 
# The Barracuda Night Club Mystery

## By

## Vincent Gray

## The Barracuda Night Club Trilogy.

## Book No. 3

Copyright © 2017 Vincent Gray

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 resemblance to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 9781370825271

### 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

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

Hotazel: Journal Writings of a Lipstick Lesbian

The Wind Blows and the River Flows (Novella)

Metamorphosis (Novella)

The Black Maid from Ikageng: An African Novella

The Model from Senegal (Novella)

### For my wife Melodie and daughter Ruth

### Chapter 1

In the distance the hazy skyline of the coastal city of Lourenco Marques (LM) became visible. On the narrow two lane tar road the volume of traffic increased as they drew closer to the city. Aaron had to concentrate on dodging the oncoming traffic. Often trucks approaching would begin to drift across the faded broken white line separating the two lanes. Trucks loaded with vegetables or pigs or sheep or chickens almost forced them off the road several times. The main road to Lourenco Marques had definitely deteriorated. It had become steadily worse compared to what it was like when Aaron was a kid. It should have been resurfaced and widened years ago.

They drove past a military base. Soldiers wearing berets, dressed in sun faded camouflage, khaki, or dark green battle fatigues milled around in groups outside the base next to the road. Others were walking along the road towards the city, thumbing lifts. Many of the soldiers were black. Two guards armed with FN rifles were on duty at the main entrance gate of the military base. Geraldine switched on the car radio and tuned into LM radio. The latest hit Sugar by the Archies came on.

Geraldine exclaimed "Oh I really love this."

She started to move her head, shoulders, arms and upper body in rhythm with the music. She was exuberant. She sang along with the chorus.

Tall acacia and jacaranda trees with spreading canopies, lined the pavements of the streets everywhere, their stretched out boughs laden with the bright exuberance of red and lilac blossoms was a welcoming sight to the honeymoon couple. It seemed that LM literally beamed with more than just the warm radiance of summer. Aaron turned into Avenida Pinheiro Chaga following the road towards the bay. At the end of the avenue Aaron turned left into Avenida Duquesa de Connaught which became Rua A W Bayly. He took the right turn into the grounds of the gracious Polana Hotel.

The Hotel Polana sitting comfortably and serene, enthroned on high above the bluff, presents its guests with an unforgettable panoramic view of blue skies and the vastness of the Indian Ocean. A towering row of majestic palms graced the front of the hotel, their fronds rippling gently in the shimmering light. Basking in the hazy sea-sky glare of the early afternoon sun the white washed Herbert Baker colonial styled façade still retained its power to dazzle the eyes of any onlooker. Aaron parked the Combi in a vacant parking space next to the porte-cochère. Before he could unload the suitcases a hotel porter dressed in a white uniform arrived promptly to assist him. The porter carrying their luggage followed them into the pleasantly cool cavernous hotel lobby. While they strolled across to the reception counter he deposited their suitcases on the polished marble-granite floor by the dark mahogany cladded walls next to the staircase.

Cane-chairs, settees, leather arm chairs, and leather couches were arranged around tables in the lounge area adjoining the lobby. In the lobby, the lounge and adjoining ball room massive white painted concrete columns supported huge white painted concrete beams that carried the full load of the three hotel floors. Except for the mahogany wall cladding the white colour of the walls and whites ceilings dominated the well-lit interior of the ground floor.

Geraldine standing bare footed on the marble floor, still draped in traditional Swazi red, white and black geometrical patterned print cloth, drew considerable attention from the hotel guests. She was not aware of the impact that she was having on the guests sitting in the lounge. A middle aged American stopped his loud discourse on the war in Vietnam in mid-sentence, with mouth still open, he gawked at Geraldine. A blond German woman reading a copy of Der Spiegel forgot to light the cigarette sticking out of her mouth. Her companion put down his newspaper and gaped over the top of his spectacles at Geraldine.

The diffuse alcohol fuelled buzz of conservation which filled the entire hotel lobby with a constant undifferentiated drone of white noise instantly evaporated into a complete hush of silence. All eyes were fixed on Geraldine.

Geraldine who seemed to be in a manic state of elation which Aaron had never seen in her before remained completely oblivious of the stares that were fixed on her. Aware of their presence among strangers he felt an amused grin forming on his face. Aaron suddenly wanted to burst out laughing. This was their wedding day and it was taking such a surreal turn. He looked at Geraldine and could not believe how exotically beautiful she was in her bridal outfit. Her incandescent presence filled the foyer transforming it into her stage.

The desk clerk called the porter, and gave him their room keys. They followed the porter up the stairs to the third floor. All the rooms opened onto a carpeted and elegantly furnished hallway. He stopped at their door, put the cases down, opened the door, and carried their cases in. They followed him into the room. The porter immediately walked over to the window, opened the curtains and them opened the windows wide. Turning round he asked if they wanted anything.

"We would like a big jug of ice cold water and glasses," Geraldine said.

Aaron gave him the tip. The room which had been booked for them had a queen sized double bed opened onto a small veranda overlooking the bay. While Geraldine rummaged in the suitcases for her things, Aaron feeling hot and uncomfortably sticky in his suit from the humidity, announced that he was going to take a quick shower. He took off his suit jacket and hung it in the cupboard. After the shower he put on a pair of shorts and T shirt. Brushed his teeth and put on some cologne and deodorant. He slipped on a pair of sandals and opened the bathroom door. Geraldine who was busy packing stuff into a small bag, looked up at him, and gave him a smile that was filled with mystery. She bent over and picked up a package from the bed:

"I have something I want to give to you, it is gift, a wedding present from me."

She presented Aaron with the silver wrapped package. He had also bought her a wedding present, a gold bracelet. It was in still in his jacket pocket. He retrieved the little box and gave it to her. She opened the box and examined the bracelet.

"Oh my gosh! What have you done, it so beautiful," she said. Then looking at him, she urged: "Open your present."

Carefully unwrapping the gift he discovered that it was a leather bound Bible. He gave her a tight hug and a passionate lingering kiss. She gently broke free from his embrace, knowing what he wanted, knowing what he expected from her, their time had come:

"I think I will have that bath now," she said, giving him a seductive look him.

She carried her bag to the bathroom and shut the door. While he was busy showering Geraldine had opened the doors to the balconette. The curtains billowed as a light cool sea breeze filled the room. He went out on the balcony and stood for a while staring at the sea. A fishing trawler steamed slowly across the bay. He felt aroused and restless, turning round he walked back into the room, sitting down on the bed he began to page through the Old Testament. He noticed that Geraldine had left the bookmark ribbon at the Song of Songs, she had obviously read the chapter before wrapping the book up as present. To calm his nervous distraction he began to read from the Song of Songs.

Before he had made much headway the bath room door swung open. Geraldine dressed in a shiny white satin gown entered the bedroom and stood before Aaron. She was radiant. As a devout Catholic she had never allowed Aaron to touch her. She had always said: "I love you, I trust you, I know you will never hurt me." Now she was ready for Aaron to touch her. She had lovingly and carefully groomed herself for Aaron, she had prepared her body with perfume, creams and lotions, for him to take, to have, to enjoy. She had done this with such love, trust and care. Smiling she presented herself, her body to Aaron.

She done something amazing to her face. Against the dark skin tones, the foundation cover, the eye liner, the mascara, the purple eye shadow, the lip liner, the red lip gloss, was so carefully and perfectly done. Aaron stood up and untied the girdle of her gown, and slipped the white satin gown off her shoulders. It fell into heap around feet. She stood naked unveiled before him. He pulled his shorts off and took of his T shirt. They stood before each other naked. He put his arms around her lower back and pulled her against him, she placed her arms tightly around his neck pressing her breasts against his chest. She lifted her head, gazing deeply into his eyes, a smile formed on her lips, and he began to kiss her deeply and passionately. In a state of sacred mystical silence they embraced each other tightly, both aware of their naked bodies pressing against each other.

As husband and wife they were at last ready and prepared to freely give their virgin bodies to each other in an act of mutual and reciprocal self-donation in the same way that Christ gave His Body to the Church, saying, '...take this is my body...' Aaron felt a huge throbbing overwhelming surge of excitement in his loins and a strong pounding in his chest, they released their embrace, everything was beyond expectation, and when he looked at her magnificent dark naked body it was impossible for him not to remember the words:

Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtain curtains of Solomon.

She lay down on the bed on her side, resting on her elbow, her body making a Z. Aaron looked at his wife's naked dark ebony body as she lay in full sight on the white bed cover. He laid next to her, and she rolled over onto her back with her head resting on the pillow. He bent over and kissed her lips. Moving his head from her lips, he kissed her breasts as she smiled. He then kissed her on the mouth while he caressed her firm and beautifully shaped virgin breasts. He could not believe how beautiful her breasts were and how exquisitely wonderful it was to touch them, fondle them, feel them. He touched her erect nipples. Touching, fondling and caressing every part of her firm smooth body filled him with the most sensations of erotic pleasure that he never thought possible. He struggled to control his breathing, his excitement became feverish. He began to kiss her body everywhere. Resting on her elbows, her upper body lifted, still smiling indulgently at Aaron, she out of sheer curiosity and pure innocence watched what he was doing to her, as her own state of arousal increased with each touch, with each kiss, with each caress. Her body began to respond to his sensual explorations. Fill the rising heat of her own excitement she sank down back onto the bed, resting her head on the pillow, her arms out behind her head, moving her supine body in response to Aaron love making, her torso, hips and legs writhed beneath him. She started to moan softly with pleasure. As her own excitement grew she also began to reach out and touch Aaron as well, caressing him softly everywhere.

Aaron's hand moved down, he began to lightly stroke and caress her inner thighs. She gasped as he carefully, softly and gently stroked and caressed her vulva. Her breathing quickened, her chest rose and fell, as he continued to gently explore her vulva. Tentatively and gently he probed his fingers into the moist cleft, her vulva which had become swollen, engorged with blood. She abandoned to herself to the waves of physical pleasure that had taken possession of her body. Her orgasm came as a sudden exquisite surprise to both her and to Aaron. After her climax she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her lips tightly against his. Aaron moved now to position himself between her thighs, just before he was going to go into her, she softy said:

"Please put that white towel under me, I don't want us to stain the bed with blood".

As she bend her knees and lifted her hips up he spread the white towel under her buttocks. Kneeling between her knees he leant forward and mounted her. They became one flesh, husband and wife. Geraldine was right about the blood. Afterwards they lay in each other arms eventually falling into a deep and blissful sleep. The cool fresh sea breeze on their naked bodies eventually woke them up. It was already dark outside. It felt as if they had slept for hours. Aaron switched the pedestal lamp on. There was a wicked smile on her face and mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

"We have finally contravened the Immorality Act with God's full blessing. I feel so free and unburdened."

Filled with incredible desire for her Aaron mounted her again, she held him tight,

"My husband, my master, my king, I love you so much."

"I love you too."

It was almost 8.15 pm. They had not eaten all day and were feeling famished.

"I am hungry I could eat a horse."

She replied: "I am also starving and I think we missed supper."

"We could go eat at restaurant somewhere. I sure we can take walk along the esplanade and look for a place where we can eat."

"That's a wonderful idea."

They quickly got dressed. Outside the hotel they gazed at the beautiful flood light lit white three storied terraced facade of the Polana hotel. Walking past the swimming pool they made their way to the Caracol road which wound down the hill to the Polana beach. With his arm around her waist they walked along the Esplanade. They could see the lights of several fishing trawlers piercing the darkness of the bay. Soon a half-moon would be rising in the east. Gazing up at the stars strung out above the Baia de Lourenço Marques Aaron identified clusters of stars grouped into the following constellations: Perseus, Taurus and the Pleiandes, Orion's belt, Canis Major and Sirius, Canopus, Vela, Puppis, Carina.

Crouching behind her, he helped her to align her vision along his outstretched arm which he aimed like a rifle with his index figure pointing out the different constellations. In this way he was able to eventually point out each of the constellations so that she too could see them as well.

Afterwards she wanted to know why the Southern Cross with it Pointers was not among the constellations.

He searched for the Southern Cross. It took some time before he spotted the Southern Cross hovering just above the horizon. They gazed at the South Cross and using their figures to estimate the position of the intersection of the two lines, one projected from the cross, the other one through the two Pointers they found where due south lay.

"I love the Southern Cross," she said, " it symbolises our intellectual quarantine from the pathologies of the European mind, allowing us to think differently and see things in a fresh new light, without the distorting lenses of Western Civilization ."

"That is quite strong," he said, surprised at what she had said.

"It is what I feel," she said.

"OK, just for fun I am going to ask you a European kind of question," he said.

"Let's hear," she said.

"Have you ever wondered why the night sky is so dark? The obvious answer that comes to anyone's mind is because the sun does not shine at night. But that is the wrong answer," he said.

"Well then, why is the sky so velvety black at night?" She asked, playing along with Aaron.

"The fact that the night is not light but dark has been called The Paradox of the Dark Night or Olber's Paradox."

"Paradox of the dark night! What kind of a paradox is that? Why should the night sky not dark? Should I have reason to wonder otherwise?" she replied with a slightly puzzled look on her face.

But her curiosity had been pricked. She had an inkling that there was something profound about the sky being dark at night. Something that was not quite obvious or self-explanatory about the night being dark, even though most people took it for granted that at night when the sun had passed to the opposite side of globe, the sky changed from bright blue to black.

"Yes, this a good reason why the night is dark, the fact that the night is dark has profound cosmological significance," he said.

"A paradox with cosmological significance! That sounds so romantic I must say my dear, but please excuse me for saying that, you must understand that I am in a humorous mood tonight. I don't have a care in the world. Anyway, what is so cosmologically significant about the night being dark?" she asked looking purposely comically bemused, without being sceptical.

"The night is dark because the Universe has a finite age. It is not infinitely old. It is dark because not only does it have a finite age, it is also dark because it is rapidly expanding. So the cosmological significance of the dark night paradox is that the Universe must have had a beginning," he said.

"Would the night still be dark if the Universe had an infinite age?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"Why?"

"If the Universe had an infinite age it would be infinitely large and contain an infinite number of stars. We know that is each star is actually a sun, and if there were an infinite number of suns, there would be infinite amount of starlight beaming from an infinite number of stars. There would be no dark patches in the sky, the entire sky will be filled with intense starlight beaming from every direction at the earth, and the night would be like the day," he said.

"But you also said that the night is dark because the Universe is expanding," she said.

"Correct, the night is dark because the Universe has a finite age, contains a finite number of stars and is expanding," he answered.

"Well there you go, I have just had my first lesson in modern cosmology," she laughed as they continued walking down the esplanade into the dark night.

"If it had a beginning how old is the Universe," she asked.

"Roughly in the region of 20 billion years, but maybe a lot less," he said.

"I can now appreciate that the darkness of night takes on a whole new meaning," she said reflectively.

"Yes there is a lot more to Olber's Paradox than meets the eye," he agreed.

They walked in silence for a while, his arm around her waist and her arm around his waist.

He looked at her face. She was deep in thought, mulling over the darkness that veiled not only the night but apparently the entire Universe. She lifted her head and gazed again at the dark expanse dotted with pin pricks of star light.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Verses 1 and 2 of the first Chapter of Genesis," Geraldine said, breaking their silence.

"What do you make of the words: darkness was over the surface of deep?" He asked.

"To be honest I don't really know. I would like to study Hebrew so that I could understand its meaning in the original language," she said.

A dim halo formed on the horizon, like the lights of a distant city rising up from the depths of the ocean.

"It is not a literal account of origins. It is a deep theological meditation. It also has all the literary features that we associate with poetry. How could it possibly be a literal scientific account without the words, nomenclature, verbal and mathematical concepts of modern cosmology? Of course, this does not make it any less true than a scientific account. It would be missing the point of Genesis to try and harmonize it word for word, concept for concept, point for point, and phrase for phrase with a scientific account of origins. This would be a completely bizarre exercise. This is not the way one should read Genesis chapter 1," she said.

"Why don't study Hebrew through Unisa?" He asked.

"I would like to," she answered.

They continued walking along the Esplanade. The Esplanade seemed to be endless. Aaron then realized that he had completely misjudged how far the Baixa was from the Polana Hotel. They must have walked about 4 km before they reached the Avenida da Republic at the edge of the Baixa, the lower part of town.

Because he kept on referring to the Baixa, she decided to ask:

"What is this mysterious Baixa that you keep on talking about?"

"The term Baixa meant low. The site on which the Baixa was developed used to be the low ground associated with a swampy marshland which was reclaimed in 1915. The old Baixa contains all the buildings between the old railway station in the west and the fort to the east all of which were built before 1920. What made Mozambique a favourite destination for South African holiday makers was the bustling vibrancy of the old Baixa of Lourenco Marques with its wide boulevards, open squares, plazas, narrow colonnaded streets," he explained.

"How did you get know all this stuff about LM?"

"I have been here before, you pick up the geography and history of place if you happen to be a curious person," Aaron answered.

"Hmmm... that is interesting," she said.

Finally reaching the edge of the city they followed the wide tree lined boulevard of the Avenida da Republica until they found themselves right in the very heart of the old Baixa. Continuing along the Avenida da Republica boulevard they walked, holding hands, past the John Orrs building, and continued going past the Scala tea room and Scala cinema, and then past the Continental Café. Aaron looking mildly surprised announced:

"There is a lot of traffic on the Avenida da Republica."

"Yes it is quite busy tonight, I did not know what to expect. Where could all these people be going at this hour, does LM ever go to sleep? " Inquired Geraldine with a genuine look of wonderment on her face.

At the municipal market in the middle of the Praça Vasco da Gama they turned around and walked back. Pedestrians crowded the sidewalks at the intersection between the Avenida da Republica and Avenida da Aguiar.

"I can't believe how festive the atmosphere is," Geraldine said as she let go of Aaron's hand and put her arm around his waist. They stood for a while at the corner watching the traffic of pedestrians flowing past them in all directions.

At the crowded Continental Cafe people enjoying beer and wine occupied tables spilling out onto the pavement. At the intersections newspaper-sellers were still waving papers at this late hour to the passing crowd. Across the street people were queuing outside the ticket office of the Scala cinema for the second show.

Still basking in the afterglow of their lovemaking after their long walk, they fell in love with the night shrouded Baixa of Lourenco Marques. Now walking with his arm wrapped around Geraldine's waist within a busy public space for the very first time Aaron was filled with an amazing mixture of emotions and feelings. They both felt the same sense of enchantment, not only with the exotic mood of LM but with each other.

"There is definitely that Christmas feeling in the air don't you think," Aaron said.

"Yes there is. Oh Aaron I am so happy, how long have we waited for this? Our dreams have come true, at last we are really together," she said looking at him with wide eyed intensity, that made her face appear almost childlike.

"I feel like I have become a different person. I will never be the same again. Something extraordinary and profound thing had happened to both of us today," Aaron said.

"Yes I feel it too. You are so right. I also feel like a different person. I feel so free. I feel alive, can you believe that. I actually feel like a normal person, I never knew what it felt like to be a normal person, even if normality cannot be defined, all I know is that things were not normal for you or for me, but thank God, we have not been robbed from having normal lives," she said.

Their sense of feeling different was now palpable.

"Compared to who I used to be, I now felt more exotic, more dashing, more liberated, more at peace, more fulfilled," he said while looking down at Geraldine's face.

She looked up at Aaron and they both smiled at each other. Her face still beaming with undisguised exaltation and exuberance.

Aaron had never seen her like this ever before. He could feel the strength of the incredibly deep and strong bonds that had welded them together over the past 5 years.

They had forgotten about their hunger. Captivated by the magic of all the sights and sounds they continued to amble through the streets of Lourenco Marques, enjoying the warm summer night in the city.

Down a narrow side street they stopped outside a small restaurant. They decided to go in.

Entering the restaurant they looked around for a vacant table.

"Podemos ter uma mesa para dois, por favor (Can we have a table for two please)," Aaron asked a waiter.

After they had sat down at their table they both looked at the menu. It was in Portuguese. Aaron recognized many of the words: carne, frango, porco, peixe, camarão, amêijoas, ostras, lagostins, mexilhões, caranguejos, arroz, pães. (meat, chicken, pork, fish, prawns, clams, oysters, langoustines, mussels, crabs, rice, bread rolls).

When the waiter returned they had not yet made up their minds so Aaron asked: "O que me recomenda?" (What do you recommend?)

The waiter said: "Eu recomendo o prato de marisco." (I recommend the seafood platter.)

The special for the evening was a large platter of mixed seafood served with rice and rolls. They decided to share a platter. They ended up devouring a huge pile of prawns, clams, oysters, langoustines, mussels, crabs, rice, crisp hot Portuguese rolls. Aaron drank an ice cold Laurentina and Geraldine sipped a glass of dry red wine.

On the way back to the hotel they walked again past the Continental Café. After a moments indecision they decided to have a coffee and sat down by a vacant table on the pavement. It was 10.30 pm and the Café was still pulsating with the energy which radiated from the lively crowd of young people. Many seemed to be university students. There were also young men who looked like soldiers. At one table it appeared that a serious debate was in progress. It was accompanied with vigorous gesticulation, intense passion and enthusiastic vocalization of opinions.

One man was trying to make some point, he kept repeating: "Fido é preto. Portanto, Deus exist!" (Fido is black. Therefore God exists)."

Geraldine noticed that Aaron was taking an interest in the debate. She asked: "Do you understand what they talking about."

"I think they are arguing about God's existence. That guy in the blue shirt who looks so serious made a strange remark. I think he said 'Fido is black, therefore God exists'. It seems that he suggesting that there is logical connection between Fido's being black and the existence of God," Aaron answered.

"What do you think?" She asked.

Her question surprised him. She had studied philosophy. She was very familiar with all the ins and outs of the various arguments for and against God's existence. Aaron realized that his wife was not only his lover, she was his intellectual comrade on equal terms, and was curious to see if he had arrived at any sudden insight which she may have missed. Aaron had not arrived at any original insight, it was just that the drift of the argument did reveal possibilities that both he and Geraldine could not have perceived before this night.

"Well I'm not convinced that the various arguments for God's existence can be summarily dismissed. I don't believe that they have been conclusively shown beyond any further argument to be incurably defective and therefore beyond any form of new logical or empirical resuscitation," Aaron remarked.

She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head. Indicating she wanted to hear more about how the various arguments for the existence of God can be exhumed and resuscitation. So Aaron continued to cobble together the gist of the argument that he thought he had heard coming from the table across from where they were sitting.

"Maybe there does exist a very compelling logical link between the copula 'is', the subject 'Fido', the predicate 'black', and the statement 'God exists'. There may also exist an inexhaustible subtlety in the interpretation and application of logical rules. This possibility may in the end indicate that logic is plagued by inescapable ambiguities, making it impossible to argue logically for the non-existence of God. Maybe God is the rules of logic," Aaron answered while looking attentively at Geraldine to assess her response.

Moths fluttered and flittered haphazardly, beetles crashed into the street lamps, laughter bubbled around them, and the hum of conversation filled all the silent spaces in the crowded café.

"Do you think we should be discussing philosophy on our honey moon?" he asked.

"Of course we should, why we should not be discussing philosophy on our honey moon, I can't think of anything more romantic, more magical, more sensual, more erotic and sexier. Now going back to what you said. What do you mean that God 'is' the laws of logic? " She replied smiling and looking so contented with everything.

"If God is truly the transcendental and immanent God of all reality and of all Truth, and if Truth is Ultimately One, and furthermore if God is also the condition of the possibility of everything including the laws of logic then God is both 2 + 2 = 4 and the laws of arithmetic which makes the existence of 2 + 2 = 4 possible as a truth of mathematics. All of this means that in God essence and existence converge. God's will is identical with his essence. So 2 + 2 = 4 represents the will of God and the will of God is identical with His essence which in turn includes all truth, logical and mathematical truths, plus the truth of the laws of nature. This also means that 2 + 2 = 4 has existence because in God essence and existence converge. God is identical with His existence, and God is identical with the Truth, God is identical with His essence, God is the condition for identity and all of this has to be the case especially if God is omniscience and omnipresent. Nothing is prior to God not even the property of existence, nor can anything have any kind of existence independent of God's will, existence and essence," Aaron explained.

She looked at Aaron a bit dumbfounded.

"I find it difficult to see how God 'is' 2 + 2 = 4. I can understand that God is love, that God is merciful, that God is omnipresent, that God is omnipotent, that God is omnipresent, that God is infinitely good and benevolent, but I can't see how God can be 2 + 2 = 4, and still be a person at the same time."

She paused for a moment to think about what she had just said. She continued:

" Yes, what you are proposing is quite fascinating to me my dearest husband, but I want to see how you actually get to God being 2 + 2 = 4, as it were, " she said with a that mischievous smile that always touched Aaron's heart.

"Geraldine you are relentless."

She laughed.

"That's me indeed!"

And true to being relentless, she persisted:

"When you can explain that, I will be ready to listen my darling," she said, smiling, her eyes were filled with an amused twinkle as she stared at Aaron, whose brow had become creased with concentration and thought.

"Can't you see it?" he asked, in all earnestness.

"I can, yes I can, I can see it," she said laughing at how serious Aaron had suddenly become.

The waiter came to their table to see if they wanted anything more.

Aaron asked Geraldine: "Should we order more coffee. Do feel like some vanilla ice?"

"Oh yes, let's have some vanilla ice cream and definitely another cup of coffee," she replied.

While they waited for the ice cream and coffees Aaron continued with his discussion:

"So this is my argument which everyone has to accept for the sake of consistency. There can be no laws or rules that are valid regardless of God's will or independent of his existence or essence. If anything can have an existence, including laws of logic and arithmetic, independent of God's existence and God's will, then God cannot really be God. So the sum 2 + 2 = 4 cannot exist independently of God's existence or will, if God is really God. No laws of logic, no true theorems of mathematics, and no true laws of nature precede God or exist independently of God or his will or are even created on a random whim by God, if God is truly God. This is not how the Universe is or how it can be. If God is the sovereign, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient Master of the Universe then no law of nature or law of logic can exist independently of God's will or precede the exercise of His will or even come into existence as a result of the exercising of His will. All laws, whether natural or logical, are identical with God's essence. They are always already his will because they are His essence. So God does not simply randomly decide to invent this or that law of nature or logical truth for this or that reason. In addition, all Truth, Goodness and Beauty are identical with God's essence or Being and all Truth supervenes on Being, that is, the Being of God. In the same what way that He is the laws of logic and the laws of nature, He is also simultaneously whatever is good, true and beautiful."

"Ok I get it. So you are proposing that no law of logic, no natural law, no idea of truth, no idea of the good and no idea of the beautiful, has precedence or exists independently, or even contingently as a whim, with respect to the being or existence of God," she replied looking satisfied with Aaron's defence of his proposal.

"Yes that is basically what I am proposing, but that is not all. Nothing exists prior to or independently of God. Also no entity in the Universe possessing properties, propensities or predisposition can exist prior to or independently of God acting. No entity's existence in the Universe can be self-individuated or self-instantiated or self-actualized independently of God. Every entity in the Universe is contingently dependent for its existence and properties on the prior action of God. Unlike any other entity in the Universe God's existence does not have to be individuated or instantiated or actualized because the property of existence is not prior to God but identical to God. God is not subject any external or independent law or rule in the Universe. No law or rule is valid prior to or independent of God's Being."

"I basically agree with everything that you have said. But I have one question. What about God being a person. We relate to God as a person, not as an impersonal force, not as the rules of logic or arithmetic or mathematics or even as the laws of nature," she replied.

"OK I have to agree. So in addition to all of those things, God is also a person. These things are part of His personhood. But God is thus infinitely complex, incomprehensible and completely unknowable by a finite creature," he answered.

'He is transcendent in that His being is not reducible and exhausted in being the rules of logic or the laws of nature, which He necessarily is in terms of His immanence, because nothing can exist independently of his will and essence, which is an aspect or dimension of His immanence, and His will or rule converges with His essence necessarily, because He cannot be what He is not, He cannot stop being God, and by being God, He is necessarily the condition by virtue of which everything else exists, even 2 + 2 = 4,' she summed up.

The waiter began to indicate that they wanted to close the Café.

'For God to be God, He is necessarily the condition by virtue of which infinite possibilities are able exist with the framework of His own immutability, omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence, everything is ultimately overdetermined by His sovereignty, nothing can happen independently of God's being,' Aaron added.

"Yes that is true. I think they want us to finish up and go," she said, looking a bit disappointed that they may to leave at this critical stage in our conversion.

It was already 12.00 pm.

"We can't walk back at this hour?" Aaron said.

"Why not. We can make love on the beach in the moonlight and let the cool sea water wash over our naked bodies," she said. Her suggestion stirred up a rush of excitement at the prospect.

"OK. But let's catch a taxi to Polana beach," he insisted, thinking seriously about the Geraldine's suggestion.

Aaron signalled to the waiter that they wanted to settle the bill. Aaron asked him if he could get them a taxi. Five minutes later a taxi arrived.

They instructed the driver of the taxi to drive back to the Polana along the road next to the promenade. A short while later the taxi dropped them off across the road from Polana beach. They walked over to the beach. Phosphorescent surf raced up the beach indicating that the tide was coming in.

"We can't take our clothes off and lie in the sand. Put your arms around my neck and clamp your legs round my waist and then lower yourself down onto me."

"No let me rather bend over that bench, I can support us by resting my arms on bench, we can do it farmyard style," she said laughing.

She bent over, spreading her legs apart, he stood behind her, lifting her skirt he pulled her panties to one side, he mounted her, feeling the strength and depth of his penetration she gasped, he thrusting rhythmically, she mewing and moaning, he fondling her breasts, he kissing the back and sides of her neck, she breathless, she unable to smoother her chuckling at the comical motion of their shadows on the bright moonlight white sands.

And the moon smiled and the stars laughed at the nocturnal conjugation of the pair on the deserted beach. In its aloofness, oblivious and composed against a star bejewelled night the Polana Hotel glowed iridescently. In the distance a fishing trawler's horn blasted five times.

After walking back up the steep Caracol Road they stood for a while at the top of the bluff. The half- moon now risen high in the sky. A meteorite streaked brightly across the sky, bursting into a shower of sparks. For a moment Aaron thought it was flare from a boat in the bay.

Geraldine exclaimed: "Wow did you see that!"

"Aaron we have barely been married for one day, yet it feels like that we have been married for a life time. It feels like I have known you all my life as if we have always been married, as if you have always been my husband. Don't you think that is strange?"

"I don't know how you felt then, but I kind of felt married to you after I asked you to be my girlfriend."

"I had the same feeling as well. I also married you that night in my heart when you asked me to be your girlfriend."

They returned to the hotel at about 2.00 am. The doorman opened the door to let them in. The lounge was deserted and dimly lit.

### Chapter 2

A delicious sensation between her legs stirred her from a deep and restful slumber. Aaron was caressing and probing her with his fingers. She had become wet and well lubricated.

"Mmmh...Aaron what are doing to me so early in the morning," she muttered still half asleep.

"Shhhh...just relax, go back to sleep my darling," he said as he kissed on her cheek, but his hand did not stop. She lay on her back with eyes still closed, half asleep, enjoying the pleasure. She felt his body shifting and before she could say anything he was between her wide open thighs, moving his loins into position, he deftly thrusted into her, filling her with his morning hardness. She gasped as she felt herself being possessed by Aaron's eager penetration.

"Oh....Aaron what are you doing to me, I have not even woken up properly...mmmh," she murmured sleepily, as he began to thrust, pull and push.

"I love Geraldine," he replied.

"I love you too, but it is still so early...for this kinda of stuff...you are so eager to do it," she giggled softly.

He ignored her mild half-hearted protest and continued with the slow rhythmic thrust of his hips until he climaxed. He rolled over, hugging her, he began kissing her all over her cheeks.

"Are you going to do this to me every morning before I have had time to wake up," she asked him with a sleepy smile on her face.

"Yes," he replied, "I can't help it, I do not have the strength to resist, you are so beautiful, I cannot stop myself from wanting to do it, I promise you I cannot stop myself from wanting you," he said.

"So I have to get used to this routine every morning before we even get up?" she asked.

"Yes, I suppose so, for as long as I am your husband, I will want to do it the morning, it will be a waste not to do it," he said.

"Why will it be waste not to it in the morning before I am even properly awake?"

"It is so massive and hard in the morning, I need to enjoy it," he said

"Is that the only reason, because it is so massive and hard in the morning, and therefore it can give you so much more pleasure," she asked.

"Yes," he replied

"So you just doing to it, using me like this every morning, for the selfish gratification of your own pleasure and to satisfy your lust without any consideration for me," she asked.

"Yes I am doing it for purely selfish reasons. I am only interested in gratifying my terrible lust that I have for you, I am only satisfying my own immediate physical needs without any consideration for your needs," he said.

"I am absolutely shocked. I really thought you were doing to it me because it was a very special way of saying that you love me so much," she said teasing him.

"You know that I love you," he said, "OK I am doing it to you out of genuine consideration for your needs for me to do it."

"What you do mean that you doing out of consideration for my needs," she said as she grabbed a pillow and began to playfully rain pillow- blows down on a laughing Aaron.

"Stop, stop, I love you, I will die for you I love so much," he laughed as tried to escape her pillow blows.

She stopped beating him with the pillow.

"I know you that love me very much, and that you care for me, and that you will always protect me, and you will always keep me safe, and that you never ever treat me badly, and that you will never hurt me, and that you will die for me without a moment's hesitation, but I would never have guessed that you would also be such an animal," she laughed.

"Well you are now married to an animal," he said.

"What are we going to do today my darling," she asked.

"After breakfast we can change into our bathing costumes and spend the morning on beach until lunch and then after lunch we can go somewhere in the Combi," he said.

"What were you and the others singing in the church that made everyone laugh so much?" He asked out of the blue.

"I was hoping that you would forget to ask me that," she said with a smile that could only be described as wickedly wanton, and she could look very wanton, but innocently wanton, like an attractive but extremely erotic Lolita who was completely unaware of igniting sexual interest. Aaron felt himself becoming aroused. He was convinced that she was completely unaware that she could look so erotic and so wanton, so sensual and yet be at the same time so innocent, so almost childlike. She was a woman in her twenties, yet she looked like a teenager, like someone only 18 years old.

"It was also an amazing discovery for me, the singing was almost exactly like the woman in The Song of Songs. Swazi women have also composed songs in which they sing about their sexuality, about sexual pleasure and also about their own personal sexual desires and sexual fantasies. Just like the woman in The Song of Songs they have composed tsamba chants that incorporate very cleverly coded metaphors which they use in their antiphonic choral singing or chanting in an almost subversive fashion to represent all aspects of female sexuality against a back drop of patriarchal power relations that define and order male-female gender roles."

"Just tell me straight in simple plain language without any sociological jargon, what did you guys sing about in the church that made everybody laugh?" He said.

"I am not using sociological jargon I will have you know mister! Ok I will give it to you plain, simple and crude if that is what you really want. Translated into English the chorus leader was chanting something like this: My friend let's go to ask for food for the palm. And the chorus singers were chanting something like: The palm is hot," (Ref 1). Geraldine elaborated with an amused smile and with eyes that laughed with naughtiness.

"Is that all that they sang in the church? Why was it so funny, why did everyone laugh, and why did the priest and some of the people in the church give you and your maids of honour such dark disapproving looks? I suppose the word palm means hand," he responded.

"Yes it means hand," she said, and then she burst out laughing, rolling on the bed in mirth.

Aaron looked completely perplexed.

"What possibly can be so funny about a hand?" he wanted know, looking more and more perplexed at Geraldine's behaviour.

"You are so thick that it is funny. Don't you get it! The palm of the hand was being used as a metaphor for the vagina in the wedding song, and that is why I said that the lyrics that the women were singing made me think of the canticles in The Song of Songs. The meaning of the song goes like this: My vagina needs food because it is hot or hungry," she said with a straight face and serious demeanour.

Aaron shook his head in amused disbelief at what he had just heard. Then he too also burst out laughing.

"See I am taking good care of your vagina. I know when it is hungry and that's why I make sure to give it breakfast first thing every morning and also supper at night. I will feed it whenever it gets hungry," he said laughing.

Geraldine also burst out into another fit of uncontrollable hilarity, rolling again all over the bed, arms and legs thrashing dangerously about.

"I never thought sex could be so funny," she said laughing with tears running down her cheeks.

"And you are saying that I am the animal, when all I wanted to do was to feed your vagina, purely out of consideration for your insatiable needs," he repeated, while keeping a mock straight face and shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.

"My insatiable needs? How can you say that," she exclaimed, "when you are the one with insatiable needs," and then she again became completely hysterical with laughter, holding her sides as she rolled over in a foetal position on the bed, tears of laughter streaming down her eyes.

After breakfast they changed into their swimming costumes. Geraldine put on a white sleeveless blouse and short black skirt over her costume. Aaron put on a pair of baggies and T-shirt over his speedo costume. She donned a wide brimmed straw hat and silver reflective sunglasses. After turning around before the mirror she put two books that Father Shaun had taken out of the library for her into her woven straw shoulder back that matched her hat. Aaron grabbed their two beach towels. She looked at him:

"I am ready, should we go?"

"Yes let's go."

Before driving to the beach, they bought ice and cool drinks which Aaron packed into the cooler box. At the beach Aaron carried out the cooler box, beach umbrella and two reclining deck chairs from the Combi. He set up the umbrella close to the sea and opened up the deck chairs. Geraldine took off her top and skirt and settled down into her deck chair, she reached for her bag and took out the book General Instruction Manual for the Divine Office. She opened the book, adjusted her sunglasses against the sun's glare from the pages and began to read, while Aaron focused his binocular on some shore birds foraging at the edge of the sea.

Geraldine began to read, oblivious to the sound of breaking waves, deaf to the calls of gulls wheeling above, something had caught her attention it was the words 'sacrifice of praise' in the opening introduction. The two words embodied ideas and concepts she was familiar with from her Unisa religious studies courses. Like the Mass the Divine Office was also somehow a sacrifice of praise. It mentioned the idea of the sacrifice of praise which has been meaningful portrayed in the Miserere, which is Psalm 51, and also known as the prayer of repentance. It quoted a portion of the Psalm 51 which read: Sacrifice gives you no pleasure, were I to offer holocaust, you would not have it. My sacrifice is this broken spirit. You will not scorn this crushed and broken heart.

She was curious. She lifted up the bag and rummaged in it for her small New Testament pocket Bible which also had the Psalms. She found Psalm 51 and read it:

Have mercy on me, God, in your goodness in your abundant compassion blot out my offense. Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me. For I know my offense; my sin is always before me. Against you alone have I sinned; I have done such evil in your sight. That you are just in your sentence, blameless when you condemn. True, I was born guilty, a sinner, even as my mother conceived me. Still, you insist on sincerity of heart; in my inmost being teach me wisdom. Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure; wash me, make me whiter than snow. Let me hear sounds of joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Turn away your face from my sins; blot out all my guilt. A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a steadfast spirit. Do not drive me from your presence, nor take from me your holy spirit. Restore my joy in your salvation; sustain in me a willing spirit. I will teach the wicked your ways, that sinners may return to you. Rescue me from death, God, my saving God, that my tongue may praise your healing power. Lord, open my lips; my mouth will proclaim your praise. For you do not desire sacrifice; a burnt offering you would not accept. My sacrifice, God, is a broken spirit; God, do not spurn a broken, humbled heart.

She picked up the book again and began to re-read parts of the introduction. It clearly argued that the Divine Office represented a form of sacrifice. Sacrifice means giving up something that has one or more of the following properties: It must be something of value which is either visible or physical or sensibly perceptible and which would be costly for us were we to offer it to God. To sacrifice of something involves offering something that is very precious or very valuable or very desirable. Something as simple as physical comfort, convenience, time as in the endurance of inconvenience or pain or discomfort. Something which we are prepared to voluntary undergo and endure can act as a sacrifice. She thought to herself this line of argumentation is definitely Catholic and not Protestant in any kind of way. Anything that smacks even ever so slightly of works which necessarily entails doing something however small and insignificant for God for the sake of God's good pleasure is anathema to the Protestant mind.

Sacrifice involves surrendering something that is valuable to God, the thing surrendered also functions as a token of our complete dependence on God. The Liturgy of the Hours or Divine Office literally involves a kind of bodily sacrifice. It embodies the idea: 'this is my body'. The recitation, the chanting or choral singing of the Divine Office requires five kinds of bodily sacrifice: sacrifice of place, of time, of posture, of duration and of voice, all of these incorporate the idea and action of 'this is my body'. God incarnate sacrificed himself in a self-emptying act which is fully summarized in the statement: 'this is my body'.

Sacrifice of place means giving up options of convenience such as leaving your physical zone of comfort and convenience, and relocating yourself to the chapel or the place where others have gathered for the communal celebration of the canonical hour.

Sacrifice of time means giving up one of the most precious possessions or commodities. It is always better to do something else rather than meeting with others for the communal celebration of the canonical hour.

Communal recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours involves not only sacrifice but also solidarity with others, with one's brothers and sisters, in the sacrificial action. The reward of God's good pleasure in the recitation of the Divine Office is the promise that whenever two or three are gathered in God's name He is in their midst.

She then read about the sacrifice of posture. She chuckled and thought who would have thought that posture could become a means of sacrifice to God. To change one's posture from comfortable relaxation on a comfortable chair, or from the ease of lounging on a setee or the pleasure of lying on a bed to a posture of kneeling and standing can become a real sacrifice.

Catholic pews are different to Protestant pews. Catholic pews occupy a minimum of space and are designed to facilitate the quick changes from a sitting posture to a kneeling position. Protestant pews have no kneelers, they often have cushioned and padded seats, with spacious leg room, designed not for kneeling but for comfortable sitting while listening to long sermons. Catholics are required to be active participants in the Liturgy of the People whereas Protestant are required to be passive listeners. For Protestants the focus is the Sermon, and for Catholics the focus is the Eucharistic Celebration and the Sacrifice of Praise. Two different postures one relaxed and at ease, the other kneeling and focused on active recitation of the words of the Liturgy. The one passive, the other preoccupied with doing, with working. Geraldine was aware of the ironical differences.

The sacrifice of duration involves intense focused concentration on the meaning of the words being recited, chanted or sung. This requires an endurance of effort exerted in intense concentration. This kind of duration involves more than the simple passage of time that has been given up. It is rather about how that time was spent. This is what makes duration expensive and therefore sacrificial.

Then finally there was the sacrifice of the voice, which requires the careful, focused, mindful- recitation, chanting or singing of the Divine Office. All of this involves the exertion of intense mental and physical effort with respect to applying the body, the mind and the voice to the rendering of the liturgical text as a worthy and sweet sacrifice of praise to God. Harmony must be achieved between mind and voice, between mind and body. It involves intonation and elevation of the voice. It involves awareness of melody, rhythm and pattern, awareness of sola utterances or communal antiphonal voicing of the recitation.

Aaron interrupted her musings.

"Do you want to go for a swim?" he asked.

She took off her sunglasses. The sun was high, the light was bright and the glare of the beach sand was dazzling. She became aware of the humid heat. She had been so deeply engrossed in what she had been reading that she had not only lost track of time and but had also become oblivious of her surroundings.

She wanted to talk to Aaron about what she had read, but also felt the need to plunge into the cool waters of the sea.

"The sand is going to fry our feet, the tide has gone out," she said.

"We will just sprint. Look it is mind over matter. People walk on red hot coals," he answered.

"I have had blisters on feet before from hot beach sand," she answered cautiously.

She took of her sunglasses, hat and kicked off her sandals. Suddenly without any warning she bolted to the sea screaming 'last one into the sea is a nincompoop!'

He run after her shouting: "I am going to get you for this, you cheated."

She began to scream, squeal and laugh as they sprinted towards the sea. He tried to catch her but she outrun him. She run right into the sea, plunged headlong under a breaking wave and began to swim away with strong gracefully freestyle strokes and powerful kicks.

He reached the sea and swam after her with the powerful freestyle strokes and kicks of a water polo player, eventually he caught up to her and ducked her head under the water. She resurfaced gasping for air, choking and laughing. They treaded water for a while until she had recovered from laughing and got her breath back. She put her arms around his neck and clamped her legs around his waist.

"You have such a strong, hard, muscular body, my animal husband," she said looking at him seductively. She began to kiss him passionately on the mouth, tightening her embrace around his neck, and pressing her body tight against his.

He began to move his hand to see if her costume could be pulled away giving him access to her crutch.

"No Aaron we can't do it here," and she began to laugh again.

"Why not?" he asked

"Will we sink, you won't be able to tread water and do it at the same time,"

"OK then I will tread water and you move," he said.

"No! You are crazy," she laughed.

"I want to ask you something that is quite serious," she said.

"OK, I am listening," he answered.

"Well I have been reading this book on the Divine Office, you know all the stuff about the Liturgy of the Hours, the stuff that Father Thomas spoke about us when observing Matins and Vespers," she said.

"That's all fine with me, we will attend Morning Song and Evening Song," he said.

"Wait I am not finished yet, what do you think about reciting the complete Liturgy of the Office every day for the rest of our lives?" she said looking at him very earnestly.

"Is that what you want to do?" he asked.

"Yes, I know it may be a rash decision and I may regret it, but I just feel it would the right thing to do, we could try it and see how it goes, if we find we cannot manage it them will just attend Morning and Evening Song," she said.

"We will do it. We will do the Divine Office, we will do it for the rest of lives," he said.

"Aaron, I know you so well, if I say to you that I need one of your kidneys, you will say no problem," she said.

"I will die for you because I love you so much," he said.

"I know, I know, and I will also die for you. But I am being serious now. This is one thing I want you to think about. It must not only be my decision. We will talk about. I just wanted to see how you felt. There is still lot of time to think about. It is going involve a huge commitment if we decide to observe the Divine Office," she said.

"OK we will talk about it. I will read those books as well," he said.

### Chapter 3

They followed the directions that the clerk at the reception had given them and found the Adega da Madragoa. It was in the basement of the Clube dos Lisboetas in Avenida Dr Brito Camacho. They were told it was an excellent venue if they wanted to listen to fado music. The waiter ushered them to a small round wooden table. Aaron ordered a Laurentina and Geraldine asked for glass of red wine.

The tables were arranged around a low woodened platform which functioned as the stage. There were stools, microphones and sound equipment set up on the stage. There was also a piano on the stage. Musicians began to arrive. One of the musicians took his violin out of its case and began to tune the instrument. Another person with an accordion set himself up on one of the stools. A guitarist picked up his 12-stringed guitarra and another guitarist took up his viola da França or Spanish guitar. Yet another guitarist removed his bass guitar from its case.

Once the musicians were ready an attractive woman in her thirties dressed in black with a black shawl draped over shoulders stepped onto the low woodened platform stage. She had a pale white face, dark brown eyes and long shiny black hair. Geraldine speculated that she must be one of the female fadista entertainers. The woman spoke to the musicians. They nodded their heads and took up their positions. She moved over to the microphone, adjusted its height, and tapped it to see if the power was on.

She announced that her first song would be Sabe-se lá (Lord only knows). Standing in her shawl she began to sing Lá porque ando em baixo agora (Lord only knows why I'm going under now) in a beautiful soprano voice accompanied by the acoustic guitars, violin and the accordion.

Aaron asked Geraldine what she thought of the song, she replied:

"I cannot fathom what she is singing about but it sounds so haunting, so forlorn and kind of tragic. A lot of Tango music also stirs up similar emotions as fado. Tango can also make you feel very forlorn and melancholic. But the Tango sound depends on a completely different ensemble of musical instruments. As you know all the musical instruments used in Tango music includes violins, pianos, bass guitars, flutes, and clarinets. But the most important musical instrument in the Tango is of course the bandoneóns. A lot of Tango music can also stir up an incredible sense of loss, extreme feelings of sadness, also very deep and aching nostalgia. It's funny that the music for such a sensual dance as the Tango can also be so sad and forlorn. It seems so contradictory to have this mixture of sensuality, eroticism and melancholy, and even pain, in some of Tangos. Maybe the Argentinean bordellos were also places of extreme melancholy, especially for the women who were trapped into prostitution."

Aaron noticed that a professorial looking middle aged man dressed in a black suit and wearing a clerical collar sitting at the table adjacent to theirs had been following their conversation. He had a beard and receding grey hair, wearing black framed spectacles, he shifted in his chair and turned towards them and spoke in very articulate but heavily Portuguese accented English. He coughed and then said:

"Pardon me for interrupting, but I could not help overhearing you conversation. I am Diogo Alegrio."

"I am Aaron Finnegan and this is my wife Geraldine McNamara Finnegan."

"Pleased to meet you."

"Yes fado is a very interesting and powerful genre of Portuguese folk music. No one really knows for certain what influenced the origin and development of fabo. Even the words fado and fadista are not strictly speaking traditional Portuguese words but have been derived from fatum the Latin word for fate. Some argue that it had a Moorish origin, which like the Tango could have originated from the Arabian majuri. Or it could have had a maritime origin. Others discern a definite African syncopated and jazz imprint in the fado. It is quite probable that slavery and colonization has contributed to the origins of fado. Without Portugal's long history in the slave trade and as a colonizing power fado would probably never have emerged. But one thing is certain, fado would never have emerged without the complementary strumming-thrumming of the guitarra and the viola da França. "

He took a packet of cigarettes from his jackets pocket and pulled out a cigarette from the packet, tapped one end on the table and then placed it between his lips.

"Can I offer you a cigarette," he asked.

"No thanks," they both said.

He struck a match, and cupping his hands he lit the cigarette. He drew heavily on his cigarette, sipped his beer and pushed his spectacles up and continued with his lecture.

"Just like your wife has observed, fado is the medium through which the fadista shares feelings and experiences of saudades with an empathetic and indulgent audience, who often become so overwhelmed with waves of unbearable sadness, forlorn longing and haunting nostalgia, just like you said, that they sometimes weep without any inhibition. This happens when fado is at its best," he said.

"Yes, this is precisely how Geraldine has described the effect that the song which the woman has just sung has had on both of us," Aaron said.

The walls were covered with posters and framed prints. He noticed that Geraldine was looking at one of the posters. It depicted a Portuguese woman in traditional dress playing the guitarra with its round sound board and six double strings of wire.

"That is Maria Severa Onofriana, a very famous fado singer. That poster of the woman sitting playing the guitar is Amália Rodrigues. She is also a famous fado singer."

"You were speaking about Tango. Do you like Tango?"

Geraldine answered:

"Oh yes we do. We can both Tango, we both love the Tango, the Tango is our life."

The priest smiled indulgently at Geraldine's remark.

"Do you teach dancing?"

"No not really. But I would like to teach dancing especially the Tango."

"What do you do?"

"Well I have just completed my studies to be a school teacher. We both have finished our studies to be teachers, we going to teach at a mission school in Swaziland," she said.

"Are you Catholic?" he asked.

"Yes we are Father Diogo," she said.

"I'm a Jesuit Priest, but I am also a theoretical physicist," he said.

"It seems that there are quite a few priests who are also physicists. The priest who helped us get our jobs at the mission school also studied physics, he did a PhD in cosmology at Cambridge University," Aaron said.

"That is interesting. I am also interested in cosmology. I don't know if you know about the Belgium Jesuit priest called Georges Lemaître. He was also a very famous physicist. He produced a solution to Einstein's equations of general relativity that showed that the Universe was expanding. Einstein did not believe in the physical implications of Lemaître's solution, but another guy called Hubble proved that the Universe was expanding. So Lemaître the Catholic priest was right and Einstein was wrong. It was Einstein's biggest blunder," Father Diogo said.

"I know the story," Aaron said.

"The question that interests me is whether the so-called closed Friedman- Lemaître universe could have spontaneously arisen out of zero energy. The state of zero energy is the idea that we use to conceptualize an empty void or a state of nothingness. But in quantum mechanics we know that there is no such thing or state of affairs which has zero energy. Usually in physics we select a point on an energy scale, and the point could be fairly arbitrary, and we describe that point as our zero energy point, so what is taken to be zero is also arbitrary. Anyway above the point we have positive energy which represents the capacity for a system to perform useful work and below the point we have negative energy. However, according to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle as we reduce all the physical dimensions of a system we eventually reach a level of smallness or minuteness where it becomes exceedingly difficult to establish with certainty the energy state of the system from moment to moment, we discover that we are unable to predict it's dynamics with precision, this would represent the quantum level of reality, the same applies for various systems which are microscopic, atomic or subatomic in size, things become very complex, we have quantum fluctuations in the systems energy state. Such a state of affairs would have been the case with respect to the initial state of the Universe at the very earliest instance of the Big Bang. At the very earliest stage of the Big Bang the Universe would have been microscopic in size and would have behaved like a quantum mechanical system. To cut a long story short the Universe did not emerge in the Big Bang from nothing, it was originally in a physical state where it had the least admissible energy. We call this state of least admissible energy the quantum vacuum. Many physicists will be tempted to falsely represent the quantum vacuum as nothing, or as pure nothingness. But this is not true, the quantum vacuum is not nothing it is something, it is a system, from which energy, mass, space and time can emerge without violating the uncertainty principle and the laws of thermodynamics. So what we have here is something that is very complicated indeed. It does not represent a metaphysical nothingness. In fact we can visualize the quantum vacuum as a system composed of a violent and eternal storm of boiling virtual particles whose dynamics obey the fixed eternal laws of nature including Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. In the quantum vacuum pairs of particles and antiparticles are continually being generated, and after their being generated they are immediately annihilated. So you can appreciate that the quantum vacuum is not really a state of metaphysical nothingness but rather an ocean of violently fluctuating energy. Yes the Big Bang could be conceived as originating from a quantum fluctuation, that is a whole Universe arising from a fluctuation of a quantum vacuum, a Universe which is causally closed, yet a Universe born with infinite possibilities, in fact it is infinite in many respects, even though in the end it is condemned to a finite existence. So in theory we could use the idea of quantum fluctuations to produce the entire Universe without violating the principle of the conservation of energy because the positive energy of the Universe will be cancelled by the negative energy of the Universe, so the Universe will have a zero net energy. But this does not mean that the Universe was generated from nothing, zero energy in this context does not mean nothing in any kind of physical or metaphysical or theological sense. So you see, the Universe was generated out of something, out of some pre-existing primordial state of affairs which we could reasonably describe as the quantum vacuum."

"Where did the quantum vacuum come from? Where did that so-call primordial state of affairs come from Father Diogo?" Geraldine asked.

"Science cannot answer that question. It is a metaphysical question," he said.

"So the Universe is not self-explanatory?" Aaron asked.

"Yes. Science cannot find any empirically accessible fact which could be used to formulate the ultimate answer to the Philosopher's question: 'Is-there-a-reason-for-the-existence-of-the-Universe'," Father Diogo said.

"So this kind of question cannot be answered through the application of the instruments and methodology of Science to all the phenomena that constitute the Universe," Aaron asked.

"Correct," said the Jesuit.

"So the objective application of the scientific method cannot render the Universe self-explanatory?" Aaron asked again.

"Correct?" said the Jesuit.

"You have spoken about the beginning of the Universe, what about the end of the Universe Father Diogo?" Geraldine asked.

"The end of the Universe will be its death in accordance with the laws of nature. People must die, the earth must die, the stars will die, all protons and neutrons will decay, and in the end the whole Universe will eventually die. Everything that is contingent will eventually die. We need to remind ourselves that everything in the Universe is contingent, and we say contingent we mean contingent on something else, and it is this which makes the Universe's existence something which is ultimately not self-explanatory. The conditions of inevitable death, non-necessity or contingency and being non-self-explanatory are all interlinked and interdependent with respect to the nature of the Universe. Everything that is contingent must die and everything that is contingent in the Universe is not necessary and everything that does not exist necessarily is also non-self-explanatory. In fact nothing is self-explanatory in the physical world, including space, time, and matter, not even the Laws of Physics are self-explanatory. The Universe is contingent in the most radical manner imaginable and is therefore non-self-explanatory from a scientific perspective in the most profound way imaginable, and this is the true subject matter of metaphysics, because it is beyond physics," he said.

"I find this business of contingency philosophically speaking very interesting. The form of the logical arguments used in the critique of the contingency, cosmological and teleological arguments for God's existence also inadvertently prove that the Universe's contingent existence is not self-explanatory," Geraldine responded.

"Precisely," answered Father Diogo.

"The issue is not about unassailable logical proofs, or compelling reasons, but rather something more modest, like warranted belief. We could argue that given a certain state of affairs such as the non-self-explanatory nature of a contingent Universe belief in the existence of an agency by virtue of which something arises contingently need not be construed as an irrational belief that such an agency indeed exists, it be could construed that such a belief warranted," Aaron added his point of view.

"I get you," Father Diogo replied.

"In a way the silvery tones of the guitarra, the thrumming sounds of the viola da França and the mournful cadences of the fadista all cooperate together to capture the feelings of languid resignation associated with universal human experience of death and contingency," Father Diogo said with an ironic grin on his face.

"So the fado is always sad and tragic." Geraldine said.

"Yes, true fado always revels in tragedy, but the voice of the fadista does not resemble the bel canto of the Italian opera singer. Listen to her singing, it follows quite strictly the tempo and rhythm of her guitarra and the viola da França accompaniment, she is singing in a fashion that is free and flexible like a jazz-singer, she follows similar patterns of syncopation and suspension of the rhythmic beat that a jazz-singer typically uses to produce that fascinating intonation and modulation of voice," he said.

"Listen to her voice, it is sad, but also passionate, rustic, erotic and sensuous all at once, it embodies the fullness of the Portuguese temperament, the Anglo-Saxon ear is not fully tuned to be moved by fado music," the priest explained.

The priest fell into a deep reflective silence. Then he looked up and around in a distracted fashion, it seemed that he was ready to leave. He drew on his cigarette.

He then stumped out his cigarette, finished his beer, got up, pushed back his chair.

"Adeus!"

Aaron and Geraldine replied together. "Obrigado, adeus."

They watched the priest leave.

Aaron then looked at Geraldine. "We have not danced the Tango for a very long time. Will we ever Tango again?"

"Yes of course we going to Tango. I planned to start a dance school at the Mission. It will be an extramural activity. When they have been built we will use one of the classrooms and give dance lessons twice a week. You will be my assistant if you like. We will teach all the kids to Tango." She laughed.

"Have read anything else of interest about the Liturgy of the Hours," Aaron asked.

"Well yes, I have in fact. Apparently its origins are very ancient going back to the time when God first commanded the Aaronic priests to offer a morning and an evening sacrifice. Then with the destruction of the temple and the Babylonian Exile the liturgical readings of the Torah, the singing of the Psalms and hymns in the synagogue were gradually interpreted as being sacrifices of praise and as such they could function as substitutes for the actual bloody sacrifices of the Temple."

"At the end of Babylonian exile the people returning to Judea introduced the prayer service liturgies which incorporated the idea of sacrifices of praise into the local synagogues. After the Temple was re-built the prayer service liturgies that were developed in Babylon were also used in Temple worship. Also in addition to the Morning and Evening Prayers that accompanied the sacrifices, there were also the prayers at the Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours of the day in Temple worship.|"

"So in addition to the Mass being a sacrifice of praise, can one also associate the idea of a sacrifice of praise with the Liturgy of the Hours," Aaron asked.

"Yes I think so, the idea that the Liturgy of the Hours embodies a sacrifice of Praise to God appears to be valid from what I have read," she said.

"In the Acts of Apostle Luke notes that the Christians and Apostles in Jerusalem continued to attend the communal prayer services that were held at the customary hours at the Temple. While they continued to pray at the Temple they no larger shared in the Temple sacrifices because that sacrifice was eventually fulfilled in the Eucharistic breaking of bread, in the announcement: 'this is my body'."

### Chapter 4

After breakfast Aaron settled the bill and they left for Inhambane. Tofo was about 22 km from Inhambane. Aaron had already been to Tofo several times before as a kid and teenager. The Finnegan's used to go on holidays with the Nobles. Mr Noble had a ski boat. Max and Mr Noble plus other friends spent the holidays at Tofo deep sea fishing for game fish. Aaron had gone a number of times with them. From the boat he had seen saw huge manta rays, whale sharks and many turtles. He remembered on one occasion Mr Noble opened the throttles of the two outboard motors and the ski boat planed across the still surface, it felt as if they were skimming without any sensation of frictional-drag on the hull of the boat. It was as if they were flying mere millimetres above the ocean. It was on a clear day, and early in the morning. They sped towards their fishing destination which was on the seaward side of some coral reef. On that day schools of flying fish leaped out of the water and glided alongside the boat. Also a large of school dolphins appeared out of nowhere and swam with ease alongside the boat even though it was going at a reasonable speed.

Also on one languid afternoon when Aaron was still a young kid he sat on the beach with the other members of the two families waiting for the return of ski boat. It was late afternoon and when they spotted Mr Noble's boat approaching the beach. A black flag attached to a rod was flapping triumphantly. It was a signal everyone understood, immediately they knew that a marlin had been caught. There was great excitement on the beach. Riding high on a churning bed of white surf the ski boat planed up the beach. Everyone rushed to the boat. It turned out that marlin Mr Noble had caught a huge black marlin. It seemed such a pity to have caught and killed such a magnificent fish. They ate marlin steaks for breakfast, lunch and supper, for days on end.

Now as they drove past Xai Xai they spotted a lone soldier wearing a black beret and faded camouflage uniform standing next to the road side. He also had a faded green duffle bag laying on the ground next to him. He was obviously hitch hiking to some town along the road that Aaron and Geraldine were travelling. He began thumb for a lift as the Combi approached.

"Should we give him a lift?" Geraldine asked.

Aaron stopped the Combi. The soldier grabbed his bag and run to the Combi.

"Where are you going?" He asked, speaking good English.

"Inhambane," Aaron answered.

"I am also going to Inhambane," he said.

Aaron told him to hop in. The soldier slide open the back side door and sat down in the seat behind the cab.

Because he was soldier in uniform and also because there was a war going on in the northern provinces of Mozambique it was not long before the topic of conversation drifted onto the bush war and the politics of the decolonization liberation struggle in Mozambique.

The soldier obviously noticed that Aaron and Geraldine were a married-mixed-race-couple from South Africa. It was a complete anomaly. Yet what he had to say was unexpected. After a brief silence he made a strange disclosure:

"I myself am a mulatto. My great great grandfather came to Mozambique many years ago, in the early years of the colonization of Mozambique. He was not Portuguese he was a Spaniard. He was one of the original pioneers in Mozambique. He traded in gold and ivory. And because he had been alone for a long time among the natives he yearned for the companionship of a wife. There were very few single white Portuguese women, you know European women, in the colony during those days, so he bought a woman at the Arab slave market in Inhambane. She was a very pretty young Negro girl, just a teenager, maybe 14 years old. He freed her, she was baptized and he married her. So I am also a descendent of an African slave woman. This makes me a mulatto. My family has been farming in the Inhambane province for more than a 100 years. I am fighting for what belongs to my family."

"But maybe the natives in Mozambique want be free from colonial rule," Aaron said.

"What about South Africa, don't the natives there also want to be freed from colonial rule," He asked smiling ironically.

"South Africa is not a colony ruled by colonists, it is an independent country," Aaron answered.

"OK, we can't compare Mozambique with South Africa, but at least there is no apartheid in Mozambique," he argued.

"Any African in Mozambique can become an assimilado. Any native who becomes an assimilado can participate freely in elections. All assimilados enjoy full social, political and economic freedom. They have the same status as any white man in Mozambique," the soldier argued.

"Maybe the Natives don't want to become assimilados," said Geraldine.

"Also, maybe it is too late for this kind of political solution," Aaron said.

"I am fighting so that a political solution can be found for the people of Mozambique. FRELIMO is puppet of Russia. Communism is no political solution. There will be no freedom under Communism. Since 1964 I have been fighting FRELIMO. I have just spent 4 months in Tete we tracked down FRELIMO day and night in thick bush," he answered earnestly.

"You probably heard in the new that in February Eduardo Mondlane the leader of the Frente de Libertacao de Mocambique (FRELIMO), the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, was assassinated. Some say the PIDE was responsible but I think he was killed by the members of his own party," he said, "I think he was murdered because he was a bit too liberal and FRELIMO had fallen under the control of the communists."

Aaron turned his head and glanced at the hitch hiker. His English was very good. He was on army furlough and was going home to the family farm to rest from the war. There were dark blue rings below his eyes. He looked emotionally exhausted. He had dark hair, dark stubble on his face, dark eyes, but his skin was pale, almost milky, and much whiter than Aaron's. According to Geraldine Aaron was darker than many Coloureds in South Africa, and if he hang around too long with Coloureds he may even be reclassified as Coloured. Aaron smiled to himself when he remembered Geraldine saying this.

Geraldine also turned around to get a good look at the soldier who said he was a mulatto. She also examined his pale white face, and glanced at his white sinuous arms, that had been protected by long sleeves from the African sun. The reddish triangle on his chest below his neck was the only place where the sun had branded its mark on his body.

Geraldine had an amused look on her face. Here she was, a very dark Coloured South African woman married to a white South African man listening to a very ironical tale, almost unbelievable. She glanced at Aaron, he could read her thoughts, and there was a humorous twinkle in her big black eyes. This pale haunted faced young Portuguese Lieutenant who had so baldly identified himself as a mulatto descendent from a manumitted black slave woman, a Negress, seemed to be so incongruous. Now this pallid skinned mulatto descendent from a manumitted slave Negress was fighting the Communist oriented FRELIMO for the freedom of everyone in Mozambique. What strange twists and turns there are to so many African tales she thought.

The soldier opened his olive green canvas duffle bag and began to rummage in it for something. He pulled out a clear plastic bag and passed it to Geraldine. It seemed to be filled with dried out acacia seed pods.

"These are the ears of all the FRELIMO Communist terrorists that my men have killed. We are a special force battalion. All my men are non-European native Mozambicans. I don't even know how many we have killed, I have not counted. We will not be giving up our farms and businesses to FRELIMO. They will have to kill us all."

Geraldine gingerly passed the bag back to him.

"This is no apartheid in Mozambique. All racial discrimination has been removed. I know all about apartheid, I received my High School education in South Africa and studied for my BSc degree in agriculture at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. I know everything about apartheid and I can tell that South African apartheid has never been practiced in Mozambique. There is no ideology of apartheid in Mozambique. In Mozambique we relate differently to blacks. We do not have a problem with race, that I can tell you for sure," he said with earnest conviction.

"You are a white South Africa married to a black woman. You can never go back to South Africa. But you could stay in Mozambique. I can organize it. I have contacts with very powerful families in Mozambique. They can organize it."

"That sounds good and we thank you. But what is going to happen to us if FRELIMO takes over?" Aaron asked. "They may put us in jail or send us back to South Africa, we will jumping from the frying pan into the fire."

"That will never happen. I can organize a solution for you and your wife."

"Thanks but it is not necessary. We are staying in Swaziland. We have jobs there and we have work permits. The Church has made it possible for us to live and work for as long as we like in Swaziland," Geraldine answered

"Are going to become Swazi citizens?"

Geraldine replied: "We did think of it. But we don't see any reason to give up our South African citizenship, except to maybe go to the USA, or Canada or England. But we don't really want to leave Africa. We don't care about politics. Our only care it to be together."

"You two are so naïve if you think you can ignore politics. The whole of human existence is political. The most extreme politics is between a man and woman. OK, I don't really mean that. It's a bit of exaggeration."

"Yes it is an exaggeration. There is no politics in marriage," she said quite adamantly.

"OK. But you cannot ever escape politics. You want to stay South Africans. That's a political decision. You don't want to leave Africa. That's a political decision. You think what's happening in Mozambique and Rhodesia is not going to happen in South Africa. Just wait and see. No you are not going to escape politics. My advice to both of you is to get out of Africa. In Africa, politics rules supreme. Look I am fighting for something in Mozambique. I am involved in politics because I have something to lose. You think you can ignore politics because your think you have nothing to lose. Politics is no longer important to you because you both think that you got what you want. You both are very naïve, but at least I think in your naivety you have got what you want from this life. I can only hope that you will not be disappointed. "

"We are not naïve. We are just not interested in politics. Our relationship and being together as man and wife transcends politics. We have chosen the only option that we had under the circumstances. I genuinely don't care about politics. It was politics that kept us apart in South Africa, so we left South Africa and its politics behind. I sincerely believe that God has guided our destiny. He has made it possible for Aaron and myself to be together," Geraldine said.

He answered: "I don't doubt your faith, but I still believe you are naïve about the kind of world we live in."

They dropped him off at a relative's home in Inhambane and proceeded on the last leg of their journey to Tofo. Before they left him he gave Geraldine his telephone number and the address of his farm.

As they took their leave he said: "If ever you come again to Inhambane please phone me. You will always be welcome stay with us on our farm."

At Tofo they parked the Combi in the carport next to the beach bungalow belonging to the Nobles. They unpacked their provisions which included cereal, eggs, powder milk, sugar, coffee, tea, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, pumpkin and cabbage in the kitchen. The eggs, bacon, cheese, beer, wine, and cool drinks were placed in the gas fridge. Aaron then switched the fridge on. He had suggested to Geraldine they could buy fresh line fish every day for their meals.

After a long walk on the beach they returned to the bungalow. Relaxing in the lounge Geraldine gazed at the collection of framed photographs, both old and very recent, hanging on the lounge wall. Many of the photographs, including some old black and white photos showed a much younger Mr Noble with the fish he had caught at Tofo. Geraldine attention was caught by one particular picture. She stood up and went over it and began to examine it closely with some interest.

She turned around and asked Aaron: "Is that you standing there with your sister?"

Aaron too got up and examined the framed black and white picture. It was of a huge marlin. Standing next to the marlin with a huge smile on his face was Mr Nobel. Next to him stood a smiling young girl and a grinning small boy.

"The young girl is my sister Hillary and I am the small boy. I was about 6 years old."

"It is an amazing picture, like a picture out of National Geographic or the Life Magazine," she said.

"I have actually never noticed that photograph before. But I can still vividly recall the day they came back with that marlin. Its eyes were so huge, as big as tea cup sauces. I remember there was huge excitement on the beach. People crowded around the boat, amazed at the size of the fish. How they caught the marlin was another story. Would like to hear about it?"

"As long as it is not just another tall fish story like the ones I used to hear as a kid on the beach in Durban while the men were fishing especially after they had slugged back some brandy," she said, "But I will indulge you, I know you men enjoy telling fishing stories."

"Well then, let me tell you about how they caught the marlin," he could not resist talking about the story, and he knew the story was just a pretext for going off on some wild tangent, but he felt like talking, "shortly after launching the boat they saw the silhouettes of several marlin in the swell of the wave in front of them just behind the band of breakers. They quickly baited the lines with sardines and managed to catch a small Bonita within a few minutes. They used the Bonita as bait and began troll the bait just outside the breakers. Within 10 minutes a huge marlin struck the fish and then a few seconds later it swallowed the fish. After realizing that it had been hooked it leaped out of the water a mere 10 meters from the boat. Max said he was worried that if it leaped again it would land in the boat. Mr Nobel eventually landed the fish about 6 hours later after a very tough fight. The marlin dragged them out to sea, they disappeared across the horizon. That night there was a huge party in this very bungalow. A lot of mining and business big shots arrived at the bungalow. Some of them had been hunting elephant quite close to Inhambane. We all crowded on the little veranda in front of the bungalow. Coloured Christmas lights had been strung up. Ice cubes clinked and chinked in glasses filled with whiskey or gin and tonic. Everyone had a fishing or hunting story to tell that night. I sat there on the porch listening to the grownups talk. I was completely enthralled. I remember my dad Max gave me a sip of his Laurentina. As the liquor flowed the fishing and hunting stories grew more and more fantastic. The men seemed so invincible. I could not help admiring and hero worshiping them. They could take on the whole world it seemed. Some had fought in the Second World War. One was a Spitfire pilot in the RAF who had flown in more than a hundred sorties engaging many Germans in dogfights in the sky above the British channel and another flew a fighter jet in the Korean War. I still think they were amazing men. "

"Sorry to interrupt you. Should we go outside and sit on the porch, it quite hot and humid in the bungalow?" she asked.

"Okay let's go outside then," Aaron said while continuing to talk as they walked out onto the porch and sat on the wire mesh chairs.

"It was also that night that I first heard amazing stories about a chap called Earnest Hemingway. They all seemed to love Hemingway. One of the men had been to Cuba to fish, and said he met Hemingway in Havana. Of course that was before Fidel Castro took over. It was during the times of the Batista regime. Someone spoke about Hemingway's book called the Old Man and the Fish. In fact I am certain that that the very same book by Hemingway is still on the small bookshelf in the lounge. In fact all of Hemingway's books must still be on that bookshelf. Mr Noble spent his holidays at Tofo fishing, drinking whiskey and reading Hemingway. Hemingway was his hero. I remembered reading that book in this same bungalow as an adolescent boy."

The sun disappeared and a cool fresh sea breeze began to blow. Aaron looked at Geraldine and asked:

"Should we go into the bedroom for a while, it is nice and cool now?" he asked. Aaron felt overcome suddenly by an incredible desire to mount her, she knew what he wanted to do to her.

"OK I will have a quick shower and make myself ready for you," she said with a wicked wanton and mischievous smile.

While Geraldine was in the shower, Aaron knelt down in front of the bookshelf and searched through all the titles looking for the book by Hemingway, and sure enough the same book was still there after all these years. He took the book back to the bed room and put on the bedside table on Geraldine's side of the bed. He then pulled off the covers, undressed and laid naked on his back under a sheet. After her shower she walked naked into the room and climbed under the sheet snuggling close up to him. He took her in his arms and made love to her.

That evening they decided to eat at the beach hotel. Sitting at a table for two on the sea facing veranda they consumed a huge pile of shell fish, rice and bread rolls. Soon all the tables were occupied with holiday makers from South Africa and Rhodesia. People who seemed to know each other gathered at a large table where a blond suntanned man in a white T shirt and faded blue jeans was playing a guitar. He seemed to be very popular. He strummed his guitar and sang with a fairly good tenor,

"... In the jungle, the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight. In the jungle, the mighty jungle the lion sleeps ..."

Just inside the hotel's entrance that opened on the porch area was a spiral cement stair case that went down into a small round domed roofed nightclub. They heard rock music coming from the nightclub. Later in the evening people began to go down to the nightclub. Aaron could see Geraldine was itching to dance.

"Should we go?" she said looking at Aaron.

"OK" he answered.

The night club was crowded, dim and also quite warm from the re-radiation of the heat stored in the walls. At various points there were ultra violet lamps on the walls. There was also a disc jockey. He put the stylus down on the LP spinning on the turntable and the club began to throb with the sounds of the familiar Beatles:

Oh! Darling...

Geraldine's face lighted up with exhilaration. Her dark eyes glowed. She put her arms around Aaron's neck in a comfortable embrace and pressed her body tightly against his. He placed his arms round the small of her back and pressed her lower body tightly against his body. Their dancing was nothing special. It was a simple spontaneous unlearned instinctive hugging-and-swaying movement with small shuffling steps. He looked at her, she smiled up at him. They began to smooch uninhibitedly like teenagers as some school dance. They felt so liberated.

Every evening they spent an hour or so on the hotel veranda after their long evening walks along the beach with a torch to observe the nocturnal invertebrates creeping and scurrying about their business on the wet shoreline. On the hotel porch they were aware that people were peering at them constantly. Apart from the waiters Geraldine was the only other non-white person at the hotel in the evenings. This was the first time they had ever been together openly in a public place among white South African and Rhodesians. Sitting near them on the hotel porch at night there was always a crowd of young Rhodesians quaffing down quart size bottles of 3 M or Laurentina, speaking loudly and laughing gaily.

### Chapter 5

For Christmas Geraldine had gave Aaron a book called the The Magic of Tango in Argentina. They sat together on the sofa paging through the book

The introduction reviewed the origins of the Tango. Some interesting glossy coloured pictures of paintings of black people dancing caught Aaron's attention. The picture depicted scenes of dancing, blacks dancing indoors and outdoors at night. They were dancing a dance called Candombe. All the Candombe paintings were by a Uruguayan artist called Pedro Figari. They depicted scenes that must have taken place in the 1830s in Montevideo. It said that he had painted the scenes of dancing figures from memory. The blacks were slaves, originally from Angola. A population of African slaves from Angola also existed in Buenos Aires since 1580. The Candombe had also become established as a dance among the blacks in Argentina and most likely was involved in the genesis of the Tango.

"Let me show you something about people looking at each other," she said as she turned back the pages in the book.

"See here it says 'in Argentina everybody in the milonga is watching everybody else,' " she said, looking up at Aaron, "in the Tango clubs or milongas as they call these places in Argentina everyone is either watching carefully how the others are dancing the Tango and the Tango dancers are fully aware that every move they make is being scrutinized, this is what the Tango is about. In the milonga everybody is also looking at how everybody else is dressed. The women are looking at the makeup of other women and at their clothing or shoes."

"But what about this," Aaron said, as he turned back a few pages and pointed to a black and white photo of a grey haired couple who were probably in their seventies, "no one is watching this couple dance the Tango."

They were in a Tango embrace in a small apartment room in front of a lace curtained window that probably overlooked a park across the street in Buenos Aires. The afternoon sun was streaming into the room. There was what looked like a dining room table to the left and to the right was a sideboard against the wall. A shaded lamp bulb hung from the centre of the ceiling above their heads. There was a Catholic crucifix on the wall and a picture of the Madonna above the sideboard. It was a beautifully composed and perfectly balanced picture. But it was not a poignant picture of old age. It was a picture capturing the ageless beauty of two Tango dancers. Here were two old people dancing the Tango in the autumn of their lives, alone, yet not alone in their apartment, which was filled with the music of the Tango. Their love for each other was stronger than ever, undiminished by the ravages of time and the troubles of life. There were no regrets for a life lived in the way it was lived.

Aaron and Geraldine both gazed at the photograph in silence for a while. Her face softened as she took in the details of the picture.

"Their circumstances were modest by any standards. They probably rented the apartment. Yet their lives where rich beyond any accepted standards. Why? The answer is simple. As long as you can celebrate the Mass and dance the Tango your life is richer than all the wealth in the world," Geraldine said softly, as if talking to herself. She gave Aaron a gentle and affectionate look, put her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

She released him and looked again at the picture smiling warmly to herself.

"It is so beautiful," she said, "there are intimate moments when a man and woman don't need or want to be scrutinized by others, but at the same time being seen by others is important for your own sense of identity and sense of personal value to others. This is why the Zulu greeting sawubona which literally means 'I see you', embodies more meaning that just visual perception of someone."

They heard the engine of an outboard motor screaming. It was the blond man approaching the beach at full throttle. He skidded the boat high up onto the beach almost to the high tide mark close to where his white bakkie was parked.

It seemed that the blond man fished for a living. He had a small flat boat with a single outboard motor. Every afternoon they watched him beaching his boat close to their bungalow. It was always filled with fish. He would load the fish into the white Datsun bakkie and take them to Inhambane.

"Let go over and see if he will sell us a small fish which we can braai tonight."

They walked over to his boat to look at the catch.

"I'm Aaron Finnegan, and this is my wife Geraldine."

"Hi I am Paul van Wyk," he said, stretching out his hand towards Aaron, he then also shook Geraldine's hand.

Aaron told him that they wanted to buy a small fish to grill on the braai. Paul had been curious about the couple. He had seen them on the veranda at the hotel, he had watched their comings and goings in the evening when he sat on the veranda of his bungalow with his wife and two young children. They had been quiet and unobtrusive in their manner, always together, holding hands or embracing each other or kissing like two besotted teenagers.

"We like to buy a fish to braai, can we look at what you got," Aaron said.

"Sure have a look," he said as he left the hatch of the fish hold open.

Aaron and Geraldine leaned over and examined the fish. Aaron spotted a nice sized Bonito and pulled it out of from the pile of fish grabbing it by the tail.

"We would like to buy this one, how much do you want for it," he asked Paul the fisherman.

He did not answer Aaron instead he asked if they were on honeymoon while looking at the shiny gold rings on their fingers.

"Yes we are honey moon," Aaron said smiling broadly.

"You can have the fish for nothing," Paul said with a grin on his face.

"Where are you guys from?" he asked.

"We from South Africa, we are South Africans, but we are now staying and working in Swaziland," Aaron said.

"I am also from South Africa, but I have not been back for quite a while. I used to be a history teacher at Durban High School. I left my job to become a professional surfer. I travelled around the world surfing everywhere in competitions. My wife is American. She was also a surfer. I meet her in California. Now I fish for living," he said, shrugging his shoulders as if it was sign of resignation, an unconsciousness acceptance of his fate in life.

"Do you ever take people out on your boat," Aaron asked.

"Yes sometimes, if the money is right," he answered.

"I know there are quite a few coral reefs quite close to Tofo. Do know if there are any shallow reefs where one can snorkel?" Aaron asked.

"Yeah there are some shallow coral reefs where one can dive?" he said.

"I will pay you to take us in your boat to a shallow reef that is suitable for snorkel diving," Aaron said.

"Yeah sure, I am happy to do that," he answered.

Geraldine looked slightly perturbed at the idea: "Do you really think that is a good idea. What about sharks?"

"I am sure it will be OK my darling. I have never had the chance to do snorkel diving among the coral reefs here at Tofo. Look we may never have the opportunity to snorkel dive. It will be an experience that we will always remember. All those students we saw at the hotel are snorkel diving and spear fishing off the coral reefs scattered in the sea around Tofo. I have brought two set of snorkels, goggles and flippers just in case there was chance for us to do some diving."

Aaron could see she was struggling with the idea. But he also knew she was a good swimmer and had snorkelled before as a kid in Durban. She definitely was not a timid person. She was also physically strong, fit and in good shape.

She reluctantly agree: "OK I will do it with you, but only if Paul has experience with diving among the coral reefs."

He grinned indulgently. "Yeah I got lots of experience. I have been diving and spear fishing my whole life. I grew up in Durban."

"I also grew up Durban," Geraldine said

"Yeah no kidding, is that so," he said.

Geraldine seemed satisfied with the answer. Aaron noticed that she had become a bit distracted. She began to focus her attention on the sea.

"Hey look the sea has changed, quite a swell has developed, it's absolutely perfect for surfing," Geraldine said.

"Yes it does look good. Occasionally we get really good swells for surfing," Paul said.

"Do you have a surf board?" She asked. Aaron knew that Geraldine was going to ask that question.

"I got a few boards, you can see them there stacked on my veranda," he said pointing to a bungalow close to ours.

"Could I borrow one of your surf boards?" Aaron knew that this was going to be the next question that she was going to ask.

"Sure, help yourself," he said quite nonchalantly, "I must go and take the fish to Inhambane. My wife is at the cottage just tell her I said you can take one of the boards."

While he quickly loaded his fish on the back of the bakkie (pickup truck) Geraldine went to change into her costume. As she came back wearing her black costume and carrying a beach towel, Paul climbed into bakkie and drove off to Inhambane.

They walked over to the blond man's bungalow and knocked on the door. A blond headed woman carrying a young child on her hip opened the door. She recognized them. She had obviously seen them before.

"Hello, I'm Geraldine and this is my husband Aaron. Your husband said I can borrow one of his surf boards," Geraldine said.

She stared at them for a few seconds before saying:

"Sure, you welcome, you can use my board if you want to, it that one other there," she said.

"Oh thank you so much," Geraldine said.

Geraldine took the board and carried it down to the beach. She fixed the rubber strap round her ankle. The strap was connected to a leash, and the leash to her ankle, the leash in turn was attached to the back fin end of the board. Aaron sat on the beach and watched her while walked knee deep into the sea. She then laid down on the surfboard and paddled out using a graceful rhythmic crawl stroke with her arms. She duck-dived the short board through approaching white water and waves resurfacing once the white water or wave had passed over her. She continued to paddle out until she passed the spot where the incoming waves began to break. She paddled out a bit further and then straddled the board, sitting upright on the board with her legs in the water facing the incoming swells. She watched the approaching swells for a while. Bopping up and down as the swells passed under her. She turned her head toward the beach. Aaron waved and she waved back. A nice wave began to form in front of her. She turned the nose of the board towards the beach, then laying down on the board she began to paddle furiously ahead of the approaching wave. The wave gaining momentum caught up with her. It began to lift her up. She paddled even faster, learning her body forward on the board, rising her chest at the same time. Aaron could not believe what he was about to see. The board began to slide swiftly down wave which had formed nicely. Laying on the surfboard she planed into the trough of the wave. He held his breath with excitement as he watched her.

While the surfboard continued to plane in front of the wave she extended her arms pushing her body up. She quickly pulled her knees under her chest and stood up in a crouched position with her left foot at the centre of the board and her right foot at the fin end of the board. She spread her arms out to balance. The wave began to break behind her, she pushed down with her right foot turning her board to the right. She began to surf along the wave as it broke behind on her left side. He watched with delighted astonishment. She had frequently said that she could surf but now he had seen her surfing she with his own eyes. She had said that she used to surf until they moved to Stirtonville Location from Durban. Aaron sat on the beach and watched her for what seemed to hours as she caught wave after wave. With each new wave her balance and skill improved.

Who is this woman that I have married he wondered to himself. There is so much that he didn't know about her. She was a very special person.

Paul arrived back from Inhambane. He parked the bakkie in front of his bungalow and walked over to Aaron. Aaron stood up. Paul stood next to Aaron watching Geraldine surf.

"Where did your wife learn to surf," he asked.

"She grew up in Durban in a Coloured Location near the beach," Aaron answered.

"Where are you from?"

"Boksburg."

"How did you meet your wife?"

"Her folks moved to Stirtonville Location which was very close to where I lived. We just meet, it is long complicated and convoluted story."

"Yeah, I can imagine. She seems to be a really nice person," he said.

"Yes she is amazing," Aaron said.

"A Portuguese baker from Inhambane used to come every morning to Tofo with fresh Portuguese rolls. Does he still come?" Aaron asked.

"Yes he still comes around every morning at about 9.00 am."

"Are still keen on visiting the reef?"

"Oh yes."

"Next week on Tuesday there will be a Spring Tide. The tide will be exceptionally low at 8.00 am. I suggest we leave at 5.00 am for the reefs."

"Thanks."

"See you later," he said.

### Chapter 6

When Paul left Geraldine surfed back to the beach, riding the wave until it collapsed close to the beach. Riding the boiling white turbulent cloud of froth racing wildly towards the beach she looked more beautiful and perfect than Aphrodite raising out of the foam of the sea. She jumped off the board into knee-deep water. Aaron returned the board while she went back to the bungalow. While she was showering, Aaron started the fire, gutted and cleaned the fish. Before wrapping it up in aluminium foil he filled the gutted fish with spice, chopped up garlic, chopped up onion, black pepper and lemon. He placed the fish on the grill above the coals.

Geraldine wearing shorts and a T-shirt with no bra came and sat on his lap. She had brought Hemingway's book that Aaron left in the room for her. His hand crept under her T-shirt and he fondled her firm shapely breasts.

"Mmmm... that is so nice, I am so super sensitive to your touch. I think my whole skin is extra-sensitive to your fingers. Why it is so pleasant to be touched in a certain way or to be kissed? " She asked.

He continued to caress her breasts as he spoke.

"Well the human skin has an extraordinary high degree of sensory acuity. Our skin is very densely packed with literally thousands of richly innervated tiny tactile or touch receptors. It is this that makes our skin so extremely sensitive to touch. This is especially the case with respect to our finger tips. Through our sense of touch or through the sense of feeling in our finger tips we are able to feel whether a surface of an object is hard, firm, friable, soft, smooth, rough, hairy, velvety, sticky, dry, wet, slippery, slimy, silky, satiny, cool, cold, warm, and hot. In our finger tips there are as much as 2500 individual little touch receptors or tactile sensors per square centimeter. These receptors are called corpuscles or Meissners corpuscles. They consist of pressure-sensitive nerve endings. Their function is to detect and respond to touch or tactile pressure. Touching is nothing else but the exertion of mechanical pressure on the skin's surface," he said.

Her nipples became firm and erect in response to his touch.

"When our skin is touched the tactile receptors sends a message to the brain. The nerves go to various centres in the brain which enable the body to respond to touch or tactile pressure. Our lips like our finger tips also have a high density of tactile receptors, that why it can be so pleasant to kiss someone or be kissed by someone. But not all touching or kissing is pleasant. It depends on who is doing the touching or kissing. You have to be attracted to that person. And you also have to be consciously aware of the fact that the person who is doing the touching or the kissing is the one you attracted to. Some of these centres in the brain that are stimulated by the nerves emanating from the touch receptors are the pleasure and reward centres. Now the pleasure centres are only activated if you know that person who is touching or kissing you is the one that you are attracted to. This person is usually the one that you happen to like or love. So it is only the touch or kiss of the person that you are attracted too that will cause the nerves emanating from the tactile receptors to activate the brain's pleasure centres. This is what makes the touching and kissing pleasurable. We are wired up for pleasure, there is no doubt about that. But the creation of the sensation of pleasure depends strongly on whether or not you are attracted to or in love with the person who is exerting tactile pressure on your skin. You also have be seen or be visually aware of the person that you are attracted to in order to be consciously aware of the presence of that person. Pleasurable sensations involving the coordination and cooperation between the brains visual and touch centres only arise once you are consciously aware of the person you are attracted to," he said.

She chuckled softly and said in reply to what he just said.

"This all sounds so cold, so analytical, so scientific, so physiological and not at all romantic. I find also this business about how the body works with its tactile receptors, nerves and pleasure centres in the brain very interesting, but also very disturbing," she said.

"Why do you find it disturbing, you should find it very erotic," he said.

She laughed.

"I know it sounds silly but I would prefer not to know anything about the scientific explanations for pleasurable sensations. I am scared that such knowledge will destroy the mystery and beauty of the pleasurable sensations associated with love making. And I am also scared that such knowledge will destroy the capacity to experience pleasurable sensations. Just think how this knowledge will destroy the pleasure of making love when you start thinking that this tactile receptor in my skin on this part of my body is responding to the pressure or stroke of this touch, and that this nerve impulse is activating some centre in the brain, therefore I am feeling this pleasurable sensation. Surely being in love and being attracted to the one you love cannot be reduced to some scientific explanation or zoological fact. I don't want you to get me wrong about my views on biology, it was one of my favourite subjects at school, and I also like science, but I also need mystery and magic when it comes to love making and experiencing sensual pleasure," she said.

"I am the exact opposite. I find the objective, analytic and scientific description and explanation of the bodily machinery which facilitates sensual pleasures very erotic," he said.

She chuckled,

"What a thought, the erotic machinery of our body," she said.

"We are mechanically and biochemically engineered for experiencing pleasure," he replied.

"So we are indeed designed for having pleasure," she said, "you don't think it is a design flaw?"

"Definitely not," he said.

They began to smooch. He then slide his hand under the top of her shorts, and under the elastic top of her panties. He touched her mons, she gasped sharply for breath at the suddenly thrill of pleasure received from the touching of his hand, her breathing quicken, her chest made slight short heaves and her rib cage expanded as his fingers lightly stroked and probed her vulva. Her hips moved and her toes curled almost involuntarily as his fingers began to softly explore inside the moist cleft of her vulva.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it feels so exquisite, but should we be doing this outside here in plain sight?" He began to pull his hand out.

"No please don't stop now, go on until the end." Meaning she wanted Aaron to bring her to full orgasm. She closed her eyes and lay back in his arms, with her cheek pressed against the side of his face.

He slide his back hand, touching her, she softly sighed and moaned, soon she was overcame with waves of pleasure surging through her loins that prompted her to wriggle and move in his lap. Aaron stroked, fondled, probed and caressed her. Overwhelmed by the surprise arising from the most beautiful sensations that took possession of her body she surrendered herself to the enchanting charms of the richly textured garden that blossomed and bloomed with unimaginable erotic delights that she never thought possible, lost in this fragrant garden she abandoned herself to the rising flood of a powerful orgasm.

"Oh my, that was so wonderful, so incredibly amazing, you must also have your turn now," she smiled at him, teasing him, "See I am considerate, not selfish like you when it comes to sex in the morning, I also want you get your share of enjoyment, I also want you have some fun, after I have had enjoyment from you."

There was a delightful innocence and naturalness to Geraldine's sexual willingness to engage in erotic explorations. Her invitation that he must have his turn of fun and enjoyment with her increased a rising tide of desire and sexual anticipation in him for her.

After raising the grill high off the coals so that the fish would not burn he took her by the hand to the bed room.

"As you said it is now my turn to have fun and enjoyment."

She docilely with an expression of sweet innocence on her face she allowed herself to be lead into the bedroom.

Her sweet and innocent smile remained on her face while she waited in anticipation to see what he was going to do to her. He pulled her T-shirt up. She raised her arms so that he could pull it over her head. He knelt behind her and first pulled her shorts down to her ankles, he then pulled panties down, over her knees and down over her feet. She stepped out of her shorts and panties. She turned around and stood naked before Aaron.

He stood up.

She gave him a mischievous inquisitive look: 'and now what are going to do to me'.

He gently got her into the position that he wanted her to be in. She complied and began to laugh when she realised what he was up to. He had her kneeling down on the bed with her head resting on her folded arms and with her shapely behind up in the air. She laughed while he made more adjustments, organizing her body into the required posture. He stood next to the bed looking her.

"Now I am ready for my enjoyment," he said, and she burst out laughing. She then turned her around head around to see what he was doing.

"Don't move stay like that," he said as moved in behind her

Holding her hips, he again adjusted her position so that he could have easy and comfortable access to her. He mounted her like a stallion mounting a mare at Central Compound that he had seen so often. He began to thrust energetically and she started laughing when she saw their reflection in the mirror. As he progressed slowly to his climax, her laughter faded, her breathing rate increased, turning into heaving panting, soft moans of pleasure escaped involuntarily from her mouth.

Afterwards they embraced each other lovingly and kissed deeply.

Aaron pulled the mosquito net into position over the bed. They lay under the light quilt. A cool sea breeze blew through the open window, billowing the curtains. The sound of the surf drifted into the room. Night descended.

Aaron whispered: "I love you."

She replied in soft sleepy voice: "I love you too my darling."

"What about the fish?" she asked.

"We will eat it for breakfast or when our hunger wakes us up."

They fell asleep naked in each other's arms.

### Chapter 7

She woke up feeling rested, holding up her wrist watch to the moonlight she saw it was 3.30 am. Laying with her head on the pillow with eyes wide open, staring into the dark her mind wondered. She felt happy and contented with life. Aaron lay fast asleep next to her. Her eyes had become accustomed to the dark. He looked so peaceful and tranquil, that she smiled to herself. She loved him so much, she adored him, and she would give her life for him she thought to herself.

With the grace of God she had healed herself, she had realized shortly after meeting Aaron that she was responsible for her own happiness, she made a consciousness decision to work on what would be bring her a personal sense of happiness and self-fulfilment. It turned out to be an almost impossible quest. She suffered many lapses, falling into states of despondency and depression. Was there a formula for the realization of happiness and self-fulfilment? She made mental notes of what could be the recipe and ingredients that would bring one to a state of happiness and fulfilment. In the end she came to the conclusion that there was no simple recipe for happiness. Experiencing personal fulfilment was one of the necessary ingredients for attaining a sense of happiness. But could happiness be overrated? What is happiness? What does it mean to be happy, to be satisfied, to be fulfilled?

After giving up on a formula or recipe that would bring about happiness she decided that maybe the correct approach to personal happiness would be to focus on what in fact actually made her feel happy. Well Aaron made her feel happy, but also because he was happy. As long as he was happy she also felt happy. Making love with Aaron made her happy. Aaron touching her made her happy. Waking up with Aaron's hand between her legs made her happy. Going to church made her very happy. Going to confession left her feel very happy. Mass her happy. The Tango definitely made her happy. What else made her happy? She pondered on this question while she listened to the surf crashing onto the beach.

Reading books definitely made her happy. Meditating on the Bible made her happy. Believing in God made her happy. She would be unhappy if she did not have a book to read. Studying definitely made her happy. Music made her happy. There were lots of things that made her happy. She noticed that if she was happy Aaron's moods would be buoyant and he became happy himself. Her smile made him happy. There seemed to a virtual cycle with regard to happiness. Being negative was bad, whenever her mom and dad became negative happiness vanished from the household.

Maybe she should focus on what made her happy. Was this the recipe for happiness? Should one consciously work on things which made one happy? She had many faults that made her unhappy. Maybe she could work on these. She was basically a very untidy person. This she readily admitted. But then she was a person who also liked routine. Isn't that a kind of tidiness she wondered?

She thought of the Samaritan woman at the well in the Gospel of St John. She was looking for happiness and there standing before her was the person who could offer her happiness beyond human comprehension.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?' (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him. 'You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?' (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered he, 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.'

Aaron began to stir next her. She looked at her watch is was 4.00 am. By turning her head on her pillow she could see the eastern horizon across the ocean beginning get that red glow, dawn had arrived.

Aaron turned around and put this arm around her. His arm then slipped almost subconsciously down between her legs, he began to touch her, fingering her. She knew that he had a massive morning erection and every morning while still half asleep he would mount her.

This had become one of those daily routines. She did not mind, instead she smiled to herself, realizing that if he stopped doing it she would be sad. A great part of her happiness came from Aaron wanting her, showing that he wanted her. She wanted to be loved by Aaron. She loved being loved by Aaron.

Starting to enjoy the pleasant feelings between her legs that Aaron's finger had awoken in her, she thought about what Aaron had said about the skin. It was indeed an extraordinarily sensitive sense organ. To be encased in a supersensitive skin that was wired up to the pleasure centres of the brain meant being designed to enjoy erotic pleasure. The idea aroused her. Aaron was right, an objective scientific view of the machinery of Eros was not necessarily unromantic.

She wondered why Western Philosophy from Plato to Immanuel Kant had been consistently hostile to the body because it was viewed as both the engine and focus of erotic desires. Because of this the body was implicated as a hindrance to the acquisition of pure knowledge as it contaminated sense experiences, making them impure. Knowledge was made impure because much too often, the apprehensive of an object, would necessarily, inescapably, also include the unwanted intrusion of a strong feeling of pleasure. For Kant the problem of the body's role in perception was that the sense of sight and touch could hardly be relied upon to objectively contribute to uncontaminated knowledge because they were always also the source of pleasurable sensations, and it was precisely these pleasurable sensations associated with seeing and feeling that threatened the purity of reason.

Kant in his Lectures on Ethics felt very strongly that sexual impulses inevitability reduces persons to Objects for the indulgence of appetites, did not Kant write, as soon as that appetite has been stilled, the person is cast aside as one casts away a lemon which has been sucked dry.

She smiled to herself and thought. 'I disagree with Kant completely, and also with the ancient Church Fathers and also with the Carmelites, they have got everything so badly wrong! And I disagree with Thomas Hardy. Yes the sense of touch, as described by Kant, lies in the finger tips and their nerve endings, and enables us to discover the form of a solid body by means of contact with its surface. The skin is a sense organ, the most sensitive of our sense organs, the skin was created by God for the body to feel not only pain but also pleasure when touched by someone else. How can this mutual reciprocal exchange of pleasure through touching and been touched result, skin against skin, in the reduction of a person into an Object.'

As soon as Aaron felt that Geraldine had become sufficiently wet and well lubricated to receive him he would sleepily lift himself onto her, she would spread her legs and adjusted herself so he that could penetrate her with ease. He mumbled in his half-awake state that he loved her as he began his slow rhythmic thrusts, savouring the pleasure that accompanied each thrust, slowing the intervals between thrusts so that he could prolong his pleasure for as long as possible, until he reached the brink of his daily morning orgasm, then he thrusts became urgent and more forceful, and when she felt that his body was just about to go into orgasm she clamped her firm silky muscular legs tightly round him, feeling the hot ejaculation exploding inside her, feeling the warm semen in her vaginal tract. Afterwards as his body relaxed and with his full weight now pinning her down he would say that he loved her so much and she would then whisper in his ear that she also loved him. She thought to herself, as she felt his full weight pressing down on her, 'We are one flesh, husband and wife.'

While Aaron showered and shaved, Geraldine fetched the fish from braai on the veranda and warmed it in the gas oven for breakfast.

Geraldine was deep in thought while preparing the table for breakfast when Aaron come out of the bathroom. She was in a reflective theological frame. Aaron was the God-loving scientist-philosopher, she was the one with a more theological-philosophical bent. She was having one of her inner theological discourses, this time about the subject: object dualism in relation to the body. She was leaning strongly to a conclusion that was contrary to Plato, Augustine, the Church Fathers, Descartes and Kant, the conclusion was that the body was not an object but a subject. She was persuaded that one's personhood, one's being as a living person was inextricably integrated with one's body, it was inseparably co-mingled with the physical body. As she put the milk, sugar and warmed up rolls on the table her lips moved as she spoke silently to herself, 'what is done to my body is done to me personally, done to me as a person, because I exist as an embodied person.'

While making the filter coffee she continued speaking silently to herself, addressing no one in particular, she said almost audibly: "You and your body are one entity, not two separable entities, no one exists simultaneously as a two independent things, one entity being the person or subject and the other entity being the body or object.'

She then came to the startling conclusion: "If the person as a subject is inextricably co-mingled with her body then the women's soul, taken as a metaphor for the person as subject, is also sold by its owner when her body is transformed into a commodity by men."

Her thoughts drifted to the Kantian subject: object dualism associated with desire, the force behind passionate erotic love. 'Passionate erotic love does not result in the lover being the active subject, invested with agency and the beloved reduced to the passivity of an object, this is definitely not the case, erotic love involves inter-personal emotion, a warm welcoming consensual uniting of two persons who mutually and reciprocally surrender their bodies to each other with each seeking and each receiving what the other freely gives. It is always a subject - subject response, with person responding reciprocally to person, and not a dualistic subject-object relationship.'

"You look troubled, is something bothering you," he asked.

She smiled.

"Not really. I was just lost for a moment in my thoughts," she answered.

"Was it good thoughts or bad thoughts?" he asked looking concerned.

"No its good thoughts."

### Chapter 8

When Tuesday finally arrived, they got up at 4.30. Geraldine packed some bottles of Laurentina, slabs of grilled king mackerel fillets wrapped in tin foil, Portuguese rolls in a plastic bag, apples and bananas into a cooler box. At 5.00 am they met Paul at his boat. He had filled the fuel tanks with petrol and loaded two 25 L plastic drums of petrol onto the boat. Aaron put the cooler box and snorkelling gear into the boat. The tide was so low that they had push the boat on rollers for about 100 m before they reached the edge of the sea. Geraldine waited next to the boat while Paul and Aaron carried the rollers back to Paul's bungalow. Geraldine and Aaron pushed the boat into the sea until they were knee deep in the water. They held the boat while Paul cranked the engine. After they had jumped onto the boat Paul opened the throttle and piloted the boat skilfully through the breakers. Once they were beyond the breakers Paul headed the boat in a northerly direction. He shouted above the noise the of Evinrude engine that he was taking them to a very shallow coral reef located in Barra Lagoon on the other side of the Barra Peninsula. As the boat planed smoothly towards their destination the sun continued its ascent towards its zenith bathing the vast ocean in its warm glow.

"And God said let there be light," Geraldine said while smiling joyfully at Aaron.

"Amen!" Aaron responded.

He dropped the anchor at Barra Lagoon. Aaron and Geraldine had their clothes on over their swimming costumes. They quickly got ready slipping on flippers, goggles and snorkels. Paul gave Aaron one of his spare spear guns.

After sliding over the edge of the boat into the sea and they swam towards the reef. White surf was being churned in the shallow waters around the exposed parts of the coral reef. They had come at the right time as they would be diving in shallow water between 1 and 5 meters deep for the next two hours or so. It was simply perfect for the underwater exploration of the coral reef without aqualungs.

Streams of sunlight penetrating through the crystal clear waters transformed the coral reef into a richly textured and vivid wonderland of exploding colours. No patch on any mountain or valley of reef had been left bare. Every nook and cranny had been invaded by reef building polyps. An abundance of soft-corals sculptured the surface of the reef in a mind defying variety of geometries of size and shape. The species diversity of soft-coral was astounding, bright pink and red thistle soft-corals, translucent cream white cauliflower soft-corals, blue-banded feathery stalked soft-corals, feathery-pulsating soft-corals, green and pink lobed leather-corals, fleshy-funnelled green coloured mushroom soft-corals formed a crowded underwater community.

Geraldine waved her index figure like an underwater conductor conducting an orchestra playing a symphony of colour and shape as she excitedly pointed her index figure from one coloured form to another more specular configurations of corals consisting of brightly painted flushes of colour. Radiant and luxuriant gardens of hard corals with anemone-like polyps embedded in limestone skeletons appeared before their eyes in every colour and shade. They came in pink, red, green, yellow, different shade blues and purples. Every possible form and shape of hard corals seemed to populate the coral reef landscape. There were red stag-horns, brown-blue knob-horned structures, or flat plate like structures that appeared to be bright green with purple edges. Aaron gliding effortlessly over the reef as if he were airborne in the bright blue sky, he pointed to honeycomb-corals, that congregated as dome-shaped, hemispherical or boulder-like structures, everyone with its own individual richly honey combed textured surface. There were honeycomb corals with surface features that resembled the convoluted patterns of an exposed brain.

Forests of decorative algae waved brightly in gardens of swaying sponges. Species of hermaphroditic rock cods made their regular appearance staring with unblinking eyes at the snorkelling visitors. One large specimen, a bright red coral rock cod with purple –blue spots drifted languidly past Geraldine, her eyes wide with astonishment, plainly visible behind her goggles. She gave a thumbs up sign to Aaron who was swimming at her side.

Aaron pointed to an extremely massive brindle bass that seemed to be blue with black spots and bands swam at the bottom of a sandy canyon. Taking a deep breath Aaron and Geraldine descended into the canyon and followed the huge fish. Each time Aaron and Geraldine ascended to the surface for a gulp of fresh air they passed through iridescent -multi-coloured shoals of fish that flashed silver, yellow, blue and green as their streamline shapes glided silently through bright shafts of sunlight slicing through the translucent water. Paul hovered like a watchful sentry on the perimeter of the coral reef. He signalled to them, they followed him down into a wide crevice where he pointed to an octopus. He knew his way around the coral reefs and they followed him, his shape eyes were quick at locating a diversity of animals that had made the coral reef their home.

The tide started to come in, so they decided to call it a day. They climbed back into the boat. With the rising swell the small boat tugged at its anchor. After they had been sitting in the boat for a few minutes Aaron noticed that the boat was raising and falling under a gentle swell. He quickly decided to warn Geraldine about guarding against the onset of sea sickness.

"Are you feeling OK my darling? You not feeling a little nauseous," he asked Geraldine.

"No why are you asking?" She replied looking a bit concerned.

"I don't want you to get seasick. Anyway I think it will good idea if you fix your gaze on the shoreline," he said.

"Why must I do that?"

"It has the same effect as when you keep your eyes fixed on a stationary object while you are standing on rotating merry-go-round," he explained, "this will stop you from becoming dizzy and nauseous."

"Oh course, I get what you mean," she said, "that is such a good idea."

She shifted position and sat facing the shore her eyes fixed on the sand dunes.

"Are you happy now?" she asked with a smile.

"Yes."

"Hey, we must not forget about lunch, should we a picture on the boat," Geraldine chuckled good-humouredly.

"That a great idea. I am starved," Paul said.

She opened the cooler box and peered inside. "It seems like we did not bring a bottle opener for the beer."

"Here, use this."

Paul passed Geraldine a Swiss pocket knife with bottle opener. She opened three bottles of Laurentina, passing one to Paul and one to Aaron. She propped her own bottle in the cooler box, while Geraldine paced slabs of fish, rolls and bananas on paper plates.

The beer was stilled chilled. It tasted amazing from the bottle.

After 'In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost' everyone began to eat. For a while they ate in silence, washing the food down with hearty swigs of cold Laurentina.

Geraldine's costume had dried quickly. She put her T shirt on, donned her sunglasses and a wide brimmed straw hat.

"What kind of work do you do in Swaziland?" Paul asked.

"We are school teachers at a Christian mission in Swaziland. I suppose you can also view us as some kind of missionaries as well," Geraldine answered.

"I wouldn't have thought that the pair of you were Christian missionaries," he said, looking surprised

The bit about them being missionaries also came as a surprise to Aaron, but he just smiled good and kept quiet.

"What church do you belong to?"

"We are Catholic," Geraldine replied, "to what church do you belong?"

"I don't belong to any church. I'm not religious. I'm an atheist. I don't believe in the existence of God. I believe in evolution and don't believe in the Bible."

His blunt confession of non-belief after asking Geraldine about her church affiliation surprised both Aaron and Geraldine.

"Aaron is a zoologist and he believes in evolution and in the Bible so I don't see how believing in evolution can be a reason for not believing in God or the Bible."

"It's not only that. I also dislike religion. I cannot accept the Bible, it is full of contradictions and all kinds of errors," Paul said, "but that's not all, if God really existed why has he allowed all the evil and suffering in the world. Anyway Kant has proved that the cosmological, ontological and moral arguments for God's existence are all false. So I cannot think of a single valid reason why I should believe in God. Look I am happy with my life. I couldn't wish for a better life. I live for the now. I don't care about heaven and I don't believe that hell exists. I don't believe in an after-life, in fact I find it difficult to conceive of an after-life lasting for all eternity, I am quite to accept that there is no after-life once one dies. It does not worry me. This life is enough for me."

A turtle came bobbing past the boat. Geraldine spotted it.

"Look a turtle, can you believe it, this is the first time I have actually seen a turtle in the sea."

They watched the turtle until it disappeared behind the gentle swells that began to form.

"Have you read any of the existential philosophers?" Paul asked.

"I have read Sartre's Nausea and I did my Unisa my third year philosophy mini-dissertation on the nature of Sartre' ontological dualism in Being and Nothingness. Believe it or not I actually enjoyed studying Sartre," she said.

"What do you think of existentialism?" Paul asked.

"Existentialism as a philosophy is interesting. Sartre's existentialism is based on the idea that everything is ultimately absurd because the world and existence are utterly contingent. This is not really such an original idea. In my own mind the meaning of contingency and therefore the implications of contingency with regard to existence depends logically on its opposite which is necessity, and especially the nature and significance of necessity, or there being something like necessity including the operation or agency of what can be called necessity, and I think that things like the uniformities and regularities of nature point to the operation of necessity in the organization of the universe, this is also why there seems to be this constant drive or need to address the contingency and cosmological arguments for the existence of God, and the critical examination of these arguments are unending, they constantly crop up, ever afresh, and they all seem to obfuscate the central issue which is that nothing can only give rise to nothing rather than something, and that something always comes from something, I don't see how anyone can get past that, and in this connection Sartre is interesting precisely because he addresses the issue of nothing giving rise to something, " Geraldine said.

"What do you mean by the world being contingent?" Paul asked.

"Anything that exists contingently or comes into existence as a contingent event, does not exist or occur out of necessity, but comes into existence or occurs as a consequence of a coincidental coming together or convergence of other events or causes, but in an un-predetermined or unforeseeable manner, such that the coincidence of causes or events resulting in a contingency are purely contingent or coincidental or accidental," Geraldine answered, "so for something to be contingent also means that something could have been different from what it actually is, therefore the way it happens to be was not necessary, it was accidental, an accident if you wish, which means it was not an inevitability, if it was an inevitability it could not have been an accident or a coincidence or a contingency or the end result of some kind for predetermining necessity. The fact that we are here today sitting on this boat in the sea next to a coral reef was never going to be an inevitability, something predetermined to happen before the dawn of time, as if it were some kind of necessity. The fact that we are indeed sitting on this boat right this very moment is the result of many accidental events, converging coincidences or accidents or contingencies, and realizing this is important because it means that the Universe is open, it is open to all kinds of possibilities including our own deaths, but the fact that things happen contingently does not mean that the Universe is utterly absurd the way Camus or Sartre would have it. "

Paul still looked puzzled about what it meant for the world to be contingent. Geraldine gazed up at the azure sky, and watched a gull as it flew overhead. She was thinking.

"For the world to be utterly contingent does not logically mean that the world exists without any reason or meaning or purpose. I don't think Sartre was justified in jumping to the conclusion that the Universe is without meaning if it is contingent." Geraldine argued. "To concede that the Universe is contingent does not force you to conclude that it exists without reason and therefore without purpose as Sartre would have it. If the Universe is contingent it does not follow that everything is ultimately absurd." She re-iterated reflectively.

"What if the Universe exists out of necessity?" Paul remarked.

"That is an interesting possibility," she replied

"You are very quiet Aaron," Geraldine said, looking at Aaron expectantly.

"I was also just thinking about what you were saying about what it means for the world to be contingent." Aaron said.

"Remember that night in Lourenco Marques when we heard someone arguing about something along the lines 'Fido is black, therefore God exists' and we spoke about the merging or the inseparability of God's existence and essence."

"Yes I remember our discussion. How could I ever forget? It was the first night of our honeymoon," she answered with a mystical twinkle in her eyes.

"There is a connection between the point that Sartre was making and St Thomas Aquinas' contingency argument for God's existence," he said.

"All finite things or objects that make up the Universe and which we can perceive can be said to be contingent. This includes us humans. We can also argue that all the relationships between things including us humans are contingent. This means like you said that there is no absolute necessity to their existence. They may exist or they may not exist, it is all the same, there is no difference, because there is nothing in their essence which necessarily requires that they should exist. If the world or things in the world are contingent then their essence can be separated from their existence. However, they can only exist by virtue of their essences. What do I mean by this? Take an electron for example. For an electron to be an electron it must possess all the properties which makes it an electron like having a negative charge. So we cannot separate existence from essence. The actualization of existence is contingent on there being essences and it is contingent materialization of these essences which brings into existence that specific thing whatever it may be. The possibility of the contingent materialization of things in terms of these essences is something built into reality or the order of things. The potentialities, call it vacuum potential or quantum potential, which is built into reality, or into the order and nature of things, for want of a concept, makes possible for the contingent materialization of an entire Universe. But this means that there has to exist an underlying order which is not empirically accessible, and the existence of that order is not self-explanatory, it a fact but a fact which cannot be accounted for by empirical means. I don't know if this makes any sense," Aaron said.

"Do you mean that if some finite thing including the Universe exists contingently then there is a reason or necessity for it to embody those properties or characters or attributes which define its essence by means of which its existence has been made possible, and existence itself may be one of these properties?" Geraldine asked. Then on reflection she said:

"This could be the point that Sartre was making. Only if what I have just said is not the case, then in Sartrean terms the Universe need not have existed or have even come into existence. There exists no reason nor necessity for its being. Which also means in Sartrean terms that there exists no underlying order by virtue of which possibilities can come into existence. Nor does there exist any final purpose or reason or necessity for the existence of anything. This is also the departure point of existentialism. Is this what you are getting at?" She asked

"Yes I think so," Aaron replied, "but the key point that needs to be emphasized is that the condition of contingency does not mean that the coincidences of essence and existence in finite things or in the entire Universe is something that can happen independently of the existence of an order governed by the Laws of Nature, which in turn, in itself is not self-explanatory."

"OK I get you. If some finite, or even an eternal finite thing, is contingent then its essence does not require its actual existence," she said, "but for an infinite being such as God, His essence coincides necessarily with His existence."

"God's act of creating could be completely voluntary. From this perspective God's creative activity exceeds the bounds of reason when it culminates in the initiation of a contingent event such as for example, the coming into existence of everything that makes up the Universe as we know it. This attribute of contingency, that is, something being contingent, rather than being due to necessity, is a defining property of everything that exists in the Universe. If the whole of nature is contingent because it has been created by the exercise of God's free will, it has to be more than an imperfect embodiment of pre-existing forms or an exact exemplification of eternal universals, in order for it to be a natural object, or natural creature, and this being something more is precisely it's contingent being," Aaron said trying to expound his proposal.

"Now for the first time in my life the full implications of the meaning of contingency in relation to creation has finally dawned on me," Geraldine said.

"I agree that the nature of anything that is a contingent creation of God cannot be reduced to or described as merely representing something that is an imperfect embodiment or exemplification of eternal forms or universals," she said, "and this something more is the dependency of the existence of everything in the Universe on the free and voluntary creative activity of God."

Aaron took a swing of beer and then broke a bread roll in half and made a sandwich with a slab of fish fillet. When he had finished Geraldine continued talking:

"Only the contingent is knowable by sense perception or by sensuous experience. It is the condition of contingency or the existence of contingent entities that is constitutive of all empirical experience," she said.

"All of this is just pure metaphysics and has nothing to do with the real world," Paul noted with an ironic grin peeling off his face. He had been listening to what Aaron and Geraldine had been saying and had kept silent up to this point. He continued to defend his statement.

"I agree with David Hume when he says that if we examine any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, let us ask, does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

Having made his point, he took a swing of beer and sat back with a satisfied smirk on his face.

"Well for me anyway, the non-metaphysical life is a life that is not worth living," she retorted firmly.

Aaron smiled at Geraldine. She was no body's pushover. Her intellect always sparkled like diamonds.

"David Hume does not intimidate me. Over the past 2000 years or so not a single philosophical problem has been solved to everyone's satisfaction. In the case of David Hume his philosophy has also fails its own test with respect to the very statement you have just quoted."

"I don't understand," Paul answered, frowning a bit, as Geraldine smiling, but also looking very serene in her dark sunglasses.

"It is simple, and I learnt from undergraduate courses in religious studies that all overarching philosophies which were originally designed to repudiate or debunk metaphysics fail their own tests. In the case of Hume he was applying a test to evaluate whether any claim is metaphysical or not. In his test, in order for statements that make claims about how things are in the world to be meaningful they have to be either analytical or empirical, otherwise they represent metaphysical nonsense. Now this test also needs to be subjected to its own test. The test itself needs to be tested to see if it is a valid test."

She looked at Paul to see if he was following her argument.

"In order to do this we can investigate whether the actual wording or formulation of the test contains statements that do not embody either analytical or an empirical statement. It turns out that the wording of Hume's test does not itself contain any empirically or analytical statements which therefore also makes it metaphysical nonsense by his own criteria. So it fails its own test, and gets caught in his own snare."

She looked at Aaron for support. He nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, David Hume steps into his own gin trap. This is the dilemma of all philosophy," Aaron said in support of Geraldine's argument

She continued.

"It suffers from the same incurable flaw of the positivist's verification principle. According to Karl Popper the verification principle can never be verified. So it also fails its own test. Therefore it is also a form of metaphysics to judge the validity of statements by the verification principle. I can go and on, showing how each of the traditional philosophical problems are all ultimately insoluble and how any test of whether something is metaphysical or not can be shown to be incoherent. It makes you wonder why philosophers have actually bothered going on doing philosophy for so long without feeling like a bunch of charlatans," she said.

"So David Hume is also a metaphysician?" Paul asked.

"Yes, I suppose so, it quite futile trying to escaped metaphysics," she said.

"Then why do they go on trying to do philosophy when it seems to be such a futile exercise. Why bother with philosophy and not just give up if every philosophic problem is ultimately insoluble or turns out to be just another exercise in metaphysics. Maybe Hume was right in trying to seek solace in playing billiards?" Paul proposed.

"I will tell you why philosophers will not stop doing philosophy. It's because even though philosophers pretend that they hate metaphysics, they find the prospect of the un-metaphysical life to unbearable to contemplate," she answered with an ironic grin, flashing her beautiful white teeth against the dark lips of her ebony face, "they continued to walk the treadmill of philosophy because they are addicted to metaphysics, even if they are in denial about their addiction."

The boat started to rock with their laughter at Geraldine's remark.

"If any philosopher decides to give up the search for certainty and for ultimate grounds then he or she must leave philosopher and stop pretending to be a genuine philosopher," Geraldine continued. "The same goes for theologians. If they do not believe in God or the Bible, then they too should stop wasting tax payer's money as university professors, resign from their jobs and look for other jobs, such as travelling salesmen."

"It was Nietzsche who said that the desire for truth is a symptom of human weakness," Paul said.

"I know. But Nietzsche also fails his own test, he is not consistent on this point. What is the point of doubting everything is if there is indeed no Truth?" Geraldine answered.

Shrugging her shoulders and spreading out her empty palms she said:

"If there is no truth, then there cannot be anything to doubt, and if there is nothing to doubt, then I believe that Nietzsche has unwittingly painted himself into the corner by actually believing that there is something that is true, whatever it may be he has to decide, so in the end his doubting is completely pointless. You cannot doubt without actually believing that something at the very least has to be true, whatever it may be, and it doesn't really matter. You see, Nietzsche has also actually caught himself in his own snare. No philosopher can escape circular reasoning, not even Nietzsche."

"OK. So all philosophers actually end up believing something to be true which can be taken as evidence that they fail their own test regarding their scepticism. I can live with this," Paul answered, "but how do we know that God exists and that the Bible is true. How do we know that the Bible is the inspired word of God? Did God actually write the Bible? Do you believe he was the actual author of the Bible? Do you believe that He somehow dictated every word of the Bible, and that the various writers simply mechanically and mindlessly wrote the words of the Bible as the words spilled off the lips of God as it were? I personally can never believe this."

"OK I agree that the Bible bears the indelible imprint of human authorship. In fact the Bible also bears the unmistakable imprint of multiple authorship and editorial redactions. Actually the Bible is not one book. It is a library of 66 books written by about 44 or more different authors. The Bible is also the work of many different committees of ancient scribes and rabbis that convened many times over a long period at different places to debate and eventually decide which books should be included and what should be excluded from the Bible. Over a long period of time they decided what books should be included in the list of books that formed the canon of the Bible as we have received it. I don't have a problem in conceding any of these points. None of these concessions constitutes a case for not believing that the Bible is the inspired word of God," she said.

Paul began to frown. It seemed that he did not expect that Geraldine would argue along these lines.

"I don't think any of the Biblical writers could have anticipated, even in their wildest dreams that their writings would be read, translated into almost every languages spoken on earth. I also don't think that they could have anticipated that their writing would be studied, debated, criticized, analysed and revered by millions of people, throughout the world over a period extending into thousands of years. In all likelihood their primary initial intention as authors was to write only for a very specific target audience with a very specific purpose in mind. Possibly what they wrote was meant, in their own minds, to be meaningful only to their audience within a specified historical and geographical context. Therefore they could not have anticipated that their writings contained profound truths that would be timeless and relevant to a readership that would embrace the whole of mankind in every age."

"Nor could they have anticipated that after the passing of thousands of years that words such as infallible, inerrant, authoritative, divinely inspired would be used to describe the content of their writings. No one could have intentionally planned or conspired to write the Bible as we now have it. It was written over a period of sixteen hundred years by forty or more writers with most of them having never met or communicated directly with one another. The Bible's coming into existence could not have been anticipated or planned by the communities within which it emerged. The Bible has survived every possible threat aimed at its destruction. Maybe the Bible is indestructible because it is the living Word of God. Maybe it is indestructible because God is indeed its ultimate author. Throughout its history, kings, emperors, politicians, revolutionaries, all kinds of hostile forces and even Popes have tried to physically destroy the Bible and persecute or even eradicate its readership."

"In addition its message of hope and salvation to countless readers has survived the ravages and corrosive acid of thousands of years of destructive criticism. The Bible and its readership has survived all kinds of threats without the protection of police, priests, armies, laws and courts. No sacred scripture has been subjected to the same level of intensive critical and often hostile scholarship that Bible has faced. In the critical appraisal of the Bible no stone has been left unturned. The critical literature that has been produced on the Bible runs into hundreds of thousands of volumes and possibly millions of peer reviewed publications. No other sacred book of scripture in the human history has been subjected to this level of intense critical scrutiny. I am convinced that no other sacred book of scripture will survived such relentless criticism. It has survived and will survive until the end of the earth because it is indeed the word of God in its entirety," she said,

"So it is evident that the Bible must be a very special book if such a colossal amount of intellectual energy and effort has been expended on the critical analysis of the Bible. In spite of all this the Bible remains the top best seller in the world."

"Do you want know why its message has survived the sustained onslaught of critical scholarship and why it still remains the world's best seller," she asked, looking intently at Paul.

"Yes."

"It is because every single word in the Bible functions as a vehicle for conveying God's revelation. Every single word in the Bible expresses the will and purpose of God for the Universe and Mankind. Every single word in the Bible signifies God's revelation. In this sense every word in the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God. In this sense every word of the Bible is infallible, inerrant and authoritative with respect to the will of God."

"Now you are making claims that cannot be substantiated," Paul responded.

"In principle all these claims can be empirically substantiated by a single event that was witnessed to have taken place in space and time. The event I am referring to is the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. I cannot find one single compelling reason for not accepting this as a historical fact. Maybe in this singular historical event the whole Bible becomes retrospectively or retroactively the inspired, infallible, inerrant and authoritative Word of God. If Jesus was crucified before the foundation of the Universe for our sins, then every word in the Bible is God's inspired Word. It is His inspired Word irrespectively of how the Bible was eventually constituted by means of human literary efforts. "

They all sat in silence digesting the inspired arguments that Geraldine had put forward so spontaneously and so passionately. Her arguments resonated with Aaron. He took to heart what Geraldine had expounded and made it his own article of faith. He was satisfied that Geraldine put forward a compelling case that the Bible could be read and understood to be the inspired Word of God.

She looked at Paul. He had become all pensive and thoughtful.

She laughed, white teeth flashing.

"What," Aaron asked.

"Nothing, I am just happy," she replied.

Paul smiled as well. "I think at this rate I am also going to become a Catholic. I can't argue with Geraldine, she runs circles around me."

"Yes, after today, I shall convert to Roman Catholicism," he said in good humour.

"And why not?" Geraldine smiled back at him.

"Are we finished with our discussion on metaphysics and the Bible?" She asked.

"Well I am sort of impressed with what you had to say about the Bible. But I am curious to know what specific philosophical problems have not been satisfactory solved to everybody's agreement," Paul asked.

"The difference between what is real and not real is one problem that has not been solved. This is actually also a problem in the philosophy of perception which has not been solved to everyone's satisfaction. There are still intractable disagreements about the relations between the world as we perceive it to be and the world as it is in itself. A lot of philosophers have just given up on the traditional problems of philosophy and they are focusing on other issues. But in the end they always land up having to deal with the traditional problems, there is no escape," she said.

"Can sense perception ever reveal to us what the world is really like and not only what it appears to be. Can the problem of appearances versus reality ever be solved," Paul asked as he began to open another three bottles of Laurentina. He had finished his food, Geraldine passed him a roll, some fish fillet and a banana.

"It has been argued that we cannot determine what the world is really like independently of our five senses," she answered, " so most philosophers believe that our senses and brains do not possess the power to penetrate through veil of appearances and make the independent reality of the world directly accessible to our gaze. They argue that by our very nature we are cut off from having a direct apprehension of the world as it is in itself. I think this is how Kant formulated the problem. What do you think?" Geraldine asked Aaron after taking a swig of beer from her bottle.

"It is a problem I suppose. There doesn't seem to be any way that we can independently evaluate the contribution that our contingent sensory apparatus makes with respect to our visualization of the world. So from a practical point of view we are unable to independently distinguish appearance from reality. We cannot make an independent assessment of the contribution that our senses and brains make to our visualization of the world without jumping out of our skins. We cannot jump out of our skins in which our sensory organs are enclosed nor can we get outside of our skulls in which our brains are locked. So we cannot escape from our bodies in order to switch to some other independent vantage point outside our skins from which we can establish whether the Universe seen from this alternative vantage point is the same as the one we perceive through our senses while in our skins," Aaron argued, having grasped the point that Geraldine had made.

"Doesn't it at least mean something that science has always made steady progress and that science continues to increase our understanding and grasp of the true nature of reality?" Paul asked.

"Yes I think it true that science has definitely given us a very good idea about the nature of the Universe, but how far science can go we don't know, possible there is no limit to the progress of science in the empirical realm, who knows, maybe the Universe is infinitely complex, and science will never come to an end, there may never an end to science," Aaron said, "but there is exists one limit that science that can never overcome."

"Let's hear," Geraldine chirped enthusiastically, knowing that Aaron always had a problem or riddle up his sleeve.

"Have you ever considered the fact that the Universe is not self-explanatory," Aaron asked.

"What do mean by that?" Paul wanted know.

"The laws of nature that govern the dynamics or behaviour of the Universe are not self-explanatory. For example the law of gravity is not self-explanatory because we cannot find a reason for its existence."

Another idea dawned on Aaron with regard to the proposal that the Universe was not self-explanatory in terms of scientific observation.

"I want to say something else as well," he said.

"I would like to emphasize the following: The picture of the Universe created by science is a product of our minds and bodies. Apart from the evidence generated by the action of the external world on our sensory apparatus and on our central nervous system we have no alternative access to any other kind of independent information that can be used to justify all the scientific claims that we currently feel competent enough to make with regard to the nature of the Universe in which we are physically embedded as material beings."

Aaron could see that he had completely lost them.

"We know that the way our senses work and the way that our brains work have shaped the actual picture that we have of the Universe in which we live. Now I don't know where this picture exists. Does it exist out there or inside our heads? But let's leave that aside for the moment."

Both Geraldine and Paul were clearly intrigued by the point that Aaron was making.

"Are you implying that there is no independent Archimedean from which we are able to establish the certitude of our claims regarding the ultimate nature of the Universe and the ontological status of the Laws of Nature?" Geraldine asked.

"Precisely! You are right. It is exactly that. Science has to stick with the data that the senses provide. Beyond that science becomes metaphysics. Science can only see, identify or discover the occurrence of empirical regularities that are susceptible to capture through sense perception. In this way science is able to decipher how the observable Universe works for materially embodied beings like ourselves. But science cannot go beyond that. It cannot deal with anything that is empirically inaccessible. So science cannot pronounce on God or the Bible. It deals only with empirical knowledge derived from sense perception. This constitutes the scientific domain of knowledge. But there are other domains of knowledge that exist outside the realm of the kind of empiricism we associate with the physical and natural sciences."

"I think it is safe to say that empirically based scientific knowledge is a subset of the total domain of everything that counts as knowledge."

"By saying this you have opened the door to metaphysics," Paul remarked, chuckling triumphantly.

"Is that such a bad thing?" Geraldine playfully countered, "I can see where Aaron is going. There has to be knowledge of the Good, the Beautiful and the True, that cannot be reduced to scientific knowledge."

### Chapter 9

Twilight had fallen, New Year's Eve had arrived at Tofo. Aaron and Geraldine sat on the veranda watching the tide coming in.

"Is this is a dream, if it is please do not wake me," Aaron said.

"It is a dream, I am also having it. I think we both dreaming the same dream. It is the most beautiful dream imaginable, it is the most wonderful dream that could ever possibly be dreamt," she said laughing.

"Speaking of dreams and what not, the problem that Descartes wanted to solve had something to do with dreaming. He asked how do we know or how can we prove that we are not in a dream state, that we are not actually fast asleep and that everything we think we perceiving or doing could just be a dream totally disconnected from any existing real world, and that nothing else is actual or there except what we happen to be dreaming, and I suppose the dream could last for ever, so we would never know if we were just dreaming everything?" she said.

Looking intently at Aaron, she solemnly asked:

"How can we know that everything we experiencing is not just a dream?"

Aaron thought for a moment about possible answers to Geraldine's question.

"How can it be proved that we are not dreaming," he asked in reply to her question, "how can it be proved that both you and I are not experiencing the most wonderful dream, which is not connected to any independent actual existing reality, I don't really know right now, I will have to apply my mind to find an answer? But like you said, what if the dream could last forever, so that for all eternity we could never know whether or not we were in a deep sleep, but only aware of our dreaming. We could even admit, I am only dreaming this? "

"Well Descartes wanted to prove that something else, apart from ourselves or own existence, he wanted to know whether what was being experienced was in a dream, and whether or not God or some malicious demon, was constantly feeding us with illusionary perceptions of a world that does not actually exist, even if the dream experience of that world felt real enough," she expanded thoughtfully.

"Doesn't a dream involve illusionary but very real-like perceptions or even very vivid experiences bordering on the tangible, but nevertheless of a world that does not actually exist?" Aaron asked.

"I suppose we can say that dreams do involve illusionary perceptions and experiences of worlds that do not actually exist. But have you considered this, maybe it does not really matter whether our perceptions and experiences are in fact of a world that does not exist in the way that we think of the world actually existing right now at this moment. Maybe it does not matter whether we are in dream state, and that the world we perceive does not actually exist. Maybe it does not matter that everything is an illusion," Geraldine countered.

"Why do you say that?" he has asked.

"If you truly think seriously about it, the belief that the world does not exist does not really actually matter for any practical reason. Most empiricists would agree with this view. We can still get on with our practical lives in spite of the fact that we may not be able to prove that the world really exists, as we think or belief it does, I must this qualification to the problem. So practically speaking it does not really effect or change anything in any way what I am experiencing or perceiving right now at this precise moment. So nothing really changes for me right now whether we are sharing a dream or living out an illusion. Now that is a profound thought don't you agree," she said with a look of triumph that meant to be flippant and comical.

"So you don't really have to prove that the world actually exists in order for your experiences to be true or even feel real?" he asked.

"Yes! I was waiting for that little word we call 'Truth' to crop up eventually in this matter of dreams, illusions and evil demons. So now that the question of truth has been posed, what does it actually take for something to be true? What does it mean to feel that something is real? We may not be able prove that what we feel is indeed something real." She proposed with that teasing twinkle in her eyes.

"If we cannot distinguish reality from dreams, illusions and the tricks played on our imaginations by some evil demon then how can we distinguish truth from fiction, the real from the unreal?" Aaron asked.

"Maybe it does not really matter, maybe there are actually many different kinds of instances or states-of-affairs where there is no discernible or real or actual difference between fiction and truth, in actual fact there could be cases or instance where we think or believe that something is indeed a fiction but in fact it is actuality true, if not the real truth," Geraldine challenged.

"So something purely fictional can actually be true?" he asked.

"And there something else. You have used the word 'fact' quite liberally while taking about fiction in contrast to truth or is real. Are we right to conflate truth with what is real? What is a fact? What do mean by something being a fact?" Aaron asked.

"To put it bluntly and in the most general of terms, I would say that a fact is anything that happens to be the case, and all empiricists would agree with that, and for something to be the case we may need not to worry ourselves silly about existence or reality or the nature of reality or about any of those ontological conundrums that will lead us away from the straight and narrow into the minefield of metaphysics," she laughed.

"Are you being serious, or are you just joking for the hell of it?" Aaron asked.

"No I am serious," she replied.

She continued:

"Let's talk about fiction or the nature of fiction if you will. Now even fiction, on another level or from another perspective, has to be true in some way in order for it to have meaning and significance as an artistic creation. We know that when we read pure fiction in the form of a novel we know for a fact that we are not just reading about any actual existing reality or states-of-affairs, but this fact does not defeat the idea that there is something truth-like in good artistic literary fiction. Yet within the fictional story there are things that are true and there are also things which are obviously false, it has to be like this or else no fictional story or narrative would work in the way that it is supposed to work. But the point I want to make is that even in fiction, especially literally fiction, there has to be things which are true or which express the Truth with a capital T in order for it to merit the status of a work of art and for it to have aura of the Good, the True and the Beautiful, and I am sure Socrates would agree with me on this point. For instance, we know in a fictional story whether a character is speaking the truth or lying. So it does not make any difference whether we are living in an illusionary fictional world as some character or as a person in a real world that actually exists in order to know whether something is true or false, real or mere appearance and so on. Either way, it does not affect our experiences or what we say or what we feel or what we think about things around us. We could be existing in the mind of God. We could be a character in someone's story or work of fiction. Or we could even be God's dream. Isn't this what the Hindus believe?" She said.

"And you, do you really believe that?" He asked.

"What do mean?"

"That we are living in a dream or in some kind of illusionary reality," he expanded.

"No of course not, not in an unqualified sense. I am just philosophizing," she said with a mischievous laugh.

"Then what do you believe?" Aaron asked.

"I believe in a realism, even in what people may call metaphysical realism. I am a realist, I subscribe to realism as my own personal philosophical position. And I think if you claim to be a Christian and you want to be consistent then you have to subscribe to some kind of realism," she said.

"Can you prove that realism is true," he asked.

"I think one can defend realism with quite compelling arguments, so I think one can justify ones belief in realism, one argument is based on the fact that realism must be true given the success of science, I suppose that is a good enough argument for me," she said.

"Going back to Descartes, he proposed that we could doubt the existence of everything. We could doubt the existence of God, the sky, our hands and our feet, we could even doubt the existence of our own bodies. But while we could find reasons to doubt the existence of every possible thing that we assumed or thought to be real and so on, we could not at the same time doubt that we were actually thinking these thoughts about the non-existence of everything else. Apparently this specific act of doubt would be inconceivable, because if doubting is a thought process and if I doubt that I am thinking, then I or my thinking still exists. How could we possibly doubt that we are thinking while we are actually thinking or doubting that we were doubting. So from this he concluded that because I think, I am, or as he put, 'I think therefore I am'. In Latin, we have the famous phrase cogito ergo sum. If nothing else exists which cannot be doubted then at the very least we can conclude that my thinking exists mainly because I can doubt this, whatever we can make out that. If my thinking exists or if I happen to think of something, then I must also exist in some way. Therefore, if I think, then the possibility of the existence of the 'I am' must be true or certain, well true or certain in some sense of the existence of a thinking thing, I suppose," she said, "it is really a strange proposal, that the I am which is capable of thinking can exist without a body," she elaborated.

"So Descartes' cogito ergo sum was the first step in the development of his Cartesian dualism," Aaron commented.

"Yes indeed it was. The 'it' or the being that thinks, or the entity or thing that thinks, becomes the soul or mind or self, if you like. I suppose the soul, mind and self can be taken as different names for the same 'it' or 'thing' that thinks, and which can exist independent of the body, according to Descartes," she said.

She continued:

"For Descartes the mind and body were not only independent of each other, they were also considered to be different entities, different substances, completely distinct from each other."

They sat in silence ruminating over what they had been speaking about

"You want to know what thought has just cropped up in mind?" she said.

"What?"

"Well, I want to start dancing classes for the kids at the mission. It could be an extramural activity on Friday afternoons. Do you think the mission will allow it?"

"I don't see any problem. I could even help you."

"Talking about extramural activities I have been toying around with the idea of an afternoon algebra club," Aaron added.

"An algebra club?" she asked with a surprised look on her face. "Children hate algebra! Do you really think anyone will be interested? I think they would prefer a soccer club to an algebra club."

"Maybe I can do both. An algebra club and a soccer club as extramural activities."

"Look at that," she suddenly said, pointing to a sizzling firework rocket climbing high into the night sky. It exploded with a massive bang into a huge shower of sparks.

The year of 1969 was coming to close. For Geraldine and Aaron it seemed that all their hopes and dreams had come true. They were finally together as a deliriously happily married couple. It had been an eventful year.

"So much had been crowded into 1969, it has been a most eventful year, by any standards," Geraldine quipped.

"Yeah it has been an amazing year, in fact it has been an amazing decade if you really thing about it. So much has happened, just think. There has been the Woodstock musical festival which place in August 1969 this year with Jimmy Hendrix's Foxy Lady, Purple Haze, Fire, Hey Joe and Star Spangled Banner. And there was Janis Joplin's Try (Just a little bit harder) and Piece of My Heart. And there was The Who's See Me Feel Me and My Generation. And we must not leave out Sly & The Family Stone's Everyday People or that amazing song by Joe Cocker with his With A Little Help From My Friends. And there was also Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's Marrakesh Express and Suit: Judy Blue Eyes. And of course there was also Creedence Clearwater Revival's Bad Moon Rising and Proud Mary.

"Then there was the Apollo moon landing on July 21, 1969 with Neil Armstrong famous words: 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.' " Exclaimed Geraldine.

"I know, we both followed the moon landing on the radio," Aaron added.

"And Nixon became the new President of the United States of America," she added.

"And on the darker side of things I read that in February 1969 President Nixon ordered the resumption of the high altitude bombing of North Vietnam and Cambodia with B-52 bombers. The bombing of Viet Cong bases in Cambodia over a whole two month period was carried out in secret," Aaron explained.

"What else happened in 1969?" she asked.

"Well in 1969 in South Africa Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds was one of the top hits," he said."

"Oh I remembered that," she laughed.

"Things also reached a watershed on the university campuses in South Africa. There was the start of the black conscious movement among black university students. Black student leaders left NUSAS and formed their own separate non-white student union called The South African Students Organization (SASO) under the leadership of some guy called Steve Biko," Aaron added.

"Black consciousness, what is that?" Geraldine asked.

Aaron explained as best as he could from what he had read and heard.

Geraldine surprised Aaron when she said she thought that Black Consciousness was reactionary because it was based on essentialist assumptions and generalization regarding the nature of a black person. She said the meaning of being Black could not be exhausted by a simplistic list of fairly arbitrary attributes. She said: "I am unashamedly Euro-Centric in my thinking, does that mean I am no longer a Black Person?"

"But I am first a Christian and then a black person, and whatever defines me as a Christian also defines me as a black person. I am black for a reason. God made me this way, I am happy to be black, and I am also happy to be in love with a white person, so what is the big deal about this? I have also suffered insults as a black person from so-called black people, but I have been lucky to have escaped having the mind-set of a victim by God's grace. I don't hold to the fetish of black victimhood that has been propagated by black thinkers such as Franz Fanon. It would be stupid for me as a black person to cut myself loose from the magnificent edifice of European cultural achievements. I may be black and live in Africa, but I have been influenced in my thinking and in my perception of reality and of the world in general by European culture. I have been influenced by Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma. I have been deeply touched by Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I love Dickens, I love the Chaucer, I love Shakespeare, and English was my major. Does my love of English Literature mean I cannot be a black person? My love of English Literature does not magically transform me into a white person. You know me better that anyone in the world, you know me in the most intimate way, tell me, am I a black person, do I have what you would call for what of a better word, a black personhood?"

"Yes you definitely have what one could call a black personhood?" Aaron answered with a frown on his face.

"Would you say I have white personhood?" he asked Geraldine.

"Yes, definitely. There is nothing black about you. You are definitely white. You behave and think like a white person. You behave and think like a white male. No black person can be like you. But you could learn to become a Coloured in the same way that my parents have learnt to become whites," she said laughing.

Near the hotel they saw a bakkie been driven onto the beach. A stereo system with loud speakers had been rigged up on the back of the bakkie. Marvin Gaye's big 1969 hit, I heard it through the Grapevine began to pulsate from the sound system on the bakkie.

"What going on?" she asked.

"I think there is going to be a beach party."

An olive green military Bedford truck with head light blazing into the sea stopped on the beach. A festive colourful carnival of gaily dressed beautiful black girls, and stunning bare legged mulatto girls in short dresses, fell from the trucks into the arms of black and white Portuguese soldiers dressed in battle fatigues.

Aaron and Geraldine decided to join the beach party.

As everyone who danced the night away on the beach forgot who they were. Rhodesians, South Africans, Portuguese soldiers and their black girl friends, mingled, danced, embraced, drank Laurentina , to the sounds of Crimson and Clover, Here Comes the Sun, Down On The Corner, Spirit in the sky, Honky Tonk women, Bad Moon Rising, Come Together, Venus, Sugar, Sugar, Marrakesh express...

At 12.00 pm some Portuguese soldiers fired several flares into the sky. Parachuted flares hang in the night sky illuminating a large area of the beach and the surf.

Everyone shook hands. A brief moment everyone forgot who they were, black or white.

### Chapter 10

The next day on the 1st of January 1970 Aaron and Geraldine headed back to Swaziland to begin their new lives as teachers at the mission station. On the long stretch of road from Inhambane to Lourenço Marques for the first hour they drove in silence, both were in a reflective mood.

"Let's talk," Geraldine said breaking the spell of silence.

"About what?" Aaron asked.

"Anything you like," she answered, "even about Plato's Symposium or Phaedrus. I will listen. You have an audience."

Aaron looked at her.

"What about you, can't you think of a story?" he asked.

"No at the moment my head is empty."

"You once said that you had a story about the Elephant Trading Store. You can tell me that story. Is it a true story?

"Oh yes, it is a true story indeed."

"Well what are you waiting for? Like Socrates I am all ears to hear your story, my dearest 'Aaronicus'," she said.

He glanced at her sitting next him. She was in a playful mood, she smiled back at him.

OK then, I will tell you a true story about what happened at the Elephant Trading Store. When Mr Ian Noble, Mr Keith Whitehead and Max my father bought the Elephant Trading Store they hired Mr Ashkenazi a Polish Jew originally from Warsaw to manage the store. Mr Ashkenazi, his wife and four children had fled Warsaw just before Hitler's invasion of Poland. The Nazi Holocaust devoured every member of Mr Ashkenazi's large extended family. They arrived in South Africa in 1939. In recent years bad times had fallen on Mr Ashkenazi. He saw the advert for the position of a shop manager at the Elephant Trading Store advertised in the Star newspaper and in the Boksburg Advertiser. Max and Mr Whitehead interviewed him and decided to employ both him and his wife to run the trading store. He was 65 years old when he started working at the shop.

Often during the day while standing behind the counter he would sway back and forth while reading the Torah, or the Talmud, or some Kabbalistic book like the Zohar, or some book on philosophy like Spinoza's Ethics. He always wore a yarmulke. Under his shirt he wore a Tallit Katan with the Tzitzit or ritual fringed tassels hanging almost to his knees. He drove an old battered white Opel station wagon. They lived in a very modest house in Leeuwpoort Street a few blocks away from Boksburg High School. Their home was within a Sabbath's walk from the old Synagogue on the corner of Trichardt and Leeuwpoort Street.

They always babbled in Yiddish to each other. Mr Ashkenazi had a very colourful way of expressing himself by translating Yiddish sayings into English. He possessed an inexhaustible supply of pithy and witty Yiddish sayings. Like some gifted but eccentric sage, he was never at a loss for words on any subject. Mr Whitehead would often say: "If you don't believe me, go and ask Mr Ashkenazi". The statement "Go ask Mr Ashkenazi" appeared to carry sufficient weight to settle most debates. Our families had sort of adopted the Ashkenazis.

Every Friday Mr Ashkenazi and his wife observed the mitzvah for the Shabbat. He always became quite anxious at about 16.00 on a Friday afternoon. He had an agreement with the Whiteheads that the store should remain open until late on a Friday afternoon and that it should also be open on Saturdays. During the time which coincided with the Shabbat Gavin, Helen, Irene and Mrs Whitehead would relieve the Ashkenazi's. They would relieve Mr and Mrs Ashkenazi as early as possible on a Friday afternoon so that they could rush home and prepare for the Shabbat. Gavin's mom and his sisters looked after the shop on Saturdays until two o' clock in the afternoon. My sister Hillary also used to help a lot at the mine compound store before she went to Wits University. Sometimes I would also help at the store when the Ashkenazis were relieved for their Shabbat observance. Anyway it was not just for the Shabbat that the Ashkenazis had to rush home.

There were also a whole stack of mitzvot for other occasions like the various Jewish feasts, celebrations, and fasts. So as the annual passage of time marched through the different seasons, Mr Ashkenazi and his wife would have to leave the store and rush home for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Pesach. Like me, Gavin hated having to help out at the store. So whenever he was asked to assist at the store he would regularly complain: "If it is not the bloody Shabbat, then its bloody Yom Kippur or bloody Hanukkah." Or he would mutter under his breath: "Bloody Jews and all their darn Jewish holidays, not to mention all those other bloody mitzvot, every 613 of them, bloody hell, I've got no life, I am always in the bloody store because Mr Ashkenazi and his wife have to rush home to observe some crazy Jewish rules that Moses made up to keep them out of mischief."

It was all so confusing mitzvah, mitzvot, mitzvah, mitzvot. Everything was somehow linked to a mitzvah....a command, an obligation, a duty...it was endless. Everything in the store was marching to the tune of the Ashkenazis. They couldn't do this and then they couldn't do that.

Hillary once persuaded me to experiment with her in observing the Shabbat so that we could experience what it must feel like to be Jewish. She listed the more or less 39 categories of activities forbidden on the Sabbath, which commonly involve anything which could be defined as 'work'. It proved to be an ordeal. On that Saturday I counted each hour. The minutes before the Shabbat was scheduled to end felt like an eternity. The yoke of Judaism was definitely not for us.

Once while we were assisting Mr Ashkenazi in the dry goods section of the store I came across the front page of an old newspaper in one of the drawers. It was dated the 8th of March 1959. In bold letters the headlines for the front cover story announced Largest Elephant Ever Shot. I spread the newspaper out on the counter and began to read the article. A Hungarian-born businessman called Josef Fénykövi living in Spain had shot the world's largest elephant in Angola on the 12th of November 1955 in the Cuando River region of south eastern Angola.

He had the elephant stuffed and donated it to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in America. It went on public display in March 1959. There were two large front page photographs of the elephant bull, one picture of the stuffed elephant on display in the museum and another of the dead elephant lying on its left side next to a huge tree. The 65 year old Josef Fénykövi was sitting next to another younger man on the outstretched left foreleg of the elephant. The elephant had been shot many times with a 0.416 Rigby before it succumbed after fleeing for many miles through the dense Angolan woodland. The article stated that Angola was teaming with wild life and was one of the last places on earth where vast tracks of pristine wilderness could still be found. I thought to myself Angola is the place I want to go to and work as a Zoologist one day. Forget the Amazon.

Very soon the others including Mr Ashkenazi also gathered around the newspaper gaping at the photographs of the elephant in complete astonishment. After quickly reading the article about the elephant Mr Ashkenazi remarked that story of the elephant in the newspaper reminded him of an ancient medieval Jewish fable. While stroking his beard and wearing an ironic kind of smile on his face he told us the following story:

There was once an elephant hunter who had not been very clever or successful at hunting elephants. The elephants were too big, too strong, and too clever for the hunter. No net and no snare could hold the elephants. No sword or spear or arrow could hurt the elephants. After thinking day and night he finally came up with plan. He noticed that elephants had no knees or joints in their legs. So when an elephant wanted to sleep it had to lean against a tree so that it would remain in a standing position while it slept.

If an elephant fell over while it was sleeping it would not be able to get up again by itself. The hunter waited until one of the elephants, the largest one of herd, fell asleep against a tree. While the huge elephant was in a deep sleep he took a saw and sawed through the tree's trunk. The tree fell over and the elephant fell over on top of the tree. Lying on its side the elephant could not get up. It just lay there helpless on its side thrashing its legs about. The hunter called all his friends. They shackled the elephant's legs with big strong chains so that the elephant could not walk or run.

Using long poles as levers they managed to lift the massive elephant back onto its feet. The hunter tamed the shackled elephant and made it work in his fields. The hunter then told all his friends of a clever plan he had thought up on how to get very rich very quickly without needing to work very hard. He asked them all to be on standby for his call to come and help him with his plan. One night while the reapers who lived in the nearby village were harvesting their wheat in the surroundings fields, he climbed onto the elephant's back. He covered his head with a cloak and in the moonlight he rode past the reapers. When the reapers saw the silhouette of the gigantic elephant with the hooded rider on its back passing the field in which they were busy reaping they began to tremble with such fear and fright at the sight of this huge monstrous and terrifying apparition that had suddenly appeared before them out of nowhere in the night.

Some of them even fainted at the sight of the horrifying apparition. Before the deathly apparition had disappeared from sight they all run away into the night screaming. In their state of terror they run away from their own village, leaving the doors and windows of their homes wide open. They left their village completely abandoned. As they fled they warned the people in 11 other villages that there was a terrible demon riding a colossal horse, and he was on the rampage sowing death and destruction wherever he went. In blind panic everyone fled their villages, leaving their homes wide open. In the end all 12 villages were left completely abandoned.

The hunter then called his friends. Together they, looted, plundered, and pillaged all the unlocked houses in all 12 villages that had been abandoned. They stole everything of value. They stole all the treasure, jewels, silver, and gold. They stole all the cattle and sheep. When the people returned to their devastated villages the hunter visited each of the 12 villages, he told them that he could exorcise the demons and get all their lost wealth back. But he would only do this for a fee. The fee would be half of all the booty that he recovered for them. They pledged to give him half of the booty. So he returned their booty and the elephant hunter went home a very wealthy man.

When Mr Ashkenazi had finishing telling us the fable of the hunter and the elephant he waited to see our reaction.

Gavin was not impressed with the fable. He said:

"Elephants do have knees which they can bend. Look at the picture of the dead elephant in the newspaper. See it right foreleg is bent at the knee. Any elephant laying on its sided can get up by itself without any help."

"I have never heard such a fable before. What is the moral of the story?" Irene asked.

Helen asked: "What is the symbolism of the fable. Who is the hunter? What does the elephant symbolize? And who are the villagers?"

Mr Ashkenazi smiled. There was a twinkle in his eyes. Mrs Whitehead had overheard the whole story from her little room which functioned as the shop's office at the back of the store. We heard her chair move as she got up from the desk. She stood in the doorway looking at us.

Irene turned around and asked: "Mom what do you think the fable means."

Mrs Whitehead surprised all of us with her reply:

"Mr Ashkenazi has actually mixed up two fables. Mr Ashkenazi knows what the elephant symbolizes and who the hunter represents. Why don't you ask him?"

Mr Ashkenazi also looked surprised.

"What does the elephant mean and who is the hunter?" We all asked, looking expectantly at Mr Ashkenazi.

While looking at Mrs Whitehead with a mysterious smile on his face Mr Ashkenazi passed the buck:

"You seem know, so why don't you tell us what the elephant symbolizes and who the hunter represents."

"I don't think it's a good idea for us pursue this matter any further," replied Mrs Whitehead.

"Come on mom tell us. What's the big deal? It is only a fable," said Gavin trying to urge his mom.

After lot of pleading from Gavin, Helen, and Irene, Mrs Whitehead eventually relented and began expounding on the meaning of the Jewish fable.

"The elephant symbolizes the Torah, the five books of Moses," she finally answered.

"Is that true?" Helen asked turning to Mr Ashkenazi.

"If you say so," he replied shrugging his shoulders.

"Where in the Bible do we find anything been said about the elephant symbolizing the books of Moses?" Gavin asked.

Gavin was right. Strange as it may seem, nowhere in the Bible are elephants ever mentioned directly. We hear about ivory in the Bible, but nowhere do we find any description of an elephant. We hear about the Behemoth and then we hear lots about the Leviathan when God answers Job.

Apparently Herman Melville was influenced by the Bible and also by the book of Job when he wrote his book Moby Dick. I mentioned this, saying that I had recently read Moby Dick. It beats me why I mentioned Moby Dick, but it must have been triggered by trying to recall what kind of monstrous creatures one finds in the Bible. But it is true no mention of the elephant is made in the Bible. Then Mrs Whitehead said something so very strange, so astonishing, she said:

"If you have read a huge book like Moby Dick, then you are ready to read the elephant called the Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin."

Why did she say that? I was dumbfounded. Why would any huge book or any great tome of a book be likened to an elephant? So shooting from hip, I asked the following question:

"What about St Thomas Aquinas and his elephant called the Summa Theologica?"

To us it seemed that Mrs Whitehead was engaging in playful riddles in the guise of light hearted banter, so I could not resist adding the heavy weight of my own opinion on what books could count as elephants, I definitely thought that Aquinas's Summa Theologica was indeed the biggest elephant that could ever have been written by a mortal man. I had seen the volumes that made up the Summa in the rectory, and I see the single volume of Calvin's Institutes in Mrs Whitehead's office.

She smiled and said:

"Aaron you are a fine boy. I have always had a soft spot for you. You are the only Roman Catholic that has touched my cold Calvinist heart. But I don't share your enthusiasm for the Angelic Doctor or for Plato or for Darwin. Nor do I share Mr Ashkenazi's enthusiasm for the Talmud or that strange book called the Zohar."

We all burst out laughing. It was a truly rare occasion when Mrs Whitehead dropped her guard and allowed herself to joke. But we could see that Mrs Whitehead was not finished. She had something more to say about the Jewish fable. Her demeanour became serious.

"As far as the five books of Moses go they are also my books. The Gentile claims on the five books of Moses which together contain the 613 mitzvot is a key clue to the coded message of Mr Ashkenazi's fable of the elephant hunter. I am a simple Protestant woman. I have no issues with the Jews or Judaism. They are God's chosen people. They are an oppressed people. They are welcome to hide under my bed anytime should there ever be a pogrom in Boksburg. We have an obligation to stand up for the Jews and defend the right of the state of Israel to exist as the Jewish homeland. In a sense if we stand up for the Jews and their right to a Jewish homeland we are also Zionists. The Jews are an integral and welcome part of our cultural landscape. Jews are also a highly intelligent people who have made a massive contribution to Western science and culture, a contribution that is totally out of proportion to their historical minority status that they have had in their various host countries. I think that their high level of literacy and intelligence was a direct consequence of the intensive study of the Torah and the Talmud. I am convinced this contributed to the development of their intellectual sharpness. I have no doubt about that," said Mrs Whitehead.

"Mom how do you know all this about the elephant fable and its connection with the Torah?" Irene asked.

Mrs Whitehead became very quiet for a moment. It seemed that she was weighing up how to answer Irene's question.

"My mother, and your grandmother was Jewish, she also came from Poland like Mr and Mrs Ashkenazi," Mrs Whitehead finally answered.

This disclosure landed like a bombshell out of the bright blue sky. Mr and Mrs Ashkenazi's jaws dropped in shocked astonishment at the unexpected revelation that Mrs Whitehead and her kids were in fact Jewish in terms of descent.

"We did not know that," exclaimed Helen, "why did you never tell us?"

"Why has this been kept a secret from us?" Irene exclaimed, looking completely stunned.

"I have never thought it was that important to tell anyone," Mrs Whitehead answered, "my mother converted to Christianity. It was a huge scandal. It was also very painful for everyone. It took great courage on her part. She paid an incredible price. But your grandmother was a very intelligent and strong woman. Her knowledge of Judaism was incredible. She was very also very well versed in the Talmud."

"Does this make us Jewish?" Gavin asked.

"In theory I suppose so," Mrs Whitehead answered in a sort of indifferent matter of fact manner.

The atmosphere in the store turned thick and heavy. I decided it would be better for me to go. I felt like an intruder, especially as I found myself being the only gentile in the store amongst a bunch of Jews who were now going on and on about Jewish stuff.

Then a few weeks later on one Friday afternoon after Mr and Mrs Ashkenazi had left the store to observe the Shabbat, Helen brought up again the issue of the Jewish fable of the elephant hunter. She asked:

"Mom what did you mean when you said there was a coded message in the fable of the elephant hunter?"

"The hunter and his friends represent the Christians and as I have said the elephant represents the Torah. They could not kill the elephant because the elephant proved to be invincible. Its superior power, might and strength make it invincible. So instead of trying to kill the elephant they decide to steal it or capture it, which could be taken to mean the same thing. After capturing the elephant the hunter manages to tame and control the elephant. Once he has gained complete command over the elephant, the hunter and his friends used the elephant to terrorize the villages and to steal their wealth," said Mrs Whitehead.

Then she said:

"The coded message can be summarized as follows. The Christians cannot destroy the Torah because it is the invincible Word of God, so instead they steal the Torah from the Jews and make it their own book. Through their own study of the Torah they gain command over it. They tame and domesticate the captured elephant. They use their command of the Torah to steal the intellectual treasures of the Jews which is the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish oral traditions. But in exchange for all the books that make up the Old Testament canon, like the Torah and the Hebrew Bible, they returned half of the stolen intellectual treasures back to the Jews, which consists of the Jewish oral tradition and of course the Talmud. The Christians have no use for the oral traditions or the Talmud. The hunter and his friend keep only half of the Jewish treasures for themselves which basically is the Hebrew Bible or the entire Old Testament."

"So the Jews are the villagers and the Christians are the hunter and his friends. Does this mean that if we have stolen the five books of Moses from the Jews we have then also taken over the spiritual and religious ownership of Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers? It seems like that as Christians we can't do much with Leviticus and Numbers. Is that true? How is possible that we can take over the religious ownership of the Jewish Law without actually ever practicing it in the way that the Ashkenazi's observe the Torah?" Helen asked.

"I don't think we stole the Torah or the Hebrew Bible from the Jews. I think the Jews gave it to us as a gift, in the same way they gave us the knowledge of the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a gift," Irene said. "I suppose we should be indebted to the Jews."

"Who has ever heard of the Jews giving anything away for nothing?" Gavin countered.

"That's enough Gavin! Salvation is from the Jews, let us never forget that," Mrs Whitehead said firmly, indicating that the topic of discussion was now closed.

"But really mom, why would anyone want to steal the Book of Leviticus from the Jews?" Helen asked with a genuinely puzzled look on her face.

"In a very profound sense the whole Torah including the Book of Leviticus are the most important books in the whole Bible. There is nothing essentially wrong with the Laws of Moses, some of the so-called 613 laws are actually mandatory to the Christian life. Take for example Leviticus 19: 18 which basically states that you should love your neighbour, whether a brother or an enemy, as yourself. Some of the Laws of Moses that deal with slavery are now completely redundant, or obsolete. In fact the slave laws in the Law of Moses are based on an acceptance of the legitimacy of slavery as a social institution. The slave laws in the Mosaic Law have now become practically null and void. All the Laws of Moses that dealt with the Temple, with priests and with sacrifices all depend on the existence of the temple and the practice of sacrifice. Without the Temple there can be no priests, and with no priests there can be no sacrifice. In a very profound sense without the Temple and with the non-practice of blood-sacrifice a huge chunk of Mosaic Law has become null and void forever, because without blood sacrifice the essential core, the very heart of the religion of the Israelites, has been ripped out. Without blood sacrifice the religion of the Israelites has become an empty hollow shell. This is why the destruction of the temple was such a catastrophe for the Jews. "

"So logically it has become impossible to fully observe the Law of Moses?" Helen asked.

"Precisely, that is why the Bible speaks of the old and the new covenant. It was inevitable that the old covenantal relationship with God based on the Law of Moses would eventually become logically and rationally impossible to fulfil with the march of history. With the destruction of the Temple the old covenant became completely meaningless. So it is perfectly logical and rational to believe that it was imperative for a new covenantal relationship with God to be established. In my mind the elephant that the hunter hunted was an old elephant. When the hunter after much effort and struggling finally captured the old elephant it became transformed into a new elephant. It was the new elephant that secured for the hunter and his friends all the covenantal benefits and treasures that the villagers were supposed to have gained from the old covenant. Once the hunter and his friends realized the true worth of these benefits and treasures, they gave back the worthless objects and various goods contained in the old covenant back to the villagers. The villagers where actually duped by the hunter and his friends because the benefits of the new covenant, which is the new elephant, exceed those that were promised by the old covenant. So a Gentile reading or hearing of the ancient medieval Jewish elephant fable has turned the Jewish fable in an unexpected way on its head. You can call this a wonderful example of irony."

"Well if the Jews are indeed so clever maybe they also intentionally meant the elephant fable to be ironical, maybe the Jews invented the fable so that we would interpret it in exactly the fashion that you have, now that would be true Jewish genius, and the Jews would have indeed invented Christianity, and maybe that is the irony of the elephant fable, maybe Christianity represents the deep-seated irony contained in the heart of Judaism, maybe the Jews have fooled the Christians into becoming the keepers, protectors and curators of the holy Jewish scriptures and the Law of Moses, maybe this is also what the elephant fable is about," Helen said.

"But Jews did indeed invent Christianity, Saint Paul was a Jew," Gavin said.

"Why did grandma convert to Christianity?" Irene asked.

"Well your grandfather was a young Presbyterian minister in Doornfontein. He was a regular customer at my mother's father's shop. She fell in love with the tall handsome pastor and began to secretly read the New Testament," Mrs Whitehead said.

Mrs Whitehead became thoughtful.

"I remember my mother saying that the New Testament books were actually very Jewish. This became quite a paradox for her," she said, "but there were other things that also influenced her decision to convert."

"What things made her convert?" Irene asked.

"It is complicated. Your grandmother was an exceptionally clever person. She should have become a theologian," Mrs Whitehead mused.

"She could never completely let go of Judaism. Throughout her life she wrestled with her decision to convert. Don't get me wrong she never ever regretted converting. I remember her saying the Church was originally Jewish. The Church which is the body of Christ has been erected on two Jewish institutional foundations, the synagogue, and the Temple. The Jewish synagogue and the Jewish Temple are the two parents of the Christian Church."

Mrs Whitehead seemed to have become wistful. She then said:

"The Temple in Jerusalem was always the focal point of Jewish piety, even when the synagogue had become fully established in the lives of the Jews as a religious institution. The synagogue always played an important role, especially during the period of exile that fell between the first Temple and second Temple. After the destruction of the second Temple it filled the religious and spiritual vacuum that resulted with the ending of the Temple sacrifices. With the cessation of all Temple sacrifice and worship a massive chunk of Mosaic Law became obsolete. The termination forever of the Temple sacrifices created a crater so deep and so wide within the very heart and soul of the religion of the Israelites that in a real sense the whole Mosaic Law has become null and void forever. Out of this spiritual wasteland, out of this spiritual vacuum, there emerged a non-sacrificial mode and form of synagogue worship. In this process of religious and spiritual adaptation to new realities, Judaism became increasingly entangled in its own inner contradictions and paradoxes. Judaism turned inwards away from the present and the future. It bound itself forever to the past, becoming a living memorial of the history of its people."

"With the destruction of the Temple, Israel or Jewry steadily and progressively loosened its ties to the present and the future. She substituted her responsibility for the present in exchange for a backward looking loyalty that focused only on the past. This loyalty to the past was articulated in the form of a peculiar kind of loyalty to the books that she had written about her past. This loyalty to and preoccupation with its past became central to the formation of its identity as a people. It gave its people a sense of historical election. However this turning to the past following the destruction of the second Temple brought Israel's history to a standstill. After the end of the second Temple period Israel began to exist outside of history. Israel entered into the perpetual exile of an ahistorical existence. Its God ceased to be the God of history. He no longer existed as a vital presence and agent that opened up the present into the future. Instead He now also took refuge in His revelations which lay in the past. In effect with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans Israel also cut herself off from the rest of the World. Her perpetual exile, within the borderless horizons of an ahistorical existence, kept her interminably self-enclosed in the observance of ancient unchanging traditions, making her more and more remote and isolated from the rest of the World. The future redemption that she had always hoped for herself faded from the stage of history. In cutting herself adrift from history her God also no longer revealed Himself to her in history as He had once done so long ago."

Mrs Whitehead paused for a while, gathering her thoughts. She had a faraway look in her eyes.

"As the silence of God became more deafening Judaism lost its way in the wilderness of the past. Lost in this wilderness of forgotten memories it became trapped in an exercise of unending commentary. Commentary upon commentary upon commentary in one long uninterrupted study of the Torah and of the Talmud became its yoke of estrangement from reality. Judaism's exile from history, it's isolation from the World, drove it to survive the looming threat of annihilation that began to enclose it, it managed to survive only through the relentless and tireless explication and exegesis of the Gemara. The never ending commentaries of the Mishna, growing like the tower of Babel, the unending commentaries seemed to reach the very gates of heaven. This unending exercise in hermeneutics, this unending commentary on the stories of its past, on the text of the Torah, on the minutiae of the Mosaic Law replaced the destroyed Temple."

We all looked at Mrs Whitehead in amazement. To me personally, she suddenly looked very, very Jewish to me. She even sounded Jewish. I glanced at Gavin, Helen, and Irene with new eyes. They had listened attentively to what she had said. They also suddenly looked very Jewish to me. They were indeed Jews. They were Jews in Christian clothing. I suddenly felt very sorry for Mr Whitehead. He had to live with these Jews under the same roof.

Anyway I was left completely spellbound by what Mrs Whitehead had said about Judaism and why the Jews constant study the Torah and Talmud in the fashion that they do.

She smiled pensively:

"This is what I remember your grandmother talking about, when she spoke about the Jews and Judaism. She spoke a lot about what she perceived to be the crisis in the heart of Judaism. She became an incredibly deep Christian. Towards the end of her life she became more and more drawn to Catholicism. It seemed that the road to Rome began to enchant her in her old age. Your grandfather was a good man. He joked that grandma saw Roman Catholicism as embodying the Temple in Jerusalem with its Priests, altar, and sacrifices. As an old woman grandma would say that the Presbyterian Church reminded her a lot of the synagogue."

"Well that's the story of the fable of the elephant hunter, my darling Geraldine," Aaron said.

"But I want to hear more, surely there is more?" she begged.

"Well let me think," Aaron said.

"OK this is what happened next. I hopped on my bike. I still remember this very minor detail. A green Putco bus swept past the Elephant Trading Store engulfing me in a cloud of dust. Anyway it was Friday and I wanted to be with my new and first ever girlfriend, a beautiful girl called Geraldine McNamara. Earlier on in the afternoon on my way to the Elephant Trading Store I had made a detour to check the tree for any messages. I was disappointed to find nothing."

"There was a chill in the May afternoon air as I rode back towards Hercules Shaft. A familiar figure standing in the foot path in the middle of the veld waved to me. It was you! I turned onto the foot path and rode towards you."

I said: "Hi, I checked the tree earlier this afternoon, there were no messages."

You replied: "Hi Aaron. Yes I know. I saw you going to the Elephant Trading Store. That is why I have waited here all afternoon hoping to catch you on your way home."

I asked: "What you going to do tonight?"

You said: "Nothing really, and what are you doing tonight?"

I said: "I don't know. I will most likely listen to LM radio. Maybe I will read something. But I really wish we could be together."

After a while you said me: "It's getting late I have to go."

You hesitated before you left, you then said: "Friday nights can be so depressing."

I said: "I know."

Before you walked off back to Galeview I said to you: "I have an amazing story to tell you about an Elephant."

You said: "Oh Aaron, I have to go now. I would really have liked to stay with you and hear your elephant story, but I will get into such trouble, it is late already, and I did wait the whole afternoon for you."

I said: "I am sorry I did not come out sooner. Maybe someday I will tell you the elephant story."

As they travelled along the road to Lourenco Marques Geraldine looked at Aaron in amazement.

Then she burst out laughing.

"I remember that afternoon. I was so incredibly sad. I knew that you were in the Elephant Trading Store, and I waited and waited and waited for you. My heart was broken. I was almost in tears. I was actually very angry with you, but I did not show it."

### Chapter 11

After settling down at the mission after their honeymoon Aaron and Geraldine soon discovered that the flow of time at the Mission followed a sacred schedule. Each hour, each day, each week, each season followed the rhythms of the liturgical order of the mission. It's a scientific fact that time is not infinitely divisible but is measured out in discrete units. It is also a scientific fact that space is not infinitely divisible but is similarly measured out in discrete units. Maybe Zeno's paradox is based on a fallacy, a misconception about the nature of physical reality, both space and time are not infinitely divisible without limit. There is a limit where the division of both time and space into smaller and smaller units ends.

Throughout the day the gonging of the church bell marked off the passage of the canonical hours. The daily office of the hours started in the early morning with Matins and ended in the late evening with Compline. In between Matins and Compline came Lauds, then Prime, then Terce, then Sext, then None, and then Vespers.

Like the Catholic Church the Anglican liturgical year at the mission was also divided into a similar sequence of weeks and seasons. The liturgical New Year began on the first Sunday of Advent. For each day of the year there were lessons or Bible readings from the Old Testament, the Epistles and the Gospels that accompanied the daily morning and evening prayers.

The mission for Geraldine and Aaron became an enchanted and mysterious hidden Catholic sacramental enclave unconnected to the Pope or Rome, hidden within the bosom of Anglicanism. It was a Catholicism without Mary. She did not have an obvious presence at the mission. Aaron and Geraldine found the absence of any form or expression of Mariology conspicuous. Father McGreevy for reasons which only he knew was intentionally vague about transubstantiation. It was up to the parishioners to believe what they wished regarding the Mass.

Supper was at 18.00, and every day at 19.00 the office of the Evensong was rendered chorally. The traditional Anglican Evensong represented a fusion of Vespers and Compline.

Before they knew it their first year at the mission had passed. During that year the school hall was built and Geraldine's dream of starting an extramural dance school became true. In their second year at the mission she started giving dance classes twice a week in the afternoons.

Giving dancing lesson Geraldine would stand in the middle of the new school hall that been recently built. She would be dressed in her tango high heels, faded denim jeans and loose black shirt. Her long hair as always was tied up in a colourful bandana. The school pupils standing in a semi-circle round her listened attentively to what she had to say students.

"This afternoon we are going to do some work on the sequence of movements that can be made with the free leg. I will show how to do the low back boleo, the high front boleo, the high back boleo, the gancho, the caricia, the enganche, the cuatro, the lustrada, the piernazo, and the different kinds of sentada. As I have told you before the sentada is one the most dramatic Tango embellishments."

She signalled for Aaron come to over. Aaron and Geraldine than stood in a lose Tango embrace, so that she could demonstrate the different embellishments.

"Now watch carefully what I am going to show you now."

While speaking they did slow motion demonstrations of the gancho and engrance.

"With the gancho the female follower dancer rapidly hooks or wraps her leg fleetingly around her partner's leg by flexing the knee and releasing. The enganche also involves a similar hooking or coupling of legs. Usually the female follower wraps her leg round her partner's leg or uses her foot to catch and hold her partner's foot or ankle. In addition, the enganche can also be performed to the inside or outside of either leg and by either partner. The enganche can be performed as a rapid sequence of alternative leg couplings between the male leader and the female follower, each hooking the other's leg in turn."

Next Aaron and Geraldine did a slow motion demonstration of the sentada.

"The sentada from the Spanish word sentar which means to sit. It is performed by the female follower either during the Tango dance or as the culminating finale of the dance. It involves the execution of a sitting action and can be done in several different forms. In one case the female partner creates the illusion of sitting on the leaders lap, hip or bended leg. In its most dramatic and sensual form the female partner mounts the male partner's leg. This particular form of the sentada is often used as the dramatic flourish at the end of the dance."

Once again Aaron and Geraldine demonstrated the sentada several times. Then she went on to show them how to do the caricias and other related foot movements.

"The caricias which means caresses in Spanish is one of the most sensual and erotic of the Tango embellishments. Caricias is the Tango term used to describe rubbing or stroking like motions that the female follower performs with her foot on parts of her own limbs or the limbs of her partner. In the performance of the caricias she simulates a caressing motion with her foot on her own thigh, or calf, or other foot. She can also use her foot to caress the man's thigh or lower leg. The cuatro is performed by the female partner when she crosses and raises her leg in front of the other leg. With the lustrada, the female partner simulates the polishing of her shoe by rubbing shoe or foot up and down her partner's pants or leg. The piernazo also performed by the female partner is quite a dramatic and sensual embellishment. It involves a very high leg wrap or leg caress. In performing this embellishment the female follower raises her leg up high so that it can briefly touch and warp round the male partner's waist or thighs."

The time had come for them to practice. She put the Tango cassette into the tape deck and turned the volume up.

"Listen to the music carefully. Embellishments are often used to accentuate the music. Embellishments should be poetry in motion involving translational, angular and rotary motion and momentum, which is why balance is so critical in the Tango. A good time to execute an embellishment is during a pause in the step or even during the movement of the free leg. So listen carefully to the pauses in the music. I am speaking particularly to the girls, but the boys need to know this as well. In general Tango embellishments are performed mainly by the woman or female follower, however, the leader may execute his own embellishments."

The pupils teamed up with their partners. While they practiced Aaron and Geraldine watched them closely. They also danced with each individual to brush up on their steps. And they also danced with the students, Aaron teaching the female students and Geraldine helping with the male students.

At the end of the afternoon Geraldine dismissed the class, while packing up her things she spoke to Aaron:

"It is a pity that the dancers cannot enjoy the visual beauty of their Tango movements, I going to see if we can get someone to sponsor the purchase of some large mirrors."

### Chapter 12

Their twin daughters, Rachel and Rosanne, were named after Aaron's mom and Geraldine's mother. They were now 2 years old. The twins their eyes squinting in the bright morning sun stared at what possibly seemed to them an inexplicable spectacle. Both wore frowns on their perplexed round caramel faces. By 8.00 am more than 300 parishioners, each one draped in a brightly coloured geometric patterned traditional emahiga, had assembled at the river bridge. A bunch of young men had descended into the beds of tall reeds flanking the river near the bridge. They began cutting reeds with sharp knives, throwing the cut reed stems like spears onto the road. People picked up the reeds. Soon everyone was waving a long plumed reed of Phragmites australis.

It was during their third year at the mission that Geraldine became pregnant. On the day that she gave birth to the twins she went into labour as the mission bells gonged for Matins. At that moment Geraldine announced:

"I can feel the contractions, something is happening."

Aaron asked: "Should I call the midwives?"

She answered: "Will they be up so early? The clinic is not open yet."

At 8.00 Aaron found the two nurses, who were also the midwives, at the clinic. They asked him whether Geraldine was diluted and how frequent were the contractions. He told them that he did not know whether she was diluted or not. But the contracts were starting to come at regular intervals. When they heard this they came immediately. Five hours later Geraldine gave birth to twins, two identical light caramel skinned daughters with black hair. Her mother Rosanne had also give birth to twins, two identical boys, her younger brothers. Giving birth to twins seemed to be a genetic predisposition of the McNamara family. They named the twins Rachel and Rosanne after their two grandmothers.

At the bridge everyone waited for Father McGreevy. A young man waving a fighting stick in one hand and a large black and white cow hide shield in the other, rushed into the middle of the dirt road and began to demonstrate his dancing agility and prowess. Jumping, kicking and stamping his feet in a fluid, flowing, rhythmic, energetic giya. Other young men took this energetic dancing exhibition as a challenge, and not to be out done they too leaped into road. One after the other, they took turns at demonstrated their dancing agility and skill. Aaron, Geraldine and the twin watched one spellbinding, dramatic giya after the next. Encouraged by the enthusiastic singing, clapping and ululating crowd, each dancer continued to try to outdo the others, kicking up in the process a huge cloud of dust. Geraldine took great interest in the subtle variability in the individual choreographic interpretation of the basic dance moves, and tried to explain to the anxious looking twins that the men were only play acting and would not attack them or anyone else.

"Come clap your hands to show them that you like their dancing," said Geraldine encouraging the twins.

They clapped their little hands.

Finally Father McGreevy arrived with the choir, brothers, sisters, lay ministers and servers. The reed brandishing crowd gathered around Father McGreevy. One lay minister lifted a wooden cross behind Father McGreevy, another lay minister opened the Bible at the appointed Gospel lesson. Father McGreevy began to read from the Gospel according to Matthew chapter 21: 1 to 17

"Say to the daughter of Zion,

'See, your king comes to you,

Gentle and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.' "

After he had finished reading the Gospel he began to speak:

"We stand at the beginning of Holy Week. The coming week is a very important week in the Church's calendar. Today Jesus has decided to go to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Nothing is going to stop him from going to Jerusalem. The people have heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. As He approaches Jerusalem He was met by many people. The road to Jerusalem was thronged with excited crowds. Everywhere people were standing by the road side waving fronds cut from palm trees. Soon there was a large crowd waiting for him to arrive at the city gates.

"What do you think awaited him in Jerusalem?" Father McGreevy asked.

No one answered. Father McGreevy waited for a few seconds. He had paused briefly so that they could ponder over the question. He then continued. The congregation listened attentively to Father McGreevy.

"In Jerusalem Jesus and his disciples ate the Last Supper. After the supper they went to pray in the garden of Gethsemane. At Gethsemane Jesus was arrested. After his arrest and detention His journey to Golgotha began, a journey filled with pain and violence. He was subjected to the violence of humiliation, torture and abuse. After judgement was pasted at His trial before Pilate the desolation of Golgotha was to be his final destination. At Golgotha He would face death by execution on a Roman Cross under Pontius Pilate. His crime was treason. His crime was political in the same way that His temptations after fasting in the wilderness was of a political nature. Everything Jesus said had political implications, and political consequences. Now Jesus had to face the consequences of his political mission on earth as God incarnate. He had challenged the sovereignty of the rulers of the political order. Our biggest problem in the Church today is that we have denied the existence of the profound political dimension of what happened at Golgotha. In doing that we have endorsed the politics of the City of Man. The great St Augustine spoke about the existence of two Cities, the City of Man and the City of God. In the City of Man the citizens live by the rule of self-interest and domination. The cult of the self-glorification of the political elite and the political establishment rules the life of every citizen in the City of Man. In the City of Man the rulers who are the political elite and the business elite seek only one thing in life and that is to establish and maintain their power and their power is used for only one purpose and that is the domination of the weak, the vulnerable and the poor. The rulers of the City of Man have no interest in any form of morality, they are immoral, they are corrupt, they only think of themselves, they are thieves, they are men of violence; and they are only interested in maintaining the docility and obedience of their subjects. Pontius Pilate was a typical ruler of the City of Man. As a loyal servant of Rome his only interest was the docility and obedience of its subjects. This is exactly what Rome wanted as a colonial power. In the City of Man the most important rules and laws serve only one purpose and that is the protection of property and the accumulation of wealth at the expense of the weak and the poor. In the City of Man this is called freedom. In the City of Man the sin of Adam has become institutionalized. Strange but true, the City of Man does not reject religion. In the City of Man religion has an important political function. Indeed, it fosters the worship of many kinds of gods, and for the worship of these gods the City of Man has established its own confessions of faith, creeds, liturgies and rites, which sustains the political life and sovereignty of the City of Man. The City of Man is built on the love of self and on contempt for God."

Father McGreevy paused for his message to sink in. He spoke in English and in fluent SiSwati. He continued:

"Jesus committed treason against the City of Man by rejecting and placing under judgment the rule or reign of the City of Man. To reject or judge the City of Man is to challenge its claim to authority, is to challenge its claim to lordship, is to challenge its claim to sovereignty and to challenge its claims to ruler-ship and kingship. To question the legitimacy of the sovereignty and authority of the City of Man is ultimately to commit an act of treason against the City. It is ultimately to be an anarchist. To reject the reign of the City of Man is the same as rejecting the kingdom of the City of Man. And to reject the rule, order, reign and kingdom of the City of Man is to commit a criminal offence. I repeat, it is to commit a criminal offence, and offenders are treated as criminals, as political criminals, because they threaten the order on which the City of Man rests and is founded. To proclaim the Kingdom of God and the Reign of God is to commit treason against the City of Man. To proclaim the Kingdom of God will always be interpreted as a political act of treason by the rulers of the City of Man. When you become a Christian you undergo a conversion and this conversion involves an emigration from the City of Man which in fact is the City of Death. When you as an individual decided to follow Jesus you committed an act of treason against the City of Man, and by emigrating from the City of Man to the City of God you become a political criminal, you become dangerous to the ruling political elite, to the ruling political establishment. Caesar realized that there cannot be two Cities, he knew that the two Cities would not be able to co-exist on Earth. There can only be one City on Earth. Caesar was not worried about the Jews, they were only a minor political-social problem. He was worried more about Jesus. Caesar knew that he did not need to worry about the Jews because the Jews had already emigrated from the City of God when they wanted a king to rule over them, when they wanted to imitate the heathen and the pagans. Caesar was the ruler of the Jews. The Jews had chosen the City of Man over the City of God that is why Caesar was not worried about the Jews, he was only worried about one Jew, and that Jew was Jesus. By choosing the City of Man over the City of God the ancient Hebrews choose to become like the surrounding heathen and pagans. They became unbelievers like the pagans and the heathen. By choosing the City of Man they divorced God and left history, they began to live outside history and they worshipped a god that had abandoned history. In truth they have abandoned the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in truth they have abandoned the God of Moses. They have chosen the City of Man and that is why they have always searched for their ultimate refuge in the City of Man."

When he had finished speaking, Father McGreevy then re-read verse 9:

"The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, 'Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! '"

"When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up and many people asked 'Who is this?' "

Father McGreevy repeated the question in isiZulu:

"Kwathi esangena eJerusalema, umuzi wonke wanyakaza, wathi: 'Ngubani lo?'"

Father McGreevy asked the question again:

"Ngubani lo?"

The joyful crowd shouted with one voice:

"UJesu!"

Father McGreevy then raised his right fist, clenched tightly, high in the air and shouted:

"Jesus, Son of David, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega, Bayete Inkosi!"

The crowd began to sing:

"Bayete (Bayete), Bayete (Bayete), Bayete (Bayete), Bayete Bayete Bayete Inkosi."

In the bright early morning sunlight the stick, spear, shield and reed waving procession began to march the 1 km journey on the dirt road up the hill back to the mission church singing:

"uJesu unamandla, uJesu unamandla, uJesu unamandla, uyiNkosi yamakosi."

Each pushing a pram Aaron and Geraldine struggled to keep up with the congregation as they began to jog like an impi of warriors towards the church. Soon Aaron and Geraldine were both running to keep up with the jogging reed waving crowd. Gleefully the twins shouted:

"Push faster, faster, faster."

"What's going on?" Geraldine shouted to Aaron above the noise and commotion

"I think they have turned Palm Sunday into symbolic political protest demonstration against the government of Swaziland," Aaron exclaimed as they run while pushing the prams behind the marchers, to the great excitement of the twins.

"No I don't think so, it seems that they are really protesting against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem," Geraldine shouted back, also trying to make herself heard above the noise and commotion, "they are really protesting against the Roman oppression of the Jews, this is quite amazing." She shouted breathlessly.

Aaron shouted back:

"It has nothing to with the Jews or Jerusalem, it is about the oppression of blacks in Africa! The City of Man is the colonial oppressor, the City of Man is the apartheid state in South Africa. The City of Man is the Godless reign of the oppressor over God's brothers and sisters who have been made the very least of men and women, and the very least of men and women are God's brothers and sisters, in this world God's brothers and sisters are the black men and women! And this why the people are singing today with such joy, they are singing because they know that God is on the side of the blacks."

They eventually caught up with the congregation who were now standing outside the entrance of the church. Father McGreevy was speaking again to the assembly:

"The crowd outside Jerusalem saluted Jesus as king of the Jews, Bayete Inkosi. Remember the words from the Gospel, 'See, your king comes to you, Gentle and riding on a donkey.' This would have been high treason in those days, punishable by death. So it is clear that after the march into Jerusalem Jesus faced certain death. In fact he knew that he was going to die on a Roman cross, because there was already one King that ruled over the Jews in Jerusalem and that was Caesar, and Pontius Pilate was a loyal servant of Caesar."

After the Palm Sunday service Father McGreevy had lunch with the Finnegan family and they debated liberation and political theology until Even Song. Palm Sunday was a turning in Aaron perceptions. He had bought fully into Father McGreevy's idea about the true meaning of the City of God in contrast to the City of Man, and the flame of anarchism was secretly lit in his own heart. Geraldine took a more politically conservative view of the meaning of the City of God versus the City of Man. She laughing said that Aaron's radicalism stemmed from his white guilt, and that he needs forgive his own past as a white person.

### Chapter 13

My Dearest Darling Aaron,

It feels so surreal to be back in South Africa after an absence of 6 years. I am sleeping in your bed in your room at 98 Commissioner Street. It is so strange to be staying in the home that you grew up in. When I eventually manage to fall asleep at night I dream of you and the twins. Rachel kindly offered me the use of her car to travel to Pretoria but I decided to rather travel by train so that I can at least get the feel of what it is like to live as a black person in South Africa after being away for so long. Every day so far I have managed to do a solid 8 hours of uninterrupted work on my thesis in the Unisa library.

On my first day at Unisa I went to see my postgraduate supervisor Prof Labuschagne. However my day got off to a really bad start. After I had bought a weekly ticket to Pretoria at Boksburg Station I was prevented from using the white's only bridge to get onto the station platform. It was still dark. Two middle aged whites, a fat man and a fatter woman were standing on the bottom stair. As I tried to pass between them they told me that non-whites must use the non-white access to the station platforms. The man pointed to the non-white access bridge behind the old Masonic Hall. I was shocked. My blood started to boil immediately. I asked them in a very calm voice whether it really matters so much if I used this particular access bridge to get to the station platform. Anyway all the domestic servants in Plantation were using the white's only bridge all the time to cross the railway line to get to the shops. No one had been stopping the ousies. It was a stupid waste of money in the first place to have built two pedestrian bridges across the railway line and for accessing the station's platforms, with one for so-called Europeans and one for Non-Europeans.

As I spoke nicely to her the white woman began to shout at me: "Don't you get all cheeky and clever with me. I will sommer klap you. If you think you k#@$% are going to take over this country then I have bad news for you, there will be a blood bath like you have never seen before. It will be bloed rivier all over again, mark my words."

Why was she screaming all this stuff at me? She knew absolutely nothing about me. Maybe she was angry at me because of the Soweto Uprising, or because of the revolution in Angola, or because of the expulsion of the Portuguese from Mozambique, or even because of the war in Southern Rhodesia. Maybe in her mind I was somehow part of that force that was darkening the horizon of her white world.

In the icy cold dim early morning winter light I must have looked like an ousie, why else would she call me a k$#*&? If she knew I was Coloured I am sure she would have called me a cheeky hotnot or a cheeky goffel or even a geelbek.

The words 'there will be a blood bath like you have never seen before' rang in my head. These were stupid words. Since June the 16th enough blood had been shed. Rachel had kept all the newspapers. She showed me the picture taken by The World newspaper photographer Sam Nzima. It stuck in my mind. The photo shows a boy running, his name is Mbuyisa Makhubo, in arms he is carrying the bloody body of 12-year-old Hector Pieterson who had just been shot by the police. On Mbuyisa's right hand side a girl is running next to him. She is Hector Pieterson's older sister. She is screaming, her mouth is wide open, her face is contorted with anguish. She is holding up her right hand, her palm is spread wide open towards the photographer. You had be inhuman not to be deeply affected by the image of Hector Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa, his arm hanging limply, the running school girl with the palm of her hand held up.

It was pointless arguing with them so I ended up walking down the sand path next to the railway fence to the non-white access bridge. I boarded the non-white or black section of the train when it stopped at the platform at Boksburg Station.

Quite a few people from Reiger Park got onto the train when it stopped at East Rand Station. I recognized some of them. I am glad that no one recognized me. I was in such a foul mood. I couldn't stop brooding over the incident at the white's only access bridge. On the train I noticed that the front page news was about the massive manhunt being carried out by the police for Tsietsi Mashinini who is the Soweto student leader from Morris Isaacson High School. I prayed a silent prayer to God our Father that Tsietsi Mashinini will be able to escape from the country.

I had to change trains at Germiston so as to catch the train to Pretoria. We disembarked onto the non-white section of the station platform. I am not sure which platform I had to go to in order to catch the train to Pretoria. I followed the black commuters down the stairs into the non-white subway. It smelt strongly of urine. I asked a black woman in isiZulu which platform I needed to go to in order to catch a train to Pretoria. She directed me.

As the train to Pretoria pasted Tembisa I gazed at the sprawling location shrouded in a thick blanket of smog. It reminded me of the winters in Stirtonville location before it was demolished and the blacks relocated to Vosloorus location.

I was not sure how to get to Unisa from Pretoria Station. I ended up walking from Pretoria Station to Unisa. When I got to Unisa I was in an even fouler mood. I needed to get to the toilet. The sign on the first ladies toilet near the entrance foyer did not indicate whether it was for whites only or not. I stood there debating whether I should use the toilet, but the white woman shouting at me was still fresh in my mind and I wanted to avoid becoming involved in another altercation especially on the Unisa premises , so I went up a flight of stairs and down a corridor looking for another ladies toilet. In the end I found another toilet. It just said ladies on the door. I couldn't wait any longer so I went in. I was angry like I have never been for a long time. When I was finished I looked into the toilet mirror by the basin. I could barely recognize by myself in the mirror. I saw these two dark hard and cold eyes glaring back at me. My face had hardened into a mask of black anger. It was tense and rigid. It was a very angry black woman's face. I looked like a black spectre of doom, like a white person's nightmare. I was wearing this huge black coat that Rachel had lent me because of the bitter cold. The hem of the coat reached my ankles. I had a black scarf wrapped around my neck and a black beanie pulled low over ears and my forehead. No wonder they called me a k*%$@#. With my black face I must have looked like an ordinarily ousie or a black domestic servant, no one could have guessed that I was a Coloured who was registered to do an MA at Unisa.

On the train while thinking of the events of June the 16th the words of Paul McCartney's Black Bird came into my head. Nathan was playing a Beatles LP in his room and the Black Bird track come up. I asked him to play it again and again. He must have thought I was completely bonkers. The words are so beautiful. While trying to find Prof Labuschagne's office in the never ending maze of corridors I began to sing the lyrics of this song softly to myself. It is so beautiful, we need to get that LP.

To me the words were a commemoration of June the 16th. While singing the lyrics I suddenly realized that the words Blackbird fly Blackbird fly, into the light of the dark black night, contain the very the words I had been looking for in my translation of a very difficult piece of Hebrew in the Song of Songs. I actually took out my draft from the satchel and quickly updated my translation of verse 6 in the first chapter.

The Hebrew words used in the first part of verse 6 in chapter 1 of the Song of Songs have been translated into the following English words:

Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.

Originally verse 6 was a stanza of a separate independent canticle. In the compilation of the Song of Songs this canticle was joined to verse 5. The likely reason for joining it to verse 5 could be that verse 5 and 6 both contain the word 'black'. However verse 5 differs very markedly in tone and attitude from verse 6. In the verse 5 the Shumalite maid is defiant. In verse 6 the female speaker appears to have become more subdued. From a literally perspective there is actually a gaping rupture or radical discontinuity between verse 5 and verse 6. In fact the person uttering the words of verse 5 and the person uttering the words of verse 6 appear to be two very different people.

This is only one example of many in the Song of Songs where very different stanzas or poems have been juxtaposed because they seem to share vaguely similar themes. In the Song of Songs it seems that the different verses have been placed together in an ordered sequence in an attempt to create a narrative. My literary instincts suggested that part of verse 6 must be a mistranslation. I discovered that in the original Hebrew there exist multiple possible renderings of the meanings of original Hebrew words used in verse 6. For example becoming sunburnt was not necessarily the only option. The English translation 'look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me' does not necessary have anything to do with actual sun burn or dark tanning. It could also be read as 'you unveiled me with your stares because I am black, the sun has also stared deeply at me and has admired my beauty, the brightness of my blackness also shines back at the sun, like the blackness of dawn before the sunrise, I am radiant in my own blackness because it reflects back the light of the sun'. We all know that black skins shine, sparkle and glint in the sun.

So in her blackness she is radiant rather than shameful. The Hebrew for 'burn' could also mean 'glance'. The sun glances or stares deeply at her blackness, but the 'radiant light' of her blackness shines back or stares back at the sun, like the darkness of dawn just before the light of day break.'

This interpretation was inspired by the Paul McCartney's Black Bird, that is, by the words Blackbird fly Blackbird fly, into the light of the dark black night.

Rather than being ashamed of her blackness the Shulamite maiden actually defiantly affirms both her blackness and black beauty in the face of hostile stares and glances.

So it seems to me that if we replace the current English translations with an alternative English paraphrase of the Hebrew then the discontinuity of the two stanzas or verses 5 and 6 evaporates or vanishes. In the alternative translation there is no change in tone from defiant to subdued. Instead, in verses 5 and 6, the Shulamite maid stands her ground and remains defiant and unsubdued regarding her blackness.

I eventually managed to find Prof Labuschagne's office. I knocked on his door and then I heard this gruff loud voice saying 'Binne'.

I turned the door handle, pushing the door open I stepped into his office with my satchel. He was sitting behind his desk reading one of the Afrikaans newspapers. He seemed to be in his fifties. He had grey hair and a grey goatee beard. He wore black framed spectacles. When he saw that I was a black woman his demeanour changed instantly. A frown of puzzled irritation formed on his brow. I could see he was trying to fathom what a black woman who was obviously not the tea girl or the cleaner was doing in his office with a satchel in her hand.

I quickly introduced myself as Mrs Geraldine McNamara Finnegan, the postgraduate student working on a translation and interpretation of The Song of Songs. He recognized the name but he became a bit flustered when he saw that the bearer of a double barrelled Irish Catholic surname was a very black person speaking English with a clear mother tongue accent. He had been caught totally of guard. I could see straight away that he had no idea of what kind of a black person I was.

He was unsure of what to do. I had sort of half stretched out my hand ready to shake his hand. He must have spotted the gesture. After a few seconds hesitation he jumped up and shook my hand. There were two chairs and a low round coffee table in the carpeted space in front of his desk. After we had sat down I took out the draft of the translation from the satchel and gave it to him. I told him that I had finished checking my translation of the Hebrew text for The Song of Songs that I had been working on. I told him that I wanted to start work on the literature review and interpretation. I passed him the draft document. He took it and began to examine my English translation of the Hebrew. I had divided each page into two columns, one containing the original Hebrew script and the other column contained my English translation with notes.

We sat in silence for what seemed a very long time as he stroked his goatee beard while he carefully read each line of my hand written Hebrew before scrutinizing my Hebraized English version of the Hebrew. Without saying anything he got up and retrieved a copy of the Masoretic Text from the book shelf behind his desk. The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible. He opened the Masoretic Text at the book of The Song of Songs and began systematically checking my handwritten Hebrew with the Jewish Bible to see if there were any mistakes or inconsistencies. He got up again and brought a couple of Hebrew dictionaries, and he began to check my translations. He went over and over my translation of verses 5 and 6, consulting the dictionaries and rereading the Masoretic Text. Stroking his beard he kept on saying 'Ja Nee, Ja Nee, Ja Nee.' He was an expert in Hebrew and the Old Testament. I began to think that he was going to reject my translation. In the end he closed the Masoretic Text and put my draft to one side of the table. He sat back in his chair. Deep in thought he gazed out of the window for while. He then said that he does not have any problems with my translation. He said there was lot of ambiguities and paradoxes in some of the Hebrew words used in The Song of Songs. Then he said something strange. He said that the same situation applies to the Book of Job, in fact the whole meaning of Job turns on the translation and interpretation of a few Hebrew words. I will come back to this point as it is incredibly important. He said that when he began to play with the ambiguities of meaning that were embedded in the original Hebrew of the Book of Job the Book becomes quite explosive and even counter-intuitive. His said that people had been misreading Job for over a thousand years or more. He went on to say that this goes for the entire Bible.

I then told him a bit about myself. Well I didn't say I was married to a white man. I told him that I was a school teacher at a mission school in Swaziland. I told him that I have come to work on my thesis in the Unisa library over the next three weeks. I gave him a handwritten copy of the outline plan for the dissertation. I discussed some of the research themes that interested me with regard to The Song of Songs. I told him I wanted to focus my investigation of The Song on the following claims.

Firstly, The Song of Songs is the most enigmatic book in the Bible. Secondly, The Song of Songs does not represent a narrative with discernible a plot. Maybe there exists a hidden plot. It is not very clear if The Song of Songs represents a story or narrative with some kind of message. It is can also be viewed as a collection of poems or canticles. The Song was more poetry than prose. The biggest puzzle to solve is the ending of one poem or canticle and the beginning of the next. Thirdly, is not very clear who are the actual characters or the dramatis personae in the story, if indeed there is a story contained in the Song of Songs. Fourthly, the woman plays an unusually non-passive role with regard to her femininity in a patriarchical society and her expectations of sensual love. She is behaving in a manner towards her beloved which is totally out of character with regard to the stereotypic expectations of female behaviour in traditional Old Testament patriarchal societies. She has taken over the role of the initiator with regard to her beloved who is male. In this sense The Song of Songs explodes all the Old Testament conservative female stereotypes. I thought it contains a theology of human sexuality. When I said this he frowned. I could see that he was quite uncomfortable with a lot of the stuff that I was saying. But he did not say anything. He just sat there listening, nodding his head in agreement from time to time.

And then fifthly, the book could be treated as a collection of love poems or canticles or even lyrics that were originally composed to be sung on specific occasions, such as a wedding. The poems or lyrics were collected and strung together by some unknown redactor. The person or persons who carried out the redaction or editing of the Book arranged or lumped all the canticles or lyrics that shared a similar theme together one after the other. An arrangement of a series of stanzas in an ordered or non-random sequence suggests the existence of some kind of continuity between the individual stanzas which then becomes the basis for the creation of narrative and plot. The thread that joins or organizes the individual stanzas into a narrative held together by a plot would be some common literary or even grammatical features or element that can be used to couple or link one stanza with another.

I realized that I could not speak directly about the other things that concerned me. For example that in most of the erotic utterances expressed in the poems or canticles it is the woman's voice that predominates, which is very unusual for any kind of literature emanating from a patriarchical society. In some of the female lover's monologues no particular person was been addressed. In these monologues she expressed to herself, her own private fantasies of erotic and sensual love. In her private fantasies she anticipates, imagines, desires, wishes for or dreams about making erotic love with her beloved. It is a book of lyrical poetry by a woman, in which she expresses her inner-most sensual and erotic feelings, dreams and emotions. In many of the canticles the female speaker is actually very proud and defiant with regard to her appearance and social status as a woman. In other canticles the female voice becomes more subdued and uncertain.

I told him that I think there are a number of problems of interpretation that need to be resolved. Maybe some dramatic narrative involving 2 or 3 characters lies buried, hidden deep as an unarticulated subtext within in the Song of Songs. If I wish to justify such a hidden-sub-textual-narrative-theory, then I would need to show that the central character in the drama would necessarily be the woman who has been variously referred to as Shulamit, Shulamith, Shulammit or Shulamite, depending on which source you are using. The meaning or derivation of the name has also been a controversy for thousands of years.

It was quite funny he did not interrupt me, he just listened to what I had to say. It was all kinda of weird. I was speaking all the time and he said absolutely nothing at all. I felt that had I covered everything that I wanted to speak to him about so I stopped speaking. We then sat in silence for what seemed an eternity. Then there was a knock on the door. He looked at his watch it was 10.15. He then said it was tea time and he opened the door. In the corridor was a trolley with cups, sauces, spoons, tea, coffee, milk, sugar. He asked if I wanted tea or coffee. The tea girl poured our tea. And we sat down again and drank our tea in silence. He seemed to be man of very few words or he was uncomfortable with having to engage intellectually with a black woman.

Then out of the blue he tells me he thinks my research approach to the problem is good. He is satisfied with what I want to do and he does not foresee any problems. He says he likes my approach to Old Testament studies. He is also satisfied with my Hebrew competency. He then asks me if I have any thoughts on the Book of Job. I felt quite honoured that he was interested in my opinion. I told him I am not too familiar with the Book of Job. He then suggests that when I am finished with the MA I should tackle Job for my PhD in Old Testament studies if I am looking for a research topic. He said he would be glad to be my supervisor.

I was completely bowled over. He is such as strange professor. He is also the first real Afrikaner that I have had first-hand contact with. I am curious about his thoughts on the story line of the Book of Job. I don't want to ask him. So I just remained seated and look at him with an expression of attentive expectation on my face. Eventually he got the message.

He then said that there are lot of things that do not add up in the story of Job.

He reflected on the fact that the Bible in a real sense can also be viewed as man's highly fictionalized biography of God, compensating for the all ambiguities which are inevitable when attempting to treat God as a historical and biographical person. Ambiguities are ironed away by means of various veiled ideas which have the flavour of a theodicy or an apologetic agenda. And this can all be found in the Book of Job apparently.

He also spoke about Karl Barth, the famous Protestant Reformed theologian. He said that according to Barth the need for theodicy in the typical Leibnizian vein was itself a common symptom of man's enslavement to moral and logical criteria and norms which are irrelevant to the conduct of the divinely unique One. And sometimes the Old Testament writers get this right. Other times they don't. This makes me think that the Old Testament was always a fairly rough and ready work in progress and as such was never completed, and it is possible that it was never God's intention that a book about His designs, purposes, rules, norms and intentions should ever have been written down, and called God's Revelation. Maybe God was not really that enthusiastic about the idea of revelation as conceived by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Going back to the Book of Job: Yahweh neither requires nor asks for Job's 'understanding, agreement or applause.' For Barth the very question which underlies the alleged need for theodicy is presumptuous. Barth proposes that the 'message of the cosmos' whispering through the whirlwind informs Job that he is not the centre of the universe, and with regard man's status as a mere finite contingent being, man has no part to play in God's divine role regarding the being or becoming of the Universe or in its unfolding direction or with regard to any of its inexplicable contingencies. Job as a mere man is completely incompetent and irreverent in his thinking if he assumes that he can judge the purposes or teleology of God in the great divine plan for the Universe. Well this a sample of the typically strident tone of Barth's writings as I soon discovered when I perused through his writings.

After our meeting Prof Labuschagne did not speak any further on the matter of my MA dissertation proposal, instead he stood up and said we should now visit the library. At the library he introduced me to the chief librarian. He told the chief librarian that I would be doing research under his supervision in the library over the next three weeks and they must assist me with the finding of any references that I may need. He then left me and marched back to his office. Before the librarian could say anything and told him that I would like to spend time also just browsing through the books and journals in the library. I discovered that Unisa was an island where a lot of minor petty apartheid laws had been suspended for the convenience of black correspondence students.

### Chapter 14

"Aaron your daughters have asked a very interesting questions," Geraldine said.

"Ask Daddy now," she said.

"Daddy where did people get all the words for their language?" Rachel asked.

"And Daddy, where did people get the alphabet to make all the words?" Rosanne asked.

"What came first the alphabet or the words?" Rachel asked.

"Can people have words and language without knowing the alphabet?" Rosanne asked.

"These are very difficult but also very interesting questions. I don't know where to start. Let me think," he said smiling at the twins.

"Start from the very beginning Daddy," Rachel said.

"Well as you both know there are still many people who know just about all the words in their language without knowing the alphabet or the letters of the alphabet or without even knowing how to read and write. Both of you learnt to speak English and siSwati without knowing the alphabet. Both of you learnt many English words and siSwati words without knowing the alphabet or how to read and write. You could both speak before you could read or write," Aaron said.

"We know, but how was it possible that we could speak two languages without first learning the alphabet or learning how to read or write Daddy?" Rosanne insisting on an answer.

### Chapter 15

It was an usually warmer than usual winter in the July of 1979 when Geraldine returned for a second extended stay in South Africa in order to complete her literature research in the Unisa Library for a her PhD on the Book of Job, and also to consult with her supervisor. Max Finnegan had left ERPM to start an engineering construction company and were staying in a rented house while their new house was been built. Geraldine opted to stay at Brandkraal in the old farm house and the Finnegans gave her Hillary's old Fiat to use for her transport to Pretoria.

For the next two weeks she had worked solidly from 8.00 until 5.00 pm in the Unisa library poring through journal articles and reading books. She had filled up several notebooks with extensive and comprehension notes in short hand. A careful reading of Matitiahu Tsevat's book, The Meaning of The Book of Job, exploded all her preconceptions. She had to revisit almost, word for word, line for line, the entire original Hebrew text of Job, painstaking working through every possible alternative translation and interpretation of a number of critical Hebrew words and sentences. She found herself frequently stumbling as she tried to find her way through the thick opaque fog of an ancient foreign language. Groping to grasp the subtle and elusive multivalent meanings of many Hebrew words, she had to repeatedly seek the assistance of the best Hebraic scholars at Unisa, and even had to visit a beard stroking Rabbi with intense burning black eyes, to consult with him on the possible re-interpretation of some of the English translations of the many problematic phrases that populated The Book of Job. He was reluctant to indulge a Gentile woman, but something about this woman who could speak and read Hebrew, who in passing described herself as a Coloured, and who displayed a genuine and respectful interest in Jewish views, finally persuaded him to make an exception.

Once the changes in the translation and interpretation of the problematic words and phrases had been rendered in alternative English expressions the entire complexion and plot of the Joban narrative underwent such an unanticipated revolutionary literary, metaphysical and theological transformation that she was left dazzled with astonishment. She then began to investigate whether any of these alternative readings of Job could be justified with reasons that were transparently compelling.

Most of the unorthodox alternative meanings of The Book of Job seemed to hang by a thin thread on wildly eccentric translations and misinterpretations of a very small number of words and phrases. Maintaining an open mind, she objectively explored alternative renderings of the original Hebrew; however, she soon came to the logical and reasonable conclusion that many radical unorthodox readings of Job were simply not sustainable and suffered from an incurable lack of warrant, they tended to be 'unrealistic' even when treating Job from a purely literary perspective, as one would normally treat any narrative. Such alternative misreading's often betrayed deep personal ideological motivations to transform Job into a Promethean rebel more in keeping with the hero of Greek mythology, compared to readings from which the living and breathing Hebraic Job could emerge in all his human complexity. A reading which is profoundly Hebraic rather than Hellenic only becomes possible if it is coloured by an understanding of the God of the Bible with His complex and often unfathomable relationship with His Creation.

The library was closed. It was late Saturday afternoon, when she decided to take a walk on the farm while she mulled these things over in her mind. She realized that she also had grave misgivings about many of the post-modernistic ideas that she had discovered in the journal articles that she had recently read in the Unisa library. This faddish jumping on the bandwagon represented an enslavement of the mind rather than independent critical thinking; it was a new kind of conservatism, springing from the need to be a follower, to be someone's disciple. As far as she could make out the new intellectual pied pipers seemed to be Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, and already there were indications that they, like everyone who came before them, had not escaped from being caught in their own snares, anyway this is what she thought as she found herself walking down the sand road away from the old farm house towards the stables near the main buildings of Brandkraal.

She was curious about the horses that were stabled on the farm. At the crack of dawn after her morning prayers, while the morning light was still dim she would stand on the veranda sipping her coffee while watching the strings of race horses breathing out clouds of steam walking to the sand galloping track with their riders perched precariously high in their saddles. Before leaving Brandkraal for Unisa she would invariable stop the car and park briefly near the track to watch the horses gallop pass.

Now while walking pass the rows of stables, stopping at each stable to look at the horse, she bumped into Gert Viljoen.

"Goeie middag Mevrou Finnegan."

He always greeted her in a very formal manner, which amused her greatly. In apartheid South Africa it was an absurd anomaly that was never lost on Gert Viljoen whenever he saw her on the farm over the past two weeks, that this supremely graceful and elegant smiling black woman who was now looking over the stable door at the shining chestnut gelding, was the daughter in law of the rich and powerful Finnegans who had now taken over the complete ownership of Brandkraal. He did not know that she was also distantly related to both Max and Rachel Finnegan.

The Finnegans knew that Geraldine was distantly related to both sides of the family. On a visit to the mission while they were walking with the twins down the sand road to the bridge at the river Rachel confided in Geraldine that she had been made one of the heirs of Brandkraal, and that they hoped that one day she and Aaron would take over the responsibility of running Brandkraal, when South Africa eventually changed. When she asked Rachel if she had informed Aaron of this, her reply was that Aaron did not seem to be interested in taking over the running of the farm or even owning it as long as there was apartheid in South Africa. Geraldine never spoke to Aaron about their being the major heirs of Brandkraal.

"Goeie middag Meneer Viljoen," she answered with a friendly smile.

Her demeanour was relaxed and tranquil; there was not a trace of defiance or unease on her countenance. She could see that he felt uncomfortable in her presence. He had heard that she was highly educated. Being very attractive she did intimidate him, but she was not aware of this. Every day he made sure that Miriam cleaned the old Farm House and each evening he made sure that Moenie Sukkel Nie kindled a fire in the lounge when she arrived back from Unisa.

In a way over these past two weeks she felt like the mistress of the farm. She felt a kinship with the fictional character, Bathsheba, in Hardy's novel Far from the Maddening Crowd. She laughed at herself for entertaining such an idea, but she enjoyed basking in the glow of the thought, which was more than a fantasy. Anyway, it was not impossible she thought. It could happen in the future. She decided that they would definitely continue to live in the old farm house. She had grown so attached to it.

By the time she finished looking at the horses the women in the Brandkraal farm labourer's village had started making fires in konkas outside their brick and corrugated iron roofed bungalows to cook pap for supper and boil water for tea. The grey smoke curled up like a ribbon into the sky, the smell of wood smoke mingled with cattle dung, drifted across the farm as she made her way to the extensive fields of lucerne in which each individual crown of lucerne bore a miniature canopies of leaves not more than five centimeters in height. A large flock of black headed dorper ewes that had started to lamb were grazing on the lucerne fields. It was safe during the winter months to graze cattle and sheep on the unirrigated cut lucerne fields.

In the distance on edge of the lucerne field a flock of guinea fowl foraged for their last meal before the sun went down. A family of crown lapwings warily watching her approach finally lost their nerve and took off, wheeling noisily above in the sky, making loud grating kreep...kreep...kreep alarm calls. She stood for a few minutes and watched them before she knelt down for her evening prayers. Her face became transformed into a rapture of joy and anticipation as she removed the shawl that she had worn draped over her shoulders and coverer her head with it. She briefly watched a grass owl as it flew low and silently across the field. Facing east she closed her eyes and began to chant in a loud and clear voice the evening prayers as they came in their order to her memory.

"I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me."

"Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities."

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."

In deep concentration she paused for a while mediating on what she had just prayed. Then lifting up her arms she exclaimed, her face smiling radiantly upward to the skies:

"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost."

She paused, making the Eastern Orthodox sign of the cross, before continuing with:

"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen."

She then sung the appointed Psalm. She paused, concentrating for a while, her lips moving silently. After a moment silence, in a strong and joyful voice she began to chant the Magnificat. The sheep that had been slowly approaching her out of curiosity stood still and listened to the beautiful rendition of the Magnificat that flowed from her lips across the fields.

Thereafter with appropriate pauses of concentration and silences she chanted or sung in succession the Nunc Dimittis, the Apostles Creed, the Our Father, the Collect.

Throughout her meditation, she was aware of the audible whirring pulses of multiple little wing beats in the darkening sky, as flocks, upon wave upon wave, of Southern Red Bishops in their drab and dull non-breeding plumage, flew overhead westwards to their winter colonial roosting sites in the trees that lined the Rietspruit.

After singing one of her favourite hymns, she remained kneeling in silence, eyes closed, a peaceful expression softened her face, every now and then her lips moved silently, it seemed like she did not want stop or get up, she remained kneeling for what seemed an inordinate period of time as the gloom gathered over the fields and the surrounding veld. The calls of the guinea fowls drifted on the breeze as they prepared to roost in the willows that lined the Rietspruit. At last light, shortly after the sun had slipped behind the horizon, she finally stood up. She could see smoke coming from the chimney of the old farm house. The veranda light and lounge lights had been switched on for her. She caught sight of Moenie Sukkel Nie walking down the road towards the village. They all knew and spoke about the routine of the strange Madame, klein baas Aaron's black wife, who liked to pray for such a long time each evening in the fields.

### Chapter 16

On the Wednesday the 19th of June 1985 The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act was repealed by the Immorality and Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Amendment Act by the South Africa Nationalist Party government under P W Botha. Because of their isolation on the relatively remote mission station Aaron and Geraldine were completely oblivious of the news. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday passed without incident. The pupils at the mission school had been busy writing their June exams that week.

Apart from the unseasonal rain falling on the Lebombo Mountains that Saturday was also like any other Saturday. Geraldine was sitting on the sofa reading aloud The Hobbit to Rachel and Rosanne who were sitting on either side of her listening. Aaron was busy making sketches of the beetles that he had been collecting over the past 15 years that they had been at the mission. He was also listening to the story that Geraldine was reading in the two teenagers in clear crisp slightly nasal Natal English accent. Listening to Geraldine read had become an important source of their entertainment. The twin were now 13 years old and in grade 7. Both Aaron and Geraldine were worried about their two teenage daughters. The only life they had known was the mission station. Their 15 years of self-imposed exile at the mission had passed by unbelievably fast. It felt like that they had only arrived yesterday at the mission.

On the table lay a copy of Geraldine's MA theses on the Song of Songs and a copy of her thesis on Job for which she had been awarded a PhD in 1981. She was now Dr Geraldine McNamara Finnegan. Spread out on the carpet was a monopoly board, monopoly money and monopoly cards. They had abandoned the game after Geraldine decided to read The Hobbit to them. Everyone had been nagging her to continue with the story.

A movement caught Aaron's eye. Through the window he saw Father Shaun McGreevy walking rapidly towards their bungalow. It was pretty obvious that Father Shaun was the bearer of very important news.

"Father Shaun is coming in a great hurry," said Aaron interrupting the story.

Seconds later he burst into the lounge through the open kitchen door.

"They have repealed the immorality and mixed marriage act," he blurted out excitedly once he had got his breath back.

The news coming like a bolt out of the blue with no warning stunned both Aaron and Geraldine.

"I can't believe it! How is that possible," exclaimed Geraldine suddenly looking very excited.

"Here it is in black and white," Father Shaun McGreevy shouted in excitement as he flung several copies of different newspapers onto the table.

The twins, Geraldine and Aaron crowded around the table reading the new reports in the different newspapers.

"What does this mean Mommy," Rachel asked not knowing what to make of the news.

"It means we can return to our home in South Africa," she answered.

For moment the two teenagers looked perturbed.

"But Swaziland is our home we don't want to leave we are happy here, what about all our friends, we are Swazi," said Rosanne.

Geraldine looked at Aaron. The expression on her face communicated the question, 'And now what are we going to do, we did not expect this.'

"Calm down everybody. This is good news for your mother and for me. We are not going to make any hasty decisions. This I something we going to talk about. We are going to weight about everything. Anyway I think we will have to deal with many legal obstacles if we are going to return as a family to South Africa. So if we do decide to return it is not going to happen overnight. We also have contractual obligations with respect to our work at the mission. We just cannot leave the mission school just yet," Aaron said, "if we going to return to South Africa it will only be in a years' time, it is not going to be next week or next month."

"If we go to South Africa, where will we live?" Rachel asked.

"We already have a home in South Africa waiting for us when return," Geraldine said.

Aaron and the twins looked at Geraldine.

"I don't understand what you mean, you never ever mentioned that we have a home waiting for us in South Africa," Rosanne said looking every surprised.

"We have a beautiful big house on a farm called Brandkraal," Geraldine said.

Aaron laughed good-humouredly.

"Max and Rachel have brain washed you," he said with a huge grin on his face.

"No they have not brain washed me. They have made a very generous offer. They want you to take over the running of the farm, they are willing to give us a generous share offer in the business," she said.

"You love Brandkraal," he said.

"I do love Brandkraal and you know why, it has always been a special place to me. It was my first home with you in a way," she said.

"Where is Brandkraal," Rachel asked.

"It is very close to Boksburg, it takes between 15 to 20 minutes to get to Boksburg from Brandkraal," she said.

Looking at the twins she said,

"You will love Brandkraal, it is huge farm with horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens. You will have your own horses. It is close to huge shopping malls like the East Rand Mall and Eastgate. You will be close to movie houses and ice rinks. The end of apartheid is in sight. We will be able to go on holiday to Durban, your will be able to meet all your cousins, aunts and uncles. You will be able to visit and stay with Grandpa Max and Granny Rachel," Geraldine said.

"Well maybe it won't be so bad then," Rosanne conceded.

### Chapter 17

It was settled, everything had been organized, and all legal obstacles had been removed. Aaron, Rachel and the twins could return to South Africa any time they wished. Aaron had decided to take the offer to run Brandkraal, Geraldine had been offered a job as a lecturer in the Department of Old Testament Studies at Unisa. Rachel and Rosanne had been accepted at St Dominic's Convent in Boksburg. Aaron and Rachel had to work in the notice period of three months and would be leaving the mission at the end of March.

After the school's Ash Wednesday service for the pupils, Geraldine drove off with the twins to buy provisions. At 5.00 pm they should have been back at the mission. Aaron began to feel concerned. At 5.30 a police car stopped at the mission administration offices and his unease began grow exponentially. Two policemen got out of the car and walked through the doors into the reception foyer. A few moments later they came of the building with Father Shaun McGreevy. In the company of the Father, they began walking towards the cottage. Aaron began to feel extremely worried and agitated. He walked towards them. Father Shaun McGreevy's face was grave.

"I have very bad news. Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne have been killed in a car accident. It happened this afternoon on the way back to the mission."

A huge black abyss open in front of Aaron.

"We are so sorry, we are all very sorry," both policemen muttered awkwardly.

The devastating news sunk into his brain, crowding out every other thought. Only the words 'Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne have been killed in a car accident,' rang in his head.

It left Aaron reeling in a state of shock. It made no sense. How could this be?

He stood there in stunned silence struggling to comprehend that his family had just been exterminated and that they were now gone, gone forever, he would never see them again, his life had been destroyed, his Universe had been completely annihilated, everything that matter in his life had been reduced to nothing. The unthinkable, the unimaginable and the incomprehensible had happened to him. Speechless, he struggled to process the meaning of what he had just heard. Nothing could have prepared him for this. As the shock of the news began to take its effect he collapsed onto his knees. The two policemen gently lifted him up onto his feet. All the blood had drained from his face. His eyes darkened with extreme anguish, his tongue became immobile as his mouth dried up, his body and bones seemed to sag under the weight of despair, the sudden loss of all hope sucked away all the vitality of his spirit. He just stood there dumbstruck before the three men.

And the two police men and Father Shaun McGreevy felt helpless, they just stood there quietly, not knowing what more to say, realizing it was not in their power to provide any kind of comfort, so they just stood there with pained expressions on their faces. What could they do? What can anyone do under these circumstances?

"We can go in my car. I will drive. We will follow the police."

Aaron climbed into the front passenger seat. His mind waged a battle as he tried to come to terms with the reality of the deaths of Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne.

As they drove off the sun was beginning to set. It was dusk when they arrived at the police station mortuary. The police who had escorted them left, driving off. They walked to the reception desk in the foyer of the police station. They stood at the reception counter for a few minutes waiting for an official to attend to them. He eventually finished his paper work, got up from desk and walked over to Aaron and Father Shaun. He obviously did not know why they were there, he stood behind the counter waiting for Aaron to speak.

"I am Aaron Finnegan, my wife Geraldine McNamara Finnegan and our two daughters were killed in car accident this afternoon. We have been told by the police that their bodies are in the police mortuary."

Without saying anything the police official walked over to another desk covered with piles of papers, files and dockets. He scratched around the desk and eventually found a black hard cover book which he brought back to the counter. He began to page through it. It was an incident report book. He ran his finger down the page stopping at each of the incidents reports that had been logged. He eventually found an entry, looked at it briefly, wrote something down on a small square piece of white paper and then indicated that they should follow him.

They followed him out of the reception area and down a passage. They walked in silence a few paces behind him. At the end of the passage he opened a door and they walked into large room. This was the mortuary. He walked over to the rows of cream coloured metal doors. He glanced at the paper in his hand and at the numbers on the metal doors. He opened three doors that were next to each other, and pulled out three large trays. He stepped back without saying a word.

Aaron walked over. He looked down at the three bodies. He looked at Geraldine's body. Her eyes were closed, her legs were bloody and badly fractured. Her left arm was also broken. There was a deep wound on the side of her head. There were no wounds on her face. Her face looked peaceful, almost serene, as if she was asleep. A very prominent un-smudged black Ash Wednesday charcoal cross was still on her forehead. She looked so young, much younger than her 37 years. Aaron's two 14 year old daughters lay in trays next to each other. He feared to look at them. Anguish and grief gripped him as he looked at their bodies, staring at their faces, his own face twisted in agony and pain.

It is actually strange that in times like this, little things become significant. He was relieved to see that their faces had not been damaged. They had severe wounds on the sides and back of their heads. They also lay there, seemingly peaceful, with their eyes closed.

Again he experienced a strange sense of relief, because their faces were undamaged and they seemed to be peaceful. Like Geraldine their Ash Wednesday crosses on their foreheads were very prominent and un-smudged. Now that the full reality had come home to him. They were gone. He covered his face with his hands and started to weep uncontrollably. After a minute or two he stepped forward, not sure what to do. He bent over the three bodies, each one in turn, holding their hands, stroking their hair gently, he kissed their lips softy, all the time whispering how much he loved them.

He heard his voice as in a dream speaking.

"She looks so young, she looks so young. Is it really her?"

He bent down again and kissed Geraldine on forehead, kissed her cheeks, kissed her lips. He lifted up her right hand and kissed it, saying all the time:

"Geraldine I love you so much, I can't believe you are now gone forever my dearest love, what I am going to do without you, how am I going to live without you."

All this time a silent Father McGreevy stood back next to the policeman. His face had turned ashen grey and his eyes were also red from weeping. The policeman walked over to a steel cabinet and took out a big white plastic packet and gave it to Aaron. He looked inside and saw their belongings, rings, watches, wallets, hand bags, keys, notebook, calculator, a rosary. He clutched the bag filled with the items of their personal belongings, as if it was a precious treasure, the personal effects in the packet was all that he had left of Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne.

The police asked him to check the items and tick them off on the check list and then sign the document. Aaron poured out the items onto a table and stared at them for a few seconds. He then asked for a pen, ticked off the items. Afterwards he signed and filled in the date on the check list. Carrying the bag tightly to his chest he quietly followed Father McGreevy and the policeman back to the reception. There was more paper work waiting for him in the police reception. He went through the ritual of confirmed their identities. Afterwards he stood there not knowing what to do next. They were obviously done. There was nothing else that could be done. It was dark outside.

"Is that all that needs to be done," Aaron asked

"Yes you can go now. You have done everything. I am very sorry for loss," he replied:

They returned to the car and drove back to the mission in silence. Father Shaun McGreevy turned off the tar road onto the sand road that went to the mission. The moon had just risen above the hills and it looked huge, the sinking dense atmosphere acting like a magnifying lens. Aaron gazed at the moon as if seeing it for the first time in his life. It had the yellow glow of an early evening new full moon. The moon brought no comfort. Instead the moon looked cold, mute and indifferent. Every evening since the dawn of time it had risen over countless deaths. Now it has risen once again unseen by those who had now departed for good.

Aaron wondered as they drove into the dark shadows of the Lebombo Mountains how it was possible that a devoted and committed Christian who had lived her faith so intensely and so joyfully could end up losing her life so tragically in the prime of her life. How could she lose her life just when their fortunes were about to change for the better. How could she lose her life after they had endured an exile for 15 years?

It didn't make sense. He struggled to assimilate this this stark fact. He had lost his entire family. He could not grasp the finality of their deaths. He would never see or hear them ever again. He was now alone, among the living, alive but left behind. He felt a heavy, crushing sense of the futility of everything. It seemed that everything had been in vain. Everything had eventually come to nothing. What was the point to living anymore without them? Nothing made sense. He felt the dark depths of sinking existential despair. What indeed was the meaning of life if it ends in cruel tragedy? Geraldine and the twins will not see the sun rise tomorrow morning nor will they see it set tomorrow evening. There would be no more sun rises and sun sets that he would ever share with them.

When they arrived back at the mission a crowd was waiting in the dark outside the reception entrance. Word had spread around from one homestead to the next and people were arriving from all over. As Aaron got out of the car he could hear sobbing and wailing. This intensified his own grief and he began to sob uncontrollably.

The whole mission was in total darkness. The diesel generator was quiet. Why had the generator not been started? Everything seemed to be in a general state of confusion. They could not start the generator because the shed was locked. The key were not hanging on the key rack. It had been removed by someone. No one knew where the keys were. Someone asked if Father Shaun had the keys? He felt in his pocket. Yes he had the keys. The keys had been in his pocket all this time. He had forgotten to return the keys to their proper place. A few minutes later the generator was going and the lights came on.

It dawned on Aaron that he had to inform Geraldine's parents or his parents. He went to the reception and dialled up the exchange and gave them Rachel's number. Rachel answered the phone.

People were still milling in the church foyer. Aaron left Father Shaun, who was surrounded by the pressing crowd. In a tired voice he began to field a barrage of questions as best as he could. The strain of emotional exhaustion made him look haggard and old.

Aaron wanted to be alone. He needed to get back home to the bungalow. Leaving the milling crowd he walked out into the night. The door of the bungalow was still open as he left it. He felt for the switch, switching on the light. He stood for a while in the lounge wondering what he was going to do with himself. How was he going to get through the next hour not to mention the next 24 hours or the next couples days? How was going to get through the rest of his life. How was he going on living without Geraldine? He could not imagine a future without her or without Rachel and Rosanne. These were the thoughts that were going through his mind as he stood there. How was he going to go on living without them? His existence depended on them. Without them life was not worth living. The feeling that he did not want of live anymore overwhelmed him. He wanted to die. If only he too could die right now, if only he could sink into nothingness, beyond the reach of pain and suffering.

He sat down at the table. He noticed Geraldine's Bible and Tolkien's Hobbit laying on the lounge couch. He got up from the table and picked up her Bible. It was full of bookmarks. He took her Bible and sat down at the table again. He began look at the bookmarked chapters. She had also bookmarked chapters and verses in Job.

He realized that the generator would be going off soon. He got up and fetched a torch, matches and the gas lamp. The sound of the generator died down and the lights flicked once, twice and then went out. He sat at the table in the pitch darkness for a while before putting on the torch and lighting the gas lamp.

He looked at the Book of Job. There was extensive underlining in pencil. On the margins there were neat notes in pencil. He began reading the Book of Job. He read her comments, it felt like he was reading with her eyes. She was gone, absence, yet her presence lived on in the notes and comments. In between the leaves of the pages he found handwritten notes which he read over and over.

"Do not mortals have hard service on earth? Are not their days like those of hired laborers? Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired labourer waiting to be paid, so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me. When I lie down I think, 'How long before I get up?' The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn. My body is clothed with worms and scabs,my skin is broken and festering.

"My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again The eye that now sees me will see me no longer, you will look for me, but I will be no more. As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so one who goes down to the grave does not return. He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more.

"Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard? When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning.

He read the whole book of Job. Pausing to read and reread all her pencilled notes on the page margins. He looked at his watch. It was 2.00 am. He felt emotionally exhausted. He put the gas lamp off. He got up from the table and went to the sofa. He placed The Hobbit on the floor and stretched out on the couch, and eventually fell into a restless sleep. A strange but exceedingly vivid dream woke him up. In the dream he was sitting at the table. Geraldine was sitting on the couch with the twin sitting on either side on her. She was reading The Hobbit to Rachel and Rosanne. She looked up to him and smiled. Still smiling, her eyes bright, she began to speak to him. She said:

"Let it be, let it be. There will be an answer. Don't blame God. Don't be angry with God, Don't lose hope. Keep your faith. We are OK you will see. There will be an answer."

He lay on his back and thought about the dream for a while. The words that she had uttered in the dream 'there will be an answer' repeated themselves over and over in his mind. After waking from the dream he could no longer sleep so he got up and lit the gas lamp. He opened her Bible at the Gospel of John and began read:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"

4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'"

He heard the generator start. The lights flickered and came on. It was 5.00 am. He turned the gas lamp off. Feeling like death he leaned his elbows on the table and cradled his face in his hands. The words 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee' run through his head. Jesus had risen. The cottage felt empty. All the beds were still made up. Their untimely death had left a huge emptiness in the cottage. The interior of the cottage felt heavy with desolation.

There was a knock at the door. It was Father McGreevy. Aaron invited him in. He put the kettle on the gas stove. After it had boiled he made a pot of tea. They sat at the table. Aaron could not bring himself to speak about anything, they both just sat there in silence sipping the tea. Aaron felt himself struggling with unreality of what had happened. He was struggling to come to terms with the incredible void that their deaths had now left in his life. It was not something one could simply process mentally or emotionally, or work through rationally and logically, or get over by some kind of therapeutic intervention. This was not on the same level as the random disappointments and setbacks that strike one down from time to time in the normal course of one's life. In these cases there is always an avenue for recovery. With death everything changes, nothing will be the same ever again, this is the loss that nothing can lighten nor erase the pain with any kind of compensation, there is no compensation, the finality of death is irreversible. There is no amelioration. There is no soothing and healing balm.

How does one survive the death of loved ones when there is no inoculation against tragedy, when there is no remedy or relief once it has made its visitation? Of course Father Shaun was painfully aware that Aaron was having difficulty in coming to terms with the fact that Geraldine and the twin were gone for good, and with the stark fact that he had been left behind, and would from now on have to live the rest of his life without them. And how could he possibly continue living if his life was going to be filled with their absence? The reality of this prospect was something he could bear to face. He simply did not have the strength. How could he possibly manage to go on without them, especially if the burden of sadness and loss was feeling too great, too impossible for him to bear?

This was the terrible condition that he had found himself in.

The fact of their deaths, the fact of the finality of their deaths was not sinking in yet. It was too early. Now for the time being he did not know how to accept it. Now it was not something that he could make peace with. How would he get through the next hour, how would he get through the day, or the coming night or the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year? He wondered whether as the minutes became hours, and the hours became days, and the days become weeks, and the weeks become months, and the months became years, would he ever reach the peace of acceptance. Would the passage of time finally work is healing balm of acceptance or peace. This was something he would have to find out for himself. It was a road he had to walk alone, by himself. There will be no guides to show him the way, there will be no a strong arms to bear him up on this journey, there will be no comforting, there will be no miracle of relief. The pain of bereavement will endure, seemingly forever.

Yet slowly the prospect that he was now alone, without them, began to take root in his heart, in his gut and in his brain. Their sudden untimely departure without warning or final farewells was now permanent. There was no escape for Aaron. With this realization the grief began to well up in his chest. As he sat staring into his cup of tea, the grief grew into a tidal wave. Overwhelmed with an incredible painful sense of deep loss he started to break down and began to sob uncontrollably. Father McGreevy sat helplessly on the opposite side of the table. His cup of tea had grown cold. Aaron found the strength to look at Father McGreevy through a veil of tears which blurred his vision. He was struggling to maintain his composure.

"I don't know how I am going to get through this. The pain is unbearable. I actually want to die. I don't think I can go on living. The burden of pain and grief is too much too bear. I have no strength, I am too weak for this. "

His eyes were red and brimming with tears. He face was drawn and grave, his lips trembled, his cheeks below his eyes quivered. His eyes had become deep pools of incredible sadness.

"Are you hungry? Should I make some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast," Father McGreevy asked

He replied: "No thanks, I am not hungry. I will eat later. I suppose I need to go and make the funeral arrangements."

But instead, after Father McGreevy left he walked to their bedroom and climbed under the covers of the bed. He could smell the fragrance of Geraldine. He fell asleep. He woke at midday and went to the toilet. He climbed back under the covers and fell again into a deep dreamless sleep. It was dark when he work up. He couldn't see what the time was. He went back to sleep.

A knock at the door woke him up. He sat up in the bed, he felt disorientated. He looked at watch, it was 11.00 am in the morning. Father McGreevy was standing by the opened door of the bedroom. He looked very concerned. Aaron got up, they went into the kitchen. Aaron fumbled around in the kitchen trying to light the gas stove to boil water for tea. He scratched around in the cupboards for the tea bags, for powdered milk, for milk jug, for cups.

"Have you eaten?"

"No. I am not hungry."

After they had finished drinking tea. He got up to leave.

"The mission car is parked outside for your use. Here are the keys. You have to sort out the funeral arrangements with the undertakers. Do you want me to come with you?"

"No it is OK. I will go after having a shave and shower."

### Chapter 18

Aaron stood at the entrance of the church waiting for the arrival of the cortege. In the distance the two black hearses, finally appeared. When he saw the approaching cortege in the distance he broke down and began to sob uncontrollably. Again he felt like dying. Yet again the waves of grief became unbearable. Once again the wounds were opened, and again the pain and anguish gripped him.

Grief and sadness overwhelmed everyone outside the church as they watched the approaching convoy carrying the remains of Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne draw nearer.

Aaron felt his face become contorted with emotion. He struggled hopelessly to maintain his composure. His lips began to quiver, tears streamed down his face. He started weeping freely, loudly and uninhibitedly. The hearses disappeared as the road made a dip. The two vehicles re-appeared at the top of the rise. Huge plumes of red dust swirled behind the convoy as it followed the winding dirt road towards the mission church. The white head lights of the cortege blazing brightly in the daylight could now be seen.

Black, white, red, and brown splashed, dappled, stippled and spotted groups of Nguni cattle all with large curved horns turned their heads and watched the two black hearses pass. Children, boys, girls, teenagers, young men and women run to the side of the dirt road, lining up on both sides of the road. Women working in the fields nearby, stopped hoeing and stood motionless. Men sitting under a large acacia tree stood up and watched the approaching cortege. A large crowd began to run behind the two hearses.

The shiny black station wagons slowed as they passed through the mission gate. The crowd waiting inside the church became very distressed, and started wailing, once they heard that the hearses had arrived at the church entrance. Sounds of forlorn singing filled the church. The two hearses came to a halt at the church entrance. As the remains of Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne were carried into the church the congregation wailed even louder and more uncontrollably. Women swooned in the pews. Many inside the church collapsed in a fit of grief as the coffins were carried down the central aisle through the nave to the sanctuary. Rachel, Aaron's mother, collapsed onto the floor before the front pew when she saw the three coffins and was assisted by two weeping black women.

As the service drew to a close Aaron saw through the church window a team of six nguni oxen drawing a wooden wagon coming through the mission gate towards the church. The wagon and team oxen stopped at the entrance of the church. Father McGreevy came over to him and said that the local chief had sent the team of oxen and wagon to transport the coffins to the graves which had been dug nearly a mile away at spot among a grove of tall acacias that Geraldine had loved to visit.

They placed the coffins on the wagon and the mourners followed behind. At the burial site Geraldine, Rosanne and Rachel were laid to rest together in a single grave.

The next morning after the funeral Aaron woke up at 5.00 am. He got up and made some tea and then sat down at the table. He picked up Geraldine's Bible which was practically falling apart from use. While sipping tea he opened the Bible and began to read from John's Gospel chapter 21. He remembered their final night in South Africa. Geraldine had spoken about the meaning of Advent and then the conversation went off on a tangent about the disciples wondering who Jesus really was. He reread the chapter.

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3 "I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

5 He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?"

"No," they answered.

6 He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, "It is the Lord," he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. 8 The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.[c] 9 When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

10 Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish you have just caught." 11 So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." None of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

After reading the passage he thought silently to himself: "I need to go fishing. There is a lot of stuff I need to sort out in my mind and fishing is the right therapy for this. St Peter did the right thing. Fishing is an excellent way of dealing with grief."

Father McGreevy had suggested anyway that Aaron should take some leave for a few days. After confirming he would be taking off a week he booked an air ticket and flew back to South Africa.

### Chapter 19

Rachel fetched him from Jan Smuts International Airport. Even though Geraldine had made frequent trips back to South Africa because of her postgraduate studies he had not been in South Africa since 1969. Rachel and Max had built a mansion on a 5 ha plot near the new East Rand Mall in Boksburg.

After a good night sleep in one of their guest rooms Rachel drove him to Lindsay Sakers in Benoni. He paid cash for a second hand Volkswagen beetle. He then bought a small tent and some camping stuff at the East Rand Mall. He had no fishing gear so he drove over to Solly's Anglers Corner in Booysens Road, Ophirton, Johannesburg and bought some fishing tackle. After having purchased all his equipment he decided to head immediately for Sodwana Bay.

Rachel was a bit taken aback when at 15.00 that day he told her that he was leaving for Sodwana Bay. She was expecting that he would be spending a few days with them, but wild horses couldn't drag him away from his intentions to leave immediately. Rachel was extremely worried about Aaron's state of mind. The passion for life was no longer in his eyes. There was an extreme weariness in his demeanour and sadness in his general comportment and even in this posture. She could see he was taking the loss of Geraldine and the twins badly.

He filled the car before leaving Boksburg and then he filled the car's tank again at Pongola. It was raining as he drove in the pitch darkness over the Lebombo Mountains to Jozini. It was still raining steadily as he travelled along the gravel road across the Makatini Flats to Sodwana Bay. When he reached the little trading store close to Sodwana Bay at about just past 2.00 am he stopped. Overcome with exhaustion he reclined the seat and fell into a deep sleep waking up only at 8.00 am. After purchasing some basic provisions he set off on the last short leg of his journey to Sodwana Bay.

The last time he had been to Sodwana Bay was in July 1964. It was during that year that he had met Geraldine. It happened be one of the best holidays that he could remember ever having. On that holiday he thought about his secret girlfriend constantly. It was also the first time the Finnegan family had gone to Sodwana Bay. Geraldine and her parent had gone to Durban for the July holidays.

They travelled to Sodwana in the old blue combi. It was filled with camping equipment and fishing gear. They camped in tents and did surf fishing the whole day every day. On one particular day they walked for about 5 km south along the beach to a very remote spot. It turned out to be a very nice spot for surf fishing. They were quite lucky and caught a few large pompano. Rachel, Hillary and Nathan sat under an umbrella high up on the beach reading books. While standing on the beach with their lines in the surf he and Max saw a vehicle coming towards them at high speed. As it drew nearer they saw it was a police van. They were driving on the wet hard part of the beach. The vehicle did not slow down as it approached them. They quickly walked a few meters towards the edge of water washing up onto the beach so as to let the vehicle pass behind them. The police van did not drive behind them but suddenly swerved and drove past right in front of them. Snagging their lines and spraying them with water in the process. He briefly saw their hysterically laughing faces as they flashed passed. The fishing reels screamed as the vehicle drove away peeling off the line from their reels. He had never seen Max, Rachel and Hillary so angry. Aaron was not surprised about what had happened. He had better instincts that Max and Rachel. When he saw the approaching police van he half expected that they planned to snag their lines. He didn't know why he had this premonition, but when he saw the Dodge van approaching he knew they were aiming for the lines. But maybe he was perceiving something about the world which Max, Rachel and Hillary thought was unthinkable. Anyway after that incident whenever they saw a police van approaching them on the beach while they were surf fishing they would walk waist deep into the sea.

He remembered when they got back Mr Whitehead had heard about the episode. It was so unbelievable to him that he also interrogated Aaron about it. He confirmed the whole incident with a fairly accurate report:

"Yes is was true. Hard to believe but they drove through our lines. Our lines were stripped off the reels within seconds. Smoke was coming of my reel. I swear. We had no spare line with us. We just packed up and walked back to the camp. Carrying the fish back nearly killed us as well. "

Mr Whitehead laughed, he found the incident funny. "Why the bloody hell did you go fish at a spot miles away when you knew you would have to carry your catch back to camp. "

It was Aaron intention to go fish at the same spot. He first spent the day setting up his camp site and sorting out the fishing gear. He went down to the beach in the late afternoon and sat there until nightfall. After darkness had fallen he remained sitting there staring blankly into the dark sea, also staring up at the stars. Later that night he returned to the tent. He climbed into his sleeping slept soundly. At 4.00 am he woke up, after crawling out of his sleeping bag he found his torch. Switching on the torch he gathered up his things, setting off while it was dark with a his knap sack, a canteen of water and fishing gear to that special fishing spot. He walked along in the beach listening to the constant crashing of the surf. He could not keep Geraldine and the twins out of his thoughts. In fact they were constantly on his mind. Aaron began to feel desperately lonely. He felt the pangs of grief stirring up in his stomach and welling up into his chest. Gazing up at the bright morning star that lit the sky just before the break of dawn he broke down and began to sob. Falling onto his knees he cried out loudly in the darkness before dawn, weeping bitterly, his lonely, heartrending cries drowning in the boom of falling waves, the surging surf of the advancing tide washed around him.

"Oh God, Oh God, please help me I don't know how I am going live without Geraldine, I don't want to live for the next forty years of my life without her, please let me rather die now, Lord I want to die, I don't want to live anymore, I cannot face living for another moment, I don't have the strength to live, I want to die," he pleaded tearfully, wishing in the depths of heart for the numbing nothingness of death, where he would be beyond the reach of the most unbearable pain, where in the deep absolute bottomless darkness of non-existence, in a state of utter oblivion he would cease to feel anything. He wished for total obliteration. He wished that could cease to be. The temptation to drown himself it the black raging surf felt irresistible. He walked knee deep into surf. Stared up at the morning star he cried out:

"The sacrifice of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

He walked further into the dark sea, standing hip deep, feeling the tug and pull of the surf, he was ready to die, to swim until exhausted, allowing himself to sink below the waves into the great unknown. He became aware that he reciting words from the Gospel John: "Who are you?" He turned around leaving the embrace of raging surf he collapsed on beach, huddled in foetal posture on the dry sand he sobbed his heart out. He got up, gathered his things and started walking again to his fishing destination, his vision blurred with tears.

He stopped to watch the sun rising like a red ball above the ocean's horizon. Sagging under the crushing burden of heartache and hopeless despair he trudged blindly onwards. Yet in spite of his frame of mind and also unknown to his conscious awareness at that moment while he was drowning in his grief, there lay stored in his head vast intellectual resources that had become with time hardwired into his very brain, all of which was the result of years of concentrated, diligent and dedicated observation of the Divine Office. As if driven by instinctive he fell onto his knees as the deep blue and crimson light of dawn began to fill the sky. He made the orthodox sign of the cross, and began to recite the Office of the Morning Prayer, the memory of each word of the Divine Office flooded into his mind and without a moment hesitation between stanzas he recited. He recited in old English the Venite, Exultemus Domino from Psalm 95.

He recited the Te Deum Laudamus. He recited the ancient Christian hymn written more than 1500 years ago, kneeling on the beach he recited the hymn that had been recited countless times, over and over for one and a half millennia. He recited each word, each stanza, the words flowed from his lip, with the same vocal intonation, the same pitch of voice, the same rhythm and melody, acquired from hours and hours, years and years of repetion.

We praise thee, O God

we acknowledge thee to be the Lord

All the earth doth worship thee

the Father everlasting.

To thee all the angels cry aloud

the heavens and all the powers therein.

To thee cherubim and seraphim do continually cry

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Lord God of Sabaoth; heaven and earth

are full of the majesty of thy glory.

The glorious company of apostles praise thee.

The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee.

The noble army of martyrs praise thee.

The Holy Church

throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee;

the father of an infinite majesty;

thine honourable true and only Son;

also the Holy Ghost the comforter.

Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.

Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.

When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man,

thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.

When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,

thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

Thou sittest at the hand of God in glory of the Father.

We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.

We therefore pray thee, help thy servants,

whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.

Make them numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting

O Lord save thy people

and bless thine heritage.

Govern them and lift them up for ever.

Day by day we magnify thee;

and worship thy name, ever world without end.

Vouchsafe, O Lord to keep us this day without sin.

O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.

O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in thee.

O Lord in thee have I trusted let me not be confounded

Aaron continued to recite his sacrifice of praise to God, he recited the Benedicite Omnia Opera, then he recited the Urbs Fortitudinis, then he recited the Benedictus, then he recited the Apostle's Creed, then he recited The Our Father. After praying the Collect and concluding prayers he stood up. It felt as if a faint flickering flame of comfort had started to burn in his heart, delicately like a fragile flower tentatively opening to the soft glowing light of the rising sun.

He said: "Thank you God."

Picking up his things again and he continued his journey. His stride became stronger, his step firmer, his bowed posture straightened and he lifted his head. A smile formed on his face as he remembered what Geraldine had always said about the Tango, to learn the steps of the Tango, one had to learn to walk. He stepped onto the firm wet sand of the beach and began to concentrate, to meditate on his walking, the rise and fall of this feet with each step, the lifting and lowering of his knees with the swing of each stride, he felt the fluid, flowing rhythm of his walking. He thanked God again. He thanked God for the gift of the friendship and companionship that he had experienced with Geraldine and with his daughters Rachel and Rosanne.

As the sun broke free and started to climb he began to feel slightly better with each stride. At mid-morning near his destination he stopped again, kneeling in the sand, he recited the Office for the mid-morning Canonical Hour. He got up again, gathering his things, and started walking again, meditating on each step, concentrating on his breathing, the flame of comfort burnt slightly more strongly in his heart. He felt that he was walking on the shore of eternity. A sudden thought came to his mind. He would see Geraldine again, he would see Rachel and Rosanne again. He would see them all again because was this not what the Resurrection and Eternal Life meant? Was it not logically entailed? He would definitely see her again and he would see the twins again. He clung tightly to this thought, he wrung as much comfort from it as possible. He clung also more tightly to God, Who was the guarantor of this possibility, so he whispered:

"God I am clinging to You, I am not going to let go, I will cling to You until I breath my last breath, You are the only comfort I have, You are the One who can make my loss bearable."

He knew that Geraldine would want him to continue strong in the Faith, and not lose hope. She would definitely what him to get up and go on with his life.

He reached the spot. Behind him towered the huge steep sand dune. The undulating mounds of sand at its base were stabilized with a cover of pioneer plant species that included Scaevola plumieri, Ipomoea and Gazania rigens.

Aaron put his kit down, took a tin out of his knap sack and proceeded to catch mole crabs for bait. They were excellent bait for pompano and stump nose. Aaron walked knee deep into the sea and casting his line into the surf. He stood there until midday. At midday he reeled in the line and knelt on the beach and recited the Liturgy of the Hours for the midday prayers.

After re-baiting with fresh bait he stood in the sea and fished until mid-afternoon. At mid-afternoon he knelt on the beach and offered the prayer of praise corresponding to the mid-afternoon Canonical Hour. Re-baiting the hook with fresh bait he recommenced fishing. There had not been a single bite all day. He decided that he would stay the whole night if need be. As long as he had sufficient strength he will observe a night-time vigil.

At 5.00 pm he felt a sharp tug on the line, he struck and the rod bent sharply, he had a fish on the line. His heart pounded. He felt the old excitement of playing the fish and reeled it in slowly. It was large pompano. He buried the fish in damp sea sand leaving its tail sticking out. He gathered dry wood that had been washed onto the beach and made a small fire. After cleaning and gutting the fish he washed it in the sea and wrapped it in tin foil which had he stashed in the knap sack. He buried the fish that he had wrapped in tin foil in the hot coals.

The sun quickly sunk behind the dunes. Sitting next to the coals he stared at the horizon as dusk settled. Night stealthily made its advance as the sun vanished beneath an ochre haze behind high dunes. Shadows began to encroach as the light faded away until everything was enclosed in a cloak of darkness and the percussion of the waves went on without end. He waited for the moon to rise. As the waning moon made its appearance above the ocean horizon he knelt on the beach and began to recite the Office of the Evening Prayer.

After the reciting the opening prayers he recited the Magnificat, the song of Mary from the Gospel of St Luke:

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid;

for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Because he that is mighty,

hath done great things to me;

and holy is his name.

And his mercy is from generation unto generations,

to them that fear him.

He hath shewed might in his arm:

he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat,

and hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath received Israel his servant,

being mindful of his mercy:

As he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his seed forever.

He then recited the Nunc Dimittis, then the Apostles' Creed, followed by the Our Father and the Collect. He finished the Office by singing a favourite hymn.

He turned around and saw that Evening Star had risen above the dune, scanning the night sky he saw the Southern Cross beginning its climb into the heavens.

Sitting next to the dying embers, he said, "Thank you Lord for your grace upon my life."

After lifting the tin foil wrapped fish from the coals, he opened the package. Kneeling he made the sign of the cross while saying: "In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost."

He broke up the fish with his hands and began to eat his supper while watching the moon rising above the great Indian Ocean. In the moonlight, the shadows retreated and he began to recognize again the familiar features of his surroundings.

At 9.00 pm, he recited the prayers for Compline. He started praying the final prayers marking the completion of the Liturgical Day. He recited the Nicene Creed, he sung the Kyrie eleison several times, and then he chanted the Little Litany.

While kneeling he opened his eyes, his eyes fully accustomed to the dark he could see the Ghost Crabs running up and down the beach. A moving dark shadow in the sky drew his attention. It was a huge albatross, without even wing beat it soared effortlessly past the moon.

Just before midnight with moon passing over its zenith in the sky he decided that he felt strong enough to mindfully chant the Quicuque Vult in a reverent confession of his complete commitment and surrender to the Christian Faith. He rededicated himself fully to God by chanting the Creed of Saint Athanasius.

After completing the vocal chanting of the Quicuque Vult he felt exhausted. He whispered his final prayer.

"I pray that your will give me the strength to end my moaning for Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne. Lord I pray for the strength to pick myself up and to go on living without Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne. I don't know how I am going to do it, but I have made my first step by rededicating my life to the faith I have grown to love so deeply. Dear Lord I will always remember with thankfulness the life that I have had through your grace I was able to share for a short while my life with Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne. Lord I look forward to seeing them again in the life to come. Amen."

With a heavy heart Aaron accepted the finality of their deaths. He threw sand over the embers, gathered his things and began the long walk back to his tent as the moon started its dawn descend. It had been a long day. While his sadness followed him like a shadow he began to feel the restoration of his strength. He knew that for the rest of his life the sadness and a sense of loss will continue to be his close companions, but this is life, you have to live with both joy and sadness. Sometimes the shadow will vanish completely in the noon day sun of happiness and at other times it will grow long in the gloomy moments of melancholy. He had been deeply affected by the deaths of Geraldine and the twins, the deep scars of the hurt and loss will remain as signs of the his ordeal, and also a reminder that God is his strength.

### Chapter 20

It has been thirty years or so since the death of Geraldine and his two daughters, Rachel and Rosanne. His mom and dad, Rachel and Max had also passed on. Aaron was now in his sixties. He was still exceedingly mentally sharp, physically fit and strong, and in very good health. He now owned Brandkraal and had lived in the old farm house practically since the death of Geraldine. He had turned Brandkraal Pty Ltd into a thriving business empire. Even so he lived a very modest life-style and continue to observe the canonical hours.

He had also witnessed the march of folly called world history. Both apartheid and communism almost like some strange bed-fellow eventually collapsed under the burden of their contradictions. Like all the other failed ideologies with dubious and irrational experiments in social engineering, they too ended up in the grave yard of history. Capitalism was also beginning to teeter on the brink of disaster as the world financial systems become increasing dysfunctional and corrupt.

Aaron had also found time to work as a lay Dominican brother. He became involved in a wide range of activities in the lay apostolate of the church. All in all he had lived a very productive and meaningful life. He never remarried and never became romantically involved with any woman after the passing away of Geraldine. He eventually made peace with the loss of Geraldine, Rachel and Rosanne.

Lately, Geraldine had been a lot on his mind. In retrospect the 22 years that he had known Geraldine had been an unbelievable and incredible experience. The wonderful memories of their life together sustained him, filled him with hope and strength. He thanked God every day without fail for the life that he had enjoyed with Geraldine and the twins. Life with Geraldine had been a beautiful dream from which no sane person would want to wake up from.

Apart from Aaron's memories, Geraldine's own personal story, her deep personal experiences, her struggles, her very real triumphs, everything that made her amazing life so unusual will forever remain an untold story in the world of the living.

The old adage that time can heal the pain of loss and bereavement is true. Eventually the passing of time healed the excruciating pain that he had endured following the loss of many friends, parents and of course his two daughters and most especially his beloved Geraldine. The pain of loss does become healed with the passage of time. Even so, from time to time the ache of loss comes back like some old sports injury. Very often the ache is accompanied by feelings of melancholy, of nostalgia, which lasts for a day or two. One goes to bed with a heavy heart but then invariably you are able to wake the next day feeling better. Sleeping does something to the brain. Not all questions about loss and pain have been answered. Yet in the end one learns to live with the realities of pain and loss.

Apart from the lay work that Aaron was engaged in and the work associated with the running of the farm he still found time to keep up with his reading and bird watching. His favourite pastimes on Saturday mornings involved visiting Exclusive Book Shop at Mandela Square in Sandton.

On one such Saturday, after buying some books he drove out of the Sandton City parking garaging via the Alice Road exit. He turned left into Alice road, and stopped at the robot. While waiting for the green light he noticed a young man who was fairly smartly dressed in the right hand side mirror. He had a pistol in his hand which he stuck through the open window into Aaron's face and told him to get out of the brand new double cab 4x4 Toyota bakkie.

Aaron lost his cool and shouted at the hijacker, telling him to go get stuffed. Aaron then swung the door open which struck the hijacker quite hard in the chest. The hijacker, was thrown off balance, he stumbled almost falling, but he managed to regain his balance. Instead of speeding off Aaron got out of the bakkie and for some unknown reason fearlessly started to approach the hijacker. The hijacker in apparent self-defence lifted the pistol and shot Aaron in the chest. The force of the bullet threw him backwards against the car.

Collapsing into a heap he ended up laying spread eagled on his back next in the road next to the car. The hijacker run off. Aaron felt no pain. Instead he felt strangely peaceful. It was almost as if he had received a massive dose of morphine. He felt no desire to move, nothing seemed to matter. All he wanted was to remain laying there on his back. He was overcome by a feeling of wonderful tranquillity. Soon a crowd gathered round Aaron. They asked if him if he was okay. He could clearly hear them but he did not feel like answering them, so he keep quiet lying motionless on the hot tar with the noonday sun shining down on him. He heard someone speaking on a cell phone. He was calling an ambulance or the police. He was giving the address.

Aaron could hear that the man with cell phone was upset and getting impatient. It seems that the person he was talking to on the cell phone could not hear him properly. The only other sensation that he became aware of was the hot tar road against his back and the sun shining in his eyes. So he kept his eyes closed. The thought crossed his mind that he was dying. Silently in his mind he prayed "Dear Lord I am dying, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Then in his mind he prayed: "Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

Aaron started to feel drowsy, but he continued to strangely tranquil as if he had been sedated with a powerful opiate, the thought that he was going to die did not frighten him, he was ready to let himself go, in a way he had been living in anticipation for this very moment since the death of Geraldine. He was beginning to lose conscious, like when one starts to nod off before TV while sitting on the sofa. The last thing Aaron heard was the man shouting on the cell phone:

"Yes he is a white male, he has been shot, he has been seriously wounded, yes, yes, he is a white South African male. Have you got that, I repeat, the victim is a white South African male in his sixties. He has a bad gunshot wound in the chest, he is still alive."

He became aware that heat on his back was beginning to feel unbearably uncomfortable. Still lying on his back he needed to shield his face and eyes against the bright and hot glare of the sun. Aaron became aware that the surface on which he was laying was no longer a tar road. With his fingers he felt hot dry coarse textured sand, like beach sand. He discovered that he could move his arms. He lifted his arm and covered his eyes with his forearm, blocking out the sun. Aaron discovered that he could also move both of his legs. There was no sensation of pain in his chest. Aaron lifted his left arm and placed his left hand on the wound in his chest. He opened his fingers and began to feel a thick and sticky layer of congealed blood covering his chest. He felt around his chest, his fingers found the wide jagged hole of the gunshot wound.

Turning his face away from the full blast of the sun which was directly overhead he opened his eyes, squinting and blinking against the bright dazzling glare of sunlight reflecting off the white sand. Aaron realized that he was lying in a wide dry sandy river bed. Rolling over onto his side he managed to push himself up onto my knees. Flanking the river on both sides was a long broken ridge of rocky koppies.

"Could I be dreaming," was the first thought that flashed through his mind. Yet more immediate recollections of events that must have occurred seconds ago started to flood his memory definitely excluded the possibility that he was dreaming. Everything seemed to be so vividly real. He began to doubt the possibility that he was dreaming. In his mind's eye he could still see almost like an after image the hijacker lifting up his arm and pointing the pistol at his chest. Still ringing in his ears was the loud echo of the explosive gunshot. An acrid smell of gun powder or carbide still lingered in his nostrils. The experience of the force of the projectile's impact on his chest which had knocked him off balance was still fresh in his mind. He remembered falling against the back door of the car and then sliding down the side of the car close to the rear tire, collapsing onto his back in the road. He remembered the sensation of the hard hot stony tarmac surface pressing against my back. The sun was directly overhead shining directly into his eyes. He remembered that not unfamiliar but always peculiar experience of hovering at the knife edge of consciousness and unconsciousness when one is at the threshold of falling asleep, unable to resist that slipping away, freely surrendering oneself to that state of almost pleasurable insentience, sinking into that deep comfortable dark abyss of nothingness as one's consciousness unknowingly evaporated. He could remember the numbness, the strange calmness, and carefree peacefulness, it was if he had become drugged with a powerful opiate which filled him with a vast voluptuous sensation of vacuousness. During those moment he longer cared about anything as felt himself slipping away. While in that state of timelessness just as the rising tide of unconsciousness was beginning to carry him away into that colourless never shrinking expanse of oblivion from which there is no return, when the faintest of vital signs start to flicker away like a dying candle in the lightest of breezes, he remembered vaguely someone shouting. Then everything went blank.

Yes, he definitely remembered the man shouting something about a white South African male who lay dying at his feet. He was obviously speaking about Aaron. Now resurfacing from unconsciousness Aaron had no doubts what had happened to him just a few seconds ago. But now he was no longer lying on his back on the hot tarmac in Alice Road. He looked at his watch it was 14.15, a Saturday after in December 2012. So it felt completely incongruous to be laying here on his back in a dried out sandy river bed instead of on the tarmac in Alice Road Sandton.

Now on his knees, in state of wakefulness, his mind began to race. How did I get here when a short while ago I was lying almost mortality wounded on the tarmac in Alice Road Sandton. Still kneeling in the sand bed of the dried up river he glanced at his surroundings. Everything about him had an astonishing resemblance to the Kaokoveld. Overwhelmed by a sense of being in state of lostness in an unnavigable ocean of irreality where everything was simultaneously real and unreal, he wondered once more whether all of this was a dream. How could he know that he not dreaming? How could he know that he was not enmeshed in the sticky web of some hallucination? How could he know that all of this was nothing but a dazzling illusion? In fact he had had experiences where he actually dreamt that he was dreaming. He remembered having a bad dream and in the dream state he dreamt that this bad dream was only a dream. In his perplexity he wondered whether he was indeed dreaming now. Can one have sensations which are so palpably vivid when in a dream state? But he could not doubt the glare of the sun, or the hot sand, or the texture of the sand. The sensation of everything around was so vivid. It can't be a dream. Still in spite of this, Aaron felt strangely calm. Still nothing mattered anymore. It did not matter whether this was a dream nor not. The dream could continue or he could wake, wake up in another dream, he could continue indefinitely waking in a succession of new dreams for all eternity. Was he dreaming this possibility as well, dreams within dreams, ad infinitum.

Yet again he could not ignore the sensation that everything seemed be so real beyond any rational doubt. Yes he could not feel any pain. You often don't feel pain dreams. He knew that he had a gapping bullet wound in his chest. When he touched the wound he felt no pain. This was very dreamlike for sure.

Aaron realized that he was fully mobile. He got up onto his feet and starting walking towards a shallow pool of clear water. He felt terribly thirsty. Kneeling down by the side of the pool he began to scoop up water with his hand to drink. He stood up, looking about, the thought remained as a fixation in his mind that he was actually at a loss about whether or not he was a dream state. He couldn't decide all this was a dream or not. Then the thought flashed into mind: Could he be dead? Could he have died? How could he possibly know that he was dead or if he had actually just died a few moments? If he had indeed died was this then how it was when you have died, finding yourself in strange places that something still look familiar?

Looking down the dried river bed a movement in the corner of his eye drew his attention. He turned his head and spotted among the acacia trees the appearance of a huge bull elephant, it walked into the river bed. He did not move, he stood still following the elephant. The elephant stopped dead in its track in the middle of the river bed about 30 m away from Aaron. It turned its large head towards Aaron looking directly at him. It then crossed the river bed, walking up the bank into the bush.

Nothing was making any sense. Walking down the river bed past the very spot where the elephant had briefly stopped, he still didn't know whether he was alive or dreaming or dead. He wondered if was he existing in actual in space and time, or was all this happening within his mind, was he in a some real place, or in some other dimension that was somehow disconnected in some way from Alice Road, Sandton. But what about time? Was he in time or beyond time as it was usually experienced? What was time?

As he walked in a bowed posture, dragging his feet, he remembered the philosophic problem of the brain in a vat which Hillary had once dumbfounded him with. She argued that it was possible to image, even perfectly rationale to conceive, that while you were sleeping some evil and sinister surgeon came along and carefully removed your brain, dissecting out all the nerved endings, placing your brain is a vat that could keep the brain alive, and connected all the nerve endings emanating from the brain to electrodes. The electrodes were in turn connected to some huge computer that could generate an infinitely variable symphony of electronic impulses that could create within the brain any possible tableau of experience with regard to sight, sound, touch, taste and so on.

But maybe it is not the brain that perceives, neither is it the mind or even the soul that perceives. It is not the mind or the soul that sees, tastes, smells, hears or feels the texture of surfaces. No Descartes was wrong, it is the whole person that sees, tastes, smells, hears and feels the textures of surfaces. It is the whole person that feels hot or cold, not the soul or the brain or the mind.

The soul or mind cannot gaze, look, peer or glimpse, neither can the mind or soul sniff a fragrance or smell an odour or get a whiff of something that was smelly, nor can the soul or mind savour the taste of food, and what about the texture of surfaces? How can the soul or mind feel whether a surface is hot or cold, soft or hard, smooth or rough, satiny or silky, velvety or sticky?

Again he wondered whether it was possible at all to ever determine how the world is independently of our skin encased material bodies. He concluded that it was not possible. How can one possibly know for sure that the world independently of our perceiving material bodies is in reality actually multi-coloured, sound-emitting, scented with all kinds of fragrances, or possessing an endless mixture of tastes?

If we could literally jump out of our skin encased bodies like some kind of Cartesian thinking phantom then the sensible world would surely vanish. To perceive anything is to experience a sensation. To the immaterial soul or mind the world would no longer possess any sensible qualities. Instead the world in which the immaterial soul drifts like a vapour would be devoid of colour, it would be filled with a deep, dark silence, it would be odourless and tasteless, it would be neither hot nor cold, it would possess no textures. The immaterial soul can only exist in a desolate featureless empty void.

After having all these kinds of thoughts racing through Aaron's mind, he felt a powerful conviction that he was not a bodiless soul or a mind. He was convinced that he was a person with a body, a person with a body encased in a skin.

"I am not dead," he said to himself.

"If you believe in Jesus as the definite revelation of God you cannot die, you can never be dead. To believe in Jesus as the definite revelation of God can only be possible if you already have eternal life. To believe is not to believe in a list of 'that like statements'. To believe is to belove, to trust, to believe 'in', as in I believe 'in' you. To believe 'in' is be in a relationship," he thought aloud to himself.

He stopped and looked around once more. He began to speak to himself. Looking about and around, in every direction, he said:

"Where did the elephant go? I cannot see him, how could he have disappeared so quickly and so easily. What kind of place was this? Where was I?"

Then suddenly he heard a very familiar voice calling out:

"Just look at look at you Aaron Finnegan. Your shirt is full of blood again. Just like that time at Patel's Native Trading Store when we first met."

He turned towards the voice and there in the shade of a large acacia tree stood Geraldine. She was wearing a long white dress and slip-on sandals. She looked radiant, black, so young and so beautiful. Aaron immediately felt a wonderful sense of supreme joy. Walking towards her he called out:

"Where am I? What has happened to me?"

Her face beamed, she replied: "My precious love right now you are in the hands of God. For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring."

Looking around at everything, he cried out: "But where is God in all of this?"

"You cannot see God, but yet you are literally in the very hands of God. God cannot be seen in the ordinary sense of the word, but right now in this very moment you are safe in the bosom of God our father."

Aaron asked: "Can we ever see God".

She added: "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known to us."

"Have you seen him, the One and Only," he asked anxiously.

"Yes I have."

He walked up to Geraldine staring at her in wonder. She stepped toward him, she hugged him tightly and kissed him on the lips. He began to feel exceedingly tired. He told her that he was feeling suddenly very tired, weary and exhausted. He began to babble almost incoherently

"I have you missed so much. I have yearned and longed for you all these years. I just want stay with you now forever, this is all I wish for and desire. I feel so desperately tired. I am struggling to keep my eyes open. I have never felt so tired before. I need to sleep. Please don't leave me, stay with me."

She said, "I won't leave. I am here. Remember I told that there will be an answer, let it be. I will stay with you my darling. Come lie down here in the shade."

She sat down in the shade of the large acacia tree. He laid down on the fine sand next to her and he rested his head in her lap. He felt very drowsy. Running her hands through his hair she began speak.

"It's amazing what odd kind of things one suddenly remembers at the most unlikeliest of moments? When I was still a very young girl, that is before we moved to Reiger Park, we would often have family gatherings at my grandparents' house. They stayed in a little house just round the block from Warwick Avenue in Durban. Warwick Avenue was close to the central business district of Durban. My cousins and I would often go buy bread or milk for our grandmother at a little café in Warwick Avenue."

"On the way to the shop we would walk past an old hotel. I am almost certain it was called the Hotel Caribbean. There was a bar and night club in the Hotel's basement, it was called the Barracuda Night Club. The modest inconspicuous entrance was a pavement level. You would not have noticed the existence of the Barracuda Night Club it were not for the neon light, especially at night. Once you had stepped past the threshold of the door you had to go down a flight of stairs to get into the night club. Out of curiosity we used to sneak down the stairs in order to take in peek at what was going inside the club. If someone spotted us we would run back up the stair laughing and giggling. It was a kind of silly game that only young kids could play and find funny. Of course we knew that kids were not supposed go down into the Barracuda Night Club, it was obviously an adults only venue. It was a place frequented by sailors, it was especially popular with foreign sailors, the live music was appealing, and it seemed that the deja vu atmosphere of the club connected with everyone, no matter where they came from they suddenly felt at home is a mysterious way, yes in a strange way something intangible but universal felt familiar inside the club, and it was this which made it a home away from home. Something was revelatory about the Barracuda Night Club. Something inside the club seemed to speak to everyone's soul, and this was manifested in the dancing, and also on the expressions of their faces. The need to dance once inside the club seemed to be infectious, it was irresistible. Once inside the club people found their rhythm, it was if they had suddenly discovered that they had been created to dance, to take pleasure in the beat of music, to feel the beat and at the same time to feel the need to step and move to that beat on the dance floor. And then once on the dance all their troubles and concerns seemed to vanish."

"One evening we were sent to the café to buy something. We heard music coming from the Barracuda Night Club. We sneaked down the stairs. The light was dim by the stairs. Bowed down we walked in and hide behind a table. There was a stage or band stand. Some men were playing music. It was Tango music. It was the first time I had ever heard Tango Music. A couple were dancing on the dance floor in front of the band stand. The Club was practically empty. I recognized the couple, it was my mother's sister, my aunt with her boyfriend. They were dancing the Tango. They were dancing the most spell-binding Tango, the most incredible Tango that I have ever seen. It was also the first time I had seen the Tango. They had sneaked out of my grandmother's house to come to the Barracuda Night Club. I later learnt that she had learnt Tango as a naughty teenager at the club. She used to sneak out to the Barracuda Night Club and dance the Tango with sailors, this was before she meant her boyfriend who became her husband. He became her comrade in crime, taking her to the Barracuda Night Club. She had learnt the Tango from sailors. Sailors from Argentina, from Cuba, from Uruguay. She was naughty, but never ever did something bad. I never ever told you this but I secretly imagined that my aunt's house in Reiger Park was our Barracuda Night Club."

"Hanging over the pavement outside the Barracuda Night Club was a bright blue neon light that was shaped in the form of a barracuda fish. Inside the fish were written in bright pink neon tube light the words 'Barracuda Night Club'. It was such a beautiful sign. At night you could see the blue neon fish and the bright pink neon lights stating 'Barracuda Night Club' from a great distance. The sign dominated Warwick Avenue."

"Whenever we drove past the Barracuda Night Club on the way home I would stare at the sign. I would continue looking out of the back window at the neon sign until it disappeared from sight."

Listening to Geraldine's story Aaron started to mumble incoherently:

"That is such a beautiful story, I will always remember the Barracuda Night Club. Did we ever dance at the Barracuda Night Club? Yes we did, I remember it so clearly. We were both at the Barracuda Night Club. That night you looked so beautiful. We spoke in Spanish. Why were we speaking to each other in Spanish? Yes I remember the Barracuda Night Club vividly."

"It was such a balmy night. I was walking along the promenade next to the beach. I saw across the road the blue neon lights in the shape of a barracuda fish. I saw the words 'Barracuda Night Club' in those bright pink neon lights. I also loved that sign. The sign was so magical. It drew my attention like some kind of magnetic force. I could hear the Tango music coming the club. I remember that I was so curious about the night club with the fish sign, so I walked in. The lights were a bit dim. People where dancing the Tango. Then I spotted you. You were so beautiful. Your dress was stunning. You also just stared at me. I spoke to you asking you to dance with me. You couldn't speak English. So we spoke in Spanish. We just starting dancing."

Aaron felt himself sinking, he struggled to say awake.

She ran her hands through his hair. He suddenly remembered the elephant.

"Was that an elephant, is it the biggest one that ever lived? Geraldine was that the elephant I saw?"

"Aaron my darling, it was indeed the elephant?"

"Geraldine, how can that be?"

"All things are possible, the whole of reality is filled with infinite possibilities."

Aaron was struggling to stay awake. He closed his eyes. Just before he drifted into a deep sleep she spoke again still running her hands through his hair. He could hear her voice, as if from a distance, almost as if in a dream.

"Aaron remember the hole you bored into the trunk of that tall massive blue gum tree? The day before we left for Swaziland I felt a strong compulsion to write a message to you. I don't know why I had this compulsion. I placed the rolled up message in the hole. We had so much happiness, joy and peace at the mission, it was like we were already in heaven. We were already in heaven the first time we saw each other outside Patel's store in Kalamazoo Location. We are now still in heaven. I died with no regrets other than having to leave you. Aaron, Aaron, are you still awake. Listen to me Aaron! ...Aaron your time has not yet come. We will meet again, I will be with you forever. But go and retrieve the message from the tree that I posted more than 35 years ago. We have both been blessed by God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I don't know why He has blessed us so richly, it is the most profound mystery, a mystery which I will never fully understand or begin to grasp. I have discovered that we never chose God, He chose us first. He chose us from all eternity, even before we saw each other outside Patel's store. No one can choose God. No one can decide anything for God. No one can help God. God chose us first. We cannot do anything for God. It is always God who does the doing for us. We have done absolutely nothing to deserve His unconditional favour. It is by His grace only that I am here in the bosom of God, speaking directly to you. Aaron are you still awake, Aaron listen to me. Aaron a short time will pass and we will be together again. Remember Aaron I am waiting for you, I will be with you forever. God has made this possible."

Geraldine spoke these last words as Aaron slipped into a deep sleep.

When he eventually woke up he discovered that he was lying in a hospital bed between stiff white sheets. A smiling black man with soft gentle caring eyes was looking down at him. He began to speak: "I am Dr Vusi Mahlangu. How are you feeling? I am your surgeon. It was a miracle that we were able to patch you up. We thought that we had lost you for good but we managed to resuscitate you. We brought you back from the brink. It was touch and go. You are very lucky to have survived the gunshot wound. It was a miracle. We were busy working on your injuries for more than 8 hours in theatre. The operation went very well and you should be up and about within a couple of days. A weaker man would not have survived the bullet wound that you received, especially at your age."

Aaron smiled wanly at Dr Mahlangu: "You should have let me go."

"Why do you say that?" the doctor asked looking puzzled.

"I had reached my destination. I was at a better place."

"I can assure that you are at the best place in Gauteng. There is not better a hospital than this one," the doctor said still looking a bit puzzled.

Well Prof Mahlangu was true to his work. Aaron was discharged within days. During that time of recuperation he had so much to think about. He told no one about his experience. He concluded that he had experienced what was commonly referred to as a near death experience. They say that those who have undergone a near death experience return as changed people. In was true for Aaron. He felt an overwhelming sense of peace and tranquillity. Nothing really mattered anymore. He did not feel impatience, agitated, anxious, moody, depressed, sad or melancholic. Even though the dream like experience of being with Geraldine had been so vivid he struggled to recall everything that she had said. Over the next few weeks, gradually at odd moments, he suddenly out of the blue began to remember or recollect forgotten things, like a forgotten name or word that had slipped one's mind, he began to recollect various bit and pieces of the conversation she had with him, thing she had said began to come to him. He started to remember her talking about a message in their tree. And Warwick Street or Avenue in Durban cropped up in his mind. Then he remembered something about a beautiful neon sign in the shape of a fish. He also remembered the tree and something about a message that had been posted.

### Chapter 21

One afternoon while watching the planes coming into land at OR Tambo and admiring their aerodynamic designs the word Barracuda sprung to his mind and soon he was mouthing softly to himself The Barracuda Night Club, Warwick Avenue. He had managed to bring back to memory all the key words in Geraldine's conversation. He decided he was now well enough to visit the blue gum at Reiger Park and he also booked an air ticket to Durban.

He arrived at the corner of Middel and Drommedaris Street. The blue gum tree was still there. It had grown into massive tree. It was certainly more than a 100 years old. He parked the car next to the tree. Just them Biko by Peter Gabriel came on the radio:

" September '77..."

He sat in the car listening until the song had ended. He then got out and walked over to the tree. The hole that he had bored about 48 years ago in 1964 was still there. He picked up a thin stick and pocked around into the hole. Yes there was something in the hole. After a bit of fiddling Aaron managed to extract a roll of paper. With trembling fingers he unrolled the paper, it read

My Dearest Aaron.

I fell in love with you from the first day that I saw you outside Patel's Native Trading Store. There was blood on your shirt! You kept staring at me so shamelessly, looking at me up and down. I think we both became instantly attracted to each other. I fell hopelessly in love with you that day. In fact I became sick with love for my dear Shepherd. I don't know why. It will always remain a mystery. Every night I prayed to God asking him to give you to me. I told God that all I wanted in this life was to be with you. I told God that I could not love anyone else. Maybe you prayed the same prayer that night. Every minute that I have been with you has been filled with absolute bliss. I cannot believe that the love between two people could ever be like this. Our love could only have been a gift from God. I have prayed to God that he would keep us together forever. Tonight I am so happy, so excited. Tomorrow we will be gone.

Love you forever

Geraldine McNamara.

Sunday 23rd November 1969.

PS: Remember, you always spoke about Plato's Phaedrus and The Symposium, about the search for the Good, the True and the Beautiful, the philosophical life that Socrates mentioned. Well I am convinced that with God's grace we have already found Plato's heavenly and eternal forms of the GTB in our lives together. We are actually living Plato's philosophical life together.

He rolled up the paper and pushed it back into the hole. Aaron was now convinced that he had been with Geraldine. It was not a dream. He had actually been with Geraldine. He was really living in the eternal moment and he was truly standing on the shores of eternity. He broke into a sweat, his hands trembled and his heart pounded in his chest. He glanced around expecting to see an Angel or even to see God. He felt that he hit some kind of metaphysical jackpot and with a cognitive reward to which no monetary value could be attached. Somehow the theory of everything had been revealed to him. The complete meaning the Universe had been laid bare before his naked eyes. Aaron had become a very wealthy man. But money had never been his primary concern. Aaron had been living the metaphysical life.

He flew to Durban the very next day.

At the airport he hired a car from Avis and drove directly to Warwick Avenue. His heart began to beat madly. His mouth became dry. It also seemed that his ears were becoming blocked. He was breathing heavily. His stomach started to churn. He felt that he was in the grip of an intense mystical experience. At Warwick Avenue he parked the car, he climbed out and began to walk down the street along the pavement examining each and every building. It felt like he was walking on air. He stopped and stood on the pavement outside an extremely dilapidated hotel. Near the entrance was a boarded up door. Could this be the door to the Barracuda Night Club? There was no neon sign anywhere.

A shining black x5 BMW stopped and parked by the pavement close to where he was standing. He began to scan the façade of the building for any sign. The car radio in the BMW was turned on to maximum volume, the music was being played at full blast. Aaron could feel the vibrations emanating from the bass speakers in the boot of the car. He recognized the lyrics of an old hit song. It was I'm Gonna Be by The Proclaimers.

Aaron instantly recognized that the lyrics had the beat of the Tango. He could hear and feel the beat. Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, slow... The phrase 'to fall down at your door' hit him between the eyes. He was standing in front of the door. He examined the door. He fell down on his knees and examined the bottom of the door. Then he stood up and craned his neck to look at the top of the large heavy wooden door which had been boarded up, possibly for decades.

He noticed a very small brass rectangular plate fixed to the wall above the threshold of the door. He gazed up at the plate. Engraved on the plate were the words Barracuda Night Club 1931. The driver of the BMW climbed out of the car. He was huge jovial looking black man dressed in a white suit. He wore sun glasses. He looked like the king of bling. He leaned against the fender of car watching Aaron strange behaviour at the door.

He gave Aaron a knowing smile as if he knew why he was in Warwick Avenue.

"Sawubona Baba. Have found what you looking for?"

"Yes I have found where the Barracuda Night Club used to be. My wife who died more than 35 years ago taught me how to Tango. Do you know that you can dance the Tango to that music playing on your car radio?"

He looked at Aaron: "Eish Baba, I know that. This is why I am here. So have you found the answers to all you questions?"

He turned around to look at the small plate again.

"It says 1931, the Barracuda Night Club was founded in 1931, that is a long time ago," Aaron said, not knowing why he felt that the date was significant.

He heard the man behind him say:

"I am going now Baba, sala kahle."

Before Aaron could reply or say anything he had already walked round to the driver's door and got into the BMW. As Aaron watched him he started the car and drove off. He turned at the robot and disappeared round the corner.

For Aaron it seemed as if God the Master and the Creator of the Universe has from all eternity chosen the Tango as the medium to speak to him and tell him: 'There will be an answer.'

###  Postscript

On the flight back to OR Tambo Aaron took out his note book and began to write a letter:

"I once met a dark pigmented Coloured girl who originally came from Durban. Her name was Geraldine McNamara. It turned out that we were distance cousins. We fell in love and got married. She and our two daughters were tragically killed in a car accident. After her death I had a dream in which she spoke to me. She said 'let it be, there will be answer'. She was true to her word. The answer came to me in what can be described as a near death experience that I had soon after been shot in an attempted hijacking in Alice Street in Sandton. In my near death experience I met her once again, more than three decades after her death, I met Geraldine again, this time under an acacia tree growing on the banks of a dried up river bed in a place that had a startling resemblance to the Kaokoveld. She mentioned that she had posted a letter to me in 1969, the letter had been rolled up into a tube and inserted into a hole that had been bored into the trunk of a blue gum tree which stood across the road from Cinderella Dam in Boksburg, she had 'posted' the letter shortly before we left for Swaziland. She also told me in great detail a story about a place that I had never heard of before. A place that was called The Barracuda Night Club. I did not even know that such a place existed. Soon after my recovery from the gunshot wound I discovered that the Barracuda Night Club had in fact exist at least until the late 1950s in Warwick Avenue in Durban. At first I wasn't sure if the Barracuda Night Club did in fact exist or even if it could have ever existed. It could have easily been just a figment of my imagination or even an incredible dream. But what person in their right mind would act on the promptings of a dream? But I discovered that it was not a dream. Even if it were a dream it would have been the most unlikely, the most improbable dream that anyone could possibly have dreamt. I discovered that not only did the Barracuda Night Club once exist, it was also once a popular nightclub venue of a vibrant multi-racial community that lived in Durban's so-called Warwick Avenue Triangle. My grandfather, William Joseph Finnegan, who I had never really got to know very well actually lived in a Hotel in Warwick Avenue. I am now almost certain he played in a Jazz band at The Barracuda Night Club. No one had ever told me the full story of William Joseph Finnegan's life. I have had to join all the dots for myself. I did eventually establish that he did indeed play a saxophone in a band at the nightclub. In the day he worked as a builder. So Geraldine as a child must have seen my grandfather playing his saxophone in The Barracuda Night Club before she met me.

If I could ever have my life over it would be my wish to have lived with Geraldine in a small house in the Warwick Avenue Triangle. I would still have wanted to be a maths teacher or a science teacher at a high school, but preferably at some high school in Durban. The Warwick Avenue Triangle community was the only integrated community that survived the ravages of the apartheid group areas act. All other integrated communities like Sophiatown, Cato Manor and District Six were annihilated by the Nationalist Party government that ruled South Africa from 1948 until 1994. Other vibrant integrated communities such as the community of Kalamazoo in Boksburg were also eventually annihilated. Kalamazoo vanished right before my eyes in the 1960s, so did the location called Stirtonville. While I did not personally grow up within a racially integrated community we did practically live next door to Kalamazoo and Stirtonville. In fact a chance meeting with a striking young Coloured woman that took place in Kalamazoo changed the course of my life. I had seen the young woman several times before at Mass at St Dominic's Catholic Church in Boksburg. What made her conspicuous were the unusual mantillas she used to cover her head with during communion on Sundays. It is possible that if she did not wear those colourful mantillas she would never have caught my attention. During the times that her family visited St Dominic's on Sundays I sensed her presence in the church and I always felt this strong irresistible compulsion to seek her out in the congregation in order to catch a glimpse of her face.

'There will be an answer.' That is what she had said in the dream that I had on the night following her death. At the time I did not know what she meant or what the dream meant. All that she had said was 'let it be, let it be, there will be answer.' I ended up waiting an extraordinary long time for the answer. In the end I found the answer, but under very strange, profound and unexpected circumstances. Literally I found the answer at the end of a long and convoluted journey that began after I had first met Geraldine on the veranda of Patel's general trading store in Kalamazoo. As I have already said, we had seen each before but we had never met until that extraordinary day when we first made our acquaintances outside Patel's store in the Indian shanty town called Kalamazoo. I did not realize at the time what a massive impact on my life that meeting was going to have. Well of course I couldn't appreciate its full significance at the time. It is only with hindsight that we see things clearly or so it seems. That's why I felt the need to tell the story of what happened. In my narrative there are many gaps. I have left out a lot. There are also big jumps in the sequence of events that make up my story. This story like most stories has been based on the collection of memories that have endured and have remained most vivid and alive in my mind for many years. Anyway for me the journey that ended at the barricaded door of The Barracuda Night Club in 2015 started in January 1964 when Boksburg was in the grip of an unusually hot heat wave. Temperatures soared to well above 30 oC. As I changed into a T-shirt and shorts I could clearly hear through my open bedroom window one of Hillary's university friends making some point on the meaning of Platonic Love.

### Reference

1. Nonhlanhla Dlamini. 2009. Power, sexuality and subversion in lutsango and siswati traditional wedding songs. MA dissertation. Chapter 2, pages 28 to 29 and Chapter 3, pages 55 to 56. (https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Power%2C-sexuality-and-subversion-in-Lutsango-and-Dlamini/afa9c33d405cacfeaa8cefb61eb8887499661913)

