

### Segomotso and the Dressmaker

By Vincent Gray

Copyright © 2015 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 978 0620 673785

Author Biography

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

eBooks by Vincent Gray also available on Smashwords as Free Downloads

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

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

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

The Girl from Germiston

The Tale of the Sakabula Bird

Rebekah of Lake Sibaya

Segomotso and the Dressmaker

Devorah's Prayer

Hotazel: Journal Writing of a Lipstick Lesbian

Farewell to Innocence: The full uncensored saga of Hannah Zeeman

Send Him My Love (Short Story)

Three Days in Phoenix (Short Story)

The Soccer Player (Short Story)

Raghavee: The Immoral House Keeper (Short Story)

Waterlandsridge (Novella)

The Man with no Needs

This book is dedicated to:

Melodie my wife and Ruth my daughter

CHAPTER 1

In the year 1977 everything came to a head in Joab Badenhorst's life. It was the year in which Joab's life changed forever in ways that he would never have dreamt possible.

The year 1977 was the third year in a string of unusually bad years starting with the 1975 SADF invasion of Angola in which Joab was called up for 3 months military duty as a citizen force soldier. The debacle of the Angolan invasion which ended in an ignominious retreat was followed by the Soweto student uprising of June 1976 which opened up an internal front of youthful black resistance to Apartheid in just about every native location within South Africa, and then of course there was 1977.

In 1977 the black consciousness activist Steve Biko died apparently as a result of being severely assaulted while in the custody of the security police. Also in November 1977 Robert Smit, a prominent National Party politician, and his wife Jean-Cora were murdered in their home in Springs. To this day the murder, a murder so macabre, so bizarre, has never been solved. It remains a gruesome enigma, a chilling riddle, defying all attempts that have been made to solve its mystery.

There were rumours implicating the Nationalist Party in the murder, but at the end of November of 1977 the Nationalist Party won the white general election with the best results the party had ever achieved, putting to rest the Government's worries that the electorate had lost faith in the Nationalist Party. Any sane person would have concluded that the events of 1975, 1976 and 1977 would have made the white electorate more introspective about the political future of South Africa. But things remained the same and business in South Africa remained unusual as it had usually been the case for a very long time, which was three hundred years or so.

At the end of 1977, in spite of everything, the fortunes of the Nationalist Party could not have looked brighter; they had received a huge vote of confidence from the white electorate in spite of everything. There was no mistaking that they had received a massive endorsement to remain on course with their political agenda for South Africa and southern Africa. In fact the electorate had given the Nationalist Party a blank cheque to embark on any military adventure or any kind of repressive actions that would preserve the status quo and guarantee that the 'South African way of white life' would continue as before.

The whites had made their cross on the ballot paper, but Joab did not bother to vote. Joab lived out on the fringes in a no man's land beyond the barricades of the Afrikaner laager.

The year 1977 was also the year in which Herman Dooyeweerd passed away. Of course Joab was saddened by the news when a friend informed him on the evening of February 12, 1977 that the great Calvinist philosopher had died.

Finally the year 1977 was also the year in which Joab's mother passed away after her business and all her assets were sequestrated when she defaulted on the payments for a massive bank loan.

At the time of his mother's untimely death in January 1977 Joab was doing his Master's degree (MA) in philosophy at Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education where he had also completed his undergraduate degree majoring in philosophy and theology. He had also completed sub-majors in Greek and Hebrew, and managed to pick up credits in Biology, Psychology and Sociology.

Even though he was the most unlikely of possible candidates for the ministry, it had been his original intention to study towards becoming a _dominee_ (minister) in the Gereformeerde Kerk (Reformed Church). Being highly individualistic, unusually eccentric for a white male Afrikaner and also gifted with a creative and innovative mind, especially when it came to dress making, it did not take long before he began to explore his own subversive and critical readings of the writings of John Calvin.

Joab's readings of John Calvin in the opinion of his academic mentors seemed to be extremely dangerous and had transgressed into a theological minefield, which also represented a kind of theological no man's land for the South African theological establishment, and therefore represented a kind of forbidden intellectual territory into which no one dared to follow him.

Of course when his interpretations of the logical and philosophical implications of the works of Calvin's broke with the orthodoxy of his professors, he realized that as a theological maverick he would not be acceptable as a _dominee_ in the conservative ecclesiastical establishment of the Gereformeerde Kerk.

He found himself wondering alone as a perplexed pilgrim in a theological wilderness filled with paradoxes, riddles, contradictions, enigmas and conundrums that defied any simplistic solution. The simple truth was that no one could comprehend the mind of God nor fully grasp the ultimate meaning of His revelation as disclosed in the Bible. For Joab, all doctrinally motivated readings of the Old Testament and New Testament were contested readings fraught with all kinds of disagreements and controversies. Any authentic reading of the Bible had to be dialectical. While he accepted that God's ultimate revelation in the form of infallible theological truths was embedded in the various books that formed the Judeo-Christian Biblical canon, those truths could only be accessed dialectically.

In his opinion no single individual reader could claim a privileged monopoly of interpretation. The existence of the Jewish Talmud was proof of this. In addition there was no single individual reader who could claim to have attained a full comprehension of the ultimate message of revelation that had been woven by God like a golden thread through the textual fabric of the multiple polyvalent patchwork of individual texts that made up the library of the Bible.

The search for infallible theological truths was the reason for the never ending commentary on the Bible. Calvin, and also Luther, had spent their lives engaged in endless commentary on the books of the Bible. The Bible has proven to be an inexhaustible quarry for every conceivable doctrine. For the many individual narratives that were embedded in the Biblical canon there was no getting to the final and definitive meaning of each story. Each story had its multi-threaded entanglements; entanglements which bound the written narrative to the unsaid and the unwritten; entanglements which bound the written ostensible narrative with its hidden unreadable and unwritten and unsaid subtexts, subtexts which subverted its story line and plots with all kinds of unresolvable ambiguities. Even the final meaning of a single verse in the Bible has proved to be inexhaustible.

_Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated_.

Did God really hate Esau?

Why would God hate Esau? He never gave any reasons why He should hate Esau. How was it possible for God to hate? Hate is such a human emotion; it is a very human passion.

In His omnipotence and sovereignty, was God deliberately and providentially involved in every finite contingent event that had ever occurred in the history of the Universe?

Does God in His providential rule arbitrary decide according to His inscrutable and sovereign will the outcome of everything, even the amount of milk in a mother's breast, as Calvin wrote in his _Institutes,_ '... _that some mothers have full and abundant breasts, but others are almost dry, as God wills to fill one more liberally, but another more meagrely_ '.

Why is it that the exercise of God's will has been made to appear to be so arbitrary? Could it be true that God actually rules the Universe by arbitray decree? Was God's legislative activity and governance of everything in the Universe based on nothing but whim alone? Or was there more to God's will than arbitrary whim? Calvin's explanation for the apparent arbitrariness of God's will was that the councils of God were secretive, hidden and inscrutable, therefore beyond man's feeble powers of reasoning and comprehension.

Does anything happen independently of God's decree? Or did God prearrange the occurrence of all future events by arbitrary decree even before the foundations of the Universe were laid?

Was it by God's arbitrary decree that Biko was to be murdered on the 12th September 1977? Was it by God's arbitrary decree that the Smits were to be murdered on the 22nd of November 1977? Was it by God's arbitrary decree that Vorster's Nationalist Party would win the general election in 1977?

These were the kinds of questions that Joab found himself wrestling with at the end of 1977. How was one to conceive the relationship between God and the Universe, and between God and the World, and between God and time? If God's nature turned out to completely and utterly unknowable, then of course there was no logical, rational or empirical way of conceptualizing any meaningful relationship between God and the Universe or between God and man.

Was there any kind of connection or relationship between Reason (with a big R) and God's decrees and God's providence?

If God created and ruled the Universe by arbitrary decree then it is quite clear from a purely logical point of view that God cannot be known in any meaningful way. This much was clear to Joab, and it was especially true if you happened to be a logically consistent Calvinist, which would be a very rare feat.

While maintaining a deep intellectual interest in the works of John Calvin, he gradually drifted away from a strict adherence to the Reformed Faith and began to plough furrows in different intellectual fields of theological endeavour, including the Catholic writers. He also discovered the writings of theological thinkers like Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich and more modern theologians like Jurgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg.

Joab Badenhorst independence of mind was possibly due to the fact that he did not have a typical, or even what would normally be considered to be a proper Afrikaner upbringing. He was the only child of a mother who came from a working class background, but who had managed to escape sliding down the slippery slope into complete proletarianization as a poor white; she was born and grew up in Malvern, Johannesburg. His mother married late in life. Through her marriage she was finally able to transcendent her previous life of poverty as a lowly and poorly paid seamstress. His grandmother had also been a seamstress and his grandfather who was an incurable autodidact, who had also worked his whole life as a carpenter and bricklayer. His grandmother and grandfather had been staunch and loyal supporters of the Labour Party. As admirers of Solly Sachs, they were not typical Afrikaners. Seeking a better life, his grandparents moved from Malvern in Johannesburg to Potchefstroom in1949.

In contrast to his working class grandparents and mother, Joab's father, Mr Hein Badenhorst, was a successful businessman in Potchefstroom, who had also married very late in life. He owned a female garment manufacturing company and Joab's mother and grandmother starting working in his factory as seamstresses. Joab's mother managed to become the shop floor manager in the factory and then at the age of 38 she married Hein Badenhorst who was at that time 63 years old. He had been a bachelor all his life. Mr Badenhorst senior died very suddenly and unexpectantly from a heart attack when Joab was barely 2 years old.

Mrs Badenhorst who inherited her husband's estate took over the running of the factory and made a great success of it until for reasons beyond her control she went bankrupt. All her big bulk buying customers abandoned her for cheaper and lower quality suppliers. She was left in the lurch holding a huge inventory of fabric which she had bought on overdraft. Unable to repay the bank overdraft she lost the business and was left with nothing, not even her home escaped the predations of the bank. After giving birth to Joab her long struggle with her weight and high cholesterol problems had begun. The financial catastrophe was too great for her to cope with and she died of a stroke on the 5th of January 1977 leaving Joab who had become a perpetual student with no financial support.

Even though her husband Hein Badenhorst had been a church going man all his life she had her suspicions about him. He was a good looking man so why did he only marry when he was over 60 years old? Being a single parent after her husband's death and having the responsibility of running the garment business, she had no option but to bring Joab with her to the factory every day. He literally grew up surrounded by women working in the female garment making industry. As a child he played with bits of fabric offcuts, pretending to make dresses. Even while Joab was still a young boy his mother Mrs Badenhorst began to worry that he was going to be like his deceased father. There were all kinds of disturbing signs that caused her no end of distress and worry.

The young boy insisted on playing with dolls and then he only wanted to wear dresses. He was incredibly stubborn about wanting to wear dresses as a young child. He had uncontrollable tantrums when she refused to let him wear a dress. Burdened with all the stresses and worries of running the garment factory, she did not have the emotional strength to fight with her indomitable son. So from the age of two, every morning she would dress him up as a little girl with lace socks, a frilly dress and frilly panties, tying bows and ribbons to his long black hair which he refused to let her cut, and that's the way he would walk around the whole day in the factory much to the gaiety, laughter and delight of the black women, who were always greatly entertained by this very strange little white boy who was always busy collecting fabric offcuts from the factory floor and then retiring to a corner to play a game of dress making with his collection of dolls. His mother began to blame herself for the way her boy was turning out.With her long hours at the factory it was impossible for her to give him the attention she felt he deserved.

Whenever she confided in her parents about her boy's strange preoccupations, her parents always reprimanded her with the words:

" _Los die kind uit. Hy sal van self reg kom_."

(Leave the child alone, he will come right by himself.)

They tried to reassure her with the constant refrain that the boy will eventually come right, but for the time being, just leave him be.

Joab's mother reminded them that Joab's behaviour was against the injunctions of the Bible regarding the dress codes for men and women.

" _Die Bybel sê in Deuteronomium 'n vrou mag geen mansklere dra nie, en 'n man mag geen vrouensklere aantrek nie; want almal wat dit doen, is vir die HERE jou God 'n gruwel_."

(In the Bible in Deuteronomy, it is said that it is forbidden for a woman to wear men's clothes, and it is forbidden for a man to wear women's clothes. It is an abomination to the Lord our God.)

But the grandparents always came to Joab's defence.

" _Jy kan nie alles wat die Bybel sê glo nie_."

(You cannot believe everything that is written in the Bible.)

This only made her feel more exasperated.

" _Julle gaan almal reguit hel toe_."

(You will all go straight to hell.)

His grandparents always managed to come to their grandson' defence with an alternative Biblical proof text which they interpreted as it suited them for the occasion.

" _Die Bybel se ook dat die HERE God het vir die mens en sy vrou rokke van vel gemaak en hulle dit aangetrek. So as ek my Bybel reg verstaan dan het die HERE rokke vir die man en vrou gemaak_."

(The Bible also says that the Lord God made 'dresses' ( _rokke_ ) out of animal skins for Adam and his wife, and they put on the dresses. If I understand my Bible correctly then God made dresses for both the man and the woman.)

The two old grandparents genuinely loved their grandson and doted over him. They indulged him and even seemed to encourage his every whim. They never discouraged his interest in make-up, dresses and dolls, and consequently as a small boy they did nothing to stop him from clogging around the house in his mother's or grandmother's high heels with a bra draped like some absurd oversized grotesque necklace around his neck onto to his chest.

Not a single day or night went by without Mrs Badenhorst praying on her knees, pleading with the Father Almighty, that Joab would not grow up to be a transvestite. Initially, she was too ashamed to let him go to Sunday school on Sundays and always left him in the care of the domestic servant who would have to play dressmaking with him and his dolls in the back yard.

She confessed in her fervent prayers that she would be happy if he rather turned out to be a homosexual like his father, rather than a cross-dressing transvestite, whose gender pretensions and sexual ambiguity would be explored to the very extremes of the erotically aroused imagination.

The latter was her greatest fear. It was unimaginable that her son would grow up to be a dress wearing transvestite and chase after men like some bitch on heat.

To her great relief, once he started school he began wearing the required school clothes for boys. But to get him to wear the school uniform for boys proved to be a nightmare. It was only after an emotionally exhausting struggle that almost resulted in her having a nervous breakdown that she finally managed to persuade him to give up the idea of wearing a girl's gymslip to school.

But then to her horror, in grade one he wanted to become a ballerina and be dressed up in a white ballet tutu and white pantyhose like some of the girls in his class who had started ballet lessons. After his endless whining and nagging about wanting to do ballet, she eventually relented and for the sake of peace she enrolled him in an afternoon class for ballet lessons. To her dismay he took to ballet like a fish to water.

The ballet teacher expressed delight in his aptitude and ability as a ballet dancer and so with her encouragement he continued with ballet dancing until he finished high school. His ballet teacher even told Mr Badenhorst on many occasions that Joab had the talent, creative imagination and ability as a male ballet dancer to be the next Rudolf Nureyev.

Apart from his fantasies of being a ballerina as a young school boy, she had to contend with his fantasy cross-dressing role playing which not only disturbed her but also frightened her so much that she was afraid to take him to see any Saturday matinee at the movies. Inevitably, after seeing shows like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty he would for days on end become obsessed with pretending to be Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. He showed no interest in playing Billy the Kid, Zorro or Davy Crockett the king of the wild frontier.

In all this time, throughout his primary and high school years he never lost his interest in sewing and making dresses. As an adolescent boy he spent all his free time in the factory designing dresses, cutting patterns and sewing. A lot of the fashion lines that left the factory floors were his creations. He went around perpetually with a measuring tape hanging around his neck, even when at home.

She viewed his sudden interest in girls when he became a teenager as a miracle straight from heaven, an answer to a mother's persistent prayers. As a teenager he developed into a very handsome lad with attractive well-defined features, thick black hair and dark brown eyes, that were alert, intelligent and kind. He had inherited the darker than average skin tone of his maternal grandfather. He was just a bit below average height with a slim but a strong sinuously built frame. From years of ballet there was a natural suppleness and grace to his movements.

His grandmother often joked that Joab had inherited bushman blood from his grandfather's side of the family. His grandfather who spent most of his life working as an artisan under the blazing African sun had never suffered from sunburn in his entire life. He was one of those Afrikaners whose skin had a darker hue than the average white skin tone. So there must have been some truth in the belief that Joab's grandfather had bushman blood and that Joab had inherited bushman genes.

All in all he was a beautiful child. In spite of his indomitable character which he must have inherited from his grandmother, he grew up to have a pleasant and likable friendly manner. Yet there was always that indomitable side to his nature and he could become very stubborn. While he easily made friends with both boys and girls from within in his age group, he always remained slightly aloof, and never shared with anyone any intimate opinions or feelings. So in a sense he remained a bit of a mystery to his peers, both male and female. It worried his mother that while he did show an interest in girls, he could never keep a girlfriend for very long because of his inordinate interest in women's clothing and womanly things, which obviously frightened the girls off.

What she did not know was that as a teenager at high school, he had become infatuated with members of both sexes. But she knew that as a teenager he would dress up almost every afternoon in teenage girl dresses while she was away at work. In the presence of his grandparents and the domestic servant he would wonder shamelessly around the house in high heels and miniskirts, dressed up like a real teenage slut. To her embarrassment she knew that his bedroom cupboard were full of dresses, blouses and skirts that he had made. She decided that the less she knew about what he was doing while alone at the home in afternoons, the better.

He had taken over his grandmother's old treadle Singer sewing machine. He moved the sewing machine to his bedroom. The machine which was mounted on a small polished wooden table was supported by an ornate wrought iron stand. An inlaid ruler was fixed into the table top and beneath the table on both sides were beautifully curved drawers in which he kept reels of cotton, zips, needles and buttons. The machine itself was adorned with gold decals. For hours on end he kept himself busy with the vintage Singer.

The machine purred like a contented lioness as his feet deftly peddled the treadle while his long thin but elegant fingers worked with great dexterity while moving the fabric under the needle.

He first made sketches of his dress designs, and then he drew up the patterns. From his carefully designed drawings he would cut out the dress patterns. He was in all seriousness an artistic genius and exceptionally capable 'seamstress' when it came to dress design and dressmaking. He knew how to fashion the flow and fall of the fabric so that it emphasized and accentuated the sensual and erotic form of a female body especially when he himself wore the finished garment.

From early childhood, wearing dresses had always been pretty much a normal everyday preoccupation for Joab. Most of the time he simply enjoyed wearing girl's clothes while pretending to be a young girl. In fact, his non-judgemental and easy-going grandparents who were living with them had readily adapted to the pattern and custom of treating him as if he were their granddaughter.

However, with the onset of puberty wearing dresses was no longer merely an endearing girlish pastime that he had previously enjoyed with the unadulterated sensibility of pure innocence that was typical of his prepubescent childhood.

Once he became a teenager, wearing dresses started to become intensely exciting and addictively pleasurable in a very sexualized and erotic fashion. He began to experience the pleasing sensations of tumescence when wearing high heels, stockings, female lingerie and dresses. The erotic fragrances of feminine perfumes, the sensual textures of female fabrics against his skin, the sensation of taunt nylon stockings and the silky feel of female under garments put him in a state of pleasant arousal that he had not experienced before.

As a thirteen year old teenager in standard six at the _Potchefstroom Gimnasium Hoerskool_ , his career as a cross-dresser had begun in all earnest. After school while at home in the afternoons, his cross-dressing escapades took on a whole new dimension. He started succumbing to all kinds of sexual fantasies and erotic daydreams about engaging in "heterosexual" sex with males and "homosexual" or lesbian sex with females. He experienced the desire to fondle the genitalia of males and he also fantasized about male anal penetration.

His mind began to be invaded by all kinds of intrusive thoughts including those in which he imagined himself being mounted from behind while being fully dressed up as a female. He struggled in vain to smother or drive out these thoughts from his mind. But to no avail, they overwhelmed him like a raging torrent, taking possession of his imagination. No matter how hard he tried, he could not block out or not stop the erotic preoccupations which seemed to have taken on a life of their own inside his head.

Mrs Badenhorst, the grandparents, and the bemused domestic servant could only perceive the external primary and secondary properties of the cross-dressing phenomenon that was on public display in the Badenhorst home. What was going on inside his head remained an impenetrable mystery to them. Every day after school he changed into a different outfit; always selecting one that corresponded exactly to his mood. He spent an inordinate amount of time in his room getting dressed up for the afternoon. What was astonishing was the atmosphere of apparent utter normality and clockwork routine that seemed to prevail in the Badenhorst home.

This atmosphere of normality in the home was going to be huge determinative factor in Joab's eventual self-acceptance of what he had become. It was the ideal environment or incubator for nurturing the development of a budding transvestite.

Joab's grandfather, the inveterate autodidact, was a self-educated man, who had read somewhere about something on almost every possible subject matter, plus he had a remarkable memory, and on top of that, he was also gifted with a creative and imaginative talent for embellishing on any topic, with some of his own innovative ideas, theories and hypotheses.

As an autodidact he had learnt to be an open minded man, but once he was convinced of the correctness of the facts he would defend his theory or hypotheses with confidence, conviction and humour. And in the case of Joab's cross-dressing, he strongly believed that there were similarities in what Joab was doing with what had become accepted as a 'natural' cultural and social institution in many other cultures of various aboriginal natives which included some tribes of America Indians.

The old man discovered in his readings that cross-dressing or transvestism was an ancient social and cultural institution. Cross-dressing or transvestism had existed from the dawn of time as a common and recurring occurrence in all ethnic groups and cultures throughout the world. He argued with great persuasion that transvestism as an anthropological phenomenon had been accommodated and integrated as an acceptable social institution into the structure and functioning of many societies that were anthropologically speaking, quite diverse.

And thus, he felt strongly that there was no compelling reason why Joab's predilection for cross-dressing should not be accepted and accommodated as something quite natural.

There would always be some men who want to dress up as women and act like women, and he believed it had been that way ever since man evolved from the apes. And he was sure that a rational reason could be found for this state of affairs. Why else would there always be, generation after generation, some men who wanted to be transvestites, wear skirts and chase after men?

The grandmother agreed with this sentiment. She agreed that transvestites are people who were 'driven' by an animal-like instinct to dress up in the apparel of the opposite sex. They were thus naturally compelled by their innate instincts and innate drives to behave in a manner that was typical of the opposite sex. She had seen this kind of phenomenon for herself with Joab. Joab had not learnt the cross-dressing behaviour. Nor did he start wearing dresses because of any kind of social conditioning. And on top of all this, no amount of social and psychological conditioning could stop him from wanting to wear dresses.

You cannot stop Nature, nor should one interfere with Nature, was all she could say about the matter. His wanting to wear dresses was something innate, and that was that, end of story.

While she and the grandfather believed this to be the case, for reasons of tact, and for wanting to maintain peace in the home, they refrained from openly defending this theory. They just tactfully commiserated with Mrs Badenhorst while at the same time undermining her authority over Joab behind her back.

Because transvestism was natural, something which Nature determined, they both agreed that there was nothing intrinsically wrong or bad with being a transvestite, and when it came to Joab's upbringing, it was best not to interfere with the course of Nature. Nature in her wisdom knew what was best for Joab. And it was not advisable to interfere with the superior wisdom of Nature.

In spite of their good intentions to be as tactful as possible, there were times while Joab was sleeping peacefully, that his grandfather and grandmother argued with Joab's mom, in hushed tones, late into the night, they tried to convince her that transvestism was a natural anthropological phenomenon in humans. As a firm believer in Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Joab's grandfather's speculated endlessly on the biological functional and social adaptive significance of transvestism.

He told Joab's mother that it was a well-founded scientific fact that up to 3% of all males in any society were born transvestites, who instinctively wanted to be dressed up as girls from as early as the age of two, just as was the case with Joab. She was also informed that in Samoan society people accepted the existence of a third gender called ' _fa'afafine_ ' which meant 'the way of women'. The _fa'afafines_ were transvestites. In Samoan society the _fa'afafine_ were not thought of as being homosexual in the Western way of thinking. While most _fa'afafines_ did chose to have sexual relations exclusively with men, a small constant minority of _fa'afafines_ did engage in sex with women, and so it was possible that there also existed bisexual _fa'afafines_.

" _So Joab gaan nie regkom nie, hy gaan 'n fa'afafine word_?" His mother sighed.

(So Joab will never actually become normal, he is going to become a _fa'afafine_?)

" _Wat is die verskil tussen 'n homoseksueel en 'n transvestite_?" She wanted to know.

(What is the difference between a homosexual and a transvestite?)

" _Dit lyk asof daar verskillende soorte transvestites bestaan, hulle kan homoseksueel, of heteroseksueel, of biseksueel wees_ ," he answered.

(Well it seems that there are indeed different kinds of transvestites, they can be homosexual or heterosexual or even bisexual.)

" _Wel dan is daar nog hoop. Miskien is hy 'n heteroseksuele transvestite_ ," (Well then there is still hope. Maybe he is a heterosexual transvestite) she mused hopefully, praying that it was just a passing phase, something that would wear off with time.

At least, if he were a heterosexual transvestite he could still be slightly normal in that he would be attracted to women and not to men, she thought to herself. She herself could not imagine having a relationship with a man all dolled up as woman. She shuddered inwardly at the ghastly thought.

Mrs Badenhorst had great difficulty in resigning herself to the facts about Joab's condition, even after hearing all the details about the stories of the Samoan transvestites and other kinds of exotic transvestites that populated the various tropical islands, jungles, forests and vast prairie plains of the world. If the world was so full of transvestites, then why were there so few among the Afrikaners, she wanted to know.

Every day Joab would cycle the five kilometres home from school arriving home at precisely 14.20 on the dot. After getting back from school he would eat the lunch that had been prepared for him at the kitchen table, and then he would dress up. After getting dressed he would start his homework at 15.30, usually at the dining room table that adjoined the lounge in an open plan arrangement. He would sit at the dining room table while his grandparents sat in the lounge, and after doing his homework he would join them in the lounge and they would spend the remainder of the afternoon talking about mundane things and various topics relating to current affairs.

In the afternoon after doing his homework he also spent a considerable amount of time paging through fashion magazines and women's magazines.

When it came to school sport, he avoided the obligatory requirement that boys were expected to attend all afternoon rugby practices. Ballet classes always conveniently clashed with rugby and cricket. But it proved impossible to abscond from athletics, both inter-house and inter-school athletic meetings. It was inadvertently discovered that he had a natural inborn physical ability for middle distance running. It turned out to everyone's surprise and amazement that he was gifted with natural stamina and physical strength when it came to running the 800 and 1 500 meter events. Everyone who saw him run ended up believing that he did indeed have Bushman blood running in his veins, it would also definitely explain his darker than average skin tone. He received his colour blazer for athletics and was made a school prefect at the end of standard nine.

So all in all, Joab turned out to be a model Potchefstroom Afrikaans school boy, excelling both academically in the classroom and on the sports field.

On his _aanneeming en voorstelling_ (confirmation) in the Gereformeerde Kerk his grandfather gave him a second-hand copy of Eric G Jay's book _The Existence of God_ which he had found in some second-hand bookstore. It was a commentary on St Thomas Aquinas's five ways of demonstrating the existence of God.

Like most of his male high school peers, after matriculating, he decided to complete his twelve months national military service before going to university.

CHAPTER 2

For the past four weeks the six platoons of A (Alpha) and B (Bravo) Companies had been drilled relentlessly from 8.00 until 12.00 by permanent force (PF) non-commissioned officers (NCOs) of the South African Defence Force (SADF).

Clouds of fine dust kicked up by the stumping of many boots hung suspended like a haze of red fog in the warm late summer morning air that was constantly punctuated by the unremitting reverberations of guttural bellowing and the baying of drill commands, always in Afrikaans.

_Afdeling, afdeling....AAAN....DOOG_!

(Squad.... Attention!)

_Afdeling, afdeling...regs op die linker flank....VOOOOR....WAAARTS_!

(Squad....forward march!)

_LIKS, YAK, LIKS, YAK, LIKS, YAK, LOINKS_...

(Left, right, left, right, left!)

For the past 12 weeks Joab had gone through all the necessary and obligatory motions of his basic training in a state of bliss that made him totally oblivious to the merciless impositions of all kinds of strenuous rigours that were designed to break them down and re-mould them from scratch into obedient fighting automatons.

At the end of basics he had survived, fully intact, and impervious to anything that the full might of the SADF was capable of throwing at him. In the end his indomitable spirit characterized by a fierce independence of mind and opinion had prevailed in the purgatory-like underworld of gladiatorial obscenity that characterized infantry training in the South African Defence Force.

Fortunately for Joab, the destination of his military call-up was in his own home town at the military base of the 3rd SA Infantry Battalion in Potchefstroom, otherwise known as 3 SAI. On the day that he had to _klaar in_ (compulsory conscription into the army) for his national military service, his mother had conveniently, on her way to work dropped him off with his suitcase at the main gate of the Potchefstroom military base. After walking through the main gates of the military base he was directed to the assembly point where the new January conscription intake had to wait for further orders.

At 8.00 am he and a few other new conscripts from Potchefstroom congregated outside the Regimental Sergeant Major's (RSM) office. They ended up waiting for most of the day in the sun on the lawn outside the RSM's office at the Company HQ for the arrival of the rest of the national servicemen intake that had been drafted to 3 SA Infantry Battalion (3 SAI Battalion). Just after three o clock in the afternoon, a long column of bewildered looking conscripts marching in ranks of three, carrying suitcases or bags, and dressed in civilian clothing, passed through the main gates.

Amidst blood curdling screams, shrill ear piercing shrieks, unremitting barking and hoarse shouting mingled with a flood of obscenities flowing like a raging torrent from the saliva-spraying mouths of purple-faced permanent force non-commissioned officers (NCOs), the column came to a spluttering shambolic halt in front of the RSM's office.

Joab marvelled at the repertoire of barely decipherable primordial sounds that could be trumpeted at a deafening volume from the human male larynx. No animal on earth could match the quality of noise that human males could make. The human larynx had turned out to be an astonishing feat of evolutionary adaptation.

Joab scanned the bewildered and dejected demeanours of the teenage _poesgesigte_ (cunt faces), which was the designation that NCOs used to describe their sorry faces.

The frequency with which the word _poes_ (cunt) burst from the male military larynx at full volume was rampant in the extreme. The incessant shock waves of this all pervasive sexualized expletive defined the culture and character of the South African military ethos.

Turning to Joab and the other conscripts standing on the lawn in front of the RSM's office an NCO bellowed at them:

" _TREE AAN julle vuil uile, roer julle vuil gatte julle klomp poesgesigte_."

(You bunch of dirty dogs form up with the rest of the company, move your sorry asses you bunch of cunt faces.)

Immediately Joab and all the other Potchefstroom hometown boys began to _tree aan_ (joining the ranks of the company) by squeezing into the gaps between the newly arrived column of fresh conscripts. They were then marched off to what looked like prefab classrooms with doors marked _ingang_ (entrance) and _uitgang_ (exit). Leaving their suitcases on the road they were ordered by barking and shrieking NCOs to assemble with their call-up papers and ID cards into a long queue outside the entrance door of the first prefab classroom.

Passing through the door the queue wound slowly through a large room filled with rows of steel foldup tables. At the tables their army registration details were processed and documented.

When it was Joab's turn at the first table a national serviceman lieutenant barely a year older than Joab looked up at him with a bored expression:

" _Jou diensplig nommer poesvoël_."

(What is national service number little cunt fucking penis)

It was the first time in his life that he had been personally addressed by a remark that was intentionally meant to be demeaning, disparaging and humiliating. He was surprised that it had stung him.

He was also surprised how the ironic combination of _poes_ and _voël_ (literally means bird but used as slang for penis) as a derogatory designation intended to be a put down actually had a ring of truth.

The feminizing appellation ' _poes_ 'was meant to belittle and question their masculinity. They were like women, they were stupid, clumsy, weak, frantic, bewildered, frightened, emotional and sorry faced, and they were going to be fucked up big time now, this was their collective fate, to be fucked good and solid. And then at the end of been fucked up, they themselves would become transformed into _poes_ fuckers, everyone of them.

Even though he felt annoyed at his over sensitive reaction to being called a ' _voël_ ' (penis), he managed to shrug off the offence as he moved along the line.

After exiting with their new green military ID books, they queued again, this time at the entrance of the second classroom for their medical examination, tetanus injection and for blood typing.

While staring with a natural curiosity at all the activities going on about him, it was not long before Joab began to notice that he had attracted the attention of another conscript. Standing a few places behind him stood a smiling fresh faced young man with a thick mop of sandy coloured hair. His first thought was 'do I know this person, have we met before?'

He had an attractive face with green eyes, sensuous lips and freckles. He wore his hair with a boyish fringe over his forehead. He seemed to be 3 or 4 cm below average height and had a shapely lithe and winsome body that promised to be both soft and firm when touched. It was a body that had not been conditioned to endure strenuous physical exertion. In the eyes of Joab it was a body that was shaped and contoured from head to toes for sensual pleasure. It was the kind of male body that he could envisage as being dressed up in a tight fitting shining glittering sheath of erotic fabric.

After having their eyes tested, pulse and blood pressure taken, and their blood samples drawn, they stripped down to their underpants for further medical examination. Joab turned around once more to catch a glimpse of the sandy haired conscript who was now also standing in his scants. He instantly caught Joab's approving eye, and unable to hide his pleasure as he smiled broadly back at Joab. While looking at Joab he shrugged his shapely shoulders, raised his eyebrows and rolled back his eyes as if to say ' _kan jy dit glo_!' (can you actually believe this!)

Once outside he immediately befriended Joab with the dramatic exclamation:

" _Liewe hemel, wie sou ooit kon dink dat ek sal G1 K1 kan wees, fiks en gereed vir die bos oorlog vir Volk en Vaderland, kan jy dit glo_!" He said breathlessly, his face was flushed with excitement as he sidled up to Joab.

(Good heavens, who would have ever guessed that I would be G1 K1, fit and ready for the bush war to defend volk and fatherland, can you believe it!)

The reason for his flushed face and breathlessness was obvious. It was due to the mutual recognition that they were the same kind of persons. They were also both experiencing the exciting and palpable feelings of love at first sight.

Standing together in the queue for the barber they engaged in a non-stop animated conversation as if they gone through the pearly gates into paradise. While they waited in the long lines for their turn in the barber's chair, the hours quickly slipped away without them noticing. Soon the sun sunk below the horizon. As twilight rapidly descended one by one the flood lights started to switch on holding back the tide of darkness at the barbwire perimeter of the military base, driving the shadows away into the night.

It took four barbers all working flat out for several hours to give each conscript his number 2 military style haircut. Sarel used all his powers of persuasion to convince the tired dour faced barber to leave a bit of fringe behind. It was after 10.00 pm when eventually everyone's hair had been cut. They were then marched off to the quarter master's stores where they were each issued with a pillow and two blankets. Under the cold unwelcoming illumination of the tall flood lights they were marched to their bungalows.

After showering together and brushing their teeth, they walked back to the bungalow, dressed in civilian sandals, shorts and T-shirts as if they were on some kind of vacation. Outside their bungalow they stopped for a while. Sarel lifted his head to gaze at the night sky. In spite of the glare from the flood lights he could see the Southern Cross clearly visible in the night sky.

" _Kyk, daar is die Suider Kruis_ ," Sarel said pointing up .

(Look there is the Southern Cross)

They both stared up at the night sky for a few moments. Sarel began to sing an old Afrikaans folk song:

Afrikaners is plesierig,

dit kan jy my glo,

hulle hou van partytjies,

en dan maak hulle so:

Eers draai die ou vroutjie

en dan draai haar ou man,

en hy vat haar om haar lyfie

en dan draai hulle saam.

Goeienag, my ou vroutjie,

goeienag, my ou man!

Oor 'n week 'n partytjie,

en dan draai ons weer saam...

... _wil jy saam met my kom draai...._

... _of moet ek iemands anders?_

(Afrikaners are joyful, that you can believe, they enjoy having parties, and this is what they do. First the wife turns, then the husband turns, then he puts his arm around her waist and they turn together. Good night my wife, good night my husband. In a week's time we will dance again at a party. Do you want to dance with me or should I ask someone else?)

There was a teasing hint of invitation in this old Boere song, and also in the unmistakeable flirtatious and slutty look on Sarel's face. He gave Joab an enticing smile filled with all kinds of promises. The subliminal message was clearly: 'are we a couple, are you attracted to me, because if you are not, must I look for another babe?'

He burst out laughing at Joab's quizzical expression on his face. He was jubilant, filled with a strange, almost absurd sense of exultation, given the reality of their situation. His face beamed with joy.

" _Ek is net 'n outydse Boere meisie van Ellisras_ ," Sarel said, smiling wantonly at Joab.

(I am just an old fashion Boer 'gal'from Ellisras)

It was Joabs turn to laugh at Sarel. The situation was strangely magical and romantic.

It turned out that Sarel came from a _verkrampte_ (conservative) Nationalist Party supporting wealthy cattle farming family near Ellisras. His was named after his paternal patriarchal grandfather who was the owner of thousands of hectares of bushveld ranchland along the Limpopo River.

Sarel was a _laatlammetjie_ (a child or lamb born to parents in their old age after they already had grown up children). He had three older brothers.

" _Ek het drie ouer boetjies. Ek is die jongste. Hulle is almal groot Boer seuns en rugbyspelers. All drie van hulle is saam met my Pa beesboere. Ek is die slimste kind en ek is ook die klein dogtertjie wat my Ma wou altyd hê. Ek is baie lief vir my Ma, sy beteken alles vir my_ ," Sarel explained giving details of his family background.

(I have three older brothers. I am the youngest. They are all big robust Boer boys who play rugby. They and my father are all cattle farmers. I am the cleverest child of the family and I am the daughter that my mother had always wished for. I really love my mom, she means everything to me.)

Joab listened intently to his newly acquired best friend who also happened to be incredibly cute and sexy in a cheeky way.

" _Ek was by die Hoërskool Pietersburg. Gelukkig het ek nie in die koshuis gebly nie. Jy kan net dink, hulle sou my sat genaai het elke aand. Ek het by my ouma gebly. Net soos my ma is sy ook 'n wonderlike mens. My oupa is 'n dominee in die Herformde Kerk. Hy is'n blerry slim deksel, hy het 'n doktersgraad in teologie_ ," Sarel informed in Joab.

(I went to Pietersburg High School. Luckily or fortunately I did not have to stay in the school hostel, I was a day student. You can just imagine what would have happened to me if I was a boarder in the school hostel, I would have been fucked every night. I stayed with my grandparents, from my mom side of the family. My grandmother is a wonderful person just like my mother. My grandfather is a minister in the Reformed Church. My grandfather is an incredibly learned man; he has a PhD in theology)

" _Ek het nie veel van sport gehou nie. Op hoërskool het ek drama baie geniet_ ," he informed Joab.

(I didn't really like sport very much. At high school I preferred drama and theatre, which I enjoyed tremendously)

Sarel spoke about his farm upbringing as a child. He remembered seeing strange things as a child. He use the word 'queer' to describe many of these strange things that he had witnessed when growing up as a farm boy. For example, his father was a breeder of Afrikander cattle until the end of the 1960s. Now they had switched over to Brahman cattle.

He told Joab an interesting story. They would collect semen from high quality stud bulls by making a bull mount another bull.

Most bulls were perfectly happy to mount other bulls. Apparent by bringing a dominant bull into the presence of another less dominant bull was sufficient to get the bull sexually worked up and ready to the mount the other more subordinate bull. The semen would be collected into an artificial vagina which was an external sheath into which the bull's penis was directed as it mounted a tethered bull. The semen would be conserved by means of cryopreservation storage and used later for the artificial insemination of the cows coming into heat.

Bulls mounting bulls, this was something that Joab had never heard of before. He asked Sarel why they don't just insert the artificial vagina into the anus of the bull that was going to be mounted.

Sarel laughed good-naturedly at Joab's question. Obviously Joab was a town boy.

After a moment's thought, Sarel answered that it would not be hygienic. The sides of the artificial vagina would be contaminated with faeces and this would expose the semen to bacteria through faecal contamination.

They found that the bungalow was uncomfortably hot even though all the windows had been opened. Some of their comrades in arms were already asleep; others were huddled together in small groups, sitting on the uncovered foam mattresses of their steel framed beds, engaged in quiet speculations on what possible hardships lay in store for them over the next couple of weeks.

No one in the bungalow gave Joab and Sarel a second glance as they returned to their two beds on which they had left their suitcases. The beds they had managed to 'reserve' for themselves stood almost in the middle of the bungalow. In the bungalow there were two rows of beds separated by a two meter wide aisle. An olive green military issue steel wardrobe or _staalkas_ was pressed against the wall between each pair of steel framed beds. It was divided into two compartments with each compartment having its own lockable door. Inside each compartment was a narrow partition with a thin metal rod on which clothing could be hung and the rest of the compartment was subdivided into a set of shelves for packing items of clothing which could not be hung on a hanger.

A row of 60 watt light bulbs with white plastic shades hung from the ceiling directly above the aisle separating the two rows of beds. The main switch for the lights was at one of the entrance doors. The wooden framed windows had no curtains. One could stare through the window into the bungalow next door and observe what was going on.

Catching the drift of the conversations Sarel was nonchalantly dismissive of the worries and the anxieties that seemed to be the concern of many in the bungalow.

" _Ek is nie bang vir afkak of opfok nie_ ," (I am not scared of shitting-off) he said as he opened his case and began to rummage inside the case which was filled with all the various personal items that he brought along, which included: an electric iron, a tin of brown shoe polish, a shoe polishing brush, a small tin of Brasso, a can of shaving cream, razor, shampoo, underarm deodorants, a bottle of non-heterosexual cologne, tubes of moisturizing creams, lip ice, Vaseline, a box of Elasto Plaster, a box of aspirins, a pair of very feminine looking retro sunglasses and a Bible.

Joab struggled to suppress a yawn.

" _Jy lyk moeg, dis OK as jy wil slaap, ek gaan eers 'n bietjie lees_ ," Sarel said as he lay on his elbow facing Joab who had stretched out on his back on the blanket covered foam mattress.

(You look exhausted. It is OK with me if you want to sleep; I'm going to read to bit)

Sarel opened his Bible randomly. Joab noticed that it had fallen open at the book of the prophet Hosea. Having grown up as a regular church going _Dopper_ (member of the Gereformeerde Kerk, one of the three sister Afrikaans Reformed Churches), Joab was extremely familiar with the contents of the entire Bible. He was also familiar with the details of the book of Hosea. Leaning on his left elbow, Sarel lay on his bed facing Joab and he began to read. Joab turned his head on the pillow towards Sarel and watched in silence as Sarel read his Bible.

The LORD gave this message to Hosea son of Beeri during the years when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.

When the LORD first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, "Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the LORD and worshiping other gods."

So Hosea married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son.

He smiled to himself as noticed Sarel frowning. It was hardly a suitable devotional reading, what with prostitutes and all that kind of stuff. Joab laughed inwardly as he studied the look of perplexity on Sarel's face as he tried to make sense of his devotional reading.

Sarel soon comprehended that Gomer who actually happened to be a historical woman was also literally a harlot. What he had not realized was that Gomer also symbolized the shaming of Israel's masculinity by becoming the symbol of Israel's feminization in the role of the unfaithful harlot wife of YHWH her husband who was represented symbolically by Hosea.

In their metaphorical feminization the men of Israel were being represented as wanton whores who had been unfaithful to YHWH.

Metaphorically, Gomer the woman was bisexual in that she represented both male and female with respect to Israel. In a sermon based on the text of Hosea, Joab remembered that their _dominee_ did not use the word 'bisexual', but he did speak about Gomer being used as a prophetic representation of the men and women of Israel. The fact that Gomer was used bisexually to represent both men and women stuck in his mind. It was a 'queer' thought that was not lost on Joab, especially given that his razor sharp perceptions were extremely alert to the fact that 'queer things' and 'queer stuff' always seemed to crop up everywhere, even in the Bible.

Queerness lurked everywhere. It was the 'other', the queer, which made the normal 'normal'.

He felt that being queer was actually quite a natural thing to be. He had accepted his queerness. Thanks to his grandparents, he really believed that to be queer was a natural condition. Being queer was like a gift, a gift that was only given to a selected few. Those who had been specially chosen to be queer were the fortunate ones. It was an endowment from Nature and should be embraced with thanks giving. This was his philosophy. One's queerness should be embraced and enjoyed as a way of being-in-the-world and if you could dress up as a woman what could be more perfect or more normal than that?

As far as he was concerned, he was perfectly normal, so was Sarel. No one in the bungalow could be more normal than Joab and Sarel.

He could do both women and men stuff. He could transform himself into a very attractive young woman if he wanted too. If he really put his mind to it, he could even be a young woman; he could indeed become a young woman and live out the fantasy of being an attractive and erotically desirable young woman that would turn any man on. And if he really put his mind to it he could be as masculine as he wanted. However, he hated this masculinity versus femininity perspective about sex and gender. Even though while not yet quite eighteen he was well aware of the fact that to be male and queer does not automatically make a male more feminine. He knew this. He also accepted that he was a special kind of queer, but being a special kind of queer like he was, was quite a complicated business. He was gifted at acting out the expected roles associated with both gender dimensions.

While thinking about what it means to be 'queer' Joab fell asleep. He dreamed an intensely homoerotic dream in which he was some kind of prophet like Hosea and he wanted to penetrate Sarel who was dressed up all slutty and wantonly like a harlot in the role of Gomer. In his dream he made Sarel pregnant. Sarel was wearing a short tight fitting black satiny sheath dress that revealed the sensual contours and curves of his body, and the flowing line of his upper thigh. The dream was so vivid and lively that he could recall in great detail everything about the dress that Sarel was wearing in the dream. This amazed him.

At five o clock the following the loud bashing on the bungalow door woke Joab from a deep peaceful sleep. This time it was not a permanent force NCO but a national serviceman corporal.

They quickly shaved and got dressed and then sat around in the bungalow waiting.

It appeared that the bungalow next door had only one occupant. A narrow strip of dry threadbare lawn and a washing line separated their bungalow from the other bungalow. The sole occupant of the other bungalow was an _ouman_ (a veteran or seasoned soldier). He was wearing only a pair of black army PT shorts. While learning through an open window he stared with a smirk on his face at their bungalow. When he spotted Sarel who was also standing by the open window next to his bed, he called out.

"Hey _roof_ , hey _roof"_

( _Roof_ means raw recruit like a scab.)

Sarel peered out of the window to see who was calling. The individual who had started to focus his attention on Sarel was a tall, lean but well built, blond and tanned person. He was wearing a string of small white shells around his neck. He looked like he could be a surfer from Durban. He had just come out of detention barracks for AWOL and was waiting to be discharged from the army.

"Hey _roof_ , give me a cigarette and a light," he commanded Sarel.

" _Ek verstaan nie wat jy sê nie, ek praat nie Engels nie_ ," Sarel answered.

(I don't understand what you saying, I don't speak English.)

"Hey _roof_ , give me a cigarette and light," the surfer from Durban insisted in a bullying tone of voice.

" _Ag man gaan kry jou eie fokken sigaret en light, kan jy nie Afrikaans verstaan nie_?" Sarel replied in a very cheeky and dismissive tone of voice.

(Ag man go find you own fucken cigarette and light, can't you understand Afrikaans?)

"Hey _roof_ don't you get cheeky with me."

" _Ek is nie jou fokken roof nie,"_ Sarel bluntly told the surfer from Durban.

(I am not your fucken _roof._ )

"Hey _roof_ what did you say?" The surfer asked aggressively with a threating edge to his voice.

" _Is jy doof of iets_? Are you _fokken doof_ or 'sum' 'fing'?" Sarel replied in broken English.

(Are you fucken deaf or something?)

Suddenly a deep voice growled from another window.

" _Ek gaan jou moer as jy nie ophou met jou fokken hey roof_ _kak nie,_ "

(I am going smash you if you don't stop this fucken hey roof shit)

That put a stop to the _ouman_ 's bullying of Sarel.

After breakfast the men in Joab's bungalow were marched off to the quartermaster stores to get issued with their kit which consisted of the following collection of items: 1 x _balsak_ , 3 x nutria uniforms (Browns), 4 pairs of socks and underpants, 2 x brown vests, 2 x boots, 1 x takkies (sneakers), 1 x sandals, 1 x brown stepout shoes , 1x pair of gloves, 1 x balaclava, 1 x scarf, 1 x brown jersey, 2 x shorts and brown T-shirts, 1 x bush hat, 1 x green beret, 1x stepout uniform, 1 x _staaldak_ (steel helmet), 1 x bushjacket, 1x trenchcoat, 1 x canvass webbing, 2 x dixies, 1 x fire-bucket (plastic holder into which the one litre waterbottle was inserted), 1 x cutlery kit, 1x waterbottle, 1 x rifle cleaning kit, 1x sewing kit (called a housewife), 2 x sheets, 1 x pillow, 2 x blanket, 1 x sleepingbag, 1 x groundsheet, 1 x poncho (which can double up as a tent), 1 x bayonet, 1 x R1 rifle, 1 x magazine and 1 x steel _trommel_ (steel trunk).

It was impossible for a single man to carry his own massive load of kit by himself back to the bungalow. Everyone crammed their kit into their _balsaks_ (duffel bags) and _trommels_. Two _trommels_ were stacked on top of each other, _balsaks_ and rifles were slung over shoulders and two by two the men shared jointly the carrying of their combined loads and setoff with their kit back to their bungalows.

Struggling with their load mainly because of Sarel's lack of muscular strength the pair of queers lagged behind the rest. At the bungalow the national servicemen changed into the brown uniforms, bush hats and boots. After a roll call in which their names were ticked off, the members of bungalow A 2 were officially constituted as platoon number 2 of A Company. They were instructed to pack their civilian clothing and related effects into their bags or suitcases. A two striped national serviceman corporal who had been assigned as the NCO in charge of their platoon marched them off to the QM stores where the suitcases and bags were to be stashed until they _klaared uit_ (dischanged or released on completion of military service) at the end of 12 months.

When her son was called up for his national military service after matriculating, Mrs Badenhorst hoped and prayed that the army would cure him and turn him into a real man and make him forget about wanting to wear dresses and highheels ever again.

After the boys of the January intake had completed their basics all the parents of the infantrymen were invited to a family day at the military training base so that they could spend the day with their sons. After not seeing Joab for 12 weeks, Mrs Badenhorst was excited to see her son again. She was anxious to see if the army had 'fixed him up'. But when she saw him again after the long absence, she was more astonished than disappointed in what she saw.

She immediately saw that Joab's uniform was subtly different from all the other troops. He had feminized the uniform. He had very cleverly unstitched the uniform trousers and the shirt and reworked them so that their cut had been changed ever so slightly so that it was no longer strictly speaking a male uniform. Her trained eye, the eye of an expert couturier who had spent her entire life engaged in the business of _haute couture_ , could see in a split second the most minute changes to any garment. Joab had inherited the expert eye of his mother for fashion.

They had also donned their nutria SADF bush hats in a reckless and rakishly on-the-way-to-the beach feminine fashion. Joab had transformed their otherwise utilitarian no-nonsense bush hats into fashionable looking accessories. Somehow their hats looked slightly larger than the others. The crown was rounded and the brims which had stiffened with starch had been bent and contoured to resemble a non-masculine beach or gardening hat. They wore their hats jauntily, well behind the crown of their heads, exposing to full view their fringe covered foreheads giving their faces a girlish appearance.

To Mrs Badenhorst's sharp and appraising eye their hats symbolized a subversively irreverent carnivalesque gesture towards the masculine military ethos in which they were submerged. They were behaving like naughty schoolgirls who could not resist poking fun at everything they saw. She could only shake her head in resignation. Her son whom she loved very much would in another world have been the perfect daughter to follow in her footsteps.

" _My magtig Joab wat het jy nou aangevang met jou hoed en univorm_?" she whispered after she had hugged and kissed him.

(Good heavens Joab, want have you done to your hat and uniform?)

She glanced at his smiling friend whom Joab had introduced as Sarel Jooste. His uniform had also been feminized. He had an oval shaped girlish face with large green eyes, long eye lashes, freckles, full lips and beautiful teeth. She had to bite her lip to stop herself from calling him Sally or Samantha. Either name would have suited him perfectly given his androgynous appearance which made it difficult to decide whether he was actually a boy and not a girl. She always found this phenomenon shocking. In fact it shocked her to the very core of her being. It was something she could not get used to. Young men who looked like girls!

Casting her eyes over the pair of them she found it absolutely uncanny that both of them had this incredible androgynous appearance, being both boy and girl at once, and being like this in the army of all places. How was it possible? It was a miracle that had they managed to survive as two very pretty sisters in this testosterone charged environment of shouting, sweat and dust? Maybe they were 'Amazons', female warriors. They both looked like another species of humanity. How on earth did they manage to become like this?

She suddenly felt too old fashioned for this kind of thing. Joab had always been a fine son, a kind and thoughtful child, but if only he were normal, then her life would have been perfect. As his mother she loved him dearly, but she wished at the same time that he were normal, like other boys.

Yes, why couldn't he be like other boys?

It had always been unnerving for her whenever Joab put on makeup and come waltzing into the lounge unexpectedly in highheels, dressed up in some slinky teenage outfit looking like a teenage whore. She, his own mother, could not at that moment discern whether he was actually a teenage girl or not.

And in spite of all of this his grandparents just took it all in their stride. It did not seem to bother them in the slightest. It was natural, it was apparently part of some mysterious balance of Nature that a certain percentage of men had to be transvestite or homosexual or bisexual.

Apparently, according to her father there were many remote exotic tropical islands like Tahiti and other erotic paradises under tropical skies that had no problem with transvestism; perfectly normal heterosexual men on these Edenic islands did not mind copulating with male transvestites. Male transvestites on these islands had even grown breasts. How was that possible? Apparently, on those islands Nature held her strange sway over mankind. Nature has decreed that 3% of all males will be transvestites. End of story. But Mrs Badenhorst could not buy into these facts of scientific social anthropology. In her opinion these men and women who call themselves anthropologists and who have studied the native people of these strange tropical islands had in the process become just as mad as the aboriginals they were researching.

Where in the Bible is there anything about this golden 3% of beautiful feminized men waltzing around with bouncing naked breasts and swaying hips.

She was the only one in the household trying to do some parenting and at the same earn a living so that Joab and his grandparents could have a good life. She was just the cash cow. All her father and mother could say about the situation was:

" _Los die kind uit, los die kind uit, los die kind uit_!"

(Just let the child be)

That was their constant refrain to her fears.

They kept on saying:

" _Hy sal vanself regkom_."

(He will eventually come right and change by himself)

" _Regkom! Wanneer? Sê vir my, asseblief tog! Dit is nou 'n groot grap! Hy sal nooit regkom nie. Daar is iets fout met sy kop, hy is heeltemal mal. Liewe Here help my_ ," she would exclaim loudly in frustration.

(Change! When? Tell me please. It is has become a complete joke. He will never change. There is something wrong with his head, he is crazy. Dear God help me)

" _Ag Ma verstaan nie_!" (Ag mom you do not understand).

She would hear the hurt plaintive call emanating from Joab's bedroom as he sat sulking on his bed wearing some frock he had designed and sewn up.

" _Kyk nou net. Daar is g'n regkom_ ," she thought to herself.

(Just look at him now. There has been no change, he will never change)

******

She looked at the two young men standing before her, both of them grinning from ear to ear and she said herself:

" _My liewe Here help my. Die twee van hulle lyk net soos 'n Joan en 'n Sally_."

(My dear God help me. The two of them look just like a Joan and a Sally.)

They took her to their barracks so that she could see where they slept and how they lived in the bungalow.

She shuddered at the thought that they were boyfriends. She shuddered at the thought that they could be the only non-celibate conscripts who being full of hormones were having sex every night right under the noses of the sergeant, the sergeant major, the RSM, the captain and the commandant.

They were only 18 years old and could possibly be engaging in sodomy every night while the other inmates of the bungalow snored in unison in a deep slumber. She shuddered again at the thought. She did not want to know what they could possibly be doing with each other. Whatever it was, it certainly was not normal or natural.

Later that morning Joab introduced her to a General of the SADF who was mingling with the parents.

He had the lifeless eyes of a dead fish and the grey pasty face of a corpse. Even Mrs Badenhorst who had been toughened by the hard knocks of life and who had seen everything, when it came to the underbelly of life on earth, could not help feeling alarmed as she gazed upon the general's countenance. Not even in the roughest hotel lounges in Jules Street in Malvern or Belgravia had she even seen a face as horrifying as the Generals.

She shook the offered hand of the General. She briefly grasped the General's hand; she wrapped her fingers lightly round the General's hand. Her fingers were the fingers of a seamstress, fingers which were so tactilely sensitive that by a mere touch she could verify the authenticity of fabrics with her eyes closed. Accustomed to the pleasant tactile sensation of the rich textures of exotic fabrics, she felt repulsed by the feel of the General's hand which felt like a thick lump of cold dead meat.

There was something reptilian about the General. She shuddered as they swiftly took leave from the General while other parents queued up to shake the General's dead hand.

After meeting the General, she was introduced to Joabs platoon sergeant, a member of the permanent force who looked like a jail bird. She was also introduced to Joab's company's captain and finally she was introduced to the battalion's commandant, a skinny gangly fellow that looked like scraggy marabou stork. He was apparently a military genius.

After lunch it was expected that everyone would attend the rugby match which was scheduled to kick off at fourteen hundred hours sharp. Just before two o clock all the families and their sons crowded onto the grandstand overlooking the rugby field. Glancing up at the clear bright blue sky, Mrs Badenhorst forgot about all her business troubles. She thanked God for all her blessings. The orange, white and blue South Africa flag flapped jubilantly in a mild breeze as the two teams, one from A Company and the other from B Company, ran onto the rugby field. It was one of those quintessentially warm Saturday autumn afternoons in the Western Transvaal in which rugby would be the focus of everyone's attention, wherever they might be.

The players of the two teams who had been selected from A and B Companies had recently represented the cream of rugby playing schoolboys in South Africa. Sarel was sitting on Joab's left side with his left leg folded over his right thigh. He had put on the pair of sunglasses of 1950s vintage which used to belong to his mother. She glanced at Sarel and Joab. They were both smiling at each other as people do when they are sharing an intimate secret. Not aware that Mrs Badenhorst was eyeing him out Sarel pushed his full lips into a sensual pout simulating a kiss for the benefit of Joab. For the past four months they had been 24 hours 7 days a week in each other's company. Encouraged by the SADF infantry buddy-buddy system they were by virtue of the buddy-buddy system practically living as if they were a newly married couple enjoying a perpetual honeymoon at the State President's pleasure.

Mrs Badenhorst's intuitions had been correct. Each night after midnight when everyone else in the bungalow were sleeping the sleep of the dead, exhausted by the day activities, Joab would slip into Sarel's bed where they would become entwined in a passionate embrace, smothering each other with kisses, they would prolong their pleasure for as long as possible before bringing each other simultaneously to a sweet and exquisite climax. After their lovemaking, Joab would slip back into his own bed and they would both fall into a deep, peaceful and untroubled sleep, buoyed by erotic dreams.

While Sarel never expressed any desire to mount Joab, he indicated that if Joab wished to mount him he would be more than willing to acquiesce to Joab's needs if that was what Joab desired. But Joab declined Sarel's offer of himself, explaining that he was not ready for penetrative sex and he felt it could harm the pristine beauty and sacred purity of their relationship. He felt that their mutual masturbation which was always done with such tenderness was a natural, non-injurious and non-harmful act of love and therefore could not by any stretch of imagination be viewed as morally problematic in any way. He was deeply in love with Sarel. He felt that they should not do anything that would profane or make their love for each other into something squalid or sordid. It was for this reason that he did not wish to engage in penetrative sex. He felt strongly that they should preserve their virginity for the time being with regard to anal sex.

Each platoon had its own bungalow. In was required that all the young men in the platoons of A and B Companies to be paired off with a buddy. Of course not every pair of buddies turned out to be a match made in heaven. But for better or worse the buddies or bum chums would have to remain bound together for the full 12 months, even if it were an unhappy marriage. No other pair of buddies could be closer than Joab and Sarel.

Every single rifleman was responsible for the safety and welfare of his buddy especially in the heat of battle. For this reason they were forced by the PF instructor to practice _skaapdra_ (carrying someone over one's shoulders as a shepherd would carry a sheep) at regular intervals, with a rifle in one's hand, a steel helmet on one's head and wearing full webbing, under the heat of the blazing sun.

Like this, they had to run at a jog for a considerable distance carrying their comrades over their shoulders as a shepherd would carry a sheep. It was an incredibly uncomfortable experience for the buddy being carried. In did not matter to the army if there was a ridiculous mass mismatch between two randomly paired buddies. So while some buddies carried fairly lightweight loads, others had to curse, sweat, stagger and struggle, carrying on their shoulders a load of hot sweaty flesh that was disproportionately heavy, relative to their own lighter body mass.

Like a married couple their bond was emotionally and physically intimate. With relish they ate together, showered together, did their morning toilet together, washed and ironed their uniforms together. They spent all their leisure time absorbed with each other. Every morning they supported each other in the gruelling and punishing ordeal of pole PT. During the mindless weeks of intense paradeground drill they marched together in the same rank. In fact, they endured all the trials and tribulations associated with basics by mutually encouraging each other to _vas byt_ (to endure hardship without quitting or giving up).

Sarel could not have wished for a better and more empathetic and generous partner. Sarel was all thumbs and a complete klutz when it came to weaponing training. However, Joab was infinitely patient with Sarel explaining and showing him over and over again how all the working parts of the Bren, LMG, Uzzie and the Kalashnikov, fitted together after they had been dismantled and mixed up on the ground sheet spread out on the sand in the hot sun. Sarel was not stupid; he had graduated with a first class matric. He was just not interested in all this infantry stuff.

" _Al die gewere en goed laat my kop draai. Wat sê die ou sersantjie: A rifle is for killing and a gun is for fucking, of is dit, a rifle is for shooting and a gun is for fucking, of so iets, ek kan nie so mooi onthou nie_."

(All these guns and stuff makes my head spin. What did the little old sergeant say again? A rifle is for killing and a gun is for fucking, or is it a rifle is for shooting and a gun is for fucking, or something like that, I can't quite remember.)

Joab would correct him.

" _Nee dit gaan so_ : 'this is my rifle (slapping his rifle), this is my gun (clutching his groin), and this is for shooting (slapping his rifle), and this is for fun (clutching his groin)," he recited the correct version of the ditty to the amusement of Sarel.

During weapon training in the sun they were constantly drenched in sweat. Their sweat soaked shirts clung to their bodies. Joab would sit on his hunches as he watched Sarel who would be kneeling in the blazing sun on his ground sheet, his face flushed, sweat dripping in large drops from his brow as he fumbled with the working parts of the Kalashnikov while he tried to reassemble the rifle from the disarray of parts spread out in front of him.

The sergeant kept an eye on his watch. He was timing how long it took them to complete the reassembly of the Kalashnikov rifle.

Those like Joab who could reassemble the Kalashnikov in less than 60 seconds stood to one side.

The sergeant's face twisted into a dark scowl as he glanced to see what progress Sarel was making. He was lagging behind and was one of the last in the platoon to finish disassembling and reassembling the AK 47.

" _Hierdie ou terrorist gun is eintlik baie oulik ek moet sê. As ek heeltemaal eerlik moet wees, verkies ek dit bo die ou R1_ ," he muttered, just loud enough for the sergeant to hear.

(This old terrorist gun is actually quite cute I must say. If I have to be really honest, I would choose the AK 47 over the old R1 rifle.)

Listening to Sarel, the sergeant finally lost his cool with Rifleman Sarel Jooste and shouted at him:

" _Jou blerry fokken moffie, ek gaan nog jou gat skop_."

(You bloody fucking queer I am still going to kick your backside)

It was a miracle that the queerish minded Rifleman Jooste with his soft lissom girlish body had found a way to somehow adapt and survive the full regime of physical and mental abuse that had been packed into their twelve weeks of basic military training. He had managed to endure everything that the army had thrown at him without being broken. But it was also the unusual physical and mental strength of Joab which had from time to time rescued and saved Sarel from almost certain physical and mental breakdown.

Many times Sarel felt as if he was being borne up by the strong and affectionate arms of a mighty angel. With Joab standing firm at his side, Sarel managed to withstand until the end all the reprimands, the threats, the sweat, the insults, the discomfort, the exhaustion, the dust, the dirt, the blazing sun, the buzzing flies and midges, the afternoon heat, the gruelling physical exertion and of course the constant unique SADF brand of _afbreek en opfok_ (breaking down and fucking up). Sarel by sheer miracle had managed to endure all of this, and possibly more, and it was all because he had fallen head- over-heels in love with Joab, and he would rather die than be separated from Joab. He could have left the infantry to become a cook or clerk or even a medic but he decided to stay in A Company rather than be separated from Joab. In the end it was because of love that he stuck it out and became a most unlikely infantryman.

******

After the rugby match the names of conscripts were called out. Joab's name was also among those who were called out. They formed up in squad on the rugby field and stood at attention in front of the grandstand. They represented the select few in 3 SAI Battalion who had qualified for the coveted badge that was awarded to infantrymen who had excelled in the SADF infantry 2.4 km fitness tests and in the marksmanship trials.

With their basic training over they began their counter-insurgency bush war training in preparation for the border. Standard SADF text book counter-insurgency infantry training involved lectures and practical exercises in: field and bush craft, survival in the bush, strategies and tactics in deception, tracking, map reading, setting up of a temporary base, setting up of an ambush, camouflage and concealment, battle drills that included fire and movement which involved the coordinated choreography of rapid advances onto enemy positions under the cover of intense suppressive firing. They learnt about anti-personal mines and booby traps that were set up by guerrilla insurgents primarily to maim rather than kill.

The counter-insurgency training at the base was followed by more training, this time in the bush at a remote, isolated and desolate site in the Orange Free State. There they lived for weeks on ration packs, wearing the same nutria bush uniform, without shaving or showering. At night they slept on the ground under the cover of bushes in ambush formation in a temporary base. Under a cloudless night sky the air temperatures fell below zero. They shivered with cold in their sleeping bags. After a fitful night's sleep because of the icy chill they woke up before sunrise to discover that their sleeping bags were covered in a crispy layer of frost and that the water in their water bottles was frozen.

Somehow they managed to survive sub-zero night temperatures while sleeping under the stars.

The intensity of the training slacked off once they arrived back at the main military base in Potchefstroom. During the short lull before they were shipped off to the border, they were given time to wash their clothing, clean their gear and generally get things in order. It was the first time since the start of their basic training that they were not busy from 5.00 in the morning to 11.00 at night.

They also went on their first weekend pass. Joab's mother fetched him from the military base at four o' clock on that Friday afternoon. To her surprise when he got up that Saturday morning he put on an old pair of faded jeans and a black T-shirt. When she asked what his plans were for the day he told her that he wanted to go buy books, reading material for the border.

" _Dis baie koud buite jy moet 'n jas of trui aantrek_ ," she said spontaneously out of motherly concern.

(It is very cold outside; you must wear a jacket or pullover)

In fact, it was not too cold for a winter's day; it was actually one of those unusually warm June mornings.

She looked at him, she was actually very proud of him. She realized that he was indeed very beautiful; there was no doubt about that. She remembered how astonished she was when it turned out that he was one of the few that had received an award for recording one of the fastest times for the SADF 2.4 km run with full kit and that he also had one of the highest scores for marksmanship. She felt her heart bursting with pride as she watched him join the squad of achievers on the rugby field to receive his _wapen_ (badge) and award in recognition for being one of the outstanding infantry national servicemen in the 1971 January intake.

Joab wiped the dust of his bicycle, pumped up the tires and rode off to the Potchefstroom CBD to buy books with the measly army pay that he had managed to save up. Starting with the Central News Agency (CNA), he visited the few bookshops in Potchefstroom browsing through the shelves he selected titles that looked worthwhile as reading material. It was while browsing at a second-hand bookshop with shelves packed with second-hand paperbacks that he found by chance a Penguin paperback copy of Plato's _Symposium_. After flipping through the pages he read parts of the introduction. Glossing again through the pages he found the book to be incredibly intriguing. He scanned through Aristophanes's speech on Eros. The contents of the book captivated his curiosity, so he decided to buy the book. It was just the kind of book that he was looking for.

As he continued to cast his eyes over the other secondhand paperbacks the title of a thickish looking paperback jumped out of the book shelf and caught his eye suddenly. Its title was _The Second Sex_. Intrigued he began to page through Simone de Beauvoir's book. He read: 'What is a woman?' the words jumped out the page.

He continued to page through the book, reading snatches here and there, every now and then he shook his head in disagreement. He had his own perceptions and experiences of what it meant to be a woman and they did not always agree with the ideas that Simone de Beauvoir was articulating about the nature of womanhood. He had some very different ideas of what it actually means to be a woman. He went on paging through the introduction. A section caught his attention and he began to read:

Woman? Very simple, say those who like simple answers: She is a womb, an ovary; she is a female: this word is enough to define her. From a man's mouth, the epithet "female" sounds like an insult; but he, not ashamed of his animality, is proud to hear: "He's a male!" The term "female" is pejorative not because it roots woman in nature but because it confines her in her sex, and if this sex, even in an innocent animal, seems despicable and an enemy to man, it is obviously because of the disquieting hostility woman triggers in him. Nevertheless, he wants to find a justification in biology for this feeling. The word "female" evokes a saraband of images: an enormous round egg snatching and castrating the agile sperm; monstrous and stuffed, the queen termite reigning over the servile males; the praying mantis and the spider, gorged on love, crushing their partners and gobbling them up; the dog in heat running through back alleys, leaving perverse smells in her wake; the monkey showing herself off brazenly, sneaking away with flirtatious hypocrisy. And the most splendid wildcats, the tigress, lioness, and panther, lie down slavishly under the male's imperial embrace, inert, impatient, shrewd, stupid, insensitive, lewd, fierce, and humiliated. Man projects all females at once onto woman. And the fact is that she is a female. But if one wants to stop thinking in commonplaces, two questions arise. What does the female represent in the animal kingdom? And what unique kind of female is realized in woman?

He read on, the biology of the meaning and significance of sex caught his attention:

The existence of heterogenetic gametes alone does not necessarily mean there are two distinct sexes; the differentiation of reproductive cells often does not bring about a division of the species into two types: both can belong to the same individual. This is true of hermaphroditic species, so common in plants, and also in many invertebrates, among which are the annulates and mollusks. Reproduction takes place either by self-fertilization or by crossfertilization. Some biologists use this fact to claim the justification of the established order. They consider gonochorism—that is, the system in which the different gonads2 belong to distinct individuals—as an improvement on hermaphroditism, realized by evolution; others, by contrast, consider gonochorism primitive: for those biologists, hermaphroditism would thus be its degeneration. In any case, these notions of superiority of one system over another involve highly contestable theories concerning evolution. All that can be affirmed with certainty is that these two means of reproduction coexist in nature, that they both perpetuate species, and that the heterogeneity of both gametes and gonad-producing organisms seems to be accidental. The differentiation of individuals into males and females thus occurs as an irreducible and contingent fact. Most philosophies have taken sexual differentiation for granted without attempting to explain it. The Platonic myth has it that in the beginning there were men, women, and androgynes; each individual had a double face, four arms, four legs, and two bodies joined together; one day they were split into two "as one would split eggs in two," and ever since then each half seeks to recover its other half: the gods decided later that new human beings would be created by the coupling of two unlike halves. This story only tries to explain love: the differentiation of sexes is taken as a given from the start. Aristotle offers no better account: for if cooperation of matter and form is necessary for any action, it is not necessary that active and passive principles be distributed into two categories of heterogenic individuals. Saint Thomas declared that woman was an "inessential" being, which, from a masculine point of view, is a way of positing the accidental character of sexuality. Hegel, however, would have been untrue to his rationalist passion had he not attempted to justify it logically. According to him, sexuality is the mediation by which the subject concretely achieves itself as a genus. "The genus is therefore present in the individual as a straining against the inadequacy of its single actuality, as the urge to obtain its self-feeling in the other of its genus, to integrate itself through union with it and through this mediation to close the genus with itself and bring it into existence —copulation."

He was taken aback by the sheer serendipity of Aristophanes' myth suddenly reappearing unexpectedly in _The Second Sex_.

Both Plato and Simone de Beauvoir were writing about the kind of stuff that he wanted to read about.

'What is a woman?'

This was the question that had always intrigued him.

'That is the question I have being asking myself for a very long time,' he thought to himself.

'If anyone knows the answer, then it is me,' he said to himself.

'I know what it means to be a woman, my whole life I have been trying to be a woman, what is wrong with being a woman, what is wrong with wanting to be a woman if being feminine makes one happy?' he asked himself.

After they had all returned from their weekend pass they spent the week before their departure at the shooting range. At night back at the base from the shooting range, they caught up with letter writing, cleaning kit and socializing.

They had been informed in a lengthy briefing that they were to be the first two SADF companies of national servicemen conscripts to be used as an integral component of a pioneering anti-insurgency campaign to be conducted in cooperation with the security police and militarized SAP units within the red zone in northern Ovamboland along the border between South West Africa and Angola.

In their bungalow during the evenings several wireless transistor radios would be constantly tuned into LM Radio. Sitting on his bed with four friends across the aisle from Joab and Sarel was an English speaking national serviceman. He turned up the volume when the Doors new hit _LA Woman_ came on. All five were English speaking boys from Durban. The five of them were the only Englishmen or _soutpiele_ (salt penises) in the platoon.

While laying back on their beds Joab and Sarel listened with unabashed fascination to the conversation of the boys from Durban as they began to talk admiringly about the various antics of the notorious Jim Morrison of the Doors. Their discussion prompted one of them to fetch his cassette tape player. He had a cassette collection with all the recordings of the Doors.

Both Joab and Sarel were unfamiliar with the kind of music that the _rooi nekke_ (red necks) liked. Until that moment they knew nothing about the Doors or Jim Morrison. Unable to contain their curiosity about Jim Morrison, the rock star that the boys from Durban seemed to idolize, they listened intently to the words of Jim Morrison's _The End_.

" _Dis 'n amazing lied_ ," Sarel said with genuine enthusiasm for the Doors.

(That is an amazing lyric)

" _Sy musiek beskryf alles oor die werklikheid van oorlog, ek sê vir jou_ ," Sarel said.

(His music describes how I feel, I am telling you)

CHAPTER 3

From the very beginning of South Africa's colonial domination of South West Africa (SWA) the South African Police (SAP) was unable to smother the smouldering and simmering discontent of the aboriginal population. Neither could they stifle their national aspirations for freedom. The tide of growing social and political unrest showed no signs of receding. Instead, it continued to sweep thoughout South West Africa. It was palpable in the streets of Windhoek, in every native location, in every kraal, in every rural homestead, everywhere one looked there was discontent written on the faces of the natives of SWA. In Owamboland, in Kavangoland and in the Caprivi Strip the resistance against the imposition of Apartheid by the Nationalist Party government in South Africa showed no signs of abating. Instead its intensity was increasing on all fronts.

The average white South African was oblivious of the rising anger that had started to boil on the dusty streets of the native locations on the outskirts of every white town in SWA. That same anger was now spreading throughout the country like an incurable and virulent metastasizing cancer, taking root in the most remote far-flung rural villages in the hinterland of South West Africa. The average white South African was oblivious to this reality. They had no idea that white South Africa was in fact at war with the black masses, not only of South West Africa and South Africa, but of the entire southern African subcontinent.

The whites were at war with the black masses who were resisting Apartheid. That was the transcendental reality, the overarching reality.

Even Joab was not aware of this. Joab was not aware that he belonged to a tribe that was not only at war with the aboriginal populations of southern Africa but it was also at war with rest of the world in a manner of speaking. No white was self-consciously aware that the transcendental reality that defined the essential nature of the politics in South Africa and South West Africa was that they, the whites, were actually engaged in a war with the black masses.

They were forced to listen to talks given by officers of the SADF in which a crude and garbled version of the Cold War was presented. They were led to believe that a Cold War was currently 'raging' between the communist Block and the West.

The officers spoke about Vietnam and the Domino Theory of communist advancement.

They heard a lot about Vietnam in their counter-insurgency lectures and training.

Where the fucken hell was Vietnam? Many of them were clueless about Vietnam.

Why were the fucken Americans fighting a fucking war in Vietnam to stop the fucken falling of dominoes when America was so fucking far away from Vietnam? They were told Vietnam was somewhere in East Asia close to China or something like, and also that the Pacific Ocean separated America from Vietnam.

These probing questions somehow managed to crop up in their SADF exhausted brains as they listened listly in a state of sullen boredom while they tried to stay awake as the officers droned on and on with the mind-numbing narrative of the Communist Onslaught, the Cold War and the Domino Theory.

While crowded into a hot unventilated prefab classroom the platoon were shown a map of the world. Pointing to different countries on the world map the Captain showed them how all the dominoes were going to eventually fall under the inexorable advance of communism.

It seemed that the world's future had been mapped out by the kremlin in Moscow. South Africa's fate was in the hands of Leonid Brezhnev, in the hands of the Politburo of the Russian Communist Party, in the hands of the kremlin, in the hands of the KGB and so on.

After the talk someone put up their hand. The rifleman wanted to know why communist China was building railway lines in Africa. He had heard about this from his geography teacher and he wanted to know how this affected Moscow's plans of world domination.

After being presented with these sombre facts the stony-faced Captain told them that they were being sent as warriors of freedom and protectors of liberty into the theatre of the Cold War. They were told that they were fighting not only for South Africa. They were engaged as warriors in a far greater cause, a cause that was almost transcendental, they were in fact not only fighting for the entire free world, they were fighting for the very idea of freedom, and for the transcendental and eternal values that made freedom and liberty possible.

They were also ultimately fighting for the survival of Christian Western Civilization. They were going to stop the fall of the final domino even if the Americans had fucked up in Vietnam. Now that the Americans were losing the war in Vietnam the dominoes would start falling one by one everywhere in the world.

They could now connect all the dots on the map of the world where the dominoes were falling or teetering. Angola, Rhodesia and Mozambique were dominoes that had started to teeter, and it would not be long before they too fell. If Angola fell, then SWA would fall, and if SWA fell, then South Africa would fall. It was the same story for Rhodesia and Mozambique. If the Rhodesian and Mozambican dominoes fell then the South African domino would begin to teeter.

The aboriginals in southern Africa had somehow become conned into helping the communists make the dominoes fall. If you couldn't see that then you were stupid.

Not once did any SADF officer state that South Africa had no legal or moral mandate to impose Apartheid on the native people of South West Africa. Not once did any SADF officer state in any of the lectures that South Africa in defiance of the international community had begun to replicate the South African system of Apartheid in SWA.

With the indigenous people of SWA being bulldozed into a segregated way of life in which racial discrimination at every level of existence was being enforced through violent coercion the external branch of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) was left with no alternative but to embark on a war of liberation.

By the late 1960s guerrilla insurgents belonging to the Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), which represented the armed wing of SWAPO, had started infiltrating into Kavangoland and Ovamboland in Northern SWA.

SWAPO insurgents were operating from military base camps inside Zambia.

The SAP counter-insurgency units in Ovamboland could no longer contain the low intensity liberation war that was being orchestrated by SWAPO. It was becoming increasingly evident that the SAP was experiencing all kinds of difficulties in trying to stem the tide of SWAPO insurgents who were beginning to make their presence felt on a daily basis in northern Ovamboland. By the end of the 1960s, it was estimated that the number of SWAPO guerrillas that had successfully infiltrated into northern SWA, had exceeded more than two thousand. They were now roaming freely throughout Ovamboland.

They had won the support of the rural population.

SWAPO's successes in Ovamboland demanded urgent military intervention from the South Africa government. A political decision was made to increase its military presence in the operational zones in which SWAPO had become active. Whites in southern Africa perceived the emergence and growing prominence of African nationalist liberation movements in SWA, Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique as a serious threat to their racial domination of the region. Whites were now faced with the inevitable prospect of direct and indirect military engagement along a wide transnational frontier stretching from Angola in the west through Rhodesia to Mozambique in the east. The whole southern portion of the African continent had become the theatre of an anticolonial liberation war.

In reality it was a very nationalist coloured anticolonial war of liberation against the political domination of white settlers over the aboriginal peoples of southern Africa.

Politically the anticolonialist liberation movements were basically African nationalist movements; their apparent Marxist-Lenist leanings were nothing more than opportunistic badges of convenience.

An irrational fixation on an imagined communist threat to white political dominance over the aboriginal peoples of southern Africa shaped the perceptions of the South African white political leadership. The white political leadership in the Nationalist Party government, in the police and in the military were unable to comprehend the depth and extent of the bitterness of the rural population in Owamboland towards the South African occupation of SWA.

The South African government had erred in its political judgement. They had woefully underestimated the depth of the political opposition and disaffection in SWA. They underestimated the depth of the political resolve of the native populations of SWA. Given these political facts the low intensity bush war in South West Africa could go on indefinitely or until the last Owambo had been killed. In order to eradicate SWAPO as a political force in SWA every Owambo would have to be killed.

It was against this backdrop that the SADF's engagement in counter-insurgency operations against PLAN in Owamboland and in the Kavango region began in earnest from the 1970s onwards. In the early days with the escalation of SWAPO's low intensity guerrilla war the SADF found itself on a steep learning curve in its development and improvision of counter-insurgency strategies, tactics and military doctrines.

It was obvious that the racist Apartheid mentality that shaped the political thinking of the Nationalist Party government would ultimately make the counter-insurgency war against SWAPO a self-defeating and costly exercise in futility.

Inspite of the SADF's military superiority in the southern African region it was also obvious to any intelligent and knowledgeable political observer that the ideological war against SWAPO by the South African state had been lost from the very beginning. It would eventually prove impossible for the South African state to make any headway in the ideological struggle against SWAPO. In actual fact the counter-insurgency war against SWAPO had already been lost even before the first shots of the bush war had been fired.

Enthralled by a racist fantasy, there was no way that the white male officialdom or their white male military counterparts could ever win the hearts and minds of the aboriginal peoples of SWA. In reality without having the reflective insight to fully comprehend or understand the significance of the brute political fact that the natives of Owamboland had rejected the white man's racist fantasy, the SADF under the political command of the Nationalist Party Government had embarked on the long and futile march of Apartheid that would eventually end in a humiliating political defeat. With regard to this inexorable inevitability, the Nationalist Party Government was in a state of denial.

The future was not theirs to make.

They could not stop the dominoes from falling. Like King Canute the Apartheid Government in South Africa firmly believed that it could hold back the rising tide of black aspirations not only in the Republic of South Africa, but also in SWA. In the secret, inscrutable, unfathomable, unknowable, incomprehensible and hidden counsels of God it was possible that from all eternity it had be foreordained that Apartheid would be God's gift to the international communist cause whose headquarters were in Moscow. It seemed that Apartheid was making the revolutionary toppling of dominoes in the subregion easier than it would otherwise have been without the history of Apartheid.

******

It was against the reality of this backdrop that Joab and Sarel as passengers in a troop train found themselves staring out of the coach window at the passing arid scrubland. In its wisdom the SADF had chosen the most circuitous and tedious train route to Grootfontein. Before the crack of dawn on an icy winter's morning a column of olive green Bedfords arrived at the Potchefstroom Railway Station and the two companies of 3 SAI Battalion boarded the dark train waiting some distance from the platform in the adjoining railway shunting yard. Just before sunrise after an interminable delay a whistle was blown, the train jolted a few times before it started to slowly move forward in a series of jerks as the slack between the couplings that joined the coaches began to lock with load metallic clanging sounds.

As the dim light of a sickly sun tried to break open another chilly winter's day on the Highveld the troop train crawled sluggishly westwards to Klerksdrop. After a short stop at Klerksdorp Station the train started on its long detour, turning southwards it proceeded across the Vaal River to Kroonstad. On its south bound journey to Bloemfontein it stopped for a few minutes at each forlorn little rural railway siding or small town station.

Eventually, after initially bundling into the various coach compartments in a random fashion the troops began to proceed up and down the corridors of the moving train, carrying their rifles and _balsaks_ as they sought out more compatible and congenial travelling companions. In the process of this reassortment and segregation of troopies into alternative sleeping compartments on the basis of perceived interpersonal compatibilities, Joab and Sarel were soon left as the only remaining occupants of their original chosen compartment, which was in the third last coach. They soon became aware that they had been stigmatized as _moffies_ and no one would want to be seen dead sharing the same carriage sleeping compartment with Joab and Sarel, as they feared that their masculine identities may become compromised and possibly even contaminated by association, if they appeared to have been too comfortable in the company of two obvious queers.

From Bloemfontein after crossing the Orange River the train proceeded slowly to De Aar and from De Aar it travelled to Prieska, and from Prieska the train stopped again for an eternity at every remote and far-flung railway station or siding on the way to Upington. After Upington they crossed into South West Africa at Nakop Station.

From De Aar to Nakop the rail line cut across a vast arid and monotonous plain that was broken by scattered mounds of broken and weathered rocks.

After Nakop the train began its slow northward journey across the desert to Keetmanshoop, and from Keetmanshoop to Mariental, and from Mariental to Windhoek, and from Windhoek to Otjiwarongo, and from Otjiwarongo to Grootfontein.

Alone in their compartment they had plenty of time to reflect on various topics, including their future plans.

" _Gaan jy iets swot volgende jaar_?" Sarel asked out of interest.

(Are going to study something next year)

" _Ja, ek sal seker iets swot. Gaan jy swo_ t?" Joab asked in reply to Sarel's question about whether he would be going to study at university next year.

(Yes, I am probably going to study something. Are going to study?)

" _Ek gaan medies swot by Stellenbosch, ek dink sal in 'n ginekologie en verloskunde rigting swot_ ," Sarel said with straight face.

(I am going to study medicine at Stellenbosch, I think I will eventually specialize in gynaecology and obstetrics)

Joab burst out laughing.

He could visualize in his mind the absurd spectacle of Sarel gazing into the depths of the female vagina, his face a study of concentration as he shone a torch into the dark, moist, hot interior to contemplate its condition, trying to decide whether or not the channel was healthy or whatever it was supposed to be to the trained eye of the medical specialist.

This image of Sarel in the role of gynaecologist ignited a new twist in Joab's mind to the story line of an ancient Hindu myth.

He began to chuckle as he thought about his new twist to the story that he had first heard at school in their religious studies class. It was a story that their school teacher had told them when she gave the class a lesson on Hinduism.

" _Hoekom lag jy_? _Wat is so snaaks_?" Sarel asked.

(Why are you laughing? What is so funny?)

" _Nee dis niks_ ," Joab said as he burst out laughing, unable to contain himself.

(No, its nothing)

According to the story when Krishna opened his mouth Yaśodā took the opportunity to gaze into the interior of Krishna's mouth and to her surprise she saw the whole Universe contained in his mouth.

Joab had made an imaginative connection between the gapping female vagina and Krishna's opened mouth.

The relationship between the female vagina and Krishna's mouth made him think of the word ' _poes'._ The relevance of the word with its overflowing and pregnant sense of vulgarity, obscenity, indency, and offensiveness was triggered by his amused awareness of the prominent role that this specific word had played in the obsessive cunt-struck mentality that prevailed in the SADF.

Once a conscript enters the SADF the female vagina inevitably becomes the focal point of a desperate and fanatical preoccupation. At every moment for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week the single thought that rattled around in a soldier's brain, like stones in an empty tin can, were fantasies about _poes_ and _naai_ (copulation).

In the military the _vagina_ becomes an object of endless fascination for the both the national serviceman and the members of the permanent force (PF), especially the NCOs. Joab had often remarked to Sarel that he could not help coming to the conclusion that in the SADF everything ultimately revolves around the female vagina. In the army the vagina exercises the most powerful, the most potent and the most irresistible hold on the mind, body and soul of a soldier.

It is possible that this has always been the case for all armies, for all soldiers, throughout human history. Militarization results in the fetishization of the vagina. The SADF created the environment that was conducive for this process, a process that results in the f _etishization_ of the vagina, transforming into an object or idea with power. In the SADF the vagina as a fetishized object was imbued with the magical powers for intense sexual gratification, thereby transmutating it an object of desire and worship

Possession and violation of the vagina was the ultimate prize that every soldier was fighting for.

It was indisputable.

Ever since the coming into existence of the first soldiers, the first armies and the first wars, the soldier has always had two travelling companions, the slut, the whore, or the prostitute, and the angel of death, together throughout the ages they have been his eternal and true companions.

In ancient times defeat in war was always an occasion for the most sublime experience of unimaginable horror. In the terrifying experience of this sublime horror, as opposed to the experience of sublime beauty, the direct unmediated sensation of truth in all its awful nakedness becomes the reality where all doubt and uncertainty vanish.

Defeat in the ancient world was always a catastrophic event of apocalyptic proportions for the vanquished. For the defeated army the consequences that flowed from the enemy's victory were always a terrifying nightmare where the experience of horror in all its sublimity knew no bounds. Victory was rewarded with the spoils of pillage, plunder and looting. The raping of the wives and daughters of the defeated was an unalienable right of the victors. In the end defeat meant the enslavement and possible castration of the defeated soldiers.

Metaphorically speaking, the soldier's final sword thrust which consummates the conquest of the defeated army reaches its bloody climax following the violent penetration of the vagina. The vaginas of the daughters and wives of the conquered becomes the sheath for the victorious sword.

It seemed that everything was ultimately done for the sake of gaining access to the secret mysteries of the vagina; even the drilling on the parade ground was ultimately motivated by the allure of the female vagina.

Apparently, according to the wisdom and insight of the PF sergeant who drilled Joab's platoon literally into the ground, it was the sight of the deft, sharp, coordinated, ordered, synchronized and rhythmic choreography of a well drilled squad that was guaranteed to spread the thighs of every Boere meisie in Potchefstroom. Like the dance of the male scorpion the sight of the well drilled squad has the power to mesmerize and excite the Boere meisie. Incapacited like the female scorpion, by the spectacle of uniformed soldiers parading in synchronized step, the meisies would feel compelled to expose their gaping vaginas as velvet lined sheaths ready for the penetrating sword of conquest.

The same PF sergeant would brag about his sexual prowess, sharing intimate details about how he and his army friends would pick up randy female students from the _Potchefstroomse_ _Onderwyskollege_ every weekend and fuck them at the Potchefstroom drive-in.

From the lurid and obscene language of the SADF drill instructors, even Joab could mentally visualize the possibility that the Universe, which Yaśodā thought she had caught a glimpse of in Krishna's opened mouth, might actually exist within the dark, hot and moist interior of a gaping vagina.

During the endless hours of drilling the hard ground would vibrate under the stamping boots of platoons, and the dry air would reverberate with the sonic shock waves caused by the incessant barking, howling, bellowing, shrieking and baying of PF NCOs from every corner of the parade ground.

Over the parade ground the red clouds of dust would hang in the air like the ghosts of dead whores following in the train of marching soldiers.

One morning on the parade ground the mad relentless bellowing reached a deafening crescendo, and at that the climax of that moment everyone began to shout in rhythmic unison, in time with the left boot striking the ground with a loud shocking thud, _poes_ , _poes, poes_ , _poes_ , _poes_ , and this went on for a full delirious and stupefying five minutes.

It was after this mind numbing experience that Joab came to the final conclusion that for the SADF the entire meaning and purpose of the Universe for the white South African male was to be discovered in the deep dark hot depths of a whore's vagina.

While musing over these thoughts he conjured up in his mind's eye the spectacle of Sarel with the aid of one of his gynaecological tools staring down some woman's vagina while she sat awkwardly in some kind of gynaecological chair with her legs spread out in some kind of stirrup-like contraption. Unlike Yaśodā, Sarel would also discover the entire Universe pulsating and gyrating in the interior of a hot vagina and not in Krishna's mouth.

From the expression on Joab's face Sarel could sense that Joab had a profound thought to share.

He urged Joab to spit out what he was thinking.

When Joab shared this visualization with Sarel, Sarel squealed with laughter, and kicked his legs in uncontrollable mirth, especially after Joab's imitation of Sarel in the role of the solemn and learned gynaecologist enunciating his profound medical opinion:

" _Ek moet sê mevrou, jou doos lyk nogal gesond. Ek is bly om te sê daar is niks vrot daar binne nie, ek sien net die maan, 'n paar sterretjies en een of twee planete, maar verder is daar niks anders om oor te bekommer te wees nie, ek dink die weermag sal definitief 'n groot belanstelling hê in jou baie interresante doos."_

(I must say that the inside of your vagina actually looks quite healthy. I am happy to report that I cannot see anything rotten inside, I see only a moon, a few stars and one or two planets, but otherwise there is nothing to be concerned about.)

Sarel collapsed into a paroxysm of hilarity that lasted for minutes.

When he had recovered from his fit of laughter he asked what subject Joab was going study.

" _En wat gaan jy swot_?"

(What are you going to study?)

" _Teologie, wysbegeerte en die metafisika van seks_ ," he replied

(Theology, philosophy and the metaphysics of sex)

" _Metafisika van sek! Wat in die hemel behels dit? Ek het gedog jy wou 'n mode-ontwerper word, 'n ontwerper van rokkies. Het jy intussen jou planne verander en in plaas van 'n mode-ontwerper het jy skielik besluit, uit die bloute, om 'n dominee to word en nie sommer enige ou dominee nie maar 'n predikant met diep belangstelling en 'n diep wysheid in die metafisika van seks....ha ha heh heh ha...Joab jy is die snaakste vent wat ek ooit ontmoet het in my hele lewe_ ," Sarel laughed gaily until tears rolled down his cheeks in response to his uncontainable amusement.

(The metaphysics of sex! What in heaven's name does that involve? I thought that you wanted to be a fashion designer and dressmaker. Now you have suddenly, out of the blue changed your plans to become instead, of all things, a minister of religion with a deep curiosity in the metaphysics of sex...ha ha ha...Joab you the craziest and weirdest person that I have ever met in my entire life)

" _Wel as jy wil weet, dit is glad nie 'n geheim vir enige mens wat 'n bietjie insig het dat die teologie, wysbegeerte en mode-ontwerp gaan oor die metafisika van seks_ ," he answered..

(Well if you really want to know, it is no secret to anyone with a tiny bit of insight that theology, philosophy and fashion design all revolve around the metaphysics of sex)

" _So jy dink ek is so oppervlakig dat ek geen insig het oor enige iets nie_?" he said pretending to be hurt.

(So you think that I am so superficial that I have no insight into anything?)

******

Standing up Joab took down his _balsak_ down from the luggage rack and after unlocking the padlock he hauled out a slim second-hand Penguin paperback that he had bought.

Propping themselves up with cushions behind their backs they reclined comfortably on the long green leather coach seats and gazed at the passing vistas of the arid plains of dry scrubland. The tedium of the treeless landscape broken by isolated koppies of crumbling rock increased the wearisomeness of a journey that seemed to have no destination.

The landscape prompted Sarel to recite a verse composed by the Afrikaans poet Boerneef :

Die kraal is leeg die doorings wit

die dam is leeg die skaapbos wit

vou hande saam as jy kan bid

die veld is leeg geraamte wit

Joab smiled and continued to recite the poem where Sarel had left off.

By Pramberg blêr 'n moflam

van hongerte en dors

by Pramberg vrek 'n moflam

dit is vanjaar die stryk

sny keelaf wat nog lewe

dis hoeka sukke tyd

by Pramberg blêr geen moflam

maar die jakkals hou jolyt.

Sarel smiled a mysterious smile.

Joab opened the book and began to reread Aristophanes' speech.

" _Wat lees jy_ ," Sarel asked.

Summarising Aristophanes' speech he told Sarel that according to Aristophanes there were once a primordial race of beings that were comprised of three kinds of sexes. Some sexes were entirely male, some were entirely female and others were hermaphrodite. Each sex had different origins. Men originally descended from a child of the sun, women originally descended from a child of the earth and the hermaphrodites originated from a child of the moon. Each kind of primordial being resembled their parents. All three kinds of beings happened to have a round or ball shaped body, with their backs, fronts and sides forming a circle. Each round shaped body had four legs, four arms and one head on a single neck with two faces. The head with two faces had four ears. The two faces on the same head looked in opposite directions. Each ball shaped body was formed from the union of two sexes. The males consisted of the union of two males, the females consisted of the union of two females and the hermaphrodite consisted on union of male and a female.

Sarel listened with an amused grin on his face.

" _Wat van hulle geslagsorgane_?" Sarel asked

(What about their sex organs?)

" _Hulle het twee stelle geslagsorgane_ ," Joab answered.

(They each had a pair of sex organs)

Sarel became intrigued and wanted to hear more.

So in response to Sarel's curiosity, Joab elaborated on his own creative embellishment of Aristophanes original speech.

He told Sarel that the hermaphrodites were the most interesting of three primordial races. They contained both female and male attributes, and were extraordinarily graceful, proud, strong and brave; and in addition, they were exquisitely shapely and beautiful. Possessing these glorious and magnificent qualities made them extremely vain and arrogant so much so that they even began to entertain the idea of storming the heavens and attacking the gods. As punishment for their audacity the gods split them into two halves, that is, into separated males and females. They become beings who lived with the memories of their previous primordial state as bisexual beings. In their sexual union they were always filled with the hope of becoming fused again into a single bisexual being.

" _Is dit regtig wat Aristophanes gese het? Ek dink jy speel met my. Gee my die boek, ek wil self lees_ , _ek glo jou nie,_ " Sarel said laughing.

(Is that really what Aristophanes said? I think you having me on. Pass me the book so that I can read it for myself, I don't believe you)

Reading the pages containing Aristophanes' speech he learnt that the three kinds of beings were highly mobile, incredibly strong and powerful, and because of their incredible strength they posed a threat to the gods. The gods felt that an attack was a real possibility. Zeus neutralized the threat by dividing them into two separate halves. The males were each divided into two separate men, the females were divided into two separate women, and the hermaphrodites were divided into separate men and women.

After their division each separate half desired re-union with the other half, men desired men, women desired women, and in the case of the bisexual hermaphrodite men desired women and women in turn desired men.

Sarel closed the _Symposium_ and gave the book back to Joab.

" _Die storie van Aristophanes laat my dink aan 'n snaakse onnie. Een oggend toe hy besig was om Genesis voor die klas te lees, kom hy by die stuk in die Bybel waar dit gesê word dat man and vrou was geskep in die beeld van God. He het gesê dit bewys dat God was manlik en vroulik net soos die Joodse Kabbala God beskryf. Ek het nooit voorheen van die Joodse Kabbala gehoor nie. Ek het nie eers geweet dat daar so 'n book in die Joodse geloof bestaan nie. Maar hierdie hermafrodiet-stories laat 'n mense dan diep dink, nie net oor die metafisika van seks, maar ook oor die teologie van seks en die teologie van die menslike liggaam_ ," Sarel said with an ironical twinkle in his eyes.

(This story of Aristophanes makes me think about a weird teacher we had at school. One morning he read a passage from Genesis where it states that man and woman were made in the image of God. He said that this indicates that the God of the Bible was both male and female. The Jewish Kabbala also described God as both male and female. I had never heard of the Jewish Kabbala before. I did not even know that the Jewish religion has such a book. All these hermaphrodite stories forces one to think seriously not only about the metaphysics of sex, but also of the theology of sex and the theology of the body.)

" _Teologie van die menslike liggaam, nou dit moet iets besonders wees_ ," Joab mused.

(A theology of the human body, now that has to be really profound.)

Sarel related how at a youth camp, which they had to attend in preparation for their confirmation, a young dominee who led the camp spoke about sex, dating, the body and chastity. He gave a talk on what he called the Christian theology of the body.

Sarel could see that Joab was intrigued by the idea of a theology of the body. Sarel could remember snatches of the talk. It was not only about the incarnation of God or about the body being God's temple or even about the human capacity to use the mind or the body as a vehicle for sinning.

The theology of the body also dealt with the idea that no one could be a person without a body. The person was a psychosomatic unity. In relation to the theology of the body the dominee spoke at length about the body's capacity for experiencing pleasure and what this ultimately meant to being a person. Happiness is often mistakenly associated with various kinds of pleasurable psychosomatic stimulation. Pleasurable psychosomatic sensations or stimulation need not only be of a sexual nature. Pleasurable psychosomatic stimulation and sensations can be triggered by shopping, smoking, drinking, accumulating money, music, various forms of sensory stimulation and religion.

The dominee said that psychosomatic discontent has become a prevalent social condition in the modern world. Psychosomatic discontent drives modern man in the relentless pursuit of pleasure. Psychosomatic discontent manifests itself as an insatiable need for pleasure.

******

After travelling more than 2000 km the train journey finally ended 4 days later at the Grootfontein railway station which was 400 km north of Windhoek. Disembarking from the troop train with their rifles and _balsaks_ slung over their shoulders they climbed into the Bedfords waiting for them.

They were driven to the Grootfontein Military Base for two weeks of acclimatization and also for further counter-insurgency training.

For the next two weeks they were kept in the dark with regard to their final military destination.

Company B was sent to Oshakati which fell into Sector 10 of the military operation zone. Company A was sent 264 km north east to Rundu which was east of Oshakati and fell into Sector 20 of the militarized operation zone.

From Grootfontein the military convoy of Unimogs transporting A Company travelled in a north easterly direction. As the sun rose to its zenith the reflective glare of the dazzling white sand that dominated the flat Owamboland landscape for as far as the eye could see increased to blinding intensity.

They were forced to shield their eyes against the sharp bright glare that burnt away every trace of a shadow as the sun cut across a sky which drained of all colour had become bleached white like the sand. In the distance the horizon merged with the sky.

Ahead of them lay the front of the South West African bush war. It was an incredibly long front that extended for about 1 600 km from the Caprivi Strip in the east to the Kaokoveld in west. West of the Caprivi Strip the front run along the border between South West Africa and Angola. In Owamboland the front cut through an arid flat featureless sandy terrain which was sparsely populated. In the far west the front ended at the edge of Atlantic Ocean. The Caprivi Strip consisted of a narrow strip of land sandwiched between Zambia and Botswana. The eastern portion the front started at the confluence or the joining of the Zambezi and Chobe Rivers.

The Kavango River demarcated the eastern section of front between South West Africa and Angola. They were informed that the Kavango region was going to be the theatre of their military operations. For the next six months Rundu was going to be their home from which the three platoons of A Company would be conducting their counter-insurgency campaign against SWAPO guerrilla infiltration from Zambia.

As the column progressed north-eastwards on their journey to Rundu, the vegetation gradually changed from the arid scrub land and acacia thorn savannah of Owamboland to the stunningly beautiful open woodlands of the Kavango region. Botanically the woodlands in Kavango were filled with tall broad leaf trees.

From the back of the Unimogs they gazed at the passing vista of tall magnificent teak and Burkea trees. They stared at the woodlands with unmistaken signs of apprehension written on their demeanours. The landscape appeared foreign and forbidding. The woodlands seemed to cloak an invisible menace. Sitting exposed on the backs of the moving Unimogs the sense of danger was palpable. They had crossed the invisible red line and were now traveling deeper and deeper into the red zone.

Joab felt a gnawing pit in his stomach. It was going to be a feeling which would recur at regular intervals over the next six months.

They soon discovered that the Rundu was practically on the banks of the Kavango River which formed the natural border between Angola and SWA/Namibia. Rundu was a small one horse rural town with no more than two thousand inhabitants.

The Rundu military base was located a few kilometres away on the outer perimeter of the town close to the main road connecting Rundu with Grootfontein. The Kavango people originally from central Angola had been living peacefully as subsistence farmers along the banks of the Kavango River for almost 2 000 years. They moved freely across the SWA- Angola border. Strictly speaking the Kavango River was an artificial boundary as most of Kavango people had relatives that lived on both sides of the river. On a daily basis many Kavango people crossed the river at the border post bridge into Angola to buy Cerveja beer at Calai which was a small Portuguese border town on the banks of the Kavango River in Angola. They brought crates of beer back to be sold in the shebeens in the location called Nkarapamwe on the outskirts of Rundu.

The Kavango had with time evolved into a riverside community of people. The Kavango people identified very strongly with the river and with time they became known as the vaKavango which means those who belong to the river.

They were the river people, people who had carved out an existence, a way of life along the banks and flood plains of the great Kavango River. They had lived in harmony for centuries with roaming herds of elephant and buffalo.

SWAPO insurgents had been crossing the Kavango River in the vicinity of Rundu. This had been one of their key infiltration points into South West Africa since the start of the bush war in 1966. SWAPO insurgency had also become increasingly critical mainly because of the escalation of the Portuguese colonial war against UNITA ( _Uniao Nacionalpela Indipendencia Total de Angola_ ).

UNITA had successfully established a strong foothold in the south eastern corner of the Angolan bush. From a military perspective, parts of south-eastern Angola had effectively become a no-go zone for the Portuguese colonial army. Because of the good political relationship between SWAPO and UNITA, conditions had become markedly favourable for the launching of PLAN insurgency operations into northern South West Africa from their military bases in the south western region of Zambia that bordered with Angola. PLAN combatants now had a safe corridor from Zambia across the southern part of Angola into the north eastern parts of South West Africa.

Police and military intelligence had acquired information from their informants that SWAPO guerrillas were moving with inceasing frequency into the Kavango region and into the Caprivi Strip.

As part of the South African Nationalist Party government's counter-insurgency plan government officials supported by the South African Police (SAP) had begun to forcibly move the Kavango People from their riverside homesteads into locations such as Nkarapamwe.

There was a lot of resistance coming from the riverside Kavango rural settlements against their forced removal from their farms into locations on the periphery of various small towns in areas like Rundu. Resistance to the forced relocations was met with ruthless SAP brutality. Kavango men, women and children resisting eviction from their homesteads were flogged by white male Bantustan officials. Tensions in the area had been simmering for some time and had now reached boiling point.

The rural population had become a sullen and brooding presence. The atmosphere at the kraals and homestead crackled with tension and animosity. The dark waters of the Kavango River looked menacing and uninviting. The wetlands and vast reedbeds filled with elephant, buffalo and hippo looked sinister and dangerous.

Political dissent had escalated to new levels of intensity, especially as a result of the systematic forced removals of whole families from their kraals and communal land. Radical political resistance and dissent was being expressed in all kinds of actions.

Resistance and dissent even manifested itself in the renaming of native locations.

A black location near Windhoek where black Namibians had been forced to move in 1959 was renamed Katutura. Katutura is the Herero term for the Windhoek black location. Katutura is a Herero term which means 'a place where we will not settle.'

East and west of Rundu along the river the Kavango people steadfastly refused to abandon their subsistence farms. They refused to give up their subsistence livelihoods for joblessness in the overcrowded locations.

SWAPO insurgents infiltrating into the riverside homesteads and villages actively supported and encouraged the Kavango people to resist relocation to the dusty desolate townships that had been prepared for their accommodation. The infiltrating freedom fighters even began to distribute pamphlets which urged the people to fight. The relocations had caused huge economic devastation to the Kavango people. They had to give up their herds of cattle and flocks of goats. Their abandoned land was being taken over by white commercial farmers.

As a result of the active political support of the local population for SWAPO the Kavango region had become an ideal point of entry for SWAPO infiltration. Kavangoland was now classified as a SWAPO hot spot, thereby transforming the area bordering the Kavango River into a critical military operational zone.

A thick red line marked out the boundaries of this zone. The red lined area showed the topological lie of the land that fell into Sector 20 on the huge detailed relief map of the northern territories of South West Africa. In the preparation for their bush patrol, Joab and the members of his platoon had a chance to stare at the huge AO-sized map of Kavango land and south eastern Angola.

The SADF's counter-insurgency operation plan was to saturate the region with foot patrols of infantry soldiers from A Company based in Rundu.

As they stared grimly at the huge map, they all silently realized that their destiny was going be played on the terrain marked out on the map stuck up on the wall. They were reminded that for the remainder of their national military service they were going to spend more than eighty percent of their time on the border walking hundreds of kilometres on counter-insurgency foot patrols in the bush and savannah woodlands that surrounded the Kavango villages and small homesteads scattered along the banks of the Kavango River.

They were warned of the dangers of elephants roaming in the savannahs and crocodiles in ponds, rivers and streams. They were told that they were more likely to be killed by an elephant or a crocodile than by a SWAPO bullet or a SWAPO landmine.

They were told to stay away from the _Cuca_ shops. They were told not to buy liquor from the _Cuca_ shops. They were told to leave young black women alone. They were told to treat the local black population with respect, dignity and courtesy. They were told to show special respect to all headman and chiefs. They were told to respect the property of the local black population. They were told not to steal chickens or goats for meat while on patrol, nor were they to take any vegetable produce from the fields.

They were told that it was forbidden to buy dagga from the local population.

Having said all that, they were given detailed lectures and instructions on how to conduct searches. They were instructed on a comprehensive and detailed catalogue of signs and the kinds of evidence which would support the likelihood that a youthful black rural male hanging around a kraal or village was indeed a guerrilla insurgent.

They were lectured on the doctrines, strategy, tactics, philosophy, objectives and methodology of guerrilla and bush warfare by turned ex-SWAPO combatants who had been captured and when faced with the prospect of torture and execution decided to threw their lot in with the SADF. Under the watchful eyes of their military minders the ex-SWAPO combatants gave insightful and fascinating instruction on SWAPO insurgent tactics and strategy to a youthful white male audience who were barely out of their teens, who while sitting on their backsides on the sand in the shade of a large tree listened attentively. The talks given by the ex-SWAPO combatants were peppered with Owambo flavoured Afrikaans, Afrikaans that was littered with colourful idioms and metaphors.

They had been trained in Russia, in East Germany and some had even been trained in China. They were all Owambo; they were all neatly dressed in SADF uniforms with brilliantly polished boots. They all carried R1 rifles.

And then there were the lectures by officers in faded camouflage uniforms who had received training in the USA and in the UK Special Force units. They were battle-hardened veterans of various colonial conflicts; they had seen tours of duty in Algeria, Biafra, Angola, Rhodesia and Mozambique. They all wore parabat wings. As permanent force employees, the SADF was their home. They were a dedicated core of elite and highly professional soldiers. Waging war was their business and their passion.

They were larger than life, they exuded a mysterious charisma, they were born leaders, they inspired confidence and loyality, and above all they hated cowardice.

This hatred and intolerance of weakness and cowardice in the face of life-threatening danger made a huge and lasting impression on Joab.

What also impressed Joab was the manner in which these officers treated the ordinary infantry troopie. There was no shouting or threats or unnecessary swearing or constant intimidation or bullying like the PF NCOs instructors at 3 SAI Battalion in Potchefstroom. These men were genuine warriors. They had a mystical aura.

They were told by these professional soldiers that they would surely die in a contact with SWAPO if they were overcome with weakness and fear. You would surely die if you behaved cowardly.That was the message that was drummed into them. The enemy was counting on them being weak and cowardly.

They were told that everyone would increase their chances of evading death if they were disciplined and fearless and if they remained cool, calm and collected under enemy fire. Their chances of surviving a SWAPO contact were guaranteed if they followed to a T the tried and tested operational battle drills without any deviation. The battle drills were to be followed rigorously with utmost discipline because that would save their lives, and at the same time cause the certain death of the enemy. Everything revolved around the disciplined and relentless application of lethal violence in the flawless rhythmic choreography of battle drills. The R1 was a deadly weapon, it killed with lethal force.

They had to learn how to use the R1 effectively.

They rehearsed battles drills and counter-insurgency patrol drills over and over again. They practiced fire and movement drills with live ammunition. They practiced tracking and setting up ambushes. They learnt about booby traps. They did a bit of hand to hand combat. They were told that SWAPO were formidable and dangerous adversaries. They were told that SWAPO had received excellent training.

Under the training and instruction of the battle-hardened elite officer corps of the SADF in their faded camouflage uniforms counter-insurgency became an applied science with its own theories, facts, concepts, mathematics and logic. In the end everything boiled down to finding and killing insurgents. The job was to engage the enemy, to draw him into battle, to draw him into an intense fire fight in the savannahs and kill him. The trained and disciplined SADF soldier would always win a fierce and intense fire fight.

They were drilled over and over in fire and movement exercises while firing live ammunition at an imaginary enemy, until the intense fire fight battle choreography become second nature. They learned to fully appreciate the application of lethal fire force in highly mobile fast running battle manoeuvres.

They completed their final training in the bush in a remote area within the operation zone. For three weeks they did not bath or shave, for three weeks they lived with faces and arms blackened with charcoal, for three weeks they slept under the stars, for three weeks they ate a sparse and bland diet of military issue rations, for three weeks they simulated every possible kind of battle drill and ambush, for three weeks they practiced tracking and bush craft, for three weeks they lived like guerrilla insurgents.

For three weeks at some remote and isolated zone in the bush they lived a Spartan existence in a state of constant hunger, and in a state of constant physical exhaustion, in order to experience what it felt like to be a SWAPO insurgent on the one hand, and in order to learn what it was going to feel like to be a counter-insurgency operative on the other hand.

They were told that what they had experienced during their three weeks stint in the bush was exactly what SWAPO was experiencing as insurgents in the bush.

During this time the sections from each platoon also received individual specialized training and instruction from the different specialists of this extraordinary cadre of SADF officers.

They were now considered battle ready for counter-insurgency operations. Each section of infantry riflemen was led by a corporal and a lance corporal who had been selected and promoted from the ranks after basic training. Each platoon in the Company was under the command of a national servicemen lieutenant.

CHAPTER 4

Every time they passed or visited a village or a kraal, Joab would feel the familiar pit in his stomach. The hostility of the Kavango people was palpable. Except for Joab, the soldiers were indifferent to their hostility, except for Joab the soldiers were indifferent to the simmering tensions, and except for Joab they were indifferent to the plight of the Kavango people. They felt no empathy. Instead they were abusive, vicious and aggressive. Joab did not have the courage to intervene with a protestation. He just stood by in silence next to Sarel as the rest of the section executed tense and aggressive searches of homesteads and kraals for evidence of SWAPO's presence or evidence of support for SWAPO. They made every young and youthful adult male strip off their shirts. They examined their backs and torsos for any tell-tale signs that they had recently been wearing webbing or carrying rucksacks. They searched everywhere in and around the homesteads for hidden Kalashnikovs, land mines and arms caches.

While visiting the kraals, even when the engagements with the local population were filled with tension, Joab could not prevent himself from instinctively taking an interest in how the women attired themselves. He could not stop looking for fashion ideas.

The patrols began to take their toll on Joab.

Joab began to experience mental and emotional exhaustion as they walked in a spread-out patrol formation through the bush for days on end. For him it was a mindless exercise in futility. The revolutionary war was a political war. The counter-revolutionary war was also a political war.

It was a war that would be lost or won in the realm of ideas; it would be lost or won in the realm of the imagination. This he instinctively knew. It was ultimately a war of minds.

It was clearly evident that they had lost the war over ideas; they had lost the war of the imagination. They had lost the war of the mind. They were just going through the mechanical motions of counter-insurgency as if the enemy and his support base among the local population were all unthinking, unfeeling, insensitive, mindless stupid morons.

It was a complete waste of time.

A yawning intersubjective chasm separated the minds of the national servicemen from the minds of the local population.

They may have just as well been aliens from two different planets so great was the gulf between black and white.

The local population had their own ideas about how things should be.

They were not going to base their lives on the ideas of the white man. Why should they? The ideas of the white man did not suit them. Why should they do what the white man tells them?

Why should they fall into line with what pleases the white man?

They were just doing fine before the white man came along with all his notions on how they should live their lives. They have managed to survive on the banks of the Kavango River for a thousand years without the help of the white man.

The white man wants to turn them into his slaves. The white man wants to take away their land and their livestock.

The white man sows the seeds of discord wherever he goes. His arrival always brings trouble in its wake.

The troopies had been reminded time and time again in many lectures and pep talks that their two fold military objectives was to stem the rising tide of communism in Southern Africa and to use military means to create the climate and conditions that would be conducive for the politicians to come up with an acceptable political solution for South West Africa. Their military objectives were not only to defeat SWAPO militarily but also to facilitate the effective political mobilization of the black masses against SWAPO.

But to put it quite bluntly, the ultimate rationale for their being on the border boiled down rather crudely and simply to the protection and perpetuation of the Apartheid way of life that whites enjoyed in South Africa. And for this it was necessary to prevent SWAPO from undermining the successful installation of Apartheid in South West Africa.

For the average white South African the two arguments that were used to justify the border war were the maintenance and perpetuation of Apartheid, and the prevention of a communist takeover.

Joab had a vague grasp of these issues. From an early age he had come under the influence of his grandmother and grandfather who always tended to see things differently. He enjoyed listening to their stories of the old days; stories that were not in the school history textbooks.

When the long days and endless nights of silence in the bush had emptied his mind of every worthless thought, he began to experience vivid and enjoyable recollections of his mother and grandparents, memories especially of his grandparents would flood into his mind at unexpected moments. He remembered how they defended his dressing up as a girl when he was still a young child. There were also many dark secrets in his family. He had gathered that his father was a homosexual. He had also learnt from his grandparents the strange and unusual story of his paternal and maternal great grandfathers who both became _hensoppers_ in the Anglo-Boer war. They were Afrikaners who fought on the side of the British in the Anglo-Boer War against the Boers, who were their own people.

They had never had the opportunity to become landowners. They were landless _bywoners_ (sharecroppers) and unsuccessful tenant farmers.

At the outbreak of the Boer War both families were in dire straits. In fact they had become completely destitute. They had also become estranged and alienated from the landowning and absentee landlord Boer class. They had been reduced to a proletarian status. That was the main reason why they felt no political or emotional loyalty to the Boer cause and chose instead to take up arms against the Boer notables that controlled the levers of economic power in the Free State and Transvaal Boer Republics.

His grandmother had no time for Calvinism. She said it was the religion of the rich because it suited them. If you happened to be a poor worker it was because God had in his providential foreordination predestined that that was your destiny and that it was a sin to rebel against your economic, social or political status. His grandfather often said that Bram Fischer was a good man and that he always had the interests of the poor at heart.

His grandmother had been a member of the Garment Workers Union of South Africa (GWU) during the 1930s and 1940s. She spoke with admiration about Solly Sachs. She said that the Johannesburg branch of the GWU of which she was a member, had organized Marxist educational classes at night for the garment workers and also supported a people's theatre. Apparently in the 1920 and 1930s poor whites and blacks lived together in the economic depressed suburbs of Johannesburg and there was a lot of interracial mixing.

Memories of the stories that she told him about the old days in Johannesburg began to occupy his mind on the border patrols especially at night when he lay on his back gazing at the stars or while he was alone on guard duty deep in the night while the rest of the section slept.

He often wondered whether rebellion was in his genes. He had been at loggerheads on all the patrols with his section leader who had also attended the same primary and high school as Joab. He remembered the section leader as being one of the most stupid of the boys he knew at school, yet the SADF somehow saw in all its wisdom that he actually possessed profound leadership qualities and awarded him the rank of full corporal and put him in charge of the section in which Joab was an ordinary rifleman. At high school the section leader had been the captain of the rugby team and was made deputy head boy in their matric year.

******

" _Ons wen die oorlog vir SWAPO_ ," Joab muttered after another debacle at a kraal they just had visited.

(We are winning the war for SWAPO)

" _Wat bedoel jy_?" Sarel asked looking a bit puzzled.

(What do you mean?)

" _Kan jy dit nie sien nie_?" Joab said sharply, beginning to feel for the first time more and more irritated and annoyed with everything.

(Can't you see it?)

Sarel felt the sharp barb of Joab's irritation and the hurt became visible on his face. Joab felt immediate regret.

He muttered:

" _Ek is jammer_."

Saying sorry did not seem to help. Sarel sunk into a mood of deep dejection. He became almost tearful. Joab realized that Sarel was close to breaking point.

It was late in the afternoon on the final day of their ten day patrol when they received radioed instructions to rendezvous the next day for pickup at 14.00 at a remote sand road intersection close to the Kavango River. The coordinates were given as 17o 54' 38" S and 20o 7' 45'' E since there were countless remote sand road intersections that dotted the flat featureless savannah landscape.

By 13.00 the three sections from platoons 2 of A Company under the command of Lieutenant Johan Blignaut had assembled in the bush close to the intersection. At 14.30 the Unimogs which had been dispatched to collect them arrived at the rendezvous after offloading troops of platoon 3 at some remote site near the Kavango River.

On the way back to Rundu the Unimog on which Joab and Sarel where travelling hit a landmine killing the driver instantly. The flat beds of all the Unimogs had been covered with a layer of sandbags to offer some protection against the blast of a landmine in the event of the Unimog driving over a landmine. The sandbag would dampen the blast by absorbing the shock of the landmine blast. However, inspite of the shock absorbing counter weight of the sandbags the force of the explosion lifted the vehicle into the air. It crashed down on to its left side. Everyone sitting on back were instantly catapulted by the force of the blast high into the air, landing with heavy thuds on the sand several meters from the destroyed vehicle. Stunned and shaken with ears ringing from the deafening blast of the explosion Joab managed to stand up. They were enveloped by a dense cloud of dust and smoke.

He knew they could be lying in a minefield. However, there were no more explosions, but they could be attacked at any moment in their shocked and vunerable state.

Instinctively he retrieved his rifle and staggered away to find cover in case of an ambush. When he heard no shots he began to look around. Some of the members of section were still lying prone in the sand; others were staggering away in a confused state of shock to get further away from the Unimog which had burst into flames. Joab spotted Sarel lying face down on his stomach a few meters away. He ran to him and knelt down next him.

" _Sarel is jy alright_ ," he shouted hearing the panic in his voice.

Still appearing very dazed and not completely comprehending what was going on Sarel managed to lift his upper body with his arms and roll over onto his side. He could not get up onto his feet. On his right thigh there was a deep laceration which was bleeding profusely soaking his trousers in a thick coat of blood. Joab took off the canvas sling from a rifle lying nearby and tied a tourniquet above the wound. He tore his shirt into strips plugging up the blood flow from the wound as best as he could. There was nothing more he could do. He sat in the sand down next to Sarel and held him in his arms.

They waited for 30 minutes before they heard the drone of the approaching Puma chopper. The helicopter turned and banked in a wide circle above them churning up massive clouds of dust before it landed on the road about 30 meters from the site of the landmine explosion. The injured were strapped onto stretchers and carried by the medics to the chopper to be casevaced to the hospital at Rundu. Joab helped carry Sarel's stretcher to the chopper. At the chopper he squeezed Sarel's and kissed him on the cheek.

Sarel looked up at Joab. His face was ashen with shock and there was a flicker of fear in his eyes.

" _Vasbyt jy gaan OK wees_ ," he said.

(Hang in there, you going to be OK)

Sarel managed to smile weakly at Joab, he lifted his hand to say goodbye as they loaded his stretcher into the Puma chopper. The doors were closed and the helicopter took off.

Back at Rundu late that evening they waited anxiously for hours in their tents for news regarding their injured comrades. Later that night Lieutenant Blignaut arrived at their tents. His face was grim. He announced:

" _Sarel Jooste is oorlede_."

(Sarel Jooste has passed away)

The devastating news struck Joab like a poleaxe. For a few moments it was impossible for him to comprehend the finality that Sarel was no more and that Joab would never experience the presence of Sarel ever again, he would never hear him again, he would never again hear him express a thought or say a word. Sarel was gone forever. It was too much for Joab. His lips started to tremble, tears welled up in his eyes; he suddenly felt faint, weak and collapsed onto his knees and broke down. Holding his head in his hands he sobbed uncontrollably. The trauma of Joabs anguish was palpable. His face became contorted with shock and grief. He was inconsolable. Tears welled up in everyone's eyes; they too struggled not weep as they felt their own anguish. The Lieutenant stood at the tent entrance for a few moments and then turned around and disappeared into the night without saying another word. They tried to console Joab. Everyone, including the corporal gave Joab a comradely pat on the shoulder accompanied with a simple:

" _Ek is baie jammer_."

(I am very sorry)

Each time between sobs he managed to murmur an appreciative " _dankie_."

CHAPTER 5

It was a mere seven days before they would have reached the critical threshold of forty days when they hit the landmine. They had only a week to go before they reached the magical milestone. Forty days signalled the beginning of the end, just forty days left to endure until they could go home for good. With _min dae_ (few days) left the passage of time had taken on a new meaning. In forty days' time their national service in the army would be over for good. In forty days' time they would be back in Civvy Street. Free at last!

With only 47 days left in the army Sarel was killed by a SWAPO landmine.

In three days they were scheduled to go on a 10 day patrol. Joab could barely manage to cope with his personal feelings of grief. The prospect of going on yet another patrol so soon after Sarel's untimely death made the immediate horizon of his life bleak and empty. Everything began to feel insignificant. Sarel's life in the big scheme of things had been rendered insignificant. Joab felt that his life too had been rendered insignificant. They were ultimately disposable.

He struggled bravely to fight back the tears. Putting on a brave face he managed not to cave in and succumb to uncontrollable bouts of weeping which would have become embarrassing to his comrades. As grim as things were, the others somehow managed to come to terms with Sarel's death.

In their minds they lived with the constant awareness that their national service was drawing to a close. None of them wanted to go back zipped up dead in a plastic body bag. Over the next three days following Sarel's death, the mood in the platoon was tangibly different. It had become increasingly sombre while they went about their normal pre-patrol activities in preparation for another stint in the bush. A rumour that had begun to circulate through the camp also cast a pall over the platoon. According to a leak from military intelligence, there was evidence that with the onset of the rainy season a massive infiltration of SWAPO insurgents was imminent. It was expected that SWAPO would be moving across the south-eastern corner of Angola to infiltrate Owamboland via Kavangoland.

On the Sunday afternoon before they were scheduled to go on patrol they lay on their beds writing letters, reading, cleaning their rifles, chatting and listening with one ear to Esme Euvrard's Forces Favourites on Springbok Radio. One of the most popular hits on Forces Favourites was the lyric _I am gonna give you forty days to get back_ by Ronnie Hawkins.

Joab lay on his bed wearing only a pair of black PT shorts. Earlier in the day they had been issued with their ammunition and rations for 10 days which consisted of 5 cans of bully beef, 5 cans of sausages, 5 cans of potatoes, 5 cans of mixed vegetables, 2 cans of red robin, 10 packets of 'dog biscuits' and 1 can of condensed milk. He had nothing left to do. He had cleaned and oiled his rifle, he had loaded his magazines with rounds, he had packed his rations, groundsheet, sleeping bag, poncho and loaded magazines into his webbing and rucksack. He was ready to leave at first light for the woodlands of the Kavango. That night he wrote letters to his mother and grandparents. He could not mention Sarel's death in the letters. Militarily it was sensitive information and it would be blocked out.

Later that night he smelt a whiff of dagga on the breeze. There was a reckless party mood in the air. Someone with a good voice was playing his guitar and singing _Hang on Sloopy_. In the same tent bottles of Oude Meester Brandy smuggled into the camp had been mixed into litre bottles of coke which were being passed around.

In another tent the sudden eruption of a violent altercation interrupted the Oude Meester party. A fist fight had broken out. The bloody faced fighters were quickly pulled apart and calmed down with swigs of Oude Meester and deep draws of dagga. Someone started playing _Woolly Bully-Sam_ by The Sham & Pharaohs at full volume. Soon everybody in an Oude Meester and dagga induced state of jollity started singing _Woolly Bully-Sam_ at the top of their voices while dancing like mad men as the tape was played over and over again.

With the all flaps of the tent rolled up Joab lay on his bed listening, catching snatches of the words while gazing up at the star lit night sky. Billions upon billions of stars held together by gravitational attraction filled the night sky. The cosmos was vast beyond imagination. In this unbearable vastness what significance did his life have? Under a canopy of galaxies that stretched to the very borders of infinity all he could feel was a bottomless emptiness that gnawed away at his being.

The heat of the day began to dissipate at last, and he slipped into his sleeping bag.

In his state of grief he was indifferent to the wild party in progress. If Sarel was still alive they would have joined in the singing, also singing at the top of their voices while dancing.

He turned over on his sleeping bag; he lay with his eyes closed. He couldn't fall asleep.

Sarel was constantly on his mind. Sarel's time had been cut short. His time had ended. If he was in the timelessness of eternity he was beyond the temporality of waiting for the end of forty days. But the loss of Sarel for Joab in this temporal world of time was irreversible and irrevocable. He struggled to come to terms with the finality of Sarel's death. He struggled with the fact that Sarel had ceased to exist. He was gone forever.

Eventually the party ran out of steam and the revellers staggered to their beds were they passed out into a drunken slumber.

The past was irreversible and irrevocable. You cannot change the past. The past is fixed forever, beyond the reach of any kind of intervention. What has happened, has happened, you cannot unmake what had happened. The past is fixed and closed. The future is open, nothing in the future is fixed; the future is the horizon of possibility and potential.

Nothing has been decided, nothing is final; each day a new world is born where everything is up for grabs again.

Time does not stand still. The past recedes further and further away with each passing day. In what way does the past exist? How could the past exist if it was inaccessible, if it could not be revisited? The past was closed; there was no passage back to the lived experience of the past. The past existed only as a memory which grows dimmer and dimmer with each passing day until no one was not sure whether any recollection of the past was truth or fiction.

Was the past real in any kind of way? What does this mean he wondered?

The _dominee_ of the _gemeente_ to which Joab had belonged in Potchefstroom once spoke about the meaning of time in one of his sermons. It was a sermon that had made a great impression on Joab. The _dominee_ said that most people take it for granted that they actually understand the meaning of time. But when they try to comprehend what kind of thing time actually is, when they try to explain the nature of time, its meaning becomes elusive. The _dominee_ said that God existed not in time but beyond time. The _dominee_ said that philosophers and scientists disagree about the nature of time. Some scientists and philosophers even argued quite compellingly that time did not exist.

Yet other scientists and philosophers have argued that time does exist, that the passage of time is real and not some kind of fiction or illusion. The passage of time makes the temporal structure of the world asymmetrical. The passage of time divides the temporal structure of the world into future, present and past. The past is different from the future. The past is closed, the future is open.

The _dominee_ said God existed beyond time. What does that mean? How did God relate to time, to the passage of time? The _dominee_ said that God created time.

The _dominee_ also spoke about the arrow of time. He said that time has direction. He said the directionality of the passage of time imposes an intrinsic temporal asymmetry on the Universe. He also said that the past was real. He said there are facts about what happened in the past that remain independent of the present and the future. He said the facts of the past could not be changed.

The _dominee_ said that the sense of time's passage was built into the very fabric of the language we use. The idea of the temporal succession of events seems to be too obvious to doubt. Who could doubt the existence of time? The very idea of the passage of time was entrenched in our grammar, especially in the way we use verbs.

Who could doubt the existence and reality of time? Who could show that time does not exist? What kind of evidence or proof would show that time does not exist, that time and its passage is mere illusion?

All verbs are tensed.

The wind blows. The rain falls. The Kavango River flows.

If there was no passage of time, could the wind blow, could the rain fall, could the Kavango River flow?

Everything moves, falls or flows, only because time passes away, only because of time's passage. I am the alpha and the omega, I am the beginning and the end, I am the creator of time. This is what the _dominee_ said about Jesus who was none other than the God of the Universe, the God of time, the alpha and the omega.

It was a profoundly moving sermon.

The leaves fall, they blow across the sand, they rustle, they move, they grow from buds, they die.

Time passes but the fundamental laws of physics don't change with time, they are time reversal invariant, they stay the same whether time flows forwards or backwards, the laws are immune with respect to the temporal asymmetrical structure of the Universe. They are changeless, immutable, because they spring from the essence of God himself who is immutable.

This is what the _dominee_ also said.

What else did the _dominee_ say?

The _dominee_ said that God was the God of Being and the God of Becoming. God was transcendent and God was immanent. God transcended time and God was immanent in the unfolding of time, in the unfolding of each moment, in the unfolding of the future.

What could the _dominee_ have meant by that?

He also said that Calvin did not believe that the laws of nature spring from the very essence of God's nature. He said this idea was foreign to the Reformed Faith. But the _dominee_ said that he believed that the fundamental laws of nature sprung from the very essence of God himself, from His very nature, and that is why we can know something real about God.This is why God was the God of Being, and the God of Becoming.

Joab also believed this after listening to the _dominee's_ sermon.

But human life was not immune to the temporal asymmetrical structure of the Universe or the arrow of time or the direction of time's passage.

In fact, without invoking the passage of time through the use of tensed verbs, very little can be said about the Kavango River.

The Kavango River also called the Okavango River or the Kubango River is the fourth largest river system in southern Africa. It is 1 600 km long. It drains the rain-fed waters from the central Angolan basin. Instead of flowing into the Atlantic or Indian Oceans it empties into the deep sands of the Kalahari Desert into an alluvial fan that has transformed the surrounding desert into the vast wetland of the Okavango Delta.

The laws of nature are timeless, they are immutable, but Sarel is gone, his time had come to an end, but the march of time goes on.

The wind blows. The rain falls. The Kavango River flows.

******

Military intelligence has predicted that SWAPO insurgents will infiltrate across the Kavango River. In all likelihood they will infiltrate across the Kavango River where it disappears into the dense riverine forest like a snake into its lair.

There was speculation that a huge contingent of PLAN combatants, trained insurgents had left southern Zambia. They were probably now moving south westwards across the sandy thorn tree savannahs of Angola.

Under the cover of heavy dark rain clouds the insurgents would have to somehow cross the swollen Kavango River. They would most likely choose to cross the river where it flowed through the dense riverine forest. They would infiltrate in small bands melting away in the light of day like morning dew. Absorbed into the welcoming hospitality of homesteads, kraals and villages they will vanish from sight. Surrounded by the sprawling patchwork quilt of subsistence crops they would be nowhere and everywhere at once. According to the wisdom of Chairman Mao the guerrilla moves amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.

Like fish in the sea, the SWAPO guerrilla swims freely in ocean of the Kavango and Owambo people. The Kavango and Owambo hate the Boers. Joab could feel the hatred.

Early that Monday morning they drove past the site where they had hit the landmine three days ago. The driver slowed down as they approached the spot. The burnt out Unimog was gone. Joab felt a pit in his stomach. They drove on. From the Unimog they occasionally caught a glimpse of the Kavango River. It was in flood as a result of the recent heavy rains that had fallen over the entire region, including Angola and Zambia.

Eventually they were dropped off at an isolated and remote spot far from all human habitation, the Unimogs stopped close to the dense riverine forest on the banks of the Kavango River.

Joab and the platoon quickly disappeared into the thick riverine vegetation. Under the command of Lieutenant Blignaut they struck out in a south easterly direction parallel to the river along a seldom used hidden game trail.

As they walked they searched the sandy ground for SWAPO spoor and for any signs of SWAPO. They had orders to set up ambushes as it was believed that there was a strong likelihood that SWAPO after crossing the river would use the game trials through the dense bush and forests to infiltrate in a westerly direction.

Their eyes and ears had grown used to the bush. Their bush craft had improved exponentially.

Initially after arriving at the border the average city-born white male conscript found everything strange and foreign at first. He moved awkwardly and obtrusively through a landscape comprised of a mosaic of subsistence cultivation and lush broad-leafed savannah parkland. In these surroundings, unlike the insurgents, he was like a fish out of water flapping around on dry land.

The need to be constantly alert, the need to be in a continual state of heightened awareness of their surroundings was exhausting, making them feel increasingly jaded.

But now they were glad to be in the forest, in the depths of the forest, away from the kraals, homesteads and scattered villages. They no longer had the motivation or the psychological strength or the emotional energy to engage a hostile and resentful local Kavango population in the kraals and villages for information about SWAPO.

After two days and two nights of setting up ambushes and patrolling, they finally reached the place where the Kavango River disappeared into a magnificent riverine forest of tall trees.

In the riverine forest under the closed canopy with their blackened faces and arms they began to find comfort and security in their invisibility as they melted into the shadows of the forest. They stalked silently through the perpetual gloom created by the closed leafy canopy of the forest. Their senses had become acute. At platoon strength stalking slowly in battle readiness through the forest, they increasingly felt that the element of surprise was in their favour.

The silence in the forest was deafening. Nothing stirred. Not a leaf rustled. Joab often thought he could hear his own heart beating. The days slowly became night. The nights were pitch dark, moonless and starless beneath the canopy. It seemed that dawn would never arrive. Slowly streams of light would filter through the canopy signalling the start of a new day.

No one lit a flame to warm a bit of bully beef mixed up with canned vegetables in a dixie. When the hunger pangs become unbearable Joab opened a can of sausages using his bone handle Bowie knife as a can opener. His senses had become as acute as a wild animal. The moment someone lit up a cigarette he could hear the distinctive sound of the match striking, he could even hear the match igniting into a burst of flame and them almost immediately he could smell the aroma of smouldering tobacco filling the forest. He was amazed at how fast the molecules released from the burning tobacco diffused through the motionless air of the forest understory. He would feel a rush of anger and scowled darkly at the individual.

They had been told countless times that a sneeze, a cough and a burning cigarette would give away an ambush.

He even scowled at Lieutenant Blignaut when he lit a cigarette.

Joab took every infringement that would make their presence known with a visible show of displeasure. They had all felt the whiplash of his withering glare. It bothered them that he had this effect on them. He was a queer, a _moffie_ , why did they feel uncomfortable when they lit a cigarette, whispered too loud, coughed, farted or sneezed when he was close by?

As a dressmaker and makeup artist he had an instinctive flair for detail, for the flow of natural lines, for spotting disjunctions, for spotting discontinuities, for spotting physical incongruities in shape, texture, contour, borders, colour and form.

Lieutenant Blignaut always selected him as the scout, as the tracker, it would always be Joab that had to take up the position as the tip of the arrow when they advanced in battle formation through the open savannahs or the closed understories of forests. When Sarel was still alive he always insisted that he be placed close to Joab.

Joab once overheard the Lieutenant joking about him having _moffie_ eyes which miss nothing, eyes like a woman. Apparently the eyes of women miss nothing. The Lieutenant added that with women everything was always out of place, nothing was ever in its right place and it was only them that noticed this, and this was why they were forever rearranging things, why they were never happy with their makeup, why they always had to change several times into different dresses before they felt right. The Lieutenant said that Joab was the same. The Lieutenant once said that Joab was a woman trapped in man's body. He made this observation with a philosophical shrug of his shoulders.

Maybe we should fuck him if he is a woman trapped inside a man's body was the immediate response to the Lieutenant's observation.

After eight days in the shadows of the forest having made no contact with SWAPO nor finding any evidence of SWAPO's presence on the many winding game trails that cut through the forest, they returned to Rundu for two days' rest.

Over the past ten days they all had time to reflect on Sarel's death. They all reflected on the possibility of their own death. The time spent in the riverine forest was time filled with the perpetual preoccupation and anxiety over imminent danger. Why would the SADF high command send only a platoon to engage a huge contingent of PLAN insurgents? This was the question that was foremost on everyone's mind.

The intense time in the forest had taken its toll leaving everyone feeling mentally exhausted and worn-out. It seemed that SWAPO had eluded them. It seemed that SWAPO was successfully dictating the terms of the bush war.

The platoon's moral had sunk to a low ebb. Back at Rundu Joab lay on his bed in the tent. As usual the flaps of the tent were rolled up. The Door's hit _Riders on the storm_ started to play on someone's transistor radio. He listened to the words of the lyric.

It felt as if they had become sleep walkers in the passage of an interregnum. Mentally and emotionally they started to disengage themselves from the army. They had _min dae_ left in the SADF and with the imminent prospect of _klaaring uit_ (discharge) drawing closer with each passing day they all began to become increasingly risk adverse.

They began to question the wisdom and rationality of all the decisions that were been made on their behalf by the higher echelons of the military command.

Why were they being forced to do constant patrols at this late stage of their army service? Why were they being sent out at platoon strength to make contact with an enemy that had numerical supremacy? When were they going to be relieved by the new arrivals?

Even Lieutenant Blignaut was showing signs of strain. He wore a constant worried frown on his face. He pondered a lot longer on critical decisions that needed to be made on the spur of the moment when they were on patrol. At times he seemed to be indecisive. They could see the tiredness in his face. He had even started to listen to what platoon members were recommending on what they should do. Sometimes they even decided by democratic vote on a plan of action.

With the wisdom of hindsight gained from countless patrols they had all began to realize that the counter-insurgency tactics and strategy that they had been following for the past months were not only a hazardous undertaking but was also completely ineffective, a waste of time, energy and resources. It was not only their realization, but also the realization of the higher echelons of SADF.

High command wanted contacts, fire fights, kills, body counts.

Their kill rate stood at zero.

After two days rest they were again back on patrol, this time patrolling along the boundaries of the floodplain of the Kavango River among the homesteads and small villages.

They had become increasingly negative and critical of the SADF and the value of conscription. Desperate and angry expletives such as ' _ek voel fokkol vir die weermag_ ' (I don't give a fuck for the army) were expressed more and more frequently and openly, even in front of Lieutenant Blignaut. Their morale had been sliding for some time. Everything they were doing seemed to be more and more pointless.

They began to murmur that it would be preferable to spend the time hunkered down in the dense bush on the pretext of staging ambushes.

Eventually Lieutenant Blignaut also convinced himself that this was actually a good plan of action.

They examined their field maps for the thickest bush. They started to avoid the villages and kraals, seeking out refuge in the corridors of dense lush broadleaf savannahs between all human settlements. Instinctively they began to avoid all foot paths, tracks and roads; they stuck to the cover of the bush, always walking carefully and noiselessly with Joab in the front. With arms and faces blacked with charcoal they became invisible and moved about like ghosts through the bush as they made their way back to the familiar riverine forests of their previous patrols. Following compass bearings they remained hidden in the dense bush at the margins of the riverine forest for the entire durations of their patrols. They began to spend most of their time, day and night, resting and sleeping in the forest, listening for SWAPO, or listening for elephant. The only danger seemed to be elephant. When they heard elephants in the vicinity they cautiously gave them a wide berth in order to avoid getting between calves and their mothers.

However, they kept on encountering the same herd of elephant. Because of the elephant it was becoming too dangerous to stay in the area.

They decided to leave the cover of dense riverine forest and move into the surrounding stretches of open savannah woodland. At dawn with the morning star still visible in the sky they hit out westwards on a direct compass bearing.

They walked at a good pace for several hours under a grey overcast sky until they came across a wide sandy _shona_. In spite of the recent rains the _shona_ had not yet become a knee deep water filled pan. Cutting across the _shona_ they stumbled upon the tell-tale signs of chevron boot spoors belonging to SWAPO guerrillas. The spoors had been left behind by more than a hundred SWAPO insurgents. The tracks were still fresh.

Joab and the other infantrymen knelt down and inspected the spoors. The chevron imprints were still sharp. The edges had not become blunted or eroded by wind or by time. They had been made in the last few hours.

Joab felt his heart thumping like a drum. His breathing rate increased and his mouth suddenly became dry. This was the real deal. The enemy was present and in large numbers. They quickly took cover within the surrounding bush. They all realized they could have inadvertently walked into the killing ground of an ambush. A cold shiver ran down Joab's back as he realized that this could have been his last day.

Never ever walk across an open _shona_ ; this was the rule which they had broken. There was a drill to be followed when crossing open ground devoid of any cover.

They sent a radio message to Rundu. They provided a description of their position and the command at Rundu was able to quickly work out the coordinates of the SWAPO spoor trail. Even though Joab and his fellow riflemen were only at platoon strength, they were ordered to follow the trail of spoors at the pace of a quick jog. They were ordered to try and make contact with insurgents or draw them into a fire fight. They were told that helicopter gunships would be dispatched immediately to their position. The helicopter pilots reckoned that if the spoor of the contingent had cut a wide trail through the bush they should be able to see the spoor trail from the helicopter.

They turned their bush hats inside out displaying the bright orange circle on the crown so that the helicopter machine gunner would not mistake them for SWAPO when flying overhead.

The platoon spread out in an arrow formation, cocked their rifles and began to follow the spoor at the pace of a jog. Joab who was known for his fitness, innate bush craft and bushman-like stamina was ordered again to take the lead at the tip of the thrusting spearhead of the battle formation. He ran ahead of the platoon, he ran in the middle of the wide path of spoor prints that cut a weaving visible band of trodden sand through the savannah. He noticed fresh steaming elephant dung on the trail, he saw the huge imprints of elephant spoor, but the elephant were nowhere to be seen, even though they had crossed this spot maybe minutes ago.

As he followed the spoor his pace steadily increased until he began running way ahead of the others in full stride. They could not keep up with him and the gap between the rest of the platoon and Joab increased. He found himself running alone with long comfortable graceful rhythmic strides through the breathlessly beautiful open savannah woodlands, woodlands that were filled with incredibly tall trees. It felt as if he could run non-stop until the ends of the earth.

The woodland was wrapped in silence. He felt emotionally numb. He felt no fear. He could be running to certain death. Separated from the others he could be running into the killing ground of an ambush. He did not care. His death would come fast if he was struck down by a fusillade of AK 47 rifle fire. The high velocity bullets would rip through his chest. He would not even know that he had died. If he died he would still be running through the woodland, but instead he would be running towards Sarel. Sarel would be standing ahead of him in the open woodland, waiting for him. The open savannah woodland filled with elephant would be paradise. They would be with God and even though he would still be running, his running would be like the poetry of timeless motion, the motion within eternity; it would be the effortless motion in the timeless realm of God.

The thought of his death coming about through the destruction of his body by bullets triggered thoughts about the theology of the body and the theological significance of the body for the living and the conscious person.

He guessed that a theology of the body had to begin with the Word becoming flesh. Also in a theology of the body, how we act towards God is mediated through what we do to the bodies of others:

And the King will answer them, ' _Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me_.'

Why was he, while in a state of complete emotional numbness, thinking such profound thoughts?

Why was he thinking about the theology of the body when he felt that he was running to certain death? As he ran he also began to feel the pain of grief and he began to wish for death. The grief made life unbearable.

Bracing himself in anticipation of being cut down by a hail of bullets, he whispered a prayer: ' _Let it be quick without pain_.'

He had become unaware of how long he had been running on the spoor trail with the rifle's safety catch off and his index finger curled lightly around the trigger.

But it felt like an eternity had already passed, when two Alouette SE316 helicopter gunships suddenly appeared ahead of him flying low just above the tree tops. The helicopter pilots must have caught sight of him and the rest of platoon running behind him. They had spotted the bright orange circle facing upwards on Joabs bush hat and they recognized that the lone runner was one of their own, an SADF soldier in pursuit of SWAPO.

They could see the stark, wide and clear band of the spoor trail from the helicopters.

It seemed that they could also see with the eyes of God the entire of stage for the drama that was going to unfold in full view beneath them.

The helicopters circled once and then disappeared in the direction of the spoor.

Less than two minutes later he heard the sounds of heavy Browning machine gun fire. The gunships had made contact with SWAPO who were now only a few hundred metres ahead of him. The two helicopter gunships began to mercilessly cut the insurgents down with withering and blazing fire from the large calibre machineguns mounted in the helicopters.

He realized that he had almost caught up with insurgents and would have certainty have been killed in a fire fight. Breathing now heavily and soaked in sweat, he stopped and waited for the rest of the platoon to catch up. He opened his water bottle, lifting the bottle up to his mouth he gulped down a torrent of warm water, the water gushed and splashed over his face. He wiped the water from his eyes which were now stinging with the saltiness of sweat. He splashed more water over his closed eyes to get relief from the stinging sweat. He took of his bush hat and emptied the remainder of the water over his head.

They spread out into an extended arc so that could act as an ambush stopper group and kill any escapees who would be running towards them away from the circling helicopters. Eventually they received the order to move forward again in a pincer movement like the horns of a charging bull. They run abreast of each other in an extended line. They run through the woodland in this battle formation towards the site of the killing ground.

As they ran they suddenly caught sight of darting figures of men sprinting like mad towards them through the woodland to escape from the helicopters. The sight of fleeing SWAPO individuals came as a shock to all of them. Immediately he heard loud urgent shouting all around: 'SWAPO, SWAPO, SWAPO!'

He felt a rush of adrenaline. He stood frozen on the spot, his rifle pointing to the ground. All around he watched as the troopies of his platoon began to raise their rifles to take aim at the running and darting figures. A split second later all hell broke loose around him as the air reverberated with the deafening explosive noise of continuous automatic rifle fire. Thick clouds of whitish grey smoke enveloped them like a fog as the platoon emptied their magazines on the fleeing shadows. The firing seemed to continue for an interminable period of time. It went on like a wild frenzy. Everyone remained standing.

A surreal sense of unreality filled the open woodland. Joab took in the scene unfolding around him in a state of wide-eyed numbness. In the heat of battle, in almost every instance, several troopies had selected the same moving target and all simultaneously opened fire on that specific individual. He watched as fleeing figures, one after the next, tumbled, somersaulted, flopped and crumbled into lifeless heaps like rag dolls as fusillades of R1 rifle fire tore their bodies to ribbons.

To escape the two hovering gunships many of the fleeing SWAPO soldiers had made a fatal mistake, instead of instantly bomb-shelling into every direction of the compass, they had turned on their heels and in a state of unthinking panic they started running back along their own trail unwittingly towards the extended line of the SADF patrol that had been on their trail, and which was busy closing in on them like the horns of a charging bull. It was apparent that they were not aware that they had been followed from behind.

Joab watched in astonishment as many of SWAPO insurgents began throwing away their weapons and magazines, and then frantically stripping off their webbing and dumping their heavy kit to lighten their load in their haste to escape from the second death trap that they now found themselves in.

The firing died down. There were no more living targets in plain sight. Everyone in the platoon took cover, eyes searching the bush, fingers ready on triggers for any sign of movement.

The platoon radio started crackling, fresh orders came through; they were instructed to sweep through the area where the helicopters were still hovering and kill any other insurgent they came across.

With the drone of the two helicopters flying in wide circles overhead they eventually completed their sweep of the area and reached the zone of the first contact.

Numerous bodies of dead and wounded SWAPO insurgents were strewn over a wide area. They were ordered to execute all the wounded SWAPO combatants.

Joab stood by and watched as his fellow infantrymen moved among the fallen SWAPO combatants. Every now and then a R1 rifle shot rang out as a wounded SWAPO guerrilla was dispatched with a shot to the head at close range.

The troops began to loot the bodies for souvenirs. They went through the pockets, webbing and rucksacks searching for stuff, taking money and personal belongings. More audacious individuals began to quickly and secretly dismantle AK47 rifles. They hide the rifle component parts in their webbing pouches and ruck sacks. Others collected bayonets and items of SWAPO uniform including boots and water bottles. SWAPO caps were a treasured trophy. Joab took a full water bottle from a dead SWAPO soldier as his water bottle was empty. Others began to quench their thirst by drinking water from SWAPO water bottles. They began to open the tins of sardines and tuna that they had looted from the SWAPO rucksacks. As gifts from Denmark and Norway the tinned fish that SWAPO were carrying as their food rations was far superior to the bland SADF rations.

Someone called out that a fallen SWAPO combatant had a Bible, a hymn book and prayer book in his rucksack. Out of curiosity Joab walked over to look at the Bible and prayer book. It was an English Bible and the prayer book was a Lutheran prayer book. No one wanted the Bible or hymnal or prayer book so Joab took them and hide them in his rucksack.

He gazed at the lifeless face of the SWAPO soldier with his horrific chest wounds. The young man who could not have been older than 20 years had made the ultimate sacrifice for the liberation of his country. He had fallen in the liberation war, in the freedom struggle. Before that he had endured physical hardship, thirst, cold, heat, hunger and constant danger as a soldier. He was a son, a brother and maybe a husband. His family would never know the circumstances of his death or his ultimate fate. He would be buried in an unmarked mass grave with all the other bodies after they had been processed by military intelligence. As a person he had disappeared forever.

Two Puma helicopters landed in an open dry _shona_ nearby. Senior SADF officers disembarked from the Puma helicopters and started walking about to inspect the aftermath of the battle scene. Joab could hear them speculating about the way SWAPO had conducted its military operation. After quickly sizing up the situation, they were surprised and puzzled that it had been possible to intercept and eliminate most of the large contingent of SWAPO guerrillas.

The platoon was ordered to drag and carry all the dead bodies to the Puma helicopters. They were then ordered to search the entire area and collect all SWAPO kit, ammunition and weapons.

After a preliminary processing of the bodies that had been dragged to the waiting Puma helicopter it was soon established that among the SWAPO dead there were several senior officers and some veterans. It appeared that most of the contingent been made up of new and inexperienced recruits who were on their first insurgency mission.

There were too many dead bodies; only a small fraction could be taken back in the two Puma helicopters. After some delay following the exchange of communications with senior military command at Rundu and Grootfontein the orders to bury the dead finally came through.

To their extreme annoyance the platoon was ordered to start digging a mass grave with their foldup shovels in the sandy soil and bury the dead that had been left behind. As the helicopters took off dark rolling banks of clouds quickly closed in from all sides, lightening flashed overhead and in the driving rain they began to dig a mass grave in the form of a long, wide and deep trench.

In soaking wet clothes and literally shivering with delayed shock from the aftermath of the battle they laboured in the fading light as night fall rapidly approached.

In the gathering gloom they dragged the bodies to the trench and under the watchful eyes of the Lieutenant they packed the bodies in neat rows along the bottom of the trench. And then they had to pack another tier of bodies on top of the bottom layer.

In the dark they began to shovel the heap of sand over the bodies. Completely demoralized they swore and cursed their miserable lives in the SADF as they buried the broken bodies of the SWAPO combatants.

FOK, FOK, FOK, FOK!

The surrounding open savannah woodlands become visible in a brilliant vividness as they were transformed momentarily from dark shadows into a shining silvery incandescence of twisted trunks, branches and foliage by a rapid almost continuous series of massive thunder bolts of lightning that shuttered the inky black skies.

In a state of numbness and lucid indifference, Joab suddenly grasped that the problem of human suffering which in essence represented the problem of good and evil was an insoluble paradox.

Finally, after compressing the surface sand covering the mass grave by stamping down with their boots, the platoon prepared to take their leave of the dead and retreat into the darkness of night.

But just as they were about to leave one of boys from Durban asked the Lieutenant whether they were going to offer a prayer for the dead. The Lieutenant, not realizing it was a joke answered:

"Ja OK." He answered.

The solemnity of his demeanour and the seriousness of his voice surprised everyone. Everyone complied with his instruction to remove their sodden bush hats from their heads. He instructed them to bow their heads and then he quickly mumbled the " _Onse Vader_....."

Three of the boys from Durban made the Catholic sign of the cross when the prayer ended.

They walked along the compass bearing that followed the direction of the original SWAPO trail back to the dense thickness of the closed canopy of the Kavango riverine forest that lay waiting for them almost 20 kilometres away.

Wet, cold, and hungry they trudged into the night walking in the rain in single file, each man lost in his own thoughts.

In an illuminating flash of lightning Joab, for a brief second, saw a small herd of elephant barely 50 metres away standing closely together in huddle. No one else saw the elephant.

In another flash of lighting Joab thought he saw the distinctive figure of a solitary SWAPO combatant standing in the middle of a _shona_ knee deep in water.

Was it a ghost or was it his imagination?

CHAPTER 6

When they eventually got back to Rundu, they received their mail. His heart turned cold when the letter from his mother announced the news that his grandmother had passed away. She had died barely three weeks ago, shortly after Sarel had died.

With six days left before _klaaring uit_ they boarded the troop train at Grootfontein Station and the train packed with troops who had completed their national service on the border slowly retraced the same circuitous four day journey back to Potchefstroom.

Joab found a place in a coach with windows that faced the same side as the coach that he had shared with Sarel on the pervious journey. Isolated from the rest of the company and alone in his compartment he stared vacantly in silence for hours on end at the passing desolate arid landscape. Now and then he recognized some feature that he had seen before with Sarel. The vistas that they once viewed together he now gazed upon them once more but this time alone without Sarel.

He remembered Boerneef's poem. They had both studied the poem at school. As a school boy he had read with interest the analysis and interpretation of this poem and others in A P Grové's _Woord en Wonder._

_Die witheid en die leegheid, die eentonige herhaling van die witheid en die leegheid. 'n Lam blêr, 'n lam vrek._ This is what Grové wrote about Boerneef's poem; this is what Joab felt deep in his soul.

The memories of their previous journey caused him to feel an aching sadness. He took in the unbearable forlornness at each remote far flung railway siding, isolated and cut off by wide bleak empty spaces from the rest of the world. At night he wept in anguish until he fell asleep.

Vivid images of dead SWAPO combatants lived an afterlife in his mind. He thought about the callous and cavalier behaviour of the SADF troops with respect to the fallen SWAPO combatants. No one thought it was wrong to execute the wounded. No one had questioned the order to execute the wounded. They dispatched the wounded without hesitation and they felt no remorse for their deed. It was a war without rules. The modern conventions of war had been ignored or had been broken with impunity. Counter-insurgency was a dirty and obscene business; it was a war waged against the dreams and hopes of the weak and vulnerable.

They were bound by an oath of silence that had been imposed by the state. They had been warned about the severe prison sentences that would be imposed on anyone who revealed or disclosed the state secrets of the military.They had all signed the non-disclosure agreements. What they had witnessed and what they had done would go to grave with them.

Bound by an oath of silence, the world would never know what they had seen, heard, felt and done.

He had been unable to find closure with respect to Sarel's death. He had been denied the opportunity by circumstances beyond his control to go through the natural emotional processes and rituals that are usually necessary for the proper moaning of the loss of a loved one. There had been no occasion to say farewell. They had been wrenched apart, separated by the finality of sudden death, never to see one another again.

Something beautiful had been lost forever. He had witnessed the extreme violence of man's inhumanity to his fellow human beings. He began to wonder what kind of God people really believed in. They obviously believed in a very convenient god, an idol that they had manufactured to suit their purposes, to suit their aims, to suit their goals. They had created an idol, a kind of god that would justify their every wish, their every desire, and their every ambition. They manufactured a god who would serve their interests. He wondered about the kind of Christianity that allowed people to become cold, indifferent and numb to the violent acts of inhumanity.

There seemed to be a yawning chasm separating the highly polished wooden pews of the _Dopper Kerk_ and the stark tragic reality of the human catastrophe unfolding in the townships and in the savannahs of Southern Africa. Where was the Good News?

People had a natural tendency to invent the kind of god they would like to believe in. People created their own fictions, their own myths, their own make-belief worlds, over which their benign deity reigned supreme, as the slave god, the magic genie who justifies their beliefs and makes their wishes come true, especially their beliefs and wishes regarding their socially constructed perceptions of reality. But if reality is perception, then perceptions must be self-correcting, especially if reality exists independent of perception and reacts against perception.

But where was the self-correcting, where were the institutions and processes which made it possible for self-correction to take place?

Surely there must be constraints acting on perception, surely perception cannot be mere wish fulfilment? Surely people cannot see only what they wanted to see and believe only what they wanted to believe? Wasn't Western Civilization based on the self-correction of perceptions, wasn't this the condition that made the business of science and philosophy possible in the West? Wasn't the history of Western Civilization the history of self-correction, of enlightenment, of freedom and liberty?

These were the questions that Joab found himself pondering.

Outside of science the self-correction of ideas or perceptions seemed to be impossible.

But inspite of the progress of science it was still possible to slip into a life filled with lies. Living a life that had become smothered with lies and falsehood was made possible by becoming conditioned into a state of chronic emotional and mental numbness, a numbness which dulled the mind, a numbness which dulled all moral sensibilities, a numbness of indifference, a numbness that was terminal, a numbness that transformed one into a zombie.

He had witnessed this on the border. He had seen it in the spiritual dullness and numbness of an NGK army chaplain on the border who preached without conviction, without faith, without belief, without emotion, without any intellectual sparkle, and finally without hope.

There was no Good News in his preaching.

What is the Good News?

On the border there was no Good News, on the border the Good News had lost all content, all meaning, all significance.

After the service at Rundu they had to remain seated in their uncomfortable plastic chairs and listen to a 'guest speaker', an SADF officer who was engaged in the business of _burgersaker_ (civilian affairs). He was involved in the SADF's social and political proganda outreach campaign to win the hearts and minds of the local population.

It was his job to proclaim the 'Good News' to the local population.

He spoke about the Cold War. Again they were reminded that the reason they were on the border fighting SWAPO was because of the Cold War.

They had to listen to another sermon about the Cold War. This was supposed to be their day off, and now they had to listen to the same stale stuff, again they had to hear about the communist threat and the Cold War.

The same familiar drivel flowed from the officer's lips as they nodded off to sleep, chins resting on their chests. The mid morning heat was already becoming unbearable.

It was going to be another stifling hot Sunday.

SWAPO were the brain-washed stooges of the Russian communists. They were being used as proxies in a communist-instigated war, which was ultimately a war against freedom.

They were nothing but stupid puppets.

The communists were fighting for the destruction of Western Civilization.

They, as soldiers in the SADF, were fighting against the international communist onslaught.

They were defending the sacrosanct values of Western Civilization, democracy and freedom.

They were defending religious freedom, the right to believe, the right to practice one's faith.

The whole of South Africa were proud of their boys on the border. The boys were doing a sterling job to protect the South African way of life.

Afterwards when they were finally dismissed, someone summed up everyones sentiments by uttering:

' _Ek voel vokkol_!'

(I don't give a fuck!)

This was how everyone felt; the extreme had become the normal. No one gave a fuck for saving Western Civilization. They just wanted to go home, they have had enough.

Where the fuck was Western Civilization in Africa anyway? None of them knew much about Western Civilization. None of them had ever been overseas. Overseas was somewhere too remote to contemplate, too far away to comprehend. Western Civilization was something foreign. Western Civilization was overseas, faraway. Western Civilization did not exist anywhere in Africa.

Overseas was where their rock music came from, that was all they knew about Western Civilization.

Give us the rock music, and keep all the other shit, human rights, liberty, enlightenment, democracy, justice and whatever else the West holds precious.

They hated communism, but deep down they didn't really give a fuck about anything except screwing and drinking, and generally having a good time. This was all that mattered.

Just give us rock music, we don't need anything else. As long as we can screw our brains out we don't need anything else.

Everyone hated communism, but they hated the blacks more. The blacks were unable to know what was good for them, they had no idea what was in their best interests, and it was because of this that they had become the unwitting puppets of the communists who were exploiting their ignorance, misleading them with all kinds of promises of utopia on earth. Blacks were too ignorant to know any better.

The South African white youth had been brought up and socialized to hate, fear and loath communism; their socialization had also dehumanized their perception of blacks. So apart from hating communism and not giving a shit for blacks, they also did not really give a fuck about anything.

The boys in the bush war did not seem to have any deep convictions about anything. In spite of their licentiousness when it came to drinking and sexual morality, they were generally narrow-minded and parochial in their thinking. This made them ideal voting fodder for the Nationalist Party.

Joab felt estranged from the average white South African Afrikaans speaking heterosexual male. He felt a strong antipathy to their parochial views, their insensitivity, their inflexibility, their chauvism, their aggressiveness, their bullying manner, their superficial religiosity, but above all their closed mindedness.

He was also caught up in conflicting emotions about the feelings of brotherhood that he shared with the members of his platoon. Until the army he had never been a member of any kind of team or a team player for that matter. Team work was indispensable in a war situation, and being part of a team for almost a full year had exposed him to the intimate workings of the male psyche and it had also made him self-consciously aware of his own deeply feminine and unmasculine sensitivities. He had also learnt what it takes to be a straight male. He had learnt how to act like a 'normal' male or how to play the role of a full hot blooded heterosexual male. He had learnt how the heterosexual male mind works. He had learnt about their vulnerabilities, their fears and their sexuality.

Back at the Potchefstroom military base they handed back their rifles, they made the mandatory declaration that they had no ammunition or any military ordinance of any kind in their possession, and then after a brief token speech by the Commandant at the _uit klaar_ parade the troops were dismissed without further ado.

Joab, carrying his _balsak_ filled with his kit, made his way to the designated reception area next to the car park. His mother and grandfather were waiting for him next to their car, a brand new Mercedes Benz. They were both shocked when they saw the physical and emotional state that Joab was in. He looked weak and frail, his face was gaunt and drawn, there were dark shadows under his eyes and his eyes where filled with angst and pain. Mr Badenhorst became extremely distraught which she saw her son. She fought back her tears and tried to put on a brave face and smiled. His grandfather solemnly held out his hand. Joab grasped his hand tightly and shook it. He kissed his grandfather on the lips. Unable to contain herself she began to cry when he hugged her tightly.

Later at home, when asked what his plans were for the future, he expressed an interest in studying theology and philosophy. Mrs Badenhorst had made peace with the fact that Joab was not an ideal or suitable candidate for the ministry, so she was taken by complete surprise when he said that he was interested in studying theology and philosophy.

She was clearly dismayed with his choice of subjects. She asked him to think very carefully about his future and his career plans. A BA degree majoring in philosophy and theology would not provide him with any meaningful kind of qualifications for a suitable job one day. He should rather seriously consider studying law or commerce or architecture.

No, he was not interested in becoming a lawyer or an accountant. He insisted that dressmaking and fashion was going to be his eventual profession.

" _Dan moet jy mode-ontwerp swot by die Teknikon_ ," she said.

(Then you must study fashion design at the Technikon)

He said that he was not interested in acquiring any other kind of professional qualifications since he already had acquired all the skills and knowledge that he needed in order to be a qualified dressmaker and fashion designer. He had become more than adequately self-qualified as a fashion designer and dressmaker; he had already acquired all the professional qualifications and skills necessary for becoming a successful fashion designer and dressmaker. The ability to design and make dresses had been given to him as gift, as a natural endowment, as a talent.

He was a born dressmaker, if there ever was one.

The market had endorsed his accreditation as a dressmaker. His satisfied clients were his certification of competency as a fashion designer and dressmaker.

He didn't need to study what he had already been doing very well for most of his life. How can one study something that one was doing naturally? He was a born dress maker and fashion designer.

Anyway, he did not want to study towards a professional career. He wanted to study something that would have value for other reasons which were not monetary related.

He expressed a keen interest in pursuing the ultimate intellectual adventure which a university could offer a student and that was the quest for the ultimate meaning of the Universe and Life, and that this quest was a philosophico-theological one.

His mother listened with a look of desperation on her face to what Joab wanted to do, especially given the fact that he earned six distinction in his Matric exams.

Seeing her displeasure he tried to explain that for the time being, until he embarked on his real career as a dressmaker, he wanted to first study something that had no practical value other than 'the higher pursuit of the life of the mind'.

Once he knew what made the Universe a meaningful place he would be able to find peace and fulfilment in fashion design and dressmaking.

" _En sê vir my, wie gaan betaal vir hierdie_ 'higher pursuit of the life of the mind'?" She exclaimed in exasperation.

(And tell me, who is going to pay for this 'higher pursuit of the life of the mind'?)

After Mrs Badenhorst had calmed down, she acquiesced to his decision to study for a BA in philosophy and theology.

After she went to bed later that night, while sitting in the lounge with his grandfather, his grandfather suggested that if he really wanted to study philosophy he should rather study at University of the Witwatersrand or the University of Cape Town because Afrikaans Universities do not teach real philosophy. His philosophical quest would otherwise be futile if did not study the great philosophical thinkers that had shaped the Western Mind, that is , philosophers that included Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkley, Hume, Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche. His quest would also be vain if did not study the great modern philosophical thinkers of the twentieth century.

His grandfather was a modernist in spirit.

After a life-time of reading whatever he could lay his hands on, his grandfather, the compulsive autodidact, had made it his business and joy to know something about the great philosophers that had shaped Western Thought.

The names of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkley, Hume, Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche rang in his head.

" _As ek my lewe kon weer oor hê, sou dit ook my wens wees om filosofie te studeer_ ," his grandfather said.

(If I could have my life over it would also be my wish to study philosophy)

" _Wie is die groot filosowe van die twintigste eeu_?" Joab asked.

(Who are the important philosophers of the twentieth century?)

"Frege, Moore, Russell, Austin _en_ Wittgenstein," his grandfather replied without hesitation.

" _Ek het iets vir jou_ ," he said as he got up and went to his bedroom.

(I have got something for you)

He returned to the lounge with a slim volume and gave it to Joab. It was Bertrand Russell's _Problems in Philosophy_.

" _Ons is almal baie trots op jou. Jy is die eerste van ons familie wat op Universiteit gaan studeer_ ," his grandfather mused while looking fondly at Joab.

(We are all very proud of you. You will be the very first one in our family who will be going to university to study.)

" Danksy jou ma het ons as familie 'n a ver pad gekom," he said.

(Thanks to your mother we have come a long way as family)

" _Nie te lank gelede nie, het ons deur baie moeilike tye gegaan. Dit was ongelooflik moeilik vir die Afrikaner. In onlangse nuus was daar stories oor die slegte behandeling van swart wasser-vroue, maar ek kan jou vertel dat jou ouma se ma en my ma ook wasser-vroue was in Johannesburg gedurende die goud-stormloop. Nie net swartes was wasser-vroue nie, armblankes het saam met hulle gewerk om die myners se klere te was. So het hul saam-saam die klere gewas in die stroompies suid van Johannesburg. Ons het almal in haglik omstandighede saam met die swartes geleef. Swart families was ons bure. Voor die goud-stormloop het my ouers as bywoners op plase gewoon, hulle het nie die land besit nie, hulle was bywoners wat die boer gehelp het met die boerdery en as betaling kon hul verniet daar bly. Ewige armoede is al wat ons geken het, dit was ons lewe. Selfs nou dat ek oud is, is hierdie herrinneringe nog vars in my geheue._ "

(Not too long ago we went through very difficult times. Things were unbelievably difficult for the Afrikaner. In recent news there have been stories about the bad treatment of black washer-women, but I can tell you that your ouma's mother and my mother were also washer-women in Johannesburg during the Gold Rush. It was not only blacks who were washer-women, poor whites worked alongside blacks washing the clothing of miners. They, the many poor Boer women worked together with black washer-women washing the clothing of miners in the streams in the south of Johannesburg. We all lived under appalling conditions in shanty towns next to blacks. Black families were our neighbours. Before the gold rush my parents lived as sharecroppers, they did not own land, they were tenant farmers. Perpetual poverty was all we knew, it was our life, as much as it was the life of blacks. Even in my old age these memories remain fresh in my mind.)

CHAPTER 7

Joab was in the final year of his BA. The three years had gone by like a flash. Yet it felt like a liketime had gone by since he had completed his national military service. But hardly a week went by without Joab thinking about Sarel. The healing powers of time helped him to recover from the deep sadness and melancholy over Sarel's death that had clung to him like a dark shadow.

He still suffered periodic relapses, when he sunk into a state of dark depression. During his depressions he experienced bouts of heavy heartache and almost unbearable pangs of sadness. The onset of dark depressions also coincided with his obligatory three week citizen force military camp call ups which usually took place during the December or July student vacations.

He had already completed two of his citizen force military camps. Both army camp call ups had been acutely painful and lonely experiences. For the duration of the camps he found himself dogged by feelings of lingering forlornness. Anything to do with his military obligations always triggered without fail vivid recollections of Sarel and stirred up a flood of mixed emotions. Ironically, their relationship had been deeply entangled and inextricably intertwined with everything that had to do with the army.

It seemed that there was no escaping the military. At every turn of his life the unbearable burden of military obligations dogged his existence.

The military, its ethos, its milieu, its atmosphere, its sounds, sights and smells re-opened the wounds of pain and loss. Yet the way things were, it was impossible to escape the military. In addition to the annual citizen force three week army camps there were the monthly regimental parades on a Saturday afternoon.

Ironically the monthly regimental parades and the camps had also renewed and strengthened the bonds that Joab had developed with many of the old boys from 3 SAI, bonds of soldierly comradeship which had been originally forged in the fire of shared experiences on the border. He was respected as one of the old boys who belonged to platoon 2 of 1971. He had survived a landmine blast; he had been in a contact with SWAPO.

He had even received invitations to the platoon 2 reunions where the men relived their Kavangoland experiences while braaing meat and drinking beer into the early hours of the morning at some bushveld venue or hunting lodge. He went to every single reunion.

Outside of their small circle no one would be able to fully understand or appreciate what they had been through and what they had experienced on the border.

Deep into the bushveld night while gazing into the glowing embers and nursing a bottle of beer Joab listened to all the reminiscing, the recollections, the memories and the constant retelling of the narrative of their shared experiences on the border. It was incongruous that he had now become a member of this charmed circle of masculinity.

As one of the old boys he received news from time to time about individuals from his old platoon. Usually the news of his old comrades in arms was not good. Recently he was informed at a regimental parade that one had been shot dead by the police while engaged in an armed robbery of a bank in Port Elizabeth, two were currently serving lengthy prison sentences for murder and rape, and a fourth had inadvertently killed himself while playing Russian roulette in some dingy pub in Johannesburg.

In spite of the regular disruptive intrusion of the military into his life he managed to find a measure of solace and peace by burying himself whole-heartedly and passionately into his studies so much so that this mother become quite disturbed by the fact that he had no social life or social contact with his peers outside the life of the university or outside the Sunday morning church services.

He never brought a friend home and he had never spent a single free afternoon or evening or weekend or holiday socializing with friends. Mrs Badenhorst was concerned that he never socialized with friends. The only exceptions were his reunions with the members of platoon 2, apart from this, he did not participate in any other kind of meaningful socialization with his university peers or old school aquaintances.

He had become withdrawn, almost living like a recluse. He had lost weight and had become painfully thin. At home he lived in faded denim jeans and loose hanging old T-shirts.

At home with his subtly made up face and short cropped hair because of the military parades he could have easily been mistaken for an attractive, but incredibly moody and sulky teenage girl.

His mother felt that he needed to have a more meaningful kind of social life other than that offered by the short weekly Sunday service at church or the superficial contacts he had with class mates at the university during the day. This prompted her to buy him a state of the art sewing machine. She wanted her old Joab back with all his peculiar ways and ideas. She felt that if she encouraged him to start designing and making boutique quality garments for wealthy clients in his spare time he would also stop being such a loner.

So she worked at putting all the right steps in place towards his rehabilitation and the restoration of his old self. Encouraged by his mother he was soon using all his spare time to design and make dressers both for himself and for his growing clientele among the Potchefstroom local glitterati. And so his social circle which consisted entirely of older women, mothers and their daughters, soon expanded dramatically. His weekends became filled with fittings and measurements. He was invited to all kinds of social engagements involving the well-to-do affluent Potchefstroom Boer community. He made enough money to buy himself a second hand Volkswagen beetle and was also able to save. He seemed to look a lot happier to his mother.

He gradually became less withdrawn and solitary and started to go out to movies in Kerksdorp and Carletonville where he could enjoy the anonymity of a stranger. She refrained from saying anything when wearing a wig with his face made up and dressed in a short sexy chic garment he left in his stilettos on his regular Saturday night jaunt to the movies. She always stayed up until he returned. She was constantly worried that something would happen to him, someone might mistake for an attractive young woman and attempt to rape him.

She had given up arguing with him that he was looking for trouble by dressing up so erotically when going out alone. She felt that he was inviting trouble. She told him that he was sending out the wrong message. Men would think that he was a cheap slut. They would think that he was loose woman who was available.

With veiled glances he gazed at the male talent in the foyer of the cinemas looking for the tell-tale signs of someone who was queer in the same way that he was queer. He knew from experience that a straight male could be easily fooled into believing that he was a woman and would not notice that he was actually a sweet little transvestite who knew just how to make a man very happy.

He found some straight men attractive and become pleasantly aroused while looking at them. Sometime they caught him in the act of staring and smiled back at him. He gave them what he called the 'Mona Lisa smile'. On occasions he also found himself attracted to some women and often wondered what it could be like to be physically intimate with a female.

Midway through the final year of his BA he befriended Rudolf Venter who had been an old high school acquaintance. Rudi was the name he answered to. He became Joab's intellectual sparring partner and university side-kick. They did not socialize off-campus with each other. During their free periods or at lunch time they would regularly get together, spending some time talking or debating some topic of interest in politics, philosophy or theology.

It took Joab two years to find his way through the labyrinth of H. Dooyeweerd's formidable _De Wijsbegeerte Der Wetsidee_. His attitude to Dooyeweerd's monumental tome turned out to be ambivalent. Dooyeweerd's philosophy introduced him to some ideas about the nature of transcendental arguments. A transcendental argument is a species of argument which is based on the view that a certain kind of transcendental reality has to necessarily exist in order for the acquisition of knowledge to be possible. The essential nature of this transcendental reality would become transparently manifest and therefore recognizable to any rational individual.

In his first exposure to philosophy Joab learnt about the fundamental roles that transcendental arguments play. He learnt that transcendental arguments are often used to counter skepticism.

He took a liking to transcendental arguments; he enjoyed the challenge of defending them. They were important to the kind of theological theories he found himself exploring.

His also developed and defended a theological view that Calvin's theory of theism was consistent with the idea that the Universe was absurd, which put Calvin in the same company as Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre.

Of course his theology professors objected strongly to Joab's theological thesis.

From a generic perspective all transcendental arguments share some common general features. All transcendental arguments make some kind of general claim, usually claims about conditions of possibility.

Claims of conditions of possibility suited Joab. He liked the idea encapsulated in the phrase 'conditions of possibility.' A condition of possibility consists of the existence of circumstances that make things possible. That is the right circumstances, circumstances which are pregnant in their possession of the kinds of forces, powers, and capacities that bring to a pass an eventuality, a transformation of the virtual into reality. Conditions of possibility happened to be a perfect transvestite thesis.

A gifted and creative transvestite had an acute sense of the transcendental conditions of possibility regarding gender identity transformation. He could be a woman given the existence of the transcendental conditions of possibility for feminization. Being feminine was not reducible to the biological nature of the physical body. Becoming feminine was a transcendental feat.

Claims about conditions of possibly in transcendental arguments share the same common formula. For example, X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y. If Y happens to be the case, then it should logically follow that X must also be the case. The formula usually embodies an assumption. The Y, which is something that happens to be the case, is often taken to be a fact; a fact which even a hardened skeptic should accept as unproblematic. The Y could be facts about our mental states, about our cognitive capacities, about our perceptions and so on. The corresponding X, which represents the condition which makes Y possible, would be something that the skeptic could doubt. In philosophy X is often taken to be the existence of the external world, the existence of other minds, the existence of causality in nature, the existence of patterns and regularities in nature.

Transcendental arguments for Joab usually began with the recognition that without the existence of certain necessary conditions we would be unable to make any meaningful sense of our subjective experiences of the external world in which we are embedded, and we also would not be able to make any meaningful sense of our own nature and lives. It would be impossible to ascertain who we are or what we are or whether we actually exist or whether we were just dreaming.

For Joab, conditions of possibility were also those conditions which needed to exist necessarily in order for various kinds of cognitive processes to be possible or for certain of ways of thinking about things to be possible. Science also represents a certain way or kind of thinking about things. Science as an institutionalized activity also produces intellectual products, that is, intellectual creations in the form of special kinds of narratives about the nature of things in the Universe. Science as an institution has always endeavoured through a self-correcting process to produce believable narratives about the nature of Universe, that is, narratives which have a compelling degree of certitude. Unlike literary fiction, the narratives of science are not simply the inventions of the untrammelled, free and independent creative imagination of authors who happen to be scientists. The scientific narrative about the nature of something is the end product of an exceedingly complicated process involving the subtle interplay of controlled investigation and the free creative imagination.

The creation of the scientific narrative is a profound feat of the imagination. It is a profound feat of the human cognitive and mental processes that make thinking and imagination possible.

The scientific narrative is born in a process of mental travail, in a process of intellectual toil and labour. Unlike any other kind of narrative the scientific narrative is subject to continuous critical scrutiny by an independent public peer review system.

The life of the scientific narrative is lived under the constant glare of the spot light of judgement.

Science is the only self-correcting institution that has been invented by man.

For these reasons Joab always had a great respect for science and it seemed that the existence of patterns or regularities in nature were the transcendental conditions which made science possible.

The existence of patterns and regularities in nature was also something that was profoundly significant for theology and philosophy.

Joab felt that theologians had failed to adequately grasp the theological implications that the scientific narrative has for the 'theory of God'and the 'nature of revelation'.

Every theology is based on a theory of God, a theory of the nature of revelation, a theory of the nature of reality, and a theory of man's relation with the Universe.

Theology cannot ignore the transcendental conditions that make revelation possible and intelligible. It often uncritically assumes too much in this regard.

History is the medium of God's revelation. God speaks through the events of history. Joab who was critical of a fundamentalist understanding of Bible believed that revelation was a situation specific occurrence. Scripture becomes the 'incarnate' Word of God only in a situation specific manner.

Joab was going against the tide when he defended the relevance of natural theology, science and philosophy with regard to developing a theory of God, a theory of revelation and a theology of man's relationship to reality and the Universe.

Everybody had a theory of God.

Even the Bible articulates multiple theories of God.

It was also Joab contention that Calvin was committed to his own personal theory of God, a theory which was based on philosophical and metaphysical premises which logically led to all kinds of absurd conseqeunces.

Scientists recognized the existence of patterns and regularities in nature.

The success of science in the opinion of many scientists was based on the credibility or the certitude of the idea that the patterns and regularities in nature were real, that they also existed independently of the mind as part and parcel of the external world, and that they were not simply creations of the mind.

Science as an enterpise had compelling reasons to believe in their reality, their actual existence in the external world seemed to be indubitable.

If the patterns and regularities were not out there, then we would not see them.

If science had a foundational belief, then this was its belief. The existence of observable patterns and regularities in nature was the founding presupposition of science, if not the factual basis of science's success.

If patterns and regularities did not exist in nature, then the transcendental claims which were believed to be the grounds which made science possible, would be false. It could be rationally argued that if the patterns or regularities did not have a real independent existence in nature then science as an enterprise as we know it would be impossible. However it seems that science could only have become possible by virtue of the existence of patterns and regularities in the external world of nature.

Joab supported the position of scientific realism which proposed that the actual success and progress of science was an indisputable confirmation for the verisimilitude of its transcendental claims and transcendental arguments.

It was clear to Joab that the compelling case for science's transcendental claims held significant implications for theology and philosophy.

Included in the transcendental argument for explaining the success of science from a realist perspective was the idea that the Universe out there was intrinsically and inherently intelligible. Scientists were able to make meaningful sense of the external world because the Univese happens to be intrinsically intelligible. If the Universe were not intrinsically intelligible then science as we know it would be impossible. So the intrinsic intelligibility of the Universe as reflected in the patterns and regularities of Nature were the transcendental conditions that made science possible.

Joab realized that this was a metaphysical statement. However, life would be boring without metaphysical claims, anyway it was impossible to escape metaphysics.

But in the Dooyeweerdian style of thinking and argumentation the value-free neutral objective scientific belief that the Universe was in fact intelligible was actually an unjustifiable or groundless presupposition. In other words it was a presupposition without foundation. Dooyeweerd was a foundationalist even though he knocked foundationalism.

The putatively valid claim that the Universe was intelligible in itself could be viewed as an example of what Dooyeweerd would call a presupposition. This presupposition of science would be in 'Dooyeweerdian speak' the ground motive of science. In the Dooyeweerdian view of things every intellectual endeavour was rooted in a ground motive which also functioned as a lens through which the world was perceived, interpreted, explained and understood.

But in the final analysis, from a Dooyeweerdian perspective, the transcendental conditions that were thought to make science possible constituted a presupposition, a claim that may be shown to have no foundation or justification or warrant.

For the Dooyeweerdian there were only presuppositions. There were no self-jusifying grounds for the establishing the certitude of any scientific claims about the nature of the Universe.

In Dooyeweerdian language the transcendental claims about what constitutes the conditions which are thought to make science possible can be interpreted as the archimedean point of science. The ideas of the nature of the transcendental conditions which make science possible are thought to originate from a ground motive. The Dooyeweerdian ground motive is embodied in ungroundable 'heartfelt expressions' or 'heartfelt convictions' of beliefs about the nature of things or the way that things are. According to Dooyeweerd these 'heartfelt convictions' or 'expressions of beliefs' are always fundamentally 'religious' in nature, even for the atheist. Beliefs and convictions can be expressed within or through an institution or in the person of the individual scientific investigator or philosopher or theologian.

In Dooyeweerdian language, a conviction or a belief existing as an embodied expression is linked to the notion of the 'heart'. A 'heart' is something which exists as an embodiment, it is contained in something. Something exists as the vehicle for the 'heart'. All institutions have a 'heart,' all persons have a 'heart.' The ground motive and whatever it entails springs from the 'heart'.

The ground motive was linked to the idea of the 'heart'. It is the 'heart' that expresses the ground motive. All things, such as assumptions, beliefs, presuppositions, desires, interpretations and understanding constitute the foundations or the conditions of possibility for thought and thinking. The conditions of possibility for thought and thinking spring from the Dooyeweerdian notion of the 'heart' and form the ground motive of the heart.

Every kind of thinking is a reflection or an expression of the ground motive of the heart, or springs from the ground motive of the heart, and in this sense every kind of thinking is ultimately religious, even for the atheist. A motive or an intention or an aim and purpose becomes the ground or well-spring for every kind of thinking. This was what Joab discovered in his study of Dooyeweerd.

For Dooyeweerd the 'heart' was some kind of supratemporal entity.

Dooyeweerd's writings were notoriously obscure and ambiguous. He had invented his own nomenclature and vocabulary which often made it difficult to grasp what he was saying or what point he was trying to make.

But Joab continued to wonder how it was possible to doubt that the Universe was indeed intelligible. It happened to be well behaved at every level of its organization and complexity. Was this not some kind of signal of its inherent intelligibility? Was there not something inherently 'reasonable' about the properties, powers and behaviour of matter? Did not matter mirror the work of reason?

He also wondered how anyone could doubt the transcendental argument for the success of science.

The Universe was well behaved at the quantum level, at the microscopic level and at the macroscopic level. It was well behaved at each level of its complexity, from the simplest subnuclear particles to the dynamic complexity of entire galaxites. For each of the different levels of its complexity the nature of its dynamics and the nature of it properties conformed to recognizable and discoverable law-like regularities.

This made the nature of the Universe and it history comprehensible, not only to sense experience, but also to the faculty of reason.

Was this not reason enough to believe that the Universe was intelligible to the understanding and reason of the scientific investigator.

It was the job of philosophy and theology to explore the meaning and significance of this transcendental state of affairs, that is, the intelligibility of the Universe.

The Universe was intelligible because it was well-behaved. But for a system, that is, for any system in the Universe, to be well-behaved, does not necessarily make it a deterministic system. Chance or randomness is woven into the very fabric of the Cosmos, yet chance or randomness does not make the Universe any less well behaved. It makes the Universe 'undeterministic' in a significance sense; that is, the Universe, in spite of the centrality of chance, remains intelligible. The Universe works as a system through the interaction of chance and necessity, where necessity represents the laws of nature.

The Universe can only 'work' if chance is integral to its nature. The Universe can only 'work' if chance is built into the nature or fabric or workings of the Universe.

This makes the future open to all kinds of possibilities.

Everything in the future is up for grabs. Man has been created to be free.

Joab also realized that the fact of the Universe's intelligibility and its intrinsic empirical accessibility was not in itself a self-explanatory fact; it was a brute fact that could not be easily accounted for. This was the real premise and motivation for the contingency and cosmological arguments for the existence of God.

Joab felt that these arguments were defensible.

Because the Universe has been shown by science to be intelligible and comprehensible, it should become the task of philosophy and theology to investigate the significance of these findings.

While it is obvious that the Universe is intelligible and that it seems to embody the work of reason; it can be shown or demonstrated through scientific experimentations or scientific observations that the Universe is in fact intelligible. Using the results or data of scientific experimentation and scientific observation the intrinsic intelligibility of the Univers becomes evident in the logical narratives of scientific explanation and scientific hypothesis testing.

An exemplary paradigm of the scientific explanatory narrative is the deductive nomological explanations or the covering-law explanations. The intelligibility of the Universe rests on the fact that the properties and the dynamic behaviour of all its constituent components obey or conform to laws of Nature which seem to have some kind of transcendental existence like numbers and mathematical logic.

While it can be shown that a law of Nature exists as an empirical fact, it cannot be shown from the data of scientific investigations why any kind of law of Nature should in fact exist in its particular empirical form. The data and observations which have been used to establish the existence of the laws of nature or have helped to discover a law of nature are not in themselves self-explanatory. This means that data and observations by themselves cannot provide any account of the actual origin of the law.

Joab came to the conclusion that establishing the existence of the regularities in Nature does not explain the origination of these regularities. The regulatories of Nature exist as a brute fact, but how they came into existence cannot be explained, their existence is not self-explanatory.

On reflection Joab, could see that the laws of nature, like the laws of numbers or the laws of mathematics seem to exist as brute facts. They exist without any self-accounting for their existence. They exist out there as things belonging to some kind of transcendental realm and their existence could be discovered by the inquiring mind.

In this sense Joab had become an avowed realist.

For Joab the laws of nature exist as something out there to be discovered by science. Their discovery establishes their existence but not their origination, or the reason for their origin, or where they came from, or why they exist at all, or how they actually came into existence.

The sources of their origin remains a mystery beyond empirical comprehension, beyond empirical accessibility.

Who made the laws that govern the properties and themodynamics of the all things out of which the Universe is composed?

Science cannot answer these questions. These questions are ultimately unanswerable. They are metaphysical or theological questions. They belong to the kind of questions which ask: 'Why is there something rather than nothing.'

There is no empirical path or logical bridge or cognitive faculty that will be able to provide an indubitable answer to these kinds of questions.

Theologically the question of 'why is there something rather than nothing' has its answer in the idea of _creatio ex nihilo_.

In spite of the spectacular successes of science, it was still evident to Joab that almost none of the fundamental problems and questions of Western philosophy had been solved to everyone's satisfaction.

Nothing in philosophy was immune to dispute. In philosophy there is no finality.

Even so, in the absence of any final cures to the ills and limitations of all thinking, progress in philosophy can still be recognized.

It is beyond dispute that science had made progress. For Joab this was an obvious fact. Who could rationally dispute that? Its progress can be measured in the form of increasing verisimilutide.

Most of the time progress in science has happened inadvertently. The problem is that scientists often don't even know what they are supposed to be looking for. Yet they constantly find out things that they were not looking for or even expecting to discover. This is the reality of science. This is the nature of the objectivity of science. Very often the preconceptions of scientists are proved wrong by the outcomes of experiments and by the results of observations.

Science often surprises. The constant refrain of science runs something like this: 'It is not what we thought!'

This phrase sums up science.

'Nothing is like what we thought it was!'

This is also the verdict that provides philosophy with its living impulse.

Science through a constant uninterrupted process of inadvertent self-correction seems to be steadily converging asymptotically onto the truth about how things are and how they work in the Universe.

What is truth? Classically speaking truth has been defined as justified belief.

But truth is also a species of some kind of certainty. There cannot be any truth without certainty. In science there are many kinds of things that are known with certainty.

For instance it is known for certain that man and everything else ultimately evolved from star dust. It is known for certain that a person called Adam did not actually exist anywhere in space and time. Adam was not a historical person. Adam is a personage who lives in the realm of myth, in the realm of a narrative invented by an unknown composer of stories. Adam is the creation of a human author.

This we know for certain. So there are certainties that cannot be rationally disputed without seeming to be insane.

In spite of the progress of science most of the important questions and problems in philosophy and theology have not been answered or solved to everyone's satisfaction.

The ultimate meaning of everything seems to beyond everyone's grasp.

In philosophy there is no unanimity on philosophy's progress in dealing with fundamental questions such as: 'how do we know that we know?', 'why is there something rather than nothing?', and 'what is the difference between right and wrong, what is the right thing to do with regard to ethical and moral problems?'

CHAPTER 8

Joab always listened attentively to the lectures on Herman Dooyeweerd by Professor Estelle Steenkamp to hear if Dooyeweerd had the answers to the ultimate questions.

Professor Steenkamp was a very attractive divorcee in her early thirties who drove a canary yellow porsche 1964 c coupe. She was the mother of two young children and came from a wealthy family.

She was the first woman that Joab felt a strong sexual attraction for. She sensed his attraction. She also found him incredibly attractive and erotic, and found it exceedingly difficult to stop subtly flirting with him.

She felt she was becoming more than his mentor. She was struggling with her own ambiguous feelings that she was developing towards him. In an erotic dream she found herself making love to Joab. In the dream Joab was both woman and man. Her dream revealed a subliminal truth that she had now become consciously and erotically aware of. It was the strange and disturbing effect that Joab's femininity was having on her. His femininity aroused her, his cross-dressing had also aroused her, filling her with emotional and spiritual conflict.

Often against her will she found herself slipping into an erotic reverie in which she entertained pleasant dreamlike fantasies, fantasies which had started to intrude into her thoughts, fantasies which had become triggered by a mere dream. She marvelled at the power of her dream.

In her fantasies she imagined herself playing the role of a mythical Salmacis who was overcome with desire for Joab.

She was a rational person, an academic, a person had who had studied for her PhD at the Free University of Amsterdam. How was it possible that the oneiric had invaded her psyche, how was it possible that she had become caught up in the Felliniesque world of Joab?

It was Joab's subtle femininity that had awakened all kinds of sexual feelings that she had suppressed. She found herself relating to Joab as if he were a woman.

It all started after she had, by sheer chance, recognized him while he stood briefly in the foyer of the cinema in Klerksdorp. Why had her heart skipped a beat? Why did she feel suddenly flushed, breathless and feverish? She had discovered his secret life. She could not take her eyes off Joab. He had not seen her. He turned to leave the foyer and she gazed at his open back. His body was divine. Her eyes followed him as he carried his shiny patent leather clutch bag and disappeared into the dark carpeted bowels of the cinema theatre to take his seat on the aisle.

She had inadvertently discovered his secret and knowing his secret she became erotically attracted to him, almost to the point of obsession, and she felt she was treading on perilous grounds because he was an undergraduate student, and she was a senior member of the academic staff.

She was with her date, a wealthy Potchefstroom industrialist, but now all she could think of was getting another glance of Joab. Her date became aware that she had fallen into a state of distraction, she was not really listening to what he was saying, and instead she looked at him blankly.

He asked her if she was OK. She suddenly felt guilty and before she could stop herself she said:

" _Ek dink ek het 'n gees gesien_."

(I think I have seen ghost.)

He laughed. And she also laughed which helped to relieve the tension that she was experiencing. For a moment she felt like a teenager, who had became infatuated.

Joab was wearing a very sophisticatedly designed and beautifully created black mini party dress with high neck and open back. Below the high neck the rayon and lycra fabric of the bodice covered the subtle contours of a very visible 32 bust line. The dress had an exquisitely embroidered black lace overlay. He had embroidered the black lace overlay with beautiful black roses. The three-quarter lace sleeves with a touch of black lace over the thigh-high hemline made the dress incredibly sexy to the eye. The lace overlay covered his open back with a bouquet of magnificent black roses.

For Joab every girl should have in her wardrobe her own thigh high hemline sexy classically styled black party dress. 'Why black?' his mother asked once he had finished making the dress. His answer: 'It had to be black, black is for sophistication, elegance, seduction, mystery, desire, sex, and evil.'

"And evil?" Mrs Badenhorst asked with a frown on her face.

"Yes, I want to be a beautiful woman, but I also want to be wanton, wicked and wonderful," he laughed.

Mrs Badenhorst raised her eyes and shook her head. 'Dear Lord have mercy!'

******

Professor Estelle Steenkamp wondered how it was possible that 'she' could have such as effect on her. Before she had seen him or 'her' in the cinema, she had only heard stories about him, stories about his creativity and genius as a dress maker had spread among the Potchefstroom glitterati and she had also heard rumours that he was very very gay. Some even said that he was actually bisexual. The women could sense it, they could sense the subtle tensions. The women loved him. She had also toyed with the idea that she should approach him to design and make her, Estelle Steenkamp, his philosophy professor, some sexy cocktail number.

Maybe he was bisexual, who knows?

What do they always say? ' _Stille_ _waters_ _, diepe_ _grond_ _, onder_ _draai die duiwel rond_ _.'_

Joab was the only student in the philosophy class who asked probing questions. She quickly realized that he was not a Dooyeweerdian and was not someone who she could convert to Dooyeweerd's way of thinking.

When she lectured she found herself addressing him in particular, her eyes where on him most of time. The image of him that was imprinted in her mind was of a dark skin-tone, black haired and brown eyed Venezuelan beauty dressed in a very short black dress.

She couldn't believe that a transvestite could be so beautiful and so intelligent. There must be some connection she thought. She could not believe that he was living such an extraordinary double life.

She could see that he did not know that she knew about his cross-dressing escapades. He was completely oblivious.

She wondered how it was possible for him live a double life as a transvestite while professing to be a Christian, and while studying theology for that matter.

Who had ever heard of a transvestite who was interested in theology?

Or a transvestite who professed to be a Christian?

It appeared that he had his own ideas about the nature of God, but it certainly was not Calvinist.

Maybe in his theological Universe it was possible to be a transvestite. She had been working and living far too long in the Dooyeweerdian paradigm. Maybe there were other more exciting theological Universes. Maybe Joab was living in one of those Universes.

She knew that the professors gossiped about him, especially the professors of theology.

******

Her views on the Bible were quite illuminating. As a Dooyeweerdian she believed that the Bible speaks to the supratemporal heart which receives its message in an act of faith. Dooyeweerd's idea of the supratemporal heart was a controversial concept. Created by God it represented the religious root, the centre of man's being, the transcendental ego, and the complete human selfhood. The human heart as the centre of human existences transcends all earthly things; it transcends the cosmic temporal order. Dooyeweerds entire system of philosophy depended on the concept of the supratemporal heart.

Dooyeweerd's transcendental critique was linked to his idea of the supratemporal heart. If his idea of the supratemporal heart was given up, then his transcendental critique becomes meaningless.

The defining substance of all beliefs, that is religious or secular or humanistic or atheistic beliefs, revolve around ideas about the ultimate nature of reality. According to Dooyeweerd, every kind of belief, no matter what, consists of nothing more substantial than a set of unwarranted and unjustifiable presupposition about what constitutes the ultimate nature of reality. In a real sense, all beliefs are based on an ontological commitment regarding the nature of things. All beliefs ultimately rest on some fundamental ideas or premises or assumptions which function as the fixed and immovable Archimedean point, which is used to support or ground or justify the specific kinds of thinking, arguments, theories, concepts, ideas, views, perceptions, values and morals which shape and inform one's understanding and comprehension of the Life, the World and the Universe.

In the end all this boils down to saying that fundamental beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality are nothing more than ungrounded assumptions or presuppositions, and therefore they are unable to provide the support of a fixed point, where a fixed point would ensure or justify or warrant the certainty, reliability and truthfulness of one's system of beliefs.

In the final analysis, knowledge consists of true beliefs or knowledge consists of certitudes.

Certitudes or true beliefs?

Take your pick. How can anyone be certain about anything? This is what philosophy is all about, and as a professional philosopher she was aware of this.

And so was Joab.

Joab had learnt that a putative true belief can be framed in the logical form of a simple statement, a statement expressing a proposition about something being the case, like for example, 'all Xs are Y', where X was the subject and Y the predicate, for example all ravens (X) are black (Y).

For Joab it was of considerable philosophical and scientific interest on how one eventually establishes the certainty that 'all Xs are Y'. He became increasing obsessed with the interrelationships between science, philosophy and theology with regard to the establishment that 'all Xs are Y'.

Of course the proposition that'all Xs are Y' is a transcendental claim about Nature having pattern and regulaties.

With the question of how was it possible to establish with certainty that 'all Xs are Y' he began to study the writings of all the important Reformed thinkers. With this question bouncing around in mind he discovered a passage in Martin Luther's _Bondage of the Will_ which read:

_God is He for Whose will no cause or ground may be laid down as its rule and standard; for nothing is on a level with it or above it, but it is itself the rule for all things. If any rule or standard, or cause or ground, existed for it, it could no longer be the will of God. What God wills is not right because He ought, or was bound, so to will; on the contrary, what takes place must be right, because He so wills it. Causes and grounds are laid down for the will of the creature, but not for the will of the Creator - unless you set another Creator over Him_!

Joab found the passage disturbing. He was not sure why. Was it troublesome because it showed that Luther's argument was based on the idea that it was God's arbitrary will which determined that 'all Xs are Ys'? Was this the only reason for the fact that 'all Xs are Y'? Was God's will the only reason for the truth that 'all Xs are Y'? Was there not a deeper more transcendental and immutable reason which makes the statement that 'all Xs are Y' true for every single X, past, present and future, and also in every possible Universe?

It seemed to be same as saying that 2 + 2 = 4 is true because God so wills it. It could also have been equally true that 2 + 2 = 5 if God changed His mind and so willed it, in which case 2 + 2 = 4 would no longer true. Did God exercise His will in a purely arbitrary fashion? It was an intriguing thought? Joab began to find the divine voluntarism of Luther and Calvin very troubling. It seemed that the whole Reformed Faith had been built on the theological foundation of divine voluntarism and philosophical nominalism. The Reformed Faith seemed to be based on anti-realist philosophical assumptions. The Reformed Faith did not presume that there existed a logical connection between reality and the essential nature of God. Equally troublesome was the impression that the exponents of the Reformed Faith all seemed to have had a low view of the power of reason.

It was while struggling with these thoughts that Joab discovered that Leibniz had been a lifelong foe of divine voluntarism. In Leibniz's _Discourse on Metaphysics_ he found the theological solution to the problem of how 'all Xs could be Y' in a non-arbitrary fashion from the following passage of Leibniz's work:

_In saying, therefore, that things are not good according to any standard of goodness, but simply by the will of God, it seems to me that one destroys, without realizing it, all the love of God and all his glory; for why praise him for what he has done, if he would be equally praiseworthy in the contrary? Where will be his justice and his wisdom if he has only a certain despotic power, if arbitrary will takes the place of reasonableness, and if in accord with the definition of tyrants, justice consists in that which is pleasing to the most powerful_?

It dawned on Joab that theologically 'all Xs are Y,' not because of God's arbitrary will, but because in the being or nature of God, God's will is identical with His essence. It was within God's essence or nature that 'all Xs are Y' in every possible Universe.

In Plato's _Euthyphro_ Joab read that Socrates once asked whether ' _conduct is right because the gods command it, or do the gods command because it because it is right_?' In other words, is right conduct right in itself and is that the reason why the gods command it? Or does conduct only become right because the gods command it? These were the kinds of problems, which were similar in form to the problem regarding the grounds for why 'all Xs are Y,' which preoccupied Joab's mind.

For Joab it seemed that certain knowledge of the Universe was attainable only because the Universe happened to be intelligible. Joab reasoned that the Universe was intelligible only because it was within God's essential nature that 'all Xs are Y'. If this was the reason behind the intelligibility of the Universe then it was possible to know something about God through the exercise of reason alone, independently of the Bible or scriptural revelation.

During his undergraduate years Joab developed a reputation for contrarian views both inside and outside lectures.

His grandfather was his greatest champion. His grandfather expressed the opinion that Mr Badenhorst that her son was a genius. While she had made peace with the fact that he was a transvestite her answer to Joab's grandfather: 'What does it help if our little genius is a transvestite?'

His answer was along the lines of: 'Well, at least he is a transvestite, who also happens to be a genius, surely that counts for something?'

Her answer was:

" _Ja nee, dit moet seker 'n 'genius' vat om 'n transvestite 'dressmaker' te wees, en ek betaal baie geld vir daardie voorreg_."

(Yes, it must certainly involve some kind of genius to be a transvestite dressmaker, and I paying a lot of many for that privilege)

CHAPTER 9

He was the only undergraduate theological or philosophy student in the history of the university who had actually read and re-read the more than 800 pages of John Calvin's _Institutes_. Almost every page of his tattered and almost falling apart English translation paperback copy of John Calvin's 1559 _Institutes of the Christian Religion_ published by Mac Donald Publishing Company, USA, was full of ball point pen underlinings and margin comments. The _Institutes_ with his equally tattered Bible were always in the haversack that he carried slung over his shoulder.

He also carried in his bag an equally battered and dog eared copy of _The Catechism of the Catholic Church_ which he had also re-read several times. One of the statements included in the Catholic definition of sin given in section 1849 made a profound impression on Joab:

_Sin is an offence against reason, truth and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbour caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as "an utterance, a deed or a desire contrary to the eternal law_.

'Sin injures human solidarity.' For Joab this constituted the essence of sin. This was what sin was all about. Human solidarity was a powerful Catholic idea inspired by the belief that a true, authentic and genuine human community can only be attained by the incorporation into the body of Christ through the communal Celebration of the Mass. The Catholic Mass also represented God's solidarity with man, and in the partaking of the Mass, man's solidarity with both God and man was affirmed as a reality.

For Joab the signs, symbols and symptomology of sin were inequality, dispossession, oppression, bondage, disempowerment, injustice, poverty, cruelty, and the profound absence of fraternity. The symptoms of sin were associated with the absence of human solidarity.

Sin as an offence against reason and right conscience leads ultimately to rampant and rapacious individualism, egocentrism, consumerism, materialism, contempt for the common good, accumulation of wealth and unfettered greed. All of which results in the injury of human solidarity.

Evil is any act which injures human solidarity.

Sin as an offence against reason and right conscience paved the way for the destruction of human solidarity and the erosion of community spirit. Sin as an offence against reason and right conscience increases the possibility for the creation of a terrifying dystopia.

Sin had to be a rebellion against reason, otherwise the concept or idea of sin did not make any sense to Joab. If God's essential nature included the embodiment of infinite reason, then the rebellion against reason was ultimately a rebellion against God. If reason was the ground for the intelligibility of the Universe then reason was the ground for the rationality of conscience with regard morality.

In Joab's theological theorizing, the 'offence' that resulted in the 'Fall' of man, occurred when 'evolved man' began wilfully to undermine and disregard the self-correcting dictates of natural reason and right conscience. Ultimately this offence represents nothing less than man's wilful disobedience and rebellion against God because God was the perfect embodiment of infinite reason.

Given that Joab could find no compelling reason to doubt the truth of Darwin's theory of evolution, he had to a re-think the whole idea of the Fall and Original Sin.

In Joab's theological project there seemed to be nothing original about Original Sin and the Fall. Man's flight from reason and good conscience turned out to be the most Unoriginal Sin.

It was unoriginal because it became the rule of man's conduct. Man seemed to have acquired a natural predisposition to go against the dictates of his own reason.

Man was naturally prone to acts of irrationality. Something had pushed man over the edge of rationality. Man seemed to have become almost inadventently naturally prone to acts of gross stupidity.

This was his original sin. It was gross stupidity. But was it gross stupidity?

In the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden instead of becoming wise they discovered that they were naked. Was this the beginning of wisdom, of the knowledge of good and evil? To be naked is to be in a condition of paradox, or state of paradox.

Joab learnt from his Hebrew professor that in Genesis 3:1 there was a subtle and very clever, but meaningful, word play between naked ערומים (arumim) and shrewd ערום (arum).

Now the serpent was craftier than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made.

Now the serpent was more shrewd, cleverer, and craftier than all the other animals in the Garden. By giving into the temptation to become wise like God, they discovered that instead of becoming wise they had become naked, which in a way means they discovered that they were not shrewd or crafty, but stupid. They discovered that they were actuall sexually dimorphic; they discovered that they were two sexes; they discovered that they had male and female bodies. They were no longer one.

Were they being disobedient to the dictates of Reason? The fall of humanity was the fall from Reason.The fall from Reason was an idolatrous act because it led to the replacement the God of Reason with a voluntaristic conception of God. This idolatrous conception of God entailed a new kind of theology and belief which involved the cordoning-off of reason as the only gateway toTruth and as the only reliable inspiration of true Faith.

_In the beginning was the Word_ , and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him.

In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was God.

All things were made by the Logos.

The Logos is the Word of God and the Word of God is the Word of Reason. God is theWord, Logos and Reason. Man's word cannot be God's Word even though it is God's Word that makes the meaning of speech and writing possible.

Revelation is the possibility of God's Logos in human speech and writing, when that speech and writing is awakened by the light of Reason.

Revelation depends on the possibility of meaning, the possibility of intelligibility.

God's Word cannot be ultimately expressed in human writing.

The voluntaristic God become unknowable, existing beyond reason, beyond rationality.

What pushed man over the edge into the bottomless abyss of stupidity?

Animals, insects, birds and even fish are not stupid, they go about their affairs in a perfectly rational manner; they do what they have to do in order to complete their life cycle, that is, to create the next generation of progeny.

The injury of human solidarity was the original unoriginal sin. Maybe it was inevitable? The fall become inevitable after a population of rapacious primates had acquired an over-sized brain. Man as a rapacious primate with a big brain soon discovered that he had enough time on hand to think up all kinds of ways in which human solidarity could be undermined so that a few individuals could end up having more stuff that than rest.

Wanting to have more stuff than the others was the start of man's fall down the slippery slope of greed. Greed is the revolt against reason.

In Joabs mind, even though in retrospect this possibility was inevitable it was not foreordained by God. Why would God want to foreordain the inevitability of man's greed as key contributing factor in the undermining of human solidarity? Greed as a predisposition was not foreordained. It had to be the outcome of the interplay of chance and necessity.

It was the result of pure contingency in other words. Sin exists as contingent possibility wherever the rule of reason and conscience suffers a lapse.

Joab could not find any compelling rational or logical reason why God would purposely foreordain the evolution of the kind of rapacious primate that humanity eventually became.

Contra-Calvin it could never have been foreordained. It was an accident, a contingent event; it could not have been preordained, predetermined, ordained, predestined, or fated. Contra-Calvin, if the future was open, then nothing in the future could be prearranged or formed ahead of the present. Beyond the present, the future does not exist. The future does not pre-exist in some fashion as something that has already being formed ahead of the present.

Or could it?

No it could not be possible. Nothing can exist in any form before it actually happens. Effects cannot precede their causes.

Why would God have formed the future ahead of the present in order to intentionally and purposely bring about the fall of Adam or the evolution of a rapacious primate bent on the destruction of human solidarity.

This was a troubling question for Joab. Could an oversized brain eventually result in the maladaptation of a primate like man, a maladaptation characterized by a full blown flight from reason and good conscience and God?

Following his careful, questioning and increasingly critically informed reading of Calvin's _Institutes_ he had become aware of the many paradoxes, inconsistencies and contradictions in Calvin's vast and towering edifice which constituted the doctrines and theology of the Reformed Christian religion. But even so, Joab could not help becoming a grudging admirer of Calvin's _Institutes_. In his opinion it was impossible not to become engaged in a dialogue with St Augustine, John Calvin and St Thomas Aquinas when doing theology or even when doing philosophical theology. So he added his own paperback Penguin copies of St Augustine's _City of God_ and _Confessions_ to his daily reading. He managed to find abridged paperback volumes on St Thomas Aquinas's _Summa Theologica_ and _Summa Contra Gentiles_.

And of course he had not given up his project on the metaphysics of Eros or the metaphysics of sex or the theology of the body. He continued to pursue his interest in the erotic especially when it came to female makeup, female comportment, female sexuality, female clothing and female dress.

He began to a plough a furrow in fields other than those that were the preoccupation of Diotima of Mantinea in Plato's _Symposium_. He began to investigate the metaphysics and the ethics of the erotic perception and embodiment in the writings of Plato, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Kant, Simone De Beauvoir, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas.

He also read Anders Nygren _Agape & Eros_. From Nygren's book, he realized that Christian Agape had to be the ground and condition for the existence of human solidarity. Plato's Eros in the words of Diotima of Mantinea in Plato's _Symposium_ was a _daemon_. In Plotinus, Eros was God and God was Eros. The erotic desire for the possession of the beautiful cannot be disconnected or severed or detached or separated from the desire for Truth and the Good.

In Joabs' mind this was why pornography could be never beautiful or truthful.

Joab often wondered whether Agape and Eros were not two sides of the same coin.

Joab in his readings discovered that contrary to Plato, Plotinus defended the inseparable unity of the world of sense and the world of reason. Descartes, Locke, Berkley, Hume and finally Kant rejected the 'ontological possibility' that an inseparable unity exists between the world of sense and the world of reason.

But in Joab's mind for theology to be meaningful, this 'inseparability' had to be more that an ontological possibility. For the Universe to make any sense or intelligibility, this 'inseparable unity' had to be an 'ontological necessity.'

It had to be the Reality with a big 'R'.

Ontology deals with the question of existence. It deals with the question of what exists or what kind of things exists or what kinds of states-of-affairs exist.

They, that is Descartes, Locke, Berkley, Hume and Kant could not find any indubitable foundations or compelling grounds for the ontolological possibility that an inseparable unity exists between the world of sense perception and the world of reason.

They could not state emphatically that the Universe was intelligible and give reasons for its intelligibility.

Reason could provide its own grounds. For Joab, God was the ground of infinite Reason, and therefore even finite reasoning was self-grounding, self-validating and self-justifying. This is what makes science possible.

Reason did not need to look further than its self if Reason, the Logos, was GOD.

Reason was its own reason; it did not need to look beyond itself for its justification or ground or foundation or Archimedean point.

Reason was it own Archimedean point.

Without the existence of an inseparable unity between the world of sense and the world of reason, divine revelation would be impossible. Without this 'inseparability' humanity would have no means of access to God and God would be forever hidden from mankind.

And there would be no possibility of divine revelation or meeting between God and man.

Plotinus was definitely not a Platonist or a dualist. The world of sense, the world of the senses, the world of sensuousness, is the world of embodied erotic perception and the world disclosed by embodied erotic perception is also the world of reason, the world that is intelligible to the senses. Eros and reason should form an inseparable unity. Agape and reason should also form an inseparable unity. At the pinnacle or summit of _Plato's_ _scala_ _amoris_ or ladder of love one finds the form or idea of the beautiful, but in the mind of Joab, beauty, truth and the good formed an inseparable unity from which the meaning of Agape could not be divorced or disconnected. The manifestation of Agape can only be in terms of actions, because Agape cannot exist outside the work of an agent, as action Agape had to be co-incidental or coupled with the embodied erotic perception of beauty, truth and the good.

As action towards the realization of the good, Agape had to be integrally united with Eros.

They were the two sides of the same coin. To be two sides of the same coin they depended on the inseparable unity of the world of sense or eros and the world of reason.

This was the conclusion that Joab came to.

Agape and Eros had to be coupled and not disconnected. They were inseparable like the two sides of the same coin.

This was the logic of a sweet transvestite. He smiled to himself. He was indeed himself two sides of the same coin.

He wondered whether a theology of the erotic could find any foundation in the Bible. Of course there could not be a theology of the body without a theology of the erotic. The place where the erotic features explicitly in the Bible is in the Song of Songs. To Joab the resurrection of the dead was also something profoundly erotic. The creation of matter and the emergence of life was also something that he found profoundly erotic.

What struck Joab as odd and inconsistent was Calvin's unexpected exoneration of the power of reason as being an important and necessary attribute of human nature. The faculty of reason was particularly necessary for the acquisition of knowledge. But for Calvin the faculty of reason was always directed to inferior objects, which consisted of the material stuff of the empirically accessible sensible Universe, or in other words all the kinds of things we find in the realm of nature.

Calvin even went so far as to acknowledge that fallen man stricken with the inherited sickness of original sin and possessing a will which could only be described as thoroughly depraved and corrupt, was still able to make some small progress through the exercise of natural reason alone in the acquisition of knowledge about the nature of superior objects.

These superior objects consisted of the things normally associated with the non-empirical heavenly and spiritual realm which can also be referred to as the realm of grace.

Consequently, Calvin's cosmogony was also divided into two realms, the realm of nature and the realm of grace. Calvin was a dualist. Calvin believed in the mind/body dualism, in the soul/body dualism. Calvin did not have a consistent or comprehensible theology of the body.

Calvin's cosmogony consisted of the realm of inferior objects and the realm of superior objects. Calvin's cosmogony had two stories. It was a medieval cosmogony.

The realm of inferior objects was the realm of nature and the realm of superior things was the realm of grace.

Joab did not like the idea of two separate realms, a two-story cosmogony in other words. Nature and grace had to be seen as an inseparable unity within a single realm, in the realm of God's becoming, in the realm of time or temporality, at the horizon of the unfolding future that is flexibly open to the possibility of hope and grace.

Man cannot exist as a disembodied being, as a soul without a body. There is no possibility for the Cartesian existence of life or mind outside the body or without a body. There is no mind without a brain, there can be no thinking and perceiving soul wondering about outside a body. The Christian hope of the resurrection would otherwise be meaningless if this were possible. After the pattern of Jesus' own bodily resurrection, the Christian resurrection involves the reconstitution of the material body as a psychosomatic unity. Meaningful existence, the intelligibility of reality and the meaning of the life was only possible within the inseparable unities of Nature and Grace, Agape and Eros, Sense and Reason, Mind and Body, and within the framework of God's becoming in the unfolding of time.

Man can only exist as a material being. Man can only exist as a material embodiment. This was all consistent with Joab's philosophical theology as a dressmaker. Material embodiment can only be in the form of erotic embodiment.

Material embodiment in the form of erotic embodiment becomes the necessary precondition for the distinctive peculiarity of the covering of the female body; a covering that increases the visibility of the female form. The revealing of the form of the female body by its surface covering embodies at the same moment the full essence of female apparel with its sensual erotic contouring, revealed in the flow, the fall, the line and the drape of sensually textured fabrics. The mysterious paradox of dressing-up in a dress involves a simultaneous hiding and revealing. It represents a natural materialistic dialectic that finds itself embodied in the dressing up of the female body.

Clothing the female body:

This was where Joab could express his genius, where he was the supreme master of his craft. Where he could create fashion in the manner of the _Imago Dei_ , where he could create fashion in the manner of _ex nihlo_ creation.

Joab felt that Calvin failed to appreciate the full theological significance of the power of man's reason and it capacity for self-correction. He failed to clarify the logical and rational relationship between man's finite reason and God's infinite reason. He failed to state clearly that God embodied infinite reason and rationality as an intrinsic attribute of His essential nature or essence. Logically Calvin could not accept these ideas if He held to the view that God's will and council were so inscrutable, so secret, so hidden, so incomprehensible, so unfathomable, that there was no logical or rational or empirical or reasonable possibility for showing that God's fiat was not essentially arbitrary in nature.

If God's fiat was essentially arbitrary in nature then we live in an absurd Universe, and the idea of God's inscrutability, incomprehensibility and unfathomability would be consistent with the notion that the Universe was in essence deeply absurd and ultimately irrational and meaningless, without any intrinsic significance or purpose.

And where everything was permitted.

What about the existence of natural reason?

Joab could not discount the fact that there was such a thing as Natural Reason which was capable of self-correction. He could not discount the argument that conscience was ontologically grounded in a realist conception of morality. He believed that together reason and good conscience where innate capacities that man possessed and they were essential for knowing God and understanding God's will.

Without these two innate capacities, man could not have evolved into the being that he eventually became. The innate capacity for reason and conscience was a key component of the suite of adaptations shaped by the play of chance and necessity in man's evolution. Without these evolutionary adaptations mankind would not have survived as a bipedal social hominid.

However, men have resisted the self-correction of reason, because reason's capacity for self-correction together with the conviction of a good conscience, was the greatest threat to powerful elites.

He wondered about the significance and deep meaning of man's ability to grasp the intelligibility of natural objects and processes with the aid of his unassisted cognitive capacity and natural reason.

But was man's natural reason really based on his unassisted cognitive abilities, was natural reason really autonomous? If God was the very embodiment of infinite reason, then surely if man was truly the _Imago Dei_ , then man's finite reason was a coarse and imprecise reflection of the divine infinite reason. Also, if God was indeed the full embodiment of infinite reason with respect to His will, with respect to His omnipotent legislative powers, then surely God would not act in a way that was contrary to His nature which essentially was the full embodiment of infinite reason.

If God's essence or essential nature entailed the embodiment of infinite reason and perfect rationality, then surely it was impossible for God to behave irrationally and also impossible for God to act contrary to the dictates of His own Reason.

While Calvin acknowledged the importance of the power of reason, he also held to certain philosophical-theological assumptions that made him and Descartes unlikely kindred spirits and fellow travellers.

Joab also realized that Calvin and Descartes both held to an interpretation of God's sovereignty, omnipotence and omniscience that was logically consistent with a nominalist-voluntarist view of the nature of the Divine Being. In fact, both held to ideas of God's sovereignty, omnipotence and omniscience that necessarily entailed a nominalist-voluntarist view of the nature and being of God. The same applied to Martin Luther, who held that God can do anything he likes, even act against the imperatives of His own Reason. Of course, Karl Barth would have stated a resounding NO to this; according to Karl Barth, God can only do things which are consistent with His nature or essence.

Descartes, John Calvin and Martin Luther never stated explicitly that God's essence and God's will converged whenever God exerted the legislative power of His will. This was the same as stating that God's will does not coincide with His essence or nature, and that God exercises His will in an arbitrary fashion according to His hidden, inscrutable, incomprehensible and unfathomable council. This was a fundamental premise of Calvin's teaching. This was the premise on which Calvin based his idea of double predestination.

Luther and Calvin's ideas of monotheism seemed to logically entail the view that God was intrinsically whimsical in whatever he does, especially if the cloak of God's inscrutability, incomprehensible, secretiveness, unknowability and hiddenness was the basis for justifying the idea of double predestination.

Joab concluded that Calvin's teachings were incoherent.

Of course we cannot ever fully and exhaustively know the mind of God. Nor can we fully and exhaustively know the mind of any individual person.

Nor can we fully and exhaustively know the nature of the Universe, yet in spite of this, science has proved to be a highly successive endeavour.

Not having complete or exhaustive knowledge, does not make God or man or the Universe completely and absolutely unknowable. It does not destroy the possibility of having justified belief about God or man or the Universe. Without the capacity for justified belief in the nature of reality, man would not have survived as an animal, as a mammal on planet Earth. This fact represents a simple and meaningful truth. Because we are here, living the life of unlikely evolutionary survivors, there must be something profoundly significant and meaningful about our cognitive capacities.

Maybe our cognitive abilities are capable of revealing, or at the very least, the results or the data, of our cognitively informed perceptions are correlative in some way with the deep structure underlying the nature of the Universe. Maybe at the very least, the results of our cognitively informed and structured perceptions of the nature of reality are indeed correlative in some way with the nature of God's immanent role as an active agent in the Universe's unfolding becoming.

Maybe there are significant and meaningful correlations between the findings arising from our mental struggles and the nature of reality and the nature of God.

Maybe all divine revelation is the production of the mental struggle to ascertain with certainty what constitutes the truth about God, about man and about the nature of the Universe. Maybe the truth of revelation can be discovered through the exercise of reason. Everything should pass the test of reason.

Maybe the Universe as a possibility is due to God's Being and Becoming, and not to His arbitrary whim or decree.

Maybe because of this, the Universe is not intrinsically absurd or meaningless or purposeless, where everything is permissible.

Joab saw value and merit in a 'naturalistic epistemology' and a 'natural theology'.

CHAPTER 10

If in fact Luther, Descartes and Calvin did actually and ambiguously state that God's will and essence converged, then the three would not have been able to say in the same breath that God's will was absolutely inscrutable, incomprehensible, and unknowable with respect to human perception and reason.

Being absolutely inscrutable and absolutely unknowable does not allow for any insight into God's nature.

With Descartes, Calvin and Luther, the fact that the Universe was intelligible to science was no more significant than an 'absurd fact', because the intelligibility of the Universe to human perception and reason ultimately revealed nothing about the essence of God.

For Luther and Calvin, when it came to His essence, God was ultimately inscrutable, unknowable, and incomprehensible. If God's essence is divorced from His sovereign and omnipotent legislative power concerning the creation of all things, including the abstract Universe of logic and mathematics, then all of reality was actually absurd.

If the Universe was originally created as a contingent act, by arbitrary fiat, by an arbitrary decree, then the Universe was intrinsically an absurd Universe, a Universe empty of all meaning. The existence of a God who was ultimately inscrutable, unknowable, unfathomable and incomprehensible was also consistent with the existence of an absurd Universe that was empty of all meaning and significance. This state of affairs was logically consistent with a nominalist-voluntarist view of God.

It was these critical thoughts that made Joab more and more sceptical about Protestantism and made him more sympathetic to Roman Catholicism.

What also surprised Joab most was Calvin's dualistic belief in the existence of two separate and qualitatively different realms; a realm consisting of inferior objects or things and a realm of superior objects or things? This dualist view of things was equivalent to the separation of nature and grace into two realms. The earthly things and objects of nature were located in the realm of nature and the heavenly things of grace were located in the realm of grace.

Joab often expressed his thoughts on what Luther, Descartes and Calvin shared with respect to the nature of God to Rudi. Rudi could not quite grasp the fact that Calvin's idea of God was so horribly flawed.

Yet, in spite of their differences they managed to remain firm friends.

During lunchtime breaks Joab and Rudi often went to browse books at the Pro Rege bookshop next to the university campus. On the shelves they spotted an interesting little paperback book by Francis Schaeffer called _Escape from Reason_. Flipping through the pages, Joab became fascinated with its contents. They each purchased a copy and decided to read it and meet regularly to discuss its contents. Schaeffer proposed that modernism was born as a consequence of the separation of the realm of nature of from the realm of grace, resulting in the two-story Universe. But to Joab it was also clear that Calvin also held to a dualistic two realm ontology which was vulnerable to the same Reformed critique that had been levelled at Thomas Aquinas who was accused of fostering a nature-grace dualism.

As a result of Schaeffer's book, they began to debate the relative merits of John Calvin versus Thomas Aquinas, which also lead them into an interesting debate about the relative merits of the Reformed Faith versus Roman Catholicism, and whether or not the Reformation was actually a theological and ecclesiastical debacle which resulted in the destruction of Christendom in modern Europe.

While debating the relative merits of the Reformation and Calvinism, Joab began to share some of his critical insights regarding problems in Calvin's _Institutes_ with Rudi.

Joab expressed the view to Rudi that Calvin's interpretation of the Adam and Eve myth actually in itself represents the elaboration of an equally remarkable and fantastic myth which has a lot in common with the Homeric myths of the Greek gods.

In Calvin's myth, there exists a God, a God who is unlike any God that man would conceptualize or conceive of.

He is inscrutable, unintelligible, incomprehensible, unfathomable and hidden.

He is the one and only true God, a God who is all powerful (omnipotent), all knowing (omniscient) and all loving.

He is eternal and immutable.

From all eternity, before He laid the foundations of the Universe, before He set out to create the Universe from nothing, he decided how the future would unfold in ever possible detail.

In doing this He determined the course and occurrence of all future events.

Nothing was left to the free play of chance or contingency.

In His sovereignty, He decided in accordance with His majesty, in accordance with His good pleasure, in accordance with His inscrutable, unfathomable, unintelligible, incomprehensible and hidden council, and for the sake of His glory, He decided to declare a number of decrees, decrees that were completely arbitrary in nature, decrees for which He gave no reason.

In His first decree, He declared in advance before any wrongdoing could have been done or before any sins could have committed, He decided who would be saved as His chosen elect and who will be damned to eternal punishment in hell forever.

In His second decree, He declared the coming into existence of the Universe, the World and Man, with everything that was entailed for making their existence possible, such as the laws of nature, space and time, and so on.

In His third decree, He declared that man would sin against God his creator through an act of willful disobedience and premeditated rebellion.

In His fourth decree, He declared that Jesus would atone through his death by crucifixation only for the sins God's chosen elect and not for the sins of the world.

In His fifth decree, He declared that those who had been predestined for eternal damnation and punishment in hell could not be entitled to the benefits of salvation and redemption arising from the crucifixation of Jesus on the cross.

After Rudi had digested what Joab has said, he challenged Joab to prove that this was indeed the substance of what Calvin proposed.

" _Watse bewyse het jy? Kan jy vir my voorbeelde gee om my te oortuig_?"

Joab opened his knapsack and took out his copy of Calvin's _Institutes_.

There was much that he found fascinating about Calvin's work. Joab was also intrigued by the tone and style of language that Calvin used in his _Institutes_. It was not written in the beautiful prose of Luther or Augustine. Neither was it magisterial like Augustine's _City of God_ nor was it anything like the massive logical edifice of Thomas Aquinas's _Summa Theologica_ or _Summa Contra Gentiles_.

Calvin was a lawyer and wrote like one. As a trained lawyer, Calvin was an aggressive litigator. As a lawyer by profession, he was supremely adversarial when he dealt with criticism.

Calvin was at home in the 'court'. The 'court' was his arena of battle.

Nevertheless, Calvin more than made up for many of the literary or poetic flaws of his work in other ways. The _Institutes_ came rolling off his desk like a massive avalanche that buried his critics in rocks, stones and rubble. His writings were relentless. His bite was savage and vicious. Calvin was not afraid to call his opponents by all kinds of disparaging epithets such as dogs, comparing their arguments to the barking of dogs. His defence of the sovereignty and glory of God was like an earthquake. It was amazing that this monumental work, this ice berg, this icy glacier, this volcano, this great tome, could have been written by a pious man who was not only suffering from burnout and exhaustion at the time, but was also plagued with ill health. At the end he was so tired, frail, pain-ridden and sickly, that he wished for the peace of death.

For Calvin, if God was truly God, then it was impossible for any man through the power of his own freewill to act as the author or agent of his own salvation or become in any way his own saviour.

No one was chosen because they believed, they are always chosen in order that they could believe. Their capacity to believe was a God imputed capacity. No man had the means to choose God, only God could choose man.

For Calvin, God's predestination and election remained an impenetrable and unfathomable mystery. Why would God choose one for salvation and reject another for damnation? Calvin's God makes His choices in an arbitrary whimsical manner. This one gets chosen, that one gets rejected, all for the sake of His glory and in keeping with His secret and hidden councils.

Who was man to question the secret, the inscrutable, the unfathomable, the hidden and the incomprehensible councils of God's choices? This was always Calvin's stock reply to any criticism of his idea of God's double predestination.

For Calvin the existence of evil was never viewed as a serious theological or philosophical problem. In fact, Calvin was quite contradictory and ambiguous about the sources of evil, in some places Calvin implies that God permitted evil and in other places Calvin seems to imply that God was somehow involved in the actual causation of evil.

For this reason, unlike Leibniz, Calvin felt no urgency to justify the existence of evil by developing a theodicy. Calvin has no theodicy.

He did not need a theodicy.

He felt no compulsion to justify the existence evil.

For Calvin, God does what he pleases and for his own good pleasure. His will was His reason, not His reason His will. The mere fact that God willed it to be, was sufficient reason for it to be so, whatever it was, end of story.

In Calvin's thinking, God's will did not out of any necessity convergence with His essence, nor was His will out of necessity an expression of His essence. His will was disconnected from His essential nature, and from His reason. His will only expressed His sovereignty to do whatever He wished. If He wanted 2 + 2 to equal 5, then so be it. His will expressed only His good pleasure.

Calvin's God was an oriental despot in an absurd Universe.

If God's will expressed only His good pleasure according to His secret council, then God was absolutely inscrutable, then no one would ever be in position to fathom God, in everything that God did, His actions would be beyond the logical or rational comprehension of mortal finite man.

Calvin repeatedly argued in the _Institutes_ that it was a sin to want to know the reasons which motivated God to exercise His will in a specific manner.

For example, why did God choose one person for salvation and another for damnation? Was his double predestination purely random or completely arbitrary? For Joab, these questions in themselves where theologically and philosophically interesting.

Joab discovered that Calvin's thinking and writings were filled with paradox, contradiction, riddles, ambiguities and mystery. Calvin was often accused by his critics that in his _Institutes_ God seems to have been made the author of sin and evil since Calvin seems to be making claims that God actually decreed the coming into existence of evil and sin from all eternity. Hence, in Calvin's _Institutes_ there could be no theodicy.

Calvin did not need any theodicy. The problem of evil was not one of Calvin's theological worries.

In Calvin's system of theology he made no rational attempt to justify the existence of evil.

Calvin provided no evidence in his writings that he felt any strong intellectual compulsion to explain in a rational fashion why evil existed as a phenomenon in the world.

Why did Calvin show no need to explain the existence of evil? Could it be that for Calvin, because God in His sovereign omnipotence was the ultimate source of everything, He had to also be the source of evil?

In his writings Calvin did not ever explicitly express the need to justify the existence of evil or try an to explain how evil could have _ultimately_ arisen as a phenomenon in the life-world of mankind if God was truly omnipotent and omniscient

Calvin was ambiguous on the matter. He dithered in indecision on the matter. Sometimes he implied that, given God's sovereignty, omnipotence and omniscience, it was logical that God had to be ultimately implicated in the causal chain for the genesis of evil. God's moral agency with regard to the genesis of evil was a problem that Calvin failed to deal with.

It could be argued that if an alien culture, possessing a higher intelligence existing in another part of the Universe, had developed the technological means to study the life history of mankind on planet earth, they could possibly have perceived man and human history quite differently to the modern earth-dwelling humans.

It is possible that they would have seen humans as trying to survive like any other species of animal on earth. It is possible that the aliens would also have perceived humans as animals that do not possess any kind of free will or moral agency. Human behaviour would be predictable and deterministic. For these alien observers evil would not exist in the life and history of humans. Humans would be seen as animals just going about their normal business which was typical of their life cycle and nothing more than that. Whatever humans did would be their natural behaviour, behaviour that was typical of their natural history as living organisms that happened to have evolved from a primate ancestor that they shared in common with the chimpanzee.

The theological ideas of sin, evil and the need for redemption with respect to these human primates would seem to be absurd to these aliens. Maybe these aliens had developed their own Darwinian perspective on how things worked in the Universe. It could be possible that they believed that the Universe was a Darwinian Universe. And if they were certain that their belief was true, then they would see no reason to believe in the existence of free will, sin, evil and the need for redemption.

They would believe that things just happen as a result of the agency of the blind, random, amoral and impersonal forces of Nature.

For them what was happening on planet Earth was perfectly normal including genocide, racism and various forms of violence. It could hardly be called 'evil'.

Calvin does not leave his readers with any option other than to conclude that the brute of fact evil in the history of mankind has no other source but God. In doing this Calvin performs an awkward egg dance on the matter of the genesis of evil or the causal chain that leads to the commission of acts of evil. Calvin seemed to vascillate between a God that merely passively permits the occurrence of evil, to a God that is actually actively involved as the primary active causal agent of evil.

Joab was convinced that Calvins' system of Christian theology was infected with an incurable contagion of the absurd and the irrational.

Reading Calvin's _Institutes_ 1.18.1 it seemed to Joab that Calvin's God had two contrary wills, which were in direct conflict, the one being contrary to the other. It was this conflict involving the clash between two contrary divine wills with respect to good and evil that made Calvin's theology interesting to Joab. Logically, Calvin had forced himself into a schizophrenic theistic theory of God relationship to the genesis of evil or to the relationship between good and evil.

In Joab's reading of Calvin, God in His revealed will appears to be a God who forbids evil, but in His secret will, God decrees the occurrence of evil. When it comes to the knowledge and understanding of God's will, Calvin does not appeal to reason or good conscience. Instead Calvin depends on a convoluted, illogical and inconsistent rationalization of the notion or idea that God appears to be capable of simultaneously willing the occurrence of two contrary things; two contrary things such as the non-condonation of evil and the actual causal genesis of evil.

Also, according to Joab's reading of Calvin, Calvin would have it that in reality God's will is actually one and simple, yet it also appears manifold and contradictory to humans.

With Calvin there exists a yawning chasm between the human perception of God's apparent nature and the actual reality of God's secret nature.

God is unknowable because God's will works beyond the horizons and reach of reason.

Calvin has painted himself into a corner. Our intelligence is too inferior to understand, explain, grasp or predict the will of God. Because Calvin's God is so secretive and incomprehensible that we are intellectually or cognitively unable to grasp how God can simultaneously will and not will the commission of evil deeds such as Auschwitz or Apartheid.

Calvin's theology of evil was a complete cop-out.

Standing in the shade of a huge oak tree, Rudi listened in silence to Joab's lengthy lecture on Calvin.

Joab looked expectantly at Rudi.

He had stopped talking, giving Rudi a chance to formulate and express his rebuttal.

Rudi just stood there shaking his head. His only response was:

" _Waar is jou bewys_?"

Rudi wanted evidence. He could not believe that Calvin had got things so badly wrong about the nature of God.

Was Calvin's God really as arbitrary as Joab made out?

Was Calvin's God really the author of man's sin and evil?

Joab opened the _Institutes_ and began to read passages:

" _Accordingly, when we are accosted by such terms as these, Why did God from the first predestine some to death, when, as yet they were not yet in existence, they could not have merited sentence of death? let us by of reply ask in our turn, What do you imagine that God owes man, if he pleased to estimate him by his own nature_?"

" _The decree, I admit, is dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree. Should anyone here inveigh against the prescience of God, he does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why, pray, should it be made a charge against the heavenly Judge, that he was ignorant of what was to happen? Thus, if there is any just or plausible complaint, it must be directed against predestination. Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say, that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but at his own pleasure arranged it. For as it belongs to his wisdom to foreknow all future events, so it belongs to his power to rule and govern them by his hand_."

" _Nou kom ons by die raaisels en paradokse. Soos hulle in Engels sê,_ if God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenelivent and all-loving, then how can He allow evil to exist or come into existence. Maar ons lees in Calvyn, God het vir sy eie plesier gereël dat die val Adam en die hele mensdom n werklik sou word."

" _Calvyn skryf_ , ' _The first man fell because the Lord deemed it meet that he should: why he deemed it meet, we know not. It is certain, however, that it was just, because he saw that his own glory would thereby be displayed. When you hear the glory of God mentioned, understand that his justice is included_."

" _Daar is nog baie meer raaisels, paradokse en teenstrydighede. Hoor net wat Calvyn geskryf het: 'The Lord had little before declared that all the things which he made were very good. Whence then the depravity of man, which made him revolt from God? Lest it should be supposed that it was from his creation, God had expressly approved what proceeded from himself. Therefore, man's own wickedness corrupted the pure nature which he had received from God, and his ruin brought with it the destruction of all his posterity_.'

" _Kyk hier, op 'n ander plek skryf Calvin: 'God does not permit, but rules.' So, God laat nie toe nie, Hy regeer_ ," Joad read.

What Joab found astonishing was that all his criticism of Calvin and the Reformed Faith was like water off a duck's back with Rudi.

Rudi always listened to Joab without debating any point, all he said was:

" _Ja-nee_ ," or " _Waar is die bewys_?"

Joab concluded that Rudi was impervious to any criticism of the Calvinism. He wondered whether Rudi was taking any of the stuff in that had he talked about.

Rudi was a comfortable person to be with. He was undemanding and he was quite happy to listen to all of Joab's theological and philosophical opinions.

An unusual and strange bond of trust could not have developed between two more unlikely friends who were so completely different in every manner.

Joab felt free to express his opinions and Rudi never gossiped about what Joab had admitted to him in private regarding his critical views on John Calvin.

It was a good and undemanding friendship for both of them. It was a friendship untroubled by mutual expectations and uncomplicated by any emotional intimacy. It was a friendship that allowed them to be who they were. Of course Rudi had no idea what kind of person Joab really was. He had no idea that Joab was gay or was a transvestite behind the scenes.

It was Joab's first real 'heterosexual' friendship.

CHAPTER 11

At the beginning of October 1975 Joab received his call up papers for a three month camp from his Potchefstroom based citizen force battalion. He tried to get a military exemption because he wanted to start his BA honours in philosophy in February 1976. The administration lady at the faculty office of the university explained that it was completely unnecessary for him to apply for exemption as the university had made special arrangements for all prospective honours student who had been called up for the three month military camp. They would be allowed to start late in March.

He knew that something big was brewing on the border. The last thing he wanted was to be on the border for three months. But there was nothing he could do about it. With a heavy heart he bowed to the inevitable prospect of war on the border and tried to make good of a bad situation by working diligently for the upcoming final examinations.

The morning after his final exams on the 23rd of November, he reported for duty at the citizen force regimental headquarters. By late morning after being issued with rifles, they found themselves on a troop train heading for Voortrekkerhoogte. It seemed like he was the only one from platoon 2. The others had not pitched up. From Pretoria Station the arriving trains were shunted off onto a railway line that ended in a shunting yard deep within the sprawling Voortrekkerhoogte Military Base.

Chaos seemed to be the order of the day as thousands of national military service conscripts and citizen force soldiers crowded around the railway sidings within the Voortrekkerhoogte shunting yard which had become a busy assembly point for several national service infantry battalions and citizen force infantry regiments that were arriving by rail transport from all over South Africa.

By early evening each battalion or regiment were marched off with soldiers carrying their rifles and _balsaks_ slung over their shoulders to their allocated bivouac site where row upon row of faded olive green military tents had been pitched and where mobile kitchens had been parked with cooks' busy preparing supper. With the sun sinking and the rapid onset of twilight the only lights that were on were those at the mobile kitchens. There were no lights in the mess tent, so men ate wherever they could, some sitting on the bare ground as the huge sprawling tent camp was plunged into the darkness of moonless night. Those who still wished to have supper had to _tree aan_ with dixies and fire buckets in long queues in the dark.

Because of the long queues Joab decided to skip supper. It was pitch dark inside the tent. He felt around for a non-occupied spot, he pulled out his sleeping bag and groundsheet from the _balsak_ and spread the sleeping bag out on top of the ground sheet. He lay on his back on top of the sleeping bag in his faded battle fatigues with his boots on. He could feel the rock hard red ground through the sleeping bag. With all the flaps down it was hot inside the tent and the ground was radiating heat as well.

There was nothing much he could do. He pulled his bush hat over his eyes and with his eyes closed he listened to the conservations going on in the tent. The men reminisced about their previous border experiences and speculated about the reasons for the massive call up of troops. Everyone agreed that it had to have something to do with the civil war that had broken out in Angola.

Joab remained aloof. He made no effort to talk to anyone. All the others of the original platoon 2 had managed to evade the call-up. He was alone.

In order to while away the time Joab began to reflect on the problems that he had with the theology of John Calvin.

After the completion of his BA Joab realized that Calvin scholarship had overlooked everything that was of theological or philosophical significance in the work of John Calvin. Calvin held to a theory of divine determinism that led to all kinds of unacceptable logical consequences. This fact seemed to have escaped everyone's attention .Why was that? Why had so much been overlooked in Calvin's theology? This troubled Joab greatly. Serious theological and philosophical problems flowed logically from the idea of divine determinism.

To Joab it became increasingly obvious that Calvin had a tendency to become muddled-headed to the extent of incoherency when it came to dealing with the issues concerning the nature and origin of evil, the freedom of the will and the deterministic nature of God's foreordination of the events that lie in the distant future.

Calvin's idea of God's foreordination by arbitrary degree was inflexibly deterministic.

Calvin was unswervingly committed to the concept of divine causation. His idea of divine causation was so thorough-going that not a single event in the history of the Universe escaped been directly caused by the double edged sword of God's eternal providence.

Calvin would have to accept for the sake of logically consistency that even the most insignificant event like the occurrence of a single thermal fluctuation would have been completely overdetermined by God direct causal intervention.

Thermal fluctuations are taken to be the most archetypical events of random molecular motion.

However, for Calvin the precise space-time future occurrence of each invisible thermal fluctuation would necessarily have been precisely foreordained. It could never be a random or a contingent event of molecular translation, rotatory or vibrationl motion. There was no place for the random or stochastic play of chance in Calvin's clockwork and deterministic Universe. The appointed future space-time of every possible event, no matter how insignificant, whether quantum, microscopic or macroscopic, in fact of every possible kind of change, had been precisely, rigidly and inflexibly predetermined; that is predetermined before time had even begun to flow. It was predetermined because God's time does not flow. For Calvin, God's time, past, present and future was simultaneously present; it was frozen like a photograph.

But doesn't change mark the passage of time, Joab wondered. If there is no change does that mean that there is no time? If there is no change does time stop 'flowing', whatever the flowing of time could possibly mean?

For Calvin the Brownian Universe does not consist of molecules in a state of random motion and contingent collisions. It had to be a precisely ordered microscopic world of non-random motion in which the solution to the 'many-body problem' existed fully solved for the past, present and future in the mind of God.

If random Brownian motion did not exist as a reality, then neither did free will, and neither could evil exist as a possibility. If everything was predetermined to occur in precise conformity to a prearranged plan, then neither free will nor evil could possibly exist.

There was no possibility for the existence of randomness or chance events in Calvin's Universe. God's all determining will was behind even the most insignificant events. As God's creation, everything in the Universe depended on God's will, nothing could happen independently of or against God's will. This means that every possible kind of event in the Universe has a direct causal dependency on God's will. For Calvin the will of God is the chief and principle cause of all things. In Calvin's Universe nothing is fortuitous, nothing is contingent, and therefore nothing is ultimately due to chance. So consequently, it follows that everything that could possibly happen in the Universe would be due to the constant operation of God's will. This means that after bringing the Universe into existence, after establishing all the laws of nature and setting the Universe into motion, God did not stand back in order to allow the Universe to pursue its own course, to explore and find its own destiny, independently of His will.

What is the difference between a clockwork mechanistic Universe and a fully deterministic Universe?

A clockwork mechanistic Universe is how the deists would have it.

But this idea would be unacceptable to Calvin. But how could it be logically unacceptable to Calvin? It was logically consistent with Calvin's idea of the nature of God's sovereignty. It was consistent with the spirit and letter of Calvin's work.

According to Calvin, God's providence leaves nothing to chance or contingency. All future events have been prearranged and predetermined to take place in complete accordance with God's secret plan. The occurrences of all events are predetermined and prearranged to take place according to reasons and causes which serve God's secret purpose. Nothing takes place that does not necessarily follow from God's will. All causes are the expression of God's will.

If God's will was _omni-pervasive_ and _omni-determinative_ , then for all persons that have existed or will ever exist, their every thought, their every desire and their every volition have been or will be necessarily caused by God's will.

Every thought, every desire and every action of every person that has ever existed will have been caused by God's omni-determinative and omni-pervasive will.

If human free will does not exist then God would have to be the moral agent of evil.

Or alternatively evil does not exist and man is an automaton, a machine which performs a range of functions according to a predetermined set of coded instructions. Man would be a machine that has been set in motion in accordance with the laws and forces of Nature.

Under these states of affairs or circumstances, how could anyone be held responsible for his deeds in such a Universe?

There are no half-measures in Calvin's concept of God's foreordination and providence. Everyone's destiny has been mapped out; there can be no deviation or room for chance.

In terms of his own theological and philosophical conception of God's will, Calvin could not attribute any kind of free will to humans without lapsing into logical inconsistencies and incoherency. If God's will is the necessary determinative causal agency behind every possible kind of occurrence or event in the Universe then it follows that any claim that humans have the capacity for free, morally responsible action becomes unintelligible and incoherent.

From a moral and rational perspective, Calvin's conception of God's providence as an outworking of God's omni-determinative and omni-pervasive will is fatally flawed.

Calvin cannot escape his own snare; he constantly falls into his own logical trap, when time and time again he states unequivocally that the performance of any kind of action necessarily requires that God has preordained its occurrence.

In his own words, Calvin writes that: _It is absurd folly that miserable men take it upon themselves to act without God, when they cannot speak except when he wills_.

Elsewhere Calvin writes: _Whether you will or not, daily experience compels you to realize that your will is guided by God's prompting rather than your own freedom to choose_.

Calvin fails to provide rationally compelling and logically consistent theological and philosophical grounds for human moral responsibility and human moral accountability within the framework of his own ideas regarding the nature of God's sovereignty, providence and agency.

According to Calvin, God foreordained the Fall of man by prearranging and predetermining Adam's disobedience.

Calvin in his writings constantly ensnares himself into all kinds of theological difficulties that have the flavour of the absurd and the surreal.

It was this that made Calvin interesting to Joab.

To Joab, Calvin was the archetypical theologian of the absurd and the surreal.

Calvin was the exemplary or paradigmatic theologian of the absurd.

Calvin had unknowingly and unwittingly become the philosophical and theological champion of the surreal and the absurd.

In Calvin's theology any notion of human moral agency and moral responsibility with respect to the exercise of free will collapses.

While Calvin denied possibility of genuine free will, he did not deny man's culpability as a moral agent.

If man did not have a free will, how could he be held responsible for anything?

Joab realized that Calvin tried to have it both ways. But he could not logically and rationally claim that humans possess some minimal capacity for the exercise of free will which would be enough or sufficient for transforming them into free moral agents and at the same time claim that God's will necessarily causes all possible events.

Joab felt that Calvin could not have it both ways without being some kind of magical theological dialectician.

According to the will of God, the wind blows, the river flows, the rain falls.

Every possible motion, every possible thought, every idea, every natural inclination and power of things all follow necessarily from God's will.

All things in the Universe happened according the necessity of God's will. Calvin's view of God's foreordination of everything includes the idea of double-predestination. However Calvin's thesis of double predestination contradicts Calvin's own exhortatory calls for people to live a holy and exemplary Christian life.

If God has already decided beforehand, even before the foundations of the Universe were laid, who was going to be saved and who was going to be damned, then what was the point of trying to live the exemplary life of a faithful Christian believer?

Double predestination means that some are arbitrary elected to be saved even before they have done any good or evil, while others are arbitrary elected for damnation before they had the opportunity to do any kind of evil which would merit damnation.

Calvin's Universe was causally closed; everything about the future was fixed, prearranged and predetermined by God's will, according to His secret purpose.

In his third year of university studies, Joab began to formulate his own theology. His theology was based on the belief that the Universe was open and that the future did not exist as prearranged or predetermined. Man had a free will. Man possessed moral agency. Man was responsible and accountable for his actions. He began to explore philosophically the idea of moral realism. As an undergraduate student, he had begun to work out his own non-Calvinist and non-Reformed Christian theology based on a philosophy of freedom and responsibility.

******

For a while he listened to the speculations about their fate that filled the tent.

Soon the drone of the conversations made him feel drowsy and he fell into a fitful sleep on the hard ground with his rifle next to his side. Several hours later the commotion of many revving Bedford engines woke him up. In the predawn pitch darkness NCOs started shouting for them to _tree aan_. With the aid of torches they quickly rolled up their sleeping bags and packed their kit into their _balsaks_. It was three o' clock in the morning when they were marched off in the dark to queue for breakfast. They were warned that they better have breakfast because nobody had any idea when they would eat again.

Someone with an early morning sense of humour wanted to know where they were going so early in the morning.

"Shut up! It is none of your bloody business." Was the angry retort from an NCO.

"Of course it is my business. I am a tax paying citizen of the Republic." Someone shouted angrily back in the dark.

" _Hou jou bek, jou ma se poes_ ," another NCO shouted.

(Shut your mouth, you mother's cunt)

"Go fuck yourself, I want to know where we going," someone shouted back.

Everyone burst out laughing.

After breakfast they departed by Bedford for the Waterkloof Air Base. Later that morning, after taking off at sunrise, their Lockheed C-130 Hercules four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft landed at Grootfontein.

******

Over the next couple of weeks he found himself sitting listly on the back of a Unimog in a long motorized column heading for central Angola.

It soon became apparent to Joab that they were engaged in a fullblown conventional war. The advance of the war machine depended on the existence and accessibility of functional infrastructure, on roads and bridges.

This was in stark contrast to the roadless and endless foot slogging counter-insurgency bush war.

The new war that Joab found himself in was the kind of war where history, geography, roads, topography, rivers and bridges and hills decided the outcome of battles. It was the kind of war that depended on road maps. It was a war that depended on rapid mechanized mobility. It was a war that depended on long range artillery, on armoured cars and tanks. It was a war where outcomes depended on planning and logistics.

It was a conventional war, a war in which military science and military technology played a paramount role in deciding outcomes. It was a war for high ranking professional career soldiers in the SADF. For ordinary national servicemen and citizen force soldiers it was perceived and experienced differently. In their minds at a certain level of perception it was a war against communism. Joab also knew that at another level everyone knew that this war had a lot to do with Apartheid and a lot to do with SWAPO. Deep down in their hearts they knew that they were the soldiers of Apartheid and as such they knew that they were the pariahs of the world.

Also deep down in their souls they knew that it was going to be another futile war. Joab also knew that they were caught up in a war which in many ways was one of their own making. Their military prowess was beyond dispute. While they could win every battle, they would in the end lose the war. Wars were not won on battle fields, wars are always won in the political realm, and wars are won or lost in the minds of people. Ironically they had all heard this piece of wisdom before.

War was the clash of ideas.

Wars are won and lost in the minds of people!

This was the first law for counter-insurgency warfare and it was also the first law of guerrilla warfare.

What were the laws of conventional war? He pondered over this under the blazing sun and in the driving rain during their passage into the heart of Angola.

Mentally and emotionally he had started to disengage from the war. He began to pass the time by reflecting philosophically on the passage of his life. On a personal level the war in Angola was just an interruption, a temporary disruption of his life. He thought constantly about his time at university, he began to take stock of the past three years that he had spent at the University of Potchefstroom. He had studied Dooyeweerd. He had also read Stoker's _Beginsels en Metodes in die Wetenskap_ and he had read Pieter de Bruyn Kock's _Christelike Wysbegeerte_ : _Standpunte en Probleme_.

He had also read Monod's _Chance and Necessity_ and Weinberg's _The First Three Minutes_. He had learnt that man was nothing but star dust. In the birth, life and death of stars all the chemicals of the periodic table had been synthesized in stellar thermonuclear reactions. Without the engine of gravity there would be no chemical elements. The engine of gravity had also created the stars, the suns, planets and the solar systems. Life, which basically depends on the capacity to replicate biological polymers like DNA, RNA and proteins, arose from inanimate matter.

If God was the originator of all that is, then his originating activity and agency was hidden in the laws of nature. Does this hidden remoteness of God, who is the ground, the source and originator of the laws of nature, whose hidden agency only manifests itself in the physical processes of Universe, make God a _Deus Absconditus_? This would be the God of deism, and not the God of Christian theism.

The God of the Bible who is the God of Christian theism is a person.

As one day flowed into the next, he soon lost all sense of space and time. He no longer had any idea where he was on the map of Angola. It was rumoured that they were approaching the outskirts of Luanda. During their northward journey they had driven past many scenes of recent battles where the killing fields were still littered with bodies of dead FAPLA soldiers and the smouldering burnt out wrecks of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles stood at the road side.

As they drew closer to the front the distant dark horizons of the nights where filled with heavy machine gun tracer fire. The dreadful howling of the 122 mm BM-21 Katyusha multiple rocket launchers and the incessant boom of heavy artillery fire kept them awake for nights on end. Day after day at sunrise they would press forward again. Sometimes the column would also move forward throughout the night. It felt as if they were being constantly moved around from one strategic position to the next like pieces on a chess board by an invisible hand in a game of war.

Everywhere along the road and in the small towns they came across scenes of mind blowing carnage and death left behind in the wake of the catastrophic routing of the FAPLA forces.

The constant refrain of shrieking slogans painted on the walls of shattered houses and battle scarred buildings were starkly mute among the audience of the silent dead gazing up with empty eyes at the screaming Angola skies.

ABAIXO MPLA!

POVO UNITA!

VIVA MPLA!

ABAIXO NEOCOLONIALISMO!

For days on end they spent most of their time burying the remains of hundreds of dead MPLA soldiers, young and old, men and women. They buried the decaying bodies of blacks and mulattos. They buried the bloody corpses of black and mulatto women soldiers dressed in faded camouflage uniforms. They buried the blood caked cadavers of mulatto women with huge Afro hair styles.

They buried pieces of bodies, bodies that had been torn to shreds, bodies that were strewn everywhere. They buried severed legs still wearing neatly laced up boots.

Why did they have to bury the bodies? They were not undertakers.

They were amazed to find so many dead women soldiers amongst the fallen. The sweet and sickly stench of rotting bodies filled the air in every town that they drove through. In the towns there was no sign of life, all the bullet and artillery scarred homes and building were empty, the only living creatures left were the dogs that roamed the empty streets littered with the rotting bodies of the dead.

Wherever the motorized column stopped an eerily silence prevailed. Now and then along the way they run into rag-tag groups of armed UNITA soldiers who had become their allies. Those among the South African troops who could speak Portuguese would exchange pleasantries with UNITA officers and soldiers.

Everyone began joking that they would soon be drinking Cervejas beer in Luanda, but then without warning the advancing motorized infantry columns came to an abrupt halt in the middle of nowhere. For three days they did not move. No one knew what was going on. The troops in the motorised columns went into a defensive static formation as they temporarily bivouacked on the outskirts of some unknown town. They were ordered to dig in deep and wait for further orders.

Over the next few days throughout the day and night military transport aircraft including C-130 Hercules flew low over the military encampment to a landing strip at some nearby airfield. Joab soon learnt from the road signage that they were on the outskirts of a major Angolan city called Nova Lisboa as they were driven in a convey of Bedfords and Unimogs to the local airport to unload military cargo which included provisions and crates of ammunition from the SAAF transport planes.

Someone said that Nova Lisboa were just about in the centre of Angola.

Someone said that's a very long way from home.

Someone said: "Maybe we can buy an ice beer at the airport."

Someone said: "Maybe we can stop at the Wimpy."

CHAPTER 12

Then one morning they started moving forward again. Rumours quickly spread through the rank and file that the SADF had just won a crucial battle. A task force after a fierce battle had secured a strategic bridgehead across an important river obstacle. It was expected that a lighting military assault on Luanda was imminent.

Luanda was going to fall within hours.

Everyone reckoned that the column would reach Luanda within the next two to three days.

Excitement rippled through the column.

The expectations of wine, women and song in Luanda lightened the mood in the ranks.

But contrary to their expectations that they would soon be joining the advanced forces that would have captured Luanda within hours, their own advancing column grounded again to another shuddering halt once more in the middle of nowhere. For hours the long motorized column that stretched for kilometres on the tar road remained stationary in the scorching sun. Soldiers walked up and down chatting and joking. No one knew what was going on.

Late that afternoon the column was ordered to turn around and commence with a slow, disciplined and orderly retreat. Over the next couple of days the column retraced it steps southwards, slowly winding its way through open savannahs and closed woodlands. During the long lulls with nothing else to do they were able to pick up the Voice of America and the BBC on their transistor radios. There seemed to an element of truth that the tide of war had turned decisively in favour of the MPLA. Cuban reinforcements with vast quantities of armaments had landed in Luanda in an airlift operation that rivalled that of the Second World War. Rumours began to spread that an advancing front of FAPLA soldiers were a mere 50 km away and that they had been massively reinforced with Cuban armour and tens of thousands of Cuban infantrymen.

The column stopped once more. After a few hours troops began to disembark from the Unimogs and mill around in groups on the tar road. Joab followed close behind some troops from his unit who had decided to take a walk down the road to see if anyone knew what was going on.

They walked over to a group crowded around someone holding a transistor radio to his ear. He was translating the news that was been broadcast from some Portuguese radio station.

Apparently some time in November Holden Roberto's National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) had been completely wiped by a combined Cuban and FAPLA force.

"Who the bloody hell is Holden Roberto?" Someone wanted to know.

"He was big buddies with Frantz Fanon," someone answered.

"Who the fucken hell is Frantz Fanon?"

Joab stepped closer to listen in on the conservation. He had read about Frantz Fanon in Simone de Beauvoir's book _The Force of Circumstances_.

The person switched off his transistor radio.

"This whole Angolan thing has become one big fuck-up," he said to no one in particular.

Everyone began to drift away.

Joab made eye contact with the citizen force soldier who said that Frantz Fanon was buddies with Holden Roberto.

He smiled at Joab. Joab walked over to him. They stood in the shade of a huge acacia tree.

"This is really a _kak_ situation to be in, I don't want be here, I feel as helpless as a twig that has dropped into a flowing stream, carrying me to God know's where," he said to Joab, his face becoming serious.

"I feel the same," Joab answered sympathetically.

"It was unreal to hear that Frantz Fanon had a historical connection with the FNLA." Joab said.

"I know, I have just finished my MA at Wits on Frantz Fanon's theories of alienation and violence in relation to colonialization," he answered with an ironic grin on his face.

"Life is filled with all kinds of incongruities. Did you know that he was married to a white French woman?" he said.

"No, I would never have guessed that," Joab answered. He was not really interested in the fact the Fanon had married a white French woman. He was more interested in the irony of Fanon's historical relationship with the leader of the FNLA which had become an Apartheid ally in the war against the MPLA.

"What about his friendship with Holden Roberto?" Joab asked.

"Now that was a strange situation, especially for one of the fathers of the modern black consciousness movement. Even though when there was evidence that Holden Roberto was being backed by the CIA Fanon still supported him as a personal friend and political ally. Basically even though Holden Roberto's FNLA happened to be a kind of political movment that subscribed to a black consciousness ideology this did not prevent Roberto from becoming a willing USA puppet in the Cold War against the MPLA, Cuba and the Russians. Roberto was in the USA camp. He was basically a black fascist who belonged to the black bourgeois elite. Fanon was not very supportive of Agostinho Neto. He definitely was not a friend or political ally of Neto. He was actually opposed to the _Movimento Popular de Liberta çã de Angola_ (MPLA). The MPLA was never a black consciousness movement, they are a multiracial political organization; maybe this was the reason why Fanon felt an antipathy towards the MPLA. His black consciousness sentiments clouded his political judgement. He was also inconsistent with regard to his own theory on the role of the peasantry in the anticolonial liberation struggle, especially when it came to Angola. He could have thrown his weight behind the liberation movement that grew out of the Owinbundu which is the largest tribe in Angola," he said.

"But the Owinbundu are linked to UNITA," Joab remarked.

"That doesn't matter. In Fanon's theory the liberation struggle should be spearheaded by the rural peasantry who exist outside the perimeters of the towns and cities. The MPLA was always a multiracial urban-based movement so it did not fit in with Fanon's theory of a violent decolonization struggle, but UNITA represents the kind of liberation movement that Fanon had in mind," he said.

"What do you think of Fanon's theory regarding the role of violence in the decolonization struggle?" Joab asked.

"As a theory is it badly flawed. There is no scientific evidence that violence has any therapeutic value," he answered.

"Have you read Hegel?" He asked Joab.

"Only superficially, why do want know?" Joab answered.

"Well a lot of what Hegel said is still relevant. This whole Angolan thing is a mess. We are here not out of own free choice. Against our will and against our own better judgement we have been forced to be agents in a historical drama that we at the moment cannot fully comprehend or understand. Only one day in the future when all of this is over and the dust of of history has settled will we be able to look back and then with the wisdom of hindsight we will be able to piece everything together to make sense of what actually has happened. Only when history has finally unravelled will we know what really happened in Angola and in southern Africa. Only then will we know what was actually afoot at this precise moment, while we stood here under this acacia tree talking about Fanon's relationship with Holden Roberto of the FNLA," he said philosophically.

"The owl of Minerva flies at the coming of dusk," Joab remarked as he caught the drift of where this conversation was going.

"Yeah it will only be at the end of that final day when the sun sets on world history that we will be in position to stand back and discover the truth and meaning of that history. Knowledge of the significance and meaning of history will only be disclosed at the end of history, until then we are clueless about what has been going on all of this time," he said with an ironic grin on his face.

"Well I suppose that is the way the cookie crumbles. The show is not over till the fat lady sings," Joab said without a trace of humour on his face.

"And that will be the end, beautiful friend," he said.

"As in Jim Morrison of the Doors?" Joab asked.

"Yeah, that Jim Morrison," he said.

******

In spite of rumours about the threatening massing of Cubans in Luanda, the retreat of the SADF from central Angola was conducted without undue haste or panic. It did not feel like the retreat of a defeated army. There was a total absence of panic. None of the officers appeared to be worried.

By design it had become a slow aggressive retreat that left in its wake a trail of destruction and un-imaginable carnage as artillery, cannon, rifle and heavy machine fire destroyed any kind of infrastructures that was still intact. Everywhere mine fields were being laid, in and along roads, around blown up bridges, in towns and building, around abandoned farm houses and in the surrounding lands. Buildings, rail lines, railway stations, bridges, water reservoirs, water and sewage reticulation systems, telegraph poles, electrical power substations and electrical lines were blown up with explosives, destroying as much of the infrastructure as possible in the slow southwards retreat.

Joab felt the familiar emotional numbness taking hold. He reflected on his numbness. He reflected on his feelings of mental disconnectedness. He saw evidence of it in others. Maybe it was a coping mechanism for dealing with the uncertainty and the vagaries of war. For Joab and for all the others the Angolan invasion had been a novel experience of a new kind of war. If was different to the bush war, to the counter-insurgency low intensity war.

This was typically a conventional war, characterized by long lulls of uncertainty that were interrupted by episodic battles where the enemy was engaged with a ferocious intensity of extraordinary and devastating fire power. It had become a war that had inflicted a disproportionate and uncountable death toll on a militarily ill-prepared, undisciplined and untrained enemy. Fighting the MPLA was like shooting fish in barrel. It was a war that had left in its wake, not only shocking levels of FAPLA casualties, but also a massive destruction of Angolan infrastructure.

It had become a war that left everyone in a state of emotionlessness detachment following the frequent exposure to horror of violent death on an unimaginable scale.

Fanon's therapy of violence proved to have no magical curative powers for the colonized or for anyone for that matter.

Violence dehumanizes both victims and perpetrators.

There was no salvation or deliverance or liberation in violence.

Violence only increases the sense of alienation and self-estrangement.

It was surprising to Joab how quickly they had all become desensitized and indifferent to the depth of the tragedy into which they had become submerged as an invading army. After many weeks on the long road of destruction and death, the apocalytic vistas of horror that bordered on the surreal and metaphysical began to assume the appearance of normality.

After passing through town after town, everything began to look familiarly the same; the constant repetition of similar scenes of devastation began to dull the senses and the mind.

******

At night while lying in his fox hole on his back as if it were his grave, his final resting place, he would gaze up at the vast expanse of the Milky Way stretching across the sky. Gazing at the black star-lit sky he never failed to became awestruck at the immensity of the Universe and at the same time he would also become aware of his own insignificance in the grand scheme of things. It was in moments like these when Joab's thoughts turned to Calvin's God. Calvin's God was not seen as a _Deus Absconditus_ by Calvin, which is a God who, having set the Universe in motion, retired from the scene, leaving the Universe to evolve by itself in a deterministic fashion like a colossal mechanical machine whose intermeshing cogs moved rigidly, according to the physical laws of nature. The Universe of the _Deus Absconditus_ was causally closed. The future was completely determined by the events of the past.

Joab puzzled over the differences between the Universe of the _Deus Absconditus_ and Calvin's Universe. Could it be that in both Universes every event in the future had been arbitrary predetermined and prearranged from all eternity by a secret and unfathomable Divine decree?

In a way, both Universes were equally absurd, both were also equally meaningless. In both Universes the death and destruction in Angola had been deterministically prearranged to take place and the now the fullness of time had finally arrived to seal the dreadful fate of the Angolans after 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule.

Like the rest of nature, it was a purposeless unfolding of natural processes that had been set in motion by the mindless turning of intermeshing cogs, and like a gaint treadmill left to run its course to nowhere by an indifferent deity.

With Calvin's God, the Universe was causally closed and fully determined. It was logically a deterministic Universe. The future was not open, it was deterministically closed. Everything in the Universe, all events, past, present and future had been predetermined and prearranged by the iron and immutable decree of God's foreordination. Nothing had been left to chance; everything had been decided beforehand by God. God had decided beforehand who was going to be saved and who was going to be damned. The future was closed and the past was fixed. Adam's disobedience had set mankind on a trajectory of conflict with God. God had foreordained Adam's disobedience. God had causally programmed Adam to Fall.

God had engineered Adams rebellion. Adam's fate was fixed before Adam was created.

Joab preferred the idea that the Universe was causally open, that the future was open and not predetermined or foreordained. He liked the idea that God was both the God of Being and the God of Becoming. The God of Being was transcendent and the God of Becoming was immanent. He wondered whether the future existed. If the Universe was open and the future undetermined, then there was room for the interplay of chance and necessity in the Universe.

Maybe God did not desire or even expect that humans should hold beliefs about His nature or even about His existence. What did it matter to God whether or not man believed in God?

******

Joab's citizen force regiment and other units remained behind in their defensive installations while seemingly endless mechanized columns continued to move slowly southwards. The Cubans continued to track the retreating South African armed forces, rebuilding the bridges that the South Africans had destroyed and re-occupying the deserted towns that had been vacated along the road.

Rumours began to spread through the ranks that the Cubans had dug in close to some town between 20 and 30 km to the north of their position. At night the Cubans began to bombard the static defence positions of Joab's regiment with long range artillery and Katyusha multiple rocket launchers. Missiles and shells fell randomly, often exploding close to the fox holes of Joab and his platoon. They felt the shock waves and the reverberations of the exploding artillery shells and rockets.

After their first night of almost continuous bombardment, they dug their fox holes even deeper the following morning.

Night after night they huddled in their fox holes. From within the safety of his fox hole, he could still get a frightening sense of the intensity of the explosive forces that were been unleashed by the rockets and shells exploding around their positions. Immediately after the bomb explosion, a blast of highly compressed air travelling at an immense velocity would strip the surrounding trees bare of all their leaves. Following this blast of compressed air, supersonic shock waves transporting a dense cargo of destructive energy amplified the magnitude of the bomb's deadly force, shredding the night into billions of fragments.

In the morning the landscape would be pockmarked with gaint craters and spectral trees. It was a miracle that they had survived yet another night of bombardment.

Observational posts (OPs) were set up on various hills and _koppies_ close to the Cuban-FAPLA position. As the pattern of nightly bombardments continued, it was discovered by the POs that the Cuban artillery and rocket launchers had been set up in static fixed positions. They were not been moved around. They were firing from the same fixed positions. Under the cover darkness the SADF artillery, which had a shorter firing range, were moved to within striking distance of the Cuban positions. Once the Cuban nightly bombardment commenced all their artillery firing and rocket launching positions were confirmed and they were all destroyed by intense and accurate SADF artillery fire.

The bombardments ceased and the Cubans withdrew to positions further back.

Thereafter the days became more languid and with each passing day it became more uncertain when they would be leaving Angola. No one knew how long their stay in Angola was going to be. They were now in their third month in Angola. Joab had been practically living in and around his fox hole. He did not mingle much with his platoon. He chose to remain aloof and preoccupy himself with his philosophical and theological ruminations, scribbling down ideas in his notebook.

Having seen so many dead bodies he turned his thoughts to theology of the body, which includes the theology of the body's agency.

He opened his note book and began to write:

We exert agency, we are capable of agency, through the action of our bodies. We can only have agency if we are embodied. We perceive the world from within our bodies; we perceive the world from the perspective of our bodies. In this context it is necessary to consider the mind-body problem. Without a body, which also includes the brain and the nervous system, we would have no mind, we would have no thoughts, we would have no emotions, we would have no desires, we would have no hope and we would have no sensations. There would be no Eros.

The possibility of experiencing physical sensual pleasure in all its forms cannot be separated from other mental events such as desire, belief, thought, intention, imagination, anticipation, self-control, self-restraint, self-censure, guilt, remorse, regret and so on.

He closed his note book and placed in a plastic bag.

As the days passed, he wrestled on and off with the mind-body dualism problem. He often wondered whether it was possible that the mind was nothing more than some kind of epiphenomenon produced by the physical body and the brain with the nervous system. If the sense of self was only a mere epiphenomenon of the various physical processes taking place in the physical body and its brain, then the _self_ would be identical with the person's physical body and brain.

He wrote in his note book:

The mind could be nothing else but some kind of emergent property of the brain. Destruction of the body with its brain would mean that the person's mind would cease to exist as an emergent property of the living brain; it would mean the person would also cease to exist. Nothing would be left but the dead shell of the body.

Even with the escape that his mental preoccupations provided, he, like all of the others, could not escape the effects of the tedium that was eating away at their time.

He found himself in a state of emotional and mental free fall. The tedium, constant danger, the uncertainty and the prevailing sense of doom was beginning to play havoc with his mind, triggering within him uncontrollable feelings of erotic desire which left him feeling confused and bewildered.

Driven by boredom, the troops began to find all kinds of outlets or activities to relieve the unbearable tedium.

He had noticed that at odd times during the day, troops surreptitiously sneaked off from their lines to explore the local environment. It was discovered that a farm windmill of a nearby abandoned farm was still operational and was pumping water into a reservoir that supplied the house. A few enterprising sappers had collected firewood and started a fire under the donkey. News got around that troops were sneaking off at odd time to have hot showers at the farm house. They would return with shiny clean shaven faces and dressed in dripping wet but cleanly washed combat fatigues.

After a Saturday night of heavy binge drinking and dagga smoking most of the troops who knew about the farm house were passed out with heavy hangovers.

It was on that formidably hot Sunday afternoon that Joab decided also to sneak off by himself and pay a visit to the farm house for a shower. In the house he was surprised to discover that the family who originally lived there had left most of their personal effects behind as they had been forced to flee in haste from the civil war which had erupted. The house had been taken over as a temporary operations centre by the SADF during the early stages of the invasion. Not everything had been looted from the house. In the main bed room all the contents of the drawers and wardrobes had been emptied and strewn onto the floor. The bedroom was littered with items of female clothing. Dresses, slips, suspender girdles, undergarments, bras, stockings and shoes lay scattered everywhere.

He was slightly dismayed when he discovered that the shower was already occupied by two individuals. While they showered, Joab wandered back to the bedroom. He felt a rush of excitement; his heart began to throb as he gazed at the various items of female clothing and undergarments. Joab could not resist gathering together a pile of female garments and underclothing onto the bed. Sitting on the bed mattress, he felt and sniffed the clean perfumed soft fabrics and pressed them against his unshaven cheeks.

When the shower became clear he went over to the bathroom and shut the door. He leaned his R1 rifle against the bathroom wall, took off his webbing and boots, and then stripped off his dirty sweat-stained battle fatigues. He had stopped wearing his underpants and socks. Standing under the hot jets of water he lathered himself with feminine perfumed soap that had been left behind in the shower soap-holder. While he showered, he began to feel a feverish overwhelming and uncontrollable erotic desire to try on the undergarments and dresses that he had sorted out on the bed. But first, he washed and scrubbed his uniform.

Naked, except for his boots and bush hat, both of which he had put back on, he walked back to the bedroom with his rifle slung over his left shoulder, his webbing slung of his right shoulder, carrying his wet shirt and trousers in his arms against his chest. It was his intention to spend some time in the room by himself, trying on the various items of female clothing and maybe putting on some makeup, lipstick, eye shadow, a bit of rouge and just relaxing for the reminder of the afternoon in the house dressed up as a woman.

Standing at the entrance of the bedroom he saw someone else was already in the bedroom. It was the two that were in the shower when he first arrived. To his surprise one of them was standing in front of the dressing table mirror, dressed in high heels, stockings, suspender girdle, panties and bra stuffed with stockings. He recognized the person as one of the regimental medics. He was busy applying makeup to his face. The other person was sitting naked on the bed with his back towards Joab. The person on the bed was watching the medic doing his makeup. While Joab watched the well-built naked man get up from the bed and walked over to the medic. Placing his hands on the medic's hips, he positioned himself behind the medic while the medic was still applying lipstick to his lips, he pulled the panties down to the medics ankles, the medic stepped out of the panties, kicking them to one side. He was wearing only the suspender girdle to which the stockings were clipped and the bra. Learning his forearms on the top of the dresser the medic bent down exposing his buttocks and anus, the partner penetrated the medic, and began to fondle the medic's genitals while thrusting slowly and rhythmically until he climaxed. The medic who had been penetrated gasped while he was being fondled, he was fondled until he too climaxed and ejaculated

Joab stood frozen in the door way, his breathing rate increased, his heart started pounding, unable to move, unable to take his eyes off the spectacle; he just stood there in the doorway, transfixed. Gazing into the mirror both men could see Joab standing in the doorway, watching. Joab looked down and saw that he too had become magnificently aroused. After the muscular soldier had relieved himself inside the medic, he turned around and on noticing Joab's condition he smiled, and he invited Joab to also mount the medic, and the medic seemed to be more than willing for Joab to have his turn as well, and stood bend over waiting for Joab to come over and penetrate him. He moved his buttocks in a teasing manner, pouting his red lips at the mirror; he smacked his lips in a mock kiss at Joab. Joab looked with sexual curiosity at the medic's anus which looked so inviting. Creamy white semen began to ooze out of his anus. Joab's mouth became dry with lust, he breathing quickened and his pulse raced. He felt the hot fever of desire, he felt overcome with desire, he struggled to contain the breathless irresistible consuming urge to fondle the medic's genitals, his testicles, and his penis, and to penetrate his anus.

He felt that he was in the process of becoming overwhelmed by another kind of numbness, it was not the numbness that he was familiar with, the numbness that one experiences in the heat of battle, the numbness in the face of death, the numbness that comes in the face of immediate life-threatening danger, the kind numbness which gives way to ashen-faced trauma, when the body shivers and trembles uncontrollably, when being alive seems incomprehensible.

It was not the numbness that evaporated all terror of imminent death as the red eyes of the 122 mm BM-21 Katyusha multiple rocket launchers filled the night sky like a host of angels in full chorus. It was not like the strange surreal numbness that comes with the close presence of death as the night becomes shattered into billions of pieces of red hot crystal that rains down like burning hail. It was not the opium like numbness induced by the firework spectacle of blinding flashes of exploding artillery shells and missiles which illuminated the sky and filled the savannah for a brief moment with the shadows of the dancing dead.

Nor was it the kind of numbness that subsided into trauma, the kind of trauma that they all felt after the SWAPO contact in the open Kavango woodland. It was a trauma they all silently endured in solitude when they marched 20 kilometres through the driving rain with lightning punctuating the darkness, with images of the SWAPO dead seeking shelter under the huge trees from the rain as they too journeyed throughout the night to seek to out their ancient ancestors.

Joab and the rest of the platoon marched until they found their own shelter in the dark shadows of the riverine forest of the great Kavango River. It was a trauma they all kept to themselves, it was a trauma that no one admitted, it was a trauma they would never find words to talk about. It was a trauma they would suppressed forever in the deepest recesses of their souls, it was the hidden trauma of death that every warrior carries buried deep in his soul.

Joab stood in the doorway of the bedroom, captivated and transfixed by the sensual and erotic beauty of the medic. His mouth became dry with lust. He recollected Sarel's story of the bulls mounting each other. Nothing seemed more natural for him at that moment than to go over and penetrate the medic or be penetrated in turn by the muscular soldier.

Looking into the mirror he saw a slight smile forming on the medic's lips. While staring at his reflection he listened to the sound of his voice politely declining the invitation to have sex with the medic. In a trance like state he turned around and beat a hasty retreat out of the room and down the passage towards the lounge. The wooden floors of the passage creaked under the heavy tread of his boots.

As he walked away, the emotional numbness that takes possession of the soul when it succumbs to a passionless, non-intimate, anonymous sexual encounter subsided, leaving him with the burden of regret for not plucking and enjoying the pleasure of the forbidden fruit.

In the lounge he quickly put on his wet uniform, and then his webbing. Stepping out onto the veranda, he stood for a few seconds surveying the ruins of the once beautiful farm. It was a miracle that it had escaped complete destruction when their position was being bombarded by the Cubans night after night.

With the after-image of two in _flagrante delicto_ burnt into his brain, he went down the veranda steps into the bright Angolan sunlight, feeling the furnace-like blast of the sweltering afternoon heat. He stood still for a moment in the small garden filled with brightly coloured flowers. He heard the distant rumble of thunder. Shielding his eyes from the sharp glare of the sun he looked upwards, searching the azure blue sky, he soon spotted the vapour trails of three jets speeding northwards. Following the flight of the jets with his upturned gaze, he wondered whether they were Cuban piloted MiG-23s or South African Mirages.

As the jets disappeared from sight he felt that nothing mattered anymore. For days on end he had listened with a kind of theological and philosophical amusement to the sentiments of moral indifference expressed by his fellow comrades in arms. For days on end he heard the same words being uttered at increasing frequency:

" _Ek voel fokkol_!"

It was not only a matter of demoralization, it was the onset of moral numbness, it was a manifestation of the total collapse of morality, a collective moral incapacity had taken hold of everyone. It manifested itself in many ways, including the callous indifference to the death and suffering of any black soldier, whether he was from the UNITA allies of the SADF or a casualty from the ranks of the enemy. It manifested itself in drunken binges and in dagga smoking. It manifested itself in looting and pillage, in the destruction of infrastructure. Rumours of SADF war atrocities were rife, including stories of the torture and summary executions of POWs. Rumours of acts of wanton destructive barbarism by SADF soldiers, like the shooting of roaming livestock, including pigs and cattle that had escaped from abandoned Portuguese farms, were doing the rounds.

In the mind of Joab, there were no longer any doubts that the SADF, the Nationalists politicians and the Apartheid ideologues in the clergy all operated, lived and breathed, in an amoral universe of their own creation. Justifying and then phyically defending Apartheid with the deadly force of arms on the scale that took place with the invasion of Angola was like justifying and defending something as morally indefensible as Auschwitz.

Joab felt conflicted and confused. He was filled with feelings of revulsion towards the war in Angola, and at the same time he started to feel the pangs of regret that he had failed to accept the invitation to mount the medic. He could not escape the incredible desire to fondle the medic's genitals, at the same time he felt confused and guilty. They had seen that he had hesitated, they had watched him with an enigmatic curiosity as he had lingered at the brink of indecision longer that he should have, they knew he was one of them. He dreaded the possibility of seeing the pair of them again.

He couldn't help fantasying about the medic, about holding him in a loving and passionate embrace, kissing him, and caressing him, the sex act was not enough, he wanted the emotional bonding, he craved the reciprocal intimacy, he wanted to be loved and to love in return like it was with Sarel.

He felt that he was developing an irrepressible infatuation towards the medic. He was falling in love with the medic. He could not stop having obsessive sexual fantasies about the medic. He struggled to stop himself from wanting seek out and find the medic.

He desperately wanted to be physically intimate with the medic, to experience for a brief moment an act of physical tenderness towards someone, even if it was going to be mixed up with the messiness of lust and desire. It would have restored in him a sense of humanity, a sense of sanity and even a sense of morality in the middle of the confused chaotic fiasco that the SADF invasion of Angola had degenerated into.

Experiencing a moment of intimate tenderness, no matter how brief and anonymous, would have broken the moral numbness that he felt. He knew that if he had touched the medic, he would have fallen hopelessly in love with him. He would not have been able to leave him. In the process of falling in love with the medic, he would have fallen under the spell of a wanton and slutty bitch that would have played with his feelings and eventually broken his heart. He would have set himself up to be deeply hurt. Yet his pulse quickened as tried to imagine how it would have felt to have his erect penis thrusting inside the tight sheath of the medic's anus.

He thought about the story of bulls mounting each other. Sarel had said that he had once witnessed a bull actually penetrating another bull. His brothers, in the absence of their father, and had allowed two bulls to mate. They brought the bulls together and got the one to mount the other. It was on that day Sarel told Joab that he first realized that he was a queer, and that he could not stop thinking about being mounted and penetrated.

Those that had been left behind to frustrate the advance of the Cubans and the MPLA into UNITA held territory, eventually received their orders to recommence their slow retreat from Angola. For days on end in the Angolan bush, as their motorized column moved painfully slowly southwards to the South West African border, he sat at the back of the rocking Unimog obsessing over the medic. The fantasy of making love to the medic would not leave him; it clung to him as a vivid mental scar, a haunting mental souvenir of the Angolan moral morass into which the invasion had thrust him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop thinking about the medic. He became sick with an erotic desire that was different from the desire that he had felt for Sarel, which had been so pure and so sacred and so loving and so caring and so beautiful.

He prayed: "Lord have mercy. I want die, I don't want to live anymore, I feel so depressed that I could shoot myself."

He rummaged in his kit bag and pulled out his Bible. He began to read where it fell open.

For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, 'He has a demon!' "The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' "Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children."

He prayed: "Lord have mercy."

******

He woke from a deep sleep on the back of the Unimog. The column had stopped in a small devastated town. An animated discussion accompanied with much laughter and hilarity was in progress next to the Unimog in the bright sunlight of a beautiful February afternoon in 1976.

A bottle of whiskey was being passed around among a group of SADF and UNITA soldiers standing next to the Unimog. The South Africans were speaking in English to a Portuguese journalist who had managed to escape from Luanda and had, by some miracle, found his way into southern Angola.

The journalist related the story that during the siege of Luanda, the pornographic movie _Emmanuelle_ was screened continuously by the projectionist who remained behind after the owner of the cinema had fled back to Lisbon. In passing the journalist mentioned that the most beautiful women that he had ever seen in all his journalistic experience, in every major city in the world, were the mulatto women of Luanda.

Flushed with whiskey and feeling the unbearable pangs of disappointment that the invasion of Luanda had been aborted at the 11th hour, a deeply tanned and bearded South African soldier exclaimed to the amusement of his comrades:

"Hell man, just imagine I could now be fucking my brains out on mulatto pussy in Luanda but instead we are stuck here in this fucking shit hole, what is the fucking name of this town anyway?"

They finally received mail. Joab took and arranged the letters in chronological order according to the date of the stamp on the envelope.

His forebodings were confirmed. His grandfather had passed away and he had been buried about three weeks ago.

With the war temporary over for most of the national servicemen and citizen force soldiers, the higher military echelons decided that there was no urgency to get the war exhausted troops back home to their wives, children, mothers and fathers. So instead of being airlifted to Waterkloof, thousands of South African soldiers found themselves travelling in crowded and stifling hot train compartments across the deserts of South West Africa and the Northern Cape to Bloemfontein. From Bloemfontein the men found the troop trains that would take them to Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.

Seven days later, just before sunset, on the 25th of February 1976, Joab disembarked at Potchefstroom Station. He spotted his mother, a lone forlorn figure standing on the platform.

CHAPTER 13

Following the death of his mother on the 3rd of January 1977, he became completely dependent on dressmaking in order to survive financially. There was no other way he could generate sufficient income in order to sustain himself as a fulltime postgraduate student.

Between doing his research for his MA and dressmaking, his schedule allowed him no free time for any kind of socialization and recreation, or any cross-dressing escapades or any opportunity for the cultivation of a lifestyle in keeping with a transvestite. He followed a gruelling schedule balancing his time between study and dressmaking.

Also with the death of his mother and the loss of their home, the environment that had once been friendly and conducive towards his transvestite predilections no longer existed.

Suddenly Joab was faced with the stark reality that his double life as a transvestite could no longer be pursued without the risk all kinds of hazardous implications.

But that was the least of his most pressing worries. His immediate priority was to find suitable lodgings. He had been given notice to vacate his mother's house which was to be auctioned.

Fortuitously he managed to organize lodgings for himself by sharing a cottage on a nearby farm with Rudi Venter, his old friend who was now a postgraduate theological student. Rudi who had finished his undergraduate theological studies, was planning to eventually become a minister in the Gereformeerde Kerk. He was currently doing an MA in New Testament theology when he and Joab took up residence in the cottage. At first they tried to manage the housekeeping and cooking themselves but it proved to be too much, especially for Joab who was devoting all his free time to dress making in order to generate an income so that he could sustain himself financially as a student.

Eventually Rudi suggested that they should get a maid to clean the cottage, wash dishes, cook supper, wash and iron their clothes. He suggested that they could go halves on paying her salary. This would unburden them from all the household chores and allow them to focus without any distractions on their studies. Joab agreed to the proposal, thinking that it was a good idea.

The owner of the farm was a relative of Rudi. Rudi approached his aunt, the farmer's wife, and asked her if she could organize a suitable and trustworthy black maid for them, preferably someone who had grown up as a child of one of the black families living on the farm, so that at least they would know something about her background and would have the necessary leverage to exercise the required authority over her as their household servant. They wanted somebody who was not a total stranger, but was someone who was known to be of good character, reliable, hardworking and trustworthy, and who was preferably young, healthy and strong. It transpired that there were no suitable young, healthy and strong black women staying on the farm. However, one of the farm workers was known to have relatives who lived in a nearby native location called Ikageng, located on the outskirts of Potchefstroom. When approached, he said that he would visit his relatives in the location on the forthcoming weekend and make the necessary inquiries for a suitable candidate.

He discovered that one of his nieces who also happened to be young, healthy and strong, no longer had work and he made arrangements for her come to the cottage for an interview with the two students on the Monday morning.

At 7.00 am Segomotso found her uncle in the dairy. He was released from his duties so that he could escort Segomotso to the cottage which was located across the railway line that cut the dairy farm in half. From the dairy it was a good 10 minute walk to the cottage, even when taking a shortcut across the lucerne fields. Dodging irrigation sprinklers, they took the shortest possible route by cutting straight across a recently mown section of the lucerne field. With long strides her uncle marched ahead of her. He was anxious to get back to his work. As she quickened her pace to keep up with him the soles of her takkies made crunching sounds as she treaded with short quick steps on the sharp, short stalks of the recently mown lucerne. Deep in thought she was oblivious to the flock of foraging Sacred Ibises that watched them warily as they walked past in silence.

On this bright, warm autumn morning in the season of Lent, she prayed silently that she would get the job. She discretely made a quick, barely noticeable movement with her hand as she crossed herself with the sign of the cross. They flushed a family of black smith plovers. The birds took off into the air with rapid wing beats and sharp metallic cries that sounded like many hammers striking down on anvils; they flew high above Segomotso and her uncle, making mock dive bombs at the pair who continued to walk briskly across the field, undeterred, without a faltering break in their rhythm, as they strode purposefully onward across the field. Near the fence, at the edge of the field, a heron stood frozen, watching their approach.

At the barbed wire fence at the edge of the field they stopped briefly, her uncle while pressing a strand of barbwire down with his foot and lifting the other strand with his hand, helped her pass through the gap between the two parted strands he had made for her in the barbwire fence. Once they had both crossed through the fence, they walked swiftly across the railway line. They crossed through a second barbwire fence in the same manner on the other side of the railway line. Her uncle found a foot path that took them through a stand of thorn bush and acacia thorn trees to the clearing where the cottage stood.

Rudi and Joab, who were expecting the arrival of the pair, had just finished having their breakfast at the kitchen table when Rudi, glancing through the kitchen window, spotted the pair approaching the cottage.

" _Hier kom ou Elias met die meid_ ," he said.

(Elias has arrived with the maid.)

A few seconds later Elias knocked on the kitchen door. Joab and Rudi got up and met the pair outside in the yard. After taking his hat off and greeting the two students, he introduced the young black woman standing diffidently at his side as Maria and stated on her behalf that she would like to have the job that had become available at the cottage. She made a slight curtsy when he introduced her, also politely greeting them with her own:

" _More my baas_."

(Good morning my master.)

Joab was immediately struck, rather unexpectedly, by the fact that Segomotso was an exceptionally attractive young black woman. He had grown up surrounded by black women in his mother's garment factory but had never ever really looked at any black women before in the way that he now stared at Segomotso. It could have been the novelty of finding himself in the role of a first time employer of a black maid that made him more acutely aware of the young woman standing before them. He looked her up and down. She was dressed in a simple black dress with the hem extending to just below her knees. Over the dress she wore a faded blue maid's pinafore. She was slightly breathless after their brisk walk and drops of sweat had formed on her brow beneath the white _doek_ or _kopdoek_ (bandana) that covered her head.

Speaking formally on her behalf, Elias went on to confirm that she would like to have the job.

" _Sy soek die werk by die baas se huis. Sy is baie betroubaar en baie hard werkend. Sy kan kook en kan baie goed huis skoon maak_."

(She wants the work that has been offered. She is very trustworthy and hard working. She can cook and she is excellent at cleaning.)

Elias reiterated on her behalf her steadfast interest in the job. She nodded her head in agreement.

After listening to Elias, Joab turned his gaze again to Segomotso. She looked so young, innocent and vulnerable. He thought of the poignant chorus line repeated so relentlessly at the end of each stanza of a lengthy poem he had recently read. It was an English translation of a Xhosa poem that concerned the sad fate of a sleek young ox. It had been composed by the Xhosa poet James-James Ranisi Jolobe who was also a clergyman in the Presbyterian Church.

Joab took in the multi-layered and richly-textured scene of the middle aged man with the young woman standing at his side in the bright light of a fresh autumn morning. For a brief moment it felt like he was experiencing an epiphany filled with the images of disempowerment and submissiveness. He could even hear in his mind the echo of a powerful antiphonic rendition of the forlorn chorus line, ' _I have seen the making of a servant. In the young yoke-ox._ '

The figure that drew his attention was not a fine young yoke-ox standing ready to be broken in under the plough; it was the lissom figure of a fine fresh young heifer, ready to be broken into a life of domesticated servitude. The black female's mode of existence from time immemorial has been lived as the one who has been domesticated. She has been domesticated for house hold chores, for hoeing fields, for collecting water, for collecting firewood, for cooking food and for providing animal comfort in moments of intimacy. She was also the field of soft friable soil that her husband ploughs at night; her body is the yielding fertile soil into which his seed is sown.

" _Goed so_."

(Good.)

She looked up at him making brief eye contact. Her face had not yet hardened. No veil covered her inner-most emotions, no mask hid her private and intimate thoughts. Her face was still expressive and open, sufficiently expressive and open to reveal a shadow of forlornness, a shade of melancholy, that darkened her demeanour.

Rudi filled in the role of the silent bystander as Joab took charge of the interview, if it could be called that. He realized he needed to know her details before he could give her a firm offer. He asked Segomotso if he could see her reference book.

" _Wys my jou pas_."

(Show me your reference book.)

She immediately unzipped her bag and in one seamless flowing graceful motion she quickly presented him with her passbook, holding it out towards him in her right hand while the figures of her left hand lightly covered her forearm. As he took it from her hand she made a quick graceful curtsy.

She watched his face as he opened her reference book and flipped through the pages.

He opened the reference book at section E which is the ID page, where it said Bantu Identity Card. He carefully examined her ID information. Her name was Segomotso Maria Molefe. She was classified as a Motswana female. Her reference number was 1152468 and she was born on the 8th of March 1957.

It was Tuesday the 8th of March, he realized it was her birthday, she had just turned 20. He glanced up at her. Standing before them in her clean and neatly ironed pinafore, next to Elias, she looked so powerless and vulnerable, even on her birthday. She had no promising prospects in this life other than to bow down and submit herself to the yoke of domestic servanthood in a white home. Career immobility and subjugation was going to be her lot in life.

Joab stared again for a few seconds at the black and white ID photo of the unsmiling impassive face of a very pretty 16 year old teenager. He then turned to section A of the reference book. Under section 1 it recorded that her permanent residential address fell within the urban residential area of Ikageng in the district of Potchefstroom. This was important as he could not legally offer her employment if she came from a tribal reserve or homeland. When he saw this he said aloud

" _Goed so_."

In section 2 of her reference book under the heading of LABOUR BUREAU INFLUX AND EFFLUX CONTROL AND REGISTRATION there were two official stamps with dated signatures. The first stamp indicated she had the legal rights of a section 10(a) permit and the second stamp confirmed that her official residential address was stand 1400 Ikageng location. He turned to the section on her employment history. From January 1976 and January 1977 she had been employed as a flat cleaner. Her employer was the owner of Bella Vista Heights. She had been unemployed since the end of January 1977.

He made a comment about her employment history.

" _Ek sien jy was sonder werk vanaf Januarie_."

(I see that you have not had a job since January.)

She was not evasive. She replied, explaining how it came to pass that her recent employment at Bella Vista Heights was terminated.

" _Ek het my werk verloor. Ons was afgedank toe die baas die Bella Vista Heights verkoop. Ek het orals vir werk gesoek. Ek kon nêrens werk kry nie_."

(We were retrenched as flat cleaners when the owner of Bella Vista Heights sold the flats. Since then I have not stopped looking for work. There is no work out there.)

He was satisfied with her answer as it made sense, but he wanted to know what she was doing during the 2 or 3 years before her job at Bella Vista Heights.

" _Watse werk het jy gedoen van 1974 tot 1975? Daar is geen werkbesonderhede in jou pasboek vir daardie twee tot drie jaar tydperk nie_."

(Where were you employed from 1974 to 1975? There is no record in your reference book of your employment history over that period.)

She looked up at him and told him that she was still at school during that period of time. She had matriculated from Boitshoko High School

" _Ek was nog op skool. Ek het my matriek gedoen in 1975_."

(During that time I was still at school. I completed my Matric in 1975.)

She quickly unzipped her bag and with the same beautiful gesture she gave him her matric certificate.

Shaking his head in disbelief he looked at the matric certificate. If she had passed her matric, why was she looking for work as a domestic servant, was the question that shot through his mind. He could not help showing his surprise.

" _Liewe hemel_!"

(Good heavens!)

She noticed his genuine bewilderment and felt immediately perturbed. He would never have guessed that this young woman who had graduated from high school desperately wanted the job of a domestic servant in their cottage. In a different time and at a different place, in another Universe, she would have been someone else, she could have been anybody, and she could also have been the most amazing person. He examined her certificate and saw that she had passed all her subjects which included English, Afrikaans, Setswana, Mathematics, Science and Geography. It seemed to have been a huge exercise in futility, yet she had done it. But what could she do with a matric certificate in Potchefstroom?

CHAPTER 14

Joab who had recently been reading Theodor Adorno, struggled to shake off the wave of emptiness that threatened to engulf him after looking at her matric certificate. Adorno had said that whoever wishes to experience the truth of immediate life, must investigate its alienated form, the objective powers, which determine the individual existence into its innermost recesses.

Before him he had just seen the vivid living embodiment of the alienated life.

Each page of her reference book spelled out the inflexible and rigid predestination of her destiny. External objective powers over which she had no control determined her existence in its innermost recesses. South Africa had devised the most potent legal machinery for the racially based exploitation of black labour that had ever been devised short of outright slavery. It dawned on Joab before that the problem of evil was entangled, intertwined, and interwoven into an unbreakable knot, an undoable knot, with the problem of power. The problem of evil was inseparably joined to the problem of power. The exercise of power was always linked to the occurrence of evil. The symptomology of evil was human suffering. Evil resulted in human suffering; it manifested itself in human suffering. Suffering arises from injury, injury comes in many forms. Humiliation was one of the most common everyday forms of suffering in South Africa.

There is nothing abstract about evil. Evil is the product of human agency, it flows from the free and intentional commission of acts. Evil always exists in the visible form of its victims, without victims, evil cannot exist. It is a profound paradox that without free will, without the freedom to act intentionally, there can be no evil. The reducibility of evil to free will becomes the basis for grasping the very essence of the ethical idea of evil. Without free will evil ceases to exist as a moral or ethical problem. Humankind's inability not to commit evil is the essence of man's fall.

Rudi could not contain his curiosity. Joab gave him the matric certificate and he also examined the matric certificate, before passing it back to Joab.

Joab took an instant liking to the young woman. He gave the reference book and certificate back her and she curtsied as she took them from him and placed them carefully back in her bag.

Before making a decision, Joab looked at Rudi, to see if wanted to add anything to the interview. Rudi shrugged his shoulders, demonstrating his non-committal. He was leaving the decision to Joab. Noting that Rudi had no objections, he decided it would be nice to have her as their house keeper. He had a good feeling about her. Joab offered her the job and she accepted.

" _As jy wil, jy kan vir ons werk.Wil jy die werk hê_?"

(If you want to work for us, the job is yours.)

" _Ek wil graag die werk hê_."

(I definitely want the job.)

She was pleased that she had been given the job even though she did not show it. She immediately accepted the offer without them first talking about her remuneration or conditions of employment. She also had a good feeling about Joab and felt certain she would not be treated badly as a servant, especially if he was the person who was going to be in charge, which in her mind seemed to be the case.

Joab had grasped the reality of her situation in a way that Rudi could not. He remembered all the ins and outs of labour relations from his late mother's garment factory. He knew that Segomotso needed this job; he knew the power that they exercised over her life. She had been without work for 3 months and her prospects could suddenly change for the worst.

Her pass was in order, but that could change very quickly. For the moment she was a legal resident, in other words, she was a 'section tenner' which meant that she qualified under the Section 10 Bantu (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act of 1925 to stay in a white urban area because she was born in Potchefstroom and had lived in Ikageng continuously since her birth. She had over the past 3 months discovered that meaningful employment opportunities for young inexperienced black women were very limited. He knew there was also a chronic shortage of accommodation for single black women in Ikageng. He also correctly guessed that she was living with her parents.

What he did not know directly about Segomotso's life situation he could guess. He guessed that Segomotso parents shared the four roomed house with her father's parents. He could have also guessed that she slept on the couch in the small lounge at night, and because his instincts were acute, he would have also guessed correctly that she kept all her personal belongings in an old suitcase which she stashed beneath the couch. She was literally lived out of the suitcase.

One thing he was certain of was that beneath her pinafore, she was wearing her best dress. The dress she wore to church.

He knew, given her current situation, her section 10 (a) status could be rescinded in a flash. All black women in white urban areas over the age of 15 and under the age of 60 who while being capable of working and who were unemployed could lose their section ten status and would become illegal residences who could then be arrested as pass law offenders. Refusal to accept the employment found by the Labour Bureau or being dismissed or being unemployed for a given period on time would provide grounds for declaring that person to be idle or undesirable. This next step would be the loss of their section ten status and they would have to go and stay in some demarcated rural reserve or homeland outside the municipal boundaries of the white town or city.

The reason that Segomotso was having difficulties in finding work was due to the fact the economy had slowed down significantly because of the international political response to South African military invasion of Angola in 1975, which was followed by the 1976 Soweto student uprising. Actually these two events marked the onset of the almost exponential escalation of South Africa's economic and political crisis which would lead to the inevitable collapse of the Apartheid state in the distant future. Joab knew that the overwhelming majority of black women could only find work as domestic servants. It was as domestic servants in white homes that black women found themselves chained to the most exploitative kinds of employment readily available to them in South Africa.

He wanted to know when she could start, and it was obvious that there was no better moment than the present. But he thought he will let her decide.

" _Wanneer kan jy begin_?"

(When can you start?)

She wanted to start immediately.

" _Ek kan nou vandag met die huis werk begin_."

(I can begin today with the housework.)

Elias bid everyone farewell and headed back to the farm to continue with his work. Segomotso followed the two men into the kitchen where Joab wanted to discuss with her the remuneration and the conditions of her employment, and he wanted to do this in the presence of Rudi, who he thought would agree with everything that he put on the table. Joab knew that the average wage was in region of R 25.00 per month in Potchefstroom. He wanted to get a bench mark of her expectations by first hearing what she had in mind with respect to her wage.

" _Wat is die huidige salaris vir 'n huisbediende_?"

(What is the current salary rate for domestic workers?)

" _Ek weet nie, baas. Die baas moet besluit hoeveel hy my gaan betaal_."

(I don't know master. The master must decide himself how much he wants to pay me.)

Joab looked at Rudi. Again he gave a non-committal shrug of his shoulders. Joab had watched his mom negotiate wages and he always felt sorry for the seamstresses as they accepted the pittance she offered them. He kept a poker face while making his bid.

" _Ons kan jou R40 per maand te betaal_."

(We can pay you a monthly salary of R 40.00.)

He looked at Rudi. Rudi gulped. Joab shrugged his shoulders. Segomotso's face lit up.

Joab knew from the times when his mother as an employer of black women in her garment business, that he would now be required in terms of the Bantu Taxation Act, to register her as a domestic worker. All employers of black workers had to pay a tax on any Bantu whose wage exceeded R30 a month. He would now have to register Segomotso as their employee and pay a tax on her monthly wage or face a fine of R 400.00 or imprisonment for period of six months or both.

" _Is jy tevrede met ons werks aanbod_?"

(Are you satisfied with our offer?)

Segomotso accepted the terms of her employment.

" _Ek is baie tevrede_."

(I am very satisfied.)

Joab explained that she would be expected to work from 7.30 am to 16.45 with two 15 minutes tea breaks and an hour for lunch break. She would be given keys for the kitchen door. She could prepare herself breakfast, tea or coffee and lunch. They would include her bus fare on top of her salary.

" _Is jy tevrede met jou werksure_?"

(Are you happy with the working hours?)

" _Ek is baie tevrede_."

(I am very happy.)

He had never hired a domestic servant before, so after they had settled the salary and working hours, he thought it would be a good idea if they went on a tour of the house, before he sat down with her and discussed her household chores in more detail.

She noticed that the house was sparsely furnished. She also discovered that there was no washing machine, no vacuum cleaner, and no floor polisher. She also discovered that Joab had taken charge over the running of the household. The other student Rudolph Venter hovered in the background like a gloomy and brooding presence, saying nothing just listening like herself to what Joab was saying as they walked through the cottage visiting each room in turn. She found Rudolph Venter with his moustache and black plastic frame spectacles a very intimidating person.

After the tour Rudi excused himself and left in his bakkie.

With Rudi gone Joab felt a bit more comfortable and free to talk in more detail about her household chores. He invited her to sit down at the kitchen table. He left her for a few minutes and came back with a note pad and pen. Sitting down at the table with her, he drafted a detailed schedule of daily chores for each day of the week. She would also make the supper in the afternoons. He wrote down the dinner menu for each day of the week. The meals that he would teach her to make included lasagne, spaghetti bolognaise, pap and vleis, Boere kos dishes, babotie, macaroni dishes and cottage pie. When preparing the meals, she should make sufficient for three. The third portion would be for herself which she would have for lunch the following day.

She would be working from Monday to Friday. She would get the weekends off. After Joab had explained in great detail her job description, he asked if she had any questions. While they were sitting at the table he had prepared two copies of her job description which included the menu for the meals. He made her sign one copy which he kept and he signed the other which he gave to her. She folded her copy of the contract and put into her bag.

" _Dit voltooi ons besigheid. Ons het elkeen 'n afskrif van die getekende kontrak_."

(Well, this concludes our business regarding the job description and our agreement. We now each have a signed copy of the employment contract.)

As she zipped her bag closed, she took stock of her new world of employment. She felt happy with her salary, but noticed that Rudi was not too pleased with Joab's decision. She was certain that Joab was going to be good boss.

Segomotso's deep sense of helplessness, hopelessness and despondency that she had been struggling with ever since she first began working, started to lift a bit. Enmeshed in the tangled skein of Apartheid legislation from which there was no escape, her life prospects were severely curtained, she had practically no options that she could exercise when it came to her development as a person.

A year had already gone by and she had not acquired any worthwhile work experience or skills. Out of desperation she had taken the menial flat cleaner job. It seemed to be the only available job at the time. There were no vacancies anywhere in Potchefstroom to absorb black female matriculants in the meaningful kind of employment that she was searching for. There were always long queues for the few vacancies open to literate work seekers and the supply of black literate work seekers often exceeded the demand because in many instances black literate job seekers found themselves competing with whites, and whites were always given preference for jobs that required some degree of literacy.

After repeatedly failing to find any work for literate job seekers in Potch Industria next to the Ikageng location, she was told by officials at the Bantu Labour Bureau that there were lots of vacancies for flat cleaners. A Bantu Labour Bureau was attached to the office of the local Bantu Affairs Commissioner in every district or region. Notifications of employment opportunities for black labourers were forwarded by employers to the offices of their respective district labour bureaus, who were then mandated to recruit Bantu workers for them. The labour bureaus controlled the supply of black labour. It has been said that in South Africa, under the Nationalist Party the Apartheid government, had developed one of the most exploitative and coercive labour systems that had ever been devised in human history.

The stamps and signatures in her reference book would determine her destiny, whether she would continue to reside in Ikageng or become an undesirable alien in the place of her birth and where she grew up. She was under pressure to accept the job offers that had been made available through the various worker recruitment drives from employers. Every black worker who becomes unemployed was required by law to register himself as a jobseeker with his local labour bureau.

She was told by the official at the labour bureau that in Potchefstroom the only jobs available for young black women were low skilled manual jobs. He told her specifically that there were several vacancies for flat cleaners at Belle Vista Heights.

As a flat cleaner she suffered daily humiliation. All her female co-workers found it difficult to believe that someone with a matric could only find work as a flat cleaner. And in the end she gave trying to explain that she was forced by circumstances to accept a job as a menial manual labourer, a job that was actually only suitable for illiterate or barely literate black females. And in the end more by force of circumstances than by her own free will, she had arrived at the kitchen doorstep of the cottage in which the two students lived, the seminary student and the ex-theological student.

She saw the two white males as the _dominee_ and the fallen-priest. She decided that she liked the fallen-priest.

Joab had learnt that the avowal of fault with regard to evil, especially collective evil, was the first step to the realization of his own personal sense of freedom. To him this was the work of grace that results in a kind of non-religious sanctification. This was his theological discovery. It was also the discovery that made him decide not to pursue the vocation of a clergyman.

She could not fathom Joab. He reminded her of those kinds of priests she had heard gossip about from time to time, Roman Catholic priests, both white and black who had started having affairs with women, who had been found out and became disgraced, and who now lived in the shadow of their scandals. They were still priests. They could still hear confession, they could still give absolution.

Thinking about Joab, the thought that passed through her mind was that he must be: _O jesitswe_ ; which means he must be bewitched, he has transgressed the boundaries that separated the genders according to their gender specific roles. She intuitively sensed that he was a man-woman. In Batswana culture he was doing feminine things, things only a woman should be doing. He was making dresses. He was instructing her on how to prepare food. He was instructing her how to clean pots, how to clean the stove. He was instructing her on how the house should be cleaned and how the washing should be washed. He did not care about whether or not he was transgressing the order of things when it came to gender roles and gender expectations. He did not care about _ke monna_ or _mosadi tota_ ; he did not restrict himself to doing only those things that would make him a real man, he was also doing those things that would make a woman a real woman.

She examined him without him noticing; he was a strange white man. For a white person he was perplexingly beautiful to the eye, he stirred something in her.

Unlike Rudi he did not conform to the Setswana proverb of manliness:

Monna ga betlwe; o kgomothwe fela.

(A man is not normally smoothly carved, he is roughly done)

In her mind she could see that he fitted the meaning of the Setswana proverb for womanliness:

Ke mosadi tota yo o a itseng gore monna o ja.

(He is a real woman who knows that her husband has to eat)

Yet she did not doubt his masculinity. She knew he was a real man. She saw it in the amused twinkle in his eyes when he instructed her on the correct way of doing tasks which she considered to be essentially feminine tasks. She also saw it in the natural authority he exercised when it came to making decisions that mattered in the running of the house hold affairs of the cottage that he shared with Rudi. He was the man of the house in spite of his constant transgression of gender boundaries.

He was completely different to all the other white men she had to deal with, especially the officials at the labour bureau. The white male officials always looked like they were angry, they did not speak properly to anyone, they only growled, snarled and snapped at people. They were always mean, heartless and unhelpful. She always found it exceedingly stressful having to deal with the labour bureau. After a morning at the labour bureau she would end up leaving emotionally exhausted from the stress that she experienced in her dealings with the mysterious workings of the bureau's officialdom.

She had this intuition that Joab was the kind of person who did not respect the natural order of boundaries and roles. He was not really white nor was he black; he was something else beyond black and white. He seemed to be someone who had come from another place.

He was also a natural boss without being a _baas_. It was in his nature to take charge. He did want he wanted to do. He was a strong woman. She laughed at the thought and shook her head at this strange white man.

CHAPTER 15

Over the next few weeks Segomotso got into the routine and rhythm of her work at the cottage. It was a three bedroomed cottage. It also had a large open-plan kitchen linked to a small lounge. There was parquet flooring everywhere except in the kitchen and bathrooms. The main bedroom had an ensuite bathroom with bath, toilet and shower. The main bedroom was Joab's room. A second bathroom with shower and toilet was located between the two smaller bedrooms. One of the smaller bedrooms had been converted into Rudi's study.

Working at a relaxed pace, Segomotso found that she could keep herself busy from 7.45 am to 16.45 pm with the meticulous list of household chores that Joab had drafted in her work contract. He was a good organizer and manager of what went on in the house. He had the most contact with her, and he made no effort to maintain the strict social distance that whites usually enforced between themselves and their black domestic servants. He made no effort to hide behind any façade.

Once a week she would polish the parquet floor on her hands and knees. Every day she would make up the beds, sweep the house, dust every surface, wash dishes, hand wash clothing, hang clothing on the line outside to dry, iron clothing, fold clothing, put shirts and trousers onto hangers.

There were other tasks. Daily she had to fill a ceramic dish with water for the birds. She had to put out food scraps and bird seed into a feeding tray in a tree for the birds. She had to sweep the sand outside and around the house.

Then there were things she was not allowed to do. She had to leave in peace the wasp nests hanging under the outside window sills or under the roof eaves. She was not to disturb the swallow nest above the kitchen door. She was not allowed to kill any spider or centipede in the house. She had to wash the clothes in the bath in the bathroom adjoining Joab's room and if a centipede was trapped in the bath, she had to call him to remove it. If there was a snake, she was not allowed to kill it; Joab would remove it or clear it out of the house with broom if it happened to be in the house.

He said that he had seen more than enough death and killing in his life. He said it is important to respect all life.

She could not image that he had actually meant those words literally. How could it be possible that this gentle and vaguely effeminate man could have seen a lot of death and killing in his life?

Most mornings both Rudi and Joab were at the University. Joab came back almost every day at 13.30 and he would work all afternoon in his room making dresses. Stuck in the corner of his room was his bed and next to the bed was a small table and chair with a lamp. Crowded into the room was a large dressmaking cutting table, a table with a sewing machine, ironing table, dressmaking manikins, clothing rails filled with coat hangers and a change screen in one of the corners. She was convinced that he often worked throughout the entire night without sleeping. In the morning his bed would still be made and the rolls of material that she had seen the previous morning lying on the cutting table would be gone and hanging on the clothing rails there would be new dresses that were not there in the afternoon when she left. On those mornings when she unlocked the kitchen door, he would be sitting in the kitchen drinking a mug of coffee, there would be dark circles below his deep brown eyes and his black hair would be dishevelled, sticking out at all directions.

She often caught herself looking at his face. It was not a typical white man's face.

When she stepped into the kitchen, his face would always light up, welcoming her with a chirpy greeting. For some strange reason she always felt happy to see him in the morning and also when he came back in the afternoons. In fact, she began to look forward to him coming back to the cottage in the afternoons. But there was something else as well about Joab which made her feel awkward. It started when he began to spend a lot of time with her in the kitchen teaching her how to prepare the food for the menu that he had drawn up. This was when the social distance and social barriers between them began to crumble, he initiated it by speaking freely with her, taking an interest in her as person, soliciting her opinion on the cooking or on other unrelated mundane matters.

During those weeks when he was showing her how to prepare the various meals they would be alone together in the kitchen, often in close physical proximity. She became aware that they shared an attraction towards each other. It became apparent in the brief smiles they exchanged with each other when the lasagne or the babotie turned out to be beyond Joab's expectations.

Joab told her that she must use the cutlery and crockery in the kitchen when she made herself lunch or when she made herself coffee and tea. He also told to eat her lunch at the kitchen table.

She was wary of Rudi who was tall and thin, and whose moustache and black rimmed glasses made him look very strict. He had a way of always making her feel intimidated by his presence. He always looked very stern and spoke with a deep gruff voice. He always wore grey flannels, a white shirt with short sleeves and a tie. In the early days, when she just started working for the two postgraduate students, she felt incredibly nervous and tense the whole time. Even when they were not around, she became clammy with sweat. Sweat soaked through the material under her armpits, the dress under her pinafore clung to her back with sweat. She was constantly afraid that she was not doing her job properly, especially because Joab was so pedantic about everything. She was even afraid that she would kill a cricket or spider by mistake.

On the first day of work, to her dismay, she realized that there was no maid's toilet. Her bladder felt like it was going to burst. In the end, when Joab had left, and when she was finally alone in the house, she slipped outside and disappeared into the bush where she found a place to squat. This was how she would relieve herself.

A few days later, before he left in his VW Beetle, Joab said to her very nonchalantly that she must use the toilet in his bathroom and the shower if necessary, and furthermore, if there were any personal solid materials that she needed to dispose of, she must use one of the old plastic bags that he had stashed in a box at the bottom of the kitchen cupboard, and put the packet in the dust bin with her woman's stuff in it. She was struck dumb by his easygoing and uncomplicated manner in dealing with her being a woman and having a need to deal with her woman stuff.

He noticed that while her pinafore and clothes were always clean, she was actually recycling a very small wardrobe of outfits. She was washing the same clothes over and over again on daily basis. He suggested to Rudi that they should buy her two maid's outfits. At Checkers Joab looked at the different outfits and overalls for maids and selected two overalls that would fit Segomotso. He knew her exact size. In fact, just by looking at her, he knew her exact body dimensions, weight, height, bust, waist, hips, and thighs, down to a fraction of a kilogram or a centimetre. He even knew her shoe size. And he knew she had a perfect body, the kind of body he liked. Her breasts were not too big or too small.

He began thinking of the kind of dress he would like to dress her up in. It would be interesting to dress a black woman like Segomotso. An airy light weight extremely sheer soft textured elastic chiffon would be the fabric he would use for the dress that he had in mind. He could visualize her in a short sheath of elastic chiffon that would accentuate the shapely silhouette of her body. A sleeveless sheath dress would be perfect for her, with a square neckline, natural waistline, clingy hip wrap, short hemline and a back with a full wrap closure. It would be an extremely eye catching sensual outfit. And why shouldn't it be, sexual display is one of the functions of clothing, especially women's clothing, it follows that all women's clothing should be intrinsically erotic.

Lost in thought, he paid for the white takkies and the two maid's uniforms. Once he had an idea he would not be able to rest until he had brought it to full fruition. Elastic chiffon was a difficult material to work with, but he was confident that when he was finished with the garment, its quality would be of the highest standard that could be possibly achieved by the most skilled dressmaker. He wondered if he would be able to get the elastic chiffon that he had in mind at Ibrahim's Curtains and Fabrics Shop.

At Ibrahim's he looked at the selection of elastic chiffon fabrics that were in stock. Except for the plain black elastic chiffon there were no other suitable colours or patterns that would work for Segomotso.

_Popspeel_! (Playing with dolls!) That is what his mother used say. But every idea he came up turned out to be a commercial success and it always started with _popspeel_ , the need and desire to dress a female up in a garment that he had created. Usually it had been a manikin that he dressed, but Segomotso would be perfect to use as a model.

What about make up? Doing the face of a black woman would be challenge. Ideas began to form in his mind. Metallic colours would be best for a black toned skin. He was certain of this. For a dark toned skin, a foundation of rich metallic copper or bronze hues or even bright cherry tones could be applied to add depth and definition to cheeks, lips and eyes. A bright blush would be most suitable for a dark skin.

Back at the cottage he dumped the black elastic chiffon fabric on the dressmaking table. The cottage, a brick building with a red painted corrugated iron roof, used to be the farm managers house. Surrounded by dense thorn bush and acacia trees, it lay well-hidden and secluded in the centre of a triangle of land. A railway line formed the northern boundary and a main tar road formed the western boundary, and on the east a farm gravel service road formed the eastern boundary. A narrow winding sand track constituted the access road to the cottage. It was barely noticeable from the tar road. The cottage received ESKOM electricity and a water reservoir next to the cottage was filled daily with water pumped from a borehole located on the main farm across the railway line. The cottage was not visible from the tar road or the sand road or the railway line.

As the weeks passed, her fondness for Joab grew. In spite of all his strange and eccentric ideas about things and his demanding ways, there was also a warmth and intimacy to his personality which put her at ease when she was in his presence.

Most of his female clients were primarily university students. They mostly came for their dress fittings in the afternoons and evenings. He would close the bedroom door so whatever was happening inside remained a mystery to her until one afternoon he called her to assist him with a complicated fitting. This became a regular feature of her afternoons. It turned out to be a welcome and interesting diversion. As this trend persisted, she would be on standby for his calls throughout the afternoons.

" _Segomotso, kom help gou asseblief_!"

(Segomosto can you please come we urgently need your assistance.)

It always amazed her to see his female student clients in different states or degrees of undress or even sometimes completely naked in his room with him going about the measuring, pinning, cutting, and sewing in the most unfazed manner. He seemed to be perfectly at home in the presence of so much female nudity. One afternoon, while she was helping Joab with a client, she noticed that the time was moving on. It was getting later and later. She kept glancing nervously at the clock. She had to catch the bus at the farm gate next to the main tar road at 5.00 and the minute hand was approaching five and then it went pass five, she had missed her bus home. He noticed her anxiety about the time and he knew she had missed her bus.

" _Moenie bekommend wees nie, ek sal jou huis toe vat_."

(Don't worry I will take you home.)

When they finally left for the location, she tried to get into the back seat. He insisted that she sit in the front passenger seat.

" _Sit maar voor dis beter so_."

(You don't have sit in back, it is better if you sit in the front)

After briefly hesitating, she climbed in the front seat and he carefully shut the door once she was in. She sat rigidly in the seat, her hands tightly folded on her lap and her gaze fixed straight ahead. She again felt that hyper-awareness that she first experienced in situations of close physical proximity when she was with him in the kitchen while she was learning how to cook.

He drove right into location and dropped her off by the front door of her parents and grandparents home. He saw where she lived.

She began to miss her bus more and more frequently and each time he would give her a lift home.

She soon discovered that there was another side to Joab. With each successive trip to the location, while they were alone encapsulated in the safe cocoon-like privacy of the VW Beetle, the last remaining remnants of the social or psychological barriers began to slowly crumble away, until the last residue was swept aside. When no one could eavesdrop on their conversation, he would speak plainly to her, never patronizing her in any way. To her surprise he talked about stuff that white people always considered as taboo topics when blacks happened to be in an audible hearing range of white conversation.

She began to feel more and more confused about Joab. She was never sure whether he was indeed pursuing her, whether there was an ulterior motive to his friendliness, whether he was deliberately engineering her to work late so that he could be alone with her while giving her a lift home, or whether he was just a friendly person with a strong egalitarian streak to his nature.

Sometimes she felt that he was subtly wooing her. She began to wonder whether he was sexually interested in her. Was he going to try and seduce her, was he going to try and have sex with her. She became increasing vigilant for any unmistakeable sign of courtship, for any subtle sign or hint of sexual interest, for any overt signal of sexual interest. She continued to feel very confused. Why was she entertaining thoughts about him wanting to have sex with her? She knew for sure that he did not have a girlfriend; there was no woman in his life. This was strange because he could quite easily get a good looking white girl as a girlfriend.

What would she do if he started making advances? What could she do or what should she do? She liked him. She felt he was interested in her as person. In the car he always asked all kinds of personal questions, and sometimes very strange questions.

" _Het jy n stokperdjie_?" He once asked her while they were driving to Ikageng.

(Do have a hobby?)

It was a funny question. It made her smile. It was a word she had never dreamt of using. If she had not learnt its meaning from her high school Afrikaans lessons she would not have understood what he was asking. She had to think up something quickly. She felt it would seem stupid if she said that she had no hobbies, which was the truth, she actually had no hobbies. She had never even considered having a hobby. She could not even imagine what it was like to have a hobby. Only white people have hobbies. But then she realized that she did do something that could be thought of as a hobby:

" _Ek sing in die kerk koor_ ," she answered.

(I sing in the church choir.)

" _Bybel lees en bid is ook my stokperdjie_ ," she added

(Reading the Bible and praying is also my hobby.)

" _Bid jy baie?"_ Joab asked.

(Do you pray a lot?)

" _Ja, ek bid baie_ ," she answered.

(Yes I do pray a lot.)

" _Lees jy boeke_?" He asked.

(Do you read books?)

" _Ja ek hou baie van boeke, ek lees baie boeke, ek lees die Bybel en storie boeke, ek lees die kerk nuusblad en die kerk boekies_ ," she answered.

(Yes I love books, I have read lot of books, I read the Bible and I also read novels, I read the church newspaper and church devotional booklets.)

Joab had noticed that when Rudi was around, Segomotso would eat her lunch outside. She would sit on the wooden bench under the _Acacia karoo_ tree at the far end of the backyard. He also discovered that Rudi had provided Segomotso with her own crockery and cutlery which included a tea spoon, table spoon, a knife and fork, an enamel plate and an enamel mug. Her eating utensils were kept on a shelf in the cupboard below the kitchen sink.

He had done this without discussing it with Joab. Rudi knew that the pair had been eating lunch together at the kitchen table when he was not around; he also knew that Segomotso was using the kitchen crockery and cutlery.

He could not bring himself to express his displeasure regarding the eating arrangements that Joab had instituted. He was also very concerned that visitors may discover Joab and Segomotso sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch together.

He was fearful of the embarrassment that this would cause. He was also worried about the kinds of rumours that may start doing the rounds. It would definitely reflect badly on him.

He did not have the stomach to confront Joab directly on the matter. Instead he intervened when Joab was not around explaining to Segomotso that it would be preferable for her to have her own eating utensils and to eat outside by the bench under the acacia tree.

He added that he was sure she would feel more comfortable with this arrangement. He also instructed Segomotso to tell Baas Joab that this was what she wanted.

She stopped eating lunch at the kitchen table altogether even, when Joab was around.

Joab decided he was not going to let the matter lie. At the first opportunity he confronted Rudi on the matter. He thought he would try moral persuasion.

" _Alhoewel Segomotso ons bediende is, sy is ook ons Christelike suster_ ," Joab said.

(Although Segomotso is our maid, she is also our Christian sister.)

" _Sy is Rooms-Katoliek_ ," he answered, before Joab could finish what he wanted to say.

(She is Roman Catholic)

Joab had already guessed that Segomotso was Roman Catholic, but he was curious why Rudi believed that she was Catholic.

" _Hoe weet jy_?" Joab asked.

(How do you know?)

" _Sy dra a bidsnoer in her sak_ ," he said

(She carries a rosary in her pocket.)

Joab, for the sake of peace, decided to let the matter lie. Segomotso would eat outside.

On the _pap_ (stiff porridge) and _vleis_ (meat) nights Joab insisted on having _morogo_ with the _pap_. Therefore on the _pap_ and _vleis_ nights Segomotso would spend the entire afternoon gathering fresh _morogo_ from the veld or from the verges of the farmland or the kraal or by the side of the road or wherever she could find wild spinach. There were so many strange things about him. Where on earth did he get to know about _morogo_?

And then there was the preparation of the _pap_. It had to be prepared according how Zulus prepared _pap_. It had to be _krummelpap_. Even Rudi objected to the way Joab wanted the _stywe-pap_ to be prepared. He got also tired of Joab's story on how he was first introduced to _pap_ the way Zulus prepared it and that after that day he would never eat any other kind of _stywe-pap_.

******

Often when they braaied meat on a Saturday night, a group of theological students with their girlfriends would gather at the cottage.

They were the sons and daughters of the Afrikaner _nouveau riche_. They were also members of the _Dopper Kerk_ Afrikaner aristrocacy. Many of them had been at school with Joab and Rudi from their primary school days. In a sense they were all old friends or old acquaintances anyway. They shared the same Potchefstroom upbringing.

Joab would take charge of the braai and he would also make the _pap_ and of course it would be _krummelpap_ eaten with hot chakalaka. He said the Boers were clueless when it came to braaing meat. He always spoke about how the Argentinian's braaied meat. He had been commissioned to make an evening custom for the Argentinian's ambassador's wife. He was invited to a function at the embassy where meat was braaied Argentinian style.

On their regular Saturday night braais, as the incredible mouth-watering smell of braaied wors filled the evening air and the red wine flowed, the _manne_ (men) would start to talk. As the evening progressed further into the star lit night, the frogs croaked, the crickets chirped, and their hunting, fishing and bushwar stories grew more and more fantastic.

And as the evening progressed and the _manne_ fortified with the best vintages of _cabernet sauvignon_ gathered together under the nearby acacia tree, they would, with their heads bowed together sink into deep conversations. The women would sit in a group near the fire.

The girls, abandoned by the men, would gather around Joab who would be busy with the meat on the braai. They would drop hints about this girl, or that girl and the next girl, all of whom had the hots for Joab. They could not fathom him, but they felt drawn to him.

The girls liked Joab, and he flirted good naturedly with them.

" _Joab, wanneer gaan jy 'n meisie kry_?"

(Joab when are you going to get a girlfriend)

And then, before he could answer, one of the men would call out:

" _Hey Joab kom gou hierso_!"

(Hey Joab come over here quickly)

Leaving the braai and the girls he would walk over to them.

They wanted to hear about the SWAPO contact in Kavangoland. They wanted to hear about Angola. He would always disappoint them. He refused to say anything about the war.

But the rumours had spread over the years. " _Dis waar, ek sê vir jou, as jy my nie glo nie, vra vir Joab, hy was daar._ "

(It is all true what I am telling you. If you don't believe go ask Joab, he was there in the thick of things)

They envied Joab, he had been there.

' _Vra vir Joab_ ' was the refrain for those seeking vindication of what had happened on the border and in Angola.

' _Vra vir Joab_.'

(Ask Joab)

What could he possilby tell these urbane, sophisticated, cultured and debonair Afrikaners now in their mid-twenties about the counter-insurgency warfare on the border or the civil war in Angola? Those who had done their national service had not done their national service as infantrymen. Some had escaped the rigours of national service after matriculating by going to university and when they eventually completed their theological studies for the ministry, they would serve as SADF chaplains or in some cushy non-combat posting in the SADF.

' _Vra vir Joab_.'

Should he rather tell them about the bushveld reunion braais of platoon 2 of B Company, 3 SAI Battalion? Bushveld braais where they braaied freshly shot and freshly butchered kudu, eland and impala; bushveld braais where the wives and girlfriends were left at home.

Should he tell them about the bushveld braais where men bragged about their infidelities and their escapades which bordered on the criminal?

******

In the evenings, after Segomotso had left, Joab and Rudi would sit down for supper. Rudi, the theological student, would say grace as was his custom. Joab always declined to say grace and Rudi stopped asking him. After saying grace, Rudi would read a portion of scripture. After reading the piece of scripture that he had selected, it would become their topic of dinner table discussion. Other times, at supper time, they would talk about current affairs, sport and other mundane topics. Sometimes, each preoccupied with his own thoughts, they would eat in silence. Rudi had grown up in the Western Transvaal gold mining town of Orkney. In spite of both Rudi and Joab being Afrikaans, they were actually socially and culturally two very different people, so much so, that an independent and objective observer would definitely not have thought that they could be members of the same Volk.

Yet they tolerated their differences and were actually fond of each other.

CHAPTER 16

On one rainy April Sunday morning, after the morning church service for students at the University, Rudi invited Joab for lunch at his parent's home in Orkney. Since they had moved to the cottage it had become their habit to attend together the Sunday morning Gereformeerde Kerk services for students at the university. The majority of students living away from home in the university residences attended the service.

Joab always took great pleasure in attending the church services on campus. He enjoyed singing the Psalms; in fact he loved the Psalms and drew great comfort and solace from them. He also took great interest in what scripture readings the _predikant_ (minister) selected for his sermon. He was very attentive to the preaching, taking an interest in the way the minister interpreted and expounded on the Biblical text used for the sermon. The church and the Bible had been an integral component of his life ever since he had been a young child. It was second nature to him. He had acquired an outstanding and thorough knowledge of the Bible.

But above all, he also enjoyed going to church because it also gave him an opportunity to observe and reflect on the visual rhetoric of female adornment. The non-verbal iconography of female apparel and makeup with its codes, signs and symbols, was something that fascinated him. It also provided him with occasion to see on display some of his own designs which he had created.

Before clothing, before the covering of the body with a second skin, the man and this wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Joab wondered if only human males and females could experience the shamefulness of nakedness. Were animals ever naked in any sense? Animals don't seem to experience, feel or even see themselves as being naked.

The reading for the sermon was taken from Exodus 3:13-15:

Hierop het Moses tot God gespreek: Maar as ek by die kinders van Israel kom en aan hulle sê: Die God van julle vaders het my na julle gestuur, en hulle my vra: Hoe is sy naam? — wat moet ek hulle antwoord? En God sê vir Moses: Ek is wat Ek is. Ook sê Hy: So moet jy die kinders van Israel antwoord: Ek is het my na julle gestuur. Toe sê God verder vir Moses: Dit moet jy aan die kinders van Israel meedeel: Die Here, die God van julle vaders, die God van Abraham, die God van Isak en die God van Jakob, het my na julle gestuur. Dit is my Naam vir ewig, en dit is my gedenknaam van geslag tot geslag.

( _Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to yo_ u.')

On this occasion, Joab listened with only half ear to the minister's sermon. But even so, he was instantly aware that the minister had missed a very dramatic element that he should have made in the introductory opening of his sermon. This was first time that God had actually named himself in the Hebraic scriptures.

All gods in the ancient world of Moses had names. All gods in the ancient world had a descriptive name. To believe in a god involved believing in an individual being, a divine person or deity, about which something happened to be the case. To believe in a god entails more than mere believing in the existence of a god. So what does it entail for someone to believe in God rather than a god? What does it mean to really believe in God? This question was different in a very profound sense from other God related questions. It did not entail believing in things about God, such as whether or not He really exists?

It was a question that Joab had wrestled with.

Joab knew that the answer to this question was critical. It was critical because if one had a wrong idea of God, then logically it meant that you did not actually believe in the one and only true God, but rather that you believed in a god, in fact an idol or a graven image in a metaphorical sense, which logically meant that in reality you were actually an unbeliever.

He thought about the implications of the following scripture as a reflection on unbelief, it was one his favourite portions of scripture:... _for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.' "Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You_?'...

For Joab, it was only possible to believe in the one and only true God if we were able to recognize God. If we cannot recognize God then we are unable to believe in Him as the one and only true God. We can only believe in the one and only true God if we able see Him in the most wretched of our brothers and sisters and act towards them as his family with Him being their Father. We recognize and believe in the true God if we exercise sincere, genuine and authentic solidarity with the most wretched of our fellow human beings.

God's answer to the unbeliever, the person whodoes not believe in the true God, will be:

' _'I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me_.'

God had not been recognized as God at the most crucial instant.

If God identified himself with wretched, then by identifying oneself in solidarity with the wretched, one also recognized the identity of the one and only true God as the father and friend of the most wretched of human beings.

The most wretched of my brothers is not necessarily a fellow believer. This person who happens to be the most wretched of my brothers, the person that God also claims as His own brother, may not even believe in God. Yet God calls this wretched unbeliever His brother, He calls him brother, not because he believes, but because he is the least compared to all the others.

This is God's election. The elect are the least of these of my brothers. He saves those who cannot save themselves. He saves those who are beyond saving. He justifies those who cannot be justified. He justifies those who are beyond justification.

God is also the brother of the unbeliever who is the most wretched of men and anyone who harms that person also harms God.

While the minister spoke, Joab's mind drifted. He started having all kinds of recollections of the past. The memory of a very odd acquaintance came to mind, of someone that he had met while he was still an undergraduate theological student. The strange acquaintance had made a remark that had stuck in Joab's mind.

'In Potchefstroom even unbelievers go to church every Sunday.'

The profundity and irony of this remark was not lost on Joab. While he thought about it, it also brought a smile to Joab's face. It was not uttered in jest but in solemn sincerity by a rare breed of Afrikaner. He was indeed a very rare breed of Afrikaner who hailed from the Kalahari where he had grown up on a vast cattle farm. He was completely open about his sexual proclivities, about his complete lack of genuine faith, and about his apocalyptic pessimism about the destiny of the Afrikaner.

He was a man who lived without hope, but he turned out to be man who was possessed by a strange kind of integrity. To him it was simple; no one could really in all honesty truly believe in the God of the Bible and at the same time also believe in Apartheid. The two beliefs were incompatible. Belief in Apartheid could only be compatible with a belief in 'a god' who was not God. It was a remarkable insight for a man who had no formal training in theology or philosophy. He openly confessed to being a racist and was incapable of changing his views about blacks. He was equally pessimistic about blacks as he was pessimistic about whites, especially Afrikaners.

He would say: "If whites with the benefits of 2000 years of advanced Western Civilization could mess things up, just think of what blacks would be capable of if they tried to run the government in South Africa. They could only be agents of an apocalyptic ruination of the country if they took over."

He must have sensed something about Joab which prompted him to speak openly about himself. Independently, both he and Joab had begun to attend Sunday evening services at different Afrikaans Reformed Denominations in Potchefstroom.

Strictly speaking, their meeting was not entirely by chance. It was contingent on the fact that they had independently, for different reasons and motivations, embarked on a project of attending church services on Sunday nights at different Reformed congregations as visitors.

Given the frequency of their Sunday nocturnal bicycle excursions, they began to regularly cross paths and it soon became impossible for them not to notice that they shared something in common. Despite their large age difference, it was not long before they were on greeting terms and eventually they became conversational friends, often talking late into the night under a street lamp outside the church gate after the church service and after the congregation had gone home. Joab learned that his name was Jacobus Schutte. He was considerably older than Joab. He was married and had two adolescent sons. He had recently, because of financial difficulties, left the family farm and having no tertiary qualifications he could only find employment as a low grade technical agricultural assistant at the Agricultural Research Farm in Potchefstroom.

On one occasion, after an evening service at the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk Potchefstroom _moeder gemeente_ (mother church), Jacobus expressed his admiration for Bram Fischer. He then felt prompted by this admission to relay an unusual story to Joab.

In the winter of 1964, shortly after the Johannesburg Park Station bomb blast incident which had been engineered by John Harris, who was at the time a member of the white African Resistance Movement, Jacobus came across a Volkswagen Beetle bogged down in the Kalahari sands on a remote sand track, in a far corner of their vast sprawling cattle farm. The VW Beetle was stuck in the sand close to the Botswana border.

It was obvious to Jacobus that the three youthful English speaking white occupants, one male and two females in the car were lost. He said that he also knew that they were communists and were trying to escape via a back route into Botswana. Without asking them any questions he helped them dig out the Volkswagen and then he towed the Volkswagen with his jeep to the Botswana boundary fence so that they could escape across the border. He did not know why he helped them; he did not know why he did not report them to the police or try to detain them or carry out a citizen arrest. Once they were safely across the border on a gravel road in Botswana they all shook his hand and thanked him profusely. He simply felt that helping them escape was the right thing to do. In his mind it was the right thing to do in the 'eyes of God.'

After a moment of reflection, he looked at Joab:

" _Hulle was Jode_."

(They were Jews.)

Joab felt compelled to ask him a question:

" _Wat sou jy gedoen het as hulle swartes was_?"

(What would you have done if they were black.)

" _Die selfde, ek sou hulle gehelp het om te ontsnap_."

(The same, I would have helped them escape.)

" _Hoekom_?"

(Why?)

He explained again that it would have been the right thing to do. He would be acting according to the dictates of a good conscience and reason. He said he would be obeying God by defying the shits who ran the Apartheid government.

Jacobus Schutte continued with his story:

On his drive back to the farm house he reflected on his deed and experienced a deep sense of absolution which was accompanied by an incredible and satisfying inner joy. For a moment he experienced a wonderful and powerful epiphany. In the lonely vastness of the Kalahari, he had suddenly experienced what it was like to truly believe in the one real God and to have acted in manner that was consistent with real or authentic belief and faith in the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

He had done the will of God by helping those Jews escape the security police. His act was an act of profound faith in God. He felt that he had made a connection with God.

Of course with time, his true belief in the real God faded and after his relapse he reverted back to his old ways of life, which in the words of the John Calvin was a life of concupiscence, a life of bondage to a depraved will, a life dominated by sexual desire, lust, lustfulness, fornication, sexual appetite, sexual longing, sexual passion and ardour, all of which was exacerbated by the isolation and monotony of his life in the harsh and unforgiving Kalahari.

After enduring a lifetime of exposure to the lonely flat sandy featureless expanse of the Kalahari wilderness, the Kalahari can start playing havoc with a man's mind. Prolonged isolation in the arid Kalahari wilderness, a semi-desert of scrub land and thorn veld, can make a person _sielkundig en enemosioneel vertraag_ (psychological and emotionally retarded). This was Jacobus's rationale for his sexual proclivities.

The real reason for Jacobus Schutte's nocturnal bicycle journeys on Sundays nights through the dark oak tree lined streets of Potchefstroom to the various Reformed Churches, was to recapture the sense of what it really meant to truly believe in the real God and to re-experience the divine confirmation that he once felt after helping the communists escape from the South African police.

Joab was the first person he had ever told the story about how he had assisted communists to escape from the police.

He was on a search for that one efficacious and meritorious event that would again be the occasion for a profound epiphany of absolution and redemption.

It could come in a simple message, in the words of a sermon. He wanted to re-experience that divine epiphany, that mystical connection with God, hence his nocturnal journeys on the dark oak lined street on Sundays nights in Potchefstroom.

He also spilled the secrets of his uncontrollable promiscuity and the burden of his insatiable lust for sex. He was currently having an affair with a married woman at the Agricultural Research Farm. As a young man he would travel vast distances across the arid Kalahari thorn veld savannah on horseback in search of sex with Boer daughters or Boer _vrouens_ living in isolation on remote farflung cattle farms. At night on his journeys back home he would fall asleep in the saddle and wake up when the horse came to a halt by a barbwire fence. He would dismount and push the fence flat; the horse would then step over the bardwire strands as he led the horse across. The horse would find its own way back home with Jacobus slumped fast asleep in the saddle. He had lost count of the number of Kalahari Boere meisies and older _vrouens_ that he copulated with over the years.

Joab also chuckled at Jacobus' irreverent and cynical remarks regarding the rumours about the apparent rampant loss of virginity during _jooltyd_ (student festivities) at the Potchefstroom University for Higher Christian Education.

CHAPTER 17

After the church service they drove to Orkney.

Rudi's father was a big shot on the mines and they lived in a palatial mine mansion which was surrounded by a high white wall. There was a security guard at the gate, who opened the gate when they arrived in Rudi's bakkie. Before lunch the family and Joab gathered in a sumptuous but cosy TV lounge adjoining the baronial dining room where the table with eight chairs was being set. Rudi's mother was a sophisticated Afrikaans woman who had graduated from Stellenbosch with an MA in Afrikaans literature. His father was the exact opposite. He had worked his way up the ranks until he became a senior mine official.

It was going to be a while before lunch was served. One of the black male house servants wearing a white jacket came in and took orders for drinks. Joab asked for a beer.

As he took a sip of his beer Rudi's father who was sitting on the sofa next to Joab's chair learned over with his elbow on the padded arm rest and asked if Joab was also a fan of Shirley Bassey. Joab instantly felt a resonance with the mine manager. Rudi's mother wanted to listen to Schubert's _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik_. But Shirley Bassey won the day. Rudi's father took the LP vinyl out of its jacket and placed it carefully of the Hi Fi stereo turn table.

He passed Joab the Shirley Bassey LP jacket to look at. Joab examined the picture of Shirley Bassey on the LP cover. While lunch was being prepared in the kitchen adjoining the dining room, they sat in silence, each engrossed in their own private thoughts while listening to Shirley Bassey's rich and powerful voice singing her popular lyrics such as _Never, Never, Never_ and _I Who Have Nothing_. The lyrics stirred Joab's imagination, invoking thoughts of an erotic nature, and awakening all kinds of vague yearnings and longings. He had lived the life of a celibate since the death of Sarel.

Listening to Shirley Bassey's singing made him think of Sarel, but she also made him think about Segomotso. He realized that apart from his mother and grandparents there were two other people in his life that had been or had become dear to him, they were Sarel and Segomotso, respectively. Sarel was someone that he would love forever. In the case of Segomotso, he had long sensed that there was a lot more to her. Lately he could not get her out of his mind. He enjoyed her company. He enjoyed her presence around the house. He missed her when she was not around on weekends.

When lunch was ready, they all took their places at the table. After saying the grace Rudi's father got up and topped everyone's glass with an excellent cabernet sauvignon while they dished up for themselves.

MrsVenter who just finished reading Andries Treurnicht's _Credo van Afrikaner_ (The Creed of an Afrikaner), asked Joab if he had read the book.

Rudi smiled as Joab replied with a non-committal expression on his demeanour that he had read the book. Rudi knew what Joab's opinion of the book was.

" _Wat het jy van die boek gedink_?" She asked.

(What did you think of the book?)

" _Nie veel nie_ ," he replied.

(I did not think much of the book.)

Mr Venter laughed. After reading two pages of the book he was bored to death. He preferred Wilbur Smith.

" _Wat bedoel jy_?" (Why is that?) She asked, with a confounded frown on her face. Rudi had previously informed his parents about his eccentric friend with whom he shared the cottage. She did not expect such a blunt reply about a book whose message she held in high regard.

He explained that Treurnicht's confession of what it means to be an Afrikaner was arbitrary, artificial, manufactured and contrived to reflect his ideological version of Afrikaner Nationalism.

He explained that there was a lot more to being an Afrikaner than Treurnicht or Verwoerd could have ever imagined. He said that the Afrikaner had been destroyed by the kind of messages that had been propagated by men like Treurnicht and Verwoerd.

After lunch, later that afternoon, they drove back to Potchefstroom. On the journey back to their cottage they began to discuss what makes an Afrikaner an Afrikaner.

Jokingly Rudi asked Joab:

" _Kan enige iemand nog 'n Afrikaner wees as hy behep is met Karl Marx. Lenin, Kierkegaard , Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamar, Habermas, Adorno, Lukacs, Althusser, Gramsci, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and Barthes_ ?"

(Rudi wanted to know how could anyone who was absorbed with Karl Marx, Lenin, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamar, Habermas, Adorno, Lukacs, Althusser, Gramsci, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Barthes could still be an Afrikaner.)

Joab laughed.

But Joab swifly affirmed that one could still be an Afrikaner even if one was under the spell of Marx or Nietzsche or Heidegger or the French philosophers instead of John Calvin or _Abraham Kuyper_.

He argued that there are many ways of being an Afrikaner. In order to be an Afrikaner one does not have to be a Nationalist or Calvinist or even a Christian.

There were many ways in which the core values of being an authentic Afrikaner could be upheld. When he said this, he had Jacobus Schutte in mind. He continued his argument that to be a genuine Afrikaner did not mean that you had to conform to the establishment values of the Nationalist Party or the Broederbond or the clergy of the Afrikaans Reformed Churches.

If you felt that you were an Afrikaner then you were indeed an Afrikaner. Being an Afrikaner is something that you lived in your heart and mind. To be an Afrikaner you lived in your soul the Afrikaans language, with its poetic beauty and with its symbolic universe of signs and meaning. Personal possession of the language as one's own private language made one an Afrikaner. You were an Afrikaner by virtue of speaking Afrikaans as one's mother tongue. It did not matter what you believed about the nature of reality, society, the world or the Universe. It was not your belief in some officially sanctioned credo that made you an Afrikaner. Speaking, reading, writing, thinking and dreaming in Afrikaans was what made one an Afrikaner. Belief in an ideology did not make one an Afrikaner. You could be an atheist and still be an Afrikaner, you could be a coloured and still be an Afrikaner.

From Joab own personal experience, he knew that everyone lived his own Afrikaner identity in a unique manner that transcended all simplistic stereotypes and caricatures of Afrikanerdom.

Everyone's unique personal identity as an Afrikaner was also something that had been formed and shaped contingently by many factors, both internal and external; he knew from his own personal experiences that identity formation was a complicated business, it was something you inherented and something you made, nature and nurture played their roles. Personal identity was something that developed as the result of very powerful genetic, psychological, social and historical processes.

But he also knew that the woman within him, his feminine predilections, had played a more powerful role in the formation of his personal identity than any of the usual social and historical forces that shaped the traditional Afrikaner identity.

He did not suffer from a crisis of personal identity; instead he lived the crisis of gender in all of its fantastic intensity.

If he was an Afrikaner, then he was a _Boere meisie_.

It was clear to him as a Boer, that a person's identity was not reducible to simply being Afrikaans. One could also experience a deeply emotional, mental and psychological crisis regarding the nature or character of one's person identity without stop being an Afrikaner. Many different forces shape a person's self-perception of who one is.

An Afrikaans speaking, thinking and dreaming person could still live a life in a perpetual state of personal identity crisis without for a single moment ceasing to be an Afrikaner.

That is the paradox of Afrikaner identity which the average Nationalist Afrikaner could not comprehend because of indoctrination.

One still remains a white Afrikaner person despite feeling alienated, estranged and unhappy with your conscious self-awareness of who you may seem to be as an individual person, especially in one's interactions with others. Joab tried to explain this to Rudi.

Being an Afrikaner does not exhaust your personal identity.

A person's personal identity or personal sense of selfhood was not only forged by one's race, ethnicity, nationality, history, class membership, education, community membership, gender, sexuality, religion, faith, occupation or language. All of these factors or personal attributes or personal properties or traits or characteristics are insufficient in their power to fully define or fix your personal identity at the transcendental level of who you really are in spite of everything.

At the transcendental level one lives in a constant state of becoming. Sartre proposed that existence precedes essence. The idea that existence precedes essence means that everyone, especially women, are free to re-invent themselves constantly, transformaing themselves at the shifting threshold that separates the present from the future. That is why a woman needs a wardrobe full of clothes and cupboard full of shoes. It also explains why a woman needs to remake her face at every passing moment. Her face is never down. She needs to examine her face constantly in a mirror. She is constantly putting her on face; she is constantly rearranging herself and her surroundings. A woman's work is never done. She is never satisfied with the way she looks.

Joab knew that his face was never done, even though he was a makeup artist second to no one.

Joab also knew that everyone was always more than their memories, everyone was always more than their past; this means you are always in a state of becoming who you are not.

The problem of personal identity begins with a meaningful and expanded paraphrasing of Descarte's searching question: 'What kind of thing am I and how can I know for sure that I am that kind of something?'

What I am? Who am I? Am I a thinking substance? I think therefore I must be something. I have to be something. I cannot think and still be nothing. At the very least I am something, something that thinks. This is beyond doubt. The only thing I can know for certain about myself is that I think. I think I am woman! Therefore I am a woman. I think therefore I am a woman, how wonderful.

Do I have a body, a history, a community, a gender, an occupation and so on? Or am I only dreaming of all of these things which are supposed to give me a personal identity? Or has a demon put these ideas in my mind that I am such such a person and therefore I embody this specific kind identity, the identity of an Afrikaner?

One's self-perception of personal identity is also formed by the multiple effects that arise from one's interactions with others and from one's own personal self-conscious awareness.

One's self-perception of personal identity also arises from ones memory of being the same person over time. But can this memory be trusted?

Lots of questions run through Joab's philosophically trained mind.

What kind of achievement is personal identity?

Does personal identity depend on one's recognition by the other?

How do you want to be recognized? How can you determine the way others' recognize or perceive you? How can you form the image that other's have of you? How can you form the image that you want others to have of your self?

Do you want to be that person that identifies who you are in the eyes of others?

How do you know what kind of person you are? How do you know your own identity?

In social encounters or other kinds of encounters with other people or individual persons, they often seem to exert an effect, a hold, a power or an influence over you, by making you feel like someone else, like someone you don't want to be. You begin to wonder about your personal identity. You start to ask questions which are really difficult to answer, like who are you actually and why can't you be that other person who you really want be or wish to be. How can I be or become that person who will make me feel good about myself, the person who will put me in a good mood or will make me feel confident and fulfilled and happy?

Looking at Rudi he said in Afrikaans: " _Miskien is ek nie die persoon wat ek regtig is nie, miskien is ek iemand anders. Miskien is ek nie die persoon wat jy dink ek is nie. Miskien is ek regtig iemand anders, glad nie wat jy sien en dink jy ken nie."_

(Maybe I am not the person you think I am. Maybe I am really someone else, someone completely different to who you see and who think you know)

Rudi face broke out into an amused grin.

" _Jy praat in raaisels_!"

(You are speaking in riddles)

" _Die ganse lewe is gevul met ironie en paradokse,_ " Joab replied

(The whole of life is filled with ironies and paradoxes)

" _Wat sê jy - dat die lewe 'n raaisel is_?" Rudi asked.

(Are you saying that life is mystery?)

" _Miskien is die lewe 'n raaisel wat ons elkeen self moet ontrafel_ ," Joab responded thoughtfully.

(Maybe life is a mystery, a mystery that each one of us has to solve for himself)

Using Heideggerian language Joab expressed Heidegger's idea that everyone is thrown into the world, thrown into situations, and that one always finds oneself already in a world, already in a situation.

Knowing something about Heidegger, Rudi steered the conversation back to the issue of Afrikaner identity and the role of nationalism in Afrikaner identity formation by asking about the meaning of _mitsein_ , that is, what it meant _to be_ with others. Rudi went on to ask the question about who the others were.

Joab argued that the other exists contingently, and that the other is encountered contingently.

Joab argued that nationality was contingent, that language was contingent, that culture was contingent, that ethnicity was contingent, and that identity was contingent.

He wanted to tell Rubi that they were the agents of their own self-creation when it comes to personal identity. Their personal identity should not be something imposed on them by external forces and external influences, or by the other, or by the community, or by society, or by politics or by history.

But instead he said that one's race, gender or sexuality, nationality, culture and ethnicity should be viewed as an accidental social phenomenon that arose contingently in response to various 'material conditions' that happened to be prevalent at the time of their genesis.

Rudi knew that the phrase 'material conditions' was loaded with a freight of very specific meanings in the mind of Joab.

'Material conditions' meant the forces and relations of economic production. Rudi did not like Joab's idea that Apartheid and nationalism arose as a material consequence of the forces and relations of economic production in South Africa.

Rudi did not like the idea because it was a Marxist idea. As a Calvinist and as a Dooyeweerdian, he could not accept, like Joab, that all political, social and cultural phenomena were the contingent products of the material conditions of economic production. This was a hard thing for him to swallow. Contrary to what Joab believed, he wanted to believe that the Afrikaner Volk was a unique and special divine creation with a God-given divine calling to bring Christian Civilization to Africa.

When Rudi expressed this view, Joab countered that the Afrikaner Volk was not a product of some divine project of the Almighty. The Afrikaner was not intentionally created by God for any unique and special destiny or purpose. They were not 'divinely elected.' They had not been given a divine calling or vocation that would lead to the betterment of all the different people of South Africa. The Afrikaner was no more than the contingent product of the random forces and events that history throws up by chance.

" _Ek glo nie in willekerigheid nie_ ," was always Rudi's response to Joab's argument that all social formations arise contingently and were not the result of any hidden historical necessity or a divine appointed destiny.

(I do not believe in chance)

For Joab the idea of the Afrikaner Volk was an ideological invention. It was a social construction created by self-appointed Afrikaner elites for the social and political mobilization of Afrikaners, which had become an urgent imperative after the Anglo Boer War. As self-appointed elites the members of the Afrikaner Broederbond were largely instrumental in the achievement of this goal, which was a power-political goal. They had created the idea of an Afrikaner Volk. It was a product of their imagination. They wanted to create a new collective self-perception. Its genesis had no other source. Its purpose was hegemonic. It was their intention to have hegemonic control over all facets of Afrikaner life. In fact, its origination was the consequence of the material conditions of economic production. He reiterated this point again.

As theological students they both knew ancient Greek, they both knew that the word 'hegemonic' was derived from Greek word _hegemonikos_.

Joab was also becoming aware that Rudi had changed. He had become involved in student politics. He was also deeply involved in the activities of Afrikaner Studente Bond. He was an active member of the Potchefstroom branch of the Nationalist Party.

The meaning of the word hegemonic brought a thin smile to Rudi's face. Without having read Gramsci he understood fully the meaning and significance of the word. He uttered the word with a thoughtful expression on his face:

" _Hegemonikos_."

" _Ons is deel van die kulturele en sosiale elite. Ons is hoogs opgevoed en in staat om leiers te word. Dit is ons roeping om ons mense te lei. Jy is ook 'n lid van die Afrikaner-elite. Jy kan nie van jou pligte ontsnap nie. Dit is ons plig om die Afrikaner Volk te lei, veral die jeug. Dit is ons plig om hegemonie te beoefen_ ," Rudi said.

(We are the cultural and social elite. We are highly educated. It is our calling to lead our people. You are member of the Afrikaner elite. It is our duty to lead and guide the Afrikaner Volk especially the youth. It is our duty to exercise hegemony.)

Joab smiled at the irony when Rudi said that he too was a member of the Afrikaner elite and was thus also an agent in the exercise of Afrikaner hegemony in South Africa.

' _Rudi weet niks_!'

'Rudi knows nothing' was the thought that often flashed through his mind. Rudi knows nothing about the awful cost of Afrikaner hegemony.

Because of his heart murmer, Rudi had been spared the rigours of military service. He never had the chance to witness the other darker side to Afrikanerdom and Afrikaner identity.

He had not seen the underbelly and heart of the whore in Afrikanerdom when young Afrikaans speaking men were plunged into the cauldron of war. He had not seen the dagga smoking, the drinking binges, the black nights of extreme drunkenness, or the orgies of wanton destruction. He knew nothing about the other side of being an Afrikaner. He only perceived Afrikanerdom through rose tinted spectacles.

As far as Joab was concerned, no Godly Volk had ever existed in the history of man.

Rudi, like many other young Afrikaners, had been spared. Joab and a minority of Afrikaners had not been spared. They had become tainted by the ancient experiences of extreme violence and death associated with a war which had deeply scarred and numbed their souls forever. Inside they had been broken by their experiences, they could not escape the corrosive emotional and psychological cancers that these experiences had planted in their brains even if they wished to deny it; they had become deeply wounded in their minds, like criminals.

He often felt that as soldiers in the SADF no one gave a fuck for them, especially for those who had been in the wars. They were the disposables. In the future there were going to be many angry Afrikaners who would start feeling that they had been used and would have to pay the price as individuals. The moral burden of responsibility would be transferred to their shoulders.

The fact that they were under military orders, would count for nothing. It would count for nothing under future tribunals. They will be judged. Nothing will exonerate them. The fact that they were under military orders would not exonerate them. It would not diminish their moral agency. It would not expunge their moral culpability. They were guilty, as guilty as the guards at Auschwitz.

History will pass the verdict of guilt. He knew this in his heart.

This was something that Rudi would not be able to comprehend. He as an individual would not experience the moral betrayal of Afrikaner Nationalism.

He would not know what it was like to be an Apartheid soldier.

He would not experience the moral betrayal of the Afrikaner cultural, religious and intellectual elites.

Joab always argued that the Afrikaner's self-perception was historically conditioned and that it was therefore mutable and would eventually change in response to changing political and economic conditions. It was also possible that eventually the majority of Afrikaners would cease to be genuine Christians. They would inevitably become progressively more secular and pursue secular values. They will eventually leave their traditional churches. They will indeed leave in their droves. They will eventually reject traditional Afrikaner values and they will also eventually reject their religious and nationalist traditions.

They would lose their stomach for nationalism. They would eventually reject the nationalist narrative.

They would forge new social and cultural identities as their political and economic circumstances changed for the worst. Freed from the stifling hegemonic influences, they would reinvent themselves.

Joab knew in his heart that the Afrikaner was resourceful, imaginative and creative.

They will eventually find new forms of cultural expression and they will form new social and cultural identities. They will demythologize their history and see it as an ideologically inspired narrative which no longer served any political, cultural or social function. But for now the Afrikaner was just going through the nationalist phase of its historical development, this phase would not last forever.

Rudi was taken aback by Joab's views regarding the Afrikaner. It went against the grain of everything that he believed.

" _In werklikheid is die Afrikaner in 'n toestand van diepe krisis, selfs al is hulle nie bewus daarvan nie_ ," Joab said, much to Rudi's surprise.

(In reality the Afrikaner is actually in state of deep crisis, even if they are not consciously aware of this fact.)

" _Ek is nie bewus van enige krisis nie_ ," was Rudi's quick response. He could not perceive that the Afrikaner was in any crisis.

(I am not aware of any crisis.)

" _Die Afrikaner is op die pad na sy eie selfvernietiging_ ," Joab countered.

(The Afrikaner is on the road of self-destruction.)

" _Die Afrikaner sal homself vernietig as hy afdraai van sy oorspronklike eindbestemming op n onnatuurlike volksvreemde paadjie_ ," Rudi responded.

(The Afrikaner will only cause his own self-destruction if he does not follow the path of his appointed destiny.)

In spite of Rudi's scepticism, Joab felt that the Afrikaner in 1977 was in fact going through a dark and self-destructive phase.

" _Dis die plig van elke Afrikaner om sy eie koers vind te onder die leiding van sy eie gewete en rede_ ," Joab said.

(It is the duty of every Afrikaner to follow the path of his own conscience under the guidance of reason.)

These were the core values that Joab held. A good conscience and reason was the only bulwark against the threat of personal and collective self-destruction of the Afrikaner. A right conscience and reason were the pathways to God and to authentic and genuine morality.

Joab argued that there was more to being an Afrikaner than what the official Afrikaner Establishment wished to believe. In Joab's opinion, the self-appointed custodians who propagated the racial-ethnic-cultural-social-political hegemonic construct that was officially recognized as Afrikanerdom, was based on a very simplistic one dimensional view of what it really meant to be an Afrikaner.

Joab felt that their hegemonic construction of what it meant to be an Afrikaner was intensely stifling.

All of this coming from Joab was a bit too much for Rudi to stomach. He could not envisage the Afrikaner Volk as being any different from what it was now in 1977. To him there was no other way to be an Afrikaner than what had been prescribed by the Nationalist Party and the Reformed Church.

Rudi's criticism of Joab became a bit personal.

" _Jy is getoor met sekularistiese en humanistiese idees_ ," Rudi argued

(You have become enthralled with secular and humanistic ideas.)

Sometimes Rudi expressed the sentiment that while he had known Joab for a long time, he often had strong reservations about his standing as a genuine Christian and he even wondered whether Joab still actually believed in God.

Of course Joab confirmed that he strongly believed in the one and true God, and he confirmed that he believed in the Gospel. But he admitted that he was no longer a Calvinist. He could never ever be a Calvinist. He would study Calvinism, but Calvinism from an academic perspective was a strange and interesting distortion of Christianity and God, but Calvinism in itself was theologically and philosophically a _dood loop straat_ (a dead end). He also admitted that he could no longer accept many of the fundamental claims of the Reformed Faith. He also believed that Calvin had got a lot of things completely wrong and he would try to explain why if Rubi was interested to know.

Rudi often frowned deeply when Joab became critical of Calvinism. Rudi wondered if it was really true that Calvin had in fact got everything completely wrong as Joab argued.

After their long debates they often sat in silence, staring at each other across the kitchen table. Rudi often sighed and shook his head in despair.

Joab found Rudi's expression of frustration funny; he always managed to smile good-naturedly at the end of their debates. Rudi could only smile weakly back at Joab. Joab was a formidable debating opponent. His dark eyes would often glow fiercely with passion and conviction.

CHAPTER 18

It was already late in the evening. Throughout the past week after the trip to Orkney, they had continued to debate Afrikaner politics and what it really meant to be an Afrikaner. As always, their debate always turned into an analysis of Calvinism.

Tonight, because it was a Sunday evening, they had not bothered about supper.

After their daylong marathon debate about the meaning of Calvinism, Rudi decided it was time for a coffee break.

Rudi switched on the kettle, putting two mugs on the table and he sat down again. He knew that Joab was going to open up a theological and philosophical can of worms.

Joab, sitting at the kitchen table looked directly at Rudi. Rudi's face was deadly serious. He could see that Rudi was waiting for him to drop some kind of theological and philosophical bombshell.

Rudi also knew from experience that he was in for a long night of debate and he knew it would be difficult to rebut any of Joab's criticisms of John Calvin or the Reformed Faith. They had gone over these arguments many times before.

Joab was relentless and repetitious in his arguments, so as to drive each point home, to literally hammer them home like a nail into a hard plank. He tried to wear Rudi down with his arguments. For Joab, all answers to philosophical, theological and scientific questions converge asymptotically in an inexorable process of continual self-correction onto the absolute TRUTH, otherwise all answers remained arbitrary and inconclusive.

That is how Joab drew the line, it was a either this perspective of truth or the sea of relativism, where all claims to truth are arbitrary opinions.

Either we trust our ability to reason and our cognitive abilities to take us along a self-correcting journey which converges asymptotically onto the truth, or we fall into relativism.

Rudi felt that Joab posed all alternatives too starkly. It was either the asymptotic convergence onto truth or it was relativism, with all the arbitrariness that goes with a relativistic position.

He understood Joab's debating strategy, but he could not counter or neutralize it.

Joab proceeded to open the theological can of worms in the starkest possible manner.

Joab explained that as a consequence of his readings of Calvin, he had come to the conclusion that there were serious logical flaws in Calvin's theory of God which led to all kinds of unacceptable logical and unavoidable philosophical consequences, which greatly diminished Calvin's own theological conception of God.

" _Daar is geen bewyse dat Calvyn die onbewustelike logiese, filosofiese en teologiese gevolge van sy eie interpretasie van God se soewereiniteit ten volle begryp het nie_ ," Joab explained.

(It seemed that Calvin had not fully grasped the unintended logical, philosophical and theological consequences that flowed from his own conception of God's sovereignty.)

Joab went on to explain to Rudi that in Calvin's work, it was not clear how the legislative power of God's will works in relation to the essence of God's nature.

" _Daar is geen werklike verskil tussen Descartes en Calvyn's se uitbeelding van die verhouding tussen God se wil en God se natuur nie_ ," Joab explained.

(There was no real difference between Descartes and Calvin's conceptualization of the relation between the God's will and God's essential nature)

While explaining this he could not help feeling a bit annoyed with Rudi, mainly because they had discussed these issues so many times before, especially when they were still undergraduates.

He was amazed that Rudi had forgotten their previous discussions and debates.

He explained again to Rudi, that according to both Calvin and Descartes, God creates and rules the Universe by fiat alone.

" _Wat beteken dit_?" He asked Rudi.

What does this mean he asked while looking at Rudi? He could see that Rudi was not getting the point. So he explained everything over again to Rudi.

Calvin's God creates and rules the Universe by arbitrary decrees like some kind of oriental despot.

" _Hoekom sê ek so_?"

Why do I say this he asked Rudi. Again he explained his reasons to Rudi.

According to Calvin, the reasons for God's arbitrary decrees are unquestionable because they are inscrutable, unknowable, unfathomable, secret, hidden and incomprehensible. Furthermore, according to Calvin, God's decrees are unquestionable, NOT because they are an expression of God's essential nature or essence, but rather, their purpose or _raison d'être_ _or function revolves around God's good pleasure, His glorification and His sovereignty. The decrees serve no other purpose and they have no other reason._

_Joab said that this view actually diminishes God's glory._

'Inscrutable, unknowable, unintelligible, unfathomable, secret, hidden and incomprehensible!' Rudi wondered how many times he had heard these words coming from Joab's lips.

Rudi smiled to himself.

Joab also smiled. He could read Rudi's mind.

Joab reminded Rudi that they had been over all of this before as undergraduate students. Joab reminded Rudi that he was not saying anything new which Rudi did not already know.

All that Rudi could say was:

" _Ja nee_."

(Yeah well)

Joab went again over all the main points of his argument.

In his writings, it was clear that Calvin proposed the following:

God works according to his secret council. Everything God does, he does only for his own good pleasure. According to both Descartes and Calvin, because God rules by fiat, He can decide by arbitrary decree that two plus three equals five, that two contradictory assertions cannot both be true, that fornication is morally wrong, that there is no single number that exactly expresses the true value of the square root of two and so on.

The logical implication of both Descartes and Calvin's ideas about the nature of God entails the belief that God can arbitrarily, according to His will, decree anything which goes against the dictates of Reason.

However, if God decides everything by arbitrary decree, then there is nothing that prevents God from legislating that two plus three equals seven, those two contradictory assertions can both be true, and that fornication is not morally wrong, and there is exists a finite number that expresses exactly the true value of the square root of two.

Joab felt that he needed to remind Rudi about the issue of 'ruling by whim' and not by reason.

So Joab reminded Rudi that according to Calvin, God creates everything and rules everything by fiat, which is the same as saying he exercises His will according to His whim.

In Joab's opinion, if God rules by fiat then all the laws of physics, all the rules and truths of mathematics and all the rules of logical, all the grounds for ethics and morality have been legislated by His divine arbitrary decree, in accordance with his own secret council, which in turn is inscrutable, unknowable and incomprehensible.

Joab reiterated that this was also what Descartes claimed in his meditations, and this is also what one can logically conclude from Calvin's writings.

So, Joab argued, it would not be incorrect to conclude that Calvin and Descartes are kindred spirits when it comes to their theory of the way the legislative power of God works. They both agree that God's sovereignty means that God exercises His will in an arbitrary and contingent fashion.

Philosophically Calvin had more affinities with Descartes than he had with either Thomas Aquinas or Leibniz.

Rudi did not try and offer a rebuttal to any of these criticisms.

Seeing that Rudi was not going to offer a defence on Calvin's behalf, Joab continued with his analysis of Calvin.

He proposed a riddle for Rudi to consider which went as follows:

Strictly speaking Calvin's conceptualization of God's legislative power commits Calvin to a voluntaristic theory of God's sovereign will. This means that God possesses the power to will anything in a purely arbitrary manner. This implies that everything in the Universe depends on the arbitrary whim of God's inscrutable will. Which means it makes no difference to God whether two plus two equals five or whether two plus two equals four. Nothing can be true or false independent of God's will. If God's will represents the only legislative power for deciding what is true or false about anything in the Universe, then should God decree that two plus two equals five, then it follows from God's omnipotence that two plus two equals four is false.

Joab continued to elaborate on the absurdities that result from this view of the nature of God's will in relationship to his legislative power. If we are able by using the power of human reason to logically conclude that the properties of many different kinds of mathematical objects cannot be changed even by God, then we place a limitation on the scope of God's omnipotence, omniscience and legislative power.

This is a problem, because it implies that in spite of God's omnipotence, there exist things, like mathematical objects or theories, which are true, independent of whether or not there is a God, or whatever God may wish to will or decree by fiat.

Joab proposed a number of examples of simple mathematical objects that cannot be changed by the whim or fiat of God's decree. For example, there exists no exact number which equals the square root of two, there is no end to the decimal expansion of Pi, two plus two always equals four.

If God is truly omnipotent then nothing can be true or false independent of His will. But two plus two can only equal four. It is not possible for God to legislate the 'truth' that two plus two does not equal four.

According to Calvin, God's sovereignty logically requires that God is omnipotent and omniscient, and that therefore nothing can be true or false independently of God's will. But it can be rationally demonstrated that God cannot willy-nilly change the truth or the facts of many mathematical and scientific relathionships.

To have a Universe in which it was possible for two plus two to equal five, would make that Universe irrational relative to our Universe. Does this possibility imply that God is irrational or that God operates outside the constraints of reason?

Or is God's essential nature the very embodiment of Rationality? If God is rational, then we cannot rationally or logically have Calvin's God. Calvin's God does not exist. Calvin's God only exists as Calvin's idol. The same applies to Luther's God.

Rudi just shook his head, but he said nothing to counter Joab's depiction of Calvin's God.

Joab always argued the point that for a theology of God to be consistent, rational and meaningful the relation between God's essential nature and reason had to be defined or at least clarified.

If God's essential nature represents the full embodiment of reason, then the exercise of God's will should necessarily be consistent with reason if His will necessarily converges with His essence, so that God never acts in a manner which is contrary to His essential nature. The same should apply to God's providence and foreordination.

According to Joab, two plus two equals four is true because that mathematical relationship is part of God's nature or essence. Two plus two equals four because God's will and essence converge with respect to this mathematical fact. God cannot will something that contradicts His essential nature, and it is God's essential nature that two plus two equals four. God's essential nature is the ground that makes two plus two equal to four both possible and true.

Nowhere do both Luther and Calvin state this proposition or provide evidence that they actually believed in the truth of this proposition as an article of their faith.

Rudi raised his eyebrows and his eyes opened wide in shock behind his spectacles when Joab made this conclusion.

Rudi's eyes widened even more, but this time with an expresson of perplexity mingled with horror when Joab went on to state that:

God is two plus two equals four, because this mathematical truth or rule is part of God's nature or essence. If God's will and essence converge then the councils of God are not entirely secret, nor are they absolutely unknowable and inscrutable. Therefore Calvin is wrong about the nature of God. All of God's acts are in accordance with reason, which is God's nature or essence. God is reason, the same way that God is two plus two equals four. Every truth in the Universe is not true because of God's arbitrarily willing that it be true, each truth is true by virtue of it being the embodiment of God's essential nature and an expression of His essense. God's will is always an expression of His essential nature.

Seeing the expression on Rudi face, Joab reiterated the main points of his argument:

God does not decree that two plus two equals four. God does not need to. Why? Because God is in a fashion two plus two equals four. God is in a fashion the laws of nature. The laws are an expression of His eternal immutable nature.

God cannot decree things that are contrary to his nature.

Rudi continued to listen to Joab with a stunned expression on his face. He did not know what to think or say.

Rudi's brow became creased with worry. He looked both puzzled and disturbed. He wondered whether the God that Joab was defending was also Hegel's idea of God. How did Joab's idea of God differ from Hegel's idea of God?

He could not argue against Joab's formulation of the relationship between reason and God's essential nature, but this also brought him closer to an idea of God that was dangerously close to Hegel's idea of God.

Rudi also wanted to believe that things are not made merely true by arbitrary decree; but rather that they were true because they represent or express a feature of God's essence. Therefore God's legislative power does not represent an arbitrary whim or decree, but instead God's legislative power represents an expression of His essential nature. Therefore God's will and God's essence converges in all expressions of God's legislative power.

But he needed to think this over. Why should God not be able to decree things that go against his Nature?

Seeing the wavering look in Rudi demeanour, Joab felt the need to reinforce his argument again:

If God does not act according to arbitrary decree or whim because His will or legislative power always converges with His essence, then God IS always what He does, what He decides, what He decrees, what He rules. God is the expression of His essential nature and the expression of His essential nature represents His will.

" _Ja nee_." Rudi said.

He also thought that this was getting too close to Hegel. If one agreed that God as a Divine Being was the embodiment of rationality and that His will was the expression of His rationality, then one could no longer be a Calvinist. Instead, you would be on the path of Hegelianism and once on the path of Hegelianism, you could end up finding yourself on the road to becoming a full blown Marxist.

This was Rudi's view. It was either Calvin's God or Hegel's God.

But Joab demurred. He did not want go down the Hegelian road tonight.

Instead, he wanted to dissect out the implications of what it means if God's nature is the embodiment of reason.

Joab went on explain that if God's will was indeed the expression of his essential nature then the possibility exists that we can know God's will and God's nature by means of the power of reason. Reason itself is not autonomous because whenever reason discloses truth or converges asymptotically on the truth, then it necessarily resonates with the infinite reason that is embodied in God's essential nature irrespective of everything else. Saying God is Love is logically similar to saying God is Reason.

This was Joab's favourite theological proposition.

Looking at Rudi, Joab went on.

Calvin, like Descartes broke the linkage between God's will and God's essence. By separating Gods' legislative power from God's essence, both Calvin and Descartes severed any relationship between God's essence and the nature of the Universe.

They had also severed the link between the exercise of reason and the acquiring of knowledge of God's essential nature.

And in doing this, they had, through a process of reification transformed an object or a thing, the Bible, into a fetish.

By equating revelation with a thing or object such as the Bible, they created a fetish.

The philosophical consequences of Calvinism are that the Universe is ultimately absurd and God is completely incomprehensible and unknowable. If no rational relationship exists between the nature of God and the nature of the Universe, then man's efforts to have true knowledge will always be an exercise in futility.

Joab explained that this is the bleak Universe of John Calvin and Descartes.

Rudi shook his head in disagreement; he insisted incorrectly that Joab was getting too close the ideas of Hegel. Rudi attempted to argue that Calvinism did not imply Joab's conclusions. This is not what the Reformed Churches believe.

There was something else that Joab wanted to interrogate regarding the nature of God. It involved focusing on a more rational, more positive, more glorious, more mysterious and more challenging view of the genuine and authentic meaning of God's ultimate inscrutability, unfathomability and incomprehensibility.

The meaning of God's ultimate inscrutability, unfathomability and incomprehensibility was positively reflected in the realization that there was infinitely more to the nature of reality, than could ever be fully expressed, or articulated in language, or even captured in thought. Like Wittgenstein proposed in his _Tractatus Logico_ _-_ _Philosophicus_ _, what cannot be said, cannot be thought, the unsayable was unthinkable. Without the medium of a language we cannot say what we think, and it is hard to think what we cannot say. Only the rational is thinkable. Ideas have to find their expression in words, before they can become public._

_But Joab realized that this was not all when it came to the rational appreciation of God's incomprehensibility._

_On every front of reality, science is confronted with the inexhaustibility of facts. There can never be an end to science. No systematic inventory of scientific truths can encompass all the facts of the Universe. The totality of reality cannot be cognitively assimilated, appropriated or conquered. Man cannot devour and assimilate or digest the totality of Nature or the Universe. While man has partially succeeded in the feat of self-domestication, the Cosmos remains a wild frontier beyond the possibility of complete cognitive domestication._

_The work of science will never end. There is no finality to science or mathematics. There is also no horizon that defines the limits of language or thought. While there is no finality to science, there can be no finality to philosophy or theology._

_Joab could not imagine a post-science world. Nor could he imagine a post-philosophy or post-theology world. Nor could he imagine a post-enlightenment for any future. In Joab's own mind the project of modernism had barely begun. In the end history has always shown that all the 'posts' have been premature._

He fully appreciated Hegel's famous line: " _The Owl of Minerva_ _only_ _takes flight at dusk_ _._ " He also appreciated Hegel's saying that the "real is rational and the rational is real." There could not be a Universe if this were not true. Nor could there be science if this statement of Hegels were not true.

This statement also reflects the condition that makes the Universe empirically accessible.

******

For weeks on end they debated all the pros and cons of Calvinism. During his undergraduate years, Joab had always impressed Rudi with his thorough knowledge of Calvin's writings.

Rudi was aware that Joab was not impressed with traditional neo-Calvinist thinking that had taken root among Afrikaner academics. He thought they were all missing the critical and interesting theological and philosophical problems that can be found in Calvin's writings. In Joab's opinion, there should have been more focus on the critical and scholarly investigation into the writings of Calvin, rather than developing, elaborating and expanding the themes of a dry, neo-Calvinist ideology in the defence and justification of Apartheid.

The entire focus of Calvin's system of theology was centred on the idea of God's sovereignty over everything. Calvin's conceptualization or theory of God's predestination of everything follows as a logical consequence of Calvin's peculiar understanding of God's sovereignty.

Calvin's own peculiar understanding of God was Calvin's personal ground motive; his understanding of God's sovereignty was rooted in the idea of God being some kind of oriential despot. This was the kind of God that he had discovered in his readings of the Bible.

CHAPTER 19

Usually at breakfast, especially after their nocturnal debates on the merits of the work of John Calvin Rudi's mood would be conciliatory. It was often the case that Joab's arguments had left him with no leg to stand on.

While they ate breakfast, in response to Rudi's rebuttals and questions, Joab would expand on some of the themes which they had discussed until the early hours of the morning.

As Segomotso went about her housework, she listened attentively to what Joab had to say.

Joab had increasingly argued that with Calvinism, they actually faced a very real theological dilemma which even Dostoevsky had missed in his book _The Brothers of Karamazov_ when it was proposed that if there was no God, then everything was permissible. Obviously Dostoevsky was not familiar with John Calvin's _Institutes of the Christian Religion_ or his sermons on the Book of Job. Calvin wrestled with great intellectual integrity and intellectual honesty when he tried to deal with the problem of the existence of evil in the light of God's sovereignty and predestination or providence or foreordination.

Joab argued that if one follows the arguments of Calvin to their logical conclusions then the existence of evil cannot arise independently of God's sovereignty or will. If God in His sovereignty did create and foreordain everything in the Universe then he also made allowance for evil to become a possibility, a reality. In other words, if this is the case, then evil can only exist if God permits it, evil does exist, so everything is permissible in the Universe by God's decree, because nothing can happen without God's explicit decree. Even torture, murder, Apartheid and the Holocaust could only happen as a result of God's decree if one was a consistent Calvinist.

So if the Cosmos or Universe or the World is construed as God's theatre, then the Universe in terms of Calvinism becomes the theatre of the absurd, as originally conceived by Camus in his various novels. The World also becomes a theatre of the absurd where everything becomes permissible according to the secret plan of an inscrutable God who rules over everything by arbitrary fiat like some malevolent, divine despot.

For Joab, the Universe becomes absurd when Gods legislative power does NOT converge with His essence. If God's will and His decrees do NOT converge with God's essential nature then they are not expressions of His essence. If no convergence exists between His will and His essence, then God would be acting contrary to His own nature. God would be in conflict with His own nature.

The absurd arises as a consequence of God's arbitrary decrees having no connection or relationship with His essential nature. Or in other words when the divine decrees are not an expression of the divine nature then Universe becomes transformed in the theatre of the absurd.

The Universe is ultimately meaningless if its origination was due an arbitrary decree according to a secret plan of an inscrutable God.

If God's legislative power is always an expression of His essence, then the Universe cannot be intrinsically absurd.

If the Universe is not intrinsically absurd, then it has to be intelligible. If the Universe is intrinsically intelligible and if, at the same time, it also exists as an expression of Gods essential nature, then God's will has to be intelligible in principle and not ultimately inscrutable, incomprehensible and unfathomable.

If the Universe is not absurd, then we can know God's will and we also know something about God's nature by means of the light of reason.

If the Universe is not ultimately or intrinsically absurd, if its purpose is not ultimately incomprehensible, if its meaning is not ultimately inaccessible, then God is, in principle knowable and reasonable because He is the God of Infinite Reason and not the God of arbitrary decrees based on whim.

Joab summarized his views on the will of God and the intelligibility of the Universe with the following argument:

If God's will is an expression of His essential nature, and if infinite reason is an integral feature of God's nature, then everything in the Universe must make sense and the Universe must be ultimately intelligible to human reason and human cognition. Joab emphasized that if the Universe was not intelligible and was not accessible to reason and empirical interrogation, then science as we know it would be impossible.

Because science is self-correcting in its methodology and institutions, the findings of science will continue to converge asymptotically onto the absolute truth regarding the nature of the Universe.

But the Universe of science is not Calvin's Universe. Calvin's Universe can only exist as the theatre of the absurd. It has to be the theatre of the absurd if there is no deep connection between the nature of the Universe and infinite reason or rationality.

If God was indeed _absolutely_ unfathomable, inscrutable, incomprehensive and unknowable with regard to the reasons underlying his eternal decrees, then mankind faces very serious theological, philosophical, mathematical and scientific problems with regard to making any meaningful sense of anything in the Universe and in Life.

If God's decrees are arbitrary and not aligned with infinite reason, then the Universe is indeed intrinsically absurd and works contrary to reason.

But the Universe does not work contrary to reason. The structure and the dynamics of the Universe are intelligible to rational and empirical interrogation.

What does this imply? While everything about the Universe is in principle discoverable as a fact of science, the fact of the Universe's intelligibility and rationality which make the enterprise of science possible is not in itself something that is transparently self-explanatory. The Universe's intelligibility and rationality is a reflection of God's essential nature. So God is not inscrutable, incomprehensible and unknowable. God is the pre-condition for the possibility of knowing anything.

The origination of the Universe's intelligibility and rationality lies not within the Universe itself, it lies within the essential nature of God as a cognitively accessible divine attribute. So in a way humanity can have knowledge of the mind of God. If science converges through self-correction onto the truth, then humanity grows in its knowledge of the nature of God's mind.

Rudi had no answers to Joab's critical analysis of Calvinism.

Joab freely admitted that one could not simply dismiss Calvin. Calvin's _Institutes_ and his various commentaries on the Bible are still fascinating works to read. While his central ideas remain thought provoking, many of them are plainly wrong. For example, according to Calvin, if God is the creator and sustainer of everything in the Universe, then He is the primary agent in the causation of every single event that had ever occurred in the history of the Universe. He then becomes the primary causal agency behind every thermal fluctuation, behind every of kind molecular motion and behind every kind of quantum mechanical event, that ever took place, or will take place, in all of space and time.

In Calvin's Universe everything occurs by direct divine causal determination.

But if this ever active, divine causal agency was not an expression of Gods essence but flowed from arbitrary decrees based on God's constantly changing whim, then the Universe cannot be strictly intelligible or rational.

For God to be truely God according to Calvin, the reality of his omnipotence and omniscience, logically and necessarily requires that everything in the Universe including all causes and events, are actively enforced or brought about by the agency of His will or as a result of His decrees. But because Calvin did not clearly state that God's will is always an expression of His essence, God's will necessarily works in an arbitrary, voluntaristic fashion in determining the occurrence of all events in the Universe.

This means that even if the divine determinism that prevails in the Universe is operative in a manner that makes God _omnipervasive_ in the Universe, this omnipervasiveness of God also turns out to be a succession of arbitrary foreordained, divine actions based essentially on God's arbitrary whim and not in accordance with the exercise or dictates of REASON or RIGHT CONSCIENCE.

The Universe of the Reformed Church is, in reality, the Universe of the Absurd.

When Rudi heard that there may be a problem with God having a conscience in Calvin's view of God he asked:

" _Het die Here 'n gewete_?"

(Does God have a conscience?)

Joab answered: " _Wat dink jy_?"

(What do you think?)

Rudi had no answer, so Joab continued after pouring fresh tea into their mugs. Segomotso worked in the lounge close by so she could hear what Joab was saying.

For Calvin, because of the omnipervasiveness of God's divine determinism in the Universe, all the findings and discoveries resulting from the scientific investigation of natural phenomena must also reveal the direct and arbitrary agency of God in all observed, natural phenomena. In this respect, the Universe becomes the theatre of God's arbitrary actions and not the mirror that reflects the essential attributes of God. Thus, the findings of scientific investigation do not reveal any necessary truths linked to God's essential nature, science can only discover what would correspond to the contingent and arbitrary decrees of God's will, working independently of God's essence.

In this sense science becomes an absurd enterprise. Its findings will have no ultimate significance.

The logic of Calvin's theology leads to a disconnection or decoupling between God's Being and the Universe's Becoming.

In this case the Universe has no ultimate meaning, there are no Absolutes.

Joab knew that theologically one could not separate God's attributes from the creative work of His hand or from His creative agency.

Calvin's commentary on Psalm 145 depicts the whole course of nature's unfolding as nothing other than the execution of God's will. However, this idea of God's will was linked to the doctrine of God's eternal and essentially arbitrary predestination as expounded in his _Institutes_. Nowhere does Calvin make an explicit statement of God's will being an expression of His essence. There is no connection in Calvin's theism between God's Being and His Becoming.

Calvin was completely committed to the idea that the order of nature reflects the divine will. Everything in the Universe, every occurrence, and every event, no matter how insignificant, iwas always the necessary outcome of God's will. This was the same as saying that everything which happens in the Universe and on earth always happens according to God's providence and foreknowledge. Calvin's concept of God's providence forbids the occurrence of random or contingent events; it forbids the play of freedom and chance in the events of nature. Because of God's providence nothing can happen by accident, everything occurs by design.

If the Universe is God's theatre, then nothing in the Universe occurs fortuitously, no event occurs contingently, there is no chance or random occurrences in the Universe. According to Calvin if God were to remove himself from the Universe it would not just collapse into chaos, it would vanish into nothingness. In this sense God is the agency of all being and becoming in the Universe and on earth. No state of affairs can come into existence or continue to exist independent of His will.

From a logical perspective, the will of God according Calvin's idea of God, had to be arbitrary, and this was primarily because Calvin did not make any explicit or consistent connection between the _omnideterminative_ actions of Gods will and God's essence.

Calvin's doctrine of double predestination, together with his idea of God's pre-determination or foreordination of all future events, caused ostentively by human agency or natural agencies prior to the actual coming into existence of these agents, is consistent with a voluntaristic divinity.

Divine omnideterminism or predestination or foreordination of all future events can be realized by divine voluntarism operating in a purely arbitrary fashion.

In this case the Universe is absurd.

Calvin's idea of God's foreordination drove a wedge between God's will and God's essence. Double predestination is based on the assumption that God is a voluntaristic deity who operates whimsically beyond the boundaries of reason like an oriental despot. It was foreordained that Adam would sin, the fall was thus foreordained, because logically the existence of free will would be impossible in a Universe that was omnidetermined by an omnipervasive God. Calvin was a determinist; but he did not seem to appreciate the logical consequences of his own theology. Calvin's theological system was incoherent.

Rudi frowned. His whole conception of Afrikanerdom was based on the truth of Calvinism. If Joab's explication of the logical consequences of Calvinism were true, then Rudi's whole world was in jeopardy.

With a mischievous sense of irony Joab explained that:

Maybe, ultimately the rise and fall or the inexorable demise of Afrikanerdom was divinely foreordained from the beginning of time. From the time his ancestors landed on the shores of Africa, the Afrikaner was doomed, his fate was sealed. From all eternity the fate of the Afrikaner was his eventual annihilation, his complete destruction. The rise, fall and destruction of the Afrikaner volk could be for the greater glory of God.This is true Calvinism. Everything that happens, ultimately serves the greater glory of God. The single theme that runs through the work of Calvin like a golden thread is the Glory of God, not the glory of the volk or the glory of nationalism.

According to Calvin's system of theology, for God to be sovereign, He has to ordain all things including evil and sin, in accordance with his secret eternal counsel. God's foreknowledge, foreordination, providence, election, predestination of all things both evil and good in the Universe, is always in accordance with his secret eternal counsel. This makes the council and mind of God inscrutable and unknowable. God has His own reasons for everything. If God is absolutely inscrutable and unknowable, then His creation in all its manifestation would not reflect His essence which should embody goodness and reason.

But some will argue that while this is logically consistent with His sovereignty as the omnipotent and omniscient Lord of the Universe, it does not gel too well with the everyday naïve idea of God's perfect goodness and perfect love. Joab often thought that maybe or just maybe, it could be that Calvin's system of interpreting the Bible leans towards a kind of Manicheanism, in which evil is actually built into the Universe as an inevitability which cannot be expunged from physical reality or even from matter.

Many questions plagued Joab regarding Calvin's system. Does the physical Universe, does matter contain elements of both good and evil, is evil and goodness built into the very fabric and nature of the physical Universe? Does Calvin's system actually imply this? Could it be possible?

It was the philosopher David Hume who invoking Epicurus, wrote something along the following lines, that if God was willing to prevent evil, but not able, then He is impotent, and if He is able, but not willing, then He is malevolent, but if He is both able and willing, then whence the evil?

Theodicy was the name given to arguments which attempt to defend God against the charge of evil. Does Calvin try to defend God against the charge of evil? Does Calvin's work include any theodicy? Joab posed this question, like all the others, to Rudi.

" _Ek sal my eie vraag beantwoord_."

(I will answer my own question.)

After some thought he finally answered his own question that he had put to Rudi. He didn't think that Calvin really bothered with developing a theodicy. Calvin's commentary on Job and Genesis gave some insights into his thinking. As expected, Calvin's commentary on the Book of Job presents an anti-theodicy. It does not try to solve the problem of evil. It sees evil as an inevitable and insoluble problem. According to David Hume, the existence of evil cannot be explained by any kind of theodicy, it cannot be expunged from the Universe, it is inevitable and irreducible.

Evil is built into man's predilections. Man has a built-in partiality towards evil. He seems to have a weakness, a fondness, a perchant for evil. Whence this evil? From what place, from what source did it originate?

Is the propensity or irresistible inclination to commit evil written into our DNA? DNA is matter. Joab would like to believe that matter was good. But can bad come from good? Obviously one shouldn't moralize about matter or nature. Clearly nature is neither good nor bad. Nature or matter in itself is neither moral nor immoral. It is good, but not in any moral sense. Matter in itself does not possess the propensity or capacity or power to be immoral or moral. So Joab would never go along with a Manichean view of the nature of matter or the Universe. Joab believed firmly that evil was purely a human phenomenon, maybe it was the only instance where bad actually came from good. But even if evil is something bad that comes from good, then it must be an emergent property of humans, it must be due to some kind of irreducible emergent capacity to do things that are immoral and evil.

Man as the _Imago Dei_ , possesses the capacity for creation _ex nihilo_. Man possesses the power to create evil out of nothing.

Man could not be the _Imago Dei_ if he did not possess free will. He would not have the power to create works of art and evil _ex nihilo_ if he did not possess free will.

Without free will, there would be no evil. Evil depends on the existence of free will. Without free will man would be in a state of nature beyond good and evil.

To be morally culpable, to be blameworthy or guilty, man has to possess the power of moral agency. He must be able to do bad things; he must be able to circumvent the good.

If evil is an irreducible property, an irreducible property in the form of a capacity to act or to be a moral agent, then that property cannot be reduced to something that is intrinsically contained in the very stuff of matter. If evil were reducible to something that is intrinsically bound up in the constitution of matter, then matter would be contaminated with this propensity for making evil possible, thereby making matter innately evil. Because matter could not be innately evil, Joab supported the idea that evil was not reducible to any more basic element or composite complex of elements out of which the different configurations of matter were constituted.

Segomotso listened to the authoritative arguments of Joab which made Rudi sink into a thoughtful silence. She smiled to herself.

She realized that Joab was not only a master dressmaker; he was also a very clever man.

CHAPTER 20

A few days after their intense debate on all the implications of John Calvin's idea of God's sovereignty, Joab volunteered to read the suppertime Bible reading. He opened his Bible at Matthew chapter 25 and began to read from verse 31 to 46. He read aloud to Rudi one of his favourite pieces of scripture.

" _Wanneer die Seun van die mens in sy heerlikheid kom, en al die engele saam met hom, dan sal hy op sy glorieryke troon gaan sit. En al die nasies sal voor hom versamel word, en hy sal die mense van mekaar afskei, net soos 'n herder die skape van die bokke afskei. En hy sal die skape aan sy regterhand sit, maar die bokke aan sy linkerhand. "Dan sal die koning vir dié aan sy regterhand sê: 'Kom, julle wat deur my Vader geseën is, beërf die koninkryk wat van die grondlegging van die wêreld af vir julle berei is. Want ek het honger geword, en julle het my iets gegee om te eet; ek het dors geword, en julle het my iets gegee om te drink. Ek was 'n vreemdeling, en julle het my gasvry ontvang; naak, en julle het my geklee. Ek het siek geword, en julle het na my omgesien. Ek was in die gevangenis, en julle het na my toe gekom.' Dan sal die regverdiges hom antwoord met die woorde:'Here, wanneer het ons u honger gesien en u gevoed, of dors en u iets gegee om te drink? Wanneer het ons u 'n vreemdeling gesien en u gasvry ontvang, of naak en u geklee? Wanneer het ons u siek of in die gevangenis gesien en na u toe gegaan?' En die koning sal antwoord en vir hulle sê: 'Voorwaar, ek sê vir julle: Vir sover julle dit aan een van die geringste van hierdie broers van my gedoen het, het julle dit aan my gedoen.' "Maar dan sal hy vir dié aan sy linkerhand sê: 'Gaan weg van my af, julle wat vervloek is, die ewige vuur in wat vir die Duiwel en sy engele berei is. Want ek het honger geword, maar julle het my niks gegee om te eet nie, en ek het dors geword, maar julle het my niks gegee om te drink nie. Ek was 'n vreemdeling, maar julle het my nie gasvry ontvang nie; naak, maar julle het my nie geklee nie; siek en in die gevangenis, maar julle het nie na my omgesien nie.' Dan sal ook hulle antwoord met die woorde: 'Here, wanneer het ons u honger of dors of 'n vreemdeling of naak of siek of in die gevangenis gesien en u nie bedien nie?' Dan sal hy hulle antwoord met die woorde: 'Voorwaar, ek sê vir julle: Vir sover julle dit nie aan een van hierdie geringstes gedoen het nie, het julle dit nie aan my gedoen nie.' hulle sal weggaan, die ewige vernietiging in, maar die regverdiges die ewige lewe in_."

_(_ _"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world._ _For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels._ _For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' "He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life_.")

To emphasize the point that he was going to focus on Joab repeated the following verse from Matthew 25:

Vir sover julle dit nie aan een van hierdie geringstes gedoen het nie, het julle dit nie aan my gedoen nie.

(Whatever you did not do for the least of these my brothers, the same you did not do for me.)

After they had concluded their discussion on the key themes of Matthew chapter 25 they ate in silence.

Joab suddenly interrupted their silence. He made an innocent remark that he thought that Segomotso was a very attractive woman.

" _Ek dink Segomotso is eintlik 'n baie aantreklike jong vrou_?"

(I think Segomotso is actually a very attractive young woman?)

He could see that his remark did not go down very well with Rudi. Rudi frowned and his face darkened. Joab had ventured onto the taboo topic of black women. One never talks about the attractiveness of black women in polite white society. Their table talk had always steered clear from sex or any topic related to the opposite sex.

" _Sy is ons bediende. Dit is nie reg om in so 'n manier oor 'n bediende te praat nie_."

(She is our domestic servant. It is not right to talk in this manner about a domestic servant)

" _Geen normale man kan dit voorkom om 'n aantreklike vrou in 'n seksueelneutrale manier te aanskou nie_ ," Joab answered with a teasing grin on his face.

(No normal man can avoid looking at an attractive woman in a sexually neutral manner)

Rudi decided not to take the bait, so Joab continued while Rudi chewed his food.

" _Vroue wil hê dat mans hulle raaksien. Vroue wil gesien word as sensuele en begeerlike wesens_."

(Women want men to look at them. Women want to be seen as sensual and desirable creatures)

Joab decided to drop a bomb.

" _Het jy al ooit met belustiging na 'n swart vrou gekyk_?"

(Have you ever looked lustfully at a black woman?)

Rudi, the theological student, was completely blown over by Joabs remark and almost choked on his food. His face went blood-red and he became quite agitated. Before he could regain his composure, Joab reminded him that in the Book of Numbers, there was a proof text which made it quite clear that God does not condemn mixed race liaisons.

Joab chuckled at Rudi's agitation, but persisted with his question, insisting that all white men must have looked at black women at some stage in their lives, implying that Rudi too must have on occasion, looked at a black woman.

" _Nooit, dit is 'n gruwellike gedagte_!" he answered adamantly.

(That is disgusting thought.)

"Hoekom sê jy dit is 'n gruwel om 'n swart vrou te begeer?" Joab asked with an amused look on his face.

(Why do you say it is disgusting to look at black women?)

"Om 'n swart vrou seksueel te begeer is nie net 'n gruwel nie, dis ook moreel verkeerd," Rudi replied firmly.

(To look at a black woman in a sexual manner is not only disgusting it is also morally wrong.)

" _Ek vind Segomotso vreeslik aantrek, sy is ook 'n baie mooi mens_ ," Joab confessed.

(I find Segomotso exceptionally attractive, and she is also a lovely person)

What Joab said about Segomotso shocked Rudi to the core. Joab had broken a white South African taboo; he had admitted the most unthinkable thing, he admitted that he found a black woman attractive, a black woman who happened to be the domestic servant. In retrospect he realized it was a grave oversight on his part that he had spoken in this manner about Segomotso.

Joab realized that Rudi took everything that he said very seriously. But Joab was not going to backtrack on his admissions about Segomotso. It was the truth, he found her attractive and he liked her very much.

So he decided to pursue the controversial topic of white men and black women further. Joab reminded Rudi that it would be false to argue that the Bible had nothing positive to say about sex and marriage in relation to black women.

Joab reminded Rudi that one of the most important books in the Bible, _The Song of Songs_ , contained wedding songs and canticles about the erotic love felt by a beautiful black woman for a ruddy-faced shepherd. It was definitely about a black woman and it was full of sex. She was deeply in love with her shepherd: _My beloved is dazzling and ruddy_.

Teasingly, Joab argued that the Hebrew English or Afrikaans rendition could also read: _My beloved has a clear white complexion and is ruddy._ And furthermore, Joab argued that the Hebrew English or Afrikaans rendition for the maid's complexion could be 'darker than blackness,' which contrasted dramatically with the pigmentation of her shepherd lover which was of a 'dazzling white complexion that has become ruddy from exposure to the sun'.

Rudi failed to find a counter argument or interpretation to challenge and rebut Joab's proposed translation of the original Hebrew into Afrikaans.

Joab also reminded Rudi that sex creeps almost naturally into many of the dramatic narratives that have a significant literary function in the overall message of the Bible. It was thus unavoidable that a book like the Bible, which was filled with the stories of all kinds of human relationships, should not also be filled with dramatic sexual encounters. The Bible is full of stories of all kinds of sexual encounters. The Bible is also filled with the stories of some very interesting women and nearly all of them were involved in some kind of extraordinary sexual encounters or sexual escapades.

Joab drew Rudi's attention to the controversial sexual encounters that were buried deep in the genealogy of Jesus as narrated in the very beginning of the Gospel of Matthew. Compared to Luke's genealogy, Matthew's genealogy was packed with unusual and atypical surprises of a profoundly sexual nature. Matthew's dark female _dramatis personae_ involved the lives of four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. Joab's argued that a reading of Matthew's genealogy should not fail to surprise any astute reader who possessed some knowledge of the way things worked in the ancient Orient.

Such a careful reader would definitely be surprised to see women listed in a Jewish genealogy. It would appear strange, perplexing, puzzling, something bordering on the absurd. Why the need to include the names of women in a man's genealogy? Women don't have genealogies. It is only men who have genealogies. Like in racehorse breeding, it is the 'sire' and not the 'dam' that counts in the ancestral lineage of men.

Usually these genealogies are invariably patriarchal, providing only the list of male ancestors without any mention of women. The second surprise would be that these women all have a very non-conventional sexual history. Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth practically crawled into Boaz's bed. Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute in order to trick her father-in-law into having sex with her and making her pregnant. Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite, bathed naked on the roof of her husband's house so that David could have a full, unimpeded view. Tamar, Rahab and Ruth were also the female ancestors of King David.

Joab argued that it was these unusual and non-conventional women who became critical moral agents in some of the foundational narratives of the Bible, which include the lineage of King David and ultimately the Messiah, the Saviour of Israel.

Joab said this even though he knew that the Bible should not be used simplistically as a source of proof texts to willy-nilly justify all kinds of doctrinal claims or to invent new doctrines. Mining the Bible as a source of proof texts was definitely not how the Bible should be read. But he needed to make an incontestable proof- text -supported- point of view about what the Bible had to a say about male-female mixed race relationships, and male-female relationships in general.

Joab made it clear to Rudi that nowhere did the Bible prohibit or forbid mixed race relationships, nor did the Bible outright forbid inter-ethnic male-female mingling. The story of Ruth was a case in point in this regard. Anyway, all of his arguments fell on deaf ears.

Rudi could not stomach the idea of white-black male-female sexual relationships.

Because Joab, as a Boer, had grown up reading the Bible and listening to the Bible been read, he was familiar with its contents, the Bible had been an integral part of his life.

On one occasion he argued with the Rudi that the Bible implicitly condones extra-marital sex, purely for the sake of pleasure. There was evidence that even the great patriarchs, both Abraham and Jacob, had indulged in sex with their servants, who were most likely slaves and who ended up bearing them sons.

They regularly argued about Apartheid until the early hours of the morning.

Rudi's belief in Apartheid remained unshakeable.

CHAPTER 21

As usual, just before supper, Rudi opened his Bible and began to read from Matthew chapter 6 verses 25 to 34:

" _Daarom sê ek vir julle: Hou op om julle te kwel oor julle siel, oor wat julle sal eet of wat julle sal drink, of oor julle liggaam, oor wat julle sal dra. Beteken die siel nie meer as voedsel en die liggaam meer as klere nie? Hou die voëls van die hemel noukeurig dop, want hulle saai nie saad nie en hulle oes nie en hulle maak nie in voorraadskure bymekaar nie; nogtans voed julle hemelse Vader hulle. Is julle nie meer werd as hulle nie? Wie van julle kan deur hom te kwel een el by sy lewensduur voeg? Ook wat klere betref, waarom kwel julle julle? Leer 'n les by die lelies van die veld, hoe hulle groei; hulle swoeg nie, en hulle spin ook nie; maar ek sê vir julle dat nie eens Salomo in al sy heerlikheid soos een van hulle geklee was nie. As God dan die plantegroei van die veld, wat vandag hier is en môre in die oond gegooi word, so klee, sal hy julle nie veel eerder klee nie, julle kleingelowiges? Moet julle dus nooit kwel en sê: 'Wat gaan ons eet?' of: 'Wat gaan ons drink?' of: 'Wat gaan ons aantrek?' nie. Want al hierdie dinge jaag die nasies gretig na. Want julle hemelse Vader weet dat julle al hierdie dinge nodig het."Hou dan aan om eers die koninkryk en sy regverdigheid te soek, en al hierdie ander dinge sal vir julle bygevoeg word. Moet julle dus nooit kwel oor die volgende dag nie, want die volgende dag sal sy eie sorge hê. Elke dag het genoeg van sy eie kwaad_."

(Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.)

Rudi closed his Bible and put it down.

It was normal for them to discuss the passage for a few minutes before Rudi said grace. Often after grace had been said, they would continue discussing the passage while they ate. Very often they would fetch their own Greek versions of the New Testament to argue any finer points of detail, should it be necessary. They debated in a scholarly, academic fashion over interpretation, hermeneutical points and the theological implications of the text.

Rudi sensed that while Joab was an excellent and thorough exegete of scriptures, there seemed to be no obvious connection between his knowledge of the Bible and the apparent way he was living his life. His readings of Biblical passages which they debated during supper, were never heretical or blasphemous, but were thoughtful and full of insights. Rudi found it difficult to fathom this. It perplexed him. Joab seemed sometimes to have an aura of un-Calvinistic or non-Protestant saintliness.

He often defended medieval Catholicism. He even made a strong and almost unassailable case for transubstantiation and the Roman Catholic idea that the mass represents a sacrifice and not merely a symbolic memorial.

He was definitely more partial to Martin Luther than to John Calvin. His assessment of Calvin was critical and diametrically opposed to the current neo-Calvinist ideas prevalent in the Afrikaner intellectual establishment. He was even critical of the Protestant idea of _sola scriptura_ and he gave a very good defence of the Roman Catholic idea of the Church's Magisterium.

But then he was very critical of the Council of Trent and felt it was a backward step. He didn't bother much with the modern liberal theologians like Bultmann or Tillich, but he was inordinately fond of Erasmus. He kept on telling Rudi that the church needs to re-discovery what the true of meaning of radical Christian orthodoxy entails for faith and practice. And then of course he always drove home the point that the ideology of Apartheid was anti-Christian and anti-Biblical in the deepest and the most radical sense possible, and that Afrikanerdom had sunk into paganism and the worship of idols.

Rudi sensed that Joab had a secret darker side, but he could never put his figure on it.

Casting aside his brooding thoughts about his enigmatic friend, Rudi suddenly gave in to an irresistible impulse to tease Joab. With reference to the Gospel reading he said:

" _Jy sien, die lewe gaan nie net oor klere nie of wat jy aantrek nie_."

(You see, life is not only about clothing or what you wear)

Joab smiled in appreciation.

" _Ek gaan jou nie 'n direkte antwoord gee nie. Jou opmerking het my nou aan iets anders laat dink_."

(I am not going to give you a direct answer. Your remark has made think of something else)

Instead, he quoted a passage from the Gospel of Luke chapter 7 verses 24 to 26:

_Nadat die boodskappers van Yoganan weggegaan het, begin Hy om vir die mense aangaande Yoganan te sê: "Wat het julle uitgegaan om in die wildernis te sien? 'n Riet wat deur die wind geskud word? Wat het julle egter uitgegaan om te sien? 'n Man aangetrek in sagte klere? Let op, die wat eerbare klere het en in luuksheid leef, is in die huis van 'n koning. Andersins, wat het julle uitgegaan om te sien? 'n Profeet? Ja, Ek sê vir julle, nog baie meer as 'n profeet_!

( _When the messengers of John had left, He began to speak to the crowds about John, "What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?" But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who are splendidly clothed and live in luxury are found in royal palaces_! But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and one who is more than a prophet.)

Joab then gave his own brief commentary. He made the point that even in the Bible clothes can function as a metaphor, as a symbolic medium. The Bible recognized the symbolic power of clothing .The Bible recognizes that clothing, like language, functions as a medium of communication, clothing or dressing-up represents the physical embodiment of symbolic systems for conveying messages that speak volumes. In the Bible, clothing can be seen to function symbolically as a medium of expression that both hides and reveals.

In the passage he quoted from Luke chapter 7, the description of fine clothing had been used to symbolically convey a coded message that had social and political relevance. Clothing as a medium of expression often conveys more than the impressions we consciously and intentionally wish to provoke. We often wear forms of clothing to communicate our own self-interpretation to the consuming and libidinous gaze of others. We use clothing to give expression to an identity we wish to embody, an identity we wish to embody, both mentally and physically, both emotionally and sexually.

Joab explained to Ruid that clothing, or 'dressing-up', always represents an ambiguous covering of the body surface because, like language, it simultaneous reveals and conceals. Those who are splendedly clothed do not roam around in the wilderness like John the Baptist. Those who are splendidly clothed live in the luxury associated with royal palaces.

Joab then reminded Rudi that even in the case of John Baptist, his clothing functioned also as an ambiguous covering of the body. As evidence in support of this, Joab quoted the passage from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 3, verse 4, which gave a description of John's attire:

Hierdie Johannes het klere van kameelhaar gedra, met 'n leerbelt om sy middel. Hy het van sprinkane en veldheuning gelewe

( _John's clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey_.)

Joab elaborated on binary opposites. On the one hand we have women and men splendidly dressed in soft clothing, living in the luxury of royal palaces, and on the other hand, we have John the Baptist, emerging from the wilderness dressed in a short rough garment woven of camel hair.

Joab looked at Rudi, cocking an eyebrow he said:

" _Ons het hier 'n baie snaakse toneel, ons het 'n woestyn, 'n paleis, twee stelle klere wat identiteit voorstel en 'n riet wat skud in die wind_."

(We have here a strange drama; we have a desert, a palace, two sets of clothing functioning as mediums of self-expression and a reed shaken by the wind)

" _'n Riet wat deur die wind beweeg word_ ," Rudi repeated thoughtfully.

" _Nee die vertolking is verkeerd_ , _dis_ : _'n Riet geskud deur die wind_ ," Joab replied playfully.

(The interpretation is wrong, it is: 'a reed shaken by the wind')

" _Dis nie beweeg nie, dis geskud, daar is 'n groot verskil in betekenis,_ " Joab repeated.

(It is not waving in the wind, it is shaken by the wind, and there is a big difference in meaning)

As a New Testament scholar, Rudi quickly realized that Joab had a point, the difference between, 'waving,' 'moving,' and 'shaken' was not trivial.

Joab explained to Rudi that Herod Antipas of Tiberias had chosen the reed as his emblem for the new coins that had been struck. The words 'shaken reed' referred to Antipas. It was an ironical metaphor. Did the metaphor liken the powerful political ruler to a reed that was going to be shaken by external forces or did it mean that he was a ruler who wavered in indecision; did it mean he was indecisive? Or did it mean that Antipas, in the prophetic warning of John the Baptist, was going to be shaken and shattered like a reed?

Or was the reed waving in the desert breeze, like a man wavering in indecision?

After supper, while Ruid made coffee, Joab began to speak about the text that Rudi had read from Matthew.

He repeated that each day brings its own calamity, each day has its own peculiar trials, each day has its own evils, _sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof._ _Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself_.

He asked Rudi if he had any ideas about what the phrase 'tomorrow will worry about itself' actually means both theologically and philosophically.

Rudi frowned in thought before grinning. He recognized the meaning of the twinkle playing in Joab's eyes.

CHAPTER 22

While browsing in a bookshop next to the main road that ran through the central business district of Potchefstroom, he stumbled by chance, on a book entitled _Shakespeare's Ovid_. Paging through the book, he discovered that it was a translation of Ovid's original _Metamorphoses_ from Latin by Arthur Golding into sixteenth century English. It had been translated in 1567. It was an edition that had been first published in 1961 and according to the owner of the bookshop it had been gathering dust on the shop's bookshelf for more than a decade.

The old English into which the Ovid's epic poem had been translated intrigued Joab immensely. The 321 paged volume consisted of fifteen books of narrative poetry containing about 250 myths populated with dramatic accounts in poetic form of the lives of many Graeco-Roman gods.

He was surprised when he discovered that his English was good enough to comprehend quite a bit of the writing.

He began to read some of the poems. As he continued flipping through the pages, he stopped when the name Hermaphroditus caught his attention.

He began to read Ovid's poem based on the myth of Hermaphroditus:

She hides hir in a bushie queach, where kneeling on hir knee  
She alwayes hath hir eye on him. He as a childe and free,  
And thinking not that any wight had watched what he did  
Romes up and downe the pleasant Mede: and by and by amid  
The flattring waves he dippes his feete, no more but first the sole  
And to the ancles afterward both feete he plungeth whole.  
And for to make the matter short, he tooke so great delight  
In coolenesse of the pleasant spring, that streight he stripped quight  
His garments from his tender skin. When Salmacis behilde  
His naked beautie, such strong pangs so ardently hir hilde,  
That utterly she was astraught. And even as Phebus beames  
Against a myrrour pure and clere rebound with broken gleames:  
Even so hir eys did sparcle fire. Scarce could she tarience make:  
Scarce could she any time delay hir pleasure for to take:  
She wolde have run, and in hir armes embraced him streight way:  
She was so far beside hir selfe, that scarsly could she stay.  
He clapping with his hollow hands against his naked sides,  
Into the water lithe and baine with armes displayed glydes.  
And rowing with his hands and legges swimmes in the water cleare:  
Through which his bodie faire and white doth glistringly appeare,  
As if a man an Ivorie Image or a Lillie white  
Should overlay or close with glasse that were most pure and bright.  
The prize is won (cride Salmacis aloud) he is mine owne.  
And therewithall in all post hast she having lightly throwne  
Hir garments off, flew to the Poole and cast hir thereinto  
And caught him fast between hir armes, for ought that he could doe:  
Yea maugre all his wrestling and his struggling to and fro,  
She held him still, and kissed him a hundred times and mo.  
And willde he nillde he with hir handes she toucht his naked brest:  
And now on this side now on that (for all he did resist  
And strive to wrest him from hir gripes) she clung unto him fast:  
And wound about him like a Snake which snatched up in hast  
And being by the Prince of Birdes borne lightly up aloft,  
Doth writhe hir selfe about his necke and griping talants oft:  
And cast hir taile about his wings displayed in the winde:  
Or like as Ivie runnes on trees about the utter rinde:  
Or as the Crabfish having caught his enmy in the Seas,  
Doth claspe him in on every side with all his crooked cleas.  
But Atlas Nephew still persistes, and utterly denies  
The Nymph to have hir hoped sport: she urges him likewise.  
And pressing him with all hir weight, fast cleaving to him still,  
Strive, struggle, wrest and writhe (she said) thou froward boy thy fill:  
Doe what thou canst thou shalt not scape. Ye Goddes of Heaven agree  
That this same wilfull boy and I may never parted bee.

The Gods were pliant to hir boone. The bodies of them twaine  
Were mixt and joyned both in one. To both them did remaine  
One countnance: like as if a man should in one barke beholde  
Two twigges both growing into one and still togither holde.  
Even so when through hir hugging and hir grasping of the tother  
The members of them mingled were and fastned both togither,  
They were not any lenger two: but (as it were) a toy  
Of double shape. Ye could not say it was a perfect boy  
Nor perfect wench: it seemed both and none of both to beene.  
Now when Hermaphroditus saw how in the water sheene  
To which he entred in a man, his limmes were weakened so  
That out fro thence but halfe a man he was compelde to go,  
He lifteth up his hands and said (but not with manly reere):  
O noble father Mercurie, and Venus mother deere,  
This one petition graunt your son which both your names doth beare,  
That whoso commes within this Well may so be weakened there,  
That of a man but halfe a man he may fro thence retire.  
Both Parentes moved with the chaunce did stablish this desire  
The which their doubleshaped sonne had made: and thereupon  
Infected with an unknowne strength the sacred spring anon.

After reading the poem, he decided to purchase the book. His curiosity regarding the significance of the myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus had been stirred. His own lived experiences of gender bisexuality resonated strongly with the myth of Hermaphroditus. He had always been drawn to beautiful men, but sometimes he felt like a lesbian. His attraction to women was unmasculine, unpenetrative, it had a feminine flavour.

Queer masculinity? He knew all about queer masculinity. Queer masculinity disrupted and threatened hegemonic heterosexual constructions of masculinity. He could act out an erotic masculinity quite easily. It was fairly simple to be a man. He knew how to be sexy in a male kind of way. If he wanted he could could act out the whole real man kind of thing and reel in a girl. He could feel what a girl wanted in a man. He could be the girl in the man, helping the man to reel in the girl.

But the prospect left him cold.

He immediately embarked on an investigation into the myth.

From his research he discovered that in Ovid's myth of Hermaproditus, Hermaproditus was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. His name was derived by combining the names of his parents. With his appearance being a blend of both his parents, he turned out to be an exceptionally handsome and attractive boy. He had been nursed and brought by the Naiads which are water nymphs in the caves of Mount Ida, which was a sacred mountain in Phrygia. When he turned fifteen, he left his home on Mount Ida and travelled to the cities of Lycia and Caria. While wondering through the woods of Caria, he came across a pool of cool, crystal- clear water that appeared very inviting.

The pool was inhabited by a Naiad, or a water nymph named Salmacis, who watched Hermaproditus undress before he plunged into the pool to bathe. Seeing him naked and noticing how young and attractive he was, she was overcome with desire for him and decided to seduce him. No longer being able to restrain herself, she stripped off her clothes and went into the pool after him. She tried to embrace him, wrapping herself around him, forcibly kissing him and caressing his breast. Resisting her advances, he tried to struggle out of her tight embrace while she was trying to have sex with him. While he struggled in her tight embrace, she prayed to the gods that they would merge their bodies into one. Her wish was granted they were fused into a single being that was half female and half male. In this way Hermaphroditus became the first hermaphrodite. He prayed to Hermes and Aphrodite to turn everyone who bathes in that pool into a hermaphrodite. Hermes and Aphrodite granted Hermaphroditus his wish.

On returning to the same bookshop, the owner showed him a beautiful coffee-table picture book of the myths in Ovid's Metamorphoses called the _Illustrated Guide to the Tales of Ovid's Metamorphoses_. It was filled with high-quality photographic plates of the paintings and sculptures depicting just about all of the Graeco-Roman mythological characters in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The book contained several pictures of the various sculptures of Hermaphroditus that had been taken at different angles and vantage points which exploited to maximum effect the play of light and shadow on the erotic form of the sculpture.

Joab was thrilled to discover that the book also cross-referenced every illustration in the _Illustrated Guide to the Tales of Ovid's Metamorphoses_ with the Ovid's _Metamorphoses_. Joab was fascinated by the power of the illustrations. The plates of the paintings and sculptures were able to capture in visual form the complex iconography that represented all the dramatical and threatical elements out of which the mythical narrative for each character was constituted.

Without hestitating over the price, he bought the book.

That night Joab lay on his bed and stared at the plates of an ancient marble life size sculpture of the half-asleep Hermaphroditus reclining in erotic abandon or erotic repose on a mattress. The sculpture later became known as the _De Borghese Hermaphroditus_. It was housed in The Louvre in Paris. He gazed for a long time at the erotic and sensual curves of the bisexual Hermaphroditus. He gazed at the beautiful form of one of the exposed breasts and he also gazed at the beautiful flaccid penis. The graceful, sinuous and sensuous twisted pose of the curvaceous body with the slightly raised left foot, symbolized a female body when looked from the side of the exposed back. It could easily be mistaken for a Hellenistic-styled marble sculpture of a female nude. Hidden from view was the sign that would reveal the androgynous nature of the reclining figure, resulting in the revelation of the full beauty of the bisexual body. He felt aroused by the naked supine hermaphroditic body. He wished he had the full firm shapely protruding breasts of Hermaphroditus. The theatrical ambiguity of the sculpture plays tricks with a 'queer' viewer's emotions, provoking 'queer' thoughts and feelings of arousal which had the erotic flavour of the illicit.

In the illustrated guide to Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ , he discovered a reference in a footnote that referred to the myth he already knew regarding the mythological origin and fate of hermaphrodites which had been outlined in Aristophanes' speech in praise of Eros which he presented at the drinking party in Plato's _Symposium_.

He looked for his copy of Plato's _Symposium_. Making himself comfortable on his bed, he lay back and began rereading the _Symposium_. He had not read it again since 1971. Each time he took the book into his hands, it always triggered recollection of painful memories of Sarel, and he would put the book back on the book shelf.

CHAPTER 23

Unswept carpets of fallen autumn leaves covered the pavements. The thick layers of dry and brittle oak leaves crunched loudly when trampled underfoot or rustled softly when lifted up into revolving swirls by sudden wintery gusts. It seemed that the ancient oaks lining the streets of Potchefstroom had become transformed almost overnight into skeletal spectres; they stretched their naked twisted limbs heavenwards, clawing desperately for the summer that had vanished from the grey and sombre skies. In the rapidly fading light, as the creeping autumn chill descended over the Highveld, the afternoons became heavy with the gloomy foreboding of winter.

Since the ending of a seemingly endless summer, he increasingly felt that he was losing his way. The smell of veld and bush fires began to fill the evening air, burning his eyes and making him sneeze. He felt tired and emotionally exhausted. He felt burnt out. He felt lost and empty. He was also beginning to be haunted by involuntary recollections of traumatic and disturbing images of his experiences in the SADF. He began to have vivid dreams about the border bush war and the invasion of Angola.

Intrusive thoughts of Sarel's final moments arrived as an unwelcome visitor without any forewarning at odd times. Nightmares of Kavangoland visited him at night in dreams. Once again he found himself running through open woodlands filled with majestic teak trees which seemed to reach up to the very heavens. In the bright shrieking skies helicopter gunships circled like giant predatory dragonflies. He suddenly found himself standing with his rifle in a sun-dappled glade between the trees, the ground everywhere was carpeted with the dead and dying. The silence was punctuated by the intermittent sharp crack of single R1 shots as the wounded were summarily dispatched with a bullet to the head.

Nocturnal nightmares of Angola accosted him like a garish whore emerging from the shadows of the dark as he tossed and turned in a restless sleep. Everywhere the dead bodies piled up. Burnt out hulks of army trucks, tanks and armoured car blocked the roads. Artillery fire thundered incessantly on the horizon, lightening up the night skies like a Guy Fawkes commemoration. In the nightmare, no one seemed to know what was going on as the motorized column jerked forward, or stood immobilized in the dark for hours on end.

At every turn in the dark and fading light, phantoms of the dead wondered aimlessly among the ruins of devastated towns or waved from the savannahs.

He could not understand what was happening to him.

He would wake trembling with a kind of delayed shock in the early hours, just before dawn soaking wet in a cold sweat; his limbs tangled up in the damp sheets and covers that he had wrestled with throughout the night.

Every new day he found himself waiting in trepidation for the arrival of the official-looking brown envelope with call-up papers for the next three month military call-up to the border or Angola. With the completion of his studies, his apprehension and disquiet increased. He sank into deep, dark depressions.

He experienced frequent attacks of uncontrollable anxiety that left him incapacitated and unable to focus on anything.

He knew that it would be impossible to get an exemption once his postgraduate studies ended. Military exemptions were the privilege of full-time students registered for undergraduate degrees.

After his postgraduate studies, his life would be continually dogged by the citizen force army call-ups. There was now a lot of talk and rumours doing the rounds in the citizen force that the townships, the native locations all over South Africa were rapidly developing into a new internal theatre of conflict. The war was no longer only on the farflung South West African - Angolan border. The war had migrated closer to home, encircling the suburbs and towns. An internal border of conflict had been opened up as a direct consequence of the 1976 Soweto student uprising. Both citizen force and national servicemen had been mobilized for military duties in the surrounding native locations that had become hot-spots of social and political unrest.

The front of a new kind of war had now opened on the very perimeters of the towns and cities in South Africa. It was not a bush war, it was going to be an urban-based war, a township-based war, but it had all the characteristics features of a people's war, exactly like the bush war on the border.

It was going to be a protracted people's war. It was a war that could be waged indefinitely; it was war based on the military-political strategy first developed by Mao Zedong. The protracted people's war was the military-political strategy adopted by the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War.

He recognized all the signs of the emerging people's war. It was the familiar story all over again. The long march had started. It was something that could not be stopped. The war had been lost before the first shot had been fired.

Again it was a war that was being waged in the minds of the people. In white South Africa, the people waging the people's war were the 'other'. They, the people, were fighting in a war against white hegemony, against white domination; they were fighting the war with their minds, with their thoughts, with their desires, with their hopes, with their dreams and with their emotions.

Their thoughts and their ideas were their invisible and invincible weapons.

To win the war you would have to kill every single black person in South Africa who disagreed with you. You would have to kill every black person; you would have to kill everyone who possessed their own mind, their own opinions, their own thoughts, their own ideas, their own perceptions, their own hopes and dreams.

It was a replay of the same old eternal story.

They, the foot soldiers of the SADF, knew this, they understood this; they knew that every last black person had to be killed for the sake of white supremacy. The military and political leaders in the higher echelons had not grasped this simple fact. The ordinary soldiers on the ground understood this in their gut. They knew that there could be no peaceful coexistence under the yoke of white supremacy.

Most ordinary white South Africans were oblivious of the prevailing situation in the black locations, in spite of the intensity of the conflict raging in the nearby locations; they remained unaware that new borders and new frontiers were erupting daily on the door steps of white suburbia. It was difficult to imagine, almost impossible to perceive that the war was no longer something waged out of sight far away; the war was no longer only the bush war in South West Africa or Angola. It was now a secret war just down the road. It was a war that was being waged with stones and burning tires on the streets of native locations.

But everyone remained complacent. In their minds, the war was far away in space and time. The war was in another place. The war was not only far away, the war would somehow eventually magically go away, and life would continue as before.

Things seemed normal, life went on as mundane as before, it seemed that the 1976 student uprising had changed nothing; it seemed that the 1975 invasion of Angola had changed nothing.

No one was aware that there had been a seachange in southern Africa.

Suppressing a people's war in the native locations was a war that Joab had no stomach for.

He did not have the stomach for any kind of war.

Following the 16th of June 1976 Soweto student uprising, the contagion of civil unrest had spread like a wildfire out of control, igniting conflagrations of anger, stoking infernos of discontent that blazed brightly on the horizons like the muzzle flashes of distant artillery fire.

No one believed that the natives in the locations could initiate a people's war all by themselves.

No one could bring themselves to believe that the native locations throughout South Africa had overnight become a new military front for the waging of the Apartheid war against the aboriginal people of southern Africa.

No one believed that South Africa was engaged in an internal war against its own people. Everyone believed that war was something that was fought on borders far from home.

Yet the prospect of an urban war loomed large on the horizon. It was going to be a war that would be waged against the angry black urban youth of South Africa.

For Joab, the signs of the war in South Africa were evident everywhere, not only in the ongoing smouldering discontent in the locations.

He felt the presence of the war in his bones.

The invisible and silent war had already started on the home front. He knew this from the chatter of his army network of acquaintances. He knew this from the remarks made in passing by some of his old school acquaintances who had embarked on a career in the police force. Furthermore, he knew this from his own first hand counter-insurgency experiences on the SWA border. He knew that in South Africa, an invisible dirty war was currently being waged everywhere, even on the kitchen door step of every white home in South Africa.

As it was the case in the border bush war, the war in the locations that was being waged by the police and the army against the township residents, was been waged with a ruthlessness that did not respect any codes of morality.

It was a secret war that observed no codes of morality. This made it a dirty war. It could only be fought as a dirty war.

It was a dirty war. There was no doubting that. It was the same kind of dirty war that had been unleashed on the civilian population in Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

In the sea of burning native locations, Ikageng remained an island of peace and tranquillity. The spark of unrest had skipped Ikageng.

******

He found himself at the crossroads of his life. He battled constantly with deep, dark depressions. He battled with feelings of angry frustration with respect to the never ending cycle of compulsory military obligations that were being forced on him. He struggled with feelings of helpless and disempowerment. He felt that he was constantly on the verge of being sucked up into a vortex of conflagration.

He had vivid mental images of his lifeless body. Death was real. The prospect of personal extinction was real, he would imagine the possibility.

Death was no longer a stranger.

He had stared at the faces of those who had died as combatants, those who had fallen, those who had died an untimely and unexpected death. He had stared at the death mask that had covered many a black face. He had seen many a black life that had come to its end on the scorching white sands of arid savannahs under bright skies that were never blue, where the light was blindingly intense, where ghosts of the fallen danced like mirages as they made their departure from this life.

He felt the full onerous burden of being a white male; he felt the suffocating and soul-destroying burden of outward white masculinity. His biological sexual identity, defined by the possession of male genitals, made him a soldier, clothed his body in battle fatigues, and placed an automatic rifle in his hands; the hands that designed women's clothing, the hands of a seamstress that made female garments, the hands that created artistic wonders with make-up.

They were the gentle caring hands that had helped women with their dress-fittings, which had helped women to fit perfectly into their new outfits.

Women trusted his hands. They felt safe in his hands.

He felt that he would be unable to cope with another three-month tour of military duty.

It would be just another exercise in futility.

Maybe he could disappear. Maybe he could vanish. Maybe he could escape the military.

It was not only the army that was a source of conflict, an external source of intense conflict.

He was also suffering from intractable inner conflicts. He experienced the conflicts of a feminine soul, a feminine mind, a deeply feminine person that had found itself confined to the body of a man, imprisoned in a male body.

He had a 'feminine self' that was at odds with the male form of his physical embodiment, he felt disconnected from the maleness of his material incarnation.

He realized it was time for him to consider a change in his life; it was time for him to be on his way. He had to find himself; he had to become the queen of his own dreams. It was time for him to ramble on; it was time for him to sing his own song. For days on end he sat in front of the sewing machine listening to Led Zeppelin. The lyrics of _Ramble On_ filled his mind. He replayed the track over and over again. Again and again he had listened to words of the song until he became mesmerized. The lyrics spoke to his heart. He was searching for something, for his baby. The leaves had fallen all around; it was time for him to move on, to escape the past, to leave the past with its terror, with its ghosts, with its extreme sense of desolation, with its sense of desperate futility.

The army, the SADF, the whole Apartheid system had deeply wounded his soul. He felt that he had become a broken person. He felt as if he had been forced through a giant meat grinder that smashed bodies, souls and minds.

Many other factors exacerbated the emotional turmoil that he was going through. He began to miss his grandparents who had both passed away. He had also started to miss his mother terribly. He felt a great longing for her. He felt forlorn without her. She had always been a towering and solid presence in his life. In the end she had embraced him with all his eccentricities. She had made peace with who he was.

For the first time in his life he felt isolated and real loneliness. His only family that he had, his two beloved grandparents and his caring mother, were now gone. And Sarel, the person he had loved so dearly was also gone. Except for his family and Sarel, no one knew what kind of person he really was. Now that side of his personhood could only survive in the form of the shadow-life of a dark secret. That is what true loneliness feels like, he thought, not to be even your own self. You could not get lonelier than that.

He could not remember when he had last been his true self. He had being living a lie. He could no longer live the lie of masculinity whatever that may be.

He did not feel masculine. He wanted to feel feminine. He wanted to be feminine. He wanted to be a woman. He could not live a life based on the imitation of masculinity.

He no longer had the stomach to be a male, to be a soldier, to wear a uniform, to carry a rifle, to face violence, to participate in acts of violence.

He found himself weeping frequently and uncontrollably with the coming of autumn. He felt increasingly forlorn, mournful and melancholic as he watched the swallows and swifts vacate the autumn skies. He wished he could fly away with them to Paris, to London, to Madrid, to Amsterdam, to Vienna. He gazed wistfully at the empty sky and wondered if indeed he had a bushman's soul, a soul that would not be able to adapt to a new life in the faraway European metropoles.

******

It was against this backdrop of angst and existential despair that he had began his feminizing hormone therapy.

The first buds of his breasts had started to develop. Layers of fat had started to contour his hips. There were profound shifts in his mood. He became increasingly emotional and burst into tears frequently. Sometimes the oestrogen made him feel dizzy and nauseous. His medical doctor, Dr Golda Liebowitz, a specialist in endocrinology, began to prescribe testosterone inhibitors. She prescribed progesterone which improved his mood swings, increased his libido and enhanced the feminizing contouring of his body through fat re-distribution. He began to become subtly and erotically curvaceous at the appropriate sites of his anatomy.

His gradual metamorphosis was marked by emotional and bodily changes. He experienced episodes of manic exuberance that bordered on a fever of mad exultation.

She also alerted him of the possibility that he may feel inclined to engage in certain erotic or sexual acts. She warned that he may feel strong compulsions to engage in sexual adventurism.

She forewarned him that he may also discover that different parts of his body will become more sensitive to sexual pleasure. She also explained that the nature of his orgasm will change. His orgasms will become a more whole body experience, she warned that it may not be the intense short lived orgasm that males experience, but it will still be pleasurable. One of differences that he would experience was that his orgasms would have a longer duration than what he had been used to.

The doctor spoke about considerations that Joab was already well aware of and intimately well-versed with, such as the integral role that the body plays with all its externally visible attributes in identity formation and in the way in which the person engages with the world by virtue of the forms of their embodiment.

And of course, a body undergoing a radical transformation or metamorphosis will necessarily bring about a restructuring of the mind, a restructuring of self-perception, a new kind of self-consciousness, and it was for these reasons that she urged Joab to see a psychologist who was appropriately qualified to provide the necessary psychotherapeutic support for someone undergoing gender transformation.

Knowing that Joab was a student of philosophy, the endocrinologist became philosophical herself as she noticed the first early signs of the feminization of Joab's body. To Joab's amusement, she spoke about the need to overcome the neo-Platonic anti-body legacy that had become integral to Christianity and Western Civilization. It was a legacy that encouraged the alienation of the body and the denigration of body by driving a wedge between the self and its body. The body had become reduced to a tool or instrument which the self as an agent uses merely as a means to satisfy the attainment of various ends.

She explained that the body was more than an external material machine-like substance; the body was an essential part of a person's identity.

She was anti-Cartesian in her views of the mind and the body. In her opinion there was no such thing as an immaterial soul that could exist without a body, nor could mind exist without a body, in fact no one could be a person without having a body. One's perception of ones personhood was bound with ones experience of being embodied or being incarnated, as in being constituted out of flesh and blood. Without a working brain, there was no soul or mind.

She found that no scientific evidence exists for the mind-body dualism.

Of course Joab was himself anti-Cartesian, but also he had own unique views on the writings of Descartes. There were different ways of reading Descartes which not everybody was aware of.

How can a being or person or a 'self' having the capacity for conscious and intelligent awareness arise out of, or even be a part of, the material Universe? This was one of Descartes' fundamental questions.

How could a feminine conscious self-awareness arise from the material constituents out of which the Universe was composed?

Joab was familiar with Descartes' distinctions between what we _really_ can know and what we only _think_ we know. From Descartes' arguments regarding dreams and demons, one can have thoughts, experiences and consciousness without really knowing _where_ or _what_ you really are. The only thing you can be certain of, are your thoughts and experiences. Without knowing for certain whether or not you are a brain in a vat or an alien or a robot or a human being or some kind of being that was under the complete control and influence of a demon, the one thing that you can know for certain, is the fact that you are having an experience.

Joab knew for certain that he was capable of having experiences in which he was self-consciously aware of his feminine emotions, desires, thoughts and feelings. In terms of Descartes' arguments, he was entitled to be certain that he was not only something, but at the very least, he was something which had feminine thoughts, emotions and feelings. According to Descartes, Joab did indeed possess the certitude that he was definitely a special kind of something, a something with feminine thoughts, emotions and feelings. For Descartes these feminine thoughts, emotions and feelings could be experienced as something which was completely independent of any kind of external reality or material embodiment.

One of the most fundamental questions that Descartes asked was: "What are we?" For Descartes we are fundamentally our minds or our thoughts or even our experiences. For Descartes the mind was non-phyical, it was immaterial, it was a soul-like substance. As an immaterial soul-like substance, it was different from the material substance out of which the body was constituted.

For John Locke, a person was 'anything' that was capable of thinking, capable of having thoughts, or in other words, anything that possesses mental capacities or mind-like powers. Contrary to Descartes, Lock accepted the possibility that matter could be conscious. John Locke was open to the idea that matter, suitably organized and configured, could possess the mental capacity for conscious awareness or thought, therefore having the possibility of possessing mind.

Joab accepted that, for humans, mind and self-consciousness had to be a materially embodied mental capacity. There could not be any disembodied consciousness. For Joab there could not be any form of disembodied self-awareness. Self-awareness was conditional on material embodiment; any cross-dressing transvestite will confirm this. Humans can only exist as materially embodied entities.

Dressing-up and especially cross-dressing, was an extraordinary or fantastic form of embodiment that left the cross-dresser with experiences that felt fabulous beyond description.

Feminization was to become fabulous, to be feminine was to be 'fantastical'. To be fantastical was to be whimsical, fanciful, sublime and above all, magnificient. In was not about magnificient men with their machines and all that kind of male stuff, it was about being magnificient women in their fabulous dresses.

For Joab, body-consciousness shapes the person's identity or sense of self. Joab was acutely aware of all of this. He did not need reminding that a feminine mind would only be complete if it were materially embodied, or at home in a feminine body. As a cross-dresser, he knew that the form and nature of the body hidden from view beneath the clothing, was essential for the construction and experience of a person's feminized identity.

******

Dr Golda Liebowitz also warned Joab that the feminized embodiment of a person always provoked ambiguous expectations from a predominantly masculinized world in which the feminine body found itself embedded.

A woman will always experience herself as an erotized presence in a masculinized world. She will always be the subject of the erotic perception, of the libidinous gaze. In Merleau Ponty's _Signs_ , even the way a woman walks, even the physical sound of a woman walking, the simple shock of her heels on the ground, the sound of high heels arouses a man's sexualized anticipation, the explosive sounds of the striking heels causes him to look up, to look around, to turn his head in expectation, his response is a sexualized-reflex, he is powerless to do otherwise.

A pervasive masculinized ideology imposes rules and norms on how the feminized body and how the embodied feminized self should be perceived, how it should respond, how it should behave, how it should act, and how it should conduct itself. The self-conscious feminized body should always be pliant, passive, compliant, accommodating, cooperatively responsive and subjugated to the wants, needs and desires of men.

All of these attributes describe how the embodied female or the feminized body should be comported in a world dominated by men. These are some of the expectations, norms and standards that have been applied to define gender consistent roles for women. In this way women become 'reified' or 'objectified into objects' that are always passively-responsive, passively-receptive and passively-compliant in their mode of being.

The woman experiences her passive-compliant mode of being as the one who is mounted.

As the one who is mounted, the feminized body becomes externalized, alienated and estranged from the feminized self in its compliant accommodation to masculinized expectations and wants.

In a masculinized world the female self is alientated from her body in the same way that the worker in a Captitalist political economy is alienated from the product of his labour, as explained in Marx's _Das Kapital_.

Joab tried to digest all of this. He had only acted out his femininity, in isolation from the external real world, within a fantasy universe of his own construction, which was also under the rule of his own will and power.

He pursued males in the way women could not.

The endocrinologist warned him that when he eventually takes his first stiletto steps out into the real world as a woman, the experience that he may have, may not be like anything that he had previously expected.

She was not telling him anything that he did not already know.

******

At the onset of June 1977, Potchefstroom started to shiver in the grip of a cold and frosty winter. He began to wear more buggy clothing and bulky jerseys which conveniently hid the anatomical changes that his body was undergoing. He began to think about his plans for the future. He decided that after completing his MA dissertation in October or November 1977, he would definitely leave Potchefstroom. He had to hold out only for a few more months.

He decided he would change his name to Jolene as in ' _Jolene please do not take my man away_ '.

He decided that he would keep his surname. His new identity would be Miss Jolene Badenhorst, fashion designer and dressmaker or 'dress maker'. He decided on the description 'dress maker' rather than dressmaker.

He would either find work in Pretoria or Johannesburg or Cape Town. Or he would try and start his own couture business. Outside Potchefstroom, he would have more life-style options, he could hook up with the transvestite community or transgender community or he would find a good man to look after, it did not matter whether the man was straight or queer, Joab was sure that he would be able to make him happy.

He would find a male lover, someone who would love him and someone he would love in return.

In the meantime, while the hormones changed his body and his emotions, he found comfort and solace by losing himself in dress design, fabric cutting and dress-making. Sometimes, while sewing, he found himself weeping uncontrollably as he was overcome by waves of sadness and forlornness.

When his weeping ended, the silence in his room was broken by the sounds of the sewing machine; the sewing machine whirred and purred. His fingers moved with the dexterity of a pianist, of a guitarist, of a painter, of a writer, of a potter, of an artist.

From time to time his demeanour became pensive, he eyes became filled with pathos and he stopped working. He stared blankly through the panes of the closed window into the feeble winter light; he gazed at the bare branches of the acacia trees covered with their sharp, long stark-white spines.

A few weeks ago Rudi had met a girl and was now caught up in a serious romance. He was hardly ever home. Segomotso, who had asked for a week's leave to attend a family funeral in Mafikeng, had now been away for more than two weeks.

Lately he found himself being increasing alone at the cottage.

During these times he would often sink into deep states of meditation. He would also find himself reflecting over his state of mind and his condition.

The question of what is femininity kept on cropping up in his thoughts. He wrestled with the question of what it is that constitutes femininity. Has it got something to with the brain, or with one's physical anatomy and organs, or with one's self-awareness? Was there such a thing that defines the essence of femininity? How does one certify one's femininity? Does the possession of anatomical attributes such as breasts and a vagina certify ones femininity? He was developing breasts, but he had no vagina, what did this mean? Was possession of a vagina an obligatory prerequisite for certifying the authenticity of one's femininity? It was so confusing.

What was his gender going to be? What decides a person's gender? Who decides a person's gender? The whole question of the vagina and femininity revolves around the relationship between the biological sex of the body and the personal meaning and experience of gender.

His whole life had been lived in a constant state of flux with regard to his consciousness of gender. He had struggled with establishing his real identity with regard to his gender. Was he male or female, was he a man or a woman? What kind of things did a person's gender dependent on? Was a person's gender determined by extraneous factors, like what a person looked like and what a person's outward behaviour signalled?

Was a person's gender based on outward behaviour and inner mental states which in turn were determined by drives, impulses, predispositions, instinct, predilections, hormones, physiology, desire, urge, mental states, preferences, conditioning, emotions, fantasy, delusions, madness, compulsions and lusts?

Was a person's gender influenced by all of these factors or was gender a social construct? Was gender something continuous, rather than discrete? Was gender a qualitative attribute? Did gender correspond to a continuous intergrading series of different qualitative gender states, with different specific individual gender states existing somewhere on a continuous gradient of gender states in which the two ends of gradient corresponded to a male pole and a female pole?

Maybe many things, including gender, did not work in terms of simple clear-cut binary opposites. Joab knew there were different kinds of cross-dressing men. Some were heterosexual, some were homosexual and some were even bisexual. He knew from reading and research that the cross-dressing 'syndrome' was complex.

Being a transvestite was a very complicated business.

Was he situated closer to the female pole than the male pole?

Was gender an act of will or a passively acquired, or an instinctively acquired, predisposition?

Was gender orientation the result of a compulsion, a compulsive inclination, a force over which the self has no control?

The problem of loss of self control was a puzzling, perplexing and a frightening state to be in. Joab knew from experience what it was like to be overwhelmed with desire, to be overcome with the emotional, mental and physical needs, to be enslaved to the compulsion to find erotic love mingled with loving affection. He knew what it was like to fall over the dark edge into the free-fall of one's desperate inclinations.

To be a sweet and desirable transvestite was to exist in a state of exulation.

To find oneself as a sweet, delectable and exquisitely beautiful transvestite in the loving, erotic, intimate and affectionate embrace of a beautiful man would be sublime, it would be simply fabulous, especially if he was your committed partner. He would take such good care of his man.

Cross-dressing and acting out always transported him to the sublime heights of self-discovery and self-authentication.

As a transvestite, he always found himself standing at the cross-roads in a state of indecision but fleeing in fear of being hurt. He always found himself at the threshold of the gateway of transgression but fleeing in fear of becoming emotionally hurt by the relations in which he would become entangled. But in spite of his fears, while he found himself slip-sliding down the journey of non-return into the wilderness of queer sexual adventure, he wanted toflee, because he was always afraid of being hurt.

His search for love was genuine.

He felt that he had to overcome his fear of being hurt.

It was always the memory of Sarel that stood in his way. He knew he was looking for someone like Sarel, in every encounter he found himself searching for Sarel. Sarel would cross-dress and act out in a flash if he were still alive.

Sarel was like him.

As a cross-dresser he had an eye for lovely men, for beautiful men. Sarel was a beautiful male.

He was so loving, so affectionate, so sexy, and so erotic.

Everytime he went out on a transvestite adventure during his undergraduate years before he moved into the cottage with Rudi, he found himself constantly at the brink of complete disappointment. Nothing ever happened, yet he would wake up the next morning with an emotional hangover. He had expected too much, but was left disappointed on finding no one. He felt like the only transvestite in the Universe. It was as if he were acting out a daydream, only to discover reality.

He wanted to be beautiful, he wanted to be irresistible, and he wanted to find meaningful fulfilment in the dark valley of queer authentification.

To be dolled up as a sexy and beautiful woman was an experience that was transcendental. To captivate, to enthral the libidinous gaze of a handsome male specimen was an adventure in the realm of the most exquisite emotions.

It was the ultimate high.

Was femininity a compulsive predisposition that is acquired instinctively without any learning, or was one socialized by external factors and forces into a feminized gender role?

He could think coldly, dispassionately and objectively about all of these things. He could rationalize about his cross-dressing compulsions, he could rationalize about his transvestite compulsions, and he could also even rationalize his need to become feminine, to be female, and to become a woman.

His rationalizations, which were attempts at self-justification and self-explanation, had also been heavily influenced by overhearing what his grandfather had said to his mother. His grandfather had argued that a certain small percentage of all men, no matter what their race, ethnicity or culture may be would become cross-dressers or transvestites or homosexuals or even bisexuals. It was the way Nature worked. He always spoke about 'nature' with a big N. He said that many societies adapted themselves to the existence of these alternative 'gender states' by accommodating, integrating and institutionalizing them into the greater whole, and they would be accepted as a natural members of the human family.

He tried to remind himself that his 'condition' was natural and that he should work at embracing it as creatively and honestly as possible.

This was what it meant to be authentic. This is what self-realization meant.

In the Western Transvaal, in the movie-house foyers of Kerksdorp, of Krugersdorp and of Carletonville, he seemed to be the only queer in town. After loosing Sarel he often felt like he was the only queer in the Universe.

Where were all the other queers in South Africa?

He was also convinced that he was the only transvestite in the Western Transvaal.

He thought that he was a woman.

But she was just another man.

CHAPTER 24

He woke up in state of intense arousal, caused mainly by a strange and erotic dream. He had also overslept. The bright morning sun was already streaming into this room. It was Saturday morning and he was alone in the cottage. Rudi had decided to go fishing with friends at the Vaal Dam for the weekend and would only be back late Sunday night.

Joab began to reflect on his dream. It was a confusing and disturbing dream. It was also a revelatory dream. It was also a deliciously erotic dream that he enjoyed. It was one of those dreams which made one aware of what was unthinkable. The dream alerted him to emotions, to feelings of sexual attraction, to feelings of desire that he had only perceived vaguely and ambivalently when it came to the opposite sex.

He had always known that he was capable of feeling an attraction to women. Now, in the dream, he had experienced the unimaginable. The dream must have erupted from something that had existed only latently deep within his psyche or subconscious. In the dream Segomotso was dressed up in the outfit that he made for her. He in turn, was also dressed up in a formal evening custom. It was an elegant but at the same a very sensual outfit. It was a sheath fitting, sleeveless, strapless and shoulderless black dress with a tight cling skirt. It was an outfit that he had actually made for himself and it was hanging in his cupboard.

He dreamt that his breasts had become exquisite. They were firm and shapely. He felt aroused at the sight of the curvaceous contours of his own breasts beneath the taunt fabric of his bodice. Standing in front of the mirror, he lowered the bodice of his dress so that he could look at his breasts. In the mirror he saw Segomotso approaching him from behind. He pulled up the top of his dress covering his breasts. He turned around and looked at Segomotso. She also looked magnificent. He took her hand, they embraced, and he began to kiss her on the mouth. While kissing, they started to caress each other's bodies through the fabric of their dresses. Unable to control himself, he undressed Segomotso and make love to her.

He felt both stirred and enchanted by the dream which turned out to be the most exotic and erotic sexual dream that he had ever experienced. It was also a confirmation of the depth and strength of the emotional attachment that he had developed for Segomotso over the past few months.

He stared blankly at the ceiling while following the train of random thoughts that the dream had stirred up. Erotic transgender fantasies began to crowd his thoughts.

In an attempt to put the thoughts out of his mind, he reached for a paperback crime thriller. It was a recent, locally written book called _Fools Gold_. It had received considerable critical acclaim. Propping his upper body on his left elbow, he opened the book and began to read from the first page.

By 1898 an almost uninterrupted line of head-gears, smoke-stacks, workshops, reduction works, machine-shops and mine dumps stretched along the Main Reef conglomerate outcrop of the greatest goldfield in world. It stretched for more than 40 miles from Springs in the east to Krugersdorp in the west. It has been estimated that the Witwatersrand gold fields contained more than half of the world's entire gold reserves. By a lucky geological co-incidence, it was discovered in Boksburg that coal-beds of the Karoo formation overlaid the Witwatersrand gold stratigraphical series. The coal was mined to power the steam engines that drove the head-gear hoists, water pumps, the air ventilation pumps, the conveyors, the ore stamps and crushers. A railway line was constructed along the outcrop to carry coal to the mines. In the early days steam power ruled. However the mines needed more than steam power in order to operate. Mines, both the surface open-cast outcrop mines and the new deep shaft mines, needed human muscle power in great quantities to successfully mine the gold-bearing conglomerate. This message was repeated in the editorials and articles of the weekly South African Mining Journal which was established in 1891 and was issued every Saturday. Overnight thousands of immigrants, the so-called buitelanders, streamed onto the Witwatersrand gold fields. The demographic explosion of foreigners began to generate tremors of political and social instability in the Transvaal Republic. However, among the foreign invaders of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger did find many friends and political allies.

Some of his supporters sprung from the ranks of many of the economic refugees. In 1888 three young men in their early twenties, Bruce Collins, Thomas Murphy, and Alan Mahon had together left Northern Ireland to start new lives on the gold fields. They had strong nationalist and republican sentiments and it did not take long for them to become supporters of the Boer Republic. All three came from the same village but soon lost contact after arriving in Johannesburg. Collins found work as a miner at the Cinderella Vertical Shaft in Leeuwpoort in Boksburg. But it did not take long for Murphy and Mahon to become part of the growing Johannesburg underworld. They had acquired weapons and began to run protection and extortion rackets. Their gang targeted the hotels and bordellos.

Money from wages earned by the sweat of the bodies of miners flowed into the bars and bordellos. As new gold mine after new gold mine sprung up along the surface outcrops of the Main Reef, the enormous, insatiable hunger of all these freshly newborn mines thirsted like vampires for the sweat, and especially the life blood of more and more living bodies. In fact the appetite of the gold mines for white bodies, for black bodies, and even for yellow bodies was insatiable. And the sweating bodies of the men toiling in the mine stopes became more and more feverish with lust for the firm, smooth, perfumed, silky, satiny bodies of women. In the dark sweltering stopes the men became increasingly consumed with desire for the bodies of any kind of women, be it black, white or yellow. The recumbent supine bodies of lush, easy women waited eagerly. It was their job to satisfy the raging sensual desires of the miners as they crowded into the many bordellos which had sprung up like mushrooms overnight along the dry, dusty, treeless streets of Johannesburg.

On the other side of the globe, another demographic upheavel was in progress. In Eastern Europe, a huge surplus of daughters flooded the shetls. More than 50% of the population was under 20 years of age. Rural villages were overflowing with young marriageable women. Prospects of finding either employment or husbands grew dimmer by the day. Together the corrosive social forces generated by over population and scarcity of work, caused severe dislocation in communities that were previously conservative and traditional. The surplus overflow of unemployed young women filled the brothels of Warsaw, Lodz, Brody, Lemberg, Tarnopol, Cracow, Czernowitz. In many of the farflung and isolated small villages within and beyond the Pale, smooth-talking handsome and well-dressed men preyed upon illiterate and vulnerable young females.

Dream merchants posing as eligible bachelors, trolled the streets in search of beautiful and desperate brides. A quorum of ten, a four posted marriage canopy, a hastily drawn-up ketubbah booked the passage to a new life for these young virgin brides in Rio de Janeira, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Johannesburg. Newly wed brides clinging to their husbands would travel immediately to Hamburg; from there the brides would embark on ships bound for New York, Buenos Aires, Beira, Lourenso Marques or Cape Town. After arriving at Southhampton, the bridegroom would disembark to attend to very urgent business in London. He promises to return long before the ship embarks on its voyage to their destination. He abandons his bride in the first class cabin. Within an hour there is a knock on the cabin door, she opens the door, strong men burst into the cabin overpowering her, dragging her away. She is threatened with sudden death or disfigurement if she screams or struggles. She is dragged onto another ship, thrown into a third class cabin crowded with other Shetl brides. Behind the locked cabin door, few of the women could speak or understand English, German, Polish or Russian.

The cabin door opens and a well-dressed shapely beauty with long raven black hair and dark eyes steps into the cramped cabin. She introduces herself as Raizela and explains in Yiddish that they will be working for her in Salisbury, Beira, Lorenzo Marques and Johannesburg. These cities will be their final destinations. They are told that they will be working in the various hotels that she owns. The ship's first stop is Beira where half of the women are taken from the ship. Some stay behind in Beira and the rest travel by ox wagon to Salisbury. After the ship arrives at Lorenzo Marques some of the girls board the train to Johannesburg, while the remainder stay behind.

At Raizela's Lucky Strike Club in Johannesburg, the new girls were locked up in their rooms. Raizela's partner, Joel Zalman, was a tall, strong handsome man, with broad shoulders, thick hairy forearms and huge hands. Even though he had been a professional crook for most of his adult life, he had somehow managed to maintain a rabbinic bearing. He took great pride in his knowledge of the Torah, Talmud and Kabbalah. In his opinion, according to the Talmud and Kabbalah, sexual desire was the root all of corruption. Any student of the five books of Moses will confirm that the abiding theme inscribed into every letter, line and page of the Torah was the dark, threatening spectre of bondage, of slavery to the pleasures of the body which leads to sexual corruption. Sexual corruption was an unavoidable contagion, from which no one could escape. We were all trapped, with no exception, in the vice grip of unconstrained and rampant desire.

As usual in the Lucky Strike Club, while his many patrons heaved in the throes of dying orgasms in the rooms above the bar, Joel would be holding court below. Putting down his whiskey on the bar counter, smiling broadly, he spread out the palms of his huge hands, shrugged his shoulders in resignation, and he posed the burning question:

" _Who could possibly escape Ghenna?"_

Joab began to feel distracted by an unstoppable flood of intrusive erotic thoughts that refused to go away. It was impossible to concentrate on the story, so he put down the book.

In his obsessive state, a succession of idle ethereal thoughts and mental images erupted like random vacuum fluctuations in his brain before rapidly fading away beyond the reach of his consciousness. He became increasing aware of an overwhelmingly and irresistible compulsion to transform himself physically and mentally into that extremely delectable, incredibly sweet and divinely beautiful transvestite that he had often conjured up in his erotic imagination.

He was beginning to perceive the world from the perspective of his feminized body.

Erotic ideas began to tighten their grip on his brain, and he could not think of anything else except the complicated and insoluble logic of sensuous pleasure with all its ethical and moral ambiguities.

Ever since moving in with Rudi, he had lived the life of an ascetic. Force of circumstances had constrained his freedom to be himself. He had experienced the daily reality of what it was like to live under the constant threat of social censure.

He could not go on living under this regime which made gender identity a moral and ethical problem.

He had been living the life of a celibate.

He had been living the asexual life.

He had been living the life of an ascetic.

It felt absurd, how could a transvestite live an asexual existence, deprived of all opportunities for cross-dressing and acting out?

Cross-dressing and acting out was not a sexually neutral act, it was an act of erotic pleasure.

He always felt erotic when he could experience a state of unconstrained feminity.

He felt like he was drowning, he felt like he was losing himself. He felt estranged and alienated.

He often meditated on the meaning of asceticism. His asceticism had become a form of erotic abstinence.

To be an ascetic involves the enjoyment and appreciation of sensuous pleasures that are not morally or ethically ambiguous. To live an ascetic lifestyle does not mean living under the regime of sensory deprivation.

The potential for pleasure exists in many benign forms which are always there to be freely experienced and enjoyed, at any moment, like a cup of tea or a glass of ice cold beer. In a real sense human existence has been centred on the search for pleasure. The future always brings with it the prospect of enjoying pleasure. The intensity of pleasure is experienced only in the fleeting moment of the vanishing present, and then it is gone. Expectation or anticipation or cravings are powerful drivers in the pursuit of pleasure.

Punishment often involves the deprivation of the simplest forms of pleasure that many people take for granted.

Even the most innocent cravings for ordinary non-erotic pleasures such as coffee, wine, beer or chocolate can distract the most focused mind from its purpose. Irresistible cravings defeat and undermine the determined exertions of will power. Eventually the strongest will finally bends to the compulsions and impulses that craving stirs up.

The will is assailed, bent, bound and enslaved by impulses, drives, compulsions, urges, inclinations, cravings and desire. The will is often at war with the mind and the body. As a student of philosophy, Joab knew that even though the body functions as a kind of machine with all its mechanisms and processes which are determined by the laws of nature, the will of an individual person can still be asserted freely, the conscious will can still freely direct many of the bodies motions, the will can still somehow freely create the thoughts of the brain, even given that thought must arise as the causal consequence of some kind of 'motion' of molecules within the neurons of the brain.

Things that give pleasure should be enjoyed with gratitude and thankfulness. He felt that he had reason to be thankful. Different forms of sensuous pleasures had been there for him to enjoy. He found 'ethical' pleasures in the making of dresses, in the textures of feminine fabrics, in a glass of red wine, a glass of ice cold beer, in plate of tasty food, in the sound of music, in reading, in walking, in the warmth of the sun on his back.

He had also now found peace and acceptance after finally coming to terms with his mother's death. Before the onset of autumn he had experienced deep satisfaction and at the same time, he had frequently even experienced profound moments of elation, bliss, rapture, exultation and exhilaration, especially as he worked steadily on the research for his MA dissertation in the rustic setting of the cottage and in the university library.

This was before he had inexplicably slipped into a state of dark depression. Lately the depression seemed to have lifted somewhat, but he found that he had to be vigilant, because depression seemed to creep on him at unexpectedly, at odd moments, in many disguises. He discovered that depression camouflages itself, hides its presence, not letting him discover that he was actually in a deeper state of depression than he first thought. It was like a clever demon that finds a house clean and freshly swept and then it fetches seven more demons.

When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.

But now, even in spite of his rumination on free will and the enslaving compulsions of desire, Joab felt as if he was 'on heat' like an animal, he felt a craving for intense sexual pleasure. The thought crossed his mind that this could also be just another form of depression. Maybe this was the return of the seven wicked demons.

Yet he could not shake of this feeling of being on heat, he felt like cow or mare on heat, like a mare seeking desperately to be mounted by an excited and virile stallion with tail raised and nostrils flaring.

From a biological and evolutionary perspective, the seeking after sensuous pleasure actually advances life by driving, and at same time guiding, the living sentient organism to what it needs to do and have in order to survive.

Still lying in bed, he suddenly felt a nostalgia and yearning for the freedom of his adolescent, teenage and undergraduates years when he still lived at home and when he was able to spend almost every afternoon dressed up, strutting around the house in a miniskirt and stilettos, with his grandparents oblivious to his cross-dressing, and the maid shaking her head in disbelief.

He found the maid's responses to his cross-dressing funny, especially when she rolled her eyes and shook her head. When he saw her do this, he would burst out laughing. And then she would also burst out laughing.

Following his mother's death, he had to forfeit this freedom, and all the simple pleasures of that freedom, like putting on makeup, like putting on women's undergarments, like wearing perfume, stockings and stilettoes, like wearing a dress, like wearing a wig, like being exquisitely beautiful, like being enthralled with feminine embodiment.

All that had now become impossible, especially after he had moved in with Rudi.

Rudi knew nothing of his double life as a cross-dresser. He wanted to get out of the situation that he found himself in. He did not know how long he could last living like this without being able to openly cross-dress and act out the woman in him.

To be a transvestite was his chosen destiny.

Cross-dressing had now become a furtive, secretive activity, that he could only now indulge in at odd convenient moments, but always only at great risk.

Cross-dressing had become a hazardous exercise. It was fraught with risk.

He had matured intellectually and emotionally enough to realize and appreciate that for him personally, cross-dressing had become a form of erotic aestheticism, an artistic work of self-transformation into a person that was almost a real woman. This is what it meant for him to act out, to be a true and genuine transvestite. To be a genuine hermaphrodite would be heaven. To be a woman with beautiful breasts, a vagina and a penis would be perfect.

He had now secretively taken the artistic work of erotic and aesthetic self-transformation a stage further by undergoing the process of anatomical and emotional feminization.

He had always loved feeling like a woman. However, becoming more and more like a woman by means of the hormone therapy had been an emotional rolle- coaster ride. He had developed such intense feelings, and he had become so extremely emotional. It was like venturing into some kind of weird and wonderful and frightening mental and emotional _terra incognita_. The world of being a woman was _terra incognita_ indeed!

Maybe it was true that he had inadvertently, by some kind of blind random chance, developed a feminized brain while developing in his mother's womb and it was his feminized brain which had predisposed him from birth towards finding such intense pleasure in cross-dressing and transvestite behaviour. For Joab it had always felt amazing and natural to be a woman, to feel one's body wrapped up in the sensual fabrics of female apparel.

Maybe all of this was a direct consequence of a series of contingent molecular events in his infant or foetal brain which had triggered the genetic, the neural connections and biochemical pathways that resulted in the feminization of some key parts of his brain and personality.

Maybe one day science would provide all the answers to these questions.

But for now he had to live with the consequences of pure contingency, the free play of chance. By chemical, neurological and genetic happenstance, he was meant to be a woman, this was his natural condition, this was how his brain had become wired up, and he was helpless to fight against the identity formation inclinations and compulsions that were forced on him by his own brain state.

You can't fight Nature. Nature had decreed that he be a woman.

He felt too emotionally, too mentally exhausted to fight Nature.

He had become too depressed to fight Nature.

You can't fight your own natural instincts.

He was helpless against the imprinting and conditioning of Nature. He could not resist the force of his inclinations, of his desires, and of his emotions.

To resist was to sink into a state of unhappiness. To resist was to become estranged from his authentic feminine nature. To resist was to become a divided being, to become divided from his feminine self, to become a divided self was to live in state of alienation.

He was a rare accident of nature.

He was a product of a statistical outcome. He was a phenotypic product of the interplay of pure chance and necessity.

It was through an accident of nature that happens to only two or three boys out of every hundred boys that he was born as woman in a man's body. He was one of those boys, one of the two or one of the three. He could not escape the consequences of an accident of nature.

Yet he was stuck with a Y chromosome and a penis. He felt no strong inclination to undergo full transgender reassignment quite yet. As long as he had a Y chromosome, he was stuffed genetically. It was an ugly reminder that biologically speaking his was a male. He had landed up with a woman's brain and man's a penis. So for the time being, he would remain a sweet and cute little hermaphrodite and keep his appendage, which at the moment, was not behaving in a very feminine fashion, especially now while he felt that he was on heat.

******

For the time being, feeling on heat did help to distract him from brooding over his financial worries. Being on heat gave him some respite. It made him feel joyfully and erotically reckless. It also had an ethically and morally numbing effect.

He was aware of the moral numbness that he felt. It was like being in a drug-induced state, to be on some kind of high, a state in which all moral judgment becomes fuzzy and cloudy.

In spite of his feelings of moral numbness, in the back of his mind he was nagged by worries that were not going to go away.

Things had not worked out as planned; he had become burdened by the added anxiety over having to interrupt his hormone therapy and psychotherapy. This had become an additional burden, another worry on top of his sudden financial short-falls. The car had to get new wheel bearings, brake shoes, new tyres and a general service. Orders for new garments from clients had dropped. He truly had his back against the wall. He was in the legendary shit street. Maybe this was why he suddenly felt like he was on heat, and being on heat was making him feel reckless, and not only reckless, but also morally numbed, on top of everything.

He stuck his hand under this T-shirt and cupped his right hand over his left breast. He felt the firm swollen mound that filled his hand. It was Saturday, the 3rd of September 1977, and he had been off his hormone therapy for the pass few days. He run out of disposable income and could longer afford the feminizing hormonal treatment.

The psychologist had come into his life like the proverbial angel of God.

But he could also no longer afford the psychotherapy.

CHAPTER 25

It was the endocrinologist who had put him in touch with the clinical psychologist, who was suitably qualified to assist patients with the kind of psychological and life-style challenges that homosexuals, lesbians, cross-dressers, transvestites and bisexuals faced.

The endocrinologist recommended that he see Dr Juliet Vermeulen whose practice was in Rosebank, Johannesburg.

It was a long way to travel from Potchefstroom to see a psychologist once a week for one hour.

But the endocrinologist felt that it was essential that he see this particular psychotherapist while he was undergoing the feminization hormone treatment.

On his first visit to Dr Juliet Vermeulen, she listened in a state of wide-eyed surprise which quickly developed into incredulous amazement as he shared the long and convoluted narrative of his life-history as a putative bisexual cross-dresser come transvestite.

When she probed him about the exact nature of his gender, he said that he was sure that he was queer and not heterosexual. This was made very clear when he discussed his relationship with Sarel while in the army.

The account that he gave of his life was the first no holds barred story of the most astonishing and fabulous cross-dresser that she had ever met. What made his story so extraordinary and so remarkable, was the fact that he was also a very gifted fashion designer and dressmaker and make-up artist all wrapped in one person. He showed her his fashion design portfolio. She could clearly see that he was a veritable genius when it came to women's fashion and style and apparel.

He gave her his freshly minted business card: Jolene Badenhorst. Dress Maker and Fashion Designer.

After examining his business card she asked him why he used the designation 'Dress Maker' rather than 'Dressmaker'.

She wanted to know whether it was intentional or whether it was a 'Freudian slip'.

Her question caught him by surprise. He examined his business card. She chuckled when she saw him frowning.

"Maybe it represents a 'disambiguation'," she said.

"Disambiguation? What do mean?" He asked.

"Well by separating 'dress' from 'maker' you what to be disambiguous, you want to emphasize that you are more than a dressmaker, you are a maker of dresses in a much deeper and more profound kind of way, you are a philosopher of dressmaking and dress-wearing or cross-dressing, you are a philosopher of the feminine mystique, you are involved in the exploration of the metaphysics of the female dress," she laughed.

******

The strangest revelation that dawned on her when she reviewed her notes and tape-recordings of her consultations with Joab was the unmistakable sense of 'normality' or 'naturalness' about his career as a 'cross-dressing queer.' 'Cross-dressing queer': Those were the exact words that he used.

He constantly referred to himself as a queer. He used the derogatory label as a badge of honour, as a meaningful token of his own self-identification.

Yet he appeared to be a very well-adjusted person.

Cross-dressing and dressmaking also happened to be something that he was very passionate about.

It also just happened to be something that had become very natural and fun for him to do.

It was natural for boys to have passions, such as playing rugby, keeping pigeons, collecting snakes. Joab's passion was dress design, dressmaking and cross-dressing. It was clearly in his phenotypic nature to be a cross-dresser. In fact, she was privately amused that his compulsive cross-dressing predilections had developed and evolved to such a high level of sophistication.

What was also incredible by South African standards was the very enabling home environment created by his grandparents. They actively indulged his cross-dressing as an adolescent and as a high school teenager. They did this in spite of how his mother felt about it. In fact, they undermined all of Mrs Badenhorst's attempts to create conditions which would have been conducive for her son to grow up into a 'normal' boy. But because she was always busy at the garment factory it was difficult, if not impossible, for her to monitor what was going on at her home in the afternoon after school. Joab did pretty much what he wanted to do when he came home after school.

Dr Vermeulen was even more surprised that he was in a way still a virgin, in a manner of speaking, and that he had been celibate since the death of Sarel. She was also deeply intrigued with his deep 'religiosity', his 'virginity', his sexual innocence and his sexual naivety. She found his expression of faith and belief in God incongruous with his condition and state of mind, not to mention his traumatic state of personal crisis which drove him to start the feminization hormone therapy.

She was herself an atheist and privately it did not make rational sense to her that Joab continued to believe in God and was trying to live his life in ways that were consistent with the way he interpreted the meaning of his faith. To her, his life seemed to be full of irreconcilable contradictions

As a specimen of humanity, as the notorious complete outlier of human sexuality and gender orientation, Joab proved to be a fascinating subject for her to interrogate. And she was not a person who could be surprised very easily when the subject happened to be human sexuality or the human condition, or even animal sexuality.

She had majored in zoology and psychology, and it had always been a toss-up on whether she would become a zoologist researching the evolution of animal behaviour, or a psychologist. Anyway, she always believed that a sound grounding in zoology, animal behaviour and evolutionary biology was essential for being a proficient and effective clinical psychologist.

As a practitioner, she had no doubt that there was significant and unquestionable merit in taking a non-moralistic evolutionary approach to clinical psychology. Every facet of human behaviour seemed to an adaptation or a strategy, a means to some end, even if the behaviour appeared from a rational perspective to be an 'abnormal maladjustment' and therefore, seemingly self-defeating with respect to stress-relieving behavioural goals. In her opinion every kind of behavioural coping mechanism or psychological deviation or maladaptation was rationally explainable and scientifically treatable from a Darwinian perspective or from an evolutionary biology approach.

Humans were after all also animals, they share a common ape-like ancestor with the other apes. It was through speciation and adaptive radiation that bipedal hominids had split-off from their arboreal ape cousins, who chose to remain in the forests, while the early hominids began to explore new niches in the open woodlands of the savannahs.

Joab was also intrigued with her. He felt emotionally drawn to her.

He was an unusual patient in the sense that it soon became difficult for her, in spite of her unquestionable professionalism, to maintain the traditional therapist-patient boundaries with Joab. She found him attractive, possibly even erotically attractive; at times she even felt a strange tingling tempting tinge of sexual attraction towards him. She keep on thinking that he would have been a magnificent and beautiful woman if had he two X chromosomes instead of being XY.

He had no noticeable Adam's apple which would have been a dead giveaway that he had balls. For his appointments his face was always beautifully made up and he dressed in the most stunning dresses. As a genius of dress design and dress wearing, she observed that in his hands, haute couture had become a visionary art form.

He had attractive cheek bones. He had dark eyebrows. His lips were sensual and his nose was beautifully formed and refined.

His dark hair, dark brown eyes and his smooth light olive complexion made him look like a Latino or Hispanic beauty. If his skin tone was a shade darker he would have been classified as a coloured. He was one of those white Afrikaners who were marginally almost not quite white enough, whose ancestors had managed by sheer fluke to slip through the net into 'whiteness' or 'whitehood'. He definitely had a touch of the tar brush. His ancestry was definitely not pure European. She concluded that there was African, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Dutch all mixed up in his blood. He was definitely one of the castaway progenies of the European colonization of Africa and the Americas. He was a mixed-blood child of the Southern Hemisphere. But he was definitely mysteriously beautiful; he seemed to embody the full beauty of European and African miscegenation.

She found him exquisite and interesting. She even admitted as much to her girlfriend, her live-in partner.

She found herself lapsing in a relation of mutual reciprocal intimacy with Joab. The transactions between them brought them very close to teetering over the brink of overt admissions of erotic attraction. Their relationship was also becoming increasingly emotional for both of them. Initially he was completely unaware of the effect that he was having on her.

During her sessions with him she often found herself talking about every topic under the sun.

Joab gradually sensed that a strong emotional connection had developed between them. He became increasingly aware that it was the kind of connection which threatened to transgress the patient-therapist boundary.

This gave him enough reason to consider whether it was possible for him to really fall in love with a woman, someone like his therapist? Anyway she was lesbian. But then he could also be a lesbian in his own way. She remained alert to the possibility that he was developing feelings for her, looking out for any give-away signs.

This prompted her to ask him what he thought of women. She wanted know whether he had ever found women sexually attractive and whether he was really bisexual as he had hinted.

When she asked him about his bisexual tendencies, he freely admitted that while at high school he did become infatuated with a few girls. Also, sometimes something erotic about a particular girl or woman could arouse or attract him. He believed that he could have sexual relations with the right kind of woman.

Out of curiosity, but with an expressionless look on her face, she asked him if he felt attracted to her.

Her question was totally unexpected; it took him by complete surprise. For a moment it seemed that she had read his mind.

He admitted that he had developed an attraction for her.

She asked if it was erotic or was it intellectual.

It was both, but he did not want to admit the true nature of his feelings of attraction for her. Instead he said it he was uncertain about the true nature of his feelings, but hinted that he thought it could be intellectual.

He admitted that he looked forward to seeing her, that he thought about her quite a lot, that he thought about the things that they had spoken about, that he liked her, that he trusted her, that felt a comradeship towards her, that he held her in high esteem, that he respected her, that he did not want to disappoint her and so on.

She raised her eyebrows as he tried to give details on the nature of his attraction for her.

"Why would you be worried about disappointing me?" She asked with a neutral poker-face look on her face.

"I don't know. It is because I have a high regard for you opinion," he answered with a frown on his face.

"I don't judge any of my patients. Therapy is not about judgement or morality. It is about healing, it is about working through difficulties, it is about finding a way to get relief from pain and suffering, it is about unloading burdens that oppress and so on," she said.

The 'lesbian dream' that he had of Segomotso seemed to vindicate that he may really be bisexual.

The psychologist confided in him about her own life.

She had once been a professor of clinical psychology at the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. He knew this much about her.

While she was still a member of the academic staff at the University of Potchefstroom, she had been one of his lecturers when he took some courses in psychology. She did not seem to remember his face or name.

After she had spent a sabbatical year in Paris where she had studied the writings of Althusser, Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Lacan and Deleuze, she decided that she was morally obliged to resign from the university.

She confirmed that she was still proudly an Afrikaner and nothing could ever change that. She realized that there were other ways of being an Afrikaner. In order to be an Afrikaner one did not have to be a Christian Nationalist. She discovered new Afrikaner heroes in figures like Beyers Naude, Bram Fischer and Ingrid Jonker.

She said that his cross-dressing, that his transvestitism, that his wanting to be a woman were normal and that he should creatively embrace his sexual inclinations as long as he was not harming anyone, as long as it did not result in the abuse or jury of another human being for the sake of his own sexual gratification.

The way he lived out his sexuality must be guided by ethical and moral considerations that would prevent him from harming or injuring anyone. He must become who he was in an ethical and moral manner. He must enjoy who he was and it was his inalienable right to live out as naturally as possible his gender predispositions and inclinations in a manner that does not cause emotional or physical harm or injury to others.

That was the only things he had to consider with regard to his sexuality.

He must work out his own sexual ethics and sexual morality in an attitude of good faith, integrity and honesty.

While smiling she said to Joab that it was impossible to harm or injure God by being a transvestite or a bisexual or a homosexual. How can anyone harm or injure an omnipotent and omniscient deity? Aware of Joab's profound and paradoxical religiosity, she asked what constitutes holiness. Could he still be holy if he were a transvestite or a homosexual? Could he live a holy and sanctified Christian life as a crossing-dressing bisexual transvestite, she wanted to know. While he was thinking about her question, she answered the question herself: 'The road to true holiness and sanctification is to love others as you love yourself.'

After sinking into a thoughtful silence, she smiled again and proposed that the statement: 'What you do to the least of these brothers of mine, you do to me', was the true road to holiness and personal sanctification. We are made holy, and we become sanctified if we treat others with humanity. She said that this was the essence of her personal 'religion'.

If God did exist, it was her opinion that this simple statement also circumscribed the essential substance of man's accountability towards God. It was also the signpost indicating the true highway to authentic human holiness and true faith, because faith without works is empty and cheap.She said that there could not be a 'workless-faith', a 'workless-faith' was a contradiction. She felt that there was no other way to be genuinely holy and that there was no other way to lead a sanctified life. And there was no other way that one could express faith in God.

Individualized or personalized inward orientated preoccupations with observances aimed at achieving a state of holiness and sanctity was not only alienating, but was also meaningless. Only through the outward orientated behaviour towards others could meaningful spirituality be achieved.

She also concluded that if God existed as an omnipotent and omniscient divine Being, then it would be a contradiction to state that God could be harmed or offended in any way by any finite being. If the eternal, infinite, all powerful, all knowing and all loving Supreme Being could be susceptible to harm, injury or offence caused by a finite agent whom He had created, then that susceptibility would represent a limitation, an imperfection, an incompleteness, a vulnerability, a lack, an absence, a constraint, a flaw, all which would be attributes that would be inconsistent with essence of the divine nature. If the infinite divine Being could be personally and directly harmed or injured or take offence or be angry in anyway as the result of actions committed by a finite contingent beings, then that divine Being cannot be God.

This was her opinion.

Seeing the attentive expression on Joab's face and sensing that she had struck a note that resonated with his own thinking, she went on to elaborate that, if and only if, God has freely decided to take the side of the weak, the suffering, the exploited, the vulnerable, the poor, the dispossessed, the oppressed, the disenfranchized, the sick, the discriminated, the segregated, the racialized, the enslaved, the injured and those without power or hope, then God has in fact taken a stand of solidarity with the wretched of this earth. In that case an injury to one is an injury to all, and the 'all' in this instance, would also include God.

It is only through God's solidarity with the wretched of this earth that He allows Himself to become vulnerable to injury, humiliation, harm and insult.

Finding herself giving an impromptu theological lecture to Joab she continued to explore the logic of her thesis. She went on to make the point that in order for the supreme divine Being to make good his decision to express genuine and authentic solidarity with the wretched of the earth He would necessarily have to become incarnate, and by taking up the finite form of humanity, He would inevitably end up submitting Himself to the humiliating and painful death by crucifixion on a Roman cross at Golgotha, as a direct consequence of expressing His solidarity with the wretched of the earth.

By freely expressing solidarity with the wretched, the oppressed, the exploited, the disempowered, the disenfranchised, the imprisoned, the hungry, the poor, the weak, and the dispossessed, God would necessarily end up on the wrong side of the powers and principalities that ruled the affairs of the world.

She quoted from the New Testament:

For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.

After quoting Ephesians 6:12, she concluded that the only way anyone can harm and injure God and become unholy, is by harming and injuring one's fellow man. She believed that the only way to be faithful to the Christian Gospel was to take God's side; this was, in her opinion, what Christianity was really all about.

You have to take God's side she reiterated.

She looked for his reaction with an ironic smile on her face.

"And these words are coming from an atheist, a non-believer," she said, laughing good-naturedly, her eyes twinkling with ironic amusement.

A shiver ran down Joab's spine when she spoke these words. Everything this unbelieving woman had said resonated deeply with the core of his faith.

It was as if God had spoken directly to him through her, it was as if she were prophesying.

God had spoken to him through the words uttered by an atheist.

'What you do to the least of these brothers of mine, you do to me,' was a scriptural passage that had previously come up many times in his conversations with Rudi. It had become the unshakable foundation of his personal creed.

He also did not believe in harming or injuring animals, even though he felt no strong compulsion to become a vegetarian. Man had evolved as a meat eater.

"So God will punish with the pain and torment of everlasting hell fire those who have harmed or injured the least of His bothers? Why would He do that when it is impossible for a sovereign, omnipotent, omniscience and ever-loving deity to be directly injured and harmed by any act of man, a finite creature, the product of evolution from some ancestral ape-like animal? Man is an animal; we humans know that it is irrational to punish animals. Why would God the supreme rational being and the God of infinite reason want to punish men and women, who are mere animals, the product of evolution by descent with modification, in hell fire? " She asked.

"It does not make any sense," she concluded.

"God, out of solidarity for the least of these his brothers, would acquit all of humanity of all wrong-doing because each brother would have been guilty of being a perpetrator of harm and injury, and at the same time each brother would have also been a victim of harm and injury, there is no one without sin on their hands, everyone is both a perpetrator and a victim, no one is without sin," Joab said.

As a typical Afrikaner, she had been confirmed and catechized in the Reformed Church, which meant that she knew exactly where Joab was going with this statement. So she decided, as the psychotherapist, to lead the way with her own questions.

"But God is supposed to be a just God, therefore to acquit the perpetrator without punishment, without offering restitution or compensation or reparation for the injuries that the victim suffered, would that not be act of gross and inexcusable injustice towards the victim?" She argued while knowing exactly what Joab's response would be.

"You have already answered the question, God incarnate was executed on a Roman cross as punishment for His taking a stand of solidarity with the wretched of the earth," Joab replied.

She said nothing; her stare remained fixed on Joab. She was waiting for him to continue, to wrap up the supreme formula of Christendom.

Knowing how Joab would answer, she asked the obvious question:

"How did God express solidarity with the least of these his brothers and at same time ensure that the ends of justice were fully satisfied?" She asked.

"You know the answer," Joab replied.

Joab was going to explain that at Golgotha, He cancelled everyone's debt, debts to neighbour and debts to God. He paid the debt on behalf of everyone, including what everyone owed to Him.

Instead he continued to elaborate on what she had already stated earlier on in their conversation.

"God obviously decided to acquit everyone by voluntarily accepting responsibility on behalf of every human being that ever existed for the sentence which would serve to satisfy the necessary, essential and absolute requirements of justice for all injured parties. He would accept this sentence on behalf of every single perpetrator who was responsible for committing or for being a moral agent of actions that resulted in harm and injury. By serving the sentence on behalf of the offenders the requirements of just restitution, just compensation, just reparations and just punishment on behalf of the victims, would have been fulfilled. He would have personally fulfilled all the necessary and essential conditions for the achievement of justice for the harm and injury done to the least of these His brothers. This would be the way that He would be demonstrating solidarity to the oppressed and forgiveness to the oppressor. He died and rose for everybody, no one was excluded," Joab answered.

"If you believe that, then you are not a Calvinist," she laughed.

"I am not a Calvinist," he replied.

"I don't believe in a deterministic theism or a closed Universe. I believe in an open theism, an open future and an open Universe. I don't believe that the future exists as something which has been completely pre-arranged or pre-formed in a deterministic fashion. If God had foreordained everything that was going to happen in the future in accordance with some pre-existing plan that completely maps out the future, then prayer would be meaningless, then dialogue with God would be meaningless or impossible. If the future were not open to infinite possibilities, then God would not be omnipotent or free, and if God cannot be free, then He cannot be omnipotent," he said.

After listening to his reasons for not being a Calvinist, she decided to leave it at that.

They discussed other topics that were more pertinent to Joab's immediate needs. She discussed gender issues with Joab.

CHAPTER 26

What is gender? This was a question she constantly asked. She emphasized that sex is something that had always been defined in a binary manner. Male sperm are small and the female egg is large. It was ultimately the differential sizes of sex cells or gametes that defined the binary distinction between male and female. It is as simple as that. It was only the difference in the size of sex cells that ultimately defines the difference between male and female.

She explained that sexual dimorphism arose as a consequence of the evolution of oogamy.

But gender transcends this narrow definition of sexuality in terms of simple binary differences and oogamy. Gender is the self-conscious sexual identity that an individual experiences as his or her intrinsically natural sexual predisposition or orientation, irrespective of biological and evolutionary sexual dimorphism. Most of the time gender predispositions are perfectly natural in the sense that people are born that way. This is what the scientific evidence indicates she explained to Joab.

She explained that, according to Darwin, sexual dimorphism arose as a direct consequence of sexual selection of dimorphic characters.

But Darwin may be wrong. And she made a strong point about this. She had grown up as a farm girl and had seen things that did not tally with everything that Darwin had said about sexual selection being the single most important driving force in the evolution of male-female sexual dimophism.

The flock of peafowl on their farm behaved in a profoundly unDarwinian manner with regard to the peahen's selection of a peacock mating partner. The majority of the peacocks had similar tails, their tails or trains were equally magnificent in size and colour. But peacock's with less magnificent tails still found willing peahen partners. The peahens were not all taken in by the magnificence of a specific peacock's tail. They each showed very personal mate preferences and seemed to choose mates that they found compatible rather than just beautiful.

She also said 'cross-dressing' and 'transvestism' occurs in many kinds of ways throughout the animal kingdom. Nature is also Queer and being Queer is very much a natural thing in Nature.

With a mischievous chuckle she stated that being queer was something very common in Nature. Males appear as females and females appear as males for diverse reasons in diverse animal groups.

"Of course animals don't wear clothes so the idea of 'cross-dressing' in non-human animals is metaphorical, but that does not mean that various forms of transvestism with a big T does not occur in the animal kingdom," she said with a serious look on her face.

She continued:

"Tranvestism is a form of female-mimicry. In Nature we get animal species where males have evolved various patterns of female-mimicry. They develop female morphology and mimic female reproductive or sexual behaviour."

"So 'cross-dressing' as a form of sexual-mimicry, occurs in the animal kingdom?" Joab asked

"That is correct, 'cross-dressing' or transvestism in the form of sexual-mimicry is part of Nature; there are animal species where males mimic females, and females that mimic males. Transvestism is perfectly natural, there is nothing morally or psychology wrong with transvestism. There is nothing pathological about transvestism or cross-dressing, it is perfectly normal. In many species males mimic females in order to increase their mating opportunities with females. It seems that some female animals perfer to mate with males that appear to be females, that is, males who are 'cross-dressers' or 'transvestites' who have succeeded in their sexual-mimicry of females. I have had women patients who are sexually attracted to males who mimic females and who are cross-dressers, they prefer to have sexual relations which men who are 'heterosexual transvestites' or 'bisexual transvestites,' " she answered in a plain matter of fact manner.

"As you can appreciate now, gender is not a condition that is rigidity fixed throughout the animal kingdom. Any zoologist would confirm that fact," she explained to Joab.

******

"In the plant and animal kingdoms one also finds many species that are hermaphrodites. An individual hermaphrodite body has both kinds of sex organs and produces both kinds of sex cells: tiny sperm and huge eggs," she continued.

"In nature there are two kinds of hermaphrodites: simultaneous hermaphrodites that have both male and female sex organs at the same time, and sequential hermaphrodites that have male and female sex organs at different times or stages of their life-cycle.

"Most marine invertebrates such as many molluscs, barnacles, starfish and sea anemones are simultaneous hermaphrodites. Many vertebrates in the form of various marine species of fish are sequential hermaphrodites. Examples include parrot fish, clown fish, angel fish, gobies and moray eels. In these fish, sex changes occur during the fish's life cycle. Males change into females in some species of marine fish. In other species, the fish starts its life as female and then changes into a male at a later stage in its life."

"Sexual identity has not been rigidity set as a law in the Universe. Many animal and plant species in a large number of cases cannot be unambiguously divided on a simple binary sexual basis into strictly male and female individuals. Sex and gender in the Universe turns out to be a lot more complicated. It is less rigid and more flexible than what most people can possibly imagine," she concluded.

It was a conclusion that Joab had already come to accept as true. Sexual identity was contingent, it was the product of the play of chance and necessity; it was not rigid or inflexible. It was also not true that there was only one set of possibilities when it came to sexual identity in the Universe. There were no iron laws of necessity when it came to the invariability of sexual identity. A possible Universe could exist where there were no separate or fixed male and female sexual identities or binary differences between sexes.

She said one could rationally imagine a Universe or a planet where all species were hermaphroditic or where most species were hermaphroditic and amphimictic was the exception and rather than the rule.

It was scientifically possible that on another planet in another solar system in another galaxy in God's Universe, simultaneous or sequential hermaphroditism would be the rule in the majority of cases, and permanently separate fixed male and female sexual identities the exception. Maybe everyone on those planets would get a chance to be both female and male in their life time.

With a mischievous smile on her face the psychotherapist suggested that maybe there is a deeper comic irony to Aristophanes hermaphrodite myth.

Joab face became alert and curious. He smiled knowingly.

She asked if he had read Plato's _Symposium_. Joab answered her in the affirmative.

She proposed that it could be argued that Aristophanes' hermaphrodite was the real symbolic embodiment of true love or of Eros. Maybe deep down, the real ultimate desire of heterosexual love between male and female was the joining or fusing of the two sexes into one hermaphrodite body or one flesh, in other words, as it was in the Garden of Eden before God decided to split Adam into Adam and Eve. Adam contained Eve in his body, Adam was the first hermaphrodite and ever since woman was taken from man, male and female always desired to become one flesh. In the Gospel of Matthew it is written...... _a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh_.

The psychotherapist got up from her chair and took a book from the book shelf. She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. She sat down again and looked up at Joab:

"Listen."

She read out aloud John Cleveland's poem called _Upon an Hermaphrodite_ which was published in 1640.

Sir, or Madam, choose you whether,  
Nature twists you both together,  
And makes thy Soul two Garbs confess,  
Both Petticoat and Breechess dress;  
Thus we chastise the God of Wine  
With Water that is Feminine,  
Until the cooler Nymph abate  
His wrath, and so concorporate.  
Adam , till his Rib was lost,  
Had the Sexes thus ingrost.  
When Providence our Sire did cleave,  
And out of Adam carved Eve ,  
Then did Man 'bout Wedlock treat  
To make his Body up compleat.  
Thus Matrimony speaks but thee  
In a Grave Solemnity:  
For Man and Wife make but one right  
Canonical Hermaphrodite.  
Ravel thy Body, and I find  
In every Limb a double kind.  
Who would not think that Head a pair,  
That breeds such Faction in the Hair?  
One half so churlish in the Touch,  
That rather than endure so much,  
I would my tender Limbs apparrel  
With Regulus his nailed Barrel:  
But the other half so small,  
And so amorous withal,  
That Cupid thinks each Hair doth grow  
A String for his invisible Bow.  
When I look Babies in thine Eyes,  
Here Venus , there Adonis lies;  
And though thy Beauty be high Noon,  
Thy Orb contains both Sun and Moon.  
How many melting Kisses skip,  
'Twixt thy upper Brush of Hair,  
And thy neather Beard's despair?  
When thou speak'st (I would not wrong  
Thy Sweetness with a double Tongue)  
But in every single Sound  
A perfect Dialogue is found.  
Thy Breasts distinguish one another,  
This the Sister, that the Brother.  
When thou joyn'st Hands my Ear still phancies  
The Nuptial Sound, I John take Frances .  
Feel but the difference soft and rough,  
This a Gantlet, that a Muff.  
Had sly Ulysses at the Sack  
Of Troy brought thee his Pedler's Pack,  
And Weapons too to know Achilles  
From King Lycomedes' Phillis  
His Plot had fail'd; this Hand would feel  
The Needle, that the Warlike Steel.  
When Musick doth thy pace advance,  
Thy right Leg takes the left to dance:  
Nor is't a Galliard danc'd by one,  
But a mixt Dance, though alone.  
Thus every Heteroclite part  
Changes Gender, but thy Heart;  
Nay those which Modesty can mean,  
But dare not speak, are Epicene.  
That Gamester needs must overcome,  
That can play both with Tib and Tom.  
Thus did Nature's Mintage vary,  
Coyning thee a Philip and Mary.

"When man cleaves or fuses with his wife in marriage to become one flesh, they become, through their fusion, a hermaphrodite," she concluded.

"The fusing of male and female to form a hermaphrodite and then the splitting of the hermaphrodite into the two separate sexes is a theme that appears in a great diversity of mythological narratives. We see it in Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ , we also see it in Aristophanes' speech in praise of Eros in Plato's _Symposium_ and now we see it even in the Bible," Joab added.

She raised her eyebrows. Joab had taken the words out of her mouth.

"Wow, you do know a lot," she laughed.

"Away, the fundamental core of human reality is biological; all the features that make us human are emergent properties of an underlying biological system. We belong to the animal kingdom even though we experience moments when we get caught up in deep reflection and questioning about the meaning of life and the world and the Universe and everything. It is during these moments that we become vaguely conscious that some kind of mysterious reality encompasses and pervades our lives," she continued.

" _Ons is amper by die einde van die doodloopstraat na 'n 200 000 jaar lange evolusionêre eksperiment_ ," she said.

(We are at the cul de sac or the dead end of a 200 000 year evolutionary experiment)

Enjoying their conversation, she went off on tangent to explain her theory of how human societies evolved into their current modern state of organization. By making the code of killing bullies taboo, the unnatural social phenomena of polygamy, of social stratification and of hierarchies of domination were unleashed upon humanity. Also, when humanity eventually exited the life style associated with the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer social organization, both obesity and sexual promiscuity became a modern, unnatural epidemic, she explained.

In her opinion man has become a maladapted species and was now on the steep road to extinction.

Modern man had evolved into a well-adapted animal or primate over a 200 000 year period in response to the constant winnowing pressures of natural selection which increased man's capacity to survive the uncertainties associated with all the vagaries and insecurities of the non-sedentary Palaeolithic hunter-gather lifestyle, a lifestyle that predated the accidental or contingent Neolithic agricultural revolution. With the advent of the Neolithic agricultural revolution about 12 000 years ago, humans became sedentary and increasingly more hierarchically organized compared to their Palaeolithic predecessors. It was during and after the Neolithic that the first primitive hierarchical political-economic social formations developed and all the modern ills exploded onto the scene. Man is not evolutionary adapted for the kind of modern life we see now on planet earth.

She continued to elaborate on the above theme even though Joab's one hour consultation had come to an end. Joab listened to what she had to say about the idea of the divine right to rule.

It was also during this time that chiefs and kings invented the idea of the divine right to rule.

She added that any kind of meaningful 'agency' becomes impossible if the individual does not possess the power or the competency which would enable or empower her to secure by negotiation her own best self-interests. She said that it is a 'fact of Nature' that the power of individual agency diminishes exponentially as human population size increases beyond a critical threshold. Once human population grows beyond a certain critical threshold individuals become increasing disempowered and start to lose meaningful agency with respect to shaping and ordering their lives as individuals. The loss of agency corresponds with the emergence of increasing social stratification. She proposed that when human population size begins to exceed the critical threshold, social stratification emerges almost spontaneously, as if a phase-change had occurred.

In her opinion there was nothing God ordained or magical about human institutions. Institutions are social-behavioural adaptations that have evolved to facilitate various kinds of arrangements between individuals living within a system of hierarchical social domination of the few over the many. It is these institutional arrangements which enforce and structure the dynamics of the kinds of relations which take place between individuals within a stratified social structure. Any kind of meaningful negotiation between individuals regarding their interests vanishes in the post-Palaeolithic densely populated human settlements.

She stopped midway, not finishing what she planned to say. She looked at her watch. It was time for the next client.

CHAPTER 27

Kicking off the blankets, Joab got out of bed, pulling his T-shirt over his head, he stood bare- chested in front of the mirror and gazed at his breasts. They were medium sized and firm. He could still hide them under a lose fitting baggy T-shirt without needing to wear a bra. But that would not be enough to escape them being noticed under a tight- fitting top.

They were the exquisite fresh young breasts of a teenager, firm and shapely they protruded out of his chest. They filled a size 32 C bra. He pulled off his shorts and stood naked before the mirror. He turned around and glanced over his shoulder at the mirror. The image he saw of himself, his back, his waist, his hips, his buttocks, his thighs and calves were those of a woman. He put his hand over his genitals and fondled them.

He knew from his excursions into the unknown and dangerous territory of the theology of the body, which roughly speaking, boils down to the theology of material embodiment. Theologically speaking, Joab had come to the conclusion that to be self-consciously aware of one's material embodiment means to be in thrall to one's body, and to the bodies of others.

He knew all about the all too real human vulnerability that everyone experiences with regard to the changing form, condition and physical circumstances of one's own body. He knew that the inevitable fate of the physical body was the dissolution of death. He believed in the psychosomatic unity of the person. He did not believe in the Cartesian mind-body dualism, he did not believe that the mind, that thoughts, that feelings, that emotions, that hopes, that desires, that faith, that belief and trust in God could exist independently of the physical body.

The stark reality remained. We are our physical embodiment. Our material incarnation defines our personhood. We can only exist as fully incarnate and fully materially embodied persons. We cannot separate our mind, our emotions, our sense of well-being, our fulfilment, our identity, our hopes and desires from being an intrinsic or integral component or even properties or attributes of our physical embodiment.

Bodily incarnation was fundamental to the theology of the body held by Joab the dressmaker. It was the theology of dressmaking; it was the theology of fashion design.

He imaged in a moment of delicious sexual reverie, that he had become fused with the attractive Salmacis who had watched the beautiful Hermaproditus undress. He had not resisted her advances, nor did he struggle to free himself from her tight embrace. Salmacis in the form of oestrogen and progesterone had merged their bodies, male and female, into one. His wish had become the wish of Salmacis. It had been granted and they had become fused into a single being that was half female and half male. He had acquired the gorgeous breasts of Salmacis.

He had become Hermaproditus, and in the process, he had become a breathtakingly beautiful and gorgeous hermaphrodite.

The endocrinologist had warned him that he may not be able to have a firm erection and that his testicles would shrink. His erection may not be firm enough for penetration. In a way, he was a virgin. He had never penetrated anyone and he himself had never been penetrated. This morning he felt his erection develop. It was surprisingly firm and hard, it was strong enough to penetrate. He could still ejaculate. But the quality of his orgasm had changed. It felt very different, its duration had become longer and it seemed to spread throughout his body.

He turned around to face the mirror; he saw the reflection of a shapely woman's body with an erect penis, he had been feeling like an animal on heat since he woke up, it had not abated, and now on top of that, he was felt a rising flood tide of restless sexual energy from his toes to his brain, he whole body felt hot and sensuous.

In this state of erotic distraction it would impossible for him to do anything productive like working on his MA dissertation.

He was alone. He had the entire cottage to himself. He could do what liked.

He began to experience a powerful and irresistible urge to wear stiletto high heels, to encase his legs in stockings, to strap on a suspensor, to slide into a zip-up tight body- hugging sheath, to put on lip-stick and to wear a wig. The mere anticipation of the pleasure and excitement associated with cross-dressing was sufficient to put him into an immediate state of heightened erotic excitement.

To be in a state of intense sexual arousal was like being in an animal state.

To succumb fully to sexual excitation was to allow oneself to descend into an animal state, to return to a state of nature, to enter the realm of the animal kingdom were the pursuit of pleasure, once it has been triggered, acknowledges no restraint or censure or shame, it means the same as to be naked once more as in the Garden of Eden without shame or knowledge of nakedness.

Without knowledge of good and evil, there is no awareness of nakedness, there can be no Eros. Eros was born in Genesis from the knowledge of everything which means the knowledge of both good and evil.

The birth of Eros began with the self-conscious awareness of one's ignorance, the desire of Eros can only be satisfied by the knowledge of good and evil, which is ultimately the knowledge of everything.

This is the ultimate of goal of Erotic desire.

In the state of nature, nakedness does not exist as an ethically or morally conditioned state of being.

He stood animal-like, naked and erect in an Edenic state before the mirror. An absurd thought crossed his mind: 'Are animals naked, can animals be naked in the way that human can become naked?'

When it came to the anticipation of pleasure and the gratification of desire, even the finely tuned neural control systems for the natural homeostatic regulation of appetites in nature, could become short-circuited.

Even animals can succumb to an addiction to sexual pleasure. The difference between animals and humans, according to Darwin, is only one of degree. The difference between human and animals is not absolute, it is only quantitative. Humans and all the species of the animal kingdom arose from the same ancient common ancestor. This was an indubitable fact.

Katteman the stray cat that recently moved into the cottage, brushed against Joab's calves. He rubbed the side of his head against Joab's ankles. He looked up at Joab. He did not seem to notice the erection or that Joab was naked.

Recently, with a cat on heat in the neighbourhood, Katteman would openly broadcast his amorous intentions with growls as his wondered off into the dark for a night of wild carousing. Animals have no shame; they mount each other and copulate in full view of humans and other animals. Males will even mount males under certain circumstances. Joab thought about the story of the bulls. The presence of other bulls heightens the sexual tension of a dominant bull and he can be readily induced to mount and copulate with another bull, and ejaculate into an artificial vagina.

The pleasure of orgasm must give an animal the incentive to copulate. If there is no incentive to copulate, then sexual reproduction would cease and animals would become extinct. Was the orgasm the only incentive that drives humans to copulate?

Humanity was constantly seeking after sensuous pleasure in the form of eating, drinking, smoking, talking, reading, dancing, singing, praying, adventure, exposure to danger and sex.

The pleasure derived from the stimulation of any of the five senses can become addictive. He remembered reading that the skin was one of the most sensitive of the sense organs and also was the most susceptible to pleasurable erotic stimulation.

He also remembered an article on animal behavioural experiments that he had read when he was doing an undergraduate course in psychology. It was a revelation. He became persuaded to believe that the finely tuned neural control systems for the natural homeostatic regulation of appetites had become permanently short-circuited in mankind, resulting in some kind of bondage of the will or the enslavement of the will, so that it had become impossible to resist the pursuit of all kinds of sensual pleasures such as eating, drinking and sex.

When Calvin spoke about the senses in connection with the idea of the depravity of the will this was what he must have been thinking of.

In 1953 two postdoctoral fellows, Peter Milner and James Olds, implanted electrodes deep into various parts of the brain of living rats. They discovered that when an electrical impulse was delivered to brain of some of the rats, the impulse activated the neural pleasure centres in the rat's brain, which resulted in the rat experiencing sensations of intense pleasure. The rats were placed in a modified version of B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning chamber. In the original 'Skinner Box' the depressing of a lever within the chamber, by the rat, resulted in it receiving either a reward in the form of food or punishment in the form of an electrical shock which was delivered to the rat's feet through the cage floor. When Milner and Olds placed their rat with an electrode connected to its brain's pleasure centre into their modified Skinner stimulus reinforcement box, the rat soon discovered that by depressing the lever it could activate the delivery of a pleasure-inducing electrical impulse to its brain. Rats would depress the lever more than 7000 times in one hour. An addiction to self-induced pleasure developed in the rats and they become impulsively obsessed with the repetitive depressing of the lever. The rats stopped eating and drinking. They had even lost interest in sex when presented with a female rat on heat. Only the lever could satisfy them.

Like Milner and Olds' rat, he too would be unable to stop depressing his own version of the pleasure lever which always started with a shopping spree for fabric, stockings, new high heels, and new lingerie.

In a state of acute arousal he would design a dress, cut the fabric and sew up the dress. Satisfied after fitting the dress, he would have to bide his time for the opportunity that would allow for the long process necessary for transforming himself into a woman. Each one of these activities was intensely pleasurable and exciting.

Choosing the fabrics never failed to bring him pleasure and delight. Designing the dress always brought him into a state of pleasurable arousal. Cutting the pattern was always accompanied with a sense of heightened anticipation of pleasure. Each one of these activities was like the rat pressing down on the pressure lever.

The climax of pleasure would finally arrive in all its exquisite sensual intensity when he finally put on the dress and pulled the zip up. In a state of erotic fever he would do his face. Standing in his high heels before the mirror, he would feel the heat of an irresistible desire to be seen as a woman, to be the object of someone else's erotic perception. To be seen as desirable.

He glanced at his watch, it was already 9.00 am and he was still standing naked in front of the mirror with an erection that had become huge.

He remembered lines that he had just read in _Fools Gold_ :

....... _according to the Talmud and Kabbalah, sexual desire was the root all of corruption. Any student of the five books of Moses will confirm that the abiding theme inscribed in every letter, line and page of the Torah was the dark spectre of sexual corruption. Sexual corruption was an unavoidable contagion, from which no one could escape. We were all trapped, with no exception, in the vice grip of unconstrained and rampant desire_.

As an ex-theological student, he had a thorough knowledge of the Old Testament, especially the five books of Moses. He thought about the many hidden sexual narratives that could be read between the lines in many of the Old Testament stories. Like all post-Neolithic polygamists the Old Testament patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were also all caught up in sexual shenanigans.

Jacob must have felt a natural sexual desire for the sensual and young slave-woman Zilpah whom Laban had given to his daughter Leah, who was now Jacob's wife. In all likelihood Zilpah's breasts were as shapely and firm as the swollen fruit on a pomegranate tree. Zilpah was available to be plucked and enjoyed by Jacob like a ripe pomegranate in the midday heat of a warm Mediterranean summer's day. Joab could imagine Jacob sitting in the shade of a pomegranate tree, taking pleasure at the sight of the attractive teenage slave girl. Fixated on the girl he would feel the potent stirring of excitement in his loins. Overcome with desire for the sensual Zilpah, he would not have been able to resist summoning her to his tent. Jacob had a lawful claim over Zilpah's body and he decided to exercise his rights. Knowing his intentions, she had no option but to yield herself obediently to his advances. Jacob who had swindled his bother Esau out of his inheritance, Jacob who had wrestled all night with the angel of God, Jacob who had a vision of the staircase rising up to heaven, was the same Jacob who impregnated Zilpah the servant girl, who had turned Zilpah into his concubine, into his love slave.

And what about Bathsheba?

She became sexually corrupted in the very act of diligently observing the Law of Moses. Did Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, intentionally stage the performance of her _mikvah_ , the ritual bath that was necessary for the ceremonial cleansing of her body from the impurity of her recent menstruation, so that while she was outwardly observing the Law of Moses in her preparation for sexual intercourse, she would also be seen naked by King David who, as the King of Israel, had a legal right to claim any woman that he felt attracted to. Watching her perform the _mikvah_ , he was aware that she was preparing herself for sexual intercourse, and she knew that King David was watching her making her preparations for sexual intercourse.

******

Feeling hungry, he slipped his shorts back on and went to the kitchen to make breakfast and coffee. Out of habit he turned on the radio, just in time to hear Manfred Mann's hit song: _If you gotta go go now_. It was a catchy tune, it brought back teenage memories. He still had all his LPs that he collected as a teenager. In the afternoons after school he would put on heavy black mascara and bright red lipstick and dance, all dressed up, in front of the huge mirror fixed to the door of the built-in clothing cupboard in his room. He would turn up the volume for _If you gotta go go now_ and play the track over and over again until his grandmother shouted for him to put the volume down and play something else.

" _Goeie genade my kind, dis nou genoeg van daardie_ ' _Gotta go now_ ', _asseblief man_ , _wees ons genadig_!"

(Good heavens my child, we have had enough of that ' _Gotta to now_.' Please man have mercy on us)

Then the grandparents would have to listen to _Pretty Flamingo_ and _The Mighty Quin_ while he performed some innovative modern dancing in front of the mirror. And then it would be the Monkees playing _I'm a believer_. And then it would be Sonny and Cher singing _I got you babe_. And then it would the Troggs singing _Wild Thing_ , followed by Steppenwolf's _Magic Carpet Ride_. And then finally, he would do a fancy rhythmic sway and shuffle in front of the mirror to sound of the Animals' _San Francisco Nights_.

" _Joab, wanneer gaan jy jou huiswerk doen? Ek dink dis nou tyd om op te hou met jou jiving en gedansery_ ," his grandmother would yell.

(Joab when are going to do you homework? I think it is now time to stop your jiving)

Sometimes he would volunteer to play special requests, asking his grandparents what they would like to hear. His grandfather liked _Sittin on the dock of the bay_ by Otis Redding, and his grandmother liked Nancy Sinatra's _These boots are made for walking_.

******

While he ate his cereal and sipped his coffee, he began to toy with the idea of going out. The prospect of spending a Saturday alone in the cottage was unbearable and with nothing going on in Potchefstroom, it seemed like a good idea to get dressed-up and go out night-clubbing in Hillbrow.

After breakfast Joab opened his wardrobe doors and began to handle, touch and feel the different fabrics of his collection of dresses that he had made for himself. He fondled and caressed the different fabrics, feeling their textures between his thumb and forefinger, crunching handfuls of the fabric in his hands, gently stretching the fabric to enjoy the feel of its elasticity. He gently wrapped his hands round bunches of material and pulled the fabric slowly through the closed palm of his hand. He felt the sensual, soft and luxurious textures of the various high quality fabrics which he had so lovingly used to create each one of his dresses. The sensation of the feminine fabrics against his skin aroused him intensely. Against the sensitive touch receptors covering the surface of the skin of his fingers, each fabric had its own special combination of physical properties which induced a very specific kind of physiological stimuli in his body, which in turn invoked unique psychological responses in his mind.

For years he had been making a wide range of high quality female garments for himself. Also over the years he had collected gowns, slips, brassieres, suspender girdles, and suspender belts, various types of lingerie, stockings, pantyhose and high heels. He had also collected cosmetics, wigs and bags which he stashed away in this cupboard.

As the day progressed, he began to feel the build-up of sexual tension. For Joab, clothing, especially women's clothing was like a second skin. Women's clothing does not merely cover and hide the female body; it does more than this, because female clothing is essentially an erotic covering of the female body.

An entire theology could be developed about the ambiguity and paradox of clothing as a morally encoded covering of the body, or as a morally encoded symbolic covering of lines, curves and contours that is designed to both reveal and hide. Clothing is intrinsically ambiguous in its function as a covering that hides, because by covering, it also reveals by exposing. It reveals the body to the gaze of the libido as essentially sexual. The libidinous look triggers the desire to touch the covering fabric, to feel its texture not as mere material, but as the second skin that covers the solid firmness of the body that impresses it presence, that asserts its mysterious presence beneath the fabric that makes the body tactilely sensual to touch.

_Toe sien die vrou dat die boom goed was om van te eet en dat hy 'n lus was vir die oë, ja, 'n boom wat 'n mens kan begeer om verstand te verkry; en sy neem van sy vrugte en eet en gee ook aan haar man by haar, en hy het geëet. Toe gaan altwee se oë oop, en hulle word gewaar dat hulle naak is; en hulle het vyeblare aanmekaargewerk en vir hulle skorte gemaak_.

( _When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves_.)

Clothing transforms the body.

_When Tamar was told, "Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep," she took off her widows clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself........When Judah saw he, he thought she was a prostitute.....he went over to her by the roadside and said, "Come now, let me sleep with you_."

_Naomi told her daughter-in-law Ruth, "Wash and perfume yourself, and put on your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing-floor, but don't let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, note where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do_."

The tactile and the visual, the touch and the look, the skin and the eye, obsessed with sartorial eroticism, he wanted to be that sweet, wanton, cute, desirable and pretty little transvestite. Yet he was fearful that he would be unable to escape the inferno of his own paradise. If his secret was discovered, he would be banished forever from normal society, exiled beyond the city walls, he would have to wonder in the wilderness like a 'prophetess' dressed in rags and skins.

For quite a while, because of the lack of privacy in the cottage with Rudi around, there had hardly been any opportunity for him to try on some clothes and put on a bit of make up.

While he unpacked and repacked his dresses into his clothing cupboard, he could do nothing to stem the rising tide of erotic tension. He felt the irresistible impulse to cross-dress and to act out at being a woman. As a compulsive cross-dresser with homosexual tendencies, he could easily get into a situation which would result in him becoming his own victim; there was always the risk and hazards of unintended consequences. This was why he had to move out of the cottage and leave Potchefstroom. For the moment he was forced by circumstances to lead an abnormal life. If he were living alone in a big city like Durban or Johannesburg or Cape Town, and if he had his own business, he would then be free to live the life of a transvestite. There would be no restriction, no constraints and he would be free to be his true self and this would give him the greatest happiness. In the secularity and the anonymity of the big city he could live the life of a transvestite. As a transvestite he would be able to thrive and flourish in the world of fashion and in the women's garment industry.

It was time that he left Potchefstroom and started exploring the world as a transvestite

The psychotherapist advised him against seeking out sexual adventures. He should rather seek out lasting and meaningful relationships of loving and caring intimacy in the alternative gender community and steer clear of anonymous casual sexual encounters with strangers.

She had mentioned names of clubs and bars in Hillbrow which lesbians, homosexuals, transvestites and bisexuals frequented. He should rather go to these clubs and bars and meet other queer people and find his way into a queer community in which he could find support and emotional succour. These would be preferable to sexual adventurism, especially with all the dangers and hazards that are part of sexual adventurism.

As a cross-dresser in pursuit of sexual adventure, he would still be acting as a moral agent; he would be making ethical choices, he would be morally accountable for his actions. It would never be his desire or intention to inflict hurt, harm or injury on anyone, or on himself.

If he was going to become involved at all in sexual adventures, then the search for sexual pleasure would need to be consensual and fulfilling in an authentic way. He did not want to be involved in any act that would hurt, harm or injure someone else. He wanted to find a partner with whom he could have a longterm loving relationship that involved mutual commitment, that would also be a genuinely loving and caring relationship, like the relationship that he had with Sarel.

He did not want to become lost in some desolate moral wilderness. He did not want to lose himself in a jungle of alienation and estrangement.

******

He finally decided on the cocktail dress that he had designed and made from charmeuse silk. In addition to spandex and satin, it was one of the most erotic dress making fabrics that he had ever worked with. He loved the sensual physical properties that these fabrics possessed. Charmeuse silk had a beautiful sheen, it was exceptionally soft and smooth to the touch, and also had a wonderful drape. The fabric of the dress, when felt against the naked skin, gave the body of the wearer an incredibly erotic sensation. The texture of the dress's fabric would also be sensually pleasing to the hands and arms of the wearer's partner. In fact, the tactile sensations induced by charmeuse silk, would work like an aphrodisiac on the wearer's partner.

In the shower he shaved his legs until they became pleasantly smooth to his touch, he then carefully shaved away all the hair from his pubic region and buttocks, and finally he also shaved away the hair under his arm pits and arms. After shaving his face, he dried his body thoroughly.

Standing naked before the mirror in the bedroom, he applied layers of moisturizing body lotion which gave his entire body a subtle erotically perfumed fragrance. The lotion also imparted to his skin a soft silky texture.

Tonight he hoped to find someone who was a warm, affectionate and loving person, some one like Sarel.

He was still a complete virgin at the age of 24. Apart from Sarel, he had never had real sex before in his entire life. For a transvestite, real sex involved penetration.

He put on a six strap black satin suspender belt. From the drawer he took out a pair of new sheer nylon stockings that were silky smooth and would encase his legs in a subtle shine. Joab took a stocking and inserted his arm into the opening and bunched the fabric with his fingers until it formed a sock that would fit over his foot. He pulled the stocking up first over his calf and then over his thigh. He did the same with the second stocking. With trembling hands, and shortness of breath, he carefully clipped each suspender onto the stocking, feeling the sheer stocking fabric being stretched and pulled taut up against his legs by the straps of the suspender belt. In the mirror he gazed at the reflection of his legs encased in the shimmering sheer fabric of the nylon stockings. The stockings pleasantly accentuated the curves of his legs.

He pulled on a pair of black satin panties over the suspender belt. He slipped on his black stiletto high heels, the leather insides felt slippery against the nylon stockings encasing his feet. Next he clipped on a size 32 C black satin bra.

Sitting down on a chair in front of his dresser, he began to do his face, first putting on the make-up base, blending it into his face and working it in around his jaw line. Next he rubbed in a carefully selected blend of cream blusher. Satisfied with the blush, he began to line his eyes with eyeliner. Next came the mascara and then he powdered his nose.

The beautiful woman in her fully feminized self-conscious embodiment was the realization of truth.

In the Hegelian subject, the full realization of reason, freedom and self-consciousness or in other words, the full realization of the rational self-awareness of a self or of a person, assuming that the Hegelian subject can exist as a self or as a person, can only be reached or attained, when this realization is finally expressed in a life form that is recognized as fully complete, as fully adequate to that self.

This idea of freedom which Hegel took over from the expressivist views of the Romantic expressivism that arose out of the _Sturm and Drang_ movement which reached its model exemplification in the work of Herder with his idea of the _Volk_ as the bearer of the full and complete self-realization of the individual was ironically transformed by Joab. Joab had transformed the expressivistic Romantic views of Herder from the idea of the individual finding his realization in the _Volk_ , into his own idea of the sweet little transvestite as the true form for the complete expressive realization of, not only his own selfhood, but of the whole of humanity, including the _Volk_.

How can the individual achieve or realize his authentic embodiment as an individual? Is membership, submergence or insertion into a _Volk_ the obligatory precondition for the individual's authentic self-realization?

Could the individual realize his authentic selfhood, his self-conscious awareness of the idea of his identity without being submerged in the idea of the _Volk_? For Joab, the idea of the _Volk_ was empty compared to the idea of the sweet transvestite as the authentic self-embodiment of genuine individuality.

Man as a non-hermaphrodite would forever be incomplete, trapped in dichotomies and dualisms, he would forever be a divided self, the unhappy consciousness.

As a non-hermaphroditic species that is unable to express its truth in the form of a completely feminized humanity, the species will forever be unable to achieve the full expression of a life form that is fully complete and fully adequate to its notion of self.

In Hegel, the spirit or _Geist_ or self-aware subjectivity is always embodied. No life form can exist in a non-embodied state. In Joab's queer reading of Hegel's expressive theory of the self-aware subject, the subject necessarily exists as some kind of embodied life form. A life form can only exist as a living body and as a living body, it is only able to express its self-conscious awareness or thoughts of what constitutes the truth of its real nature through a medium that is able to function as an adequate vehicle for the conveyance or transmission or ultimate expression of that truth.

The cocktail dress he had selected was a thigh-length and bright metallic blue in colour. He had embellished it with ruffles. It neckline had a jewel design. It was sleeveless with a back zipper. It was a charming, eye-catching dress that was extremely comfortable to wear. He decided that tonight he would wear the rich glossy, dark burgundy wig. He stood before the mirror. Any independent observer gazing into the same mirror would be hard-pressed not to believe the truth that he was indeed looking at a spectacularly beautiful woman.

If the same observer was familiar with Wittgenstein's _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ he would also agree that:

Language disguises the thought, so that from the external form of the clothes one cannot infer the form of the thought they clothe, because the external form of the clothes is constructed with quite another object than to let the form of the body be recognized.

The same observer would have to agree that language, as a system of signs, disguises thought in the same way that clothes as a kind of symbolic system also disguises the body hidden beneath the layer of clothing. What is important to the hearer, reader or viewer, is not what is underneath the layer of language or clothing. Language and clothing reveal the shape of hidden forms. It is in the same way that language functions as the superficial surface -covering of thought and makes visible or audible the form of that thought.

The truth of the dress is the form that it reveals. The dress is the medium through which the body's form is expressed. The dress as a medium is capable of symbolically communicating the idea of the body's form that lays hidden beneath the thin veil of the covering fabric.

The female dress, after being moulded into the form of a garment that ensheaths the female body, also transcends its empirical appearance as a superficial layer of covering fabric by becoming the medium of expression which makes visible the actual form and truth of the self that is embodied in the female body hidden from view beneath the garment, in the same way that language is the medium for the expression of the mind's thoughts and thinking about the nature and meaning of Truth and Being.

CHAPTER 28

He realized that he was like one of those naïve impressionable, malleable, inexperienced virgins who had run out of oil and were now wondering through the streets at night.

In the Gospel's parable of the ten virgins, the weddings typically of the east generally took place at night, hence the need to carry lamps and torches. The carrying of torches and lamps by the friends and attendents, who accompany the noctural bridal party through the dark streets at night, may have had some religious significance among the ancient Romans and Greeks who also had similar practices. It was not an accident that the virgins formed a group of ten. In Judaism ten persons formed a quorum for prayer and readings. Whenever there were ten Jews living in one place, they formed a congregation, which justified the building of a synagogue.

He also, for some odd reason, remembered the Hebrew words of the ancient canticle for a wedding song from the Song of Songs:

_Ons suster is nog klein, haar borste is nog nie ontwikkel nie. Wat kan ons vir ons suster doen die dag as hulle om haar hand begin meeding? As sy 'n muur was, het ons op haar n silwer toring gebou, as sy n deur was, het ons haar toegemaak met sederplanke_.

( _We have a little sister, and her breasts are not yet grown.What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for?_ _If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver on her.If she is a door, we will enclose her with panels of cedar._ )

Looking into the mirror, Joab murmured to himself in Hebrew:

I am a wall,.and my breasts are like towers.Thus I have become in his eyeslike one bringing contentment.

Tonight he felt like a bride on her nocturnal journey to meet her bridegroom, and to bring him contentment with his breasts.

The road to the beckoning lights of Johannesburg wound like a shiny black snake through the vast, freshly sown maize fields of the Western Transvaal. In the gathering dusk the maize fields lay supine and yielding before his gaze like the fresh body of a young woman, voluptuous and fertile. Voluptuous, yielding and fertile lay the feminine body of the rich arable Highveld earth which had been ploughed and seeded by the husbandman. The freshly ploughed maize fields lay prostrate under the mauve sunset. Exploding ambers filled the rear view mirror transforming blue gum trees into black burn-out silhouettes. Joab slowed down as a flock of guinea fowl scurried across the road. They flew over the barb wire fence and glided across the knee-high dry brown veld that stretched to the horizons.

He could not remember the names of any of the clubs where homosexuals, transvestites and lesbians hung out.

He had no idea where he was going and what he was planning to do. He heard about different places in Hillbrow like Plumb Crazy, Bella Napoli Nightclub and the Café De Paris. He had a vague idea of how to get to Hillbrow. He knew that he had to take the Smit Street off-ramp proceed straight down Smit Street until the Twist Street intersection and then left right, proceed up the hill and after Kotze Street turn right into Pretoria Street. Once one was in Pretoria Street one had to start looking for parking because one would then be in the pulsating heart of Hillbrow.

He spotted a parking space becoming vacant up ahead and took it. After parking, he took of his takkies and put on his high heels which he had left laying on the floor by the front passenger seat. He adjusted the rear view mirror to examine his make-up. Reaching for his bag laying on the passenger seat, he unclipped it, took out the lipstick tube and applied a layer of lipstick. After putting the tube back, he felt around in the bag for the breath-freshener and sprayed it into his mouth. The traffic was almost bumper to bumper in Pretoria Street, as soon as there was a gap he opened his door, grabbing his bag, he slung the shoulder strap over his left shoulder, quickly closed the car door, locked the car and made for the pavement.

Standing on the crowded pavement with streams of people walking by in both directions, he began to feel breathless; his heart started pounding almost uncontrollably. Glancing nervously around, he noticed that passing men, even those walking with their girlfriends, turned their heads to stare at him. Exposed to the public gaze of men, he felt himself becoming transformed through a kind of metamorphosis into the erotic image of the very woman that had magically imprinted herself into the fantasies of their brains. The flattering gazes of good-looking men gave him confidence. He could see himself through their eyes, from the same externalized vantage point, as if he were outside of himself, as if he were looking into the same mirror and seeing his own erotically inviting, sensual reflection through the interested, lustful, longing, desiring and lingering stares of passing men. He felt the pleasant intoxication of his own desirability. He felt the rare and supremely mystical, mysterious narcissistic ecstasy of being an unfathomably beautiful woman.

It was an exceedingly pleasurable sensation to be seen as beautiful and desirable. The fabulous garment in which his feminized body was hidden allowed him to publically masquerade as a man disguised as a woman in what felt more and more like a surreal carnivalesque parade, buoyed by the noise, the crowds, the glowing neon lights, and the grid- locked bumper to bumper traffic. Walking with more and more confidence along the pavement in stiletto high heels with hips swaying and bosom pushed out, he basked in the warm glow of sensual pleasure as he excited desire in the eyes of male onlookers.

He began to feel like a mare on heat. Stepping comfortably in his stilettos, he walked through the crowds with the wantonly fluid, flowing, graceful and natural rhythmic motions of an accomplished dancer. He felt like a prancing filly, feverish with anticipation, wild with desire to be mounted, to feel the penetrating shaft of an excited stallion.

_You, my love, excite men as a mare excites the stallions of Pharaoh's chariots_.

He stopped at the corner of Claim and Pretoria Street. Catching the eye of a couple and feeling mildly silly, he asked them softly and politely in Afrikaans if they knew where he could find a discotheque. They gave him directions to Plumb Crazy. He turned around and walked back towards the club. It was a heterosexual club. He knew he should have been asking for directions to the nearest gay or transvestite club but felt too embarrassed to ask anyone.

In spite of his perfect makeup, his bracelets, earrings and his glamorous outfit, he still felt like a country bumpkin who was completely out of his depth. He knew that he was very naïve and innocent, and would easily be exploited by any man of the world who would be quite willing to enjoy plucking the delicate rose bud of his virginity that night.

At Plumb Crazy he paid the entrance fee, they stamped his wrist and he pressed his way into the hot and crowded club. He had a sudden brain wave. He would ask one of the barmen about gay clubs in the vicinity. Pushing and squeezing through the crush of bodies on the way to the bar, Joab tripped over someone's shoe, losing his balance, he began to stumble. The quick strong arms of a tall well-built man caught him.

" _Baie dankie_."

(Thank you)

He heard himself say softly. He looked up and saw a good looking man with beautiful white teeth grinning down at him; he had a cheerful manner and an amused twinkle in his eyes. His heterosexual cologne smelt wonderful and he said with an English accent

" _Dis is 'n groot plesier_."

(It is a pleasure)

He could not help smiling back at the man as the DJ turned up the volume of Dusty Springfield's Son of a Preacher Man.

The man smiled back and asked.

" _Wil jy dans_?"

(Do want to dance?)

Realising that being good was not so easy, he felt it would be rude to turn down the man's invitation. The man put his arm around Joab's waist and steered him to the crowded dance floor.

Self-consciously amused by the awkwardness of his own dance movements, he was surprised, excited and pleasantly aroused by the sight of Joab's natural, sensual and rhythmic improvised dance movements, as Joab confidently took command of the crowded dance space with his own visually captivating physical interpretation of the music. Watching Joab dancing effortlessly in stilettos, with hips swaying, upper body moving and arms swinging, he realized that Joab was an accomplished dancer.

But this did not stop from him from asking Joab for the next dance when the music of Son of a Preacher Man ended.

Feeling suddenly slutty in the presence of such a good looking man, Joab smiled his acceptance.

He danced several dances with him. The man asked if Joab would like something to drink and he accepted the man's offer. Taking Joab's hand, the man guided him to a dark corner near the bar. He squeezed Joab's hand and in a reflex reaction Joab's fingers spontaneously reciprocated by tightening his own grip. He instantly started to panic when he realized that he had unwittingly signalled his acquiescence.

With shock he felt the full intractable, passive immanence of feminine embodiment. Just before they sat down, Joab in a state of alarm, he could only think of one thing. He had to warn this heterosexual man. But what was he going to say to him? He had to think up a word, a suitable adjective, an appropriate predicate that would define him and allow him to escape. He could only think of one such word and so he blurted it out English:

"I am queer," he stammered in a feminized Afrikaans accent.

The man did not understand. He looked puzzled.

"I beg your pardon," he said to Joab.

Joab repeated what he had just said.

"I am queer," he said again, trying to look as serious and solemn as possible, because this had now become a serious matter that could lead to all kinds of regrettable consequences.

The man smiled broadly.

"It does not matter, you will be OK, just sit down here and I will get you a Coca Cola, it will help you feel better," the man said and before Joab could respond, he hurried off to the bar to buy Joab the cool drink.

It immediately dawned on Joab that a miscommunication had arisen between them. The stranger, knowing that he was Afrikaans, misinterpreted the sense or meaning of Joab's warning. Joab guessed that the man thought he was feeling queer as in "woozy," possibly because of the heat, the noise, the exertion from the dancing or whatever makes a woman suddenly feel queer or woozy. Obviously the sugar in the coke was going to fix 'her' up and the tall handsome blond man with the broad shoulders and charming manner was banking on that. Maybe he thought that 'she' was some dumb Afrikaans broad who was going to be an easy fuck, like an animal.

In his mind, the openly erotic manner in which 'she' moved 'her' beautiful body while 'she' danced in 'her' stilettos seemed to signal that 'she' was eminently fuckable.

Men treat women as animals, as reproductive machines, whose sole role is to sustain the continuity of the human species through sexual reproduction. This is what Simone Beauvoir proposed in her book _The Second Sex_. In cross-dressing and acting out he had given up his transcendence as a male. He had taken on the female role of pure immanence. He had become a field that was going to be ploughed. His body was going to be the perfumed garden for male pleasure. The tall blond man wanted to be Joab's husbandman, he wanted to plough and fertilize Joab's body.

He left sitting Joab in the dark corner, a few minutes later he returned with two cokes. He said down close to Joab who was now trapped between the man and the corner. It was too noisy to talk. Soon the man started to become amorous and before Joab could react he felt the man's lips pressing against his own. He felt the man's tongue making flickering movements between his lips as it he tried to press his tongue into Joab's mouth. When Joab parted his lips slightly to breathe, the tongue probed deep into his mouth. He felt an exquisite rush of incredible sexual pleasure as the man's tongue probed and moved about in his mouth. The man started to grope Joab. Joab felt the man's palm moving over his breast he quickly pushed the man's hand away. The man's hand then moved down between Joab's knees and then up the inside of his stocking-encased thighs. Joab's body immediately stiffened, he clamped his strong firm thighs tightly together, trapping the man's hand between the smooth silky insides of his naked upper thighs. Filled with terror at the prospect of this obviously heterosexual man discovering his true sex, he began to struggle out of man's tight embrace. While breaking free, he muttered.

" _Ek is jammer, ek moet nou gaan_."

(I am sorry, I have to go now)

He grabbed his handbag and quickly vanished into the crowd. He spotted the sign for the ladies toilet and hastily made his way there. The toilet was crowded with girls. As soon as a toilet became vacant, he rushed in and locked the door. Feeling feverish with sexual excitement he hiked up the short skirt, sat down on the toilet seat and pulled his panties down to his ankles. He had spent the whole day feverishly preparing himself for a romantic adventure in a club for queers in Hillbrow. In the back of mind he had replayed his own erotic version of the Angolan _tableau vivant_ in which the medic bent so sensuously over the dresser in front of the mirror with his legs spread apart. Now, instead of being in the arms of a handsome gay lover, he found himself sitting behind the closed door of the women's toilet abusing himself while someone knocked impatiently on the door for him to hurry up as there was a long queue outside and they could not stand there all night with their bursting bladders.

He rushed himself to a speedy climax, hurriedly he wiped away the semen with toilet paper and flushed the soiled paper down the toilet, pulling up his panties and straightening out his skirt, he beat a hasty retreat out of the club.

Outside the club the feel of the fresh cool night air against his feverish cheeks was a welcome relief and he breathed deeply to calm himself down. When he had regained his composure, he asked for directions to the Café du Paris. At the Café du Paris he ordered filter coffee and a slice of chocolate cake. Sipping his coffee, he began to take stock of the day's drama that he had put himself through.

His romantic adventure had turned into a complete debacle. He could no longer suppress the reality which he had for so long denied. He was honesty uncertain about his gender. He had beautiful breasts but no vagina. And then there was the dream he had of Segomotso.

He also imaged himself having everything, a pair of beautiful breasts, a penis and a vagina. Now only the vagina was missing. He found the fantasy of being a human hermaphrodite sexually enchanting. It would be amazing to be both penetrator and penetratee. What could be more erotic than to be joined in a sexual embrace through mutual reciprocal penetration?

Tonight, after the Plumb Crazy incident and his dream of Segomotso, it dawned on him that he was bisexual. He could finally accept that he was indeed bisexual. He was sexually attracted to men and he was also sexually attracted to certain kinds of women. He found Segomotso to be sexually attractive and he could visualize making love to her. She did excite him erotically; he had just ignored the obvious.

To complicate matters, he was basically a bisexual transvestite, if there could ever be such a thing. Maybe he was the only person in the world that wanted to be bisexual cross-dressing transvestite hermaphrodite and to become a real hermaphrodite he would have to add a vagina to his body. He would indeed be complete if he could have all three things: breasts, penis and vagina.

What if there existed somewhere in the Universe, a female biased planet where human-like creatures wore makeup and dresses, and sex was always perfectly reciprocal with both partners being penetrated by each other in a simultaneous fashion, both experiencing simultaneously exquisite male and female orgasms, both becoming simultaneously impregnated, both becoming pregnant and both giving birth to children?

Maybe this is what heaven would be like. Maybe in heaven there would only feminized hermaphrodites, maybe this is the meaning of there being no male and female in heaven.

Maybe in the resurrection of the dead, the resurrected body would be that of a feminized hermaphrodite, being neither man nor woman.

Why are there two separate kinds of sexes anyway, especially when a single individual could have both male and female genitalia? Maybe it was by pure chance, pure contingency that two separate kinds of sexes came into existence.

Using one's imagination, it was possible to conceive alternative kinds of biological reality where a more sophisticated, beautiful, caring, reciprocal and kinder way of having sexual relationships between individual partners could exist. He thought how wonderful it would be to have a biological situation were both partners could bear each other's children. How wonderful would it be for two people to have the capacity to mutually impregnate each other and bear each other's child? Their offspring would still be biological brothers and sisters. Both spouses would simultaneously be father and mothers of the two children, the products of their union. Everyone would be simultaneously a mother and a father. Women would possess internal testes and internal long flexible eversible penises that on erection would pop out of the body cavity. In the absence of the penile erection all humans would look like women. This was not biologically impossible.

There would be no division of labour. It would be world without men, without gender, without war, without violence. Everyone would be bisexual. Everyone would be gay in a manner of speaking. Everyone would be queer. It would a Universe in which all living organisms would be queer. Being queer would be natural, it would be the norm. Not being queer would be something unimaginable, something completely inconceivable.

Maybe there was another aspect to Aristophanes' myth in Plato's _Symposium_. Maybe the dividing of the original hermaphrodites into a separate males and females was the event that brought conflict into the world.

He looked at his watch it was half-past twelve. Outside Hillbrow still was still bustling frenetically with activity, inside he felt like an emotional wreck. He began to experience powerful feelings of regret and guilt. He felt wretched and depressed as he sat alone at the table. He ordered another cup of coffee. He felt the stares of people boring like laser beams into him. They were wondering why such an attractive, elegantly groomed woman in her expensive boutique cocktail dress was doing sitting all alone by herself with such a sad and melancholic face.

He thought about Segomotso, he thought about the deep feelings of affection he had developed for her. He could even imagine her as his lover and even possibly as his wife. He looked at his watch it was 1.30 am in the morning. Without being aware, time had moved on while he sat in deep meditation at the table in the Café du Paris. It was time to go back to Potchefstroom.

After paying and tipping the waiter he made his way to the car. The streets were no longer crowded. All the bars and restaurants had closed. A passing car slowed down when the driver spotted Joab. The car stopped at the curb a short distance in front of Joab. As he walked past the car, the driver rolled down the window and called out Joab:

"You want to do some business darling?"

Realizing that he was been propositioned as a prostitute, he decided to ignore the driver. Clutching his bag tightly to his chest, he quickened his pace. The loud sharp rhythmic shock of his high heels against the concrete pavement resonated against the tall buildings towering above the street. The driver started the car and drove after Joab, drawing abreast he stretched his head out of the window and continued to proposition him:

"Do you want to fuck? How much do you charge for a fuck? How about R 50.00? How about R 100.00 then?"

When Joab ignored him and continued walking rapidly onwards; the man driving his car next to Joab shouted angrily at Joab from the open car window:

"Fuck you, you bitch, who do think you are, you just a fucking whore, a low life, lower than shark shit, and you can't get lower than that."

"Bitch, whore, fucking bitch, fucking whore, you are just a fucking prostitute......." He shouted angrily at Joab. Joab quickly crossed the street and walked away.

******

On the journey back to Potchefstroom, Joab switched on the car radio, picking up the BBC broadcast channel, he listened to a magazine programme on Bobbie Gentry. She was born in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. She grew up on her grandparent's farm in Chickasaw County. In 1967, when Lyndon Johnson announced that 45 000 more troops would be sent to Vietnam, she wrote and recorded Ode to Billy Joe. During that time, instigated by Stokely Carmichael, Black Power activists called for violent revolution on the streets of the cities of the USA.

While listening to the story of Bobbie Gentry's musical career he began to have vivid surreal recollections of the terrifying nights in Angola.

Hearing about Bobbie Gentry's story was incongruous.

It reminded him of something completely out of place that had happened during a lull in the bombardment.

Crouched in his foxhole, he was covered with layers of sand that had rained down in the dark following nearby shell explosions. He heard frantic shouting in the dark. People began calling out to each other from their foxholes. Voices, scared shitless, shouted randomly in the dark:

"Christo is jy alright?"

"Hennie is jy alright?"

"Dirk is jy alright?"

(Christo are you alright?)

(Hennie are you alright?)

(Dirk are you alright?)

He listened to people shouting back and forth, reporting on their status. And then everything became quiet again as they waited. Nearby someone switched on his transistor radio and managed to tune into the Voice of America. They all heard the crackling sounds of an American accented documentary on Jimmy Hendrix which filled the pitch black night. As they waited they listened to The Wind Cries Mary. The bombardment did not resume.

Unable to sleep they waited for the sun to rise, listening to Jimmy Hendrix, the greatest rock guitarist of all time, as the star lit sky revolved in the vast expanse of the Angolan night.

In the distance Joab could see the glowing halo of Potchefstroom. Stirred by the beautiful, haunting rendition of the suicide ballade, Ode to Billy Joe, by Bobbie Gentry, he began to sob uncontrollably.

CHAPTER 29

His night out had turned into a catastrophe. He had experienced the unbridgeable gulf between his fantasy and reality. In reality he been mistaken for a dolled up naive farm girl from the platteland and then he had been mistaken for a prostitute by some curb crawler. After locking the kitchen door he switched on the kettle to boil water for a cup of tea. He began to feel pangs of regret.

His head had been filled with theory. He could quite readily theorize about the Hellenic and the Hebraic ideas about the nature of man and the nature of man's will. The Greeks had a more philosophical view of man's will. It was argued that reason played a supreme role in the decision-making process. The Hebraic or Biblical view of man's will was more voluntaristic. In being voluntaristic, it was not guided by reason; it was bound by obedience to divine law.

The will should be guided by reason. The will should not be a slave to compulsion, to inclination, to desire. Even as a transvestite, reason and right conscience must be his moral guides.

He reflected on his need to love and to be loved. He decided that this need should always be guided by reason and right conscience. If he could remain consciously aware of this, he would be able to avoid emotional and psychological hazards. He would be able to avoid the pangs of regret.

He felt empty and depressed.

After removing his makeup, nail vanish and showering, he retrieved his 9 mm Glock pistol from its hiding place. It was neatly wrapped in soft cloth within a wooden box.

Wearing only a pair of scants, he went back to the bathroom and sat down on the wooden toilet seat cover. At the break of dawn he decided that he would shoot himself through the mouth, through the upper palate as he lay in the empty bath. He visualized his lifeless body lying in the bath.

He had seen countless dead bodies before. Some were freshly dead, others that had become rotting corpses, the air heavy with their putrefying stench.

Walking back to the bedroom with the Glock in this hand, he decided for the sake of modesty, to get dressed. Leaving the Glock lying on his bed, he put on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. He had always been meticulously tidy person. He did not want to leave a mess behind.

It was also pointless to write a note.

In death all his secrets will be revealed. They would gaze upon his lifeless feminized body.

Picking up the Glock, he went back to the bathroom. Climbing into the bath, he lay down in the bath with his head resting on the back of the bathtub. After cocking the pistol, he pushed the pistol's muzzle into his mouth and pressed it firmly against his palate with his right hand index figure curled around the trigger.

In the 1975 invasion of Angola, the officers often joked that one should not worry too much about dying because you will never know that you have died. This had always stuck in this mind. Before thinking about squeezing the trigger, he took comfort in the thought that he was an 'orphan'. His suicide would cause very little pain, hurt and grief. He had no living relatives that he could think off. He could not think of anyone who would experience his passing away as an unbearable painful loss. Therefore, morally he felt at peace, his suicide was not going to hurt anyone. His passing away would not be a catastrophe.

He felt no guilt for being a cross-dresser; he felt no guilt for his transvestism. He felt no guilt for all his shenanigans that lead to his nocturnal journey that had ended in Hillbrow at the Plum Crazy night club.

But still he could not help feeing wretched and depressed. He had no desire to live any longer. He was emotionally drained and psychologically exhausted. The feminization hormone therapy had been a lonely journey, which he had undertaken in secret with no loving support from anyone, and it had finally taken its toll. He felt completely burn-out. He now knew that only disaster awaited him. Eventually it would be discovered what he had been up to, it would become public knowledge. He did not have the will power to stop doing the transvestite stuff; he would do it again and again, until he was caught. He began to think of it as a disease, a mental disease over which he had no control.

He realized that he was not thinking rationally; he was not in his right mind. He began to have doubts about himself. He began to wonder about his mental state; he began to wonder whether his feminized brain was a mental disorder, a kind of psychological pathology. His self-perception began to take a nose dive as reflected on his condition. He began to feel increasingly negative about himself; his prospects in life appeared to be growing dimmer and dimmer.

Making the transition from Potchefstroom to an emotionally supportive transvestite community as a transformed or metamorphosed feminized man had been an idyllic fantasy right from the start. There was so such thing as an emotionally supportive transvestite community in South Africa.

There was no community life for his kind. There was no community of queers, not even a queer ghetto to which he could flee and find refuge. There was no sanctuary for queers in South Africa where they could live their lives as normal human beings in peace.

He could only be a queer in isolation.

He felt increasing confused about everything. He began to toy with the idea that he was in a state of emotional shock. Maybe he had actually been in state of suppressed emotional shock for years, ever since the army. Maybe he had been living subconsciously the life of some kind of war casuality, a mental or emotional casuality of the stress, trauma and horror of war.

In Kavangoland and Angola, on reflection he often felt surprised with himself; he seemed to have an innate capacity to endure the stresses of war. He even discovered that he could mentally endure the nightly bombardments in Angola without breaking down, as many of the others did. But maybe he hadn't really survived the wars. Maybe the constant threat of sudden, violent death had exacted a hidden or invisible or unconscious toll deep in his psyche, and now he was paying the price with all kinds of emotional pains including black depressions.

Why had the failure of the Hillbrow trip precipitated his desire to commit suicide?

What was he expecting? Was he expecting the healing balm of genuine, authentic and intimate love in the arms of a stranger?

Was he too needy?

On reflection he concluded that his expectations were unreasonable, they were baseless, they were based on madness, they were based on a sick mind.

He began to have doubts about everything that mattered deeply to him. He found himself standing at the emotional edge of the yawning abyss of self-pity. If he sinks into self-pity, then he is done for. Why was he thinking this? Was it the inner voice of the soldier within him, the voice that warns against feelings of self-pity?

Deep down he was a soldier, how could he not be?

But he had been made a soldier against his will; he had been conditioned to be a soldier in his inner core.

He was riven with conflicts and contradictions and paradoxes, he was a person that felt torn apart, he had been rent asunder, and he had been cut to pieces.

He struggled to draw away from the abyss. Why now all of these feelings of self-pity he wondered? He started to feel angry with himself.

He began to seek comfort in the retreat of self-blame.

He started to reflect on the fact that he alone was to blame for what he had done to himself. If there was any victim of his wrong doing, it would only be himself. At the end of the day he only had himself to blame for the wretched mess he had made of his life. At least some comfort could be drawn from the fact that there were no other victims. He could not bring himself to pray, and he felt no need to leave any suicide note. He would be taking no personal secrets with him to the grave. There would be enough evidence to reconstruct the narrative and plot of his life. The full, shocking truth of his life will be disclosed to everyone. He was a cross-dresser. He was transvestite. He was a queer.

The shocking truth would be shouted from the rooftops.

What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight. What you have whispered to someone behind closed doors will be shouted from the rooftops.

In death he would be joining the others of platoon number 2, the others who had already died. He would be joining the others who knew that he was a _moffie_. He was going down that same road that they had walked. Now it was his time to make that journey. The soldier's grave is by the side of the road.

We all die our own deaths. Better to die by your own hand than by the enemy's bullet or by the unpredictable lethal contingencies that haunt the finitude of human existence.

The surviving members of the platoon would not be surprised by the disclosure that he was a transvestite. They already knew that he was _moffie_. Ironically, the members of his platoon who were also now in the same Citizen Force Regiment, were his community. In spite of being a queer, he had been accepted into the brotherhood of soldiers as one of them, he was a brother, he was their brother, even if they were fascist bastards. He had been invited to their weddings. He had been invited to the Christening of their children. He had been invited to the drunken braais in the bush. Many of the brothers were struggling with their own problems. Some of the brothers were constantly in trouble with the law. Maybe they had all become damaged in one way or another by the wars. Maybe they had all become dysfunctional in one or other kind of way.

Maybe, like them, he too was also damaged. Maybe something had really happened inside his head in Kavangoland and in Angola. Maybe that was the reason for his depression, for his feelings of angst, for his inexplicable anxiety attacks, for his manic states of incredible elation, for his reckless compulsions, for his spells of extreme hyper alertness, when he would swear that he could hear an ant walking outside.

The members of the old platoon would come to his funeral. They would be his pall bearers. At his funeral each one them will offer a generous eulogy full of praise that would confirm his standing as one of the bravehearts, as one of the _manne_ (men). They would reclaim him; they would claim his dead body, drawing him back into the bosom of their masculinity, they would bury him, they would lay him down in his final resting place, they would weep at his graveside.

Afterwards they would get drunk at the Elgro Hotel and talk about the war into the depths of the night, until closing time.

They would talk about the massacre of SWAPO in the open woodlands of Kavangoland. They would brag about the AK 47s they had hidden in their homes. Their secrets were safe within the brotherhood. Some of the brothers were serving lengthy jail sentences for violent crimes. Some of the brothers had died by their own hand.

Among the brothers there was a code of silence.

After burying Joab, they would wonder when it would be their time.

Joab lay in the empty bath. The white cold enamel pressed against his body.

God must do what God has to do, and so be it with his fate. He closed his eyes as he started to gently squeeze the trigger.

He felt his mouth go dry and his heart started to pound violently. He released the trigger and pulled the muzzle from his mouth. There would be a victim if he killed himself. It would be Segomotso. His death would have an impact on her life. Because of her, he suddenly felt that it would be wrong for him to commit suicide. He had developed feelings for her. He suddenly felt that he had an obligation towards her. He had an obligation to go on living, even if it was only for Segomotso.

It suddenly dawned on him that he actually had a reason to live. In fact, he had a duty to live. And there was the dress that he made for her. Segomotso was the only reason he had found to continue living.

Segomotso had unknowingly saved Joab from death by his own hand.

******

He stopped his hormone therapy and psychotherapy. He joined the gym and began to spend several hours a week on the road running. He started to reach out to Segomotso by telling her that she must stop calling him baas. He told her to call him by his first name Joab, or by his surname as Mr Badenhorst, if she felt uncomfortable calling him by his first name.

To be on first name terms would drastically change the parameters of their relationship. It would no longer be in the mould of the typical South African white-black, master-servant relation. It would become a relationship that would be more conducive for intimate and personal conversations which had started to develop between them when they were alone together. If they were on first name terms, then the final barrier would have been removed, and then if anything happened between them, it would be in a consensual manner. For Joab that was an important moral principal. The relationship between a man and woman had to be consensual for it to be genuinely erotic and moral at the same time, and he liked things to be genuine and authentic, and also moral. A relationship that may become a physically intimate one should never be forced or contrived, or influenced by manipulation. It was one of his morals when it came to relationships.

But Segomotso could not bring herself to call him by his first name, or even formally by his surname. Instead, she kept on calling him Baas Joab. In was in Joab's nature to be egalitarian. He had started to find all social hierarchies, especially hierarchies of racial domination, which he found repugnant. He had always loathed speaking down to people.

His dressmaking business gradually started to pick up again.

With perseverance and time Segomotso began to laugh whenever Joab made some random funny remark and she also began to smile more readily and spontaneously whenever he spoke to her about all kinds of amusing trivialities that he could think up on the car journeys to the location. For example he told her that there were more oak trees lining the streets in Potchefstroom than any other town or city in South Africa. He told her that he did not really like the oak trees because they were not indigenous to South Africa. He told her that Potchefstroom was also the flattest town in South Africa, and that explained why everyone in Potchefstroom rode bicycles.

He started to be on the lookout for opportunities where he could be alone with Segomotso. So whenever Rudi was not around in the afternoon at the cottage, he would insist that he give her a lift back to the location.

It was in the privacy of the VW Beetle that Joab continued to work hard at breaking down the remaining barriers and bridging the chasm that separated him the Boer, from her the Motswana woman. He began to ask personal questions about her history, her schooling, her family, her likes and dislikes, the music that she liked. He even asked her whether she had a boyfriend. She didn't have a boyfriend. In fact, she never ever had a boyfriend. It turned out that she was a bit of a snob and looked down with distain at all the would-be suitors who lived in the location. He even asked her what she wanted out of life. She started to enjoy the freewheeling conversation that they had in the privacy of the car on the journeys to Ikageng. Of course Joab was now going out of his way to make her feel special and important.

He was becoming increasingly curious about her as a person. Even though he was chatty for the first few minutes of the journey, he quickly ran out of things to say to her. It was sometimes difficult to find a topic of conservation that would sustain a genuine conversation for the duration of the journey to Ikageng. When he ran out things to talk about, they lapsed into silence. He hated the silences. As long as the silences endured, he became the _baas_ again and she became the docile domestic servant. Sitting quietly in the passenger seat, she became in his eyes the unassuming, submissive, compliant, meek and obedient black maid.

As they drove down the oak-lined lanes he began to think up questions that he could ask her, questions that may get her talking, questions that would keep her talking. He remembered that she had once said on a previous occasion that she liked. to read

" _Het jy onlangs enige interessante geboek lees_?" He asked her one afternoon.

(Have you recently read any interesting books?)

He immediately regretted asking the question. It sounded patronizing.

She knew that he read books; his room was full of books. The cottage was full of his books. There were books everywhere. She had never seen so many books before. She actually took notice of the books. When she packed the books into neat stacks or put them back on the bookshelves she often out of curiosity, read their titles and flipped through the pages.

" _Ja, ek is nou besig om 'n baie interessante boek te lees_ ," she answered.

(I am actually reading a very interesting book now)

He did not know if she was serious, maybe she was just giving him the answer that she guessed he wanted to hear. Maybe she interpreted it as a leading question. But her reply ignited his curiosity. What kind of books could she possibly be reading?

" _Watter boek lees jy nou_?" He asked.

(What book are now you reading?)

"Ek is besig om Sol Plaatje se boek Mhudi te lees," she answered softly.

(I am busy reading Sol Plaatje's book called Mhudi)

"Lees jy Sol Plaatje se boek in Engels of Setswana?" He asked out of interest.

(Are you reading Sol Plaatje's books in English or Setswana?)

" _Die boek is in Engels geskryf_ ," she replied.

(The book is written in English)

" _Geniet jy die boek_?" He asked.

(Are you enjoying the book)

" _Ja_ ," She replied.

(Yes)

" _Lees jy ook Setswana boeke_?" He asked.

(Do you only read books in Setswana?)

" _Ja ek lees Setswana boeke ook_ ," she replied.

(Yes, I also read Setswana books)

" _Lees jy die Bybel_?"

(Do you read the Bible)

" _Ja ek lees die Bybel baie_."

(Yes I read the Bible a lot)

" _Lees jy 'n Setswana Bybel_?"

(Do read the Bible in Setswana?)

" _Ja, maar ek lees ook die Engelse Bybel. Ek lees die NSV_ _Bybel._ "

(Yes, but I also read the Bible in English. I read the NSV Bible)

" _Watter Tswana skrywers hou jy van_?" He asked.

(What Tswana writers do you like?)

" _Ek hou baie van Leetile Disang Raditladi_."

(I like Leetile Disang Raditladi very much)

She turned and looked at him. Her face broke into a spontaneous smile. She was both surprised and intrigued that he was so interested in what she read. She was amused at the way his face lit up when she told him that she enjoyed reading. She could see he that was astonished to learn that she was reading Setswana books, but she could also see that he was genuinely delighted to hear that she enjoyed reading.

He felt himself smiling back at her.

They glanced at each other. It was an intimate exchange of glances. She gave him a searching look.

" _Raditladi_?" He asked.

" _Ja, hy het baie verskillende boeke geskryf, nie net storie boeke nie, hy het ook n toneelspel of teater-spel boeke geskryf, en ook poesie boek_ e," she elaborated.

(Yes, he wrote many different kinds of books, not just novels. He wrote plays and poetry.)

" _Ek hou baie van teater toneelspel . Op skool ek het 'n rol in Raditladi's se Dintshontsho tsa lorato gespeel. Ek het Mmamotia gespeel_."

(I like drama and plays and theatre. While at school I played a part in Raditladi's play called _Dintshontsho tsa lorato._ I played the part of Mmamotia.)

******

On that day Joab discovered the open door that offered him access to Segomotso. The key to the door would be his new found interest in Setswana culture, literature and poetry and she was ready to indulge his curiosity.

Without understanding a single word, he listened to her recite poetry in Setswana while they drove through the streets of Potchefstroom on the way to Ikageng location. Listening to her speak Setswana sounded like music. The language in her mouth was beautiful, it sounded like she was singing. She laughed when she saw the intense expression of concentration on his face as he listened to her speak her language.

She translated the poetry into Afrikaans.

He asked her to sing hymns in Setswana. He also asked her to sing traditional Setswana songs. She had a beautiful, strong and rich Soprano voice.

She laughed when he asked her to sing. As an African she was not shy when it came to singing. Singing was something she did naturally and spontaneously. She joyfully endulged him and sung for him as they drove to Ikageng location.

In the afternoons on their journey to Ikageng location the interior of VW resonated with Segomotso's singing. She sang ancient traditional Batswana songs, she sang Batswana wedding songs, she sang the Catholic Mass in Setswana, she sang hymns of the Catholic Church in Setswana, and she sang the 'Our Father' in Setswana.

One afternoon while Joab was taking her home, he asked her if she knew anything about Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned on Robben Island. She denied knowing anything about Nelson Mandela. However, after a week or so later, on a Friday afternoon just before she was about to knock-off and go home, she knocked softly on his closed bedroom door. He was busy cutting and sewing fabric for over a dozen ball customs which had to be ready by the end of the following week, when he heard the soft knock on his door.

When he called ' _binne_ , _'_ she opened the door and came into the bedroom and stood behind him where he was working on the sewing machine. She wanted to say something important but had become hesitant, as if she had second thoughts about the purpose of her intrusion. Her eyes flitted over the room taking in the piles of drawings of various dress designs and patterns, the sewing machine, the ironing board, the rolls of fabrics and the cut fabrics. It was quite chaotic. Finally, her eyes came to rest on a finished black chiffon dress lying on the bed. Joab had just completed his project on the dress for Segomotso.

After taking in everything, she began to address Joab.

Catching Joab completely off guard, Segomotso did the most expected thing, something that Joab could never have prepared himself for; she began to speak to him in English:

"Joab, I just want to tell you that I know everything about Nelson Mandela."

She had never spoken to him in English before.

Her voice sounded different. It was confident. Even though it was strange and out of place for them to be communicating in English, Joab had sufficient presence of mind not to bat an eyelid.

His face did not betray his surprise.

She had dropped the _baas_ title and addressed him directly by his first name.

By speaking English to him and addressing him as Joab she had transformed herself into a mysterious and different person.

She had become another person; she was no longer Segomotso the maid. She seemed to have undergone a complete metamorphosis before his eyes.

She was behaving in a way that he did not anticipate.

His sensory antennae went wild. She continued:

"I know about Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress. We all know about Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC). We know that Nelson Mandela is in prison on Robben Island. One of my uncles is a member of the ANC. He lives in Gaberone. Some of my cousins have also fled to Botswana."

He detected an unmistakeable ring of intimacy in her voice when she spoke to him on first name terms.

By calling him Joab, she confirmed that she was no longer unaware that he had been intentionally but subtly wooing her for some time. By calling him Joab, she was also laying her own tentative claim on him as person, so his that status had now also changed.

They were now on intimate terms.

By addressing him in English, she had removed the invisible barriers. It was through the medium of spoken English that the bond of intimacy had finally formed between herself and Joab.

She had reciprocated to his advances through the medium of English. English was the bridge of intimacy for her.

He had worked hard to subvert and undermine the master-servant relationship. It made her feel confused, uncertain and at times even scared. But now she had pulled out the final supporting brick of the wall, demolishing any psychological or mental wall that stood in the way of genuine intimacy.

She had reciprocated out of her own initiative.

They stood now in each other's presence as two ordinary people who had grown to know and like each other.

He could see the emotional intensity in her eyes as she searched his eyes. Her vulnerability became visible in the expression of her demeanour.

The way in which he looked at her, confirmed to her that Joab had been pursuing her, it was not just her imagination, the signs and signals had become unmistakably clear, and now she was also going through the first tentative process of yielding her fate into Joab's hands, the hands that held power over her, and the hands which she knew wanted to possess her.

Joab noticed that she kept on looking at the dress laying spread out on his bed.

"Do you like the dress?" He asked her, speaking his first words of English to her.

She smiled and said:

"Yes I do, it is a lovely dress."

"I made it for you."

"You can put it on if you want?"

She frowned, and looked confused.

She stood there, unsure, not moving, like a scrub hare trapped in the headlights of a car on dark moonless night.

He pointed to the mirror and persuaded her to put it on to see what she would look like in the dress. She looked again at the dress. He smiled and coaxed her, reminding her that it was hers to take and to keep.

For Segomotso, it was an irresistible enticement. He became aware of the power of the gift, and the power of the giver, on which the patron-client relationship was built. He did not wish or want to nurture a relationship between them that would be based on feelings of obligations in her towards him. Nor did he want her to be a slave to any obligations. He did not want to be her patron, nor did he want to cast her in the role of the obliging and dependent client.

"I decided to make the dress for you on the day that you started working for us. I have been waiting for the right time to give it to you. I want you to have it."

When she heard that he had made it especially for her, she decided that she wanted the dress even more and would try it on. She took the dress and went behind the screen and changed into it. She knew the drill. She had seen the girls coming in for fittings, getting undressed in Joab's room, many times only wearing their panties and bras in his presence. And of course Joab was always very professional when it came to dress fitting.

Stepping into the room from behind the changing screen, she stood before Joab. He turned her around towards the mirror so that she could see herself in the mirror. Standing behind Segomotso he spontaneously put his arms around her waist and held her closely. She did not stiffen or pull away. While holding her, he kissed the back of her neck and on her cheek. She reciprocated by caressing and stroking his left forearm with her right hand, she also ran the tips of her fingers lightly over his knuckles and fingers. He opened the fingers of his hand and she interlaced her fingers with his. He gently squeezed her hand and she also tightened the clasp of her fingers against his. Joab looked up and saw their image in the mirror. A subtle smile of contentment played on her lips, through the mirror she stared back into Joab eyes and he saw himself smiling back at her. The _kopdoek_ that covered her head clashed horribly with the outfit so he removed it and this caused her to burst out laughing.

He remembered that he forgotten something. He disentangled himself and retrieved a pair of new black high heels from a shelf in his cupboard.

Her eyes widened with wonder and disbelief when she saw the shoes in his hand. He made her sit down, kneeling on one knee, he slipped the high heels onto her feet. He then went and sat again on his chair by the sewing machine. She stood up, a bit unsteadily in her new high heels, and pulled the dress down so that it covered her upper thighs. Standing in front of the mirror, she turned around in a full circle executing in the process a graceful pirouette. Joab clapped his hands in appreciation and she laughed.

The dress fitted her perfectly, like a glove. He stared at her with a satisfied smile beaming on his face. She changed back into her work clothes. He gave her a carrier packet for the dress and shoes.

CHAPTER 30

The following week Joab worked round the clock to get all the outfits done in time for the intervarsity rugby ball. Throughout the week, during the day and evenings, there was a never ending train of female students arriving for their custom fittings and alterations, so that their outfits would be ready for the Saturday night ball.

During that week he had no opportunity to touch base with Segomotso after giving her the dress on the previous Friday. In the days that followed after that short, secret moment of beautiful and magical intimacy, the harsh reality of the unbridgeable chasm of the all-pervading, externally imposed racial divide came to haunt both of them in the form of a constant interruption and intrusion of young attractive white Boer girls that flowed incessantly in and out of his bed room.

When he saw Segomotso at brief intervals hovering in the background while doing her domestic chores, he noticed that ther large black eyes had become sad and forlorn. Her shoulders sagged and her strong body appeared to droop as if she were carrying some invisible burden.

Whenever their eyes met, she gave Joab deep searching looks. Her face had never become the passive and impenetrable mask of the South African domestic black servant. Her normal expressive face that always seemed ready to break into a spontaneous smile had become transformed into a face of a person that was feeling hurt and emotional pain. It was the face of someone who had shared a moment of special intimacy with him, her master, who in that moment of deep bonding, had ceased to be her master. It was the face of disappointed expectation.

She had arrived at work on Monday with feelings of elation at the prospect of seeing Joab again; she arrived at the cottage, filled with the expectation that there would be a resumption of that special intimacy that had developed between them.

She knew that he would be very busy with fittings, but she did not anticipate that it would be impossible for them re-establish, nuture and grow the bonds of intimacy that she desired as someone who had fallen in love with Joab.

She did not anticipate that the constant stream of white girls coming to the cottage from early morning to late evening would make her feel insecure about herself. In their presence and in their eyes, she felt herself slipping into the mundane and sterotypical role of the black domestic maid going about her work, unnoticed.

Parked in front of the cottage were cars. His first clients had arrived already early in the morning in the mad rush to have their ball customs done by Friday. Throughout the day there was no ebb in the steady stream of female students that flowed through the kitchen door into Joab's room. They crowded into the house, occupying the kitchen and the lounge.

Doing her housework while the students lounged in the house throughout the day for the entire week reinforced her social status as the invisible black domestic servant.

The black domestic maid has always been an all pervasive South African institution. The black maid lives like a shadow in the background, invisible in her _doek_ and domestic maid's uniform. Her domestic outfit functioned as a highly effective camouflage uniform. In contrast to the clothes that the students wore, Segomotso's uniform defined her identity as a domestic servant. Unseen, in full sight, she went about her chores in the cottage amidst the frenetic and excited bustle of the excited debutantes. In this sense her uniform was not value-free attire. Like children's clothing, it infantilized her, the uniform and _doek_ chosen by Joab as her employer, without her being consulted about its colour or style, reinforced the unequal power relationship between Joab and Segomotso. As a domestic servant in her uniform, she was trapped in a relationship with the white female students which only pre-adolescent children experience with respect to their parents.

Being dressed in a depersonalized domestic's uniform was to be clothed in non-neutral attire which embodied a symbolic system of codes and signs which clearly articulated her diminished non-person status and her inferior role as a mere servant at the beck and call of the employer in Apartheid South Africa. This revelation hit Joab like a bombshell. He should have been well aware of the social significance of different forms of dress, more so than anyone else.

During that week which seemed to stretch out like an unbearable eternity, there was no time to consolidate or work out what was going on between them. Joab, who was fully preoccupied from 6.00 am in the morning to 11.00 pm at night with dressmaking and dress-fitting could not give her a lift home.

He did not feel free. He, like Segomotso were under constant survelliance.

When he had a free moment, he briefly informed her that because of the chaos in the cottage, he did not expect that she would achieve much, so it would OK for her leave a bit earlier every day that week.

She began to wonder whether he was going to be the same person after this week.The girls flirted with him and he joked with them. There had been no chance for them to reconnect after what had happened between them. The previous Friday afternoon seemed to have been lost in the remote past. It had become dreamlike and she wondered whether or not it was actually only a dream and not reality. The only evidence that is was not a dream, was the dress and the high heels. Every night she took the dress out and examined it closely, she found it hard to believe that he had made such an amazing garment with his own hands for her. It was like a dress that one buys in shops. What did the dress mean? Was he in love with her?

Every day that week her stomach churned as she got off the bus and walked along the winding sand track to the cottage. When she got to the cottage, the bright shiny cars would already be parked outside the cottage. Joab kept an appointment book. She saw it lying open on the cutting table. It was booked full from 6.00 am in the morning to late at night for the whole week. Every afternoon she left the cottage feeling sad and empty. All she wanted was to feel his arms wrapped around her waist. All she wanted was for him to kiss her on the back of the neck and her cheek while he held her tightly.

On the previous Saturday night, the evening after he had given Segomotso her dress, he had gone to see a student play at the university. The play was _Die Kersie Boord_. It was a beautiful Afrikaans translation of Chekov's _The Cherry Orchard_. When he saw the forlorn figure of Segomotso during the past hectic week, the words of Trofimov came to mind, reminding him of the situation he shared with all the whites in South Africa

All Russia is our orchard. The earth is so wide, so beautiful, so full of wonderful places. Just think, Anya. Your grandfather, your great-grandfather and all your ancestors owned serfs, they owned human souls. Don't you see that from every cherry-tree in the orchard, from every leaf and every trunk, men and women are gazing at you? if we're to start living in the present isn't it abundantly clear that we've first got to redeem our past and make a clean break with it? And we can only redeem it by suffering and getting down to real work for a change.

In his mind the cherry orchard in Chekov's play was is also a powerful metaphor of South Africa's past and present. A past and present filled with oppression and injustice due to the segregation laws prior to1948 and the post-1948 Apartheid legislation. He also saw in the images of the cherry trees the countless victims of the past and the present. He saw the rising black tide of threatening and ominous masses.

In the Chekov's cherry trees he saw Segomotso's uncertain, searching black eyes, forlorn and melancholic, seeking out his eyes, the eyes of her white lover who had pursued her and won her heart, her eyes which were now haunted by the ghosts of the legions of blacks that had laboured, bowed under the yoke of the white master. During the past week Segomotso felt as if a thousand white hands were pulling him away from her.

That night at the end of a stressful week, after the last client had paid for her dress, he sat on his bed, exhausted, with his head cradled in his hands and his elbows resting on his knees, he closed his eyes and re-ran through his mind the images of Segomotso in her black sheath dress, turning and turning, excitedly in front of the mirror. His heart was heavy that night. He felt estranged from Segomotso. He could see that she was dismayed by the unexpected intrusion of so many female students.

The huge amount of money that he had made the past week, in hard cold cash, felt like an empty consolation.

It had been impossible to indulge Segomotso in an intimate and personal manner, his fleeting smiles of reassurance that he gave her felt hollow and superficial. The whole week he felt overwhelmed with the demands to satisfy the vanity of so many women that he had nothing left for Segomotso. He had barely slept and barely eaten the past week.

On the Sunday afternoon, after the rugby intervarsity and the rugby ball, Rudi announced that he would be going away on a two week fishing vacation with his father who was taking his well-deserved long leave. He would be leaving at the crack of dawn on Monday morning.

That night Joab slept like the dead. At 3.00 am that morning, the sound of Rudi revving the bakkie to warm up its engine woke him up, but only for a brief moment, after a few seconds of semi-wakefulness, he fell again into a deep sleep. He woke up at 7.00 am, he glanced at his watched, quickly showered and brushed his teeth, slipped into old jeans and pulled on an old T-shirt, and walked bare foot to the kitchen. He decided he was also going to take a week's holiday. He felt burnt out. He made a pot of tea and warmed up some milk on the stove for his cereal. After his breakfast he sat at the kitchen table waiting for the arrival of Segomotso. For a moment the thought passed through his mind that she may not come back.

At 7.45 am sharp he heard the metallic sound of her key turning in the lock and as the kitchen door handle started to turn, he leapt from his chair for the kitchen door. He pulled the door open, giving her a huge fright.

She stood there in the door way in her neatly ironed crisp and clean overall, wearing her white _doek_ and white takkies, ready to do her chores. She looked very uncertain and unsure of herself.

" _Rudi is weg op vakansie, kom binne, dis net ons, kom sit by die tafel sodat ons kan praat oor dinge_ ," He said speaking Afrikaans.

(Rudi is away on holiday, come in, it is just us, come sit by the table, we need to talk about things)

She sat down obediently on the chair at the table as he had told her to do. Joab sat down as well on the opposite side of the table. He broke the very awkward silence by telling her that she can call him Joab.

Her lips curled into a slight, tentative, smile, she sighed, and then bowed her head supporting her forehead in the open palm of her right hand with her elbow resting on the table, shaking her head ever so slightly. It was a strange gesture and it perturbed him.

" _Wat is fout_?"

(What is wrong?)

" _Niks nie_."

(Nothing)

When she looked up at him, her eyes were brimming with tears, and there was a tremor on lips that she could barely control.

He felt the teapot, it was still warm. He fetched a clean mug and made her a cup of tea. He put the cup of tea down in front of her and sat down again at the table. He also felt overcome with emotion, which he struggled to hide. He wanted to hold her, kiss her lips, but instead he asked her:

" _Wil jy nog leer om rokke to maak_?"

(Do you still want to learn how to make a dress?)

" _Ja, ek wil_."

(Yes, I want to)

" _Ek is bly. Hierdie week gaan ons saam rokke maak, rokke vir jou klere kas, sommer n hele klomp rokke_."

(I am glad. We are going to spend the whole week together making dresses)

Tears began to roll down her cheeks. He fetched a box of tissues, she wiped her eyes. He stood awkwardly next to her as she blew her nose. She stood up to take the cups to the sink to wash. While she washed the cups, he remained standing at the table, unsure of what to do next, he run his hand through his hair, and then he turned around and walked over to her and put his arms around her waist and held her tightly.

She began to sob uncontrollably while he held her tightly. He kissed her neck, he kissed her wet cheeks. She held his right hand tightly, weeping, her head bowed. She was convinced that she had lost him and now she felt the welcoming relief that he was still hers, the nightmare of last week was over, the distance that she felt between them was no longer a chasm of separation.

CHAPTER 31

That week, amidst the sounds of dress making, the snipping of scissors and the intermitted whirr of the electric sewing machine, which was broken every now and then with the sounds of laughter and by her excited chatter as she fitted one new dress after the next, an incredible love took root and flourished.

Most of that week she lived in a continual state of undress, wearing only the new sensual lingerie that he had bought for her, and covering herself between dress fittings in the white satin gown that he had also bought for her. He enjoyed the sight of her firm shapely protuberant breasts that did not need the lift or support of a bra. He took pleasure in seeing her naked body. He felt joy at being aroused by her the sight of her breasts, her shapely buttocks and her vulva. She enjoyed parading her naked black body before his gaze.

He took delight at the sight and feel of her body. He also remembered that the Jewish Talmud says that the three things which are a foretaste of things in the next world are sunshine, the Sabbath and sex.

He wondered what could more enjoyable, more wonderful and more beautiful than sunshine, the Sabbath and sex with Segomotso. The Rabbis had a point.

By speaking English she continued to undergo a dramatic transformation, a mysterious metamorphosis before his eyes. She became self-possessed, she projected a confidence he had not seen before, her demeanour had changed, her face was more expressive as she spoke, and her eyes were filled with laughter. He would hug her naked body tightly and she would reciprocate by hugging him back with her strong arms.

"Why are we speaking English to each other?" He asked out of genuine curiosity.

"I cannot call you Joab and feel free with you if I speak Afrikaans; if I speak to you in Afrikaans I will turn myself into your maid. I actually feel very awkward now if I speak to you in Afrikaans. Speaking Afrikaans to you will make me feel uncomfortable. I will have to learn how to speak to you in Afrikaans. Maybe one day I will speak to you in Afrikaans, but now I can't," she replied.

She noticed the puzzled expression on his face and she did not want to hurt him.

"It is psychologically complicated. If I speak Afrikaans, I feel trapped in the role of someone else who is not really me. When I speak Afrikaans, I feel like a maid, like a black domestic servant. When I speak Afrikaans I became a stranger to myself, I feel less than my self, I feel inferior and I don't want to feel inferior. When I speak English to you it makes me feel that we are equal, that we are the same, that we are human beings, and not servant and master. It feels more natural to speak to you in English. I experience English as a neutral language. Nobody owns the English language. English belongs to everyone. I feel mature, like a normal person when I speak English. I feel intelligent and not stupid when I speak English. I feel educated when I speak English. I also feel normal when I speak English, like when I speak Sestwana. As I said, nobody owns English, it is free; anyone can find a home in English. English is a friendly language; it likes to adopt everyone as its child. It is the universal language of strangers, it brings strangers together, it turns strangers into friends. It is the language of love. It sounds strange I know, but it is true," she said with an earnest expression on her face.

She felt the absurd need to reassure him.

"I cannot speak to you in Afrikaans if am going to be your girlfriend," she said with a teasing smile beaming on her face.

Her remark took him by complete surprise.

"Do you want to be my girlfriend?" He asked.

"Do you want to be my boyfriend?" She replied laughing.

"Yes, it would be nice to be your boyfriend, I want to be your boyfriend," he said.

"It will also be nice for me to be your girlfriend," she said.

"What is Rudi going to say?" She asked with a sudden frown on her face.

"He does not have to know," he replied.

"How are we going to do that, it will be impossible, he will see that something is going on between us. What is going to become of us?" She asked.

"It will be a secret until we can think of something. I am used to living a secret life. I am an expert at living a secret life, I have had lots of experience in living a double life," he said.

"I know," she said with a mischievous smile spreading over her face.

"What do mean, you know?" He asked.

"I know all about you Joab, a maid misses nothing. I know you like being a woman, I know you like dressing in women's clothing," she laughed.

"But doesn't that scare you?" He asked with a surprise look on his face.

"No. When you held me I knew you were a double person, that you were also a man and that you had feelings for me that only a man can have. I think the woman living in you has gone and I have come to replace her," she said laughing.

"Do you really think that the woman that lived in me is gone," he asked.

"Well if she does not want to go, then she can stay with us," she laughed

"What if you and I turn out to be two women, what will that do to us, will we still be able to love each other?" He asked.

"Yes we can. It will OK, we can still be in love with each other and we can still have a family. If two women together can produce offspring then they will be complete as one flesh, the Bible tells us that marriage is about becoming one flesh and in Christ we are neither male nor female," she and then laughed.

"Do you think we are two women?" He asked.

She burst out laughing.

"Yes and no, we are two women and one man, we are three then, it is like polygamy," she said, and she could not stop laughing.

She had seen him as 'a double person.' That was an insightful observation he thought. He realized that there was more to Segomotso than he was aware of until this moment. She actually saw right through him to the very core of his being. All this time she knew about his secret life.

She had accepted the package deal. She was indeed a remarkable woman, this Segomotso.

As a self-aware conscious subject who discovers that his physical embodiment is a necessary condition of his exitence, of his being, she had also seen that his embodiment was not an expression of what and who he was.

He had lived through the continuous struggle of his own inner conflicts. For Hegel, the subject exists in a state of inner conflict. The subject was both identical to his embodiment and opposed to it.

Segomotso, without knowing anything about Hegel, could perceive that Joab was a subject who was both identical and opposed to his embodiment.

******

At the end of each day she changed back into her maid's uniform and caught the five-o-clock bus home. As one day rapidly merged into the next, they lost track of time, and the week flew by until Friday arrived all too soon and unexpectedly at the cottage doorstep as Segomotso opened kitchen door to wake up Joab who had overslept. Sitting on the sewing chair she watched him as he climbed naked out of his bed. It did not bother him that she could see him in his glory. He simply kissed her and went to shower while she made breakfast for him in the kitchen.

At breakfast, while they ate together, he asked her if she could stay over at the cottage for the weekend. He said that he wanted her stay with him, because he would be leaving on Monday to attend a philosophy conference at Stellenbosch University, and will only be back at the end of the week and it was possible that Rudi will also be coming back on Wednesday or Thursday. She frowned and said she was unable to spend a night with him. He said she was twenty years old, and he asked her why she still needed parental permission to spend one or two nights away from home. She replied that he is an orphan; he was answerable to no one. Later that day she said that she will spend Saturday and Saturday night with him at the cottage.

She then wanted to know whether she should come in while he was away. He told her she should come in on Monday to make sure that the house was tidy and clean. She could then take off Tuesday but she must be around on Wednesday and Thursday. Rudi will be back before Thursday night. She must definitely come in on Friday. Joab confirmed that he too would be back on Friday by lunchtime.

******

After making love that night, Segomotso lay in his arms. He had fallen asleep, she listened to his breathing. She thought she could feel his heart beat against her back. Their heads lay close together on the single pillow. She could not fall asleep. She listened to the distant rumbling sound of an approaching train. One could only hear the trains from the cottage when silence cloaked the depths of the night.

She felt safe and secure his arms. Throughout the day they had spoken about their futures. After they had made love, he asked her to be his wife, she accepted his proposal, it was settled she was going to be his wife. He asked if he would have to pay _lobola_ for her. She informed him that he would have to find someone to negotiate the _lobola_ on his behalf with her family. He said that he will find someone to negotiate everything on his behalf with her family. She explained to him how _lobola_ works and what needs to be done if he wants to marry a Motswana woman.

In her own mind, she was already his wife, and even though he was white, he belonged to her only, and to no one else. He was hers to have and to hold. She would bear his sons. They would go to Botswana and together they would start a dressmaking business. His was a Boer, so there was nothing he could not do; he was man who could work magic with any fabric that fell into his hands. She sighed silently, she faced a huge mountain, a very difficult task lay ahead, she had no option, she had to tell her parents that she was going to marry this Boer and that they were going leave, on their own trek, to begin a new life in Botswana. He was an honourable man; he walked with God, he would pay the full _lobola_ for her, no matter how much they asked of him.

Her grandmother had once said that the Boers had arrived like swallows with the spring rains. They came from the South across the great Orange and Vaal Rivers with their huge herds of cattle and flocks of sheep to graze the lush ancient grasslands that extended from horizon to horizon, for as far as the eye could see. They came to where Segomotso's ancestors had grazed their own herds from the dawn of time. In the summer their numbers became like swallows that filled the blue sky. When autumn came they did not gather in flocks to return from whence they came. When the winter skies became grey and cold, they stayed behind forever, never to return from whence they came.

Now the Boer has visited her nation once again, a Boer has plucked for himself the most magnificent, the most beautiful flower to be found in Ikageng Location. She had given her heart to this Boer, without him she would die, she would not be able to live and breathe for a second without him; such was the power of her love for him.

CHAPTER 32

Friday afternoon when Joab arrived back at the cottage, Rudi was sitting at the table in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. He asked Joab to sit down for moment as he needed to speak to him about some very important matters. He came straight to the point. He said bluntly that he had fired Segomotso. He added that he had done Joab a favour and that one day Joab will thank him.

Joab face turned crimson with rage.

" _Hoe kon jy so iets doen_!"

(How could you do that!)

He became extremely agitated and struggled to restrain himself from having a wild outburst. He had never felt so angry in all his life. Rudi did not expect see such a strong display of fury from Joab, it came as a complete surprise that Joab could lose his cool.

The blood drained from Rudi's face with fright. For a split second he thought that Joab was going to become violent. Instead, Joab's dark eyes became ice cold with controlled anger. He had raced back to the cottage so that he could give Segomotso a lift home. He had planned to go on a long drive with her so that they could catch up with each other and talk about their plans for the future.

Rudi tried to justify his decision to terminate Segomotso's employment. He said that he had paid her the full month's severance pay out of his own pocket. He said that he had no alternative. On Thursday morning the farmer and his wife arrived at the cottage with information that Joab and Segomotso were having an affair, and a huge scandal was going to erupt if no action was taken to nip the problem in the bud.

Then Rudi dropped another bomb. Joab had to vacant the cottage immediately. The farmer had threatened to come with a truck and dump all his belongings next to the tar road by the farm gate of the cottage if he was not out of the cottage by sunset that day.

Rudi tried to be conciliatory. He said that he had organized storage space in a friend's garage for Joab's stuff and he would help Joab move his stuff with the bakkie. After they had moved all his sewing equipment, suitcases of clothing, boxes of fabroc, furniture and bed into the garage and after he paid in advance the storage rental, Joab booked into the Elgro Hotel for the night. Rudi said he could arrange for Joab to move into a cheap boarding house with breakfast and supper.

Joab had to see Segomotso. In despair and desperation, throwing caution to the wind, he arrived in the dark at 8.00 pm at the tiny four roomed forty square meter home of Segomotso's parents in Ikageng. The house had a central front door flanked by two windows. Segomotso was the youngest child. Her three siblings, a sister and two brothers had already moved out and had homes and families of their own. Her two grandparents lived in one of the rooms and her parents lived in the other room. Segomotso did not have her own room. She slept on a narrow couch in the small cramped lounge.

Joab knocked on the front door and Segomotso's father opened the door. He knew immediately who the white man was. Her father was hostile to him and told him to go. The mother, in response to her own deep aboriginal cultural reflex of politeness and hospitality quickly intervened, and she insisted that he be allowed to come into the house because he had taken the trouble to come over to Segomotso's home. The grandparents were also sitting together on the couch in the lounge.

The father told Joab that Segomotso had already been sent away to stay with family in a rural village near Kuruman. Segomotso's mother, Mrs Molefe, told Joab to come in and sit down in the lounge. Mr Molefe closed the door after Joab sat down on one of the chairs. He glanced around at the lounge. It was neat and tidy. There was a Catholic crucifix on one of the walls and a portrait of the Madonna and child hanging on another wall. Joab asked for permission to marry Segomotso. He explained about their plans to immigrate to Botswana, he also said that he would be sending someone to negotiate the _lobola_.

The Molefe family listened in sceptical silence as the young white man rambled on in Afrikaans about how much he loved Segomotso and that he wanted to pay _lobola_. When he finally stopped speaking, he waited for their response. They said nothing. They had nothing to say to the white man who had disrupted their lives and had destroyed the life of their daughter. They had nothing to say to the white man that caused so much trouble for them. With nothing left to say and getting no response from them, he left.

******

Segomotso's forced exile had literally flung her overnight into an arid native reserve in the middle of the Kalahari, close to Kuruman. Her parents had made the hasty decision to send their wayward daughter away under the pressure and fear of all kinds of imagined threats and reprisals. Knowledge of Segomotso's affair with Joab had come like an unexpected bombshell disrupting the trouble-free normality of their everyday lives. Things that they had heard about from time to time, white men having relations with their domestic maids behind the backs of the madam of the home, was known to happen, and now, a similar kind of shame had come to their own home like an unwelcome visitor. Her parents felt themselves teetering at the edge of disaster; they felt the icy grip of panic when Joab came under the cover of darkness, arriving in the night, knocking on their front door, asking to see Segomotso and expressing his wish to marry her.

The night before Joab's visitation, in spite of the heartrending wailing and protestations from Segomotso, they decided she should leave Ikageng, even if only for a short while, so that with the passage of time, they could all be given the chance to erase everything that had happened. After much shouting and threatening, her father, mother, sister and brothers pleaded with her with fearful imploring eyes, they begged her to listen to reason, in the end she succumbed to their demands.

Early that Friday morning, as Joab arrived at the cottage, Segomotso had already boarded the bus to Kuruman carrying a suitcase packed with all her belongings.

CHAPTER 33

A few days after her arrival at her uncle's traditional rural homestead, Segomotso began to make the ironical self-discovery that the world that she had read about in her Setswana literature set work school books, the world of the traditional Batswana that her teacher had interpreted so enthusiastically to a class crowded with disinterested learners, had now become her own reality.

Now safely ensconced in a Kalahari landscape dotted with Camel Thorn Trees and Batswana homesteads, Segomotso, who until then, even though she was Catholic, had been an ordinary secularized Motswana woman, became aware for the first time in her life, that she had left behind the world of modernity and had, like a fish out of water, entered into the traditional Batswana universe, dominated with all kinds of Batswana cultural values that were only vaguely familiar to her. Now with every passing day she was being confronted with all kinds of strange beliefs regarding marriage customs, witchcraft, ancestors, magic, sorcery and chieftainship. Even as a fully urbanized young Motswana woman who had grown up in a black location, she had travelled only infrequently beyond the municipal boundaries of Potchefstroom. Yet in contrast to her rural relatives, she had grown up free from the mind forming influences, and the emotional shaping forces of traditional Batswana culture.

In contrast to her rural relatives, she had grown up into a very poor but nevertheless sophisticated black township woman. Her own values and beliefs had been shaped and formed by Roman Catholicism, the books that she had read and the relative modernity of township life. In addition her life had recently undergone a revolutionary transformation as a consequence of the relationship that had developed between her and Joab.

Joab had opened up a universe of possibilities for her, possibilities for her life that she could never have imagined possible.

In contrast to her life-experiences that had shaped her into a fully urbanized black woman, her country relatives were non-proletarian self-subsisting rural peasants. Segomotso, unlike her rural peasant relatives, had become a sophisticated black urban woman because while growing up in a location, she had inadvertently become directly and indirectly exposed to the whole gamut of forces of modernization.

However, even as a modern township woman, she had never become fully conscious of the political significance of her actual social status. Like her parents and everyone else in the townships of South Africa, she too had become subject to the steady life-forming process of proletarianization that were peculiar to South Africa. She was not a peasant. She was a fully-fledged member of a growing South African urban proletariat.

Apart from this fact, an ontological fact of immense significance, her ideas about life in general clashed sharply with the body of traditional rural peasant beliefs that held her uncle, aunts and cousins captive to another way of life, another way of perceiving the Universe, another way of understanding their roles in the traditional aboriginal comprehension of the Cosmos.

Even though her rural roots were non-existent, Segomotso had always been aware that she belonged to a pastoral people with an ancient culture, who from the dawn of time had been the original occupants of a vast region stretching for hundreds of miles from the east to the west. But all that changed when their land became occupied by an invading plague of white settlers. In the latter part of the 19th century, the Boers arrived like locusts on the great Highveld steppes with its mild and hospitable climate. Her ancestral land was a land that knew no boundaries; its borders extended beyond the vanishing horizons. All this changed when the white men started to spatialize the landscape with boundaries. In ancient times the horizons of the land of her ancestors over which the sun rose and set encircled the municipal districts of Johannesburg, Heidelberg, the Marico, Rustenburg, Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Ventersdorp, Lichtenburg, Mafikeng, Vryburg, Kuruman and Taung.

It was the great and violent upheaval of the Difaqane which brought in its wake the complete desolation of their once vast and peaceful kingdom. In the aftermath of the Difaqane, a great silence fell over their ancestral lands. It had become eerily emptied. The burnt out and ruined homesteads and kraals had been vacated. For miles and miles there were no cattle to be seen grazing on the vast steppes of the Highveld. All signs of humanity had vanished leaving behind the vacant and expansive grassland into which the Boer invaders began to put down deep roots.

Like the Batswana, the Boers too established themselves as pastoralists and hunters on the infinite oceans of fertile grasslands from which the Batswana had been forced to flee, driven faraway into an exile that ended deep into the arid hinterland of the great Kalahari wilderness.

Now her ancient culture came back to haunt her, casting a dark pall over her future, it threatened to claim its wayward child, its lost daughter, back to the comfort of its bosom in the heart of the Kalahari. She felt the irreconcilable tensions between tradition and modernity which threatened to rent her life apart. When her parents found out about her affair with Joab, she passionately defended her relationship with Joab, arguing that Joab had promised to marry her and that they planned to move to Gaborone. Her shameless admission of her affair with a white man shocked her parents. They became incensed with her. They argued that what she had done and what she planned to do went against their culture, against their traditions and also against the wishes of their ancestors.

Suddenly she was confronted with the issue of ancestors, her ancestors!

The ancestors would be unhappy with her wanting to marry a white man.

She did not remain silent, she argued back with her parents. She disagreed that her actions would upset their ancestors. She argued back saying that the ancestors were not stupid, they were aware that the world was changing, that the world had become a different place. How could the ancestors forbid her from marrying the Boer? Anyway, she was a Roman Catholic; she did not have to live by the dictates of the ancestors.

She felt that the time had come for the Batswana marriage rules to be more flexible. It was no longer necessary in the modern world that a Motswana man should only marry a Motswana woman; and refrain from marrying a foreigner. Yes, Joab was a white man. But in some ways, he was not a white. Not all white men are white. Joab was not really white. He was different. He was beyond black and white. As a black woman she had insight into these matters, insights which her parents did not share with her.

Her parents replied that she had lost her mind. How could a white man not be 'white'? What was he if he was not a white man? They never heard something as stupid as saying that a white man was not really a white man, or that he was no longer a white man for some absurd reason. A white man would always be a white man. A white man cannot stop being a white man. No self-respecting white man would suddenly say he is no longer white. It was like saying that a black man is no longer a black man. How could that be possible? Can black man become a white man? Impossible! Can a black stop being black? Impossible! Would a black man wish he were not black? Impossible! Who had ever heard that a black did not want to be black?

What did she know about white men? What did she know about the Boer? No self-respecting Boer would have anything to do with a black woman.

How was it possible that a white man could cease to be a white man? She had lost her mind. Was he going to become a Motswana man? The very idea was outrageous.

******

In her mind, her uncle's homestead, his kraal and two wives, his brood of children, together with the cluster of thatch roofed rondavels with their doors facing a central court yard, exemplified the traditional Batswana universe. With its chieftainships, ancestors, sorcery and witchcraft, it was starkly foreign to her. The strong odour of cattle and goat dung from the kraal mingling with the smell of wood smoke hung heavy in the air.

And on top of everything else, nothing could douse the rumours which from the moment of her arrival at uncle's kraal, began to spread like a virulent contagion from homestead to homestead. Like the smell of the wood smoke that now clung to her hair, skin and clothes, the stigma of her notoriety also clung to her like another layer of bad odour. The women had become aware that she was with child. They whispered among themselves that she was carrying a Boer's child in her womb.

After a few days, Segomotso could no longer smell the odour of wood smoke or cattle dung that hung heavy in the air. She also stopped caring about what people thought about her.

She disagreed strongly that: _Pelo e ia serati. Dintshontsho tsa lorato_ , should necessarily create conflict.

Segomotso took comfort in the story of Mmamotia and Sakama. Mmamotia accepts the love of Sakoma, although she knows that it is against their custom, and argues that it is through marriage between foreigners that tribes become united:

Keletso ya me ke go senya tlhaolelo,

Go supa fa mhaladi a tshwana le Mongwato,

Fa ka ntata ya tseo merafe e e ka kopana,

_Ya bofagana jaaka ngatana ya dikgong_.

(My intention is to do away with division,

To show that a stranger is the same as a Mongwato,

Because of the marriage tribes may unite,

May be joined like a bundle of wood.)

CHAPTER 34

Rudi kept his promise. Through his church network he managed to find cheap lodgings for Joab in a boarding house across the road from their old high school, the _Potchefstroom Gimnasium_ , near the Department of Agriculture's Summer Grain Research Institute.

Joab knew that Rudi was currently very busy working as a voluntary canvasser for the Nationalist Party for the forthcoming elections to be held of the 30th of November 1977. In the evenings he made several trips to the cottage to speak to Rudi about a favour. Each time Rudi had been out and the cottage was in complete darkness.

Tonight the lights were on and Rudi was home. When Rudi opened the kitchen door, he was surprised to see that his visitor was none other than Joab.

" _Ek het gekom om jou 'n baie groot guns te vra_."

(I have come to ask you for a very big favour.)

Rudi frowned when he heard these words. Joab's demeanour was sombre, so he invited him in. After they sat down at the kitchen table Joab came straight to the point.

" _Ek wil met Segomotso trou. Ek het jou hulp nodig. Ek het iemand nodig om namens my lobola te onderhandel. Ek het geen familie nie. Jy is my enigste vriend. Daar is niemand anders na wie ek kan gaan vir hulp nie_."

(I want to marry Segomotso and for this I need your help. The bridal price ( _lobola_ ) that I have to pay for Segomotso has to be negotiated with her family. I don't have anyone to negotiate _lobola_ on my behalf. As you know, I have no family and you are the only friend that I have, there is no one else that I can turn to.)

These were the last words that Rudi wanted to hear, especially while busy helping out with the Nationalist Party election campaign in Potchefstroom. His face darkened into a frown. He began to shake his head.

" _Ek kan nie_."

(I can't.)

Joab began to plead for Rudi's help.

Joab explained in detail his plans to Rudi, including the plan to leave South Africa for Botswana with Segomotso, where they would get officially married. The only obstacle standing in his way was the customary marriage negotiations and the payment of _lobola_. He was honour bound to pay _lobola_ for Segomotso in order to make his marriage to Segomotso officially sanctioned, according to traditional Batswana custom in the eyes of her parents and relatives. Segomotso would not be released to him until the _lobola_ was paid. And the way that things worked in these matters made it impossible for him as the bridegroom to participate directly in the _lobola_ negotiations. It had to be one of his relatives and he did not have any relatives.

Rudi listened reluctantly to Joab's explanation regarding the complicated _lobola_ payment procedures. He shook his head. He could not imagine himself negotiating _lobola_ as a white person in the location. He was not cut out for this kind of stuff.

Also, he had no stomach for it.

In his mind, Rudi could already see the headlines in the English newspapers on the eve of the elections: 'Nationalist Party Canvasser Negotiates Lobola for White Friend.'

In Rudi's mind, it was wrong for a white person to marry a black, and he believed that he had Biblical proof texts to support this.

Rudi reached for his Bible and opened it at the Book of Ezra and began reading from chapters 9 and 10. He began to read from chapter 9:

After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, "The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighbouring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness."

When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled.

Without looking up at Joab, Rudi turned the page and began to read from chapter 10:

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites—men, women and children—gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. Then Shekaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, "We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Law. Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it."

As Joab listened to Rudi reading from the Book of Ezra, his faced changed from one filled with hope to one clouded with disappointment. When Rudi had finished reading and before Rudi could give a sermon to Joab on intermarriage with other races, Joab gently took the Bible from Rudi and began to search for his own scriptural proof texts.

He opened the Bible at the Book of Numbers and began to read from chapter 12:

Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. "Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?" they asked. "Hasn't he also spoken through us?" And the LORD heard this.

Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.

At once the LORD said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, "Come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you." So the three of them went out. Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When the two of them stepped forward, he said, "Listen to my words:

" _When there is a prophet among you,_

I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions,

I speak to them in dreams.

But this is not true of my servant Moses;

he is faithful in all my house.

With him I speak face to face,

clearly and not in riddles;

he sees the form of the LORD.

Why then were you not afraid

to speak against my servant Moses?"

The anger of the LORD burned against them, and he left them.

When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam's skin was leprous—it became as white as snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had a defiling skin disease, and he said to Moses, "Please, my lord, I ask you not to hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother's womb with its flesh half eaten away."

So Moses cried out to the LORD, "Please, God, heal her!"

The LORD replied to Moses, "If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back." So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back.

After that, the people left Hazeroth and encamped in the Desert of Paran.

Joab then turned to the Book of Ruth and began to read from chapter 1:

Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the LORD show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband."

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people."

But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons-would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD's hand has turned against me!"

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

" _Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her."_

But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me." When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Joab closed the Bible and put it down on the table between them.

A thin smile developed on Rudi's face. Joab relaxed. The tension vanished from his face. With a bemused look on his face, he knew that Rudi had given in to his request.

Joab began to reprimand his friend.

" _Jy van alle mense behoort van beter te weet hoe kompleks en dubbelsinnig die Bybel kan wees. Die Bybel is nie 'n trommel vol tekste en verse wat 'n mens kan gebruik en toepas vir sy eie gerieflikheidshalwe vir die ondersteuning van enige idee nie. Daar is geen teks of vers in Bybel wat bewys dat die behoud van die suiwerheid van ras en volk in die moderne wêreld van die twintigste eeu die onbreekbare wil van God verteenwoordig . Ek sal altyd 'n Boer wees en daar is niks in die hemel of op aarde wat Segomotso kan verbied om 'n Boer vrou te word as dit haar wil is nie. Daar is ook niks in die hemel of op aarde wat verbied dat 'n swart vrou die moeder kan wees van Boere kinders as dit haar wil is nie_ ," Joab argued with a determined look on his face.

(You of all people should know better that the Bible cannot be treated as a magic box filled with proof texts that can be used to support every possible opinion on every possible kind of matter. Nowhere does the Bible provide unambiguous and indubitable arguments for the preservation of racial or ethnic purity as an unbreakable law of God's will. Nowhere in the Bible does it forbid Segomosto from marrying a Boer. There is nothing in the Universe that forbids a black woman from becoming the mother of Boer children.)

Rudi defended himself.

" _Jou kinders gaan kleurlinge wees. Hulle sal nooit aanvaar word as Boere kinders nie_ ," Rudi answered bluntly.

(Your children are going to be Coloureds. They will never be accepted as Boer children)

" _So net'n wit mens kan 'n Boer of 'n Afrikaner wees_?" Joab asked.

(So only a white person can be a Boer or an Afrikaner?)

" _Ja, dit kan nie anders wees nie, die Afrikaner sal altyd blank wees_ ," Rudi replied.

(Yes, it cannot be otherwise, the Afrikaner will always be white)

" _Die dag sal kom wanneer die Afrikaners die gevolge van daardie woorde sal berou, dit sal die einde van die Afrikaner se toekoms uitspel_ ," Joab said.

(The time will come when the Afrikaner will rue the day that they prevented Coloured children and Black children from becoming Afrikaners, this deed will eventually spell the end of Afrikanerdom)

It was pointless arguing Afrikaner Politics, so they left it at that.

Now that he had Rudi's attention, Joab explained that in terms of African custom, it would be Rudi's task to go Segomotso's parents' home in Ikageng and plead with them on Joab's behalf for Segomotso's hand in marriage. Once he had persuaded them to allow Segomotso to marry Joab, the next task would be for Rudi to negotiate the bridal price for Segomotso in cash in lieu of cattle. His marriage to Segomotso would be invalid until _bogadi_ had been paid.

" _Gaan jy my help of nie_?" Joab asked.

(Are you going to help me?)

" _Hoeveel dink jy hulle sal vra_?" Rudi asked.

(How much do think they going to ask?)

" _Ek weet regtig nie_."

(I really don't know)

" _Hoeveel geld kan jy spandeeer_?"

(How money can you afford to spend)

" _Ek het R 5000.00 in my spaarrekening_."

(I have R 5 000.00 in my savings account)

" _Sjoo dis baie geld vir 'n meid_ ," He said with a devilish grin on his face.

(Shoo that is a lot of money to pay for a maid)

" _Dis onnodig om so te praat, sy is g'n meid nie, sy gaan my vrou word_ ," Joab answered sharply with an extremely annoyed expression on his face.

(It is not necessary to speak like about her, she is not a maid, she going to be wife)

" _Jammer my ou maatjie, dit was onnodig_ ," Rudi answered apologetically.

(Sorry old friend, I agree, my remarks were not warranted)

After discussing the negotiation tactics for Segomotso's hand, Rudi went to his room to fetch a bottle of good red wine to celebrate Joabs forthcoming marriage to Segomotso.

******

After the second glass, the topic of Calvinism predictably came up. Joab once more argued that one of the biggest myths propagated by the Afrikaner elite was the idea that being an Afrikaner was synonymous with being a Calvinist, as if Afrikanerhood and Calvinism were the two sides of the same coin. Furthermore, Joab argued that he had found no evidence that the majority of Afrikaners had ever been true Calvinists in any meaningful sense to warrant this designation. They had certainly not been true Calvinists for most of their history.

Joab argued that, in all likelihood, the Afrikaans Churches were not filled with Calvinists, but with Arminians and Pelagians.

Rudi burst out laughing.

With the dissipation of the tension between them, they clinked their glasses.

Soon the bottle was empty. Rudi insisted on opening another bottle. Joab realized it was going to be a heavy night of drinking.

He thought, what the hell, let me get drunk tonight, its my bachelor's party, Segomotso is going to be my wife, and I am a happy man and I have the best friend a man could ever wish for.

Rudi fetched another bottle of red wine, from a good South African Cape vintage, after opening the second bottle, he filled their glasses, and they started to drink seriously while Joab continued with his revisionist views on the history and reality of Afrikaner Calvinism.

Against Rudi's protestations, Joab argued that in actual fact, it was only recently, since the turn of 19th Century that Afrikaner elites, who after having been exposed to a brand of Dutch neo-Calvinism, started the political project of magically re-inventing the Afrikaners as a nation of Calvinists. All this contriving to be Calvinists was a complete historical irony.

It was in fact a complete farce. Joab went on to explain why.

Afrikaans speaking white South Africans had evolved organically into an ethnic group primarily from illiterate feral whites who had managed to survive in a hand to mouth existence as shifting subsistence farmers beyond the control and civilizing forces of the colonial administration of the Cape. During their early formative years they also lived mainly as a rural people beyond the reach of European modernity; beyond the reach of the European enlightenment.

Moving progressively further and further into the hinterland, they remained untouched and unaffected by the urban and bourgeois social phenomenon of Calvinism, the Reformation and modern industrialization. Their peculiar rural lifestyles and the values associated with that lifestyle were not in any way a reflection of deep-seated Calvinistic beliefs or Protestant Reformational values. They were inherently lazy and depended mostly on the labour power of the aboriginal people for their subsistent level accumulation.

" _Nee, dit kan nie waar wees nie, ek dit nie glo nie,_ " Rudi said, his face flushed with glowing effects of the wine?

(No, it could not be the case, I do not believe it)

Joab had his argument ready, as if it had been rehearsed beforehand.

His radical point was that if Rudi really wanted a paradigmatic example of lived and practiced Calvinism according to the book, then you would not find it among Boers or in their history, nor will you find it among the Dutch or Germans or Swiss. But you would find it in the life and history of the arch enemy of the Boer, the British or English. The British who the Boers once upon a time hated with a passion, were a nation that had been originally organically shaped by Calvinism to a far greater extent than what the Boers could ever have attained or imagined for themselves.

How could the majority of the Boers in the Boer Republic be real Calvinists if they were landless or had become landless? Trapped in dire poverty was to be in a very non-Protestant predicament. To live wretched lives as tenant farmers or _bywoners_ on the land owned by a small minority of Boer Land Barons was really not possible for any true Calvinist.

It would be a gross over-exaggeration to conclude by any stretch of the imagination, that the Boers were being forged into a nation of the Elect by the fierce furnace of Calvinism. Could there be found somewhere or anywhere on the vast plains of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, at any time in the 19th century, a single Afrikaner Puritan? Where could a single Afrikaner be found in the 19th century after the great trek, sitting on his veranda reading John Calvin's _Institutes of the Christian Religion_ while basking in the warm afterglow of the certainty of his election, especially when the blessed assurance of that certainty for any true Calvinist could only become visible and tangible in the form of a thriving and profitable farming or business enterprise? Poverty, indolence and lack of enterprise are not characteristics of individuals who have been predestined to be the elect of God.

" _Nee meneer! Daar is geen bewys in die geskiedenis van die Boere volk dat hulle ooit werklik 'n Kalviniste volk was nie_ ," Joab concluded with a grin on his face.

(No sir! There is no credible historical evidence that the primitive Boers of the 18th and 19th century constituted an authentic or genuine Calvinistic nation)

Rudi disagreed, but Joab insisted that with the Afrikaner there were never any of the requisite material signs that go hand in hand with the practice of authentic Calvinism. The most obvious un-Calvinistic behaviour, was the Boer's reluctance to engage in backbreaking manual labour.

Apart for various landowning Afrikaner notables and Afrikaner absentee landlords, there was no accumulation of wealth, no prosperity, no industry, no wise investments, no diligence of purpose, no hard labour, no frugality and no sober modesty. Before the discovery of gold on the reef, there were very few Afrikaner bourgeoisie demonstrating the northern European work ethic associated with the generation of wealth through the creation of industry and manufacturing. The Boer was naturally an indolent individual. The Boer was intrinsically un-Calvinistic in his rustic non-European rural, almost African pastoral lifestyle.

Calvinism is not a trek-Boer religion. It is the religion of rapid urbanization. It is the religion of the educated urban bourgeoisie.

Calvinism is the religion of industrialists, entrepreneurs, manufacturers and bankers. The Boers were never, organically speaking, a nation of industrialists, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, shop keepers or bankers.

They did not have a Calvinistic bone in their bodies.

Calvinism is the religion associated with cities, banks, finance, investment, factories, railways and harbours. It is religion of the highly literate and educated. Calvinism was never the religion of a semi-literate rural population of _bywoners_.

Joab argued convincingly that Calvinism was not the organic and innate religion of poor Afrikaans speaking whites who had to be rescued from proletarianization by massive upliftment interventions that were heavily financed by the extraction of surplus value from black labour.

It was not Calvinistic beliefs that lifted the Boers from the clutches of proletarianization.

According to Joab, historically the Afrikaners who founded the Boer Republics, were like all other Africans in that they were a nation of pastoralists. But they were also hunters, people of the rifle and the gun. They were people of the plains, of the great grasslands, of the bushveld. They were predominantly a rural people until the end of the great Anglo Boer War.

They were also superb warriors. The Boer was a born warrior, a natural fighter. A Boer was a man who owned a firearm. The Boer was like the Zulu. But he was not a true Calvinist. He had ceased to be a true European, so he could not be a Calvinist. Only the European bourgeoisie could be Calvinist.

Rudi had become mellow and impervious to Joab's disquisitions on the relationship between Calvinism and the actual historical realities of the so-called Afrikaner volk.

Joab admitted that an off-shoot of Calvinism began to take root in the minds of a small community of Afrikaner elites who had recently returned from stints in the Netherlands. But in spite of the nascent renaissance in Dutch neo-Calvinism among a tiny Afrikaner bourgeois elite, the majority of Boers found themselves on the very un-Calvinistic downhill road to full proletarianization, especially after the Anglo-Boer War. After the war they started leaving the country side in their droves, forsaking their lives as tenant farmers and landless _bywoners_ , they flooded into the towns and cities that had sprung up on the reef following the discovery of gold.

While the Boer made a tenuous livelihood as isolated pastoralists in an arid unforgiving landscape, cut off from developments that followed the European Reformation, the only other profound expression of Calvinism to be found outside Europe was not in the South African scrub lands of it interior hinterland or on the plantations of the Colony in the Cape, but in 16th century England. Following the reformation of the English Church, Calvinism permeated the fabric of everyday life in England.

CHAPTER 35

The existence of English Calvinism was a topic of special interest to Joab. The historical issue that concerned Joab was the interesting fact that the British and particularly the English had been a Christian Nation at one time. Ironically, they were in fact the exemplary historical realization of Christian Nationalism that the Afrikaner Nationalist had been striving to achieve and emulate for most of the twentieth century. The English had done it, and in the long run of history it turned out to be only a temporary and contingent phenomenon. Seen in the light of the broad sweep of history, English Calvinism was a short-lived phenomenon, and possibly the same fate awaited Afrikaner Calvinism.

In response to the multiple interacting forces of modernism, the English as a nation became increasingly secular and began to leave their traditional churches in droves. Church membership and attendance had fallen off dramatically throughout the twentieth century. By the 1960s the English had finally ceased to be a Christian nation.

In 1963 John A.T. Robinson, the Bishop of Woolwich, published his provocative book called _Honest to God_. On reading the book in the early1970s, Joab saw the deep influences of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rudolf Bultmann and Paul Tillich on the writings of the Bishop of Woolwich. It was thought by many critical commentators of the theological and church scene that the book signalled that Christianity as the religion of the British Isles, had reached a turning point and that the church had found itself at some kind of crossroads.

At the same time in a number of forms the God is Dead theology had become the fashionable intellectual rage in the 1960s among certain influential theological circles.

For Joab, the God is Dead theology raised more questions than answers.

If God was dead, does sin still exist? Does evil still exist?

What was sin anyway?

For Joab, sin was always unbelief and all religions were various forms of unbelief. For Joab that was the strange dialectic of Christainity.

All religions were infected with various forms of 'unbelief' or 'disbelief'. All religions were inherently idolatrous. Man could only believe in a man-made god, an idol. All forms of monotheism were deeply infected with idolatry.

Anyway, God was self-sufficient; He does not need to be believed in, especially through the vehicle of man's self-constructed religions which have been designed ultimately to serve the cultic self-interests of their inventors. Joab concluded that all forms of religion are man-made systems of disbelief and therefore are intrinsically sinful, and they also all had an innate tendancy to give rise to evil consequences.

Evil and sinful consequences inevitably flow out of all religions, whatever form their manisfestations happen to take.

Joab realized that while Bonhoeffer was advocating not merely a religionless Christianity, he was actually hoping for the end of religion, he was searching for the possibility of expressing a secular Christian faith without religion.

It was also Joab's contention that the 'New Theology' of the 1960s had radically misconceived the significance of the spectacular progress of modern science. The intelligibility of the Universe was not self-explanatory; it was a mystery to science. The success of the scientific enterprise was based on the assumption that the Universe was indeed intelligible and could be interrogated by means of the scientific method and the creative formulation and testing of scientific hypotheses regarding its nature in terms of scientific laws and the properties of its constituents. The laws and the properties in themselves were not self-explanatory; they existed in themselves ready-made to be discovered.

Following the aftermath of the 1960s it had become increasing evident to Joab in his readings of modern theology and philosophy that Christianity, as a living faith would continue to undergo a steady decline in both the United Kingdom and most of Europe.

******

Rudi opened the third bottle of wine. A very excellent _Cabernet Sauvignon that he had saved for several years for a special occasion._

_Tonight the special occasion had finally arrived. He poured the wine into their glasses._

_Sitting back, he raised a toast to Joab and Segomotso._

_Well-lubricated with red wine, Joab continued with a veritable symposium on Calvinism._

Joab argued with Rudi that what had happened to the Christendom of the English and the Europeans the same was going to happen to the Afrikaners. Their Calvinistic pretensions will turn out to be only a temporary contingent flash in the pan in the long run of history.

Joab enjoyed annoying Rudi with the argument that the English were the only real Calvinists in the history of Calvinism. He made a point of exaggerating the scale and intensity of English Calvinism.

He provided evidence that the English were supremely Calvinist long before the trek-Boers could even read the Bible. Calvin's _Institutes_ became the ruling text for all students of divinity at Cambridge and Oxford. The 16th century English book market was flooded by a tidal wave of books on Calvinism and translations of all the works of John Calvin and his followers. Elizabethan editions of the Geneva Bible was possessed by all classes of English society, copies were present in every single English household. The Calvinist doctrines of man's total depravity, election, providence, foreordination, predestination, grace, justification, and reprobation saturated the preaching of the English church long before a hybrid mutated form of neo-Calvinism eventually took root among a bourgeois segment of the Afrikaans speaking intellectual guild in the Afrikaans protestant churches and in the university theological faculties.

Joab teased Rudi that there was a lot that the Boere could have learnt from the hated Brit, that most ancient Christian nation with its incredibly deep roots in the Bible. Joab had read with great interest Bede's book _A History of the English Church and People_ which Bede had completed around 731 AD. In the 7th Century the people of Britain were living in harmony following the five books of the divine law, which were the five books of Moses, they were speaking five languages, and were comprised out of four nations, the English, British, Scots and Picts. Each of them speaking their own language, but all united in their study of God's truth which had been written in the fifth language, Latin, which had become the common medium for the study of the scriptures.

Rudi learnt from Joab that the original inhabitants of the island were the Britons, from whom the British Isles eventually got its name, and who, according to tradition, crossed into Britain from Armorica (Brittany), and occupied the southern parts. From 156 AD onwards the Britons were exposed to the Christian faith for the first time and many from that time onwards became Christians. The development of the English language has been profoundly and indelible shaped and influenced by the Bible. Over the past 400 years no other book has had a greater impact on the English language than the King James Bible and The Book of Common Prayer.

From the Book of Common Prayer nothing more comparable, nothing more archaic, nothing more familiar, nothing more sublime and nothing loftier, could have ever verbally adorned the Sunday communion services in England and South Africa than those which Cranmer had composed. For example, words such as those that were used in the closing of the Holy Communion service, which went as follows:

' _The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord: And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you always._ '

Also from the English Book of Common Prayer, the English have bequeathed the world with the most beautiful marriage vow:

' _To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth_.'

And how could the English ever possibly bury their dead without the majestic and proverbial and solemn words uttered by the priest at the grave side of the deceased:

' _In the midst of life we are in death......Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ_....'

The examples that Joab provided were endless. If ever there was a Christian nation, it had to be the English.

Rudi could not stomach this.

To Rudi's amazement, Joab explained that historically the Anglican Church had always been a Reformed Church. Its reformed doctrines had been discreetly hidden at the back of The Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church.

Historically, the Prayer Book contained the 39 ARTICLES OF RELIGION. The 39 articles defined the Anglican Church as essentially a Reformed or a Calvinistic church, and thereby made the English formally a Calvinistic nation in a very organic manner.

So as once a truly Christian nation, the English were blessed, not only with a Godly language, but with a faith influenced by John Calvin. To become truly Anglicised requires not only the adoption of the English tongue, but also required that one become a Calvinist.

The English were Calvinist before the Afrikaners could even dream of becoming a Calvinist nation. Rudi was surprised to learn that the English were indeed historically a Calvinist nation.

As a joke, Joab stated that if there were ever a nation elected by God to be his chosen people on earth, then it had to be the English.

If God had to chose a language then it would have to be English.

Rudi just shook his head in disagreement. But Joab could see that the penny had dropped.

In Joab's opinion, critical thinking had always been discouraged among Afrikaners, yet this is precisely what was needed when it comes to weighing up the intellectual merits of Calvin's massive and revolutionary oeuvre. For example, very few ordinary people or church ministers have had the opportunity to be able to fully digest the meaning and philosophical implications of Calvin's double predestination. How many of the academic advocates of Reformed Theology actually possess real insight into what Calvin's double predestination really means?

This was Joab's constant challenge to Rudi.

Logically Calvin's double predestination means that the Calvinist Universe can only be absurd.

Simply put, in Joab's words, it could be argued as follows:

Calvin's Universe is absurd if from all eternity God has, by arbitary decree according to a secret plan, selected only some unworthy sinners for salvation and has condemned all the rest to sin and damnation. Only God alone knows the secret reasons why he has decided to gratuitously bestow his unmerited favour on some undeserving, unworthy wretched sinners who can do nothing to merit his favour, while rejecting all the other underserving, unworthy sinners, condemning them to eternal damnation in hell.

What rational person can digest this?

Is God unreasonable?

Heaven forbid!

God is the very essence of Reason. With God as the embodiment of Reason the Universe cannot be absurd, and therefore God does not rule by arbitrary decree.

In the end Rudi had to accept this theological proposition.

For Calvinism to have thrived in South Africa, it would have been necessary for Afrikaner churchmen and theologians to have been engaged in a research programme that was more critical, thorough, meticulous, circumspective, analytical, logical, creative, vibrant and penetrating in its reading of Calvin's _Institutes_ and his other works. If they had been doing this, they have been able to trace and follow step for step the incredible intellectual struggles that John Calvin faced when he tried to reconcile the existence of evil with God's sovereignty, glory and majesty. It would have also been necessary for the Afrikaner clergy and their theological teachers to have critically studied and evaluated Calvin's sermons, especially on the Book of Job, which had also been translated even into old English and had a profound influence on many English minds.

Joab expressed the opinion that maybe the meditation on Calvin's commentary on the Book of Job would have been a strong enough antidote to stave off the moral corruption that had enslaved the character and minds of those early Dutch settlers.

Instead of an independent appropriation and organic re-reading of Calvin by Afrikaners, it seems like South Africa's own Calvinist renaissance had to wait until the late 19th century for the emergence of the Kuyperian brand of neo-Calvinism that been incubated in the Netherlands. This was to be the Calvinism that eventually washed up onto the shores of the South Africa towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Kuyperian neo-Calvinism was the theological soil from which the ideology of Apartheid had received its intellectual nourishment.

Instead of studying at first hand Calvin's _Institutes_ or his commentary on the Book of Job, Kuyperianism was uncritically assimilated, parroted and adapted for the ideological defence of Apartheid and for the ideological reconstruction of the Afrikaner identity. The intellectual work of various Dutch Calvinists that was adapted by clergymen and academics for the support of Apartheid also included the ideas of the neo-Calvinist Herman Dooyeweerd, even though Dooyeweerd protested against the argument that his ideas could be used to justify Apartheid.

Joab noticed that Rudi looked very surprised to hear his views on the intellectual state of Calvinism in South Africa.

Joab asked why the works of Calvin were not more widely read or studied in South Africa. Calvinist studies had practically dried up outside the very small Calvinist scholarly community which was confined mainly to North America, with South Africa being a tiny satellite of that community. Why were there no paperback versions of his _Institutes of the Christian Religion_ standing next to the works of all the other great European thinkers such as Kant, Marx and Darwin in bookshops? Why have there been no reprints of Calvin's works in circulation? Augustine's _City of God_ was still in circulation. Abridged versions of Thomas Aquinas's _Summa_ were in circulation.

None of Calvin's works and no vibrant secondary literature on Calvinism could be found in academic bookshops.

In effect, Calvinism was dead. Calvinism, as a theological system, was bankrupt.

With that message Joab bid Rudi farewell. Rudi promised to keep Joab posted on the _lobola_ negotiations and Joab would be on standby to draw the money to pay the _bogadi_ for Segomotso.

CHAPTER 36

Not a day went by without Segomotso believing that this would be the day that Joab would arrive at the kraal to fetch her. Every new day she woke up before the sun had risen. She was always up before the others. She never gave up hope. Each day she woke with the same expectation that this was going to be the day that Joab would come to fetch her.

Just before first light she would wash and then go out and sweep the yard and start the fire before the other women and children woke up. She would sit on a small stool close to the fire and read her Bible in the gathering light of the breaking dawn. She opened her Bible and began to read:

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

" _A voice of one calling in the wilderness,_

' _Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'"_

John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

" _I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."_

The chickens began scratch in the yard. The cattle and goats stirred restlessly in the kraal. She gazed at the few smooth round rocks that surrounded the glowing embers of the fire. They had been brought to the kraal from a distant river bed. Since her arrival she had been curious about the stones, but no one really knew how they had arrived in the yard of the homestead. The thought that these stones were very old, maybe as old as the earth, crossed Segomotso's mind.

She thought to herself that she was one of those round smooth stones. God had raised her up as a daughter of Abraham from a round smooth stone like the ones lying around the fire. Abraham was her father. Abraham was her true ancestor, he was her great, great, great ancestor, he too was a pastoralist like her immediate ancestors, he too had great herds and flocks. He too was a great chief, if there ever was a great chief. She was one of the grains of sand that God had promised Abraham as his offspring.

Her parents were very proud of their Catholic identity. She was born a Catholic. Her grandmother reminded her that they were not converts. Their roots in Roman Catholicism were very ancient. This is what her grandmother had said. They often spoke disparaging about others as being only recent converts to Catholicism.

Joab did not have a problem with her being Catholic. He even said that he would convert to Roman Catholicism after they had got married.

She closed the Bible and took her rosary from the pocket of her pinafore and began to pray the rosary, reciting the Hail Mary.

Dumela Maria, Otletse grasia,  
Morena o na le wena;  
O tlhogonolo mo basading  
mme go tlhogonolo loungo lwa sebopelo sa gago, Jesu.  
Maria yo o boitshepo Mma Modimo,  
O re rapelele, baleofi,  
jaanong le ka nako ya loso lwa rona.  
Amen.

CHAPTER 37

A flash of reflected sunlight and rolling clouds of dust signalled the approach of a car in the distance. Segomotso was working with the other women in a field adjacent to the homestead. She stopped hoeing and gazed at the approaching vehicle. It was a white VW beetle. It had to be Joab. After a moment's hesitation, she dropped the hoe and ran towards the road. Her heart was pounding wildly with excitement. Standing at the edge of road, she began to wave her arms.

The women in the fields laughed. The sun laughed. The cattle started lowing. The roosters crowed. The camel thorn trees waved their boughs. The wide expanse of the Kalahari laughed.

The women in fields laughed even more as Segomotso began to jump and dance at the side of the gravel road. Their eyes were bright with joy and humour at the strange turn of events. They spoke and joked, speculating that the Boer has paid the _lobola_ and he has now arrived to claim his wife and child.

Overhead the swallows and swifts that filled the blue sky had heard everything and they too began to tweet with laughter.

Joab smiled broadly when he saw how exuberant Segomotso was to see him. He flashed the headlight and blew the hooter. She could no longer contain her jubilation. She began to wave her arms wildly above her head. She was beside herself with excitement. When Joab saw the wild spectacle of her joyful exuberation, he felt overwhelmed with emotion and struggled to stop the flow of tears that began to brim in his eyes.

He stopped next to her and flung open the passenger door. She climbed in immediately. He reached out and wrapped his arms around her. She clung to him tightly, laughing and crying at the same time.

They drove to the kraal. The car was packed with stuff. Suitcases and bags were strapped to the roof rack that he had fitted to the car. Packed in the back of the Beetle were two sewing machines and rolls of material wrapped in plastic.

For the wedding celebration he had brought Boerewors, beer, brandy, whiskey, rum, Coca Cola, sorghum beer, mielie meal, vegetables, sweets, charcoal, tea, coffee, sugar, and powder milk. After all the introductions were concluded, he gave money for the purchase of two goats which were immediately slaughtered and butchered for the planned braai that evening.

Later that afternoon he started the fire and just before twilight, when the coals were ready, he began to braai the meat. Segomotso made a huge pot of pap. As the smell of the braai spread, relatives and friends converged onto Segomotso's uncle's kraal to partake in the spontaneous wedding feast and unplanned celebrations.

There was something concretely palpable in Segomotso's internalization of the belief that because _lobola_ had been paid, she was now formally and legally Joab's wife in terms of some kind of transcendental authorization that supplanted and in the process made redundant all other kinds of ceremonial or legal endorsements which had any role and instrumentality in making their marriage more authentic than it was according to African custom. All ceremonial and legal aspects for instituting the validity of their marriage had been concluded with the successful _lobola_ negotiations between Rudi and her family. Nothing else mattered. She was now Joab's wife. Nothing in the Universe could change that.

The only thing that mattered was that, in the eyes of Segomotso's ancestors, and in the eyes the broader Batswana community into which he was going to become embedded, they had fulfilled the terms and agreements of the ancient covenants of the Batswana people. While Joab participated in the festivities at Segomotso's uncle's kraal, it began to slowly dawn on him that he was personally undergoing almost inadvertently a process of inner or internal African colonisation. This stark realization that he now faced was that following his union with Segomotso, the process of mental and emotional colonization by Africa would be ineluctable.

With that realization he felt a strange form of redeeming relief.

Later that evening, at the end of the festivities, Joab spread his army ground sheet beneath a camel thorn tree near the kraal. He unzipped his army sleeping bag and spread it out on top of the ground sheet. He covered it with two blankets. They crawled under the blankets and Segomotso cuddled up tightly against Joab. They lay with theirs head on the single pillow that they shared and gazed up at the star-filled night sky and talked about their immediate plans. He told Segomotso that he had arranged with a friend to assist them with the crossing of the border into Botswana. Neither Joab nor Segomotso had a passport. Segomotso had the address of ANC relatives in Gaborone. She would post the letter to them from Kuruman to let them know of their imminent arrival.

She told him that she was pregnant with his child. She told him he was no longer an orphan. She told him that he now had a family and he was part of greater family, an adopted member of that family, and that he would be never be alone again, he will be deeply imbedded in her family as one of them.

Smelling strongly of wood smoke, they fell into a deep peaceful sleep in each other's arms.

At sunrise they bid farewell to Segomotso's relatives before driving off to Kuruman. At Kuruman they posted the letter.

From Kuruman they travelled to Hotazel. After filling the tank up with petrol Joab studied the map. They needed to get to the family farm that Jacobus Schutte had inherited as the only surviving sibling. He was going to help them make an illegal crossing over the South African-Botswana border. They would stay with her relatives until they could find a place of their own. In Gaborone they would get assistance from her uncle who was a member of the African National Congress in seeking asylum as political refugees.

Jacobus' farm was on the Botswana border. It used to be a cattle range but had been converted into a game farm. He had given Joab the keys to the farm gate and the house. Joab and Segomotso would stay on the farm for a few days. Jacobus would meet up later with them on the farm and help them make the border crossing.

The sense of unreality was overwhelming. The boundaries of her Universe had expanded beyond the familiar. A new world had become open to her. She felt like an escaped bird unable to fully comprehend the wide ocean of freedom with its infinite possibilities that had suddenly become her reality. She had seen budgies in cages at the Bella Vista Heights. She had also seen escaped budgies flying aimlessly about at a complete loss of what to make of their freedom. On the other hand, when domestic pigeons escaped or were abandoned, they were able to survive quite comfortably as feral birds around human habitations. She and Joab would be like the feral pigeons, together they were going to survive and thrive in their new life in Botswana.

Eventually, after a long journey along remote sand roads that took them deeper and deeper into the wilderness of the Kalahari, they stopped by a nondescript farm gate. The name Doringkraal painted in white on a sheet of corrugated iron that had been hammered flat a long time ago confirmed that this was their destination. The gate was locked with a heavy rusted chain and a large padlock. Joab took a bunch of keys from the cubby hole. He quickly found the right key and unlocked the padlock.

At the farmhouse, before they could unlock the front door, an old man whose name was Samuel materialized at the bottom of the stairs of the raised veranda. He had been born on the farm and it had been his home and place of employment ever since. When it was a thriving cattle farm, he had worked as a herdsman. Now he and his old wife, with nowhere to go and with no prospects had been allowed by Jacobus to live out the remainder of their lives on the farm which had become a game farm that was visited from time to time by hunters.

He soon learned that Segomotso was Joab's wife. He had seen many strange things in his life. But nothing could have ever prepared him for the sight of a jubilant non-docile bright eyed young Motswana woman who had become the wife of a Boer. He could not help noticing how affectionate, natural and free their comportment was to each other.

Segomotso treated him with the fatherly respect of a daughter which immediately put him at ease.

Now the Boer was asking him about whether there was water in the reservoir that supplied the house. He also wanted to know about the diesel generator for electricity generation and he wanted to know whether the propane cylinders that supplied gas for the fridge, stove and for heating water were still full.

The reservoir was only about quarter full. He volunteered to go and start the diesel pump. Joab said he will come with him, Segomotso said that she wanted to go with them; she wanted to see what they going to do.

They followed him to the pump house next to the borehole. He opened the valve of the pipe that supplied the house's water reservoir. Inside the pump house the old man bent down to crank-start the diesel engine. Joab intervened and insisted that he would turn the crank. Joab turned the crank vigorously until, with bellowing clouds of black smoke, the pump's engine started to cough as it spluttered into life with fits and starts. The engine finally took and began to run smoothly. They stood there listening to the rhythmic 'doof doof' sound of the diesel engine. A minute later they could hear the water surging through the pipes and filling the reservoir. The reservoir was elevated about 20 metres on top of a steel structure. A catladder bolted to the side steel structure provided access to a wooden platform on which the reservoir rested. From the vantage point of the platform one could have bird's eye view of the farm.

Looking at the tower Joab said:

"I wonder if I will able to see the Botswana border from the reservoir."

"I don't think it is safe to climb up that ladder," Segomotso replied with a concerned look on her face.

They walked back to the house and with the help of Samuel they opened the valves of the propane gas cylinders. Samuel came into the house with them and checked to see if the gas fridge was working. He checked the gas stove and the hot water taps. Everything was in order. Before he left, he said that he would start the generator at 6.00 pm. He said that he would put enough diesel in the tank so that the generator would run until 10.00 pm before cutting out amd plunging the farm house in darkness.

"Jacobus said that we must use the main bed room," Joab said with an ironic smile on his face.

"Really!" Segomotso answered.

They took a tour of the sprawling farmhouse. Its thick walls had been been built from a wild assortment of rocks and stones that must have been hauled to the farm over many years by oxwagon over vast distances from the broken koppies scattered over the northern Cape. It was completed in 1884.

The ancient yellow wood floor boards creaked under their tread. The old farmhouse which had miraculously escaped complete destruction in the Anglo-Boer War was filled with heavy, solid late nineteen century functional Boer furniture fashioned out of yellow wood and stinkwood. Even though the furniture carried traces of Victorian Cape patrician elements, its general appearance and design expressed a predominantly Boer rustic vernacular.

Joab had never seen furniture like this before. He realized that it embodied a Boer cultural legacy that had all but been destroyed by the scorched earth campaign that had been waged against the far flung rural homesteads of the Boer commandos.

He felt a sudden flush of confused and incongrous feelings of anger. The Boers, his own people, had suffered cultural genocide on a huge scale as a result of the Anglo-Boer war, and now the Apartheid lords were finishing what the British lords had started by hastening the onset of their complete cultural extinction by squeezing the Afrikaner into some ideologically contrived cultural straightjacket.

It felt as if they were walking through a museum of nineteenth century Afrikaner culture.

Segomotso and Joab walked into the main bedroom, the bedroom in which they were going to sleep that night. Slanting shafts of sunlight lit up the room, turning the dust hanging in the air into fine glittering sparkles of gold. Standing close together, they found themselves gazing at a gallery of old photographic portraits of Jacobus's extended family.

Joab put his arm round Segomotso's pregnant waist.

Segomotso studied the portraits of the stern faces that would be watching them as they made love later that night.

She found the expressions on their unsmiling faces impenetrable and unfathomable masks. Fixed in time forever, their frozen demeanours would never have the chance to be broken by a smirk or by an enigmatic smile or by a cloud of doubt.

Their emotions, their personalities and even their humanity were veiled in mystery. There was nothing in their facial expressions that conveyed or signalled or communicated something with which Segomotso could connect with or engage.

Their immobile expressions betrayed nothing except stern solemness. There was no evidence that an interest had been piqued. In their eyes and in the lines, shadows and contours of theirs facial features they gave nothing away. No flirtation, no wistfulness, no boredom, no discomfort, no contentment, no sadness, no happiness or no embarrassment, nothing.

Segomotso could find no lasting emotional engagement with any of the photographic images of the Boers.

"Why are their faces so stiff and cross?" Segomotso asked.

"In reality they were not so gloomy as portrayed in the photographs," Joab said with a laugh.

"Are you saying the pictures are lying?" She asked laughing back at Joab.

"Yes, the pictures are definitely not telling the truth. In the olden days the cameras were quite primitive contraptions, the shutter speeds were too slow to capture facial emotions. They were probably told by the photographer to freeze their faces and not to move, not to smile, not to laugh, not to blush or even blink an eye as it would blurr the image," Joab said.

She turned and looked at her husband.

He was staring at one of the portraits. He appeared to be lost in thought.

"You have such a peaceful and serene expression on your face, what are thinking? " She said, smiling.

"I was thinking that the life of the mind gives one a certain degree of transcendence over the vagaries that plague one's existence," he said.

"Does that mean we are going to be happy?" She asked.

"Yes, that is for sure," he said, smiling back at her.

******

Jacobus arrived at the farm late Saturday evening on their third day at the farm. At two o' clock that Sunday morning, they drove behind Jacobus's four wheel drive bakkie along a winding two-track road to the Botswana border. When the sand became to loose, Jacobus towed the VM Beetle the final stretch which took them through a gap in the fence. He towed the VW Beetle down into the shallow gulley of a dried out river bed and then up the sandy embarkment into Botswana. He continued to tow them across a vast stretch of the Kalahari savannah towards a gravel road some distance away. An hour later they reached the gravel road which would take them the Gaberone.

After disconnecting the cable, Jacobus bid them farewell and then drove back to South Africa.

"So why are you looking so smug and self-satisfied?" She asked, smiling, several hours later, as the rising sun painted the Kalahari in different shades of pink.

"I was just thinking. Its funny, once you have fully and unconditionally embraced Africa, and given yourself over to her, Africa draws you tightly to her bosom like a loving mother."

"That is so true," she said as she contemplated the awesome beauty of a Kalahari sunrise.
