sean asked, expressing the same scepticism as the Captain.

'That is in the direction in which he run, he would have used the Southern Cross constellation as his compass in the dark, and there is also slight gradient, he would have run down the gradient not across it, someone should drive back to mom's car shine the headlights due south using the Southern Cross so that we explore the possible arc of entry into the swamp. If we look carefully we will find the broken reeds marking his passage into the reed bed and then we will know for sure he that is hiding in the swamp,' Quinn insisted.

Dillon volunteered to drive back to car and shine his car's headlights towards the marsh. Dillon flashed the headlines twice and then put them on bright. The distance between Dillon and the swamp margin was roughly 800 metres. Eye-balling roughly a possible arc of entrance into the Marsh they eventually discovered an unmistakeable point of entrance into the swamp marked by broken and bent-over reeds.

'There is nothing we can do in the dark. We have to wait for the morning. But before first light we need to have perimeter of the swamp cordoned off,' the Captain said.

The captained radioed back to the station. The colonel was woken up at his home and debriefed. 'How many policemen are needed?' he wanted know. A few minutes later the reply was: 'Enough to cordon-off 5 kilometres'. 'What! You want a contingent of one hundred constables.' Answer sent back: 'Yes. That is the absolute minimum.' While this to-ing and fro-ing of exchanges between the captain and colonel, transmitted via the Nigel police station, was going on, lightning began to flash on the horizon and distant thunder started rolling over the pitch black plains.

'Happy New Year manne (men)!' the captain grunted.

'In the mean time we need to patrol the perimeter as best as we can,' the captain said as a sudden gust of wind which stirred up from nowhere began to whoosh through the reed bed. On the western horizon flashes of lightning lit up the night, heralding the first signs of an approaching thunderstorm. A strong wind, unseasonably chilly, began to sweep with increasing velocity across the vast steppes, carrying on it back sky-ripping bolts of mercuric lightning and sky-rending reverberations of thunder. As it advanced across the plain it ferocity grew, like supernatural-sinister apocalyptic horsemen, emissaries filled with malevolent intentions. No wonder that in the depths of this night of death, the transgressionary violence which could be seen in the transitory flashes of lightning whose true meaning and origins could only be read against utter darkness. Just before first light, the storm abated, fading away, the veil of dark clouds dispersed, the starlit night sky opened up once more, and across the heavens marched Orion the hunter. With the break of dawn the nightlong vigil ended. The menace of the marshlands gradually became visible as a forest of spears beneath bloody skies. With the morning star still winking its benediction upon one more new day, five lumbering Bedford Lorries belching dark clouds of diesel fumes arrived rumbling down the farm track. Things began to stir in the marsh, different kinds of bird sounds began to fill the fresh morning air, each call a vote of approval for the first day of the New Year, Quinn recognized each call, the uncanny shriek of a Purple Gallinule, the cheerful high pitched call descending sharply into a kr-rrrrk of the Moorhen, the clukuk of the Red-knobbed Coot, the deep growl churr of a Black Crake, and from in the surrounding grasslands the intermittent hammer-anvil klink, klink, klink of the Blacksmith Plover. By 6.00 am the policemen had secured the perimeter of the swamp at 50 metre intervals. The sun began its diurnal motion, rising into a cloudless sky, beneath cobalt skies, dancing in beams of sunlit golden Bishop Birds noisily puff-balled above among the reeds, Red Bishop Birds rocked like pendulum bobs on the elastic stem of reeds, tick-tock-tick-tock, the moments slipped by as the swamp shimmered with an overabundance of life. The man hiding in the swamp owned the swamp, he owned the farm, he also owned Kingsley's farm and all of Kingsley's businesses. He literally owned Kingsley. In the words of Joe Magee, money was the only link between man and world, between man and reality, between man and existence, between man and women. The man without money is severed from the world, the man without money was cut-off from reality, the man without money was cut-off from existence, through the lack of money men like Kingsley have lost all real connection with the world, men like Kingsley no longer have agency with respect to the world. In a word, a man without money has no control over his own life or the world. Having lost all his money Kingsley had been reduced to his own unreality. Joe Magee owned a lot of things, including the lives of men and women, but he did not own the lightning, the rain, the wind, the sun, the storm, the thunder, or the uncountable number of swamp dwellers. But could he own the life of anyone who dared enter the swamp? And the farm? What about the farm? Like an aircraft on autopilot, like a ship sailing steadfast on its course, the farm's clockwork rhythm of daily routine went on uninterrupted while Joe Magee hunkered down, hiding in the depths of the swamp. What about the VM Variant? The VW Variant, with the jagged hole in the windscreen at the centre of a radiating spider's web, the keys still in the ignition, the battery run flat, the doors still akimbo, the pool of blood congealed black, immobile, a sign starkly mute, still stood in the same spot, stalled on the road to the farm house, frozen in time past.

In the bright noonday sunlight, in the humid sweltering late summer January heat of the first day of the New Year, Joe Magee finally emerged from the reed beds of the swamp naked, his body covered in a film of black clay, blackened by foul smelling iron sulphide. A manic grin breaks the black mask with a flash of white teeth. In his hand he holds like a sword a rusted shaft of steel previously used for barbwire fencing, at one end it has a sharp jagged pronged tip. In knee deep water they attack him from all sides with swinging batons, he does not cower, he does not shrink back, instead he stands his ground. He fights back like a ferocious panther with sweeping slashes, the deadly shaft of steel cuts viciously through the air, left and right. They surrounded him like a pack of wild dogs, dodging the sweeping shaft of steel. Under the rain of countless blows to his body he does not flinch. He seems indestructible. But eventually, after a desperate struggle he is finally subdued. Like a wounded giant black serpent he writhes and rolls, thrashing about in the thick mat of dark emerald sedge and cypress grass covering the muddy shores of the swamp.

After a week of scouring the swamp the bloated bodies of three constables were eventually retrieved from the reeds. Death by drowning after falling into the clutches of Joe Magee or death by accidental drowning could not be established. There was insufficient evidence to charge Joe Magee for the murder of the three constables. However, years later Sean told the Magee family that Joe Magee did confide in him, admitting that he had indeed drowned the three constables. They had died the most horrible deaths in the hands of Joe Magee.

3

On the Wednesday of the 3rd of January 1968 Quinn failed to turn up at the Drill Hall next to Joubert Park and Twist Street in Johannesburg for his military call up. Five days later the military police turned up at the farm and arrested him for AWOL. He was taken to the Detention Barracks at the vast Voortrekkerhoogte Military Base in Pretoria where he spent three days in lockup waiting for the trial and sentencing. On the fourth day he was sentenced to 150 days in detention. On the fifth day the sentence was quashed. He was released on compassionate grounds and also because he was the main State witness for the Joe Magee murder trial. He later admitted to me that in spite of the overwhelming grief and trauma that he was suffering at the time of arrest and detention he had cannily 'played' the army so as postpone indefinitely his military service.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - DEATH OF A HANGMAN

1

Joe Magee the man who had lived a life free of the burden and constraints of fear now shackled in chains and leg irons took his seat each day in the dock, sitting impassively in the dock he endured the short trail with a remote air of indifference to the proceedings. A red-eyed, grief stricken Quinn, the main witness, constantly fighting to hold back the flood of tears, faced an emotionally exhausting week of gruelling cross examination in the witness box. Over and over, in response to endless questioning, he described the tragic events of that night, from the beginning to the dramatic finality in the bog of sedge at the edge of the swamp. What was the motive for such murderous savagery? While both Joe Magee and Quinn were fully aware of the complex motives behind the tragedy, the court could not pierce the veil of mutual silence which bound father and son. Before pronouncing the death sentence, the judge in summing up his verdict described Joe Magee as a man who being unable to even feign the faintest sign of remorse for his terrible deed, was the very incarnation of evil, undeserving of any mercy, the best interests of society would be best served by being rid for good of his kind.

2

After sentencing Joe Magee was loaded immediately with minimum ceremony into the back of a police van, driven straight to Pretoria Maximum, the prison for the incarceration or execution of the most hardened and dangerous criminals. Out of sheer wilfulness Joe Magee instructed his advocate to lodge an appeal against his sentence. Joe Magee's penultimate milestone in his life-journey ended in the newly built and commissioned four story brick building with its bright new rooftop zinc water tanks emitting flashes of sunlight. By all accounts it was a well-constructed bleak Spartan looking building without any unnecessary aesthetic frills other than the purer aesthetics of morbid and macabre functionality, which will be duly categorized. It must be kept in mind that the four story brick building represented more than the sum of its individual parts or the sum of all stones laid down in its construction. To describe the architectural design of any 3-dimensional enclosure and partitioning of space within the confines of walls it is necessary to describe each individual feature of spatial enclosure, or the architectural nature or essence of the enclosed space. Architecture represents more than the mere structuring of spaces in terms of functionality, its authentic objective is the aestheticization of space. In terms of architectural design what must always be kept in mind is the relationships between part and whole, the one and the many, the particular and the universal, because it is in the whole that we perceive the meaning and significance embodied in the form and structure when assimilated in its entirety, with respect to the fitting together of its parts. Observing the Spartan building we become aware of the following: First, it was architecturally designed to a ghoulish level of specification and detail to work as a human abattoir or factory of death. Second, cold-hearted and callous attention had been paid to every practical and functional feature necessarily for the attainment of the efficient and trouble free termination of life by hanging, a facility fully geared and equipped for serving an all-in-one functional one-stop purpose. Did the architects of the Department of Public Works work-off an architectural blueprint or did they dream up the cruel workings of the machinery ab initio from first principles? Making allowance for the work of gravity, the actual gallows were located on the fourth floor of the building, placed over a trapdoor covered shaft, into the dark depths of which the condemned fell to their deaths. The open ended base of the hanging shaft formed a vault above the ground floor autopsy room into which the bodies of the condemned, while still hanging from the ends of the ropes wound round their necks the bodies were lowered so that they hung above a sump, sunken into the floor, designed to collect and drain away blood, urine, faeces and water. While still suspended by their necks over the sump the bodies were stripped and washed down with a hose pipe before being transferred to the autopsy tables in the enjoining room. On the floor immediately below the mortuary was the chapel. Reinforced with bomb resistance walls and surrounded by five watchtowers, the dead row building with its gallows, mortuary, chapel, three stories of small prison cells for housing the condemned, a replica of Dante's hell, smack in the centre of the Pretoria prison precinct, located at the metaphorical bottom of the downward spiralling complex of the prison inferno, was meticulously designed for the swift termination of life and the efficient trouble-free dispatchment of the corpse via the chapel en route to its final resting place in the ground, a pauper's grave and an anonymous burial, in the inaccessible cemeteries reserved for murderers. Attention was to paid the most trivial and meaningless of details regarding the passage from life to death, especially in regard to the presence of a telephone in the gallows, the shiny black telephone was as good as broken, because it never rang, its number was never dialled, did it even have a number which could be dialled?

3

Taking a completely different angle on the ideas regarding desire and reason, an interesting avenue to explore would be George Bataille book 'Eroticism, Death & Sensuality'. Ignoring the very possibility of a relation between desire, reason and the nature of the good, we could argue that if the object of one's desire cannot be possessed, if there is no possibility for fusion or union because of spurned love, when passion and desire found no erotic consummation in fusion or union then we are able to establish the links between the ideas of desire, eros, death, murder and suicide. Bataille finds in respect to the precariousness of the union between two lovers the symmetry in the suffering and violence of rejection or spurned love. I would argue that Bataille's ideas regarding the precariousness of union between two lovers is deficient. And I will state why: In the precariousness of the union between lovers lies the seeds of rejection and violence which eventually become the wellsprings of death, either by suicide or murder. But Bataille does not fully spell out the implications of erotic precariousness as I would have it. Bataille never explored the problem of pain especially the unbearable emotional pain of spurned or lost love or impossible love which could either drive one into the madness of violence and murder or into the bottomless abyss of pain, pain that it so intense, and so overwhelming, that it removes all desire to continue living, making death the only escape, even death by suicide. In the case of murder the passion ignited by rejection can become so great that the persistent urgings of a malevolent-will cannot be reined in, especially when in the vice grip of that toxic cocktail of possessive obsessions and uncontrollable desire for vengeance.

4

In death row there are no shadows, the lights blaze day and night, the wardens themselves like autistic hyenas trapped in aerial cages tramp up and down across the catwalks above always staring downwards as they pass over cell after cell in which the condemn languish for days, weeks, months and sometimes for years in a state of suspended animation staring vacantly at nothing. In cell 27 the inmate showed no signs of diminished vitality, no evidence of the predictable gradual cessation of body functions, no decline into that hypometabolic state of reptilian torpidity normally induced by inaction and sensory deprivation, no demonstrable slowing down of mental and physiological capabilities. Instead of sinking into a monotonous 24 hour cycle of inaction, trapped in the grip of a languorous depression, Joe Magee maintained a strict unchanging routine, resting for 4 hours in a state of tranquil meditation followed by 2 hours of exercise which apart from press ups, sit ups, squats and shadow boxing, also included 30 minutes devoted to a repetitive drill in which a strange choreographic sequence of dance-like motions were fluidly and rhythmically executed, which had the pattern and motions of a mysterious-mystical karate kata. He ate all his meals with gusto, relishing each morsel, smacking his lips. Something needs to be said about the 4 hour meditations. Stripping off his prison overall he would lay naked spread-eagled on the bed with a huge erection, which he maintained for the full 4 hours.

5

Everyday Sean visited him for the allotted 30 minutes. His lawyer would also be present. They would usually discuss business for the full 30 minutes. He wanted to see Quinn, who was the only member of the family who had not come to visit him. Anyway after the three brothers and sisters pleaded with Quinn to see his father, he eventually relented. On his arrival at the special visitors room for the condemned Joe Magee asked if he could be alone with Quinn. Sean and the lawyer happily left the visitors side of the room. Joe Magee smiled at Quinn and Quinn could not suppress his own smile. Before Joe Magee could say anything Quinn said: 'I forgive you for everything.' 'I know that you have forgiven me, I am your father,' he replied with an enigmatic grin. 'Look Quinn, I have made Sean the trustee of a family trust, you and yours sisters will want for nothing for the rest of your lives. All your material needs will be taken of. I cannot help you with your other needs. Anyway it is best to be a man without any needs. There will be funds for your University, accommodation and subsistence. I have also instructed Sean to give you money so that you can go overseas on a long holiday if you so wish. But I recommend to go overseas before starting your university studies. Visit Gabriella, she loves you deeply, she is a good person, incorruptible, a genuine angel.' Joe Magee's demeanour glowed with an unfathomable saintliness while he spoke to Quinn, which left Quinn deeply perplexed. Quinn guessed that Joe Magee as a Catholic had made his confession and had received absolution for his sins.

6

The next day Joe Magee had his interview with the sheriff of the high court in the Feedback Room. His appeals had been denied. He was transferred to the tiny cell called the 'pot'. On the Friday of that week starting at 6.00 am his journey of 52 steps to the gallows began. He was bright and chirpy when he joined the other six black prisoners. All seven were going to be executed together. On entry to the gallows their identities where confirmed, each man was then handcuffed with their hands behind their backs, following which they were hooded with the front flap of the hood thrown back so that they could see where to stand on the trapdoor. Seven pairs of black boot prints were painted on the grey metal trapdoor. Above them was the gantry to which seven noose were attached, at the other side of the room was the lever for collapsing the trapdoor. They marched onto the gallows, each man nudged into position, so that he stood with feet apart on the allotted painted boot print. Joe Magee was the fourth man in line. The hangman, warrant officer Gert Oosthuizen, starting with first man, fixed the noose around his neck and then pulled the flap down over the condemned man's face, the same procedure was repeated for the second and third man. He then commenced with putting the noose around Joe Magee neck, and in that split second before he could pull over the flap to cover Joe Magee's face, Joe Magee moving with the lightning speed of a striking cobra struck Oosthuizen in the face with the full powerful force of his forehead, smashing the hangman's face, breaking his nose, splitting the skin on his forehead to the very bone, the stunned hangman collapsed into a crumbled heap on the trapdoor, the slack in the rope of the noose allowed Joe Magee sufficient freedom of mobility to kick and stump on the incapacitated hangman. Joe Magee stomped on the hangman's head cracking his skull in the process. Pandemonium broke out on the gallows. There was so much panic, such an intense volume of screaming and shouting that the entire death row complex knew that some terrifying unimaginable incident was unfolding on the gallows. Wardens struggled to subdue Joe Magee, clubbing him with batons while other wardens quickly slipped the nooses round the necks of the three remaining men. Someone screamed for the wardens to clear off the trapdoor, the lever was pulled, the resounding crash of the heavy steel trapdoor collapsing beneath the condemned shook the entire building, the seven fell to their deaths, taking the body of the hangman with them, like a shock wave of an exploding shell the news of the debacle on the gallows vibrated through death row, while the bodies of the condemned were being stripped, washed down with a hose and laid out on the cold stainless steel autopsy tables, from the throats of dancing, ecstatic death row inmates the name Jomogee, Jomogee, Jomogee reverberated.

7

After the completion of the autopsy which boiled down to dissecting the neck to confirm death by severing of the spinal cord. The severing of the spinal cord is caused by a fractural dislocation of the cervical column, between the second and third or third and fourth cervical vertebrae. The seven naked bodies were laid out in rude rough plywood coffins, the lids were screwed down. A yellow plastic tag bearing the name of the deceased was fixed to each coffin. At 9am sharp the seven coffins were loaded into a lift and sent down to the chapel. In the chapel when the lift doors opened the wardens carried out the coffins which had been stacked one upon the other in the lift. They laid out the seven coffins in a row on the floor in the front of chapel. The Magee family joined the black families crowding round the coffins scrutinizing the tags to see who belonged to which family. The Magee family and the black families had been waiting in the chapel since 8.00 am. They had heard the dying commotion and singing emanating from the death row cells. One of the black family members who had heard the singing wanted to know what the word 'Jomogee' meant. An old black man said Jomogee is the name of the spirit who accompanies the souls of condemned men into the afterlife. The families were allowed only a few minutes to bid farewell to their deceased relatives before they were firmly ushered (pressed ganged) out in a disorganized but solemn procession by the wardens into the bright sunlight of a new day, where they milled for a few moments in a state of uncertainty and bewilderment. 'You must go now', barked the young white warden. Fuck you Dillon muttered. The coffins were loaded once more into the lift which ascended to the mortuary to be stashed in mortuary fridges until burial. A few days later the coffins were dispatched to their burial destinations. Executed whites were buried in paupers' graves in Zandfontein in Pretoria. Coloureds were buried in Eersterust, Indians in Laudium and blacks in Mamelodi, all in paupers' graves.

8

In terms of a retrospective reflection on the life and times of Joe Magee we need to ask ourselves what was the true crime committed by Joe Magee? His real crime was his adamant and consistent denial of the validity of any established world view or order or organization to which we should be bound or within which we should be held captive to its conventions or hegemony as prisoners. The word 'hegemony' represents a powerful noun, a word with which we link with the name of the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. In essence hegemony as an abstract noun embraces everything regarding what the rule of the one over the many entails. The meaning or significance of hegemony entails or presents everything which makes the dominance of ruling elites over others possible. If we Google the word 'hegemony' we are presented with the following list of its synonyms: leadership, dominance, dominion, supremacy, ascendancy, predominance, primacy, authority, mastery, control, power, sway, rule, sovereignty, predomination, paramountcy, and so on. The antonyms of hegemony include: independence, self-governance, self-rule, self-legislation, self-determination, self-representation, sovereignty, autonomy, direct democracy and freedom, represents everything we associate with egalitarianism and non-hierarchical social formations and social relationships. In a special sense the antonym of hegemony is nihilism, as in the nihilism of Karl Marx or even the nihilism of Saint Paul. In the case of Marx we have Marx's 'nihilism' towards capitalism. In the case of Saint Paul we have Paul's 'nihilism' towards the hegemony and status quo of the Roman Empire. In both cases, Marx and Paul, we are using the word nihilism to mean the absolute denial of the validity of an established world order or world ordering, where the ordering rests on the destruction of the common good. But then we also have transcendental or metaphysical nihilism which represents the absolute denial of the validity of any kind of ordering whatsoever, and I would venture to say, without exaggeration, that this was the kind of nihilism which Joe Magee embraced, a nihilism which included the inexorably eventuality of his own self-destruction or self-annihilation, this was the Faustian bargain which he had made from beginning. Professor Raizel Kolitz was called a nihilist by her antagonists who self-identified politically as nationalists, conservatives, populists, neoliberals or as belonging to the Left. The ambiguity of nihilism manifests itself in acts of transgression or acts of violation in which the boundaries of conventions are breached. We can think of transgressions as being something which can be either positive or negative. Whether or not a given transgression is positive or negative depends entirely on the degree to which a convention is arbitrary. In the event of a convention being arbitrary or contingent, then a transgression is a form of transcendence. In Isaiah 53:7 and Luke 22:37 we read: '...he was numbered among the transgressors...' Transgression or violation of arbitrary religious, cultural and social conventions is a literary or artistic trope that is most evident in surrealism and modernism or postmodernism (depending on how one draws the line of demarcation). Obscenity is used as a signifier of transgression. Writers who have used obscenity to violate or transgress social conventions include figures such Rabelais, Rimbaud, Sade, D.H. Lawrence, Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Jean Genet and Norman Mailer. If order is a good to be desired for its own sake, then the idea of order as a good needs to be contrasted with social convention as something which is arbitrary, not inherently desirable, even if for its own sake. What purpose does order serve? It goes without saying that Jesus was numbered amongst the transgressors. Transgression lies at the very heart of the Christian faith, possibly up to and until Constantine destroyed Christianity by making it a state religion. Christianity is inimical to the State and the Oligarchy and can only co-exist with either the City or State or Oligarchy by means of an act of self-betrayal and self-destruction, a destruction involving the hollowing out of its essence, the essence of the Gospel. Christianity now exists only as irony, parody, paradox and as a shadow of itself in the form of a tragic spectacle. It can only exist as an enigma, as a contradiction, because Christians don't really believe in Christianity. Ultimately to be a Christian one has to be an Anarchist, a transgressor. Something which I have learnt from the writings of Jacques Ellul, a Protestant. As a Jesuit, as an ordained Catholic priest, I live daily the painful crisis of betraying the essence of Christianity and the essence of the Gospel. Maybe this is what is at the heart of the 'Death of God' theological phenomenon, but more of that later. It is not God who has died, it was historical Christianity or post-Constantine Christianity. Maybe this was the point that Nietzsche was in some sense making. As contingent social-political phenomena, all religions are different kinds of graveyards, different forms of the City of the Dead, different versions of the Necropolis. This was the point Jesus that was making. The focus of the dramatic encounter between Jesus and the devil in the wilderness temptation narratives (Matthew 4: 1 -11 and Luke 4: 1 -13) revolves around the gaining of political power, the exercise of power of the one or few over the many, it ultimately revolves around the rule and order of the City, the State and the Oligarchy. The encounter between Jesus and the devil in essence concerns the possession of power over others. It concerns every form of economic, social and political domination, both religious and secular. It concerns the domination of masters, leaders, employers, rulers, kings, prime ministers, emperors, chiefs, headmen, presidents, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, popes and so on. It concerns economic, social and political domination through the vehicles or instruments or apparatus of both secular and ecclesiastical institutions. As God said to Samuel, when the Israelites wanted a king to rule over them like all the other nations, there was no such thing as a good ruler or a good master or a good king. If there is a master then no one will be the master of their own lives. If there is a ruler then no one will be the ruler over their own lives. If there is a leader then no one is able to lead their own lives. Being in a state of alienation means that you are not the master or ruler or leader or controller of your own life. This sums up the state of the worker in the City, the State and the Oligarchy. Having no control over his life, he is no longer independent, he cannot even depend on himself as was the case with a Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer. In the City or under the Oligarchy he lives in a complete and unalterable state of dependency. His only means of subsistence and survival is employment as a worker for a wage. He depends on the man who can buy his labour. He exists by virtue of having a purchaser, someone who is willing to purchase his labour power. And the purchaser will only purchase his labour power if it serves the interests of the purchaser, and it will only serve the interests of the purchaser if the market is favourable, in other words, only if it is profitable to the purchaser of labour power. The worker is subject to the rule of autonomous and anonymous forces over which he has no control. His life is continually in the balance, continually under threat, he exists constantly at the very brink of personal catastrophe, and disaster awaits him round every corner. He has no autonomy. Which means he has no power. This contributes to his sense of alienation. To have no power over one's life is to exist in a state of alienation. In God's act of kenosis he calls those who exist in a state of alienation his brothers and sisters. The City, the State and the Oligarchy can only exist in a state of enmity towards God because of the pain and suffering and neediness it imposes on those who count for nothing, who are of least importance or significance in the order of things. And as the very least of humanity they are the brothers and sisters of God. The Oligarchy always exists in a state of hostility, hate, antagonism, animosity and indifference towards God and towards God's brothers and sisters.

9

In conclusion, I would like to quote from Jean Genet's 'Miracle of the Rose': 'Living in so restricted a universe they thus had the boldness to live in it as passionately as they lived in your world of freedom, and as a result of being contained in a narrower frame their lives became so intense, so hard, that anyone – journalists, wardens, inspectors – who so much as glanced at them was blinded by their brilliance.' I sure that Joe Magee, even as a heterosexual male would have read the 'Miracle of the Rose', with the philosophical and theological seriousness that such a work deserves. But shifting our focus to the actual rose (contrasting it to the erotic fairy-tales of the orchid) which has great and deep metaphysical and theological symbolic significance in the title of Jean Genet's work: the rose is an ambiguous and complex symbol, encapsulating the profane and the sacred or divine. Because of its vulva shape it also symbolizes voluptuous and erotic sensuality, but on the other side of the coin, it also symbolizes eroticism, it also symbolizes fertility, motherhood, birth and rebirth, and as such it also embodies the idea of eternity. Jesus, the alpha and omega, is the rose in the womb of Mary. The rose as an erotic signifier, paradoxically symbolizing the eternal promise, even though it thorns are a signifier of the anguish, grief and pain of life.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - PARIS 1968

1

After the funeral Sean decided to sell the farm lock, stock and barrel. Shortly before the murder the old man had signed over full power of attorney over all his assets to Sean. I learnt that Sean also owned a 25% share in the farm. He was not interested in farming, he felt it would be best for the family if all the old man's assets were liquidated. The proceeds would be invested into the Joe Magee family trust which Sean would set up. The trust would pay for our education, plus the education of all the Magee progeny who had been baptised and confirmed in the Catholic faith and were Catholics in good standing, this was Sean's idea. The farms which including Kingsley's farm were advertised in the Farmers Weekly. Sean told me in passing that the afternoon before the murder the old man had pitched up drunk at their home in Johannesburg. He said that the old man felt that he no longer had any reason to go on living. He rambled on about selling off all his assets, investing all the proceeds in a living annuity, buying a Land Rover, a caravan and a ski boat and spend the rest of his life living off fishing, fishing for game fish in Mozambique. Like all his previous decisions this decision was also made on a whim. He bought the farm on a whim. We had all bought into his dream of having a farm, of living off the farm, of being self-sufficient and so on. The financing of the purchase remained a mystery to all of us to this day. He led us on to believe that we could lose everything at any moment. Yet the yoke of the mortgage seemed light enough for us to bear. Full ownership of the farm always laid tantalizingly reachable in the future. We, my mom and my three sisters, lived in hope for that day. By some financial miracle that day would arrive, the looming threat would be lifted, and the title deeds of the property or something like that would be transferred into my dad's hands. But he had kept us completely in the dark. We had borne the anxiety of the mortgage in vain, everything had turned out to be an exercise in futility, we had all hoped in vain for the realization of some kind of idyll, but paradise turned out to be a cruel mirage. In reality there was never any financial threat or risk weighing down upon us. In reality we were never short of money. The old man was literally rolling in money. But in spite of being a successful business man, the old man was constantly searching for that mysterious, indiscernible and elusive something which would give him that genuine sense of fulfilment, something which would give meaning to his life, which would fill the great emptiness, the insatiable void he felt. He confided a lot in Sean, he often spoke about becoming a fisherman when he retired. Fishing for marlin and drinking Moby Dick rum imported from the Caribbean. This is what he felt would fill the void. He always had a taste for good rum. So after the passing away of Joe Magee, Sean sold the farm to a Jew who owned some kind of factory in Selby at the bottom end of Johannesburg town. After the deal was done the Jew arrived to show his daughter their newly acquired farm, she was very attractive, that much I can remember. I was still living on the farm as it was the only home I had at the time. I did not want to move in with any of my brothers. My future was up in the air. I was basically free to do what I wished with my life. The army was off my back, my call up had been deferred until 1969.

2

The Jew's daughter had just finished her law degree at Wits and was a working as a candidate attorney. They were visibly excited about the farm, eager to see everything, so I took them on a tour. I introduced them to Daniel Moeketsi who would continue to manage the farm for them. I showed them the dairy herd and all the horses, and then drove them around the farm in the bakkie. The maize was high, the fields of lucerne rippled like a green lake in the light breeze. High in the sky storks spiralled in the blue heavens carried upwards on the rising thermals. Afterwards I invited them in for tea. All the moveable contents of the house even the kitchen kettle was their property now. I was practically a guest in their home. When Mr Shapiro enquired about my plans for the future. I informed him that my immediate short term plan was to go overseas, see the world, backpack through Europe with my friend Patrick who had been rejected for military service because of a heart murmur. Anyway I had to leave the farm, my passport and the visas were sorted out, the flight to Greece had been booked, Sean had given me a generous advance. In three days' time I would be vacating the farmhouse for Jan Smuts Airport. I was eighteen years old. I had no parents. I had no home. I had no one to answer to. The world was my oyster. I was ready to shake off the dusk from feet and start a new life. In the meantime Gabriella had settled in the UK. I received a letter from her in January. We had kept in touch via a regular exchange of correspondence. I fully appraised her on everything that had happened. With the help of her parents she had bought a house in Horns Lane, Norwich. She had also managed to get a position as an English teacher at Norwich High School. When I informed her of my plans to backpack through Europe she invited me to visit her in Norwich, obliquely hinting that I was welcome to stay with her for as long as I wished.

3

So there we were two Catholics boys in good standing, flying off, our destination the Godless world of the Northern Hemisphere, both of us barely eighteen years old, devout Catholics in our separate ways, Quinn in love with Gabriella, aching to be with her, and me joyfully ecstatic to be sharing this adventure with my best friend. On the plane I am reading the book 'God Up There? A study in divine transcendence', hot off the press, written by a Protestant, David Cairns. In my heart I have given myself completely over to serving God, I am going to be a priest, I have decided that I will join the Jesuit brotherhood and so on, this is my plan. At five in the morning we land in Athens. I have planned our entire travel itinerary, Quinn was quite happy for me to take on this responsibility just as long as we get to the UK soon enough to be with Gabriella for Christmas. Our itinerary: Starting with Plato in Greece, then Saint Peters Basilica Cathedral in Rome for the entire holy week, working our way through Spain and Portugal to Paris the city of light and love plus Thomas Aquinas, thereafter Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden, and finally the UK, starting with London and finishing up at Gabriella in Norwich who has insisted that we spend Christmas with her. Just a thought: The immanence of God in the Cosmos is consistence with the idea that an intimate continuity exits between God and Nature. Linked to this is the idea that the Cosmos can exist only by virtue of God. For God to be truly God, God is omnipresent in every dimension of reality as a necessary condition for anything to exist at all.

4

We have already eaten breakfast on the plane. The plane is about to land .We are descending. We are both giddy with excitement. We are overwhelmed by a torrent of new impressions. We are hyper-aware. We are overwhelmed by a flood of new sensations. As boys who have grown up our entire lives on the Far East Rand of the Witwatersrand we feel the imminent dawning of the strange, the foreign, and the exotic, into what has been our fairly parochial lives, after landing and disembarking from a long flight we pass through the threshold of the airport terminus into the rising sun of Athens, stepping onto the ancient shores of Western Civilization, holding the promise of elusive happiness or inevitable disaster, trapped between the horizons of a glorious antiquity and the uncertainty of modernity, all that was once solid melts into air, the eternal experienced in the transitory, there are no words to describe what we feel, we feel like aliens who have fallen from the sky, we have landed on alien territory, far away across the Mediterranean Ocean, lies the vast continent of Africa, wrapping itself over the equator, bridging two worlds, the world of the north and the world of the south, Africa exists both right-side-up and up-side-down, Africa the continent of binary opposites, our vision previously acclimatized to the naturalness of southern topologies, skylines and landscapes, both urban and rural, will gradually adapt as the unnaturalness of the images of the northern negatives develop into picturesque panoramas that excite the eye, but waning with time into their characteristic unchanging visual shapes and forms, which will remain always distinctly recognizable in their picture-book familiarity on the pages of travelogue magazines. Whatever is old will be a new experience for us.

5

When we landed in Athens at 5.00 am in the morning the temperature was not too chilly at 11 oC. With the wisdom of hindsight, but unknown to us at the time, something was happening, it was in air, it was in the music that we were listening to, but it was beyond our comprehension, we had arrived at the roots of our civilization when that very civilization was on the brink of a crisis engineered by an estranged, disaffected, disassociated and alienated youth. Still at its incipient stage, we were unable to even conceptualize the nature of the maelstrom that we were about to be inadvertently, but ineluctably, drawn into. This unexpected turn of events was our good fortune. It was 1968. It was the time, the hour, the year of youthful revolt and rebellion. Revolt against what? As I said we could not even begin to conceptualize it. Not knowing what lay ahead of us, we were about to be drawn into the flow of events. As we stepped in the bright light of Athens the end of deference to authority had arrived. The end had arrived. A new attitude to life had come into existence, the Western world was about erupt. In essence, the crisis was rooted in a new awakening, it was rooted in a pervasive dissatisfaction with the prevailing status quo, and this meant it was rooted in a deep desire for radical autonomy. The possibility that utopia was a realizable goal had ignited the youthful imagination. Autonomy and utopia are the two sides of the same coin. Similarly, autonomy and anarchism are the two sides of the same coin. The attainment of the full autonomy of the individual over her full personhood, over her life, over her body, over her circumstances was something which had eluded all civilizations. Autonomy is the authentic object of desire, and all civilizations are founded on its denial, on the frustration of desire. The youthful uprising and revolt against the existing order of things, revolved around subjectivity, desire and autonomy. The 1968 youth movement was driven by the desire for the individual to become the subject of her own actions, rather than being the object of another subject's agency, and this is essentially what autonomy means, it means having the power to determine one's own life and existence. It means having full sovereignty over one's life and existence. This is the authentic goal of desire. The right to full subjectivity in this radical sense of having full autonomy and therefore complete sovereignty over one's life and existence was impossible so long as social hierarchies existed. The 1968 student revolt was a revolt against all forms of social hierarchies. It was a revolt against social domination. It was a revolt against order and organization, because social hierarchies can only exist by virtue of order and organization. However, the revolt against order, organization and hierarchies was based on a radical affirmation of not only individual subjectivity, but authentic intersubjectivity between individuals. This also meant redefining and relocating authority. Authority had to be grounded in the intersubjectivity between autonomous and sovereign individuals and not in the sovereignty of order, organization and hierarchies over non-autonomous and therefore powerless individuals. Power is the enemy of freedom. Power is the enemy of autonomy. By destroying the power of the powers that be, the youthful rebellion could ignite a revolution which would reverse ten thousand years of civilization, re-establishing universal freedom and autonomy by destroying once and for all the reign and rule of the ubiquitous Oligarchy. I need to remind the reader at this point that this is exactly what Raizel had been advocating, but advocating in a manner which helped to catapult her into international prominence. It needs to be remembered that in 1968 Raizel was eleven years old and in primary school. With regard to the 1968 student uprising it cannot be emphasized strongly enough that the idea of subjects, subjectivity and intersubjectivity could only be conceived as existing in states of embodiment. The knowing subject was always embodied. The embodied subject of history as a knowing and acting subject was also a subject with emotions and desire, so knowing, acting, desiring and having emotions were all based on having and being a body. Emotions, desire and body were all linked. This linkage was particularly important for the women's movement in 1968. Giving attentions to one's emotions was important with regard to the women's movement especially with regard to patriarchical social and cultural imperatives which have been imposed upon the women's body without her rational consent. Women had to regain full autonomy and sovereignty over their bodies, which meant that the Patriarchy and the Oligarchy had to be destroyed, this was also the message that Raizel was advocating when she became the Time Magazine poster woman for anarcho-communism. It must be remembered that Raizel, the elegant and attractive woman smiling on the cover of Time Magazine had played a very critical educational role in popularizing radical revolution. But one person does not make a movement and I know Raizel would be the first to agree with this.

6

We are now in the Athens of Plato, in the coming days, weeks, months, spring, summer, autumn and winter, filled with anticipation, we will be crossing multiple national borders, cutting across the boundaries of history, geography, language, ethnicity, culture and nation-states, experiencing the Paris of Baudelaire, the Amsterdam of Spinoza, the Copenhagen of Soren Kierkegaard, the Berlin of Bertolt Brecht, the Vienna of Musil, the London of T S Eliot. We will pay homage to the great cities of Europe, Rome, Zurich, Barcelona, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Vienna, Hamburg and London. Now the very first stop on our very first day in Europe will be a visit to the Parthenon. The Parthenon, its construction commencing in 447 BC, free standing and isolated, mounted in grandiose splendour upon the Acropolis, overlooking the ancient city of Athens, an intense monumental visual presence which dominants its surroundings, immobilizing our upward gaze, its physical externality overwhelms all interior secrets, superbly independent it presides like a beautifully sculptured naked body, standing aloof above everything, architecturally enhanced by its tall colonnades, unlike a church it seems to be without any obvious and clearly visible entrance, it's architraves, the beams resting across the massive columns are ornamented with sculptured friezes and pediments. My father whose dream it was to be an architect has given me his prized possession, Nikolaus Pevsner's 'An Outline of European Architecture (a Pelican paperback). Hidden in the book I discover some handwritten notes and drawings, including a glossary of terms. I find myself in the valley of decision. Should I become an architect or a theologian?

7

We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the cost of bunking in youth hostels was incredibly cheap, costing between 30 and 50 cents (ZAR) per night. But that was not all. We also soon discovered that the youth hostels were highly politicized spaces, providing us with opportunities to meet with youthful political activists, students on a mission, ambassadors of rebellion and revolution. The sense of movement and change was palpable. Battle lines were being drawn. At the hostels we mixed with and listened to self-proclaimed anarchists, Marxists, Maoists and Trotskyites. We heard that something big was going down. Students from Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Italy were all heading for Paris. Young people were speaking their minds, the disaffiliated post-war generation were making their voices heard. It was difficult not to be swept up in the excitement of the rising tide of the European student mass movement. Both Quinn and I also began to see the world differently. Quinn's brief detention at Voortrekkerhoogte had sowed the seed of rebellion in his soul making him very receptive to the prevailing Zeitgeist of the 1960s. Indeed both of us were at a very impressionable age. We had heard about Ché Guevara from Joe Magee but we had not yet heard about Ho Chi Minh, and we only had an ambiguous idea of who Mao Zedong was. In addition, we only had a very vague and confused idea about the Vietnam War. While still in high school in South Africa we had heard and read about the flower children and the hippies in the USA, but what we heard, saw and experienced at first hand in the youth hostels, was something very different from the drugs, sex and rock n roll subculture of the hippie movement in America.

8

Need and desire do not necessarily converge, they may in fact stand in opposition. The realization of desire is an illusion and needs can never be satisfied. There is never enough. Enough of what? Of stuff? The satisfaction of needs is the illusionary promise, propaganda, ideological justification of order, organization, and hierarchicalization of social domination. It is the false hope which order and organization can never satisfy or fulfil. Can there ever be a man with no needs? The focus of Marx's Capital was never the satisfaction of needs or wants, it was rather about autonomy and freedom. Autonomy is self-determination, self-governance, self-rule, independence and sovereignty. The opposite of autonomy is neediness, dependence, subjugation, unfreedom, subjection, enslavement, incarcerated and captivity. In other words to be ruled over through the imposition of an order and organization means the loss of autonomy and freedom, and the imposition of need, and being in need is a form of alienation. To be ruled over requires power, control, organization and order in the form of social hierarchicalization and social domination. To be ruled over is to be in a state of powerlessness. To be a slave to need. The class struggle and class conflict cannot be reduced to the simplicity of the satisfaction of needs. Class struggle revolves around power and its asymmetrical or differential distribution, usually in the hands of a self-perpetuating elite, through which the Oligarchy is able to self-resurrect into any version of its multiple morphs, reproducing order and organization in the forms of hierarchicalized systems of social control and domination. This dynamic represents the repetitive self-perpetuation of the Leviathan. The un-satisfiability of needs is a state of affairs which the Oligarchical Leviathan cannot help but perpetuate, and because of this it is becomes the agent of its own self-destabilization, self-destruction, self-defeat. But paradoxically through its own self-destruction, it continues to self-resurrect, always rising like a phoenix out of its own ashes. And this cycle of repetition represents the Iron Law of the Oligarchy. The Iron Law of the Oligarchy is the ultimate law of history, where history is nothing more than the self-causing repetition of the same. The youth movement of 1968 realized this, even if only sublimely. And it is this realization which gives sense to their utterances, critique and slogans. It is this realization which the youth of 1968 should be credited with. The supreme and enduring falsehood made in the name of representative parliamentary democracy is embodied in the promise that the elected representatives will be able to satisfy the needs of the electorate once the politicians had been elected to gorge on free lunches as a way of life.

9

Quinn posed this question following the tragic events which marked the Magee family: 'What difference would God's existence make to the world and to our lives, assuming we had reason to believe in God's existence?' Quinn's question has haunted me my entire life. I could see that Quinn was in distress. On our travels we went to Mass at every opportunity, sometimes several times a day. This was the big paradox, here we were affirming our Catholicity in the very eye of the storm of the student uprising. Both of us were a living contradiction, affirming the faith of the fathers and at the same time affirming our solidarity with the European student movement and affirming our commitment to the revolutionary goals of the student movement. In retrospect, I know now that Quinn was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. His life had been haunted by the spectre of violence and the debilitating stress of uncertainty that went with having Joe Magee as one's father. Joe Magee was a parent from hell if there ever could be such thing. I noticed that he was praying with an intense frown on his forehead, he was struggling with his own demons. So going back to Quinn's question. Did we have reason, sufficient reason, compelling reason or merely warranted reason to believe in God's existence especially in the face of compelling reasons for doubting that possibility? How could God and Joe Magee co-exist? And now we were witnessing at first hand the 1960s wholesale rejection of Christianity, especially in the student uprising. Was the explosive eruption of Christendom driven by reasonable or well-founded belief? If there is reason enough to believe that God does indeed exist, then what form and content, if any, should religious belief and practice take? Can there be belief in God's existence without there being the need for any kind of religious observation or practice? My gut instinct screams: Yes. Of course we need to ask ourselves what it means to believe in God. To believe 'in' God means something different from merely believing 'in' God's existence. This question regarding ways of 'believing in' is linked to Quinn's question – 'What difference would God's existence make to the world and to our lives.' We can convince ourselves that it is rational to 'believe in' God's existence. To answer Quinn's question we would have to provide a defensible account of God's nature and the nature of God's relation with the world or the universe or reality or most importantly, with our own lives. We cannot provide an account of what it means for us to believe in God without addressing the two questions concerning God's nature and the nature of God's relationship with reality in all of its multi-dimensional facets. These two questions are complex. For starters I firmly believe that we should avoid using two specific words when applying our minds to the nature of God and the nature of God's relation to the world. The two words are 'perfect' and 'good'. God being omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient does not necessarily entail our understanding of the words 'good' and 'perfect'. If we do include our human understanding of the words perfect and good, then God being omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient can be demonstrated to be logically and rationally incoherent. Ideas of what should constitute goodness and perfection, and their obvious absence in the world, can be constructed as human reasons for not believing in God's existence. Human ideas of goodness and perfection seem to place a constraint on how the nature of God and the nature of God's relationship with the world could be logically and rationally conceptualized. In what sense is God good and perfect or perfectively good? The morally flavoured ideas of goodness and perfection carry not only a freight of relative meanings and significance, but also embody a profound paradox, which is captured in Euthyphro's dilemma: 'Is what is right, right, because God commands it, or does God command what is right because it is right?' Can anything be right in itself independent of God's will? Or does something become right because God wills it to be right?

In 1931, on the order of Stalin's minister Lazar Kaganovich had a cathedral in Moscow known as The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (Russian: Хра́м Христа́ Спаси́теля), the tallest Eastern Orthodox Church in the world, dynamited, reduced to heap of rubble, razed to the ground. The cathedral situated on the banks of the Moskva River, a few blocks west of the Kremlin, took many decades to build, was eventually completed in 1883. Originally built in gratitude for the divine providence which resulted in Napoleon Bonaparte's catastrophic defeat and retreat in 1812. Fast forward: Following the collapse of communism an accurate replica of the original cathedral was restored in 2007, symbolizing the resurrection of the cathedral and Christianity in the wake of the implosion of the Soviet Union.

10

In Psalm 139: 7-12, we see the affirmation of God's ubiquity or omnipresence in the world. God's omnipresence represents Gods immanence in the world or in reality or in anything which is seen to be real. The meaning of God being immanent incorporates the idea or concept of God being omnipresent in everything, in every dimension of reality. It is difficult to conceive of something being omnipresent but not immanent. If God is in and around us at all times how can it possibly be that we are completely unaware of God's presence in the experiential or perceptive sense of something being present before us, as in the desk, pen, chair and paper which are present before me? Instead God being present remains intangible or hidden. In this paradoxical tension between the omnipresence of God and the hiddenness of God, we as Catholics have learnt to experience the merging, interpenetration, complementarity, engagement, intertwining and entanglement of architecture, faith and theology in the form of the cathedral. The Catholic sacramental view of the reality, the world or the entire cosmos, has played a central part in the formation and realization of the Catholic imagination. In the Catholic imagination the omnipresence of the invisible and hidden God becomes manifest to the sensibilities in the signs and symbols of speech, reading, gesture, music, vestments, art, colour, fire, water, bread, and wine. As Catholics we live in an enchanted world of magnificent cathedral architecture, of altars and sanctuaries, of rite and gesture, of the Blessed Sacrament, of tabernacles, of vestments, of liturgical processions, of the liturgical reading of the Gospels and the Epistles and the books of the Old Testament and the Psalms, of liturgical prayers and seasons, of chalice-ciborium-patens, of holy water and stained glass, of candles, incense and bells, of saints and rosaries, of bread and wine turned into the actual body and blood of Christ. The hiddenness of God presents itself as a philosophical and theological problem. Academically we can refer to it as the 'hiddenness problem' and this problem raises its head in many contexts and becomes the ground or reason for scepticism regarding God's existence. The hiddenness of God is most heartrendingly experienced in the pathos of God's abandonment, in times when we need God more than ever, when we need God most, God remains hidden, in these situations of incredible sadness, bleakness, despair, desperation, desolation and terrible poignancy, when these gloomy and dismal state of affairs prevail, God's apparent absence in the midst of our personal and collective crisis, pain and suffering, is incomprehensible, we see this incomprehension as something being lamented repeatedly throughout the Old Testament. Yet we believe in spite of everything.

11

And so I do not need to remind that on our travels through Greece, Italy and Spain we had become inadvertently caught up in the European version of the 1960s Counter Culture, but even though we were aware of the gathering storm on the horizons, we were not fully aware that the fuse was already burning in Paris. As if we were trying to catch up with what we had missed out on during our teenage years, we spent our nights frequenting café, bars and clubs, and in the smoke and alcohol haze strangers, young women and men, fell under the aura of Quinn. Of course he was unaware of this, but I could see it, Quinn was someone you wanted to fall in love with, whether you were male or female. He had matured beyond his 18 years. We had already been primed by the rebellion of rock music and I have to mention Bob Dylan in this regard. Writing this now in 2018 seems so dated and prosaic, banal if you like, but you have to remember the times with which the contemporary rock music of the 1960s resonated. Those were heady times, the 1960s, we were impressionable teenagers from the East Rand in the 1960s, and in1968 we found ourselves cast adrift as it were in Europe during a time when the whole of Europe was in the grip of social upheaval and political turmoil, and we too marched to the beat of youthful rebellion. Travelling had politicized us. Internationalism and third world solidarity was in the air. Everything that we been taught at school about the world turned out to be false. In South Africa we had grown up encased in a cocoon of lies and falsehoods. The unravelling of the Belgian Congo which began in 1960 had a profound effect on the white psyche in South Africa. Iconic photographs taken in January 1963 in the then Belgian Congo appeared in the local newspapers in South Africa. Of course the full horror story of the cruelty and inhumanity of Belgium's colonial rule of the Congo never came into the white narrative. Those pictures which appeared in newspapers terrified whites in South Africa. They played an important role in the formation of the white South African racist mythology of the Belgian Congo, and the same racist mythology was applied by extension to the rest of Africa. The racist myths contributed to the manufacture of white consent to apartheid in South Africa. Whites did not react with the same horror to the Sharpeville Massacre when 69 blacks were killed, shot by policemen, for protesting against the apartheid pass laws. The only white I knew of who reacted differently was Joe Magee. Joe Magee was the white statistical outlier. He saw through everything. He hated apartheid. He hated the white status quo. He was overjoyed when Verwoerd was dramatically assassinated in Parliament, stabbed to death by Dimitri Tsafendas. He put a different spin on all of these incidents. He always took the side of the underdog. He was the only white adult that I knew of who stood against the prevailing tide of white opinion and white sentiment. He praised Bram Fischer. He praised Fidel Castro. It was from Joe Magee that first we learnt about Ché Guevara. He was a man who took a real interest in current affairs and what was happening in the world at large. He thought that Leonid Brezhnev was great. It was also from his lips that we heard the word 'existentialism'. So in a real sense, thanks to Joe Magee, both Quinn and myself had been inoculated, influenced by Joe Magee's views regarding not only the true nature of the world and also about the true nature of white South Africa, we had acquired a sort of immunity to white thinking. To be perfectly honest about myself, I was a physically fragile bespectacled nerdish slightly effeminate looking lad, yet Joe Magee always treated me as a member of the family. He would also always ask how my dad was doing. My dad was a humble artisan. He was a fitter and turner on the mines, a very ordinary blue coloured white worker, a devout Catholic. My father would exaggerate about Joe Magee, reminding me that Joe Magee was the greatest engineer that ever lived. Joe Magee who would get his hands dirty with oil and grease, he was a man who could fix anything, literally anything. Yet in real life Joe Magee was the very embodiment of paradox. He was a mystery, an enigma if there ever was one. Unafraid of life and unafraid of death. Fearless! Yet deep down a Catholic. Ironically a man capable of incredibly kindness, empathy and warmth to people like Daniel Moeketsi, black mineworkers, farm labourers and to vulnerable sensitive frail and fragile people like myself. Now Quinn and I, making our way through Europe were in the throes of undergoing a profound transformation. Buffalo Springfield's hit 'For What it's Worth' captured the rising Zeitgeist of the age we found ourselves in. In Lisbon we meet young people of our own age who openly identified themselves as communists. Coming from South Africa this was astonishing. We befriended young Portuguese students who were critical of the António de Oliveira Salazar regime calling him a dictator and a fascist. My mother being Portuguese, I could speak and understand the language. Also growing up as a Catholic from a working class background on the far East Rand, I could also speak passable Italian, I could get by in Spanish, and I had an ear for Greek, and I could grasp a bit of French, so I was the translator on our journey through Europe. In the matric exams I was awarded a distinction for Latin. Given my relative linguistic proficiency in the Romance Languages I took the liberty of speaking for both of us. Repeatedly I explained that we were not typical white South Africans, we were not fascists, we were not Nazis, we were not racists, we did not support any kind of racism nor did we support apartheid. In the end I began to say we were Marxists and socialists, yes both of us, and we supported the armed struggle for liberation in the third world, and we also supported Ho Chi Minh. I caught on to things very fast even though I was clueless about Marxism and socialism. I even began to confess openly that Quinn and I were communists, and Quinn struggling to catch the drift of our conversion between sips of beer would nod his head in solemn agreement with a grave expression on his face. I clearly recollect how we had inadvertently self-identified as communists, even though at the time I was not actually sure about the details of our new found political allegiance or what precisely we had committed ourselves to in supporting Cuba and the Viet Cong against the Americans. Quite subconsciously I started humming the words from the lyric 'For What it's Worth'. Quinn initially giving me a quizzical look. I would humorously explain to him that we had committed ourselves to the revolution. Everything during those heady days mixing with the most delectable boys and girls as passing ships in the night was lost in translation. But Quinn caught the drift.

12

Living in a phantasmagorical universe it was normal for white South Africans on the whole to be deeply racist and mind numbingly reactionary without experiencing any moral qualms. In fact they lived in a universe of moral certainty. And it is precisely because of this that white South Africans were from a rational and objective standpoint bereft of any mental or emotional or psychological capacity to discern right from wrong when it came to the treatment of blacks. This moral condition or moral predisposition essentially typified the kind of collective psycho-social-pathological phenomenon associated with all kinds of behaviours and actions, that were considered not only lawful or justifiable and thus also ordinary, normal or mundane, but which gave rise to chains of consequences which turned out to be injurious, cruel and inhumane. And it was precisely these injurious, cruel and inhumane consequences of collective white actions and agency which became an integral dimension of the everyday state of affairs in apartheid South Africa which in turn reflected what Hannah Arendt has described as the 'banality of evil'. Why did this happen? Were white South Africans inherently evil people. Possibly it happened because of the stunted moral imagination of whites, which made it possible for them to mistake evil for good. Whites seemed to lack the requisite courage, conviction, values, insight, intelligence, empathy or conscience for them to distinguish good from evil. And because they could not distinguish good from evil whites as a collective were able to act as morally willing and morally complicit agents in the systematic injury, harming, and dehumanization of black South Africans by supporting and perpetuating the social, economic and political institutionalization of apartheid, actions which represented a crime against humanity. They exercised moral agency in the perpetuation of the disenfranchisement, oppression and exploitation of black South Africans. They acted as willing accomplices, as willing moral agents, as fully legal persons, in the infliction of harm, injury and suffering on tens of millions of ordinary human beings. Without any threat or coercion or compulsion, they by their own volition, voluntarily carried out all the necessary actions and non-actions to create this horrifying reality which became known as apartheid. They did this without suffering any doubt, torment, misgivings, anguish, guilt or trauma. They did this without experiencing the slightest pangs of conscience. They acted thus, in the systematic dehumanization of black South Africans, without the slightest tinge of remorse or regret. This represents a paradigmatic example of the psycho-social-political phenomenon which characterizes the manifestation of what can only be called the 'banality of evil'. White South Africans as the custodians of apartheid never saw themselves as evil or as doers of evil. They were morally incapable of conceptualizing apartheid as inherently evil. Apartheid was instituted with heartless and callous indifference. It was instituted with cold hearted intent, without mercy, without any human feeling. What kind of people could do this? Were the Whites really moral monsters? Were they morally any different from the German citizens in Nazi Germany, who in various ways, were ultimately responsible for the propping up of a regime that shipped millions of Jews to the death camps. This was who they really were in all their whiteness. They were all criminals, every last one of them. Compared to the average white South African Joe Magee would be seen as an evil man. Paradoxically he was not. Possibly he was more moral than the average white South African. Joe Magee hated the Nationalist Party and the Nationalist Government. Does his hate make him a good person, someone more moral that the average white South African supporter of the apartheid policies of the Nationalist Government? It was Joe Magee who sowed the doubts in our minds regarding the moral justifiability of apartheid. It was thanks to Joe Magee that we found ourselves on our overseas adventure. It was his money that was paying for everything. Every beer we drank, every bottle of wine we consumed, Joe Magee had paid for. Now swept up on the wave of the student uprising our doubts had been confirmed we identified fully with agenda of the Left. If it was not for Joe Magee we would not be bent on raising hell in the boiling cauldron of the Counter Culture.

13

Tourists were being advised against travelling to Paris. However, young people travelling to Paris had reached record levels. Anyway the rebellious youthful camaraderie we had encountered in the youth hostels, in the cafés and streets was infectious. We decided that we too should be heading for Paris as a matter of urgency. Even though it was in the air it was pretty obvious that the May events in Paris, the waves of student demonstrations and occupations had not been foreseen. The signs of the times had now become evident for all to see, sprayed in graffiti on the walls of Paris was the message of rebellion from a disaffected European youth. Etre libre en 1968, c'est participer. (To be free in 1968 means to participate). Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible (Be realistic, demand the impossible). Sous les pavés, la plage! (Beneath the paving stones - the beach!). On ne revendiquera rien, on ne demandera rien. On prendra, on occupera. (We will claim nothing, we will ask for nothing. We will take, we will occupy). Ni Dieu ni maître! (Neither god nor master!). Il est interdit d'interdire. (It is forbidden to forbid). Le patron a besoin de toi, tu n'as pas besoin de lui. (The boss needs you, you don't need him). L'économie est blessée, qu'elle crève. (The economy is suffering, let it die). Je suis venu. J'ai vu. J'ai cru. (I came. I saw. I believed. Mimics Veni, vidi, vici). Je jouis dans les pavés. (I find my orgasms among the paving stones). Le bonheur est une idée neuve. (Happiness is a new idea). L'art est mort, ne consommez pas son cadavre. (Art is dead, don't consume its corpse). Pouvoir à l'Imagination. (Power to the Imagination). La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie. (The barricade blocks the street but opens the way). Ne travaillez jamais. (Never work). Dieu, je vous soupçonne d'être un intellectuel de gauche. (God, I suspect you of being a left-wing intellectual). Je suis marxiste, tendance Groucho. (I am a marxist, Groucho tendency). A bas le réalisme socialiste. Vive le surréalisme. (Down with socialist realism. Long live surrealism).

14

On the very day of our arrival, Paris was the verge of the biggest social upheaval since the Paris Commune in 1884. Politically radicalized, we were ready to join the students on the barricades. We heard that the students were massing at the Sorbonne in the very heart of the Latin Quarter of Paris. By the time we got there their ranks had swelled to over forty thousand. They were blocking the streets, ripping up the cobble stones and erecting barricades. We spent that night behind the barricades. At 2.00 am on the 11th of May, all hell broke loose, the police attacked, storming the barricades en mass, firing teargas. Every now and then Molotov cocktails sailed through the air, falling just short of the police, exploding on the pavements and in the street. The students fought back, keeping the police at bay by pelting them with a hail of rocks and cobble stones. We joined in the stone throwing, engaging the police until the break of dawn. When the police finally broke through the barricades they began to beat everybody with truncheons, arresting anyone they could lay their hands on, Quinn and myself decided to flee. Luckily we managed to evade the police, slipping through the police cordon. Running through the streets of Paris in the darkness before dawn, in a state of elation, we had no idea where we going.

15

When we first landed on the shores of Europe we soon discovered that the tides of Christendom, after a season spanning 2000 years, had already started receding ineluctably. The retreat had been in progress long before our arrival from the antipodal global south, it had being gathering unstoppable momentum well before the end of the nineteen century. Paradoxically driven into retreat by the Enlightenment's new critical appraisal of the meaning of Truth. The Church and the Bible had lost its monopoly as the custodians of what was ultimately true. The Words which spoke the Truth were no longer the Words of Revelation. Instead the Words which spoke the Truth had to be framed in Words with corresponded to objective Reality. The Ultimacy of Truth lay elsewhere, not in the Words of Revelation but in the Words which described and explained the empirically accessible realm of sensual experience. Truth was rooted in Eros. Truth supervenes on Being. We now live in the age where the idea of truth is joined inextricably to the idea of facts, that is scientific facts and historical facts. Only the realm of the factual can be the fountain from which truth flows. Truth is established by the scientific method. Historical truth is based on historical facts, and the reliability of historical facts are established by means of critical methods and critical investigations, where the historiographical methodology and nature of historical investigations are consistent and reflective of a scientific understanding of the nature of objective reality. Historiographical research into the past is based on a critical examination of the various kinds of source materials available to the historian out of which the past can be reliably reconstructed. Of course it goes without saying that fables, sagas, myths and legends are not reliable source materials for describing or explaining what actually happened in the past, since whatever happened in the past must be consistent with a scientific view of the nature of objective reality, or in other words, consistent with a materialist or physicalist view of the nature of reality, the world and the universe. In other words the methodology of historical investigations and historical research must be consonant with the universe being a causally closed entity. All these sentiments reflect the spirit of the Enlightenment

16

Even though broadly speaking I have self-identified as a child of the great European Enlightenment I had responded to what I personally experienced as a call from God to embark on a vocation of faith as a Jesuit priest. To be perfectly honest, I could not become anything else but a Jesuit priest. I was drawn ineluctability into the Catholic priesthood. I was born to be a Catholic priest. It was in my DNA. To me personally the Bible is true and the teaching of the Church are true. Having said this, I need to also state quite categorically that I am not a Biblical Fundamentalist. Much of the Bible is not literally true in terms of a scientific correspondence theory of truth or a semantic theory of truth. Yet the Bible as literature engages with 'truths' in the same manner that all literary fiction in one way or another engages with 'truth'. All truth to me as a Catholic, that is truth in whatever form or through whatever medium, comes ultimately from God because God is the source of all truth.

17

Post-1968, fast forward to 2018: After doing a BA, BA Honours, MA and PhD in philosophy I soon discovered that when it comes to philosophy no one really cares what you believe. As was the case in Athens two and half thousand years ago, today it remains permissible to hold any philosophical point of view that you personally find sufficiently persuasive on logical and rational grounds. For example, you may find sufficiently compelling reasons to become a nominalist or you could find even stronger reasons for believing in universals. Whatever appeals to your fancy you can decide to be either a relativist or non-relativist. Likewise it is possible to find rational grounds for being an idealist, or you could convince yourself with good enough reasons to be a realist of some sort. No one is going to stone you or flog you or jail you or burn you at the stake. With regard to your philosophy of science you are free to hold to an instrumentalist or realist understanding of science, it will not effect your experimental results, it will only exert an influence on how you interpret them metaphysically, where metaphysics broadly speaking concerns the nature of reality, or in other words, what kinds of things actually exist, or even what kind of objects you may think or believe you are actually observing in your scientific experiments. You may accept or reject the semantic concept of truth or even the correspondence theory of truth. With regard to ethics and morals, you can maintain, with good enough reasons, that the distinction between good and evil depends only contingent and shifting social conventions. Or alternatively, you may with equally firm conviction believe that the difference between good and evil is somehow embedded in the very order of the Universe. No one is going to condemn you if you express doubts about whether law-like generalizations can support counterfactual conditions. God exists in Saudi Arabia, but not in communist Albania. What does all this add up to? What does all this mean? It means that over the past two and half millennia no philosophical problem has been solved to everyone's satisfaction. Richard Rorty seems to have suggested this, and so has Jacques Derrida. There is nothing new in this stance. The preacher in Ecclesiastics seems to have implied this as well. Everything hinges on the weight given to the various rebuttals against any claims regarding the possession of knowledge, including the rebuttals implied in the writing of thinkers like of Rorty, Derrida, Foucault and others who seem be players in the post-Modernist league. How does one weigh the significance or force of a rebuttal in philosophy? Most of the implied or consequentially implied rebuttals need not to be taken too seriously. A good example is Michel Foucault. In spite of his dazzling prose he remained a novelist, an entertaining storyteller, a clever writer of historical fiction. But seriously, against what standard does one weigh a rebuttal? There is only one reliable standard, as Quinn would rightly defend, and that is the self-correcting enterprise of modern science. If science is both the ideal and standard for what should count as secure knowledge then what does this mean for philosophy and theories of knowledge? Epistemically the theory of knowledge can be reduced to the philosophy of science, this is what Quinn argued. Science remains the single most majestic human achievement. Science is the weight or measure for evaluating all claims to knowledge. In line with this value, physicists tend to view the work of philosophers in a very disparaging light.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - UK 1969

1

We assume that those who desire the beautiful desire it for a good and rational reason. A possible reason given for desiring the beautiful would also be for the sake of happiness. One could equally desire the beautiful for the sake of the good. If this is the reason for desiring the beautiful then Eros is nothing less than the love of the good, and the good is what makes us happy. Everything that is beautiful is good and everything that is good is beautiful. It was for this reason that Quinn and Gabriella had to see each other every day. Another reason was that dark days had descended upon them both. Earlier in the year Kingsley had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. The cancer had metastasised spreading to his bones and brain. No amount of chemotherapy or radiation treatment could postpone the inevitable outcome. Bedridden and dosed with morphine Kingsley spent his last days on earth waiting to die. After Quinn had written his last exam a tearful Gabriella broke the news to Quinn: 'Kingsley is bankrupt, the farm and all his businesses had been sequestrated by an unknown creditor to whom Kingsley had become indebted. This unknown creditor who Kingsley refused to identify had lent him vast sums of money and as collateral Kingsley had signed over all his assets as security. The amount of money that Kingsley owed was mind boggling. It turns out that he had a gambling problem, he become so addicted to gambling that he ended up borrowing money to feed his habit.' I will still expand on this intriguing matter, but for the time being read on!

2

A few days after Gabriella had informed Quinn on Kingsley's bankruptcy Kingsley passed away. The veil of gloominess which had overshadowed the Magee household lifted with the passing of Kingsley and the onset of Gabriella's widowhood. The moodiness which had taken possession of Joe Magee faded away, almost overnight. After the Kingsley's funeral, which the entire Magee family attended, Joe Magee became a new man, the change was remarkable. Bursting with a mysterious joy he embraced life with the energetic zestfulness of a young man who had to all appearances seemed to have suddenly become unburdened of all the trials and tribulations which churned up with an exorable inevitability for all other mortals in the passing wake of one's life. Following the funeral and after having a series of secret meetings with Gabriella at the Angelo Hotel, of which Quinn had no knowledge (more on that later), in those languid sun-filled December days Joe Magee basked in the rich golden glow of promising prospects like a shining and brightly coloured serpent in sensuous repose, having sloughed off its old skin, in the process shedding its old life. One of those promising prospects for Joe Magee was Quinn's imminent army call-up in New Year of 1968. Like all school leaving South African males of 17 years or older, Quinn was faced with the prospect of conscription or obligatory national service in the South African Defence Force. Quinn would be out of the picture, possibly for good. For the first time in his life Joe Magee felt that he could now finally sit back and savour the fruits of his labour. The web of intrigue which he had spun began to shake and quiver with the prospects of never ending delectable pleasures, as one would expect following the sticky entanglement of a beauty butterfly in a spider's orb. The whole shebang would soon be his prize. As his sex slave she would become his erotic fairy tale. He would write the script and plot for that fairy tale, and she would be obliged to indulge his every sick and depraved fantasy. The fantasy room which would be booked at the Angelo Hotel for his convenience as his private seraglio, zenana, gynaecium, in which Gabriella would wait in readiness for his arrival at the appointed times.

3

This was the deal: In exchange for one year of her life during which time she would be his sex slave at his beck and call, she would receive a living allowance, she would get to keep her Porsche and she would receive the title deeds for a home in Benoni (which he already secretly owned). 'It was tempting I must admit. I could get a job as a high school teacher in Benoni or Boksburg. All I had to do was go to the Angelo Hotel where I would receive a package at the reception which would contain all the paraphernalia for the games in he had in mind. My hair had to be done up and styled in a certain way and so on. He went into great detail. I would have wait for him in the room that he had booked dressed up in stilettos, stockings, suspenders with a ribbon round my neck and bow in my hair like an some Penthouse or Play Boy Easter Bunny, and then he would come and fuck my brains out for several hours once or twice a week or whenever he felt like it. Oh, and I would have an orchid flower arrangement and wear an orchid in my hair. Of course I would have be canned from time to time for being a very, very naughty girl.' She elaborated with a deadpan expression on her face.'

'Quinn must never know about this,' she added. She looked intensely at me for a while, which made me feel uncomfortable, but then she smiled mischievously.

'I know a lot more about you than you think,' she said mysteriously.

'I don't understand,' I replied.

'Well for starters we share something,' she said with a teasing smile.

'I don't understand,' I replied again.

'Well we are both in love with Quinn,' she said.

'I know, he is my best friend,' I replied.

'No that is not what I mean,' she said.

'I don't understand,' I replied for the third time.

'Yes you do, stop being so evasive, you know what I am getting at,' she said.

'I actually don't know what you getting at,' I replied.

'Well let me be blunt. You are in love with Quinn, you have been in love with him ever since I have known both of you. You are queer, you are a homosexual, don't try deny it,' she said.

'Ok, Ok, I am queer and I do love Quinn, but he does not know that I love him and I don't want him to know that I am in love with him and that I am queer,' I replied quite hastily.

'Don't worry your secret is safe with me. We are both in the same boat. Neither you nor I can really ever have Quinn. I am too old. I know that I will have to let him go, but I just want to have him for a while, to love him and to be loved by him. Then I will let him go. I will tell him to go,' she said, her eyes becoming moist with tears.

'What a beautiful man,' she said.

'Yes I agree, Quinn is indeed a beautiful man, and we both love him deeply,' I said.

5

On Saturday morning the 25th of January 1969 I bade Quinn and Gabriella farewell. With a heavy heart and feeling tearful I boarded the bus for the four hour journey from Norwich to London. I was convinced that I would never see Quinn again. It is icy cool, the air is crisp. Through the misted bus window I gaze forlornly at a strange green countryside sweeping by. It contrasts sharply with the stark wintery East Rand landscape aflame with burning veld fires, painted in desolate shades of grey, black and kaki browns, with melancholic splashes of yellow to remind you of a golden age that has passed away forever. Disembarking from the bus at Victoria Station in London I have eight hours to kill before the flight to Jan Smuts. I am feeling all torn up inside. The honeymoon is over. Quinn has given me a generous wad of cash. I take the tube to Piccadilly Circus. I walk about aimlessly, moseying down Carnaby Street. Nothing feels the same without Quinn at my side. At a pub I order fish and chips, and a beer. I am travelling light. One small suitcase with clothes and a bag filled with books. I have bought Dietrich Bonhoeffer's 'Cost of Discipleship' and 'Letters and Papers from Prison', the Bishop Woolwich's 'Honest to God', Paul van Buren's 'Secular Meaning of the Gospel', Daniel Jenkin's 'Beyond Religion' and 'Guide to the Debate about God', Kenneth Hamilton's 'God is Dead' and Harvey Cox's The Secular City'. All works by liberal-radical Protestant theologians. After the lunch and beer, I move on. At another pub I have a second beer. I listen to Bob Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone'. I think of the movie the three of us watched, Michelangelo Antonioni's 'Blow-Up'. The tumultuous 1960s was coming to an end, the signs were everywhere to see, the decade had burnt itself out, a short-lived fireworks show, soaring rockets exploding into dazzling showers of sparks, before fizzling away, the dying echo still ringing in one's ears, leaving one feeling empty and depressed. The sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Bad Moon Rising' makes me feel deathly morbid. I decided not to have another beer, instead I trudged off to find a quiet comfortable spot where I could have coffee while I read my books. As I have said, my wallet was filled with a wad of English Pounds. I felt guilty when I decided to take a taxi instead of a bus to Heathrow Airport. The youthful rebellious Europe, teetering on the brink of revolution, in whose embrace we briefly found ourselves was not the Europe of Hemingway, Djuna Barnes, Henry Miller, James Baldwin, or George Orwell. It was the Europe in which the curtain was rapidly falling on the likes of Jean Paul Sartre. Intellectually, it was rapidly re-inventing itself as the Europe of Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and Jürgen Habermas.

6

On the flight back to South Africa I had a lot to think about. I was almost nineteen years old. I was not the same person who had left South Africa. I had definitely grown more mature. With regard to my plans I was leaning more and more towards the priesthood. I definitely felt the call of God, which was ironical given the fact that my first tentative sally into theology involved throwing myself into the deep-end of the 'God is Dead' theology which had become the theological fashion of the swinging 1960s when everything was up for grabs, and sacred cows where being slaughtered in a blood bath hitherto never see before, except possibly during the French Revolution. But this did not mean that I was going to give up or lay aside my interest in architecture. Like architecture, theology was exciting. Theology as such would be absurd or unintelligible if God's existence was denied. The ideas about the meaning or nature of existence, contingency and necessity are also as fundamental to theology as they are to philosophy and science. Leibniz's formidable question of 'why does something exist rather than nothing' remains forever perennial to not only theology, but to philosophy and science. This question refuses to go away, it keeps on reappearing in a variety of guises. In the philosophical traditions rooted in Kant and Hume the grounds for constructing the putative fallacy of ontological arguments for the existence of God, or any other kind of existent for that matter, rests on the premise that arguments based on logical inferences for existence of something cannot be both analytically and existentially or empirically or synthetically true. An analytical judgment or statement is about something being necessarily the case. An existential statement such as 'all ravens are black' has existential import if the person asserting that statement assumes or is committed to believing that something (a category) actually exists which answers to the subject term in the statement, which happens to be 'ravens', where the predicate term in the statement refers to the property of 'blackness'. Likewise the judgment 'God exists' carries existential import. All existential judgments are true by virtue of their supporting evidence. The statement 'God is Dead' is logically meaningless. Going back to the purely logical issues which are at stake here, we can ask: 'Why cannot a statement be both analytically and existentially true?' Short answer: a statement can be both analytical and existential in form because by the very nature of 'analycity' an analytical statement can only be valid if it has existential import. This invites the question of what is wrong with the statement: 'Something exists'. It is analytical and thus necessary, and always true, because its negation: 'Nothing exists', is not only false, it is unintelligible, or in other words completely absurd. The next step: 'It is perfectly valid to conclude that something must exist necessarily'. How can this statement be denied, or rebutted or falsified? If this judgment is true then its denial: 'Nothing exists necessarily', is false, unintelligible and absurd. If the statement 'nothing exists necessarily' is untrue, then it makes no sense to deny all the rest, including the contingency of the world, and also by extension what it means for the world to be contingent or to have no intrinsic or innate necessity. Why not also include everything that is contingent as being contingent on God's existence. Let's go back a step. What is it which makes it permissible to claim that something's existence or non-existence is true? When we say that an object exists, what do we really mean? How does it exist? In what way does it exist? What is its mode of being which makes its existence possible? Furthermore, is it at all legitimate to use words like 'exist', 'existence' or 'non-existence'? Only an ontological nihilist would ban the use of the word 'exist' under all circumstances. To exist is always contingent on something else. We can find no valid reason to deny this. For a raven to exist it has to be a bird, it should be black, it should have feathers, it must be able to fly and so on. Do all questions about contingent existence lead to the idea of the necessary existence of something else? In order for a raven to be raven, where 'to be' a raven, means 'to exist' as a raven, we accept that it has to have or has to possess all the attributes we associate with the category of entities called birds. In order to 'exist' as a raven it has 'to be' essentially raven-like. This is how the element of necessity creeps into the idea of something existing contingently. A raven cannot exist if it does not as an entity possess raven-like and bird-like attributes. All questions about contingent existence lead to the idea of necessary existence. The empiricist denies this. Whereas the ontologist sees no reason to offer any proof in support of a rebuttal of the reasons for empiricist denial. Both have their own reasons for their position, reasons which are equally arbitrary, meaning logically arbitrary. On reflection, in later years, it became clear to me that the 'God is Dead' theology had overreached itself in terms of its grounding assumptions regarding the nature of reality, the nature of progress, and the real nature of the modern world in which we find ourselves. It was far too optimistic. Of course I did not know this at the time on my flight back to Johannesburg.

7

I retrieved from my bag a small book on the theological significance of the structural and functional features which characterize the architectural design of the mediaeval Gothic Cathedral. To encounter the fullness of God is to experience the Eternal and the Infinite which is impossible for a finite being! Ecclesiastical institutions are right in exercising scepticism, suspicion and caution towards the seeking of an ecstatic, mystical, sublime numinous encounter with the Divine Presence. No one has direct privileged access to the Divine Presence. But then again, objectively speaking, if God is truly God, then God is omnipresent. The omnipresence of God means that that the Eternal, the Infinite, the Omniscient and the Omnipotent exists within the minutiae of the ordinary, the mundane, the physical and the material. Hence the architecture of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, hence the liturgical rite of the Roman Catholic Mass. Hence the material, the physical, the structural, the functional, the symbolic, the ideal, the cognitive and the intellectual which has become embodied and incarnated in the architecture of Catholicity. What are the real, authentic and genuine exemplifications of Catholicity? It is definitely not the Manichean condemnation of the material, the physical, the sensual and the erotic. Catholicity is transubstantiation. Transubstantiation in the most radical articulation of the idea of materialization of the Eternal and Infinite in the mundane and the ordinary. Matthew chapter 26, verse 26: While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat; this is my body.'

8

Quinn wrote: I think that 1969 was actually the best year in my life. What do I remember of 1969? I remember seeing the 'Midnight Cowboy'. Other movies we saw included: 'Easy Rider' and 'The Colour of Pomegranates' with English subtitles. Brian Jones died on the 3rd of July. Yet the show must go on, Gabriella and I went to the free outdoor festival held in Hyde Park on the 5th of July 1969. The Rolling Stones headlined the concert with their launch of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash'. I remember Apollo 11 the spaceflight which landed the first two people on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on the 20th of July 1969. I remember the Beatles' 'Don't let me down'. I remember that Beatles in that iconic photo of them warding over the zebra crossing of Abbey Road, shot in 1969. Monty Python's 'Flying Circus' first aired on BBC One. November 12 the story of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam becomes headline news. You will probably remember that it was also in 1969 that Senator Edward Kennedy managed to drive his car off Chappaquiddick Bridge into the river leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in the car while he somehow managed to escape. I remember the horrifying murder of Sharon Tate, wife of film maker Roman Polanski, stabbed to death by four members of the Charles Manson cult. The Archies topped the British charts for a full 8 weeks with 'Sugar, Sugar'. Lulu's 'Boom Bang-a-Bang' also dominated the British radio waves. And how can I ever forget Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg's 'Je t'aime, moi non plus'. After months of soul searching I have decided not to seek British citizenship. I informed Gabriella that I felt the need to return to the Republic of South Africa. I had applied to do a BSc degree majoring in Physics and Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand. For a year I have worked in the UK as a labourer, stable boy, groom and rider, getting paid for galloping race horses. I was nineteen years old and I had been living with Gabriella as if we were a married couple. Even though she knew we had no future, she was disappointed that I wanted to return to South Africa. She was not hopeful about the future of South Africa. Yet it was her prompting that we should go our separate ways which was decisive regarding my return to South Africa. It was a difficult situation for us to work through, especially for two people who loved each other so much. How do you leave someone who vows that she will love you for the rest of her life. She said I had a future which she could not be a part of no matter how much she loved me and no matter how much she wanted me to be her companion and lover forever. So as things turned out, on the 23rd of December 1969 I flew from Heathrow Airport back to South Africa. I never felt so low in all my life. On the plane I cried in the dark. Everything seemed so futile and meaningless. Sean fetched me from Jan Smuts Airport. I spent Christmas with Sean and his family. As a family the Magees got together on that Christmas Eve for dinner at Sean's home in Parkhurst, and afterwards we all attended a memorial midnight Mass. In January 1970 I moved into Paris Court, Juta Street, Braamfontein, a few blocks from Wits. It was going to be my home until I finished my PhD in 1978.

9

Conclusion: In 1971 in my second year at Wits I took Political Science as one of my filler courses, and one of the books we had to read was Theodore Roszak's book 'The Making of the Counter Culture'. I was there and I now I had to write a critical essay on Roszak's conceptualization of the phenomenon which he had baptized as the Counter Culture. The words of Buffalo Springfield 'For what it's worth' and Bob Dylan's 'The times they are a-changin',' echoing in my head as I re-imagined what I had experienced at first hand during that eventful year in 1968.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - FOR THE RECORD

1

Raizel had shared everything about herself with Quinn even the fact that she had an affair with her high school art teacher who was married. She shared with Quinn all her dark and dangerous secrets. As you already know, Raizel's affair with her school teacher who was also married began when she were thirteen years old. He had seduced her while she was still literally a mere child. She slept with him at such a tender age. She confessed that she had been deeply in love with him, she had given her heart to him, and she would have run away with him had he decided to leave his wife for her. Raizel confessed everything about herself, baring the depths of her soul to Quinn. As a priest I know that one cannot quite equate confession with autobiography. They are different forms of self-expression, and would constitute different forms of literature, based on different kinds of narratives or stories of one's life, but they would share similar plots. In terms of plot, both provide a literary space to construct an identity, which is the plot. The plot revolves around the question of who one is in reality. As you now know dear reader, I have been forced to disclose something about myself. You now know who I am in reality: a priest who is queer, but who has been celibate all his life while being in love with Quinn ever since we first met. Going back to the construction of identity in an autobiography or biography, let us think about this. I may formulate what I mean in terms of this kind of statement, that is, the narrative and its plot necessarily requires or revolves round the construction of identity or identities, but this aesthetic goal runs aground because of intractable problems. For example: To know who I am really, one needs know or feel what it is like to be me. I think this is what Quinn was struggling with. He could not communicate what it felt like to be who he was, especially if one is not really sure who one is or what one actually feels. Raizel's problem was that Quinn never showed his feelings or expressed his feelings. He gave the impression of being self-possessed, self-confident, self-sufficient, un-needy in the extreme, unflappable, tranquil and even serene. Which were all attractive qualities in a man, being literally an unshakable bastion of strength and being completely self-possessed, but all of this could also work as a mask. It made him come across as extremely masculine (macho almost), emotionally strong, uncomplicated, easy going, comfortable to be with, completely trustworthy, someone who made you feel safe, someone you could rely on, but also someone who made no demands on you, someone who was never needy, someone who was not possessive or over anxious, some free of all anxiety and complications, someone you felt could quite easily get by without you. But this not is the ideal person! For Raizel who loved Quinn deeply, and she felt that she was not getting enough back in return, she wanted more from Quinn, but Quinn was not someone who could be possessed. This was Quinn's problem, he held a lot back. It was a prime reason for why his marriages failed. Quinn was someone who you could quite easily fall in love with. Need I repeat? Let me restate the facts. He was an incredibly good looking person, but on top of his good looks there was this mysterious and enigmatic aura which he possessed, which came across as a sign not only of masculine strength, but also deep spirituality, and on top of all of this he was someone who was unfathomable, he was modest, he was not manipulative, he was kind, he was generous to a fault when it came to spending money or helping you out, and all of this when put together made him extremely sexy and erotic. Erotic is the word. He was erotic, you wanted to kiss him, you wanted to hold his hand and feel his arm around you, you wanted his physical closeness, and you wanted to be physically intimate with him.

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Raizel confessed her deep love for Quinn. She said that Quinn had saved her from a sordid disaster in which she had become entrapped. After the holiday romance in Xai Xai (pronounced 'shy shy') the breakup with her school teacher was now irreversible. However, Raizel continue to bemoan the fact that while Quinn was privy to all her secrets he in turn had given her nothing back about himself. He confessed nothing. He admitted nothing. He shared nothing. She said that he was an incredibly private person, being almost inscrutable, and she was not comfortable with this. Quinn would just shrug his shoulders while wearing a wry smile on his face. Quinn admitted that he had lied to Raizel when he said that he had no sordid secrets to share, he reiterated the false refrain that his life had been mundane and ordinary. Quinn confessed openly to me, but not in the confessional. He confirmed: 'I was lying. I had to lie! I had no option, it was a survival strategy. The truth about my personal circumstances, my family history, were too damaging and too inconvenient, too embarrassing and too shameful'. Quinn felt that Raizel's personal and intimate secrets no matter how sordid they may have seemed were in fact beautiful compared to the reality of his life. How could he disclose that his father had tried to murder him because he was jealous of his relationship with Gabriella? How could he tell her about his father stabbing his mother to death by accident when he actually intended to stab Quinn to death? I knew that Quinn had lied from his early childhood life about his family life out of necessity. With that wry smile on his face he admitted that lying about or hiding the facts of his life had become natural to him. As he explained to me: Lying was an act of concealing, lying was a face-saving exercise, lying was used as a veil for covering up secrets. Lying was all about evasion and erasure. Lying was not equivalent to withholding the truth. Lying was more important than telling the truth. The truth was of no use to me, he once said. He qualified this by stating: The truth is that my life has always been dogged by the need for secrecy because of unbearable shame. I was haunted by shame. I know this sounds stupid. Everything which characterized my home life, my upbringing seemed to be so abnormal and so scandalous compared to Raizel's life that I preferred to leave everything about my background unsaid. Her parents were so upright and respectable. She had nothing to be ashamed of about regarding her upbringing and family background. In contrast, Quinn suffered from shame because he suffered from pride. Quinn pride was his undoing. He lied and kept secrets which were shameful mainly because of his pride. When she asked about his parents, he said that they had passed away, which was the truth. He told her that they were killed in a tragic accident, and it was too painful for him to speak about it. He explained that he came from a typical large Roman Catholic family. Raizel learnt that Quinn had three younger sisters and three elder brothers, the eldest brother providing a home for his younger sisters. Anyway to all accounts Raizel loved Quinn deeply. He was tender, respectful, thoughtful, considerate, and gentle to a fault, almost to the point of perfection. He also had an incredible sense of humour, was a good conversationalist, and was always ready to clown about if the occasion merited it. Raizel would say: 'You have a dark side, admit it, everyone has a dark side.' Eventually Quinn contrived something. It was his alibi. He admitted his dark secret, it was an admission of convenience. He admitted to having a love affair with a married woman while he was a teenager. It was the truth, this was his dark secret, which was hardly dark. It was actually a beautiful secret. What made it a dark secret was the bitter and murderous rivalry between his father and himself for the same woman. This was something he did not want to talk about. It felt too incestuous. Nobody knew that this was the real reason why his mother ended up being murdered. He felt responsible for his mother's death. He felt guilty. It was because of him that his three sisters lost their father and mother when they were still so young. It was because of him that they became orphans. He carried the blame and guilt for the death of his father and mother. He felt guilty of parricide. He did not want to admit that he was as much obsessed with Gabriella as his father. They were both obsessed with the same woman. And the tragedy was that Gabriella was the only woman with whom he had experienced an exceeding deep bond. They had a real intellectual and emotional connection, they were deeply in tune with each other, and they could read each other's minds. Leaving Gabriella was a traumatic experience for him. The shadow of Gabriella haunted all his relations with women.

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Another truth which Raizel did not know was that Quinn came from a home that was terrifyingly dysfunctional and chaotic. Quinn was afraid that the propensities or predispositions or predilections for this terrifying dysfunctionality could also have seeped into his own bones, become absorbed into his flesh, blood, brain, into his very physiology and metabolism, contaminating his soul forever, and filling his mind with a cesspool of depravity. He was afraid that if Raizel knew more about his life and circumstances it would have been injurious for him. It was funny the way that Quinn put it to me: 'The story of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, the father of Alyosha, Dmitri, and Ivan, and almost certainly the father of Smerdyakov, that is, the story of the brothers of Karamazov is merely a fairy tale compared to the story of my own family life before I met Raizel for the first time in Xai Xai. So I was left with no option but to carefully re-construct the persona and image of who I wanted to be in her eyes. I had re-scripted myself, re-casting myself as someone else, a make-belief person, a complete fiction. I constructed an alter ego of myself. I managed with the skilfulness of a talented actor to play the role which I had invented for myself. I even believed that this was me, the real me. This was the person who she fell in love with. Raizel fell in love with my alter ego, with my double, with a fictionalized character. So now you can appreciate why the disclosure of her affair with her art teacher did not shock me. It did not diminish her in my eyes one bit. Why should it have? My own moral universe was more topsy-turvy than hers could ever be. Nothing in this world can shock me. I stand in judgment over no one. Well this is what Quinn confessed to me, and I have every reason to believe him. Read on!

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For the record, this is what Quinn related to me: 'I met Raizel while on holiday in Mozambique. Our paths first crossed following the collapse of four hundred or so years of Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique. It was 1973, it was on the eve of the revolution in Portugal that I found myself in Xai Xai with a couple of university friends. We had travelled to Mozambique in a dilapidated VW Kombi. It was during the July student vacation. At the time I was doing my BSc honours in physics at the University of the Witwatersrand. On the beach my friends began to flirt with Raizel and her cousins. The girls were all in Matric that year. They were very attractive seventeen year olds. Raizel and her cousins, but especially Raizel seemed to be so unusually sophisticated, sophisticated way beyond their teenage years. We were all struck by that impression so much so that initially we thought that they were also university students. It was hard to believe that they were actually teenage schoolgirls. It also transpired that they were all farm girls. This disclosure which Raizel made was supposed to be a joke. Yet it turned out not to be a joke, it was the truth, the girls were the delectable daughters of successful maize, pig, poultry and dairy farmers who had carved out a prosperous enclave in the vast steppes surrounding Delmas and Ermelo.

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Quinn related to me: 'On the beach, unchaperoned, they were all so brazenly flirtatious. After becoming acquainted and spending most of that day together on the beach Raizel invited us to a little party that night. The party was to be hosted in a Mediterranean styled villa which was perched serenely among swaying palms on top of the simmering bushy dunes overlooking the Indian Ocean. It was owned and had been built by her parents as their family holiday home in Mozambique, conveniently close to the farm near Delmas. It had its own concrete aproned airstrip. Raizel initially informed us that she was having a party with friends, but as it turned out that we were the only guests. So it was not the kind of party of young people that we were expecting, instead it turned out to be a rather pleasant evening of socialization, listening to rock music, drinking beer, eating snacks and talking. Eventually her mother retired for the night. Instead of flying in a light aircraft piloted by her father from the farm, they had travelled to Xai Xai for the holidays in a brand new Ford Fairlane. It was parked outside and we all admired it. That night at the party Raizel and her cousins had a great time. My companions knowing that our hosts were mere schools girls showed none of the signs of awkwardness which I happened to be feeling that night regarding the gaping generation gap between ourselves and girls. It was for this reason that I found myself later that evening standing as a non-participant outside the confines of the charmed circle of gaiety. Leaning against the bar counter sipping Laurentina from a bottle I listened to the alcohol enlivened banter. Her mom eventually retired and went to bed. She had spent most of the evening sitting at the dining room table on the other side of the lounge unobtrusively playing solitaire. Raizel kept on glancing and smiling at me. She was blatantly flirtatious. After her mother left she came over and stood next to me. I could sense that she were drawn to me. To be honest it was a pleasurable and dreamlike experience having a young but extremely attractive and precocious seventeen year old teenager showing such unabashed interest in me. When everyone else decided to retire she invited me to stay behind for coffee. We sat close together on the couch sipping coffee chatting until the break of dawn. Later that morning after only a few hours' sleep we met again on the beach, and leaving the others we set off in our bathing costumes for a walk along the beach. We spent almost the entire day sitting on top of a high dune in the shade of woody shrubs mysteriously and inexplicitly intoxicated with each other. It also felt crazy, and so unreal, she were seventeen, still in school and I was twenty two years old, making it a five year age difference between us, and it did not seem to matter'.

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For the record: To provide some context. In January 1973 Dr Brozin with a PhD degree under his belt and a wife expecting their first child was appointed as a lecturer in the School of Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand. His dream had come to full fruition. For six months Raizel mourned the end of their affair. It would appear that she became infatuated with Quinn on the rebound. Of course it goes without saying that Quinn was a strikingly exotic specimen of smouldering masculinity, with unusually thick raven black hair, a blue-shadowy angular jaw line (he had not shaved that morning), Lebanese-Syrian-Persian features, with intelligent and lively eyes which glowed with a mysterious passion, a very pleasant voice (and articulate), in fact she wrongly assumed that he was Jewish and would never have guessed his true ethnicity in terms of his descent. He was the image of his mother who could have been mistaken for a Middle Eastern Maronite Catholic. From his father side one could recognize the blending of the characteristic Jomogee musculature, energy, strength, wit, reflexes, power, panther-like gracefulness which had been sculptured into his broad shouldered frame. You may think that I have been over-dramatic and possibly absurdly-theatrical in portraying the physiognomic attributes of Quinn - the handsome athleticism of the Magees, father and sons, their natural genetic endowment, was well known - a generous gift bestowed upon them by our Creator. Like Gabriella, Raizel was drawn to this young man with his serious demeanour tinged with that ever so subtle but discernible shadow of melancholy which haunted his eyes. He was the only person she felt in her heart who would never pale in Brozin's shadow, but in all likelihood would grow into a figure whose statue would dazzle with a greater brilliance.

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Things took a strange turn that evening. This is was what Quinn related to me: 'Later that afternoon we all agreed to meet for drinks on the porch of the hotel at Xai Xai which was conveniently located at the foot of the high dunes just above the high tide mark. Raizel's cousin David who had arrived that afternoon also joined us at our table. We soon grew to be quite a boisterous and raucous crowd with Rhodesians and students from the University of Natal joining us. Raizel sat between David and myself. I overheard David telling a fellow from Rhodesia that later that week he planned to go on an elephant hunting safari. Later that evening we all trooped off to the hotel nightclub. While our eyes were adjusting to the dim lit interior the hit 'American Pie' started to play. Raizel said: 'Oh I love this!' And she began doing a little jive on the spot, she also began to sing along: '...good ol boys were singing...' Someone asked her to dance with him when the hit 'Here comes my baby' by The Tremeloes began to play. Anyway in quick succession Raizel danced with several other guys while David standing next to me stared morosely at her. I did not feel awkward or threatened with her dancing with other guys, she kept on smiling at me, and I spontaneously smiled back, it was obviously that she was enjoying herself, we had barely had known each other for more than 48 hours, so I felt that there was nothing untoward about the situation, which was basically the fact that she was dancing with other chaps. Since the previous evening I had done nothing impulsive, I had not tried to hold her hand or kiss her. While I was trying to muddle through the intricacies of the situation in nightclub, the sounds of The Monkees – 'I am a Believer' fills the nightclub, Raizel suddenly appeared in front of me grabbing my hand firmly pulling me enthusiastically into the middle of the dance floor. Then while 'Someday we'll be together' played we danced in a close embrace, we began to kiss passionately, oblivious of everyone, this confirmed that something was really beginning to happen between us. Later when she went to the ladies David confronted me. He was now drunk and very aggressive, he said: 'Raizel is just using you to make me jealous, she is not really interested in you, she is as fickle as hell, she wears her heart on her sleeve, you are not in her class, she is just using you to make me feel jealous, you don't really know who she is, you don't know what she is really like, she can be really slutty, she is just using you...'. He then took a swipe at me. I managed to move my head sharply to one side and he hit fresh air. He took another swipe at me and again I moved my head and he hit fresh once more. I did not rise my fists, I just dodged him, moving my head. He couldn't hit me, he was too drunk. A big fellow from Rhodesia intervened wrapping his arms around David, holding him in tightly in a bear hug. At that moment Raizel returned. I could see that she had guessed what was going on. The Rhodesian was still holding David in a bear hug while urging him 'to cool it'. David began to cry while mumbling that he may be killed by an elephant. Raizel looking completely startled and shocked kept on asking me: 'Are you OK?' The Rhodesian interrupted: 'He is OK, not to worry, he knows how to take care of himself.' 'Come let's get out of here,' she said pulling me by the arm. Once outside standing in the dark on the beach with the fresh sea breeze blowing she could not stop apologizing enough. 'He is such a jerk, he is my cousin and he is in love with me, he is insane, I hope an elephant kills him, it will be good riddance.' Raizel were so angry over the incident.

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When I once mentioned to a friend who had become a successful novelist that I too would like to write a novel someday. I added that I would not really care if no one read it. She replied that all books deserved to be read for no other reason than out respect for the effort that had been expended in their writing. Every story will find its reader. But anyway let me continue with Quinn's story. The story which he should have related to Raizel during the time when they were still together. Quinn's story which I am relating to you the reader is not only a story about Quinn. It is also a story about ways of being in the world. It is about being thrown into the world, about finding oneself already in the world shaped by contingent circumstances, circumstance which one did not create, as was the case when Raizel's cousin David took a swipe at Quinn. [As you may have gathered, Quinn was instinctively prepared. He was no stranger to violence or sudden attack. He had barely known David for more than a few hours. In fact Quinn knew absolutely nothing about him. David was practically a stranger to Quinn. That night in the club the ghosts in the form of a jealous stranger had returned to haunt him, jealous ghosts with a propensity for gratuitous violence, ghosts which seemed to be lurking everywhere, especially where there happened to be a beautiful woman, drawn like moths to the flame of candle, ghosts which had once more returned unexpectedly, with the power and motivation to wreak havoc. I know that the sudden irrational attack was acutely traumatic for Quinn even though he showed no visible sign of trauma.] Please note: The sentence in the square brackets [ ] are my creation. These little redactive or editorial insertion into the narrative I am writing are examples of the authorial fictionalization of the source material Quinn which placed in my hands. Remember dear reader: Quinn firmly placed the A4 envelope in my hands: 'Write my story, but don't make it my story in any biographical sense, write it as if it were fiction, in fact it is fiction,' he said with that characteristic wry smile.

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Quinn seemed to like the Heideggerian ideas which I had eluded too concerning 'being into the world in a state of thrownness or contingency'. He expanded on his own novelistic ambition: 'We always find ourselves already embedded in the 'thereness' of existence. I don't want to be the voice of one crying in the wilderness, a voice which speaks only about myself only. To be perfectly honest like you, I have also fancied myself as a writer. It was a daydream which I indulged on many occasions mainly just before falling asleep. I would lie in my bed with my eyes closed inventing or dreaming up a story about someone. I would fall asleep and often the story would become a dream. Over the years Raizel has been a frequent visitor in my dreams. They were always erotically pleasant. Now the compulsion to write often fastened its grip on me. Raizel is a published author, a highly acclaimed writer. I understand this compulsion to put pen to paper to write, she obeyed the compulsion of the Muse. My own fame as a theoretical physicist did not attain the heights of celebrity status. I have make may mark as a highly cited scientist with an h-index in the fifties, which means that I have been recognized by maybe a hundred theoretical physicists which is far from being famous in any sense of that word. You can find out about me on Google Scholar or Scopus or ResearchGate. It is the publicity of Raizel's fame which has prompted me to redeem my own past by making a full confession of the things which I should have shared with her, I need to be redeemed Patrick, I need discover what would make me whole a person.' I listened to Quinn. I understood perfectly what he was getting at.

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I quote from Quinn's unsent letter to Raizel: Now that I have all the time in world (I have retired and I have read the Time Magazine article featuring you) I have taken it upon myself to write this long letter. It is a letter which delves into the dark side of my life. I have used the word delve, because the word 'delve' seems to suggest a digging into something rather mere probing or mere inquiring or mere investigating. Delving into the past means digging into the dirt and muck and squalor and sordidness of a murky past. The past is murky precisely because it was gloomy and shadowy in a metaphorical or figurative sense. Used in this context the words gloomy and shadowy elude obliquely to darkness in a moral sense. The dark side of my life is not really about me, it is about the circumstance of my life. Much of what I have experienced during my childhood and youth now seems unreal or surreal, surreal in the sense that there have been episodes or life changing episodic events in my life which could only happen in dreams, but never in everyday life. I even wondered whether the past had really happened. Much of what had actually happened hardly makes any sense at all, everything seems so impossible, so unreasonable, so irrational, without any defining logic or purpose or plan. The thought has crossed my mind that we may all be guilty of inventing our memories. Our memories are fictions. But now wanting to confess everything, I am first to agree that there is really no reason to write this account. Once when I hinted to my three sisters about my little literary project without giving the reasons for it they were dismayed. Let go of the past was what they counselled. Don't dredge up the muddy waters of the past. I can assure you in all honesty that what happened in the past makes no difference to me personally. I have let the bygones be bygones. This is not going to be an exercise in a brooding over the past. What I am about to write should not be construed as a settling of accounts, nor as a release through catharsis or even an exercise in therapeutic redemption and spiritual healing. And it is not about forgiveness. There is nothing to forgive. It is not about regrets. I have no regrets. It is not about mourning. I have nothing to mourn over. Things just happened the way that they have happened. It was never written nor preordained that things would turn out the way that they did. I think we can take comfort in the fact that the future has not been prearranged and I think we can take comfort in the fact that we do not live our lives under the governance of predetermined destiny. We definitely don't live in the shadow of any kind of destiny. I am of the opinion that to a large extent we make our own lives. We become our choices despite the circumstances in which we happen by pure chance to find ourselves in. If anything shapes our lives it by chance alone. Contingency rules! Even though I don't consider myself spiritual or religious I have pretty much been a Catholic all my life, possibly because of my mother, but I don't take any comfort or find in solace in that fact. Like my mother, my father was born a Catholic, but he was irreligious to the core. He was a reprobate, he lived a life of riotous dissipation. But he loved us his children. He loved all of us deeply. This was his most profound saving grace. In spite of everything he loved us. His marriage was a disaster. Our mother and father had become strangers to each other, even though they lived under the same roof. Yet every night they copulated. Or he raped her every night. Mounted her like an animal. We could all hear them at it, two strangers engaged in sexual intercourse, possibly without any foreplay. I could not imagine there being any foreplay. After relieving the sexual tension he would roll off her and fall asleep almost immediately. Sometimes there would be the argumentative whispering. Being a devout Catholic divorce was out of the question for her. And our dad being a man of honour in his own strange manner never broached the subject of divorce. So he gave her a house keeping allowance and it was her job to look after us and make sure that we had clean clothes, did our school homework and received three square meals a day. He never once looked at our school reports or took an interest in how we were doing at school. In the case of our mother she nagged constantly about keeping the house tidy, she never once nagged about us doing our homework. Our parents more or less left us to our devices. I would not be exaggerating if I said that we did not have a strict upbringing. There was no discipline in our home. No matter how hard our mother tried to be a good mother it did not amount to much. As a family we lived in a state of unremitting chaos. Our mother did her best under the circumstances, which included having us go to Mass every Sunday and our father ironically insisted that we fulfilled our religious obligations. In spite of everything we managed to live as observant Catholics, observing Lent in preparation for holy week. Fish always every Friday. The Mass, the fish on Fridays, Lent, crucifixes, confession, the statues of Mary and the pictures of the Madonna and Child on with walls of our home, all of which reminded us constantly that we were Catholics.

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The Catholic sacramental view of the world is integral to the formation of the Catholic imagination. The presence of the invisible and hidden becomes manifest to the five senses in speech, gesture, music, vestments, art, colour, fire, water, bread, and wine. Catholics live in an enchanted world of grand church architecture, of altars and sanctuaries, of rite and gesture, of the Blessed Sacrament, of tabernacles, of vestments, of processions, of chalice-ciborium-patens, of holy water and stained glass, of candles, incense and bells, of saints and rosaries, of bread and wine turned into the actual body and blood of Christ. Catholics are sustained by the Real Presence of God in the Communion Host. For Catholics the whole world is filled with the awesome holiness of God, every good thing is a sign of God's grace. The Catholic imagination is enthralled by what exists behind the veil of sensory perception. While there was no logical reason or empirical proof that could compelling demonstrate in a transparent self-evident manner that the series of perceptible events such as the unfolding Cosmos in space and time did not have had a beginning, a contingent beginning, a beginning contingent on something else. For the Catholic mind the reasons for the existence of the Universe are not logically or empirically self-evident. The Universe confronts the Catholic mind as a wonderful mystery, an unexplainable enigma. There is also the unfathomable mystery embodied in the life of every individual person who has ever existed. It is not an exaggeration to admit that we are mystery to ourselves. Every self-disclosure, every confessions fails to be exhaustive, there are secrets within every soul which will forever remain hidden and inaccessible. Penance, absolution and reconciliation is integral to Confession which is one of the seven sacraments in the sacramental order of Catholicism. As a priest I have listened to countless personal narratives of admission, commission, omission, guilt, regret, pain, hope, anger and disappointment, narratives of unburdening and narrative of self-disclosure, all vocalized in speech, speech often filled with the unspeakable pathos and poignancy of agony, anxiety, anguish, melancholy, nostalgia, forlornness, sorrow and tears of contrition, in the course of the confession. Listening to confession does exact its mental and psychological toll on the priest if he is doing his job properly. The distress, the pain, the anxiety and suffering of the confessant has an effect on the priest. What I have seen, heard, been exposed to and experienced with regard to the lives of many of my parishioners over so many years applies each time to my own life. I relive in my own life the guilt, pain, hurt, regret, anger, hopeless, disappointment, yearning, nostalgia, melancholy, forlornness and sense of utter powerlessness every time I listen to confession. I pronounce the words of absolution feeling emotionally exhausted, exhausted by my own failures. As a priest I carry the burden of loneliness. In the voice of the confessant and I hear the echo of my voice: 'I am like you, I am not at all different, your sins are also my sins, I am not holy, I am not innocent, I am not pure, I am just as guilty as you, I too need forgiveness and absolution just as much as you'. With the lapse of time everything that has happened in my own life and also in Quinn's life seems so surreal, almost dreamlike , that even I, a priest, have begun to wonder whether the past really happened. Much of what had actually happened now hardly makes any sense at all, everything seems so impossible, so unreasonable, so irrational, without any defining logic or purpose or plan. The thought has crossed my mind that we may all be guilty of inventing our memories. And this is what makes confession so problematic. Our memories have the tendency to become fictions. But now undertaking the confession of a confession, confessing the confession of a friend I am beginning to understand what constitutes a biography, and to be the keeper, custodian and archivist of biographies. I keep the black book of God. I am the one who proclaims God's absolution. I am the first to agree that there is really no reason to write this account. What would be the reason for writing this novel? What is the reason for confession? Absolution? Forgiveness? Will this novel be our absolution? Who will be vindicated? Not me.

12

For the record, Quinn wrote: When I hinted to my three sisters about my little literary project without giving them the reasons for it they were dismayed. Let go of the past was what they counselled. Don't dredge up the muddy waters of the past. Let the past die. The past is best forgotten. Erased completely if possible. We don't want to remember the past. I can assure you in all honesty that what happened in the past makes no difference to me personally. I have let the bygones be bygones. This is not going to be an exercise in a brooding or obsessing over the past. What I am about to write should not be construed as a settling of accounts, nor as a release through catharsis or even an exercise in therapeutic redemption and spiritual healing. And it is not about forgiveness. There is nothing to forgive. It is not about regrets. I have no regrets. It is not about mourning. I have nothing to mourn over. Things just happened the way that they have happened. It was never written nor preordained that things would turn out the way that they did. I think we can take comfort in the fact that the future has not been prearranged and I think we can take comfort in the fact that we do not live our lives under the governance of a predetermined destiny. We definitely don't live in the shadow of any kind of destiny. I am of the opinion that to a large extent we make our own lives. We become our choices despite the circumstances in which we happen by pure chance to find ourselves in. If anything shapes our lives it is chance alone. Contingency rules! Even though I don't consider myself spiritual or religious I have pretty much been a Catholic all my life, possibly because of our mother, but I don't take any comfort or find in solace in that fact. Like our mother, our father we were born Catholic, but he was irreligious to the core. He was a reprobate, he lived a life of riotous dissipation. But he loved us his children. He loved all of us deeply. This was his most profound saving grace. In spite of everything he loved us. His marriage was a disaster. Our mother and father became strangers to each other, even though they slept in the same bed. Being a devout Catholic divorce was out of the question for her. And our dad being a man of honour in his own strange manner never broached the subject of divorce. So he gave her a generous housekeeping allowance and it was her job to look after us and make sure that we had clean clothes, did our school homework and received three square meals a day. He never once looked at our school reports or took an interest in how we were doing at school. In the case of our mother she nagged us constantly about keeping the house tidy, she never once nagged about us doing our homework. Our parents more or less left us to our devices. I would not be exaggerating if I said that we did not have a strict upbringing. There was no discipline in our home. No matter how hard our mother tried to be a good mother it did not amount to much. As a family we lived in a state of unremitting chaos. Our mother did her best under the circumstances, which included having us go to Mass every Sunday and our father ironically insisted that we fulfilled our religious obligations. In spite of everything we managed to live our lives as observant Catholics, observing Lent in preparation for holy week. Fish and chips always every Friday. The 'Our Father' and 'Hail Mary' every evening before bed and every morning at breakfast. Imprinted on minds was the 'Our Father'. The Mass, the fish on Fridays, Lent, crucifixes, confession, the statues of Mary and the pictures of the Madonna and Child on the walls of our home, all of which reminded us constantly that we were Catholics.

CHAPTER NINETEEN - THE PROTÉGÉE

1

From Raizel's letters to Quinn: The relation between a pupil and her teacher can so readily metamorphose into a love affair in which the work of Eros becomes inextricably intertwined with the work of learning. Teaching and loving merge, the work of learning and the work of sex become inseparable. I fell in love with my teacher and my teacher fell in love with his pupil. Knowledge and seduction.

2

This is my take (the Jesuit priest) on the matter, having not yet met Raizel or her teacher, I am curious about who was the seducer and the seduced. Like the young girls who once long ago became infatuated with the handsome and erudite Pastor Henrik Gillot of St. Petersburg, school girls like Raizel also fell under the spell of their art teacher, however like Lou von Salome (Low Andreas-Salome) Raizel barely thirteen was the one who reversed all this, becoming the one who casted the spell that changed the teacher's life, rather than the other way round. At the age of ten in standard three while still in primary school the sudden onset of precocious puberty overwhelmed Raizel. During that year she underwent a significant growth spurt, her breasts began to enlarge at an alarming rate swelling into firm peach sized protuberances, to her horror dark underarm hair began sprout, and even more terrifying was the inexorable growth of a luxuriant glistening silky bush of pubic hair between her legs, she also became aware that her body had acquired a strange and distinctive odour. The boys in her class whispered among themselves that the Jew in their midst stank of anchovy fish paste. And to crown her physical misery the severity of her monthly menstrual cramps left her completely incapacitated, tortured by waves of excruciating lower abdominal pains, writhing about in a foetal bundle she was unable attend classes. In standard five when she was twelve a visit to the gynaecologist provided her with a magic cure for the period cramps in the form of the contraceptive pill. In the presence of her mother the kindly old gynaecologist after prodding and probing Raizel's naked body pronounced the verdict that everything was in order, gynaecologically speaking. For the full duration of their primary school years her peers lived in the shadow of this most remarkable Jew who not only excelled academically, consistently commanding the highest class mark for every subject and but also excelling on the sports field, commanding that rough terrain with the necessary panache, prowess, skill, aggressiveness, toughness, energy and physical power. It was natural that this extraordinary farm girl was chosen as the captain of the netball team. It was her mesmerizing proficiency in Afrikaans which played a big role in endearing her with her teachers, it was her trump card which she played very effectively.

3

Ironically coming from a non-observant Jewish family it was the daily mandatory reading of the Old Testament books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther) and the New Testament (The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) as part of the school's curriculum that Raizel having no knowledge of the Written or Oral Torah and never being exposed to any form of Rabbinic teachings developed her own peculiar binocular vision of the Judeo-Christian tradition, acquiring that unusual mental ambidexterity, being able to read the OT and NT through both Jewish and Christian prisms, of course the Afrikaans teachers always self-consciously aware of the Jewish presence in the classrooms never failed to speak of the Jews as God's Chosen People. But while reading the Bible from this hermeneutic perspective they were able to weave the founding mythology of Judaism into the warp and woof of the unique and peculiar tapestry which mirrored the Afrikaner's own self-understanding as a special people with a God ordained destiny in South Africa, their dear country.

4

It was Karl Brozin's ambition to enter academia and enjoy the same professorial status and prestige as Freida. His job as the HOD of the schools arts department was merely a staging post. He had registered with University of the Witwatersrand as a part-time PhD candidate. The PhD was going to be his ticket into academia. He began to share the personal details of his career plans with the thirteen year old Raizel, in the process he became self-consciously aware that he was trying to impress her. He found himself discussing his PhD research with her. His research focus centred round the semiotics of Roland Barthes in relation to ways of seeing. A research thrust which was prescient in that it anticipated the work of John Berger on the very the same topic but with a different unique spin and emphasis.

5

'In the July school break the school planned an overseas bus tour. We would be visiting The Louvre in Paris, The Tate Art Gallery in London, The Groeninge Museum in Belgium, The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Prada in Madrid, The National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, The Musée D'Orsay in Paris. The Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona and many other museums and places of interest,' Raizel wrote.

6

And as it turned out Raizel parents paid for her overseas trip. On the flight to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport Brozin made sure that the seat number booked for Raizel would be the one at the cabin window seat next to his. Later on that flight, past midnight, cabin lights dimmed off to a comfortable amorous darkness, most of the passengers already lulled into a deep sleep by the constant drone of the aircraft, he found Raizel's hand under the cover of her blanket, he learned over and kissed her chastely on the cheek, she turned her head towards him, he kissed her passionately. 'I am desperately in love with you,' he whispered. 'I am passionately in love with you, I have been in love with you since January,' she said. 'I know,' he answered. She chuckled. 'How did you know?' She asked, her eyes glistening. 'I could see it,' he answered. 'How could you see it?' 'You flirted with me constantly,' he said. 'I did not!' She retorted. 'You did.' 'I did not, you started flirting with me, putting all kinds of ideas in my head,' she laughed softy. 'It was your imagination,' he answered. 'No it wasn't'. 'Yes it was.' 'You have seduced me, booking my seat next to yours.' 'You have seduced me, a pure vulnerable child.' 'Well then if that is what you think of me, I will simply revert back to being your teacher.' 'No you can't,' she said holding his hand tightly. 'Why can't I,' he chuckled softy feeling the tight grasp of her hand. 'You know in your heart that it would be impossible,' she said looking at him wickedly. 'You are truly a wanton woman,' he said. 'But you have taken advantage of me, an innocent girl,' she said. 'No I have not.' 'Yes you have,' she whispered. 'I love you Raizel.' 'Love you too Mr Karl Brozin.'

7

Disembarking from the train they booked in the Train Hotel across the canal from the railway station. After stashing their luggage in their assigned hotel rooms the tour group of ten which included Brozin boarded the tourist canal barge for a summer's day hop on and hop off tour of Amsterdam's art galleries. Taking up a position in the barge and talking loud enough so that he could be heard above the noise of the engine he gave one of his typical Mr Brozin lectures, which the pupils loved, on Amsterdam and the canal system, ending his lecturer with some comments on Albert Camus' book 'The Fall.' In the book Jean-Baptiste Clamence, the judge penitent, refers to the concentric circles of the canal system as the circles of hell, which converge onto Amsterdam's famous red light district. He explained to an attentive audience that 'The Fall' was not a typical novel. It was more of a soliloquy, a monologue if you wish, a second person rendition, composed of anecdotes, aphorisms, epigrams, observations, poetry, poetic prose, moral reflections with no discernible storyline or plot or progression. Possibly the story can be read as been held together by the judge penitent's journey of moral-transformative. Jean-Baptiste makes the observation that it is hard to disentangle the true from the false. Jean-Baptiste posed the question: '...Don't lies eventually lead to the truth? ... Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object...'

8

That night, just past midnight, with everyone exhausted from a day filled with van Gogh, Rembrandt, Anna Frank's home, Spinoza and the beautiful Portuguese or Sephardic Synagogue, also called the Esnoga, Raizel dressed only in her light night gown knocked at Brozin's door. Shedding her night gown she fell into Brozin's arms, he covered her in kisses, kissing her lips, cheeks, eyes, ears, neck and breasts, moving down he kissed her belly and then plunging his face into her silken bush his lips found the rose. Unprepared for the exquisite surge of voluptuous pleasure, the treasure chest of her body opened revealing its dazzling mysteries to her unprepared central nervous system, causing her to collapsed gasping, mewing, moaning and panting, into a vortex of ecstasy, as his tongue licked, probed and caressed the petals of the rose bursting into full bloom.

9

At the midnight hour, in Rome, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona and London, with all the children fast asleep, appearing like a ghost in the creaking corridors, Raizel quietly pushed open Brozin's unlocked door, Brozin waiting with shortened breath, and pounding heart, magnificently and anxiously ready to savour the delights of the rose one more time. As had become their custom, after making love, cloaked in the veil of darkness, they disappeared like shadows into the city, her right arm locked round his upper arm, often leaning her cheek against his arm, losing themselves in strange places and unfamiliar streets. Stopping every now and them to feast their eyes on the sheer foreignness of ancient and famous facades, medieval or Gothic all bore silent witness to the march of European history, to its balance of tensions, it variable expressions of the Western spirit. The passage and record of that history was stamped everywhere into the architecture of buildings. Brozin could read the city, he could decode the narratives laid in mortar and stone. Brozin summarized with great perspicuity the narratives which informs the classical Western mind: Nature and City exist as two contrasting mirrors. The mirror of nature reflects the work of God and the mirror of the City reflects the march of history from its beginning in the fall to its final destination, the apocalyptic dystopia. The mirror of history as embodied in the classical architecture of the European city from a Christian perspective starts with the fall of man and ends with the final judgment. The Roman Catholic cathedral embodies more than a splendid and auspicious architectural monument, stamped into its material and physical structure is the edifice of the Church's theology and teachings, reflecting the very essence of the Church's Magisterium. Would all of this been possible without Judaism. The answer is No. As a Jew, Brozin could quite candidly articulate these insights in the similar objective manner that a comparative anatomist would analyse the similarities and differences in the skeletons of animals. Raizel asked if Brozin believed in God. 'No I am an atheist.' In response to his answer she admitted: 'I believe in God, because I want to believe in God.' 'I have no problem with you wanting to believe God, it is an honest way of putting it, and if you can believe in God without having a religion so much the better,' he replied.

10

Passage from Quinn's unsent letter to Raizel: In my depraved mind I recreated the scenes of your seduction, interchanging the roles of seducer and seduced, in my sick mind I became you, I incarnated myself as you and then as him, filling in the carnal details of each delectable milestone in the conquest of a willing victim who had voluntarily succumbed to the advances of an older more mature man. The inexorability of the seduction was predetermined, eventually climaxing in the delicious deflowering of your ripe young body, the fresh body of a standard six high school girl barely past the age of twelve years.

11

Passage from Raizel's letter to Quinn: Protégée, yes I was seen as his protégée. At first this was flattering. But then I thought No! I don't want to be anyone's protégée. I want to be me. I want to be authentically me. I want to be an innovator. I wanted to do something new. I wanted to be open to the world. I wanted to be open to all possibilities. The block of marble has infinite possibilities including Michelangelo's David. I have to do what I have to do. This is what gives my work its authenticity. The meaning of mastery can only be grasped by doing or practicing a skill and losing oneself by becoming absorbed in what one is doing whether it be drawing, painting, sculpturing or writing.

CHAPTER TWENTY - SHE WROTE

1

Passage from Raizel letter to Quinn: How many kinds of eroticism could possibly exist? Does eroticism exist with respect to the aboriginals who live completely isolated in the Amazon, who spend their entire lives naked? Why do we associated eroticism with nakedness or with the bodily exposure in the form of partial unconcealment, with the revealing of glimpses the secret parts of our anatomy, to be erotic the body must be veiled in mystery, it secrets hidden from view? Does obscenity exist with respect to the aboriginals who spend their entire lives living in a state of nakedness? Nakedness is often seen as a state or a condition or state of affairs involving loss of self-possession or involving dispossession of something connected with the self. Nakedness in our civilization is supposed to be symbolic of dispossession. Stripping is supposed to be an act full of symbolic significance, even likened to a simulacrum of the act of killing. Do the aboriginals who live their entire lives in a state of nakedness experience a loss of self-possession? Of course not. Being naked is humanities default or natural state of existence. I think Georges Bataille has a very old fashioned and quaint view of eroticism. In his book 'Eroticism Death and Sensuality' he appears to have fallen under the spell of the writings of the Marquis de Sade.

2

Raizel wrote me: Is there a metaphysical difference between animals and humans?

3

Raizel wrote me: We are all born naked.

4

Raizel wrote me: Nakedness is equated with savagery.

5

Raizel wrote me: In the practice of looking, what do you see?

6

Raizel wrote me: Does the aboriginal have a complete misunderstanding of his or her own nature? What does it mean to misunderstand one's own nature? Work or labour is also said to be the kind activity which signals the transition from the animal to the human. Also the awareness of death signals the transition from the animal to the human. The capacity to experience shame, in which shame is linked to complex experiences of sexuality, also signals the transition from the animal to the human.

7

Raizel wrote me: How does the erotic come into being, how does it become manifest? Is animal or bird courtship erotic?

8

Raizel wrote me: Eroticism has nothing to do with the facts of sex. It seems to have everything to do with transition from the purely animal to what is the truly human. But the erotic exists by virtue of the reign of sexual impulses and the awakening of desire within the human created universe of prohibition, taboo, transgression, violation and violence. Eroticism represents an invitation to yield to one's erotic impulses. Bataille views eroticism within the unity or embrace of opposites such as birth and death. Bataille quoting the words of de Sade: '...There is nothing that can set bounds to licentiousness. . . The best way of enlarging and multiplying one's desires is to try to limit them...'

9

Raizel wrote me: Animals recognize no taboos. It is said that Western Civilization has transformed the nakedness of the human body into an object of taboo. Transgression of a taboo represents a transcendence of the taboo. What does it mean to transcend something? One of the Ten Commandments states emphatically without conditions or qualifications: 'Thou shalt not kill'. But then God commands the Israelites to kill every man, women and child, sparing no human or beast, which represents a transgression of the commandment which is equivalent to the transgression of a taboo. Does this represent a transcendence of a taboo? We can get a sense of what it means for a transgression of a taboo to be a transcendence of that taboo in terms of the idea of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. The whole transcends the multiplicity of parts where the individual parts are positive instances of aspects of the whole. Transgression in these instances is not necessary a denial of truth but an unveiling of a transcendental truth. This is the foundation of my critique of Bataille and de Sade. In order for the erotic to be truly erotic necessarily involves the unconcealing, the unveiling or the revelation of a transcendental truth. This means, contrary to Bataille and de Sade that the erotic and eroticism finds it meaning, significance and truth in the essential nature of Eros rather than in the embrace or the unity of opposites such as life and death within the realm of impulse, transgression, violation and violence. [Exactly my thoughts, in fact she expressed it better than I could. Patrick]

10

Raizel wrote me: Eroticism comes alive as sacrilege when the transgressive embrace breaks down the barriers separating the sacred from profane.

11

Raizel wrote me: Physical intimacy between two people occurs within the realm of immanence, and the realm of immanence is one of embodied immediacy and embodied sensibility. The experience of shame brings an end to immanence, the experience of shame involved the passage from immanence to transcendence. Apparently the animal's inability to experience shame is what makes it impossible for an animal to escape from the realm of immanence.

12

Raizel wrote me: Reframing of the real meaning of misogyny was made possible by the rehabilitation, regeneration and rejuvenation of de Sade by the avant-garde literati as the unfortunate, maligned and misunderstood victim of the forces of repression. Out of the enlightened, tamed, filtered and re-framed recuperated, restoration, reintegrated, re-reading of de Sade's novels a masculinized theology of the body in the bedroom was invented especially by those who had earlier in life entered monastic orders for a period before later becoming interested in exploring the boundaries of eroticism. In an imitative parodical echoing of de Sade, the sexual act, envisaged as an asymmetrical binary act between an active violator and a passive victim, necessarily becomes a violation and transgression of the other's self-possession, and thus the real 'nature' of sexual intercourse between male and female would necessarily always be inherently and essentially a violent act, a transgression which violates the integrity of the victim. Can there be a 'correct' reading of de Sade? Answer: No! The work and imagination of de Sade is completely devoid of the erotic and eroticism, and with no redeeming literary value. [Masculinized theology of the body in the bedroom: I would venture to say that a theology of body begins with the obvious premise that a person cannot exist without a body. The theology of the body begins with the Word becoming flesh or in other words with the incarnation. What does a masculinized theology of the body signify? It could be equated with absence of the genuine eroticism or the absence of the erotic or Eros. Read Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus. Patrick]

13

Raizel wrote me: The so-called avant-garde construction of the masculinized sexuality in terms of the 'Sadeian body' cannot get beyond sexual fantasies based on the excesses of sodomy.

14

Raizel wrote me: The last six months in 1973 changed my life forever. I want you to know that. It may sound like an exaggeration but it is not, it is the truth. Movies, and more movies, and books, lots of books, your books, and the all books you bought for me, and reading and more reading, and talking and more talking about books and movies and all the movie theatres we visited. The Victory Theatre in Louis Botha Avenue. The 7 Arts in Grant Avenue, Norwood. The Piccadilly in Yeoville. Yes we saw a lot of movies. Federico Fellini, released his masterpiece 8 ½. Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Ennio Morricone's musical theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Sergeo Leone's epic spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood. Yeah, remember Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry and also in Sudden Impact Coffee – 'make my day'. And all the time, there was this air of mystery about you. You seemed to be rolling in cash, paying for everything. This was part of the mystery. Except for the Hi Fi sound system, piles of LPs and books on the floor, your flat, 4th floor Paris Court in Juta Street, Braamfontein, across the road from Linger Longer, your existence was Spartan, minimalist in the extreme, a bed, a desk, two chairs, a kettle, a toaster, a fridge and a sparse collection of crockery and cutlery. The fridge always empty, except for a box of Pronutro the cupboard was bare. Sunday mornings, breakfast at the Zoological Gardens or a Wimpy breakfast in Hillbrow or breakfast at the Café Florian. After movies we always ended up in Hillbrow, up looking for parking in Pretoria or Kotze Street, going round the block several times. Exclusive Books had just opened up in Hillbrow. It became one of our favourite haunts. There was also Estoril Books. And I remember the Hillbrow Record Centre below the Sea Foods and Steak Restaurant with British Flags prominently displayed. Then there were the other places we frequented, the Café Wien, Mi Vami, Café de Paris, Casablanca Roadhouse. Because I felt that I was in transit, everything else seemed transient including Hillbrow. If I am not mistaken, we both felt that we were in transit, in a state of temporality or impermanence. The continental and cosmopolitan flavour of Hillbrow seemed to be so ephemeral, it was not deeply rooted like in Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, Vienna, Amsterdam, London or even Sidney, and this actually heightened my sense of unreality regarding Hillbrow and South Africa in general.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE - ROOTLESSNESS AS A STATE OF BEING

1

Quinn wrote: In December 1973 suddenly everything was up in the air, but also everything began to fall into place. However the certainties began to create new uncertainties. You had also hide a lot of stuff from me. You never told me that your parents had sold the farm just before the July holiday in Xai Xai and shortly thereafter they had immigrated to Australia with you staying behind in South Africa until the end of the year so that you could finish your Matric. And at the end of the year you too would be leaving South Africa for Australia. And all the time I was blissfully unaware of this. You had kept me in the dark. The fact that your parents were no longer in the country was the real reason why you never went home on weekends. On the pretext of spending weekends with family friends you spent your weekends with me in my flat in Braamfontein without the school or your parents knowing anything about your actual whereabouts on weekends. In a way you had been cut loose. You were no longer accountable to anyone. Then out of the blue you finally informed me that you would be departing for Australia via a connecting flight from Durban to Cape Town on the 31st of December 1973. Anyway as it transpired when your Matric exams were over, your parents with grave reservations eventually relented, agreeing that you could spend December with me at their holiday flat in Trafalgar on the Kwazulu-Natal south coast which they had decided not sell. You were fully aware of my situation and my plans. I could not escape military conscription. I had received my call-up papers. My two year military conscription would be commencing on the 3rd of January 1974. I accepted the reasons why you felt it necessary to keep me in the dark. You could sense that the prospect of the army call-up was weighing heavily on me. You felt that knowledge of your immigration to Australia would have added to the pall of gloom hanging over my life. It was natural that we did not want to let go of each other. We agreed that we could not envisage a future without being together. Our plan was that we would remain in touch and in two years' time I would do my PhD in physics in Australia at the same university where you would be studying. I even agreed that I would immigrant to Australia. You were planning to do a degree in fine arts. Make-belief seemed to be what life was all about. I hung onto the hope that in two years' time we would be together once more. We spent three wonderful weeks together before the agonizing reality of our situation finally came to pass. And so on Old Year's Eve at the airport we clung desperately to each other, not wanting to let go.

2

That night I travelled back to Johannesburg. I felt anger, hopelessness and despair over my situation. The emotional pain of separation from Raizel was unbearable. Here I was racing back to Johannesburg to avoid missing my military call-up. On the road that night the stark realization dawned on me: I had no control of over my life. I felt completely powerless. I felt a dark ominous threat hanging over my life. I had already experienced what kind of monster the SADF was. I was not only experiencing an ominous threat, a loss of control and utter powerlessness, I was also experiencing a sense of abandonment and isolation, a sense of the world being absurd and malevolent at the same time, and also a sense of the world being coldly indifferent to the plight and suffering of individuals. Various kinds of states of affairs contribute to the experience of alienation as an all pervasive reality. Loss of control is a primary cause of alienation. An absence of rational reasons for why things happened to be ordered in the way are in the world adds to the experience of alienation. Order is not always good for its own sake. Experiences of alienation arise from the absence of rational and moral reasons for the existence of life-determining states of affairs which result in a loss of control, powerlessness, loss of autonomy, abandonment, isolation, atomization, and breakdown in human solidarity, and the unbearable loneliness when your lover leaves you. This is what 1968 and 1969 was all about, and now in 1974 it is all being replayed once more. How far away was 1968 from the birth of 1974? On New Year's Day Patrick arrived with all his stuff at my flat. He would be staying in my flat for the duration of my military call-up.

3

Raizel wrote me: What I like a lot about you was that you are not anxious to please, but at the same time you are careful not to hurt. You listen attentively to anything I have to say and you give off this aura of empathy, your replies are always carefully measured but insightful, like a chess player, anticipating accurately where the conversation was going, what was the point of it all, what were the pitfalls, and how the matter at hand could it be rationally resolved. You seemed to live and breathe rationality. For you it seemed that the whole of existence was an equation that needed to be solved or a mystery to be unravelled.

4

Raizel wrote me: Writing and reading shmutz come easy to me. My teacher's alibi was that we both belonged to a people who by nature were obsessed with sex. Dolores Haze was not technically speaking a virgin. While I was still a virgin, I was technically speaking not innocent even though I lacked foresight, in fact I was extremely short sighted with regard to being totally oblivious to the consequences of my willingness to transgress boundaries. Mr Brozin was a handsome and charismatic man who may or may not have had a weakness for young girls and I gave him the impression that I was easy prey. Mr Brozin did talk like a book but not in the sense of Mr Humbert and I was not his Lolita. I was interested in what Mr Brozin had to say. I was flattered that he did not talk down to me, but treated me as being an intellectual equal. I wanted to impress him, and trying to impress I outgrew him, and he gradually began to diminish in my estimation.

5

Raizel wrote: Bohemianism. Rootlessness is the word that comes to mind. The settler cast adrift at the fringes of a once great imperial empire, cut off from the mother country, and all ancestral connections, in search of an authentic identity the settler endlessly engages in the project of inventing a national identity. What does it mean to be Australian? How does one become an Australian? I was a South African whatever that meant? I am taking Australian literature as one of my courses. I am taking film as well. I am fascinated with narratology.

6

Raizel wrote: Until emigrating to Australia and before establishing a new life in the city of Sydney I had never before quite lived within the city. In South Africa I lived between two kinds of spaces or places, the rural and the leafy suburbs of Johannesburg, but never actually in the city.

7

Raizel wrote: Having no past or ancestral or historical connections with this remote southern island with its great land mass called Australia, I am rootless. Living unrooted in Sydney I feel like an alien mind existing in a state of disconnection from the consciousness of the Australian minds which inhabit the streets, pubs, café, offices, parks, buildings, subways, trains, buses, cars and the outer perimeters of suburbia. I don't think Australian thoughts, I don't see the world or reality with Australians eyes. Whenever I speak and whatever I say something, I become the embodiment of a foreigner, an alien, a wanderer, a stranger, homeless in a metaphysical sense. When I speak people ask where I come from. They don't recognize my accent. They cannot place me in any country. When I answer that I come from South Africa, they are surprised. In reality I supposedly belong to an ancient people, but I have become estranged from that fact. It is not something which burns like a jewel of significance in my heart. It is merely a technicality of ancestry. Where am I really from? I am from the Global South, I live under the same familiar starlit night skies of my childhood. I have a memory of a past rooted in the Global South which I have shared with many different kinds of people, Afrikaners, Africans, Indians, Coloureds, English speaking white South Africans, which include Greeks, Italians, Portuguese and Jews. I have never perceived myself as being European. I am definitely not Anglo-Saxon even though English is my language. Now I am only too aware that for me Sydney has now become the centre of my universe, the meeting point of heaven, earth and hell. Yet in spite of being the centre of my universe Sydney is too youthful to be the archetypical embodiment of an ancient city. It does not have the status of the eternal city which we experience when in Jerusalem, Rome, Madrid, Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam or London. Like Johannesburg or Springs or Germiston, Sydney has no founding cosmogony, no ancient mythologies of origination. Ancient cities were founded by criminals and murders, they were founded on sibling rivalry and fratricide or parricide. After murdering Abel the fratricidal Cain founded the first city, Rome was founded on fratricide, Romulus who murdered his brother Remus founded Rome, and Athens was founded on parricide, Theseus the founder of Athens causes his father's death by forgetting to change the sails after killing the Minotaur.

8

Raizel wrote: As a kid I got hooked on a crime comic series set in the great outback of the Northern Territories of Australia. The gist of the plot revolved around the complexities of the technical machinations involved in the hijacking of those gigantic cattle transport trucks which traversed the length and breadth of the vast Australian cattle ranching territories by a criminal gang of cattle rustlers. It was published in the Farmer's Weekly. I literally grew up browsing through the magazine, reading not only the comic strips but also the messages posted in the Farmer's Weekly's Hitching Post. Our maize, vegetable and dairy farm in Delmas was also once featured in the Farmer's and in that same article my dad hinted obliquely about the attractiveness of farming prospects in Australia. I was listening in when he told the journalist that the agriculture sector in South Africa faced a bleak future because of the political situation in the country. It was Herman Melville in his book Moby-Dick who said that it was the whale-ship who was the true mother of what became Australia, that great America on the other side of the sphere. Well Australia could become the America of the Global South.

9

Raizel wrote me: I have always felt rootless. This is compounded by my having no desire to make aliyah. What will I be returning to? To myself, to who I am, to who I want to be, to my roots? No! I don't feel bound to anything, not even my roots. My roots have died. Australia can become the 'New America', I feel it in my bones. Intellectually Australia punches above its weight.

10

Raizel wrote me. I have discovered that I do not possess what can be defined as a social-cultural identity. This has amplified my current sense of disconnection and disassociation. Feeling like this is not really new to me. It has been my chronic condition. I recognize the familiar invisible symptoms which marked my whole life making me feel like a stranger, a foreigner. I am feeling like a stranger now more than ever before. I experience this overpowering sense of being a living, thinking, conscious, flesh and blood walking anomaly, lost in the midst of a crowded oppressive and stifling normality. I have never shared in any kind of collective consciousness. So from this perspective I don't know what it must be like to be or feel normal? I know that I am far from being normal especially when I look around me at the passing parade of normality. I don't have any traditional values to fall back on. My values are internally rooted. I listen to the voice of my conscience. I experience feelings of empathy when I see suffering in others, I am able to respond positively when such feelings well up within me. I have an intuition of what is right and wrong, I don't need to be told how I should live my life.

11

Raizel wrote me. The die is cast. Becoming Australian will be my fate. For me what does it mean? I don't really know. To experience what it really means to be Australian I suppose you have be born in Australia, which would make you a 'native' Australian as opposed to an indigenous or Aboriginal Australian. As an immigrant I am in the process of becoming a 'naturalized' Australian. Mentally and emotionally I am also going through the process of self-identifying as an Australian. When I look in the mirror a little voice in my mind tells me: 'You are an Australian, this is your country now. This country has adopted you'. Objectively, legally, mentally, I will be an Australian citizen, but I will be a different kind of Australian, different from the popular constructed images of the native Australian, an image projected by typical Australian narratives, an image composed of various psychological, social and cultural stereotypical elements. It is impossible for me to become psycho-socio-culturally assimilated or to metamorphose into the kind of white Australian whose ancestors are traceable to those Irish and British settlers who settled in Australia in the early nineteen or early twentieth century. I can intellectually appropriate and process and work with all the caricatures portrayed by Australian popular culture such as: mateship, egalitarianism, the infinite outback, the bush, the station, stockmen, cattle and sheep drovers, sheep shearers, the digger, heroic elements of the larrikin, brawling, drinking, irreverence, misogynistic attitudes, strongly secular, not caring much for religion, loyalty, trade unionism, resilience, womanizing, fighting, fair go, outback myths, bushrangers, the anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment attitudes, Ned Kelly as hero, the bogan, the unpretentious bloke, taking a blow on the chain, rolling with the punches, carelessness, a 'such is life' attitude, stoicism, the word Straya for Australia, male-driven stupidity or larrikinism, profanity, binge-drinking culture, the empty landscape, the frontier and so on. Of course the construction of Australian masculinity in literature and film have been based on a montage of these elements set against an allegorical landscape. This trope was paradigmatically exemplified in the movie 'Wake in Fright' which we studied in film and drama. I have become interested in how the aestheticization of landscape can work as an allegory of being Australian from a literary and cinematic perspective. From an artistic or narrative perspective the landscape functions more than a mere backdrop, it can and should have a dramatic-artistic function. Landscape as allegory can mirror the landscape of the mind, the invisible interior topology or the physiognomy of the psyche and emotions and feelings, presenting to the reader or viewer the dramatic or artistic superpositioning of landscape and 'being there' in a literary or cinematic narrative, where being there is always being in a world. The seed regarding the aesthetic significance of landscape was originally planted in my mind when we saw 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'. I have also recently seen 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' and here too is a cinematic example where we cannot ignore the element of landscape as allegory, as an allegory of something, as something which is susceptible to allegorical decoding. What is the real purpose of allegory? This is what I learnt in lectures: In Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' for example, we see that allegory brings into dramatic play the conflation or superimposition or merging of two or more sets of information, narratives, texts, ideas, metaphors, myths or concepts. Humans become transformed into animals, stones, trees, swamps or marshes or landscapes. A good example of allegorical superposition in mythology, is the myth of Syrinx, who was a Naiad-nymph living in the river Ladon in Arkadia (southern Greece). She was also a follower of Artemis (patron and protector of young girls). Syrinx was also renowned for her chastity, she resists and escapes the advances of the lustful god called Pan by hiding amongst the reeds. And on receiving assistance from other nymphs she herself becomes transformed into reeds (Syrinx – Latin word derived from the Greek word 'surinx' for reeds or pipes), reeds which are hollow, the kind of reeds usually found lining streams, ponds or marshes, the kind of reeds which make haunting sounds when wind blows through them. Upon realizing that Syrinx has been transformed into reeds, Pan cuts the reeds, joining several reed together he invents the first pan-pipes, a musical instrument, fashioned from hollow reeds, thereby making it possible for Syrinx to be with him forever. Within another context, the playing of wind musical instrument such as pipes or flutes have been associated with parties, ecstasy, carousing, revelry, unruliness and sensuality, which is the reason for Plato's banning of poets and poetry together with pipe or flute playing from the Republic. The reasons for banning of flute playing slave girls from the drinking party in Plato's Symposium in which speeches in praise of Eros were being made is obvious, flute playing slave girls may perform fellatio on the all-male guests participating in the Symposium on Eros. At the end of the speeches in praise of Eros, much later that evening a drunken Alcibiades in the company of flute playing slave girls gate-crashes the Symposium. All hell breaks loose and the drinking party finally takes off. In Hieronymus Bosch's paintings and especially in his triptych 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', the landscapes which he has fashioned with all their elements can be viewed as arenas or stages or even theatres in which the moral drama of human life in all of its erotic fecundity are depicted or played out in visual scenes which embody allegorical superimpositions of myths, legends, metaphors and narratives.

12

Reading through Quinn's original autobiographical manuscript and correspondence I cannot help revisiting and reviewing the stages of my own life. I am able to reconstruct the branching pattern of all the forks. I can even imagine all the alternative lives I could have lived. I could have become an architect instead of a Jesuit priest. Of course each fork represents a decision, a staging post, even another chance, or a lucky break. And with each fork an occasion for regret also arises as a possibility. We all have our own fair share of regrets. They are all of our own making. As I have already noted, we become our choices, we are to some existent our own creations. We live our own scripts. Of course there are the forces of circumstances which are not all of our own making or choice. From a Heideggerian perspective we always find ourselves already in a world, we are thrown into a world. There are always the determinative elements of 'thrownness' which shapes our lives, but which also presents us with possibilities, and possible outcomes. But having said that, we do live within the realm of possibility in spite of everything. However we never seem to reach or realized our full potential for some other reason or contingency. Then again trying to realize our full potential would be like trying to close the gap between the finite and the infinite. It is physically and metaphysically impossible to close the gap between the finite and the infinite. From a Hegelian perspective the attainment or realization of full self-consciousness converges with the realization of our full potential. Realization of full self-consciousness and full potential is impossible without the realization of full autonomy and freedom. Again from a Hegelian perspective all these 'realizations', such as full self-consciousness, full potential, full autonomy and genuine freedom all ultimately depend on closing the gap between subject and object, in other words, closing the split or binary or dualism or dichotomy between the subject of knowledge (the knower) from the object of knowledge (the known). When all these gaps have been closed and full realization has been attained, only then will we have become the man without any needs or the rather the materialization of the man without any needs. To be fulfilled and in want of nothing, is also to be a man without any needs. If I had to rationalize why I joined the brotherhood and took up the vocation of living the life of a Jesuit it was precisely to become a man without any needs. And to be a man without any needs means that one has attained a transcendence. To be fulfilled in life is to attain a kind of transcendence, to be without need or fear or want or desire is to experience a kind of transcendence, maybe akin to a state of Nirvana.

13

To quote Rimbaud, 'Je est un Autre'. Loosely translated 'I am (is) somebody else' or 'I am (is) another'. What does this actually mean? It means something which we are all very familiar with. From time to time we all engage in acts of searching introspection where we put ourselves under the spot light, we transform ourselves into an object of self-interrogation, self-criticism, self-reflection, self-analysis or self-evaluation, we see or perceive ourselves in another light, in a process of self-objectification, and by objectifying the self, we experience our own selfhood as something separated or alienated from our familiar self-preconception, under this state of introspective subjectivity, the self is experienced as if it belongs to another person, we experience ourselves in a state of self-estrangement, we become aware of our own unfamiliar 'otherness'. It is then that we realize that we could have been something else, and the person or subject who we have actually become seems to be a purely contingent outcome. For me this has always being a theological problem. Now in my old age I see it more clearly as an interesting metaphysical problem, the metaphysics of contingency. Talking about the metaphysics of contingency, let me say something: Before my ordination ceremony into priesthood I stood before a mirror in the vestry, I stared in a detached, disinterested manner at my reflection, even though I recognized the reflected image, I asked myself, 'is this me'. At that moment I felt like someone else, an imposter. 'Someone who had been a dirty minded homosexual teenager entertaining filthy obsessive fantasies of Quinn, someone whose love for Quinn had never abated, now also someone who was about to take up Holy Orders, so who indeed was I?' In my old age I still love Quinn. I have learnt one thing in life and that being loved by someone is erotically preferable to sex, and the lifelong friendship I have enjoyed with Quinn has been one akin to mutual love. Reciprocity in love is the real goal of erotic desire, not sex, we want to be loved as much as we love in turn. Aristotle denies that sex has any erotic purpose. The physical act of sex in itself is incapable of fulfilling passionate erotic desire. I have been able to embrace my celibacy without ceasing to be an erotic being. I have been faithful to my vocation as a priest, even while feeling that I am someone else, a person in love. And as the author, redactor, compiler and editor of this novel I do indeed feel 'Je est un Autre'. Going back, after this detour into love, eros and sex, to the original question, the question which seeks a resolution for the metaphysics of contingency. As a problem it is unresolvable, which means I cannot see how my existence should be necessary rather than contingent. Which means I cannot see from a rational perspective, how my actual life could have being prearranged or predestined, nor can I fathom what purpose that would have served with respect to the order of things or the governing of the Universe. The possibility always existed that I may have become someone else. Indeed I would have become someone else if I had not met Quinn. The same goes for Quinn, his life would have turned out differently if he had not met Gabriella, Raizel or me. If none of us met, our lives would have turned out differently, that I am certain of, and each of us would have become someone else.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO - FLASHBACKS AND REFLECTIONS

1

It was early December 1963, the day after the schools closed for the Christmas holidays. I had been invited to go on holiday to Cape Town with the Magees. As a 13 year old boy I could not count on one hand the number of times I had been on holiday. I remember the magic and wonder of that holiday, even the two day 1440 km journey through changing landscapes filled me with a sense of awe. I have subsequently over the years made the journey by road to Cape Town a number of times. Since that very first road trip to Cape Town the landscapes such as the Free State's grasslands and the arid Karoo scrublands viewed through the window of a moving car have become imprinted on my mind, pregnant with significance and meaning. Depending on your frame of reference the apparent featureless emptiness of the Free State and the arid desolateness of the Karoo landscape can be deceptive and illusionary. On that journey with the Quinn's family Joe Magee suddenly stopped the car in the middle of nowhere on a road that cut a straight line through the monotony of the Free State plains. Without saying anything he got out the car, he walked to the farm fence, he climbed through the barbwire fence. Vanessa stayed in the car with Elizabeth. We followed him, Quinn, Catherine, Mary and me. He walked into the grassland like someone on a mission and we trotted after him. Mary called out: 'Where are we going daddy?' We walked quite a distance before he stopped. The car was faraway. He pointed to something in the grass. It was a huge leopard tortoise. He began to scan the ground, he bend down, walking slowly, he eyes focused on the ground, looking here and looking there. Our eyes were now also fixed on ground, we were straining our eyes trying to see what he was seeing. 'What do you see?' He finally asked. Catherine said: 'I see nothing.' He said: 'Look carefully and tell me what you see'. After a while he began to point out stuff. Dry droppings of hares, fresh bright black spherical droppings of a grey duiker, imprints of duiker spoor, a porcupine quill, a guinea fowl feather, a grey termite mound, a stripped caterpillar on a stalk of grass, a buzzing bee, a wasp, ants crawling on the ground, a black beetle. 'How many kinds of grasses and flowers can you see?' He began to point to splashes of colour. Before our very eyes the Highveld became magically transformed into a colourful patchwork of white, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue and purple-blue flowers. He said that when he was studying at Wits he had a girlfriend who was studying botany. He went on plant collecting trips with her. 'The grasslands of the Highveld plains have a rich diversity of flowering perennials which formed an integral part of the grassy floral community', he said in matter of fact tone of voice. 'The veld is pulsating with life.' He said looking at us. Catherine and Mary listened with perplexed frowns on their faces. 'Long ago massive herds of antelope migrated across these plains followed by lions and hyenas.' He mused reflectively. 'And now all the buck, lions and hyenas are gone,' Catherine said to no anyone in particular. 'Why are there no trees?' he asked. 'Fire, grazing and insufficient rain,' he answered.

After Bloemfontein, the landscape became more and more arid, the Highveld grasslands and maize fields began to fade away rapidly behind us. Gradually the vegetation began to change into dry Karoo scrubland. In the distance flat top koppies began to appear. Diamond mesh jackal proof fencing also began appear on both sides of the road. We began to notice flocks of sheep, the odd ostrich and herds of springbok. Ahead of us under the scorching skies the horizon began to shimmer creating the illusion of a large lake in the distance. In what seemed to be the middle of Karoo Joe Magee stopped the car suddenly, parking the car somewhat off the edge of the tar road. And once more we all climbed out. Beneath azure blue skies the intense solitude of the vast semi-desert Karoo landscape lay languidly before us. Joe Magee climbed over the diamond mesh fence and as he strode away purposefully we too quickly climbed over the fence and ran after him. Eventually he stopped and we waited for him to give us a lecture on what we were supposed to see.

'We are now standing in a massive graveyard. We are also standing in what used to be a large hollow or depression or basin which became filled up with water from the rivers flowing down from the surrounding mountains resulting in the formation of a huge inland sea. The rivers also carried lots of sand and slit produced by the erosion and weathering of the mountains. The rivers flowing into the sea also formed swampy deltas because of the load of silt, clay and sand that were they carrying. The sand, clay and slit also sank to the bottom of the sea slowing filling the basin bit by bit over a very long period of time with sediment and while this was going on, prehistoric animals died in the silty bog of the swampy deltas, they died on the shores of the sea or in the sea or were washed into the sea by floods. Their bodies became buried or entombed in the delta sediments or in sediment at the bottom of the sea.'

'How long ago did all this happen?' Quinn asked.

'It happened during period spanning from 265 to 200 million years ago, a period overlapping with Permian and the Triassic. During that time the dinosaurs, reptiles and mammals came into existence. Prehistorical animals which became entombed in the sediments became preserved as fossils. One of the famous fossils discovered in the Karoo was a mammal-like reptile called a therapsid,' Joe Magee explained.

'What happened to the sea?' Catherine asked.

'In those days there was only one supercontinent which eventually split up into pieces with different pieces drifting off forming the continents which we now have such as Africa, South and North America, Europe and Asia, Australia and Antarctica. Africa drifted northwards, temperatures rose, climate changed, less rain fell, rivers dried up, the sea silted up and eventually all the water evaporated leaving behind this arid semi-desert in which we are now standing,' Joe Magee answered.

'So all that is left of the sea is now this graveyard in which we are standing?' Mary asked.

'Where are all the fossils?' Catherine asked.

'I can't see any fossils,' Mary exclaimed.

Joe Magee laughed. His face was a picture of pure bliss. I can't recall ever seeing him as happy as in those moments during which we all shared a familial intimacy which had become rare in the Magee home. The entire holiday was filled with moments like this, moments which Joe Magee created, especially when he opened our eyes making an invisible world magically visible. Catherine who developed a crush for me confided proudly to me that her father Joe Magee could see things which no one else could see, he could even see into the future. You could not help admiring the charismatic Joe Magee, character larger than life.

2

Thinking back after all these years about our impromptu walk into the grasslands, I felt prompted to do some research on grasslands. I discovered that grasslands cover approximately 28% of the surface area of South Africa. The South African Highveld, the Russian steppes, the Argentinian pampas and American prairies collectively represent regions where the vegetation is dominated by grasses. These regions tend to be vast, open, flat, featureless, generally treeless, temperate and seasonal, with low rainfall, hot summers and cold winters. A solitary individual mounted on a horse surveying the oceanic infinity of the grassland plains represents a timeless iconic image of man and nature. The rider could be a cowboy or Tatar or a Don Cossack or even a Mongol. Large rivers often meander through these grassy plains. Large rivers such as the Don or the Orange River or the Vaal River meander silently across the grassy plain. Topological features like mountainous escapements cause precipitation, the falling rain collects as runoff into catchments areas, from the catchments the runoff feeds into smaller streams which flowing into shallow depressions within the landscape, create wetlands, marshes and swamps from which the decanting streams coalesce into rivers which feed into larger rivers. The moods of marshes, rivers and grassland fluctuate with the seasons. In Mikhail Sholokhov's 'And Quiet Flows the Don', the Don, a great river, works artistically as an allegory by communicating multiple symbolic motifs of Cossack existence on the wide plains. And in South Africa the lyrics of Phamba Madiba (Big River) by Philip Tabane of Malombo also captures political resistance and struggle through the vehicle of allegorical motifs and imagery of the great river, 'Ke phampa madiba, ke noka ye kgolo' (I'm full of depth, I'm a big river), the great river meandering and weaving slowly like a giant green snake, but when in flood it moves with great force and velocity through the same plains, now swollen, now unstoppable, bursting its banks, sweeping everything away in its path as in advances.

3

Raizel wrote: In 1983 you sent me a package of LPs, South African produced music: Ramsay Mackay's 'Suburbs of Ur', Paul Clingman's 'Father to the Child' and Johnny Clegg's 'Juluka'. Yes I remember Dingaan's Day.

4

The tragic murder of Quinn's mother did change Quinn. In retrospect it was clear that he was suffering from what eventually became known as post-traumatic stress syndrome. After the murder and the trail of his father he became quiet and withdrawn. All the symptoms of depression were evident. As an escape or so it seemed, he immersed himself in the study of mathematics, working through a number of second hand text books which he had obtained from various sources, linear algebra, advanced calculus and so on and so forth. In those days there was no such thing as bereavement or trauma counselling. It was expected that after a period of grief and mourning one just had get on with one's life. It was expected of you to dust yourself off, pick yourself up and get on and go forward. You were expected to be emotionally or psychologically strong. Life happens. Everyone must shoulder their own burdens and solve their own problems. We all have our troubles. That is life. That is the way things are. We are not perfect and nor is the world perfect. But you could not make that an excuse for any shortcomings. The world was not perfect, this we know. Evil existed, it was evident everywhere. Bad things happen to good people, no one will disagree with the reality of this inexorable eventuality which we all have face at one time or another. The lack of perfection was viewed as a very weak alibi for failure or wrong doing. Yes we lived in a fallen world. But as I said this could not be used as an alibi or an excuse for any kind of wrong doing or for the commission of sins or for deeds of omission which was also an act which was viewed as sinful. In spite of all the sinfulness that abounded in the real world, you still had to get on with your life as best as you could and strive to do what was good and best at all times, and never stop from working at being a good example to others, this was expected of you. You shouldn't make yourself a burden for others. The existence of depression or anxiety or psychological problems was not taken seriously in our community. Pull yourself together was the constant refrain. This was the culture of our upbringing, you were expected to be tough and impervious to the pain of setbacks and hardships of any kind. Ride the punches. Get up onto your feet, stand up like a man! Be reliable, dependable, normal and well-adjusted. This was your responsibility. As I have said because of the murder and the fact that he was the key witness in his father's murder trail the South African Defence Force condoned the postponement of his military service on compassionate grounds that year. The violent and brutal encounters he had with his father especially while he was a teenager did have negative effect on Quinn. Because of our close friendship I could see that he was in pain. He was a deeply troubled person who managed to hide the wounds and the hurt. And of course he felt deep shame, which he also tried to hide. What else can I say about Quinn? Following his father's funeral without him having any kind of counselling we left for Europe, and we inadvertently participated in the May 1968 Paris student uprising, which in retrospect was a very positive experience for Quinn, it allowed him let get rid of a lot of anger, and in a sense it was cathartic as well, especially the violent rebellion against authority, which for both of us was a life changing experience. After Paris 1968 we saw the world differently, we both no longer had any illusions.

5

Raizel wrote: More than anything else I was struck by the almost omnipresence of Aboriginal art in the Australian public space. Its presence was paradoxical, the Aboriginal was visible, but the Aborigine was also invisible, there was this peculiar disjunction of presence and absence, which had been maintained for centuries, engineered by the long exclusion (segregation or apartheid) of Aborigines from the hermetically sealed spaces occupied by Australian white life. To all intents and purpose the Aborigines did not exist as neighbours or citizens or nationals in an overwhelming white Australia. Black people (Aboriginals) are practically unseen on the streets of the City of Sydney or in the surrounding white suburbs, quite different from South Africa, where the presence of Africans are ubiquitous in every dimension and facet of South African life, albeit within the complex confines of the visible and invisible walls of segregation which structured the partitioning of South African white-black psychological, cultural, social, economic and political life. I have not really been taken in by either the familiarity or strangeness of white Australian life relative to white South African life. They are essentially the two sides of the same coin. Indigenous Australian art and Aboriginal life has ignited my curiosity. My obsession with the Aborigines has not ceased to grow. What was concealed within the aestheticization or artification of Aboriginal art on display in Galleries or on sale as mass produced commodities has also intrigued me. Also accompanying the commercial spin-off of the artification of the indigenous and the Aboriginal especially in tourist souvenir shops has been the creation of a recognizable Australian iconography. What is also evident has been the steady emergence and growth of what I can only call the Australian Indigenous Arts Industry centred on Aboriginal communities and cooperatives more or less run by Aboriginals, but mostly under the leadership or directorship or management of a white or whites. As an artist I have linked up with one such a cooperative, which is basically an Aboriginal commune of artists. I am the only white member of the commune. You may now view me as an authentic Australian artist by the indigenous nature of my work. I am collaborating with an Aboriginal guy going by the name of Scotty Guiemagerra he comes from a place called Beverly Springs Station in Western Australia.

6

What is meant 'The Dreaming'? The ideas associated with the 'The Dreaming' deal with primordial events, foundation events or cosmogenic events, events which originally took place during a primordial period called the 'Dreamtime'. During the Dreamtime the Rainbow Serpent slept beneath the ground and the earth was bare, flat and empty of all topological or landscape features. Aboriginal rock paintings of the Rainbow Serpent are all pervasive, scattered throughout Australia. It is the unifying symbol of the Aboriginal people. Hundreds of Rainbow Serpent rock paintings have been discovered, analysed and recorded. It has been thought that they first began to appear 6000 years ago shortly after the last ice age. But there is evidence that the Rainbow Serpent rock paintings could have appeared even earlier than that. Anyway I have become fascinated by the Rainbow Serpent rock paintings.

7

As you now know, in 1974 I was staying in Quinn's Paris Court flat in Juta Street, I was doing my MA, and I had the use of his car. If I got a late night call it was usually Quinn phoning from a call box at the Officers Artillery School in Potchefstroom. He had worked out an arrangement which allowed him to leave the camp on official grounds on certain nights of the week and also on Saturday nights. The arrangement involved the issuing of a special sporting pass so that he could use the Potchefstroom Amateur Boxing Club training facilities. Of course this also meant that he had to box in tournaments as a member of the Defence Force. After his third week in basic training I began to drive through to Potchefstroom every Saturday night to visit him. I would meet him at the visitor's parking area near what seemed to be some kind of reception facility within the camp. At the gate I would tell the guard that I have come to fetch candidate officer Magee. Candidate officer Magee would be waiting in the parking lot dressed in a black tracksuit with Brakpan Amateur Boxing Club emblazoned on the back of the tracksuit top. We would spend Saturday nights at the local Potchefstroom drive-in. As McFate would have it on our very first drive-in excursion the movie happen to be 'a.k.a. Cassius Clay'. On the way to the drive-in he was preoccupied and seemed to be depressed. As you know, I had not met Raizel, but I had learnt about his relationship with Raizel. I guessed that Raizel was the reason for his moods. 'I suppose you missing Raizel?' I asked. 'Terribly,' he answered without elaborating. I could actually feel his emotional pain and longing, I too became depressed. As I drove Quinn's VW Beetle the tears began brimming up in my eyes, blurring my vision, I took my glasses off and wiped away the tears with the back of my hand. 'The sweat in my eyes is making my eyes watery,' I mumbled, feeling all choked up and a bit embarrassed. 'You must wash you face when we get to the drive-in,' he said, having no idea of how emotional I had become. We did not speak much after that. However, he found the movie riveting. We watched the second show as well. It was Peter Sellers in 'The Party'. He had seen it before with Raizel. I had also seen it before. His spirits lifted.

8

Both of us were fans of Peter Sellers. Fast forward to 1979. We saw the movie 'Being There', based on the novel by Jerszy Kosinski. Richard Strauss' composition 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' originally used in the opening sound track of Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey, was also used as the musical accompaniment for the scene where Peter Sellers acting in the role of Chance the gardener (a.k.a Chauncey Gardiner) wearing a black coat and a grey hat, carrying his suitcase in one hand and an umbrella in the other hand, finally vacates the home of his deceased employer, crossing the threshold from one world into another unfamiliar world, the scene enthralled me. Quinn and I had also crossed our own thresholds into the world of accountability, responsibility and duty. Quinn has been awarded his PhD in theoretical physics and had been appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Physics at the University of the Witwatersrand. I had also a PhD under the belt and I had completed my seminary stint. I was an ordained priest working in the black townships of the East Rand. Ahead of us lay the unknown horizons of possibility. I had to learn isiZulu and Sesotho. We were both pursuing our dreams in our different careers, in different worlds, mine as a priest and his as a physicist.

9

Post-2010 we all suddenly discovered the writing of Slajov Žižek. And all the big questions suddenly became topical again. For example: What is the big ontological question (Slajov Žižek)? What is the big ontological question which man refuses to face? It is simple. Man is an animal! Which means man is an integral part of Nature. Man shares a common ancestor with all animals, man evolved to be what he is. But contra Slajov Žižek the answer to the big ontological question is not necessarily settled by making simple choices between Nature or God or between Idealism or Materialism. It is not simply reducible to a set of binary contrasts. The four words 'He was made Man' does not necessarily entail the destruction of God's transcendence or his vanishing into pure immanence. What does it mean for something to be transcendent? For something to be transcendent also means not being subject to constraints or limitations with respect to something else.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE – REUNION

1

Raizel finally emailed me: '...And then I met you Mr Professor Quinn Magee. You were a strange person indeed! Charming and enchanting, a good looking and intelligent young man cloaked in an air of mystery. I had heard about a certain Joe Magee, a man who once owned one of the biggest dairy farms on the Highveld, who had been hung for the murder of his wife. Apparently he was a very wealthy man, a very shrewd business man, who had possessed the Midas touch, a complete eccentric, a madman, devious and depraved, a womanizer of note. Now I know that he was your father. And that explains everything. I respect your wanting to keep the history of your family under wraps. I also have my own secrets, things which I am reluctant to share with anyone. Well I have lots to share with you. Fortunately some of the incidents I have experienced in my own private life have never made headline news in Australia. I am glad they did not. There are somethings which one does not want to share with the public. I understand that. Now that we have reconnected, I would really like to see you again. If it suits you I can make a stopover for about ten days or so in South Africa. It would be great to spend some time together. There is so much catching up to do. I simply have to see you again!'

2

What were my first impressions of Raizel Kolitz before meeting her in the flesh? Well I also studied the portrait on the cover of Time Magazine. But I did not see what Quinn saw. I saw someone formidable. Imperious was the word which came into my mind. Imperious as in imperial, domineering, assertive, dictatorial, bossy, bullying and so on. When I expressed my views, Quinn burst out laughing. 'No she is the opposite of imperious, she is kind, empathetic, warmed hearted. Strong, yes very strong indeed, but a person with a good heart and a generous nature.'

3

Quinn's email reply to Raizel: I would love to see you again. It suits me perfectly. I have a suggestion – I will be your host, you can stay over at my home.

4

Raizel's email: Perfect! Perfecto! Fabulous! Can't wait to see you again. Very excited! Love. Raizel.

5

In 1974. George McCrae – 'Rock Your Baby' was a hit. For Quinn it resonated with the way he felt during his first year of military training. I don't know why he got so hooked on this particular lyric. Raizel had passed her Matric exams with a string of distinctions and had started her BA at the University of Sidney. I (Patrick) too was reading George Bataille – Eroticism, Death & Sensuality. That was 44 years ago. Now in South Africa 2018 we face looming credit rating downgrades as our country struggles to emerge from years of mismanagement, allegations of corruption and ballooning debt caused by gigantic cost overruns at two large new coal fired electricity generating power plants.

6

How time flies! Forty three years ago the mysterious letter posted from Lisbon arrived. It contained a small scrap of paper torn from a Croxley note book on which was scrawled the following telegraphic message: 'After engaging the MPLA (Movimento Popular de Liberta çã de Angola) and Cuban forces in a series of sporadic artillery duels on the outskirts of Luanda we are now moving southwards away from the Angolan capital in what seems to be a slow and deliberate aggressive retreat, destroying all infrastructure and whatever else happens to lie in our path as we slowly move southwards.' Dated: 27 November 1975. For all these years I kept this brief letter. I later learnt that Quinn had sent similar scraps of paper bearing the same hastily written message to Raizel and Gabriella. On the back of the scraps of note paper he had written our postal addresses. In one of the small deserted towns in Angola he had entered a Cathedral, the only undamaged building, inside a priest was saying Mass for three old black women. After Mass Quinn give the priest the scraps of paper. Artillery duels, artillery duels with the Cubans – this was classic Magee kind of stuff, the duel was a Magee metaphor, a metaphor which captured the essence of existence, of struggle, of gambling high stakes, of life and death struggles. Take me in your arms. Rock me baby. All I want to do is cry. Sweet babe. All I want to is cry. If I could just kiss your sweet lips Quinn.

7

It is November 2018, Quinn informs me: We (Raizel and Quinn) went to see the Mandela statue in Sandton, we also went to the Apartheid Museum at Gold Reef City, and then we had to visit the prison museum in Pretoria where Joe Magee was hanged. In the prison museum on each landing in the death row building there commemorative displays of executed freedom fighters. The displays providing photos and biographical details of each of the four political prisoners who had been executed. On the first landing was MK's Vuyisile Mini who was hanged in 1964; on the second was John Harris of the African Resistance Movement who was hanged on the 1st of April 1965; on the third landing was Zibongile Dodo a member of Poqo who was hanged in 1968; and then on the fourth landing, just before the actual gallows was a display for Solomon Mahlangu who was hung on the 6th of April 1979. Also included in the Mahlangu display, on the penultimate landing, reached by the 52 steps which took the condemned to the threshold of the gallows, was Mahlangu's death ticket which had been filled in by the hangman. For the record the following information regarding Solomon Mahlangu had been jotted down: His neck measured 16" (40.6cm). He was 5'9" (1.75m) tall, weighed 146lbs (66kg). He needed to fall 6'10", so he got a 14ft (4.2m) long rope. We then entered the actual gallows. I stared at the seven pairs of black boot prints which had been painted on the trapdoor. Standing on one of those pairs of boot prints Joe Magee breathed his last breath. Both Raizel and I stood on the trapdoor, on the boot prints where Joe Magee had once stood.

We have also visited the farm where Raizel grew up and also her primary school. Lastly we drove down the two track road through the veld to the edge of the swamp in which Joe Magee had drowned three police constables the day after he had murdered Vanessa. All of this had happened so long ago. Fittingly while they were parked at the edge of the swamp, Shaggy's 'Angel' started playing on the car radio. Raizel: 'I mean no disrespect, but the music for some unfathomable reason makes me think of Joe Magee'. Imagine that! Connecting Jomogee with Shaggy's 'Angel'. She had projected into the words of the lyric a mental image of the womanizing Joe Magee, someone whom she had never met, but someone she had creatively reimagined. What Raizel did not know was that the model featured in the music video, the woman appearing in the reddish outfits bore a striking resemblance to Gabriella.

7

Quinn: Yebo that certainly looks like Angel in 1967.

8

December 2018, a beautiful summer's day, we are at Starbucks in Rosebank, Raizel, Quinn and I. We listened to her story, to her secret, which no one has ever heard until this day. This was what she shared with us:

I was on sabbatical at the time and we had been criss-crossing all over the Western Desert cultural block in central Australia travelling thousands of kilometres covering a region that spanned 600 000 square kilometres searching for Aboriginal rock paintings in the most remote and desolate of places, and also meeting with various Aboriginal communities, making audio-recording and documentary-filming. At the time I was a lecturer in comparative literature at The University of Sidney, but I also had a professional interest in film-making. At the time I was also working on a book which was eventually published as 'The Dreaming'. Anyway it was a hot November morning when we arrived in Alice Springs. I was travelling with Scotty who had been my research collaborator for nearly ten years. At the time I was about six weeks pregnant with his child. We had already bought groceries and all the stuff we needed. Before leaving Alice Springs we made our last stop at a garage to fill up the Land Rover's tank and all the jerry cans with diesel. We also needed to fill up the plastic drums with water. When I returned from the bathroom to the car Scotty was speaking to three white men who leered lasciviously at me as I climbed back into the passenger seat. As we drove off I asked Scotty: 'What was that all about?' He said they were asking him what he was doing with a white woman.

'Alice Springs?' Quinn asked.

'Yes Alice Springs. Alice Springs is a remote town in the middle of Australia's Northern Territory, halfway between Darwin and Adelaide. It's a popular gateway for exploring the Red Centre, the country's interior desert region,' Raizel answered. She continued with her story:

We headed northwards along the main road to Tanami. Just before Tanami we turned right, taking a turn-off onto a gravel road which headed in a north-westerly direction into the desert. We then took another turn-off onto a narrow two track road that was not on the map and drove in a westerly direction towards some remote place that Scotty knew of. Eventually the track petered out. We decided to park the Land Rover and hike on foot to the site. According to Scotty the site was a dried up shallow valley cutting through rock a formation which over hundreds of millions of years had become completely eroded down. All that was left were these colossal clusters of gigantic weathered granite boulders, piled up, one on top of the other. It was a completely unknown, hidden, remote and seldom visited, secret, exceedingly ancient Aboriginal sacred site, which in all likelihood no white person had ever seen. Scotty speculated that the site had special significance. He reckoned that the site had Aboriginal rock paintings which were possibly older than 30 000 years. The site was a geological anomaly, a geological island of granite boulders in the middle of the desert. It was formed hundreds of millions of years ago from the hardening of magma extrusions beneath the earth's crust. Originally the granite lay buried deep beneath a layer of sandstone. Tectonic forces had lifted the buried granite, fracturing the sandstone crust and pushing the subterranean granite formations through the fractures in the earth's crust to be exposed to millions of years of weathering by sun, rain and wind. From a biogeographic perspective the area was similar to the Great Sandy-Tanami Desert, it was a flat sandy plain broken with scattered rocky sandstone hills. The vegetation consisted of a very sparse cover of spinifex grass and saltbush shrubs, with the occasional lonely acacia tree, the kind of vegetation one would expect for a region with an average annual rainfall of about 400 mm or less. Because of the hot dry climate most of the non-reptilian or warm blooded animals which inhabited the region happened to be nocturnal marsupials like the desert-dwelling Bilbies also called rabbit-bandicoots and the rufous hare-wallaby also called the mala. We had been driving with the aircon on. Outside the temperature had soared to 39oC. When we got out of the Land Rover it was like stepping into furnace. Standing on the roof of the Land Rover Scotty scanned the western horizon with his binoculars. Eventually he located the rocky landmark that he was looking for. I took a compass bearing. We estimated that the site was about 10 kilometres away. There was still a good few hours of daylight left so we decided to hike to the site and return to the Land Rover later that evening. A full moon would be rising shortly after sunset. We did not have to push things, we could get back after nightfall. We had done this countless times. Parking in the middle of nowhere, setting off on hiking expeditions, searching for rock paintings, setting up camp anywhere we happened to be or next to the Land Rover, we had never experienced concerns about our safety or security in the wilderness of the great Australian outback, there was no one else except Scotty and myself in this vast expanse of space in which the horizons of this great desolate landmass seemed to stretch to infinity. The central inner regions of Australia was practically just empty space, dry, dusty, harsh, hot and inhospitable. We packed our hiking backpacks with our stuff which included jerseys, windbreakers, medical box, matches, fire-lighters, cameras, binoculars, compass, snacks, a survival kit and we each carried two litres of water. Just as we were about to set off we noticed the billowing clouds of red dust signalling an approaching vehicle. For the rough terrain it was travelling dangerously fast. As it drew nearer Scotty recognized it as the red twin cab 4x4 Toyota SUV belonging to the three 'blokes' who had engaged him over his relationship with me. They had obviously been trailing us. 'I see serious trouble coming,' Scotty said with a perturbed expression on his face. 'I think for your own safety you better start heading for the site, I will catch up with you.' I was reluctant to leave, but Scotty insisted. 'They will kill me and rape you, and then they will kill you as well.' The words sent a chill down my spine. 'Go, go, go,' he shouted at me. I began walking away, leaving Scotty standing by our Land Rover. The SUV stopped behind the Land Rover, the three men jumped out, they spotted me walking away, one of them began running towards me. 'Ran Raizel ran,' Scotty shouted. Scotty was a strong man, he could take care of himself, and this was what I wanted to believe. Overtaken by panic I began to run like I had never run before, with the backpack and water bottles bouncing and bumping. I was wearing hiking boats, a light T shirt and shorts. Fuelled by a surge of adrenalin I was practically sprinting. The gap between me and my pursuer widened. Eventually after pursuing me for a full ten minutes, he stopped, bent over resting his hands on his knees. I also stopped for a few seconds and then started running again. With his frequent stopping to catch his breath the gap between us continued to widen. I ran on and on, glancing back constantly to see where he was, until I could no longer see him. With him no longer in sight I did not stop, I continued jogging, jogging for almost an hour. Yet even though there was now no sign of him, I did not once slacken my pace, I continued jogging towards the site. I consoled myself with the thought that this was what Scotty wanted, he wanted me to escape, to get away, not to be harmed or murdered. This was what he wanted. It would have been unbearable for him to see me being raped and murdered while he was helpless, unable to do anything, he would have to live with that. I believed and hoped that he too would have escaped harm, and would come looking for me, and find me, at the site. Fortunately and miraculously I was spot on course, emerging from deep time, from the mists of bygone ages, from unimaginable antiquity, out of this vast ocean of featureless sandy scrubby bushy landscape, stood this towering island of colossal granite boulders and exfoliating granite outcrops, a topological anomaly, lost in space and time, shimmering in the blazing brightness against the grey blue skyline like the mirage of a fabulous but forgotten and deserted city, engulfed in the deafening silence of the desert, a silence unbroken by the march of passing eons, yet remaining in splendid but mysterious repose, this vista now looming before me like walled fortress was my welcoming refuge.

9

It was still early afternoon when shining with perspiration, clinging T-shirt drenched with sweat and limbs beginning to feel very wobbly and shaky, I made my way between the huge boulders, and over the weathered granite outcrop and down into the shallow pebble and boulder strewn valley formed originally by some great ancient river, which had long since ceased to exist, formerly fed by the southernmost reaches of prehistoric seasonal monsoons. Physically and emotionally drained by the trauma of the ordeal I sunk into a state of mental numbness as I stumbled down into the pebble bed of this arid valley. I could feel the intense blast of heat radiating from the rocks, evaporating the sweat from my body, leaving my T-shirt all stiff and white, impregnated with a salty tasting residue of dried up perspiration. I realized that my life had been shattered, and I also knew that my life was in great danger, I was trapped in a harsh and unforgiving environment in which I would not be able to survive for more than a few days. As the sun began its descent below the western ridge of the valley, the dark blue shadows of boulders and rocky outcrops crept steadily into the valley. A foreboding gloom filled the valley as orange tinged skies faded in deeper shades of purple. In the east just before the cold silvery glow of the rising moon the evening star appeared out of the darkness a few fingers above the horizon. As twilight descended I crept into the shelter of a cavity beneath a pile of boulders. I lay down in a foetal position with hands clamped between thighs, my cheek pressed against the backpack. I must have fallen asleep. Hours later I woke up, feeling chilly and feverish, I was overcome by uncontrollable shivering and trembling, possibly due to the onset of shock. Outside the shadowless boulder strewn valley was bathed in blinding moonlight. Inside the cavity it was pitch dark. I felt around in the backpack for my jersey and windbreaker, I also felt around for a torch to see what time it was. I shone the torch on my watch. It was 02.00 am. The torch beam flashed on something which caught my attention in spite of my mental state. It was a rock painting. Emblazoned on the surface of the boulder was the Rainbow Serpent. In the beam of the shining torch I studied the rock painting. Under normal circumstances I would have been beside myself with elation and wonder at discovering such a magnificent and graphic depiction of the Rainbow Serpent. I put on a jersey and covered my legs with the windbreaker. Laying with my head resting on the backpack I stared at the Rainbow Serpent in the halo of yellow torch light. My mind wondered. I thought about Scotty's child that I was carrying in my body. The Rainbow Serpent belonged to her ancestors, indeed it belonged to her. I don't know why I thought of the foetus in my body as being female. If she was female she would be technically both Jewish and Aboriginal, whose children would be Jews, and as a Jew whose father was an Australian Aborigine this Rainbow Serpent would be an undeniable part of her heritage, and the heritage of her descendants, for their great grandmother had re-discovered it, and had fixed her gaze upon it. The Rainbow Serpent in the desert, a strange conjunction of symbols, signs and mythology. The serpentine symbol of healing, the Rod of Asclepius with a single snake wrapped around a staff. Caduceus the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology, a staff entwined by two serpents and surmounted by wings, and also the staff of Moses which could be transformed into a serpent, and then another serpent, a serpent of brass created by Moses, mounted on a pole in the desert, gazed upon by the Israelites, a gazing which healed them. I could feel the tears running down my cheeks, I was weeping, I was weeping for the fate of my unborn baby and for Scotty. At dawn I was not hungry, just thirsty. My body felt stiff and sore. I crept out of the hollow under the boulders and set off with my backpack up the slope on the east side of valley. On the ridge I climbed onto the top of a huge boulder and watched the sun rise over the boundless desert scrubland. With my compass I could establish the spot more or less where the Land Rover should be. The rising sun was directly in the line of my vision. I scratched around in my bag for sunglasses and a hat. My fingers touched the small plastic box which we called our survival kit. It contained a sheet of plastic, matches, magnifying glass, mirror, Swiss pocket knife, string, thin wire, etc. It was Scotty's idea to always have what he called a survival kit whenever we ventured into the desert. With sunglasses on, and the rim of my bush hat pulled low over my eyes I began to scan the plains with a pair of binoculars searching for any sign of Scotty. Periodically I would flash the mirror in the sunlight for a full five minutes. The morning marched on, the sun rose to its zenith, I remained watchful and alert on my post like a sentry. No sign of Scotty coming to look for me had materialized. Different scenarios began to play with my imagination, I began to feel increasingly stressed and tense. I began to entertain all kinds of negative thoughts. The Land Rover could have been stolen. Scotty could be too injured to be mobile. Scotty could be dead. I had the Land Rover keys, but they could have easily hot-wired it. At 15.00 pm I decided to walk back to where the Land Rover should still be stationed. After walking for over an hour, sticking to the compass bearing, I still could not see any Land Rover anywhere. I walked over a nearby rocky sandstone hill. From the elevated vantage point, atop a flat sandstone rock next an acacia tree I could see the Land Rover some distance away, possibly about three kilometres away. There was no sign of the red Toyota SUV anywhere. I made haste towards the Land Rover. My heart was pounding, I was literally praying that Scotty was OK, that he was still alive. In panic I began to run towards the Land Rover, I heard my panic-stricken voice yelling, Scotty, Scotty, Scotty. I found his lifeless body laying some distance from the vehicle. He had been beaten and kicked to death. I covered his body with a blanket. The site was littered with empty beer cans. The Land Rover tires had been punctured and all the jerry cans filled with diesel had been stolen. That night I slept in the Land Rover. Early next morning I gathered whatever dried out biomass I could lay my hands on, grass, twigs, brambles and branches. I managed to siphon a few litres of diesel from the tank. I soaked the tent, clothing, towels and blankets, pillows with diesel. I placed the items on top of the dried grass and branches and set it alight, creating a bomb fire. Plumes of black smoke rose up into the sky, and for hours on end I waited expectantly feeding the fire with every possible combustible item that I could lay my hands on. The day pasted without incident. The next morning out of desperation I put the spare tire on the dying embers and threw some diesel over the tire. Eventually the tire began burn. At about 14.00 I noticed a light aircraft in the sky. I began waving my arms vigorously. The plane made a wide arc and circled above the smoking fire. It made several overhead passes before flying off. All I had left to burn was Scotty's personal stuff. I had nothing left to eat. They had stolen all our food. All that I had was water. On the third day I started the fire again. Reluctantly I began to burn Scotty's stuff, including his backpack and sleeping bag. I decided that I would set the Land Rover alight the next day if no one arrived. I reasoned that if black smoke persisted to rise up on the horizon for several days on end someone must notice it and investigate. The day wore on and I waited. I must have fallen into a deep sleep, lying on my sleeping bag in the shade cast by the Land Rover. I thought I was dreaming. I could hear voices. A hand touched my shoulder and gently shook me. A police vehicle had finally arrived. The aircraft which had flown overhead had been conducting a geological survey of the region and had noticed that the smoke had not abated and eventually surmised that it was a distress signal. They contacted the radio control centre of the nearest small airfield. I am not sure which airfield it was. But the fact that a fire had been burning for some time at a remote spot deep in the desert was communicated to the police highway patrol. A police forensic team soon arrived in a police helicopter to collect evidence and to transport Scotty's remains and me to Alice Springs. Before we left, I began to collect stones and rocks to mark the spot where Scotty had lain. The police helped me and soon we had constructed a decent enough cone shaped pile of rocks as a memorial to Scotty. On arrival in Alice Springs I was admitted into a hospital for a general medical check-up. The doctor gave me a clean bill of health but insisted that I spend the night in the hospital. The next day I spent the entire morning at the police station being interviewed. After drafting and signing my statement I was allowed to fly back to Sidney. Anyway, to cut a long story short, years passed before the three men were eventually arrested, charged with murder and given life sentences. The trial held in Alice Springs, was brief, low key, and escaped the attention of the press. It almost became one of those unsolved cold cases. Anyway what transpired was that one of the trio while serving a jail sentence for an unrelated crime told a fellow inmate about the murder of an Aborigine in the desert. An Aborigine who had a white girlfriend. The Aborigine's girlfriend had ran away into the desert and had probably died in the desert. When the inmate had finished serving his jail sentence he eventually reported the story to the police. And the rest is history.

10

Thirteen years later I returned with my daughter, Anmanari Kolitz Guiemagerra. We arrived in a convoy of three Toyota twin cab 4x4 SUVs, stopping for a while next to Scotty's memorial which was still fully intact. I was also accompanied by a small film crew, and five colleagues from the University of Sidney, an archaeologist, an anthropologist, a geologist, an ecologist, a botanist and three PhD students, all of whom had agreed to participate in the making of a documentary. I had written a script outline for the documentary called 'The Rainbow Serpent' which was to be in honour of Scotty. We had obtained permission to drive into the desert and set up a base camp about one kilometre from the granite boulder site. Next morning after breakfast before setting off I addressed everyone regarding the nature of the site and what should be our appropriate deportment once we had entered the zone. It was quite a solemn affair. I am not religious in any manner of speaking. And I cannot commit myself to being an atheist. With regard to God or God's existence or non-existence I am completely silent. I have nothing to say and I don't wish to speculate about God or about God's existence or God's non-existence. I simply don't know enough.

11

In retrospect I would like to add a concluding postscript to my little speech. What I am about to say now would not have been appropriate to have lectured on, on that or any other occasion, but it is something I would like to say something about now. I know that both you and Quinn are Catholics. That does not bothers me. I don't feel deep any deep hearted need or desire to defend Judaism. What I want to say is this. I accept that one is a Jew by virtue of a founding mythology rooted in a monotheistic religion. The reasons for self-identifying as a Jew and perceiving oneself as Jew in a secular world or within a milieu of science, technology and modernity is complex, paradoxical, ironical, reactionary, emotional, irrational and contradictory. I see myself as the progeny of a grandiose myth. And paradoxically I am not doing anything to perpetuate or stop the perpetuation of that myth. I am a Jew and nobody can take that away from me. However, I accept that nothing on this earth depends necessarily on the existence or continued existence of the Jew. This idea is patently false. Once the last Jew on earth has ceased to exist life will still go on. Humanity will still flourish without the Jew. Science, technology, art and culture will still flourish without the Jew. The existence of the world does not depend on the Jew. The Jew is just a contingent event. Ironically to be chosen is a contingent event, based on the inscrutable whim of a voluntaristic deity. Anybody else could have been chosen. To be chosen does not necessarily make one special. To be chosen may mean that one has to live the life of a victim, a sacrificial victim, a scapegoat, or even a fool. So I am not a Zionist nor am I committed to the existence of Israel. Does saying this make me less Jewish. No it does not. This is the irony, this is the paradox. But in saying this I am expressing the essence of my Jewishness. Why would I want to advocate conversion to Judaism? I cannot. I cannot find any rational reason why someone would want to convert Judaism or would wish to become a Jew. The very thought borders on perversity. Catholicism has the confidence to proselytise, to seek converts. Judaism does not have this. Why? Because at the heart of Judaism is the dark abyss of doubt. Why else would Aaron craft an idol in the form of a Golden Calf while Moses was supposedly talking to God on the summit of Mount Sinai? The giving of the Law at Mount Sinai, what a profound myth! It beats Hesiod's Theogony. What were they smoking when they composed the Exodus and Deuteronomistic narratives during the Babylonian Exile?

12

But what I had to say about the zone in which we were about to enter was the following: It was a sacred site, in all likelihood it had not been visited (barring me) by anyone possibly for more than a hundred years. The site had been a place of human visitation possibly for ceremonial or ritual purposes intermittently over a period going back tens of thousands of years. So what was to be expected of us? I asked. My answer: Treat the place with the same respect and reserve that you would exercise when entering a cathedral or temple. I knew that none of us were religious or even believers in God but that does not mean we should not conduct ourselves in a manner appropriate to the sacredness of this site, and out of respect for the Australian Aboriginals and their ancestors. Well that was that, everybody expressed their willingness to acknowledge in a fitting manner the sacredness of the site, and to conduct themselves with due respect. The site proved to be a veritable treasure trove of Aboriginal rock paintings. After our return to the University of Sidney analyses and dating of samples taken from the site verified that the Aboriginal artefacts were probably as old as 30 000 years or even older. Carbon isotopic dating of charcoal samples found within some of the cave-like rockshelters formed from natural cavities under and within piles of boulders which also contained Aboriginal rock art ranged from 6 000 to 31 000 before the present (bp). Also more recent, improved dating technologies based on optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14C) have been used to establish the ages of fossilised mud wasp nests overlying some of the rock art on the site, confirming that some of the rock art was older than 30 000 years. Too give you some idea of antiquity. The Holocene which represents the current geological epoch started about 12 000 bp after the last Ice Age. The Pleistocene is the geological epoch lasting from 2.6 million years ago to about 11 700 years ago. The Palaeolithic represents the Stone Age. It covers the geological period during which time the different species of hominins fashioned various kinds of stone tools for various practical purposes, and also covers or overlaps with the period during which modern humans lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers, possibly overlapping or co-existing with other species of hominins. It started about 2.6 million years ago and terminated at the last Ice Age at about 12 000 bp. The Late or Upper Palaeolithic falls between the periods 40 000 and 12 000 bp or as recent as 10 000 years ago. The Australian Aborigines settled in Australia between 60 000 and 50 000 years ago. This also brings up the question of whether an abyss separates the hominin or the human from the animal?

13

On that first morning we visited the shelter under the boulders in which I had slept that night. The cameras and everything else was set up, and we ready to shoot the scene. The scene was spontaneous, completely uncontrived, completely unexpected, completely unscripted. Anmanari and I crept into the cavity of the shelter. On seeing the Rainbow Serpent fully illuminated under the spotlight I broke down completely: 'Oh Scotty, Oh Scotty,' I cried. Anmanari began to weep as well. 'My baby, my baby, you were with me, you were in me when I first set eyes on this rock painting, I even spoke to you,' I said while hugging her. The cameras rolled capturing everything. This is how the entire documentary unfolded, everything turned out to be impromptu, and every word spoken literally gushed unprompted from everyone's heart. I was the only naturalized Australian, everyone else were born Australians, but what we shared in common was that we were all Left leaning in our political beliefs and philosophy. We were all acutely aware that the Australian Aboriginals had suffered not only racially based genocide but also cultural genocide at the hands of racist white colonials. They had been robbed of their land, they had suffered incredible dehumanization at the hands of the white settlers. And this was also one of the underlying messages of the documentary.

14

Quinn wanted to know whether the region surrounding Raizel's Rainbow Serpent site was always a desert. 'I honestly don't know,' was her reply.

'Maybe the Monsoons did extent further south,' Quinn speculated.

'Why do you ask?' she said.

'Fossil evidence, both plant and animal, suggests that the northern region which is now desert was possibly a lot wetter before the humans first colonized Australia,' Quinn said.

'That is maybe so, it would explain a lot,' she said.

15

I also had a comment to make. 'I have read your publication on 'The Mission' which depicts the genocidal destruction of South American aboriginal native culture by Spanish colonialists. I have also seen your movie on the plight of the Amazonia aboriginals'.

16

Raizel smiled that imperious smile which Quinn could not see: 'Quinn has told me that you are a Jesuit priest. I have nothing personal against Jesuit priests. But let me put another perspective on this trope of colonizers and aboriginal genocide, and its dramatic aestheticization. I am a Jew as you know, and I agree with Simone Weil's sentiments regarding the Old Testament's narrative of the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob instituting the genocidal invasion of Canaan by the Israelites. I agree that the Canaanite's genocidal dispossession by the invading Israelites does not make any rational or moral sense in its social and political function as the founding myth of the Jewish people in Judaism. Ironically I learnt about Judaism in an Afrikaans primary school and not from my parents or from the lips of a Rabbi. I came from a secular Jewish background, everything I know about the antiquity of Jews I learnt within a Christian ethos, and another paradox, during my primary school years everybody was on the side of the Israelites and supported the slaughtering of the Canaanites by the Hebrews, the Afrikaners on the platteland treated us respectfully, and we were part of that community. Going back to the Israelites and indigenous or aboriginal people of Canaan or Palestine if you like, the Canaanites were completely demonized as pagans. Conversion was not the mission of the Hebrews. Their mission was conquest, colonialization, enslavement and genocide, including wholesale cultural genocide. The Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and then the Roman did not embark on missions of genocide when they conquered or colonized Palestine, instead assimilation into the dominating culture always remained an option for the native people living in the conquered territories. Like Saint Paul they could become Roman citizens. The divine mission of the Israelites, the chosen people of God was not to convert or assimilate or to bring any kind of Good News or message of hope, salvation and redemption to the Canaanites or the heathen tribes but to eradicate them by means of genocide. This is the backdrop against which the movie 'The Mission' must be superimposed and deconstructed.

17

'Who was Simone Weil?' Quinn asked.

18

'Simone Weil who was a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir. She was a student at the École Normale Supérieure in 1928 with all the other luminaries including Sartre. She became known as the red virgin. In1936 she to travelled alone by train to Barcelona to fight in the Spanish Civil War on the Republic side joining the Anarchists. Be that as it may, what I found especially interesting about her was her reaction as a secular Jew to the Old Testament, with which she became familiar only as an adult, having no religious background or upbringing in Judaism. While it was true that she was not an Old Testament scholar in the traditional academic sense, yet her critique of the Old Testament as an intelligent and sensitive woman whose knowledge and reading was prodigious was still largely perspicuous, revealing and credible, and many of her radical conclusions were fully warranted in the rational sense of a claim being warranted, having some kind of support'.

19

'Anyway talking about that movie 'The Mission' I have visited the Iguassu water falls which as you may know marks the borders of three countries Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. The movie is interesting in that it does reflects many parallels. For example, in the life script of Captain Rodrigo Mendoza played by Robert De Niro we see a reflection of the life script of the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus the persecutor of Christians become Saint Paul the Jewish missionary of the Gospel of Jesus to the Gentiles. I think you would agree with me that Paul did not convert to Christianity, he did not need to, he understood the significance of Jesus as the messianic Son of God within the framework of Judaism, any fool can see this, so he remained a Jew, loyal to Judaism, and this is clearly indicated in Paul's Epistle to the Romans. In the movie we see the overlaying or the superimposition of familiar Biblical tropes, including the overlapping parallels between the Biblical Israelitic genocidal massacre of the Canaanites and Portuguese-Spanish genocidal destruction of the indigenous people in South America. We see the same parallels with the genocide of Indians in North America and genocide of aboriginals in Australia. Now once more we again see the return of genocide, the genocide of Indians in the Amazon and the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Ironically we are also witnessing the genocide of Christians in the Middle East, Pakistan, India and Nigeria for example. In all these instances we see a repeat of similar patterns of events: invasion, colonization, enslavement and then the genocide of the original native occupants by the settlers. The genocidal occupation of Palestinian territories by colonizing Jews who have no real historical roots with Palestine represents a modern replay of invasion, colonization, occupation and then genocide of the original native occupants by the settlers. My own ancestors the so-called Ashkenazi Jews are hardly Middle Eastern they are white Europeans who have interbred with Europeans for centuries. As Hannah Arendt has indicated in her 'The Origins of Totalitarianism' the Jews would have inevitably disappeared as an identifiable group through a process of inexorable assimilation as a consequence of the forces of modernity and secularization. However the Holocaust ironically interrupted this process.' Raizel elaborated.

20

For the record, Raizel continued: 'In the context of our discussion regarding myth-making, allegories, tropes, parallels, motifs, and repetitions I felt the need to correct the popular misperceptions of Saint Paul in regard to his relationship to Jews and Judaism on the one hand, his role in the conversion of Gentiles on the other hand: With Saint Paul we have the enigmatic spectacle of a Jew teaching Gentiles to be Christians while telling Jews to be Jews because God according to Paul had a separate plan for the Jew, in Paul's eyes they were still God's chosen people, the elect of God. Paul's message was that God had not given up on the Jews or the Law of Moses. Paul never proposed that Jews should become Christians. All he required from the Jews was to see that in Jesus the Law of Moses had been fulfilled. Paul was not advocating the jettisoning of the Law of Moses nor had the nascent Christian Church in its own teaching ever advocated the rejection of what it interprets or perceives as being the essence of the Law of the Moses. What has now struck me most forcibly in our discussion of 'The Mission' is the reality that the artist always loses control over the meaning of the narrative whether it be in the form of a novel or a movie. In the case of 'The Mission' I can now appreciate how the underlying narrative has indeed escaped the boundaries of intended meaning. It no longer reflects or conforms to the artist's original intentions. The story takes on new unintended meanings and significance in the imagination of the viewer or reader. No artist of genius possesses the power to exercise complete sovereignty over his own artistic creation, and it is this which paradoxically makes him a brilliant artist, or brilliant film maker.'

21

But I decided not to pursue this matter or the matter of Paul and the Gentiles, instead I said: 'Look I have to admit that as a Jesuit priest I was deeply affected and moved by the movie. My own critical appraisal of the movie was devastating for me. It made me rethink the nature of the Jesuit Mission. In connection with the question of parallels, motifs, allegories and repetitions in relations to invasion, colonization and genocide it completely shatters the Eurocentric understanding of civilization.'

22

'Thank you Father for that,' she smiled. Quinn laughed. 'But you not finished, you are burning to say more,' she added.

23

She had read my mind. Yes I was burning to say something. In my mind I quickly prayed to God to give me the grace to be humble and not aggressive and argumentative. I felt the unnecessary need to cross swords with her, with this internationally prominent woman, yet here she was sitting like any other person, quite ordinary, unpretentious, generous in spirit, accommodating, playful, ready to be whimsical, calling me Father. I took a deep breath. I took a careful sip from the still very hot cup of Americano. I felt nervous. She made me feel nervous.

24

Yes I had a lot to say: 'I have researched the Jesuit mission in South America. The reducciónes or missions which were originally established by the Jesuits between the17th to the 18th century, for a period which endured for a 150 years to protect the Guarani from the predations of the slave hunters and hard labour, covered a vast zone which originally overlapped with the current modern borders of Argentina, Paraguay, southern Brazil and Uruguay. The first mission settlement was founded as early as 1609. Most of the Jesuit missions were founded along rivers in the Chaco, Guaria, and Paraná zones. The main settlement was on the Rio Paraná along the border of present day Argentina and Paraguay. When the Guarani first encountered the European colonizers there population numbered between 300 000 and 400 000. They were sedentary and lived in villages, engaging in shifting slash and burn agricultural practices, growing manioc and maize, also engaging in subsistence hunting. Their societies were hierarchically structured but not at the level which had been achieved by the pre-colonial 'imperial' civilizations such as in the Aztecs and Inca empires for example. In terms of Indian social systems in the pre-colonial Americas there existed a continuum of social formations ranging from agricultural based hierarchically organized social formations to non-agricultural egalitarian forms of sociality. This continuum of different social systems can be roughly ranked in terms of their complexity as follows: 1) agricultural dependent hierarchical imperial-empires (first rank), 2) agricultural dependent non-imperial hierarchical organized sedentary villages (second rank), and 3) semi-nomadic non-hierarchical or egalitarian organized hunter-gatherers (third rank). The continuum ranged from Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer societies to settled agriculture-dependent Neolithic societies, the latter falling into the Holocene or the 'modern' world. This heterogeneous assemblage of different social formations in the Americas could be split into non-hierarchical and hierarchical form of sociality. The Indians in the Jesuit missions belonged generically in terms of sociality to the Neolithic epoch, they had crossed the threshold into the Holocene. They were engaged in manufacture and agriculture and also subscribed to a fairly sophisticated cosmogony. Broadly speaking their Weltanschauung was not completely incommensurable with that of the Jesuits but differed only in degrees along a continuum, which made it possible for the Jesuits to adapt the Gospel to the life world of the Guarani. It was a unique missionary experiment. The Gospel itself was definitely not irreconcilable or totally incommensurable with the life world of the Indians. Through the interactions between the Jesuits and the Guarani what actually emerged could be euphemistically referred to as a 'primitive Christian community' or 'primitive communism', something which was very much akin to the early church, looking something like what we see portrayed in Luke's Acts of the Apostles, and also similar to the Christian communities evident in the Pauline letters. When the mission reached its apogee, after having established 30 or so missions, up to 300 000 Indians had converted to Catholicism, living in a society in which human life flourished, no one was needy or suffered want.'

25

I continued: 'I really like your observation that the various coalescing narratives underlying 'The Mission' are rooted in multiple layers of meaning and significance, to paraphrase Paul Ricoeur, the symbolic always conveys a surplus of meaning, which also relates to the film maker losing control or sovereignty over his own narrative, thereby demonstrating his artistic genius. An excellent observation, which I would like to flesh out more with regard to all the unintended or unforeseen meanings and significance embodied in 'The Mission' when the movie is contextualized within the framework of the Gospels. These are the points I wish to make. It is a fact that Jesus taught, especially in the parables and in Sermon on the Mount the radical overturning and reversal of all social, economic and political ordering. In the temptation narratives in the wilderness, and also in the advice offered to the rich young man regarding wealth and salvation, and in most of the kingdom and the other parables we see the overturning and reversal of the social order. This was the constant theme underpinning the narratives of Jesus in the Gospels. In this sense the Gospel writers did not exercise complete sovereignty over the meaning and message of the Gospels. They too lost artistic control over their narrative regarding the life and work of Jesus. In the Gospels and also in the Epistles, private property, political sovereignty of the ruling classes, the existence of political oligarchies, hierarchical organization of social dominance and even the continuance or existence of religion as an institution are all presented and challenged as material embodiments or manifestations of demonic orders and principalities. In the New Testament, taken as a whole, the hegemonic ideologies of the ruling political elite represents the demonic order and principalities, and the oligarchy represents their materialization. Early Christianity existed as an alternative World to the existing orders and principalities of the day. Christianity had to be tamed, it had to be domesticated, it had to be rendered harmless, and it had to fact be destroyed for the sake of the continuance of the demonic orders and principalities, which entailed the self-appointment of powerful elites and the self-perpetuation of oligarchies. And this is precisely the unintended message of The Mission.'

Raizel asked: 'What do you mean by the demonic?'

I answered: 'The demonic is not something supernatural or spooky or about demons or about fallen angels or the realm of the Devil. The demonic is not 'unworldly' or 'other worldly', it is the material embodiment of a dominion, of an order, of principalities, in which bondage, oppression, repression and the absence of human flourishing thrives. In this sense it represents the materialization of hell, of hell on earth. Capitalism, communism and apartheid exist or have existed as materializations of demonic orders, as principalities of incredible darkness, as materializations of hell on earth. Personally, for me 'The Mission' inadvertently articulates this truth.'

26

'I agree with you completely Patrick,' she replied. 'The more I think about this movie the more I see the conflict between opposing orders or principalities as you put it. And also the unintended and foreseeable consequences which different conflicting and opposing orders embody, contrasting orders that introduce dichotomies or binaries in the form of the kingdom of darkness versus the kingdom of light, springing from or growing from the same soil, in this case the soil of the Gospels and the New Testament. The movie definitely depicts the out-workings of dichotomies or binary contrasts in terms of not only social inequality, social differences, and cultural differences, but also in terms of philosophy, theology and metaphysics. It shows how perceptions and experiences of deviance and transgression are rooted in social and cultural differences, and so the movie also offers obliquely and possibly unintentionally a vision or hope of transcendence, rooted in the Gospels, in which perceptions and experiences of what constitutes acceptability in terms of social conventions vanish altogether. For example, why should aboriginal people now wear clothes when have they gone about their daily lives for thousands of years in a state of nakedness? It was Adam who first discovered the moral dimension of nakedness. Now any man seen without clothes covering his body appears strangely ludicrous. Animals are seen as unclothed without being offensive, however animals shorn of their fur or birds plucked of their feathers look ridiculous.'

27

'By virtue of 'what' is modesty actually constituted or grounded or established with respect to the naked body and the dressed body, and what kind of dressing of the body is modest as opposed to immodest?' I asked.

'A really wonderful question! Going back to Adam we can surmise, as irrational as it may sound to our modern ears, that the idea of modesty within the Biblical context arose out of Adam and Eve's disobedience and sin, so the very consciousness of modesty was born in sin. So we can link the idea of modesty with the idea of sin. To be naked or undressed can be taken to be in a sinful state, or at the very least in a state of shame or shamefulness,' Raizel replied.

'So modesty in terms of nakedness, in terms of how the body is covered and even in what kind of clothing the body is dressing-up has a theological dimension. Something about the naked body needs to be hidden for some or other moral-theological-reason, which could be irrational,' I responded.

'Well what do you think?' She prodded.

'In the Adamic myth and other mythologies once nakedness had developed into an issue of shame, sin, modesty and morality then man turned to the skins of animals and the feathers of birds to cover up his nakedness,' I replied.

'I suppose the ideas of modesty and shame go together. It could be that the prospect of experiencing shame motivates the compulsion or the need to avoid the experience of shamefulness. The idea of avoiding a state of shamefulness is what makes the idea of modesty morally meaningful in terms of the presentation of the body or the corporeal self to the gaze of others. Because of modesty and shame the body has taken on a secret existence in everyday life, everyone carries the secret of their own naked body, hidden from the gaze of others beneath their clothing. Being naked or scantily dressed was also conceived as being in an intermediate state, that is an intermediate state between animal and human, for example, to the European colonizer, the savage represents an intermediate state between animal and human, possibly even an intermediary linkage or stage between animal and man. In this intermediary stage the savage is perceived by the European colonizer to be existing outside of civilization, possibly in a state of nature,' she commented.

'What about art, does not art reveal or expose the hidden secrets of the human body?' Quinn asked.

'Yes indeed,' Raizel smiled.

28

'Let's go back to what you saying about the co-existence of a continuum of various kinds of social systems in the Americas at the time of European colonization, and the fact that they can be ranked in terms of increasing complexity with regard to their social organization and degree of hierarchicalization. So we agree then that at one end of the continuum we have nomadic-hunter-gatherer-egalitarian-non-hierarchical forms of sociality and at the other end of the continuum we have the imperialist-sedentary-non-egalitarian-hierarchical forms of sociality. And I think we also agree that at the nomadic-hunter-gatherer end of the continuum we have the prevalence of anarchistic forms of sociality and at the imperialist-settled-non-egalitarian hierarchicalized end of the continuum we have the prevalence of oligarchical forms of sociality. Furthermore, I thinks it is very important to note that for hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors lived in small egalitarian foraging bands. And again I think it is very important to note that our ancestors only began to live quite recently in more densely populated non-egalitarian oligarchical forms of sociality. Oligarchical forms of sociality only really started emerging about 10 000 years ago. My point is that anarchist forms of sociality represents the human default or natural social condition. My other point, contrary to the current situation in the humanities, is that we have to embark on a more naturalistic approach with regard to explaining and understanding how we got from the anarchist end of the continuum to the oligarchical end of the continuum. This is the most revolutionary approach for revolutionary theorizing and revolutionary praxis. And what does the word revolution mean anyway? It means to revolve. And to revolve means to return to the beginning. And this would involve returning to the default condition of anarcho-communism. Of course this goes against the Hobbesian view of the state and so on. The emergence of oligarchies in the form of chiefdoms, monarchies, city states, republics, kingdoms, nation-states, imperial-empires, ending with the construction and expansion of the modern state as the centre of large-scale social hierarchies, has become the situation throughout the world. All of this represents a radical departure from the social arrangements rooted in our deepest past, which had been our natural condition for hundreds of millennia. There is no reason why we cannot talk about the natural human condition or even human nature. Let's be serious humans are animals, we are primates, the chimpanzee is our cousin. At one stage different species of hominins co-existed, possibly for hundreds of years,' Raizel elaborated

29

Quinn agreed with Raizel. This perspective on the natural and unnatural history of humanity resonated with his scientific intuitions regarding the nature of reality. We were animals who had evolved like any other animal, end of story. 'Large-scale oligarchies with a powerful state at the centre are definitely not natural entities nor are they natural or inevitable outcomes of deliberate collective planning, they are contingent structures which have somehow imposed themselves upon us, governing us, ruling us, shaping our lives, controlling us, taking away our autonomy, robbing us of our freedom and we have accepted this without question as if it were some kind of divinely ordained transcendental order to which we are obliged to submit.' He said with conviction.

30

'Precisely!' Raizel responded, beaming broadly at Quinn, covering his hand with hers, folding her fingers, wrapping them round his hand, he folding his fingers reciprocally, they were now holding hands, love was in the air, between two old people, two old people who saw themselves as revolutionaries, bent on toppling the oligarchies of the world. (In Quinn she had a convert).

31

Quinn's scientific analytical mind set ruled when he wanted to know how things come to be what they are: 'How did this state of affairs come be? How did it happen? What kind of forces or agencies were operative? How can we explain the transition from egalitarian anarchistic forms of sociality to non-egalitarian oligarchical forms of sociality? What factors and processes made the transition possible? What theories have the anthropologists or sociologists come up with? Obviously, no one drafted a plan and announced that this was how we are going to organize society from this day onwards.' He stated with conviction.

32

My turn to speak, I said: 'Marx was also concerned with these kinds of questions. He also wanted to explain the conditions and agencies which drove economic and social transitions, especially with regard to modes of production and social formations.'

33

'True, but Marx did not foresee the self-perpetuation of the oligarchy. The empirically supported social history lessons we have learnt from the greatest experiment in socialism, including its collapse, was the persistence of the oligarchy in all so-called communist or socialist countries. So in spite of the socialist revolutions which followed in the wake of Bolshevik's 1917 October Revolution, the post-Neolithic non-egalitarian oligarchical form of sociality were never erased in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China or even Cuba. Social stratification and hierarchies of social domination still persisted in all of the so-called socialist countries,' Raizel argued.

34

'So here we have something like a regularity of nature in the form of the persistence or self-perpetuation of the oligarchy irrespective of transitions in modes of production or the economic base of a social formations. So how does social stratification and hierarchies of social domination remain intact through these generational transitions, even following revolutionary transitions from one order to another kind of order? In fact it is no longer history like the history of the humanities that we are talking about here, it is natural history, under the rubric of naturalism, and we need to ditch the humanities, and expand the domain of the natural sciences into the subject focus areas which have traditionally been associated with the humanities. We need to talk in the categories and the language of the natural history of the self-perpetuation of the oligarchy, now that the Neolithic transition has been made.' Quinn proposed.

35

'How do you propose to do that?' Raizel asked.

36

'We need to simplify a complex problem by asking the right questions. First question: How was it possible to resist domineering and exploitative social arrangements for hundreds of thousands of years in communal or collective associations, whose members did not exceed a hundred individuals for the sake of argument? Second question: Why are social systems exploitative, stratified in terms of social status, governed by oligarchies or hierarchies of social domination only when they are comprised of thousands or millions of individual members? Why it is so impossible for them to resist the self-perpetuation of the oligarchy? Why is it so impossible for them change the social arrangement so that there is no exploitation, no oppression, no repression, no social hierarchies, no rulers, and no domination?' Quinn asked.

37

'Liquidate the professional political elite. Remove politicians. Remove the centralized state. Facilitate popular self-governance through decentralized non-oligarchical or non-hierarchical institutions such as senates whose members are not elected by popular vote under conditions of contestation, but are rather selected and appointed through a lottery or ballot system and serve a predetermined term as a form of national service. This is what I would recommend,' Raizel replied.

38

Well that's how we spent our morning at Starbucks in Rosebank. We were all famished. Raizel suggested we go for lunch. 'What would be a good place?' She asked. 'What would you like to eat?' Quinn replied. 'Anything, pasta would be good.'

39

After lunch I left Raizel and Quinn.

'I have always remembered you as the man without any needs but I am a woman with needs and I need you. Will you marry me?' Raizel asked.

'Do we have to marry?' Quinn asked.

'Are you saying you don't want to marry me?'

'No I am not really saying that?'

'Then what are you saying?'

'I just saying that I am comfortable with my life as is.'

'Well I am also comfortable with my life as is.'

'You know that I love you Raizel.'

'Yes I do, and I love you too Quinn. More than you could ever understand.'

40

My thoughts as I drove back to Nigel: Contingency is the essence of evolution and also the essence of history. Contingent events are not inevitable. We can only provide an explanatory account of the events after they have happened. But this does not mean that once the events have occurred they were not necessarily predictable or inevitable outcomes, even though their occurrence depended on the conjunction or confluence of other events. This does not change their metaphysical status of contingency, because these events in turn where not in themselves inevitable. The contingent event of interest happens to have arisen as a result of the conjunction or confluence or succession of other contingent events. This idea of events being subject to the confluence of multiple contingencies is appositely exemplified in Marx's famous aphorism from The Eighteenth Brumaire, '...men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please...' What about necessity as opposed to contingency? We can contrast the existence of a necessity with the existence of contingency as follows: A necessity is self-grounding whereas a contingency is not self-grounding, meaning that all the conditions which make the coming into existence of contingency in the form of a contingent event exist external or outside of the event itself, meaning that a contingent occurrence is incapable of being self-causing. What does it mean for something to be self-grounding, to exist in itself? As a fact it is self-grounding only if it does not depend on the existence of other facts. In this sense as an event or as a fact it is ontologically self-grounding. But we can argue that even something which can be viewed as a necessity cannot exist as a self-grounding fact. As a necessity it cannot be something which exists in itself independently of anything else, because everything exists by virtue of something else rather than from nothing. As Robert Nozick put it: 'Any factor introduced to explain why there is something will itself be part of the something that needs to be explained.' So if the factor happens to be a necessity in terms of which a contingency is to be explained, then that necessity itself will be a part of something else needing to be explained. Something which exists as a necessity must be a part of something else because it cannot be self-causing, no effect can cause itself. This may indicate that there are limits to what can be explained. Many of the things which we call necessities exist as the kind of uniformities or regularities of nature which we associate with Laws of Nature. This is what distinguishes them from contingencies. Without necessities in the form of Laws of Nature contingencies in the form of accidents or chance events would not exist.

41

These are my thoughts after meeting Raizel: Four families, the Walshes, the MacGuires, the Magees and the Kolitzs landed up in Africa. Our lives, Gabriella, Quinn, Raizel and mine become entangled, making us better people, binding us together in bonds of love. We are the richer for meeting and getting to know one another. And whats more Quinn and Raizel are together again, their love for each other has been rekindled, behaving like love-struck teenagers, they have come to some kind of arrangement, the details of which I have yet to be told. Quinn's happiness is my mine as well.

EPILOGUE

1

Jomogee: Girl you are my angel. Baby, baby. Life is a party when you are still young.

2.

Email: Dear Mr Quinn Magee, I want to let you know that my mother Gabriella has passed away. I am your daughter. I am happily married with three children, two grandchildren and have the most wonderful husband. Before mom died she told me everything. Kind regards, your daughter, Stephanie Blacksmith (nee Yeoman or Magee, take you pick).

3

Dear Stephanie, your mother was the most wonderful person that I had the privilege to know. I have loved Gabriella all my life. You have five siblings and many cousins, I will put them in contact with you. Welcome to the Magee tribe. Your grandfather Joe Magee who died a very a wealthy man set up a trust fund for all his great, great, great, grandchildren for their university education. I will send you the contact details of the trustees of the Joe Magee Trust. Kind regards Quinn Magee. P.S. To prospective beneficiaries of the Trust, grandchildren will no longer have to be Catholics of good standing. However being a Catholic in good standing will advance the values of Joe Magee which the Trust upholds.

4

Dear Quinn, I am intrigued. What does it meant to be a Catholic in good standing? Yours, Stephanie

5

Dear Stephanie, to be a 'Catholic' in good standing is not reducible to Catholicism per se. It has nothing to do with Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, Monks, Nuns or even the so called Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church or even the Roman Catholic Catechism. To be a genuine Catholic in good standing is to affirm the faith of the Apostolic Church. What is the faith of the Apostolic Church? It is summed up in the creeds, the Apostolic and Nicene Creed and Athanasian Creed. What is it that is important to understand and comprehend in the idea of 'Catholicity'? The idea of 'Catholicity' embodies the essence of the Christian Life which is centred on the celebration of the Mass, the sacraments, the sacramental view of reality and faith in Jesus. Of course the person and life of Jesus is the ultimate ground for the meaning of human life, and the flourishing of human life. But acknowledging and understanding this in terms of the Gospels and the teachings of Saint Paul destabilizes everything, puts everything in a state of crisis, and nullifies everything including Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests and the Magisterium of the Church. So what does it means to be 'Catholic' and what does 'Catholicity' means? Here I may disagree with Father Patrick, my life long Jesuit friend. The essential meaning is communicated in the song of Mary. The meaning is communicated in the death cry of Jesus: 'It is finished!' What is finished? All religious belief is finished and counts for nothing, all religious belief is worthless and counts for nothing. That is the essence of 'Catholicity', this is the essence of the teachings of Jesus. The Eucharist is truly the embodiment of a 'holocaustic' sacrifice, transubstantiation and the eating of the blood and body of God is the annulment, the negation, the erasing, and destruction of all religion, the rendering of all religious belief as impotent, superfluous and worthless. The Eucharist is in truth the celebration of the end of religion. That is why the Mass is a Holocaust. It is the negation or nihilation of every form of religious belief.

6

Quinn emailed his daughter Stephanie. John 6:53-58 New King James Version (NKJV): 53 Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever."

7

Quinn emailed Stephanie: I like the Pope. Why! Because the Pope smokes dope. But he does not fuck boys as far as we know. The fucking of boys by Roman Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals and popes exemplifies paradigmatically the moral, epistemic, theological, ontological, metaphysical bankruptcy of the institution called Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism embodies the paradox and irony of all religious belief and religious practice, because at the heart of Roman Catholicism lurks a depraved heart, a heart filled with insatiable lust, a heart filled with the abomination of desolation, and also a mind filled with the abomination of desecration, a heart enslaved to transgression. This is Rosemary's baby, the progeny of the marriage between the Roman and what we call Catholicity or Christianity.

8

My thoughts: The great betrayal. Given the comprehensive moral, philosophical, theological and metaphysical bankruptcy of Roman Catholicism how is possible to continue being Catholic. To be honest I truly don't know? It is mind boggling. Yet every morning I rise up as a Catholic and every night I die as a Catholic. As Catholics we adapt quite readily to living a lie. The Catholic priest or father embodies the essence of depravity, shagging pubescent altar servers.

9

Quinn's email to Stephanie: Life is party when you still young. To be a Catholic is to enjoy and take pleasure in what life has to offer, knowing that everything that is good comes from God. It has nothing to do with rules and commandments and laws. Rules, commandments and laws are written in the face of the other. To see the face of the other is to see God. To be Christian is to listen to your conscience, to be Christian is to experience empathy for others, especially for the stranger and unbeliever, with feelings of solidarity and fraternity that overflows from the depths of your heart. This is what makes you a Christian. Harm, suffering and injury cannot come from the hand of the Christian without betraying the idea of what it means for God to be God. If God is truly God, then no person can judge another person. If God is God then God is beyond offence. If God is truly God then no finite being can act or take it upon himself or herself to be God's agent of retribution. God is not a God of retribution. Why is this? It is because God is not susceptible to anything including what we construe as offensive. Is Nature capable of offending in an ethical or moral sense? Of course not! Whom could Nature possibly offend? Humans no matter what still belong to the realm of Nature. Can we have a relationship with God? Yes, most certainly! Our relationship with God is mediated through Jesus. It is by virtue of God's kenosis that our relationship with God is made possible. The kenosis of God is exemplified in the work and life of Jesus in which God self-identifies with the weak, the vulnerable, the needy, the hungry, the sick, the poor and oppressed. Through God's kenosis the vulnerability of God becomes revealed in the face of those who are suffering, suffering oppression, repression, alienation and need. God's speaks to the human heart through the medium of parables, so we are told in the Gospels that what we do to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, we do to God, and we will be rewarded by our actions. We establish or find true fellowship with God by addressing the problem of need as suffered by others.

9

What do I think? Life is party when you still young.

10

What do I think? Catholicity is not inimical to desire and eros. Sex is not reducible to eros and desire.

11

But you can't always get what you want.

12

...you can get what you truly need...oh yeah baby...

13

Oh yeah baby...

14

You can truly get what you need.

15

...you get what you need...

16

...get me down.

17

..Aaaah...

18

...We won't be fooled again...

20

Concupiscence: Saint Augustine collapses desire and lust into sexual pleasure, which means he conflates sexual pleasure with sin, the fall, and the transmission of original sin. So following the logic of Saint Augustine, original sin is transmitted through sexual pleasure, even within the bounds of faithful and fruitful marriage. Of course we cannot accept this. It goes against Nature. There can be no intrinsic offense in desire and eros, especially where both can only find fulfilment in the realization of the Good. And how can the Good possibly offend. We can indeed reconcile Plato with the Gospel, in the same way we can reconcile Plato with the Body.

POSTSCRIPT

1

I have undertaken to summarize what I understand about Raizel's 'political theology' which is based on a theory of the fundamental nature of history. The best way to approach her political theology is through the concept of social modalities. The word modality derived from the word mode also means the particular way or mode that something exists or the particular way or mode of doing something or the particular way or mode of experiencing something or the particular way or mode in which something changes. The word 'way' is an abstract noun and its meaning or what it refers to or what is signifies incorporates or includes a wide range of ideas or concepts which are captured or embodied by its various synonyms which include: method, style, manner of doing something, course of action, process, procedure, technique, system, routine, means, mechanism, route, road, modus operandi, scheme, plan, strategy and so on and so forth.

2

While I write the last paragraphs of this novel I listen to the sound track of 'The Mission'. I replay Ennio Morricone's 'On Earth as it is in Heaven'. I think of the discussions we shared with Raizel in Rosebank. What is the Mission? In response to this question, another question comes to mind: What is history? We associate the concept or idea or meaning of the word 'history' with the past. By extension of this idea, history is the study of the past. But what precisely does history study about the past? It studies the kinds of changes which various particular kinds of things have undergone over time, and the particular kinds of things which it studies with respect change covers all aspects of human life or the various modalities or forms of human sociality. The different modalities of human social existence include: social status, systems of social stratification, hierarchies of social domination, the state, systems of rule and governance, social institutions or social formations, economic systems, utilities, modes of production, relations of production, forces of production, political arrangements or systems, religious life, culture, technology, values, laws, morals, ethics and so on. What kinds of force or powers or causes drive the various kinds of changes which the various kinds of modalities of human sociality undergo in the course of history or the passage of history from an earlier time to a later time? In order to comprehend and understand historical change we have to explain the mechanics or processes of historical change in terms of causes and effects. While history involves change, changes in the various kinds of social modalities of human life, there are modalities of social existence which do not undergo any fundamental change but persist basically unchanged with the passage of time. They do not undergo change even though other modalities undergo change. With regard to their essential nature they demonstrate an enduring power or capacity for self-perpetuation or self-renewal. Social modalities or modes of social existence which have the power for self-perpetuation incorporate things like social status, social rank, social stratification, social hierarchicalization and systems of social domination. These modalities or modes of social existence characterized by differentiation with respect to status, rank, privilege and power persists in a self-perpetuating or self-renewing or self-reconstituting fashion even when all the other modalities of social existence have undergone changes such as the mode of production and its corresponding social formation. Self-perpetuating social modalities such as social status, rank, social stratification, social hierarchicalization and systems of social domination exist as self-perpetuating social phenomena by virtue of the social arrangement embodied in the creature or monster called the State. As long as a self-perpetuating social modality representing the thing which can be called a State continues to exist, there will exist an Oligarchy. As long as there exists a State there will be a ruling Oligarchy and as long as there exists a ruling Oligarchy there will be a State. History as such, can be reduced to its most fundamental or basic unchanging reality which is the self-perpetuation of the Oligarchy. This is the essence of history since the commencement of the Holocene about 10 000 years ago. Nothing has fundamentally changed. History is nothing more nor less than the self-perpetuation of the same in the form of the Oligarchy. For what purpose does the State exist? The State exists an apparatus or machine or vehicle for one purpose only that as the Enabler. It exists for the purpose of enablement, enablement of access and acquisition and accumulation, of power, benefits, opportunities and resources, according to social status or social rank within the hierarchy of social domination. The State exists primarily to serve a privileged political elite. It is by virtue of that purpose only that State is able to exist as a self-perpetuating Oligarchical entity. In this respect the State can only exist as a criminal organization, as a glorified mafia. And because of this the State is necessarily and essentially violent, and paradoxically, also lawless and immoral in its mode of being as an institution. In terms of its essential nature, the State is necessarily violent, lawless and immoral. It is also necessarily criminal, violent, lawless and immoral because it is constructed, programmed and engineered in the form of the State Ideological Apparatus to perform a hegemonic function. And it can only perform its hegemonic function through the various modalities of the State Ideological Apparatus. It is through the agencies and actions of the State Ideology Apparatus that the materialization of its ideology is achieved. Materialization of ideology happens when ideology is made a reality or concretized in other words. The materialization of ideology includes the manufacture of consent. The manufacture of consent does not only instil acceptance, passivity, resignation, fear, quiescence, and a sense of powerlessness, it represents the materialization of ideology in the concrete forms and real experiences of domination, oppression, alienation, atomization and repression. Ultimately the manufacture of consent represents the annihilation of autonomy and freedom. The annihilation of autonomy and freedom is experienced as a loss of agency, a loss of power, a loss of dignity, and consequently, a loss of control over one's life, existence and destiny. This is what alienation means. This is what it means to be alienated from one's self.

3

I would like to contrast Raizel's idea of the nature history with another idea of history based on Sartre's 'Critique of Dialectical Reason'. If negation marks the beginning of history, which would be the commencement of the Holocene, then freedom marks the end of history. At this point I would like to introduce the idea that in this respect the end of history marks the return to prehistory. The revolution of freedom means returning to the beginning, in which the beginning is synonymous with the original. In other words the original state of nature in which humanity existed for hundreds of thousands of years. The transition from a state of nature into what we now refer to as history marks what we can call the Fall, emphasising the Biblical idea of the Fall. Let me leave it at that and go back to the more Sartrean ideas of history understood in terms of negation and freedom. History begins with the experience of need, where need is experienced as a lack of anything and everything which would be essential for life. In Sartrean terms a lack of something constitutes a negation. In the face of need, a lack is experienced as a negation. Need reveals a lack. This lack itself can in turn be negated by the total field of possibilities which happen to be open for the satiation of that need. It is in this sense, in Sartrean terminology, that the concept of 'need' represents the idea a negation of a negation, in other words, a double negation. Needs are satisfied or satiated by means of actions or through the agency of actions operating on the environment or the world. Actions which satiate or satisfy needs constitute a kind of praxis (practice) or a dialectical praxis, or in other words, a double negation. So then, to sum up, when need is dialectically constituted or construed as a negation of a negation, then need represents what is called praxis. In this dialectical sense need or need itself is praxis, or a form of praxis. In other words, need is action or need is constitutive of action, or need is the constitutive force behind actions, and expanding on this idea further, praxis dialectically speaking represents labour. Labour is the original praxis by means of which the body produces and reproduces itself. This sums up what is meant by the dialectic of need. As a labourer and therefore as praxis, or as an agent of actions, man exists as a material being in a material world. Need arises in the context of scarcity. Scarcity in relation to need functions as a negation. The reign of scarcity is a contingent fact of life, as a negation in this dialectical sense, scarcity is what gives rise to history. Scarcity radically alters the equilibrium of mutual reciprocity in terms of need, praxis and labour. Scarcity results in a disproportion between needs and the allocation of resources for the satisfaction of needs. Some get more, others get less. Inequality is born. Out of this negation history is born, the State comes into being and we have the self-perpetuation of the Oligarchy, where some get more, while the majority get less of everything.

4

You make everything so groooo....vey!

THE END

