 
# The Girl from Reiger Park

## By Vincent Gray

Copyright © 2015 Vincent Gray

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents depicted in the narrative are either the products of the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual 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: 9780620656122

### This book is dedicated to:

### Melodie my wife and Ruth my daughter

### Author Biography

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

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

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

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

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

The Girl from Germiston

The Tale of the Sakabula Bird

Rebekah of Lake Sibaya

Segomotso and the Dressmaker

Devorah's Prayer

Farewell to Innocence: The full uncensored saga of Hannah Zeeman

Send Him My Love (Short Story)

Three Days in Phoenix (Short Story)

The Soccer Player (Short Story)

Raghavee: The Immoral House Keeper (Short Story)

Waterlandsridge (Novella)

###  PROLOGUE

From various dictionaries we will find many definitions of the noun 'protégé'. They all articulate the idea that a protégé is a young person, possibly an intellectually gifted person, who is taught or helped by someone who possesses an advance level of knowledge and experience, and who may also happen to be a gifted mentor or intellectual midwife. The role of mentorship may be conferred on someone by pure accident. Someone may find themselves cast quite inadventently into the role of a mentor, possibly even in the role of a gifted mentor. The relation beween mentor and protégé could be akin to the meeting or even merging of two minds. It is possible that a meeting of minds, say between a gifted protégé and a gifted mentor, is indeed a reoccurring event, especially within the setting of the academy, always giving rise to 'an affair of the mind' between two people. Such a meeting of minds could be the spark that ignites the fuse in which an imagined possibility becomes an actuality. We read that Theodor Adorno as a teenager studied Kant with a certain Siegfried Kracuer, a friend of the Adorno family. Apparently Einstein read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as a teenager. What about the existence of child prodigies or teenage prodigies? What kind of an individual would a teenage prodigy be like? How does an individual metamorphosize into an intellectual prodigy. Such a metamorphosis of the mind needs to be explained. There must be triggers or predisposing factors. You may wonder about the possibility of such a metamorphosis of the mind in a young person. Of course it is possible! The occurrence of rapid and extraordinary cognitive development in a young person is well documented. Given that this kind of intellectual development in a young person is possible, what would it be like or what would it feel like to be an intellectual prodigy. In my own line of work as a psychiatrist I have realized that a child or teenage prodigy may not know or even be self-consciously aware that they actually fit the bill of being a prodigy or even being especially gifted or unusually talented. They actually feel perfectly normal in their own way. We may even find them fairly mundane and ordinary. It was on a flight back from Durban to Johannesburg that I met such a person. He was no longer a young person. He was well into his sixties. Sitting next to me he seemed very preoccupied. He started writing something in his diary or journal. I am still not completely sure if we can clearly demarcate the difference between a diary and a journal. When he had finished with his writing he closed the thick hardcover notebook, leant back in the seat, and closed his eyes. The book slipped off his lap and dropped on the floor next to my feet. I reached down and gave it back to him. He said: 'Thank you.' I must have had a quizzical expression on my face. He smiled at me, I could see he needed to talk. 'I have had the most amazing experiences, mindblowing in fact, I don't know what to make of them.' Anyway we began talking. As it turned out we both came from Boskburg, we both grew up on the ERPM gold mine properties, we both went to Boksburg High School and we were both graduates of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), and we were both Catholics. We clicked immediately. We became firm friends. I decided to write his story. During our high school years he was two standards ahead of me, but with Boksburg being a village in those days, nothing remained a secret for very long, stories get around, and they become embedded in the community. My brother was a close friend of Aaron, so I heard a lot of stuff about Aaron. Anyway, if you are an asute reader you may suspect that I am indulging in an exercise of metafiction. Well it can't be helped. You may even guess that Aaron's journal eventually came into my possession and as a psychiatrist I took a special interest in its contents. Well you are half-right. You may feel that some of the contents or passages of this book represent a lot of high-faluting humbug or are bogged down in an over-description of detail (in Updikean fashion if you wish). With regard to the latter you may find the use of strings of adjectives irritating to your literary sensibilities. My response: I don't really care if you do. If there are rules to writing a novel, I say lets break them, lets be lyrical, lets speak the unspeakable, lets stretch the limits of description! But if you do have a philosophical or poetic or even a theological turn of mind then I assure you that in all likelihood you will enjoy the journey as much as I have enjoyed it. Read on!

### CHAPTER 1

On Friday the 17th of January 1964, Boksburg was in the grip of an unusually intense and sweltering heat wave. Temperatures soared well above 37oC. As Aaron Finnegan changed from his school uniform into a T-shirt and shorts he could clearly hear through the open bedroom windows one of Hillary's university friends, Gillian, making some point or other on the true meaning of Platonic love.

"The very heavenly realm of Platonic love is for men only, women don't feature. Anyway, neo-Platonism is so passé. It makes me think of E. M. Foster's indolent male Edwardian world of vague homoerotism, a world inoculated against tragedy. A world of emerald green cricket pitches, where the quietness of endless summer days are punctuated by the sporadic loud crack of a cricket bat against a ball, where muffled shouts from the pitch stir one out of a dreamy torpor, where a solitary umpire in his silly floppy white hat and white knee length jacket stands sphinx-like as wickets tumble about him. I hate cricket. I think it's such a stupid game. Anyway where were we?"

Hillary and her Wits University friends were relaxing around the pool. Her transistor wireless tuned into LM Radio was blaring out almost at full volume the Beatles latest hit _I want to hold your hand_. Aaron could only just catch the general drift of the pool-side conversations floating through the air to his open bedroom window. Nathan and his friends were splashing around in the pool. Aaron glanced at his watch, it was half past one and he was undecided what to do for the rest of the afternoon.

Over the past four years, ever since he had become a teenager, Aaron had listened intently with undiminished interest to the pool-side banter of Hillary and her university friends. It was the kind of effervescent banter that bubbled and sparkled like the frivolous fizz of a freshly uncorked bottle of champagne. Over the past four years the lazy carefree summer days, that stretched like a sleepy yawn over December and January, interrupted only by the mandatory two week December holiday at the sea, were usually spent with friends in the warm Highveld sun around the Finnegans large swimming pool in its park-like idyllic setting of manicured lawns, colourful gardens in full summer bloom and tall leafy trees that had been growing for more than seventy years.

Nathan referred to the social gatherings at the Finnegan residence as the 'holiday club', Rachel called it 'Plato's Academy for young women' and not to be out done, Max referred to Hillary and her friends camping at the swimming pool as the 'Paris Commune in Boksburg'.

Aaron had always enjoyed having Hillary's circle of friends around. Unlike Nathan and his rowdy bunch of friends the girls had their own way of livening up things around the swimming pool without causing a single splash. His interest in philosophy, especially Plato, Socrates and the Greeks had been stirred, ignited and then stoked and kindled by the formidably articulate feminist tongues of the delectable intellectual amazons lounging at the pool side in their bikinis while sipping tall glasses of ice cold passion fruit. It had lately transpired that they had become feminists and were all into women's liberation in a big way.

They had become cerebrally and at the same also politically galvanized by Simone de Beauvoir's book, _The Second Sex_ and Betty Friedan's book, _The Feminine Mystique_. They were definitely not going to conform to the typical stereotypic housewife roles that had been assigned to white South African women, especially as depicted in the domestic appliance ads in most of the popular women's magazines of the stifling 1950s. Anyway the stifling fifties was a thing of the past. With the coming of the sixties, a new dawn had broken and things would never be the same again. How could the world possibly ever be the same again following the relentless assault of gigantic tidal waves of rock music exploding on the radio channels following the quite inexplicable and sudden emergence of a new cultural phenomenon in the form of rock bands? One such popular rock band had quite mysteriously hatched itself after 10 000 hours of gestation and incubation in the obscurity of a dark dive buried in a dodgy pub whose doors opened to the feeble Northern sunlight that bathed the rundown wharfs of a bleak European harbour.

Other things were also happening on the more local scene in South Africa.

With the raid on the Liliesleaf farm by the security police on the 11th of July, 1963, and the start of the Rivonia Trial in October 1963, Hillary and her friends began to speak more and more openly about political topics that had never been broached before in the Finnegan household.

While his father Max and his mother Rachel supported the United Party, Hillary and her friends argued that there was no difference in essence between the United Party and the Nationalist Party, they were practically the same.

Hillary was very dismissive of the politics of her parents, Max and Rachel, and Aaron sided silently with Hillary.

Rachel, a devout Catholic mother, had done all she could to bring up Hillary, Aaron and Nathan as God-fearing Roman Catholics despaired silently in her heart when she heard the kinds of things Hillary was saying after being exposed to all the goings on at the University of the Witwatersrand. She and her friends spoke about Darwin, Freud and Marx as if they were saints of the Church. She was also angry with a certain Irish Dominican nun who went by the name of Sister Alice and who had played not an insignificant role in the politicisation of Hillary and Gillian who both went to St Dominic's Convent. She was also upset with the Dominican friars especially those who worked in the locations and who to her dismay had started showing all the signs of becoming too overtly political. While she didn't agree with Apartheid, she also felt a strong gut reaction antipathy to any kind of left-wing political radicalism. And it was precisely this kind of far left radicalism that was being supported by Hillary, Gillian and the Dominican Friars, and also by Sister Alice, who was referred to as the 'red nun.' It was Sister Alice who had first put all kinds of strange ideas into Hillary and Gillian's heads when they were still in high school. All Rachel wanted was for Hillary to receive a decent education in a Roman Catholic convent and to be a good Catholic daughter.

Aaron had overhead Rachel expressing her concerns privately to Max. She was worried that Hillary had made friends with a circle of Bolsheviks at Wits. She was convinced that Gillian was a Bolshevik communist. Gillian's flippant remarks that it was definitely considered chic to be a communist did little to allay Rachel's fears. Hillary and her friends had lately expressed an inordinate interest in Karl Marx's _Das Kapital_. It seemed that there was some substance to Rachel's belief that her daughter was being exposed to all kinds of bad influences at Wits.

Unknown to Rachel, Aaron had absorbed like a sponge everything that Hillary and Gillian had spoken about. Contrary to what Rachel thought, he knew that Hillary and Gillian were not real communists. However to the average white South African, the kind of things that Gillian said would have been taken as communist inspired. Gillian stated bluntly that the majority of white South Africans were living quite blissfully in a phantasmagorical world. That was the word she used, 'phantasmagorical.' It was one of those words that stuck in Aaron's mind.

Maybe Gillian was right, in South Africa it was chic be communist and to read _Das Kapital_. Maybe to be communist and to read _Das Kapital_ was a way of finding absolution in South Africa if you happened to have a pale skin.

Gillian had a tendency to say things that would shock the average white South African. Aaron found her outspoken manner very appealing. But there was more to Gillian than her outspokenness that he found magnetically appealing.

Two years ago he had become awkwardly infatuated with Gillian even though she was four years older than him. His infatuation proved to be incurable; it had steadily grown into something far more serious, more full-blown. Over the past couple of months he had fallen secretively and hopelessly in love with Gillian.

Everything that Gillian had spoken about became fixed in his mind. Thanks to Gillian, he always had some or other topic to reflect on. He would distil things in his mind extracting the essence of each point, each idea, and each argument. Gradually he had become aware that he had changed. It had also become noticeable to others that he had become intellectually quite precocious. One could have an interesting conversation with him on quite highbrow stuff. Gillian was especially very much aware of the changes that Aaron had undergone. She had known him for most of her life. And now she realized that she was no longer only Aaron's big sisters best friend. She had also quite unintentionally become Aaron's mentor, and Aaron in turn had unwittingly become her protégée. It had become quite a complicated business and she was well aware of that, but she did nothing to discourage the relationship that had started to grow between her and Aaron.

So, because of Gillian, he had come to see the world in a different way, and this was clearly evident to her. In a way she was proud of the role that she had played in his life. Like a female version of Socrates, she had not only been a gadfly or intellectual nuisance around the swimming pool, but also a midwife of wisdom and knowledge. She had helped Aaron give birth to wisdom. Aaron had become her very own special version of a _Theaetetus_ project. As a woman, the thought of this made her smile.

The Greeks and especially Socrates had invented the fine educational tradition of relational pedagogy for boys only. In ancient Athens there was no relational pedagogy for girls. It was their fate to be married off at an early age and to manage like a good wife the domestic affairs in the home, while the men debated politics and philosophy in the Agora.

Gillian agreed with Socrates that all pedagogy was relational. But she frowned on the ancient Greek practice in which the pedagogical relationship was mainly between a male adult mentor and a boy, a relationship that often involved more than mere pedagogical activities. Reading between the lines of Lysias' famous speech in Plato's _Phaedrus_ gives some substance to this possibility. Anyway, there had been a long philosophical tradition among the Greeks in which pedagogical midwifery between a man and a boy gave birth to knowledge and truth.

She knew that the ancient Greeks and especially Socrates were big on this business of pedagogical matchmaking and midwifery in the education of boys in ancient Athens. Of course without pedagogical matchmaking and midwifery there would not be any Eros.

It was at the crack of dawn when Hippocrates woke Socrates up in Plato's _Protagoras_ , begging Socrates to introduce him to Protagoras, the teacher who had just arrived in Athens. Like Hippocrates people often consulted Socrates for pedagogical matchmaking advice both for themselves and for their sons. In Plato's _Theaetetus_ , Socrates offers the following opinion about matchmakers, 'There's another thing too. Have you noticed this thing about [midwives] that they are the cleverest of matchmakers [ _promneistriai_ ], because they possess marvellous predictive insight and intuitive knowledge about the kind of couples whose marriage will produce the best kind of children?'

Was she and Aaron becoming that kind of erotic pedagogical couple whose 'marriage' would articulate the best kind of wisdom? She laughed inwardly at the erotic thought. What could be more erotic than pedagogical engagement in philosophy? Well, maybe there was some truth to Socrates' insight that wisdom was meant to flow from a genuine and authentic 'erotic union' between teacher and student, between mentor and protégée. Was not this an example of true love, the proper goal of erotic desire? Anyway what does it mean to know someone in a truly erotic fashion? The whole notion of carnal knowledge seems to be filled with all kinds of surprising and delightful ambiguity.

"Have I become brainwashed? Or have I become critically enlightened?" Aaron wondered.

He meditated over this thought as he listened to Gillian from behind the drawn lace curtain in his room. He stood for a while by the window watching her. She was parading in her black bikini at the pool-side, speaking while moving her hands about in sweeping gestures as if she were conducting an orchestra.

He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders at the thought of whether he had become enlightened or brainwashed. It was precisely the way Gillian would have posed the question. Brainwashed or critically enlightened, what was the difference? Was he becoming like her?

He stood at the open window, still staring through the lace curtains. He could see Gillian in her sunglasses and black bikini still holding forth while the others laughed at the dazzling brilliance of her dramatic verbal acrobatics. Like Hillary she was 21 years old and had also completed her BA in English and Philosophy. She was now going into the second year of her LLB degree. Hillary had also done her BA and was also going into the second year of her LLB. In fact, all of Hillary's university friends were law students; they were all in the second year of their LLB. The LLB seemed to be the most sought after degree. They all wanted to become advocates.

Gillian had once said that in order for womankind to genuinely fulfil their role as the true representation of the _Imago Dei_ , they had to become the genuine exemplification of _Homo juridicus_. She also spoke about the irony of a woman been depicted as the personification of justice in a patriarchal world. The image of the blind-folded woman balancing the scales in one hand and carrying the sword in the other was a supreme example of the iconography of irony. The goddess Themis, the ancient Greek Titaness, the personification of law including natural law, and justice and the divine order, was the greatest gift of the gods to mankind. It was she who made civilized existence possible for all men. According to Gillian, it was ultimately Themis, a female goddess, who bequeath humankind with the Western Idea that in the divine order of things, all people have been given the social and political status of legal persons or legal personalities, and it has always been the supreme goal of all tyrants, of all authoritarian or totalitarian regimes to erase or kill the juridical person and destroy the rule of law.

Aaron decided he would not join them at the pool because he was not in the mood for any verbal sparring and mental arm-wrestling in a bout of mutual teasing, especially with the Gillian. Instead he listened to them for a while, catching snatches of Gillian's conversation, when it was not being drowned out by the shouts of Nathan and his friends who were playing in the pool.

"Tell me, why would Plato create Diotima, a fictitious woman, to teach Socrates who was accused of being a seducer of young men, all about Eros? Why would he use her, an inferior woman, to justify the superiority of the love that certain kinds of men in Athens felt for boys, especially when there is nothing reciprocal about Platonic love between males, whatever their age differences?" she said.

"Was Socrates really a corrupter of young boys?" Someone asked, someone who Aaron could not see.

"No, I was just exaggerating. But he did corrupt their minds," Gillian said, after taking a sip of ice cold passion fruit, leaving bright red lipstick stains on the glass.

"Plato invented Diotima because he was clever; he needed to appropriate certain features of female sexuality which he could use in his male-only theory of Eros. Without an understanding of female sexuality he would not have had any meaningful ideas that he could use in his version of Eros," Hillary said.

"Yeah but his ideas of female sexuality were based on gross distortions," Gillian said.

"Well Plato's views on the subject of women were based on female stereotypes that were typically held by most men in ancient Greece," Hillary said.

"I know what you mean, the Greeks thought that all women could not resist any form of erotic temptation because they were such slaves to their insatiable sexual appetites," Rosemary said.

"This is exactly what all men would like to believe about women, it is their greatest fantasy," Hillary said.

"Well apart from our inability to resist the temptations of sensual pleasures, our other faults and short-comings as the weaker sex include amongst other things a total lack of interest in the higher pursuit of noble and beautiful ideas. Apparently we are completely disinterested in acquiring knowledge for its own sake or for self-improvement. We have no interest in the life of the mind. We are preoccupied solely with purely physical and bodily things; things that are always linked to sensual desires that are screaming out for immediate gratification and when we are eventually gratified we inevitably become pregnant. The main goal of our obsession with the non-intellectual mindless pursuit of sensual physical pleasures seems to spring from our desire for procreating. In order to procreate we are consumed by an irrepressible and uncontrollable lust for the life giving fluids which only men possess, and which we need to draw into our bodies like some weird alien creatures or blood thirsty vampires." Gillian said, amidst an eruption of much female gaiety around the pool.

"Well said sister! But you forgot about the small matter of reciprocity. There cannot be any meaningful Eros or eroticism without mutual intimate reciprocity, and genuine reciprocity is only authentically exemplified in male-female or women-women relationships. Only women are capable of reciprocating in a genuinely intimate manner. Men fear mutual reciprocal intimacy. Plato fails to demonstrate the achievement of authentic mutually reciprocal intimacy in male-male erotic relationships," Brenda said.

"You are absolutely right sister! Plato fails to produce an erotic theory that incorporates mutually reciprocal intimacy, which comes so naturally to us women. In fact all male philosophers have failed to understand what genuine intimacy and reciprocity in relationships actually entails. Men fear genuine intimacy. This comes out in Plato's _Symposium_ especially with respect to the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades. Erotic relationships between men and boys or between men and men are dogged by intractable problems regarding the different roles each partner is forced to play since they happen to share the same kind of sexual apparatus," Gillian said, triggering another round of uncontrollable mirth and eye-weeping hilarity.

"Please don't get me wrong. I am not against homosexuality per se, I am only insisting that if the logic is consistently applied in the theory of male superiority, then Plato must be right, the highest form of passionate love, which is Platonic love, can only be realized between men, so all genuine men, especially our macho men in South Africa, who feel that they are naturally and also inherently superior to women, should by default be homosexual," Gillian said, with a mocking smile on her face.

Still standing behind the lace curtain at the open window, Aaron remained undecided on what he was going to do next. At that moment he did not feel any strong impulse to do anything specific, other than enjoying the libidinous pleasure derived from his secretive self-indulgent voyeuristic gazing at the shapely silhouette of Gillian's body as she stood by the pool side.

If he decided to join Hillary and her friends at the pool, he would be drawn into their arguments, and given the sweltering heat this was not his idea of relaxation. He began to feel slightly drowsy, his bedroom was the coolest room in the house, so he decided that he would have a bit of a siesta, and when everyone was gone he would then go for a swim. And after the swim, what will he do? Well it was going to be another boring Friday night, unless the girls invited him along to see some film.

Before Aaron could stretch out on his bed and relax, especially after escaping another hot tedious January day at school, Rachel called him to set up the large beach umbrella at the pool for her bridge club because it was too hot in the house to play bridge in either the lounge or dining room. After organizing the umbrella, Aaron decided that it was going to be impossible for him to have his siesta. It seemed a good time to escape to the Costa de Sol Vegetable Shop before heading off anyway but home. He couldn't think of anything else to do.

On the way to the shop he wondered whether Platonism could ever become passé. If anyone thought that they could dismiss the works of Plato as outmoded, obsolete, defunct or even old fashioned, then surely that person does not belong to Western Civilization.

In philosophy there was nothing new under the sun that Plato and all the Greeks philosophers, including the pre-Socratic philosophers, the Socratic philosophers and Aristotle, had not already considered. Every possible kind of philosophical question had exercised their minds. Every possible kind of philosophical problem that could have been dreamt up had already been considered by the ancient Greeks. In this sense there was nothing new under the sun that could surprise the Western Mind, philosophically speaking.

In spite of philosophy's incredibly long, tortuous and tumultuous history, he had learnt from Gillian, that no serious philosophical problem had yet been solved to everyone's satisfaction. There existed no consensus on truth or on the 'theory of truth.' No one had been able to put any of the most important philosophical worries to rest, worries that had burdened the Western Mind for millennia. Now, in spite of a massive exertion of the collective mind of Western Man for over two and a half millennia, it appeared that no one was able to convincingly distinguish the real from the unreal, the true from the false, and the good from evil.

A few weeks ago Gillian had expressed the opinion that it was difficult not to feel like an incorrigible con artist when defending a particular philosophical thesis. With a deliberately whimsical toss of her loose, thick, dark glossy sensual coiffure, followed by a flirtatious smile playing on her face, she explained to a bashful Aaron, while they sat alone at the swimming pool, that in philosophy there really was no certainty about anything.

When she saw that a worried frown had begun to knit and crease Aaron's brow, she laughed her infectious laugh. She was beginning to enjoy her role as his mentor.

"This whole thing about the impossibility of ever achieving complete certainty on any matter is often just a consequence of the eccentric way that philosophers look at things. I suppose that is the whole point of doing philosophy, to look at things differently, in ways that we are not normally accustomed to, and it is when philosophers do this that we start experiencing all kinds of logical and empirical uncertainties that refuse to go away. This is the source of all our doubts, the soil from which scepticism grows and takes root. It boils down to just the way you look at things, the perspective you happen to prefer."

She continued to elaborate eloquently with great aplomb on various logical and empirical uncertainties that plagued all thinking. She spoke while smiling that coquettish smile; she spoke with her eyes hidden behind her dark glasses.

Taking off her sunglasses, she gazed at him in an appraising fashion, and then she continued after pushing her sunglasses up onto her head:

"However, at the end of the day when all has been said and done, absence of certainty in philosophy does not really matter, we can still continue to live out our normal dreary lives, irrespective of what philosophers have said or believed," she said, "but then again, philosophy can be a mild palliative, it can provide a kind of useful remedy in the form of distraction and relief from the tedium of a dull life. Maybe this explains the attraction of philosophy. Maybe this is what kept Socrates going, who knows?"

She took a sip of her ice cold passion fruit, waved away a bee with her hand that had been buzzing around their cool drinks.

"I suppose nowadays, when it comes to philosophy no one really cares what you believe. Today, like two thousand years ago, it is still intellectually permissible to hold any philosophical point of view that happens to tickle your fancy. You could if you like, become a nominalist or otherwise a believer in universals without losing your self-respect or being excluded from respectable company. You could be a relativist or non-relativist; you could also be an idealist or even some kind of realist, without anyone raising an eyebrow or even batting an eyelid. You may accept or reject the semantic concept of truth, and no one would think you that were odd or something. You may believe that the distinction between good and evil depends on contingent and shifting social conventions, or you may with the utmost sincerely and conviction believe that the difference between good and evil is somehow embedded in the very order of the Universe, without seeming to be a freak in polite society or something like that. No one will spit on the ground in front of you and treat you like some weirdo if you express doubts about whether law like generalizations can support counterfactual conditions," she said.

He gazed at the serene tableau, the light playing on the surface of the swimming pool, the dragon flies hovering over the pool, the dappled spots of sun flashing off the large mobile shiny poplar leaves, the butterflies dancing randomly over the flower beds.

"And what do you believe?" He asked her after trying to digest what she had just said.

She looked at him, raising a curious eyebrow. His question had come out of the blue and it carried with it the ring of intimacy.

What Hillary had said in passing to the others was true. She realized that Aaron had over the past four years become intellectually precocious while hanging out with them; she knew that she couldn't fob him off. Furthermore, she had grown to like him, she enjoyed flirting with him, and recently she had started to become attracted to him. She noticed that he had become incredibly good-looking. She had even admitted secretly to herself that it was actually a great pity that he was so much younger. She looked at his lips, his broad shoulders, his well-proportioned body, his skin tight water polo speedo and felt like kissing his lips. He was so innocent, so trusting, he did not even know what a huge turn-on he had become for her. She knew that he admired her intellectually and that he was also attracted to her. She took pleasure in the way he looked at her. He had not been very successful in hiding his infatuation for her. She took pleasure in that too. It was undeniably enjoyable to be loved, especially by someone who was so attractive. And why not, all women love to be loved. So she enjoyed basking in the love that radiated from this teenage boy who could not hide his feelings from her. Her acutely discerning female antennae were too alert and sharp for her to miss all the giveaway signals of what was going through Aaron's mind when he was with her.

Sighing inwardly she remembered the story of Potiphar's wife. _Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master's wife took notice of Joseph_.

"What do you think I believe?" She replied with a question, inclining her head as she looked at him with her lips curled in a playful smile.

"I have no idea," he said.

"What would you like me to believe?" She asked while looking at him intently. A smile of forbidden fruit and temptation played on her lips, and an amused twinkle began to also play in her appraising eyes. He felt an incredible urge to lean over and kiss her.

"The truth," Aaron replied.

Throwing back her head, she laughed.

"You are such a sweet boy, Aaron."

He hated it when she spoke to him in this manner. He felt she was not taking him seriously, and he wanted to be taken seriously, especially by her.

She intuitively sensed this.

"It was Pontius Pilate who asked the question: what is truth? He asked this question when the ultimate truth of Universe was staring him in the face. I suppose there are many kinds of truth. According to Plato, Socrates said that we can't learn the truth. The only way we can come to know the truth, is by remembering the truth we once knew in a previous life, when the soul wondered about in heaven among the Forms in the glorious company of the pantheon of the immortal gods. It so happened that we forgot the truth that we once knew, we forgot everything that we once knew after we were born. Because of this Socrates also argued that truth is already in us, even if we do not know that. It was also his idea that by questioning, we can recall the forgotten truth lying dormant within us, by questioning things the truth will eventually dawn within us like some inner light of remembrance."

He continued to pressure her about what she believed, philosophically speaking that is. And she continued to reply to his prodding in a playful parrying manner with counter questions. It felt as if she was prolonging the suspense, intentionally postponing her answer to his searching question.

"What would you like me to believe?"

This became her standard reply, always with that teasing and mysteriously suggestive smile playing on her lips, even when he became persistent. The words on her lips seemed to embody an invitation, an enigmatic covert kind of invitation which made his heart pound with excitement. There was something extremely erotic in her question, 'what would you like me to believe?'

"Do you want me to believe in the correspondence theory of truth; do want me to believe in the power of reason, do want me to believe in the power of the senses, do want me to believe in the reliability of sense perception?" She asked, raising her beautiful dark eyebrows.

She searched his face with her big brown eyes, while she probed him with counter-questions, with questions about reason and sense perception, questions which by their tone seemed to carry a freight loaded with reciprocating intimacy. Her eyes become soft and doe-like. Filled with an elusive invitation of intimacy they seemed to suggest a willingness to acquiesce to his promptings, to what he really desired from her.

She paused, her raised eyebrows changed from an expression of intimate questioning and playful probing, to one of expectant anticipation. Her raised eyebrows now filled her demeanour with heightened curiosity, her eyebrows became question marks. Pressing thoughts flashed through her mind. 'How is he going to reply to my counter questions, to my covert solicitations, to my obvious flirtatious teasing, is he going to say yes or no?'

She waited.

What if he called her bluff and said yes? What would she say in reply? Would she wantonly and seductively confirm that she believes what he would want her to believe? It would be an open consent to his desire: 'do you want me to'?

Would she reply: 'Yes I believe in the correspondence theory of truth, yes I believe in the power of reason, yes I believe in the reliability of sense perception, yes I love you, yes I want to kiss you, yes I want to hold you, yes I want you to touch me, yes I want you to caress me, yes I want to make love to you, yes I am a woman filled with desire for you, yes, yes, yes.'

He caught a tantalizing whiff of the sensual fragrance of her perfume. She started to speak again before he could say yes or no. She began to pose her own counter-questions in more detail this time round. She remembered that she was the midwife of wisdom.

"Have you ever really thought deeply about what human reason is actually capable of with regard to knowing the truth? What can we ultimately know and believe with certainty with the aid of reason alone? This was Kant's problem in his _Critique of Pure Reason_."

He heard the girls talking about Immanuel Kant. Apparently unlike Socrates he was a non-erotic philosopher, this was what he remembered.

"Going back to the other issue, that is, the issue of sense perception or sense experience, what can we claim to know with certainty through the power of our senses when they are operating in full cooperation with the power of reason? This was a major preoccupation of Kant in his _Critique of Pure Reason_."

Again she paused, giving him a chance to response. He waited for her to continue.

"What is reason? Is it a faculty or a mental ability or a cognitive capacity? What is the answer? Reason is all of these things. Now for the next question, is reason a reliable faculty, is reason a reliable mental capacity, is reason a reliable cognitive ability? I think all of these questions are asking the same thing. I think all of these questions assume that the mind possesses a facility or ability to exercise a process of logical inference, which we call REASON, for want of a better word."

"Does reason provide us with an innate faculty or innate capacity or innate power that makes it possible for us to reliably infer something, to reliably justify something, to reliably comprehend something, to reliably understand something, to reliably explain something, to reliably substantiate something, to reliably grasp the meaning, significance and sense of something? All of these actions or mental activities involve logical inference. What is the job of reason? In plain words reason represents our capacity or power to a make sense of our sense experiences or to make sense of the ideas that we manage to think up or imagine. To make sense of something is to infer, comprehend, understand and explain something, and so on. And if we think that have succeeded in making sense of our sense perception, or of the ideas in our thoughts, then we should be able to communicate this, and this is where language comes into play," She elaborated.

"We usually equate making sense of something when we understand or comprehend its meaning, and I know you will eventually ask me what is the 'meaning' of meaning?" She said with a laugh.

"We assume or believe that meaning can only be communicated or grasped or understood or comprehended through the medium of language or through various kinds of signs or symbols, which stand for something or which indicate something. For a word or sign or symbol to have meaning must it stand for something that is intelligible? We cannot image a language without words. We are supposed to be able to express our thoughts in words. Can we think thoughts without the help of words? Can there be thought without language? Can there be Mind without words or language? We are also supposed to be able to make the internal world of our private thoughts intelligible to others with the aid of words. We are also supposed to be able to make the external reality of the world meaningful or intelligible to ourselves, and to others with the aid of words. Do words convey meaning? Can words do the job that we want them to do? What are words and how or why are they meaningful? How do words make things intelligible? If something is intelligible does this mean it is meaningful. What does it mean for something to be intelligible? What does it mean for something to be unintelligible? What is a thing? What does it mean for something to be a thing? Surely the opposite of a thing is nothing. Nothing can only be nothing, it cannot be something," she said, elaborating on meaning and intelligibility, speaking words with an expression of thoughtfulness on her face.

Aaron listening with rapt attention absorbed everything she said.

"Does reason possess the power to justify our beliefs, does it possess the power to substantiate our beliefs, does it possess the power to provide the necessary warrant for our beliefs? Maybe our unquestioning trust in the power of reason to solve all philosophical problems and to provide answers to all of our philosophical questions is actually nothing more than an article of faith, nothing more than just another one of our many beliefs. We depend on our faculty of reason for many everyday practical purposes. We can get by perfectly fine in our daily lives without ever bothering to question the reliability of reason, especially with respect to the exercise of common sense."

The sun suddenly seemed to be very bright. She put on her sunglasses. She had become as brown as a berry. There was a healthy glow to her toned skin. A black masked weaver bird in the poplar tree stopped making its sizzling sounds. It began to snip off leaves. They watched the leaves fall one by one. He asked if he should open an umbrella. She said no, don't worry, she did not mind the sun. She continued:

"As an article of faith, the trust or faith in the reliability or power of reason remains one of our most important basic beliefs, but this does not mean that as a belief it does not need to be substantiated or justified."

The leaves continued to fall as the weaver stripped the branches, snip, snip, the leaves fell. The leaves fell, leafs that were fresh, green, healthy and shiny, the leaves fell, the leaves continued to fall, some gliding, some looping, some zigzagging, some floating, some drifting, some spiralling in wide circles, others spun about an invisible axis, spinning round and round like the rotor of a helicopter. Snip, snip, the leaves fell. Aaron and Gillian watched the busy weaver. Some leaves fell into the swimming pool, floating on the surface like boats.

Gillian watched the falling leaves while she spoke, she spoke without looking at Aaron, and he listened while watching the weaver.

"Philosophically speaking the reliability of reason needs to be justified just like any of the other basic beliefs which underlie any of our claims to know something to be the case with certainty."

"If the conscious exercise of reason plays an obligatory and fundamental role with respect to the answering of all our questions regarding the truth of various matters, can we also use reason to decide whether reason itself is indeed a reliable faculty for acquiring knowledge? Here we have an example of a vicious circle from which there is no possibility of escape in philosophy or logic. Is there any logical or empirical way to untangle reason from this vicious circle? Can we establish any truth independently of reason, including the reliability of reason?"

"Here we have an insoluble paradox, an insoluble riddle. It may suggest that we are unable to know the _ultimum_ of all things, in other words, we are unable to have ultimate knowledge of anything, because all attempts to acquire certain knowledge of the ultimate meaning and significance of the Universe will only end in vicious circles or infinite regressions."

She paused for moment to think about what she wanted to say next.

"So, this brings me back to your question: 'What do I believe?' "

She took off her sunglasses and turned onto her side, facing Aaron.

"Hmmm....what do I really believe without any doubt? What do I really know with absolute certainty without the faintest shadow of doubt? How can I know that I do indeed know something with complete certainty. Is there anything that I can claim to know with complete certainty? How do I know that I know? This is the fundamental problem of epistemology. What can I know? It seems to be the same as asking what do I believe to be the truth with absolute certainty." She asked herself in the spirit of Descartes' famous _Meditations_.

Her demeanour was intense and serious.

"Whatever it is that I believe, I must have compelling, infallible, unassailable, indubitable, incorrigible grounds or reasons for holding that belief," she said.

Her demeanour became passionate; she gave Aaron a deep, intense and intimately searching look, as if he held the answers in his eyes. She suddenly seemed unsure of herself. He could sense her vulnerability; the vulnerability of someone who was in love, the vulnerability of someone who was uncertain about that love, yet felt the incredible desire to give herself over to that love. Being close to Aaron she felt the vulnerability of someone like Socrates who confessed that the only thing he knew was Eros, the only thing he knew was Love, which was ultimately a confession that he knows that he knows nothing. This admission of Socrates remains a puzzling riddle, a paradox. Eros is ultimately the love of wisdom and the love of wisdom occurs within the erotic intertwining of the sensual bonds between two lovers. Could she confess that loving Aaron was the only thing that she was certain of? Would her truth be that the only love she would ever know was what she felt for Aaron at that moment?

"Could it ever be possible to find infallible, indubitable and incorrigible grounds for holding any kind of belief? Can that ever be possible?" She asked.

"Can we really know the truth about anything without having to also assume the truth of something else as well? Is it possible for us to claim to know that something is true independently of any unjustified assumptions?"

"No, we cannot!" she said, firmly answering her own question.

"In reality this means that we have actually conceded that we can know nothing with absolute certainty. Maybe we unconsciously assume too much when we think that we know the truth about something? Maybe we falsely believe to know the truth because we are not aware of any veiled or hidden assumptions which we have failed to recognize or failed to be aware of. Any exercise in wanting to establish the truth is actually an exercise in making all the hidden assumptions explicit. Inevitability the search for knowledge or the search for truth, which is the same thing, ends up being an interrogation of the evidence, and the interrogation of evidence always ends up in an attempt to justify or rationalize our most basic beliefs, beliefs about sense experience, beliefs about the power of reason, and so on, even our gut reactions," she elaborated.

She regained her composure. Her face became playful and indulgent again.

"Can we ever be absolutely sure about our most basic beliefs such as the power of reason and the reliability of sense perception? How do we justify or substantiate these two beliefs. Do we just accept them as being simply true without any supporting evidence, without any kind of supporting chain of inferences from more fundamental self-evident or self-grounded premises or axioms? Are there any self-evident grounds; are there any self-evident unshakeable foundations that are capable of justifying or supporting our belief in the reliability of sense-experience and the power of reason? Can we ever escape an infinite regression once we go down the road in search of secure foundations to support our philosophical or scientific beliefs?"

"Can we justify any claim that we are capable of acquiring meaningful knowledge when our most basic beliefs such as the reliability of sense experience and the reliability of our faculty for reasoning actually rest on very shaky grounds or even bogus grounds? Kant thought we could. That was why he could talk about _a priori_ knowledge or analytic or necessary truths, which can supposedly be known independently of any kind of empirical experience. But this claim may also be invalid, maybe it could be shown to be false. Maybe there are instances which will show that this is a false belief. If we can prove for example that an _a priori_ truth can be established only through experience, then there would be an inconsistency in Kant's notion of _a priori_ truths."

After a pause she continued.

"Now I am sure that it can be logically demonstrated that we cannot know everything, within the so called _a priori_ realm of knowledge to be _a priori_ true and certain, independently of any kind of sense experience. This means that some kind of empirical experience may be necessary to establish the certainty and truth of what we thought we could know _a priori_. I am sure that this would be a great shock to everyone!"

"It is generally thought that anything which belongs to the _a priori_ realm of knowledge cannot be known empirically, but this may not be true."

"There are also other problems, logical problems blocking the way to certainty. For example, intractable and insoluble logical snags prevent us from having certainty by means of inductive reasoning. This means that we are faced with serious logical problems, when we try to establish the truth of any _a posteriori_ claims to truthfulness, simply because logically there would never be sufficient empirical evidence to validate any such claim. On the grounds of pure logic we may be denied from having any unproblematic access to any meaningful kinds of truth. Reason may be its own constraint, its own undoing in its unassisted search for truth," she explained.

She smiled a mischievous playful smile at Aaron.

"Do you still want to know what I believe?" she asked, with a subtle flash of sudden wantonness veiled in the play of her eyes, in the arch of her eyebrows, in curl of her lips, in the movement of her hand through her hair.

"Yes."

"Why?" She asked.

"I am curious," he said.

"Would you like me to agree to the principle that 'to see is to believe'? Have you ever thought about what you actually see when you believe that you are seeing something? According to Plato true knowledge of anything or the ultimate truth in other words, as opposed to mere opinion, can only be of immutable things that exist in a state of eternal perfection beyond the domain of the phenomenal world of sense experience and time."

"True knowledge of the essential nature of things cannot be discovered in the temporal world of sensible phenomena. True knowledge can only be found in the atemporal heavenly realm beyond the world of sensible phenomena. True knowledge as opposed to the illusions of sense perception can only be acquired in a dimension of reality that exists beyond the reach of sense perception. The real objects of true knowledge are the perfect things that are unchanging, things which are immutable, which is to say things that are eternal beyond or outside time."

"All these perfect objects or perfect things or perfect qualities of things constitute the Forms or Ideas that Plato speaks about. The Platonic immutable, eternal and perfect Forms or Ideas are things or entities that exist in a world that is inaccessible to sense perception; we cannot see the Forms with our naked eyes. The invisible Ideas or Forms which are the objects of true knowledge constitute what has been called the ONE."

"Plato strongly rejected the idea that genuine, meaningful and authentic knowledge could be acquired through sense perception. Temporal entities or things or qualities of things which exist in time are not immutable or perfect, they are constantly undergoing change and because they are changing all the time they are not real like the Ideas or Forms. If they are not real then they cannot be objects of true knowledge. They are too illusionary for that. Temporal entities or properties of temporal entities which can only exist in the changing world of phenomena constitute what has been called the MANY."

"According to Plato everything that exists in time in the sensible realm which constitutes the observable Universe cannot provide genuine knowledge of the true and real nature of things. Everything we see or perceive with the aid of the senses represents an imperfect copy of the Platonic Forms or an imperfect copy of the Platonic Idea of that thing which we may happen to be looking at," she said.

He listened to Gillian with an expression of attentive fascination on his face that always made her laughed good-naturedly.

"You can spend your entire lifetime analysing the contents of the so-called evidence of sense perception in defence of one or other theory about what you think you were actually perceiving when looking at some external object out there in the world. Plato was defending his own particular theory of sense-perception, and his conclusions were that sensory based experiences of external objects in the world can never provide meaningful, genuine and authentic knowledge about the real and essential nature of things. For Plato, all knowledge based on sense experience, which basically boils down to the perceptions of the sensible external objects that make up the time bound phenomenal world, was fundamentally unreliable. All observable phenomena, everything that we see around us in the sensible Universe consists mostly of fleeting impressions of mutable things that are continually changing. In Plato's view, observable temporal things which have an ephemeral ghostly form of existence are like vapours or drifting clouds, they are insubstantial," she said.

She looked at him with an ironical smile on her face, and asked:

"Do you still believe that 'seeing is believing'? Do you believe like Theaetetus, that knowledge is perception, that knowledge is perceiving whatever happens to be sensible, and that all knowledge is ultimately rooted in sensuous seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling or touching? Do you believe that all sensuous perceiving is knowing and that all knowing is perceiving, and therefore all knowledge is ultimately erotic because it has its roots in the sensual world of the senses?" She asked.

"How can you justify this belief? If the source of all knowledge is sense perception or sense experience and all certainty about what is knowable is rooted in the immediate consciousness of sensual awareness, which is what sense experience is all about, then Protagoras was right, man is the measure of all things. I suppose we can say that sensual man or erotic man is the measure of all things, and I suppose also that Eros is the beginning of all knowledge. Do you still believe that 'seeing is believing' and that sense perception is the ultimate source of all our knowledge?" She inquired.

He thought for a while about what she had said, and decided to stick to his guns.

"Yeah, in a sense I do, I believe that knowing is perceiving," he insisted, in spite of what she had previously said about the dialogues in Plato's Theaetetus and Protagoras, both books which he had also read .

She laughed generously: "So 'seeing is believing' and 'knowing is perceiving'? Indeed cowboy!"

"English is a very slippery kind of language because most of its words, especially words like verbs used to describe various kinds of sensory perception, like looking, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling or touching, carry a lot of surplus luggage. Verbs such as looking, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling only really have a literal meaning if we believe that when we use them we are actually making verifiable perceptual claims about the nature of the external world and not just about mere subjective appearances or impressions," she explained, responding to the whole issue of 'seeing is believing.'

She continued to elaborate.

"Verbs such as looking, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or feeling also refer to the responses of our various sense organs which are involved in our sensuous acts of perceiving. In the context of the technical language of English philosophy, verbs of perception are often used to refer to very specific kinds of sensations which have been called sense-impressions. Some English philosophers have made the incredible claim that what we are sensing in all our seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling, are not the actual properties of external objects existing out there in the world, but rather some ghostly thing which is thought to be the stand-in actor for all external objects. You may have guessed that this ghostly thing that we supposedly perceive is nothing more than some transient temporal evanescent ephemeral thing called an impression. How un-erotic is that! The naked verbs of our language first enunciated in the Garden of Eden have been eviscerated and bled to death. What has happened to the refrain from Genesis, 'and God saw that it was good.' Anyway we have got Plato to thank for this." She said.

"Are sense impressions only phantoms of the mind?" Aaron asked.

"Until recently that was the conventional thinking in English philosophy. But the idea is losing its grip. It is no longer as persuasive as it used to be," she answered.

"You know about Plato's allegory or parable of the cave?"

"Yes, I have read it several times," he answered.

"Well then I can ask you, have you ever wondered what could be the decisive interpretation of Plato's allegory of the cave? It deals with seeing, do you agree?" She asked.

"I do. I agree that it does deal with seeing, but I think it deals with the possibility that what we think we see could be nothing but a complete illusion," he said.

"In a way the parable also deals with the nature of truth. The parable seems to suggest that the essence of truth or the essential nature of truth could be about what is hidden from view. The hidden reality in other words. Discovering the essential nature of truth depends on an unconcealing or the revealing of the real state of affairs of things. It is this revealing or unconcealing which shows us how things really are in the Universe. To become unhidden involves a revealing, which takes place through an unconcealing, a disclosing, an unveiling, an uncovering and all that kind of stuff, if you can appreciate what I am getting at. To be hidden means to be concealed from view. We are back to the problem of seeing clearly. Seeing clearly is seeing the thing in itself, unveiled, without the covering mantle which hides from view the real nature of the external objects which lie behind the world of appearances. I know that this does seem to be an unsatisfactory, woolly metaphorical way of talking about what constitutes truth," she said.

"Are you suggesting that the essence of truth is really theological in nature?" He asked.

"Well, maybe, it is an interesting idea; maybe all questions eventually terminate at the doorstep of God, and end up having a theological character. It has been the dream of twentieth Century English philosophy to escape from metaphysics, to free the philosophical endeavour of any clinging or contaminating residue of metaphysics, but this has proved impossible. No philosophy can free itself from becoming entangled in what we call 'metaphysics,' every philosophy has its own metaphysics," she said.

"I wanted to say something about the issue of theology, but our little detour into metaphysics drove it from my mind," she said.

She was silent for a while as she gazed at the leaves fluttering in a light breeze. The weaver had stopped snipping leaves from the branches overhanging its woven nests.

"I remember now what I wanted to say. There could even be a connection between Plato's idea of Eros and the theological nature of the quest for ultimate truth," she admitted.

"The idea of Eros as a form of compulsion occurs frequently in Plato's Republic and the philosopher is often depicted as someone who acts out the role of a compulsive erotic in his philosophic quest for knowledge and truth, which as you may have guessed, is driven by an erotic yearning or an erotic desire for truth. Maybe a better verb than 'yearning' in this case would be 'desire'. The word Eros as both noun and verb does appear strange and bewildering to our modern ears, but the words 'Eros' and 'erotic' crops up so often in Plato's writings that we cannot ignore their significance or meaning for Plato. I must say, his use of the word Eros is also counterintuitive to the modern ear. What does Eros ultimately mean for Plato? This is an important question for all philosophy. The search for truth, in the case of Kant, involved an aversion for the sensuous. Plato in the end also seems to have developed an aversion and suspicion towards the sensuous which all too readily becomes associated with physical pleasure. Physical pleasure is really an extension of the sensuous sensibility of the body, a body with sense organs? Did you know that the human skin is our most potent sense organ? Anyway, let me get back to what I was saying. Unfortunately the quest for truth for Plato and Descartes and Kant and all the others has followed the path of denying the flesh, which means the body and its sense organs," she commented.

She put on her dark sunglasses and laid back in the reclining pool deck chair. Aaron eyes roved over her body as he waited for her to complete whatever she wanted to say.

"However, in spite of the philosopher's supposed aversion to the sensual physical pleasures of the eye and the body, the true philosopher is still someone who is driven by an erotic desire for truth. Obviously, the meaning of Eros undergoes a fundamental change of meaning in the hands of Plato. It is erotic desire that drives the ascent of the prisoner from Plato's cave into the light and again it is an erotic desire that also drives his descend back down into the dark depths of the cave, it is also erotic desire that drives the ascent of the soul to heaven," she said.

Under the pressure of Aaron persistent questioning and his determination to know what she actually believed, philosophically speaking, she eventually relented, and hinted that she believed in the existence of Universals and that she found herself leaning towards a realist position, mainly because she was still a Catholic, in spite of everything else, or what other people thought.

"You can tell your mom that I am not a Bolshevik," she said after a moment of silence following her confession of belief.

Aaron took immense pleasure, not only in her playful flirting with him, but also in her spell-bounding commentary on all things philosophical. If she was going to become an advocate specializing in litigation, he would fear to be her adversary.

While he dreaded to be her adversary he yearned to be her lover, even though she was older than him. It was Aaron's turn to heave a sigh of longing filled with unrequited desire as erotic images of Gillian filled his head as he thought of her. But then he had to accept that she was much too old for him.

It was time to let go.

He sighed again inwardly. He felt that he would never get over his love for her.

The theory of Universals fascinated him ever since he had first heard about it from Gillian. The theory was concerned with the relationships between the One and the Many. Was the One in the Many, or did the Many participate in the One, or did the Many share in the One? Did the One somehow cause the phenomena; bring them into existence so that they may become the Many, the objects of perception? The theory was one of the enduring legacies of Plato. Even Plato, the First Philosopher, the Father of Western Philosophy was not always clear, consistent and precise about the relationship between the One and the Many. A point which Gillian had made in her love and hate intellectual relationship that she felt compelled to endure with respect to Plato.

It puzzled Aaron how she blew hot and cold in her views on Plato. It was a women-thing he concluded.

In Plato's _Euthyphro_ , the Forms somehow cause the manifestations of the Many.

"It is by virtue of the Forms being 'in' things that things have their properties, their characteristics, their qualities. In this sense the Many exemplify the Forms, which play the role of the One," he remembered her saying.

Then again in Plato's _Phaedo_ , the Forms, somehow by being immanent in the Many enable all things in the World to possess their characteristic properties and qualities. In this sense the One or the Forms play a role in the generation of things and their properties.

According to Gillian, the mystery, which Plato in all his writings has failed to unveil, was the question of whether the Forms were the efficient or material causes of things and their properties, and their relationships with other things. A question mark hangs over the issue of whether the Platonic Forms could in any manner of speaking work independently by themselves as agents of action. Could Forms have any kind of agency by means of which they were able to bring things such as substances into existence with all their characteristic properties and their relations?

She once said that one could conceive the nature of every possible world in terms of the concepts of substance, properties and relationships, and of course, time.

He realized that he had to let go of his obsession for Gillian.

The erotic shadow of Gillian had loomed over almost his entire teenage life and this was the main reason why Aaron had as yet no sweetheart.

His mind wondered back to Plato, to what he had assimilated from reading and from the discussions he had with Gillian. He had been looking for the perfect embodiment of Gillian in every girl that he found had interesting.

A satisfactory solution to the Platonic puzzle of the One and Many or the One in the Many or the One over the Many was held to be the key to the meaning of everything. And what about Being and Becoming? And furthermore, there was also the Platonic question of Eros. How did Eros come onto the scene? According to popular Greek mythology, at Aphrodite's birthday party, Aphrodite adopted Eros who happened to be the child of the union between Poros (resource) and Penia (poverty). The adoption was perfectly appropriate and natural because Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty, desire and pleasure was also born on the day of Eros conception. This was how she, Aphrodite, became the mother of Eros.

Socrates, Plato's mentor, was a man who openly and honestly confessed without any embarrassment his state of ignorance when it came to knowledge. But he made his admission of general ignorance in a very oblique manner. The only subject that he confessed to have knowledge of was love, as in passionate love, or love intoxicated with desire, or Eros. In other words, the only thing that Socrates had any knowledge of was Eros. Eros stands for passionate love. Eros in the form of passionate love becomes consumed with desire for the object of its passions.

Passionate love, drawn ineluctably by an all-consuming desire for the possession and enjoyment of physical beauty makes it impossible for the soul to avoid its downward descent to earth. Abandoning its primordial state as a being living in perfect harmony in the heavenly realm of the Forms, it descends to languish in the dark underworld realm of unrequited desire. In this dark underworld the raging cauldron of erotic desire can never be quenched, it's final and complete gratification remains forever denied, instead desire lingers in a state of tortured frustration, perpetually unfulfilled, and never satisfied.

Gillian had ignited his erotic desire for her. While watching her through the curtain he had felt the seething cauldron of desire. In that moment he had experienced what it was like to descend into that dark underworld of love mingled with lust, without the prospect of release. Release could only come when his desire for her had become satisfied through the intimate act of physical union with her. In that act he would take possession of her. Taking erotic possession of Gillian was a fantasy that both enthralled and disturbed him. Nothing could be more sublime, more exquisitely pleasurable, more fulfilling, more heavenly, more gratifying, more meaningful, more wonderful, and more desirable that to experience the climax of physical union with Gillian. The prospect of not ever having physical union with Gillian filled him with a profound sense of emptiness, regret and loss.

Eros desires the erotic possession of the beautiful body, but Eros always represents the absence of such possession. Eros is the lack of desire fulfilled. Eros embodies the full measure of unfulfilled desire. It seems strange that Eros should have any relation to the possession of knowledge, or that Eros represents a lack thereof. Maybe love stands in the way of the pursuit of knowledge.

The de-eroticization of Eros was not only a dominant worry of Plato's academy, but also became Saint Augustine's own obsession. The encircling threat of Eros laid siege to his vision of the City of God. After Plato and Saint Augustine, the dark spectre of Eros continued to haunt Christendom and Western Civilization. Resisting all attempts aimed at its exorcization, the erotic imagination keeps on returning, like a recurrent nightmare, to possess the Western mind like a demon. To ward off the ravages of Eros, the body with its sense organs, with it sensuous sensibilities, was held in contempt. But holding the body in contempt failed to protect the mind. Eros was relentless in its offensive to penetrate into the very recesses of the mind, so that it could occupy every nook and cranny of the consciousness of Western Man. Eros infiltrated into every interstitial lacunae of Western thought, permeating and penetrating into the very warp and woof of Western Civilization.

In this regard, Gillian drew his attention to Plato's _Phaedo_ (84a-b) where he writes:

The soul of a philosophic man will reason as follows: if it is the task of philosophy to untie the soul from the body, then the soul itself, untied from the body, should not return to prior pleasures and pains, nor deliver itself to their chains, thereby doing Penelope's endless task, as she weaves and unweaves her cloth. Rather, it should secure protection from these, by following discourse and always keeping within it, by comtemplating truth, the divine and what is not appearance, and being nutured by it. The soul thus believes that it must live for as long as life lasts, and, when life finally comes to an end, the soul goes towards that which is naturally similar to it, free of any human evil.

The fabric of cloth, which could also be for a marriage garment, which Penelope in Homer's _Odyssey_ weaves in the day, she unravels at night, to escape the net of desire that has been spun for her capture, by her many suitors. In Plato the unravelling of the woven fabric is equivalent to the release of the soul, which could also be the mind, from the sensuous prison of the body which is trapped in an 'unreal' world of sensible appearances. The nocturnal unravelling of the fabric woven in the light of day resembles the de-eroticization of Eros.

If Charles Darwin's theories of the selection of secondary sexual characters were correct, then all attempts to de-eroticize or exorcise Eros would always end in desperate futility, in defeat. Aaron realized that humanity was trapped in the vice grip of Eros. It had become too late to reverse this. If Darwin's theory of the selection of secondary sexual characters was correct, then an erotically enfeebled humanity can no longer claim conscious ownership of mind and body.

Our impulses wriggle in our hands like slippery eels, escaping from our feeble grasp, leaving us with only the empty-handed illusion of self-control. Forever languishing in the emptiness of an all-consuming desire, the possibility of complete and final gratification torments the body and mind like the shifting mirages in the desert. Eros in the form of passionate desire for physical beauty has already irreversibly taken possession of our minds and sculptured our bodies, both male and female. Man in his essence has become a slave to his erotic impulses.

Aaron had discovered Darwin and Plato. But he discovered something else as well. After one of their discussions at the pool-side which always ended with her putting on her sunglasses and lying back on her pool chair, she shared an insight with him.

"Last year an interesting paper was published in _The Journal of Symbolic Logic_ by some chap called Frederic Fitch. Most philosophers believe in some version of the Knowability Principle which proposes that any true proposition is knowable. Now Fitch seems to have formulated a compelling logical argument that apparently proves the following statement: 'if there is some true proposition which nobody knows to be true, then there is a true proposition which nobody can know to be true.' So we cannot simply assume that any existing or given truth can be simply accessible and knowable in an unproblematic fashion," she said looking him. It was an intimate disclosure. She had spoken to him as an intellectual equal.

While he was digesting in meditative silence this revelation of the existence of unknown true propositions, she continued to talk about philosophy in the same intimate manner that made him feel like her intellectual comrade in philosophy.

"As I have said before, philosophically speaking, everything that has ever happened, or is currently happening, or which will still happen in the future, can be accounted for in terms of three kinds of concepts: substance, properties and time. A substance is any concrete object such as a photon, an electron, a bird, a proton, a tree, a car, a desk, a glass or water. All substances have two kinds of properties, monadic and relational properties. These properties may be contingent or necessary. If they are necessary then they are essential properties or essential predicates of the substance concerned. If they are necessary properties then the substance cannot exist without possessing that property. Necessary or essential properties of substances are Universals. All events that occur in the history of the Universe at or during any instance of time always involve a substance acquiring a property or losing a property. This, in a nut shell, encapsulates the whole history of the Universe."

### CHAPTER 2

While intensely preoccupied with these thoughts Aaron entered the shop in an absent minded and distracted state. Inside the shop he bumped into Carlos and Dominic. He was surprised to see them again so soon. They stayed in Plantation on the other side of the main East Rand railway line. Why would they be here, on this side of the railway line? There was a café much closer to their homes. And on top of that it was barely 45 minutes ago that they had slipped away from school together at 12.00 pm on their bicycles so as to bunk the inter-house athletics selection trails. They were equally surprised to bump into Aaron. They had stopped at the shop to buy cool drinks on their way to his house. They had their speedos on under their shorts and were coming over to swim. What was also surprising was the fact that they were walking; they did not have their bicycles.

"It's really not such a good idea to come over to my place. It is kind of crowded. Nathan has all his friends over. And Hillary has all her Wits University friends over. It's so hot in the house that Rachel and her bridge club are also playing bridge next to the pool. Every five minutes someone wants something from the kitchen. It is always: 'Aaron would you be a real honey and get us some ice water from the fridge.' Nathan always has an excuse. I actually needed to escape."

"Well let's go over to Janet's house then," Carlos suggested.

After grabbing some cokes and paying Manny, the three friends ambled down Rissik Street. They took the narrow tarred service mine road to a block of modest three bedroomed red brick and red corrugated iron roofed semi-detached of mine houses. The road ran past the back entrances of the homes. The green wooden garage doors opened onto the road. The backyard gates also served as the main access entrances to the homes. The small front gardens of the first block of mine houses looked out onto to the police station tennis courts which were hidden behind a leafy wind barrier of tall poplar trees. Beyond the tennis courts lay the extensive kikuyu lawns of the police shooting range. As kids, Aaron and his friends used to play football on these lawns. On other occasions they collected _doppies_ (spent cartridge cases) after a police shooting bisley.

The service road continued further down, extending across the level crossing of a railway line which belonged to the East Rand Proprietary Mines Ltd (or ERPM). After the level crossing the road ran past the back entrances of a second block of semi-detached mine houses. Janet stayed in the second house in the first block of semis. They discovered that she was not yet home. They had completely forgotten that she was still at school doing athletics. Her Mom was also surprised to see that they had come home so early. Her expression of surprise suddenly darkened into one of suspicion. Realizing that Janet's Mom may start asking all kinds of questions which would be difficult to answer, they made a quick escape so as not to sink further into a swamp of lies.

So having no other plans for the Friday afternoon, which was in fact a very unusual situation for the three friends to be in, they found themselves walking downhill along the service road to the level crossing of the railway line. An extensive railway line system crisscrossed the property of ERPM. It was used for the transportation of the gold bearing ore that had been hauled up from the stopes of the various mine shafts. A steam locomotive was used to transport truckloads of broken ore to the crusher stations at the ERPM gold reduction works next to Angelo Pan, which had become a crimson coloured toxic lake.

On the southern side of the second block of mine houses was a small rock crushing station that was used for crushing non-gold bearing ore into gravel and building stone. The small front gardens of the second block of semi-detached mine houses looked onto a strip of veld that ended at the margins of a stand of tall reeds. On the other side of the bed of reeds was a small dam which was called the Rock Dam. Behind the dam stood a massive rock dump and behind the rock dump stood the headgear of the Hercules Vertical Mine Shaft. Originally these two blocks of mine houses were built for the white miners who worked for Hercules Pty Ltd. Hercules mine was one of several independent Boksburg gold mining companies that were eventually all bought up by ERPM. Mr George Hebert Farrar was the creator and originally the controlling share-holder of ERPM.

Everywhere there were signs that the fresh green lushness and ripe over-abundance of summer had started to fade. The grey-green sea of flowering spikes and inflorescences that covered the veld gave it a tarnished appearance. However the curtains had not quite yet fallen on summer, a symphony of reproductive energy still buzzed over the surrounding grass lands and scattered vlei reed beds. Under the afternoon's deep azure blue vault golden Bishop Birds noisily puff-balled above their nests among the reeds. Also with their puffed up bright red plumage Red Bishop Birds swarmed over the reeds like giant bumble bees in a frenzied search for still more mating partners.

A sudden movement caught Aaron's attention. They had inadvertently flushed a Sakabula Bird. With its long conspicuous black tail it seemed to be momentarily suspended in midair in the bright afternoon sunlight. It then floated gently just above the veld slowly flapping its wings while making a _zizz-zizz-zizz_ noise which sounded like the sizzling sound of an egg frying on a red hot plate.

While thirstily downing huge gulps of cool drink they stood in silence watching the bird drifting away across the grassland towards the stream.

Eventually the bird settled on top of the brown sausage-like floral spike of a bulrush reed next to a narrow stream that was fed with water decanting from the Rock Dam. It was the same stream that fed the Rock Dam. It was a perennial stream, one of the many Witwatersrand streams whose white coloured waters simply sprung up in a bubbling eruption from the high ground rocky outcrops. It flowed southwards, as one of the many streams that fed the sprawling system of wetlands that lay to the south of the Main Reef Outcrop. From the extensive wetland, the decanting steams coalesced to form larger rivers like the Natal Spruit, Blesbok Rivier, Rietspruit, Klip Rivier, all of which emptied into the huge Vaal River which formed the boundary between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The ultimate source of the stream flowing into the Rock Dam remained a mystery, until Aaron and his friends discovered that the stream just bubbled out of a rocky outcrop near the old Angelo Mine.

They gazed at the Sakabula Bird in the reed bed next to a small stream that was fed with water decanting from the Rock Dam. The stream flowed downhill into a deep rocky ravine where it joined a larger stream. The larger stream was fed by water decanting from Boksburg Lake. This stream from the Boksburg Lake was one of two streams that supplied Cinderella Dam with its water.

"I wonder why the Sakabula Bird has such an incredibly long tail," Carlos mused.

"It is a long story," Aaron answered.

"You must tell us someday," Dominic said.

The Sakabula Bird took off again and as it faded from sight they continued on their way down the road towards the ERPM loco railway line.

"What are we going to do now?" Carlos wanted to know as they reached the level crossing and stood there, not sure where they should be heading.

"I don't know," said Dominic, "we should have gone to the ERPM swimming pool like I suggested."

"I told you I couldn't, my bike tire has a puncture, you saw that I had to stop and pump it up at least five times on the way home today, and then the bloody pump broke, now I am stuffed," Carlos said.

"Let's go and sit at the dam," Aaron suggested.

"And do what?" Dominic asked.

"I don't know, have you got any better suggestions?" Aaron said.

"Maybe we should have gone to your house Aaron," Dominic said, having second thoughts about the prospect of spending the afternoon sitting at the Rock Dam doing nothing.

They walked in silence between the railway tracks with the sun blazing down on them.

"Have you ever heard of something along the lines of an Edwardian world of vague homoerotism," Aaron asked out of the blue, breaking the silence by trying to get a conversation going on some topic that he knew would be controversial.

"A vague kinda of what?" Dominic asked looking a bit surprised.

"Homoerotism," Aaron said.

"A vague homoerotism, what the hell is that?" Carlos asked with a smirk on his face.

"Where did you hear about that?"

"From one of Hillary's University friends, you know, that Wits University chick called Gillian," Aaron said.

"Oh ja, I know her, she is the one who always wears the black bikini and never stops talking about the weirdest stuff under the sun. She has got the most amazing body," Carlos said.

"She is erotic for sure, maybe not homoerotic but erotic all the same, she is such a tease," Dominic said with huge lascivious grin on his face.

"Yeah I can't believe that she is going to be lawyer someday," Aaron said.

Shielding their eyes with their hands against the sharp glare, they continued walking westwards into the blazing sun. Walking between the two railway tracks they followed the tracks which ran in the direction of the Rock Dam. In the distance the shimmering heat waves seemed to make the railway tracks twist, buckle and bend.

"It has never been as hot as this," Carlos moaned.

Just before the dam the railway line made a Y junction. They followed the left junction which turned sharply in a wide southwards arc to the small rock crushing station. On the way to the crushers it passed over a high stone embankment that separated the Rock Dam from the towering rock dump. The ore dump was relatively ancient. It had been standing there since the 1890s. The tall steel structure of the Hercules Vertical Shaft headgear was hidden from view behind the massive ore dump. From the vantage point of the elevated embankment the friends had a good view of the dam and its surroundings.

The last time that they had visited the dam was when they were in standard six. They used to fish regularly at the dam. In fact the dam had been one of their favourite Friday afternoon haunts ever since they were in standard one. As they grew into their teenage years the dam lost its allure.

"This is really a walk down memory lane," Dominic commented as they stood looking over the dam.

"Yeah, we should have brought our fishing rods with," Carlos joked.

The small fish in the dam turned out to be the survivors of the original indigenous population that used to thrive in the fresh water streams flowing out of the hills and rocky outcrops of the Witwatersrand. Somehow they, together with the water rats, crabs, frogs and platannas had managed to survive the increasing levels of water pollution due to the gold mining.

The platanna, otherwise known as _Xenopus laevis_ , are completely aquatic. The genus is only found in Africa.

After discovering that there were fish in the dam, they fashioned fishing hooks from bent pins. Fishing gut was attached to the hook and the other end was attached to the end of a stick which functioned as a fishing rod. A dry twig was used as the float. Earth worms dug up from the garden were used as bait. The water was too murky and opaque to the see the fish. The only evidence of their presence was the jiggling of the float as they nibbled at the worm attached to the hook. When the float was suddenly tugged below the surface they would strike and whip out a fish, mouth attached to the bent pin. Once the hook had been removed from its mouth the fish would be placed into a tin filled with water. The fish that were caught were released into fish ponds in the gardens at their homes. In terms of their morphology and general shape, the individual fish were all identical. However, they displayed a wide variation in colour. Later, after a visit to the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria that Rachel organized, it was discovered that the fish all belonged to the same species, _Haplochromis philander_. The fish had been discovered and first described by a naturalist called Weber in 1897. They belonged to a group of fresh water fish species called Cichlids. The male would make a nest in which the female deposited her eggs. After fertilization the female collected the eggs into her mouth. When the tiny fry hatched she would kept them in her mouth.

While the three friends sat on the rail track reminiscing about their fishing adventures at the dam, a Hamerkop arrived from nowhere, flying low over the reed bed with slow wing beats. It turned and glided across the water and landed at the edge of the bank quite close to them. At first the bird watched them with attentive and wary eyes. After a while it seemed that the bird had decided that they were not a threat, so it waded into the shallow water next the bank. They watched in silence for a while as the Hamerkop began to forage in the shallow water among the reeds. It became quite busy catching small fish, frogs and tadpoles by jabbing its bill into the water.

"What exactly did the luscious Gillian say?" Dominic asked with an inquisitive look of interest on his face.

"She was actually criticizing the idea of Platonic love, arguing that it was for men only. She associated Platonic love with the heavenly realm. I think she was trying to somehow associate Platonism with cricket and E M Foster's indolent male Edwardian world of vague homoerotism, or something like that," Aaron said.

"Was she right?" Carlos asked.

"In some aspects, I suppose so," Aaron said.

"Well what the heck does she mean by Platonic love between men, was she actually talking about love between men?" Carlos asked.

"Like love between men as in queers?" Dominic asked.

"I suppose so. It would make sense and homoeroticism would mean erotic love between men," Aaron said.

"Erotic love between men! I have never heard of such a grotesque phenomenon. It is quite unimaginable; a really ghastly thought. Ugh! Erotic love between a man and a woman, now that is natural," Carlos said with look of repugnance on his face.

"What is the relationship between Platonic love and Erotic love," Dominic asked.

"Talking about love do you remember our very first Latin lesson in standard six with Miss Aria Frazzini, that sexy young teacher? We sat there chanting: _amo_ , I love; _amas_ , you love; _amat_ , he, she, or it loves. I sat there in the front desk with a huge erection reciting _amo_ , _amas_ , _amat_ ," Carlos interrupted.

Aaron and Dominic burst out laughing.

"Yeah I remember her and I will remember that day forever. If you can recall, in the first lesson she also spoke about the different forms of love like _philia_ , _eros_ and _agape_ and then went on explain that Eros represented passionate romantic, and then after a brief pause, she went on to say that Eros represents erotic love or sexual love. The words 'erotic love' and 'sexual love' got everybody's attention," Aaron said.

"Yes, the class became absolutely silent. There was this sudden expectation hanging in the air that she was going to say something more about Eros. You could have heard a pin drop. It was as if the whole class was waiting for her to say that Eros actually meant fucking and screwing. I don't think anyone in the class had ever heard the word Eros before, and 'sexual love' in everyone's mind could only mean one thing, and that one thing involved a lot more than passionate love. To be honest, it was also the first time that I had ever heard of the word 'Eros', especially in connection with the words 'sexual love'. It sounded so sexy when she rolled it off her lips," Dominic said, laughing.

"It was amazing the impact that she had on us. I became delirious. I just wanted her to keep on saying that word over and over again: Eros, Eros, Eros. It sounded like the most beautiful word that had ever found a home in the English language. She moved her lips so erotically when she formed the word Eros, it was so amazing to watch her lips move, they were so mobile, her lips were so visible, so prominent like her breasts, so full, so sensual. Remember she also said that the upper lips were shaped like Cupid's bow. It was a revelation. We all began to look around at each other's upper lips. It was the upper lip which shoots arrows of love; that is what she said. I could not believe it. The idea of kissing a girl took on a whole new meaning. After speaking about Cupid's bow and arrows, she pointed to her own cherry red lips, and she said 'labium superius oris' and 'labium inferius oris'. The way she said it, with that heavy Italian accent, was so sexy. The words stuck in mind," Carlos recalled.

"Then after talking about the lips, she said that Eros and the Spanish word _amor_ had the same meaning. She made such a big deal about the Romantic languages, she said that the Romantic languages which have their roots in Latin are not only the languages of love, but also the languages of culture and civilization, and that it why we should love Latin even though it had become a dead language. Remember how she made us all recite: _Te amo mi amor_. _Ti amo amore mio_. _Eu te amo_ , _meu amor_. _Amor_ , _amor_ , my head was filled with _amor_ , don't you think that _amor_ is also one of the most beautiful words. The way she said it gave me a huge erection. I love Latin, in my heart I am a Roman, a man of love, a man of Eros, a man of culture and a member of one of the greatest civilizations on Earth," Dominic said, expressing pride in his Italian ancestry.

"I also remember the sexy way she said: _Je_ _t'aime_. Remember, she also made us recite _Je t'aime_ during that first Latin lesson. She must have been the only Latin teacher in the world who could spend a whole period just talking about the different words used for love, and have everyone hanging on her lips," Aaron said.

"Yeah, everyone was literally hanging on her lips," Carlos remarked thoughtfully.

"She made one helluva impact on all of us on our very first day at high school. Hell, we were just kids fresh out of primary school, confused about sex and everything, and then she drops an erotic bombshell on us. At first break everybody was walking around in a daze, reciting _amor_ , _amo_ , _Ti amo amore mio_ , _Te amo mi amor_ , _Je t'aime_ ," Dominic said, laughing with an incredulous look on his face.

"I am sure she moved her lips purposely to caress the words as she mouthed them. I also noticed what she did with her lips when she said _amo_ , _eros_ , _Je t'aime_ and _amor_? The whole day I had this picture of her lips curling around those words and the sound voice of her voice ringing in my mind, _amo_ , _amo_ , _amo_. She bewitched my mind and imagination, I could not stop having sexual fantasies about her, I was only thirteen years old and she was a grown up Italian woman, who could not have been older that twenty three. She was a dangerous hazard, she created havoc with my brain, I could not think straight in her class. I wonder what happened to her," Dominic grinned.

"I don't know. But now we are stuck with old Mrs Dickerson and Eros has fled the Latin classroom in terror," Carlos answered.

"It is quite amazing that after so many years we still have such a vivid recollection of that first Latin lesson," Dominic mused.

"It became my favourite subject. I couldn't wait for our Latin class," Carlos quipped.

"But if I can recall she never mentioned anything about Platonic love or homoeroticism, so what is the difference between Erotic love and Platonic love?" Carlos asked.

Aaron began to explain:

"The way I see it, Eros is commonly taken to mean passionate sensual love or sexual love. For Plato, Eros also means passionate sensual desire or sexual desire for a beautiful person; but the meaning of Eros goes beyond the sexual desire for a beautiful person. Love as in the physical desire for a beautiful person is not the end of the road for Eros. Consummation of erotic desire for a beautiful person is actually only the very beginning, the first stage of the journey of erotic love."

He continued:

"Socrates argued that Eros or erotic love can never be fully satisfied at the physical level of the human body. It cannot be fully satisfied because something is still lacking or missing with respect to the embodiment of beauty in the form the physical body of an individual person. Thus the consummation or gratification of erotic desire remains unfulfilled once possession has been taken of the body of the beautiful person. In its frustration, erotic loves seeks gratification by embarking on a search for an even more beautiful person. However, each time after taking possession of the body of a more beautiful person, its desire still remains unfulfilled and frustrated. Not even a thousand physically beautiful bodies will satisfy the desire of Eros. Eros is insatiable; there are simply not enough beautiful bodies in the Universe to gratify its desire for the possession of beauty."

They listened intently.

"Consequently, Eros is forced, in its desperate quest to satisfy it unfulfilled desire, to seek gratification in something more beautiful, something more erotic than the physically beautiful body of a person. It needs to go beyond this level of erotic love; it needs to transcend or surpass this kind of erotic desire."

"In its search for the fulfilment of erotic desire, beauty in the form of the human body has to be superseded or surpassed by a higher or more elevated form or embodiment of beauty. In its search for a more elevated embodiment of beauty Eros also undergoes a change. It becomes transformed into a more elevated kind of erotic desire which can only find the fulfilment of its desire in a more elevated embodiment of beauty, more elevated especially when compared to the physical beauty embodied in the form of the human body, for example."

"But then again at this new elevated level of erotic love something else is still lacking or missing in that elevated embodiment of beauty, so Eros seeks an even more elevated erotic love, in an even higher embodiment of beauty, but at each new elevated level of erotic love something is always found to be lacking in each of the corresponding higher embodiments of beauty, to which erotic love has been directed its quest to consummate its desire."

"According to Plato's scheme, the incomplete fulfilment of the soul's desire to satisfy its erotic love results in the soul progressing up a series of higher and more elevated expressions of love. The soul in its search for increasingly higher and more genuine embodiments of beauty to satisfy its desire finds itself gradually ascending a stair case or a ladder. Each stair step or rung in the ladder represents a higher embodiment of beauty. So in this way the soul's search for beauty leads the soul up a ladder, which has been referred to as the ladder of Eros or the ladder of love or the staircase of love."

"The soul in order to satisfy its desire ends up climbing the ladder of Eros in its search for truer and higher forms of beauty until it eventually reaches up to heaven. The soul's ascent up the ladder of love ends when the soul finally reaches the heavenly realm, where it is able to finally confront the eternal world of the unchanging Form or Idea of Beauty. When the soul finally contemplates the unveiled Form of Beauty, then its erotic passion and desire for possession of the beautiful becomes fulfilled, its gratification is finally satisfied. The soul can only achieve final, complete, ultimate and everlasting fulfilment and gratification of its erotic desire, when the soul has reached the state where it is able to fully contemplate the Form of beauty, in its unchanging, eternal, universal and absolute embodiment."

"This absolute, unchanging, eternal universal and ultimate embodiment of beauty exists in the Idea or Form of beauty. The highest form of Platonic love occurs when the soul acquires ultimate knowledge of the unchanging Idea or Form of Beauty. Now here comes the rub, only men can achieve this wisdom. This heavenly level of erotic wisdom cannot be reached by any woman."

He concluded what he had to say and looked at them with an amused smile playing on his lips. From the expressions on their faces, he knew exactly how they were going to respond.

"Who needs this kind of erotic wisdom, I would rather be erotically enthralled with the pictures of naked women in a Playboy magazine than gaze upon the unchanging Idea or Form of Beauty," Carlos muttered, with an incredulous look on face betraying his contempt for Plato's ladder of Eros.

"So, the experience of the heavenly Idea of erotic love is the prerogative of men only?" Dominic asked.

"Yes," Aaron answered.

"Why can't it be achieved by women?" Dominic wanted to know.

"According to Plato, because of certain innate characteristics which are possessed only by women, the female soul will always be earthbound, incarnate or imprisoned in their physical bodies, which are usually in bondage to lust and desire for sensual pleasures," Aaron elaborated with an ironic grin on his face.

"I think Plato overcomplicated the idea of love. I am happy to stay at the most basic level of erotic love among those earthbound frustrated female bodies that are enslaved to an insatiable erotic desire, writhing on beds in lust for sensual pleasures. To me heaven cannot get better than this. The higher levels of Eros will definitely not turn me on," Carlos said.

After shaking his head he grinned and repeated what made the greatest rational sense to him.

"I am quite happy to be an earthbound soul, living with all these women whose souls are trapped in bodies that are in a state of terrible bondage to lust and desire for sensual pleasures. To me it would be heaven to satisfy their urgent physical needs, to gratify their yearning for physical pleasure. I would gladly oblige myself physically and mentally to the fulfilment of all their physical animal wants, I would willingly sacrifice myself body and soul to satisfy all of their earthly erotic needs," Carlos said.

"I agree with Carlos. I don't have a pressing desire to ascend Plato's ladder of Eros to search for higher forms of erotic beauty," Dominic quickly quipped in.

"I agree one hundred percent. I am also not interested in walking up some erotic staircase to some heavenly realm in search of what I find down here on earth. I have already seen the heavenly form of beauty revealed in all its erotic fullness. My soul has already been exposed to heavenly erotic beauty, in a flash I was able to grasp and contemplate the eternal, ultimate, absolute, universal, unchanging Form of Beauty on that day at your home when Gillian dived into the pool and surfaced without her bikini top on, and we saw her naked stunningly beautiful boobs. She must have the most perfect tits in the entire Universe. In that instance the Form of Beauty was unveiled and my soul was transfixed by the dazzling radiance of those beautiful breasts," Carlos said with wide lascivious grin.

Her naked breasts also haunted Aaron's imagination, and when they filled his dreams the dreams always terminated in the most luxurious and exquisite nocturnal emissions.

"I agree with Carlos," Dominic said.

"I think Gillian had a point about homoeroticism and Plato's ladder, it is only for faggots, I tend to agree with her. Let the bloody faggots climb up Plato's erotic ladder and wank-off in heaven at the sight of the Idea of absolute beauty. I am quite happy to remain earthbound in a state of slavery and bondage to my insatiable erotic desire for female flesh," Carlos said.

"I would also hate to watch a bunch of homoerotic Edwardian queers trying to play cricket in the midday sun, on that score I also agree with Gillian," Dominic said.

"You know something; I personally think that Gillian had a problem with Socrates. He seemed to bug her. Was Socrates the most erotic man that ever existed?" Carlos asked with a grin.

"Funny that you should ask that, it is actually an inspired question," Aaron said without a trace of irony on his face.

"An inspired question indeed, I would agree," said Dominic while grinning.

"No, I am serious, it was not meant to be joke," Aaron said defensively.

"I am not treating it as a joke. In fact, Alcibiades delivered a panegyric in which he refers to Socrates as Eros incarnate. Socrates, like Eros was also full of contradictions. He was physically speaking apparently quite ugly, yet he displayed a tremendous beauty of character which appeared to make him incredibly attractive as a person."

"What the hell is a panegyric?" Carlos exclaimed.

"Yeah, and who the hell was Alcibiades," Dominic laughed.

"OK, a panegyric is a kind of formal public speech, a kind of eulogy, a paean of praise, an accolade, basically a speech delivered in praise of some person or thing. Alcibiades was one of Socrates' pupils. He also became a quite big shot in Athens and was later responsible for some major stuff-up in the Peloponnesian War," Aaron said.

"Peloponnesian War?" Carlos muttered.

"You must remember the Peloponnesian War, we did it in standard eight," Aaron responded.

They sat in silence for a while.

"I would say that King David was the most erotic man that ever existed in ancient times," Dominic said breaking the silence.

Aaron looked at Dominic; he was not sure why Dominic made such claim out of the blue.

"I disagree, I think King Solomon must have been the most erotic man that ever existed," Carlos joked.

"Everyone was erotic in ancient times, even the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," Aaron said.

"Yeah I think Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were screwing women like rattlesnakes. Even Moses was fucking like a rattlesnake in the desert before he led the Israelites out of Egypt. As a prince of Egypt, he definitely was not celibate. Sex was a big thing with the Hebrews they were reproducing like rabbits in Egypt. When they wandered for forty years in the wilderness they were fucking their slaves and servants. Everyone in the Bible especially in the Old Testament were fucking their slaves, the poor slaves had no peace. In the Old Testament sex and Eros, if you like, was not a problem. Everyone was getting lots of it and in never ending variety; these guys were screwing all day long. They were all constantly on the job, look at Samson and Delilah. Maybe not the prophets so much but everyone else was. Look at the Book of Esther. King Xerxes was going to test drive a thousand of the most beautiful virgins in his kingdom; if he could do it then the Kings of Israel could have done it in their day of power. When the Israelites wanted a king so that they could be like the pagans, Samuel warned them that if they chose to have a king, he was going to fuck their daughters and their wives. Sex is a very modern problem. It never used to exist. I think the church is to blame for this," Carlos said.

The approaching commotion of a noisy mob of Indian boys from Kalamazoo spooked the Hamerkop and it flew off.

### CHAPTER 3

After their unexpected arrival, the large gang of Indian boys from Kalamazoo scrambled up the stony embankment and congregated between the railway tracks a few meters away from where the three friends were sitting. While joking and chatting loudly among themselves, they took off their shoes, socks, and clothes, leaving them in scattered piles between the railway tracks. Naked, in underpants, or in bathing trunks, they scrambled down the stony embankment facing the dam and plunged, screaming, splashing, and shouting, into the dam.

The warm afternoon sun on the backs of the three friends made them feel quite lethargic. So, in spite of the noisy hubbub going on in the dam which had now disrupted their peaceful languid afternoon, they did not have the energy or the inclination to move on. So they remained seated on the railway track. Engrossed in their random musings they did not take much notice of the Indians frolicking in the water.

As the afternoon wore on, the sun began to sink behind the crest of the ore dump and the dump's dark shadow slowly crept across the dam. The shadow continued to stretch across the dam until it reached the wall of reeds on the opposite side. A late afternoon gloom began to settle surreptitiously over the dam. Its waters began to feel cooler and murkier. Its appearance began to look less inviting and the Indian boys began feel less and less inclined to remain in the water. They clambered back up the rocky embankment and lingered on top of the embankment between the railway tracks allowing the warm air and heat radiating from the stone dump to dry off the thin gleaming films of water still clinging to their dark skins.

They became as garrulous as a flock of Indian Mynas around a half empty dog bowl in a Durban backyard.

While some jabbered away, others began to pick up flattish disc shaped stones which they skipped across the surface of the water. Soon all of them were skipping stones across the water surface of the dam. A competition between them soon ensued, to see who could skip stones the furthest across the water. After a while they became bored with the stone skipping competition and began to put on their clothes. Once they had dressed, they broke into small lively chatting groups and drifted slowly back to Kalamazoo.

Out of the corner of his eye Aaron noticed that a large group of tall thin Indian teenagers had remained behind. They were a lot older than the other boys who had already disappeared down the sand path on their way back to Kalamazoo. They loitered, standing in a circle, on the other side of the embankment near a gravel road close to the stone dump.

Without any warning a stone flew low over the heads of the three friends and splashed into the water in front of them. This was followed by another, and then yet another, and suddenly a hail of stones began to rain down on them. Some stones struck them on their backs and other stony missiles bounced off the back of their heads. As Aaron turned around to see what was going on a stone struck him on the forehead, on the upper edge of his left eyebrow, splitting the skin. Dazed by the blows of the projectiles bouncing off their heads and backs, they realized that the Indians who had remained behind were the ones flinging the stones. Carlos and Dominic began to shout,

"Hey you fucking bastards, you fucking cowards, we are going to get you, we are going to _moer_ you."

They watched in stunned disbelief as the Indian teenagers turned on their heels and ran away, down the gravel road before dispersing helter-skelter into the myriad of foot paths that disappeared into the maze of scattered heaps of rock and blue gum trees. They had planned a very effective escape route.

Blood was streaming down the left side of Aaron's face, blood was flooding into his eye, and bloody rivulets flowed down his cheek, dripping from his jaw onto his neck and T-shirt. However, much to his surprise, he felt no pain, even though he had been struck by several stones on his back, shoulders, arms and head. Oddly enough, at that moment Aaron remembered the adrenaline triggered flight or fight response phenomena from some book that he had read. He felt supercharged. Dominic's face was contorted with anger. Carlos's face went red with rage and excitement, he wanted to pursue them. Aaron could clearly see that Carlos was also supercharged with adrenaline.

When Dominic and Carlos saw Aaron bloody face their expressions became frozen white with shock. Seeing the look on their faces increased Aaron's anxiety over the injury above his eye. He began to feel the icy grip of panic taking hold of him as the adrenaline surge drained away. Aaron became seriously worried about his injury, especially as he was bleeding like a stuffed pig. It was too late to go after the Indians. The three friends were physically stronger than the Indian boys and would have easily exacted the required revenge should they have decided immediately after the stone throwing to run them down and catch some of them. But now it was too late to pursue them. They would never be able to catch up with them now. Within minutes their assailants would have reached the shanty town and would be holed up out of sight in their shacks.

They had been taken completely by surprise by the sheer audacity of the attack. It was something that they would never have anticipated from the Indians. Over the years they had many run-ins with gangs of Coloured teenagers on the Western shores of Cinderella Dam. In standard four and five their leisure and recreational activities at a small beach on the shore of Cinderella Dam were regularly disrupted by hostile and aggressive gangs of Coloured teenagers. In the past while the friends were busy swimming at Cinderella Dam, gangs of Coloured boys would arrive unexpectedly in the late afternoons at the beach. They would arrive from Galeview or the old Reiger Park, and wait on the shore for Aaron and his friends to come out of the water. They would then mill around Aaron and his friends like a pack of wild dogs jabbing at them with their flick knives, jostling, shoving and pushing them around.

Often it would be only Gavin, Carlos, Dominic and Aaron at the beach against more than twenty of them. They would demand money and cigarettes from the boys. The friends did not smoke nor did they have money with them. Standing on the beach dripping wet in their bathing trunks they would find themselves in a defenceless situation which left them feeling extremely vulnerable. It was pointless trying to negotiate with Coloureds. After the friends had managed to retrieve most of their clothing from the Coloureds they would somehow succeed in getting dressed. On many occasions, as they tried to beat a hasty retreat to Middel Road, they would be pursued by the Coloured gang. They would start running. As the gap between the boys and the pursuing gang grew wider the Coloureds would start firing stones at the boys with their catapults. This could be the signal for them to sprint like mad, as fast as their legs would carry them. They would keep on running down Middel Road until they reached the safe zone of the level crossing of the ERPM rail line, and then they would cut along the railway track back to the mine houses.

On one occasion, while members of a Coloured gang were milling around the boys at the beach, they shot Carlos on the back of his upper arm at point blank range with a catapult. Aaron remembered Carlos wincing in extreme pain.

It was on that day that Gavin issued his threat: "They made this place a rough neighbourhood, not us. We never ever interfered with them. Like any Dutchman or Native the only language they understand is the fist. They are half-Dutchman and half-Native anyway so you have to hit them twice as hard. If you don't, they will not respect you. Also a _rock spider_ will only respect you and leave you alone if you _bliksem_ the shit out of him, otherwise he will be on your case the whole time until you lay into him with your fists. It is the same with the Coloureds. We did not make the rules, they did. They need to get a taste of their own medicine."

Apparently Gavin made good his threat. He did not forget the humiliations that they had suffered on the beach as young boys. As soon as he got older, he with a couple of friends riding on horseback made good his promise. They patrolled the shores of Cinderella Dam on horseback looking for encounters with any Coloured gang. When they spotted a gang they rode them down with horses. They would beat up, or whip with riding crops, any Coloured male teenager, that they found along the western shores on the outskirts of Reiger Park.

As Gavin said, it was all about respect. When there is no respect, then you will end up having endless trouble with the Natives, the Afrikaners, the Coloureds and the Indians. The East Rand was a tough place to grow up in. There was a bully on every street corner, on every school bus and in every school playground.

In recent years the roving and marauding gangs of Coloured youths in Reiger Park had completely vanished. Police vans regularly patrolled the sand road leading up to the clay pigeon shooting club on the south-western side of Cinderella Dam. They also patrolled daily around the Galeview and the old Reiger Park areas in Stirtonville where most of the Coloureds lived and it seemed that peace and tranquillity had returned to the location. Something had pacified them.

After the Indians had fled, the three friends managed to regain their wits. They all agreed that they would be setting a precedent if they did not act decisively by means of some form of retaliation. It would become something similar to the Coloured gang drama replayed all over again. If Indians wanted to make this a rough neighbourhood then the boys needed to do something. They could not allow the Indians to get off scot-free, especially after the troubles they had endured in the past with the Coloureds. This was a grave situation. It had to be stopped before it escalates any further. Once again, as it was the case with the Coloureds and the Afrikaners, the boys felt that they had become the victims of an unprovoked and violent attack. After a quick debate it was decided that they should report the incident to the police.

It was a question of respect, if nothing more. There was no respect. This was the problem. Respect had to be beaten into these people otherwise they would be forever going on one rampage after the next. This was Carlos's firm opinion on the matter of race relations. He was firm believer in _kragdagheid_ and he was a mean person with his fists, he had never lost fight before.

It was settled, and they charged off to the nearest Police Station which happened to be the main Boksburg Police Station up the road.

The menacing and austere two storey red brick precinct with its red tiled roof occupied the entire western block between Commissioner and Rissik Streets. It was situated quite close to the Rock Dam. The entrance to the charge office was close to the Rissik Street intersection with Commissioner Street. For the police at the station it was a convenient 10 seconds walk from the charge office to the Costa de Sol's Vegetable Shop to buy a bottle of Coca Cola or a packet of cigarettes. Manual da Silva who worked in the shop was standing outside the shop. He saw them running towards the Police Station. Just before they disappeared around the corner into the charge office, he yelled out to them.

"Hey what's happening?"

Bloody, ashen faced and breathless the boys burst into the charge office. For years Aaron had walked past the tall imposing entrance of the police station. A small balcony overhung the entrance. Hanging from the balcony was the blue police lamp. The door opening into the actual charge of office was at the left side of the entrance foyer. He had looked into the dimly lit entrance foyer countless times, but he had never crossed the threshold of the main entrance. They stopped at the highly polished heavy wooden counter and Dominic shouted out:

"We have just been attacked and stoned by the Indians at the dam by the Hercules Shaft rock dump!"

The charge office was a long narrow room with a high ceiling. Behind the long heavy wooden counter were desks, wooden shelves and steel filing cabinets. Sitting on high wooden stools behind the counter were two young police constables. They got up and came over.

" _Waar presies is hierdie dam_ (Where exactly is this dam)?" The short, stout constable asked. He had a sceptical look on his face.

"The dam is behind the police shooting range." Aaron said.

" _Gee vir ons die volle besonderhede van die gebeurtenisse wat tot die aanval gelei het. Hoekom het hulle julle met klippe bestook_ ? (Give us all the details which lead to the attack. Why did they throw stones at you)?" Aked the tall, skinny constable who was wearing spectacles.

" _Daar was geen gebeurtenisse wat kon tot die aanval gelei het, ons het niks gedoen nie_ (There were no incidents that could have provoked the attack, we did nothing)," Aaron said, and then switching to English, he continued:

"Let me explain fully what happened. We arrived at the dam at about 14.10. There was no one else at the dam. We sat down on the railway track by the dam. Five minutes later a crowd of Indians arrived at the dam and they began to swim in the dam. We did nothing. We just sat on the railway track talking. After about two hours they all got out of the dam. They got dressed and left. But a group of the older boys, about nine of them, stayed behind. They hung around for a while on the other side of the railway line behind us. We sat with our backs turned towards them. We did nothing to provoke them. They had no reason to throw stones at us. But the next minute they began to stone us with a hail of stones and then they ran away towards Kalamazoo."

They listened emotionlessly while Dominic and Aaron told them precisely what had happened. The faces of the two policemen showed no trace of concern or empathy. Aaron examined their faces trying gauge the impact that their story had made on them. They just stood there, looking indifferent, faces impassive, seemingly disinterested in their troubles.

" _Wat dink jy_? (What do you think?)" The tall constable asked his partner, while cracking his knuckles loudly.

" _Nee, ek weet nie_ , (I don't know)" he replied, shrugging his shoulders. He began to pick at his teeth with a match that had been sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

"Will you be able to identify them?" the tall constable asked, switching to English.

"Yes," Aaron replied.

"Do know any of their names?" the tall constable asked, looking at them expectantly.

"One was called Rashid," Dominic replied.

"Will you be able to recognize him?" He asked.

Dominic glanced at Aaron. Aaron nodded, indicating that he would also be able to recognize Rashid.

"Yes we will be able to recognize Rashid," Dominic said emphatically, "even if he stands in a line-up of coolies who all look the same."

"Do you want to lay charges of assault?" The stout one asked, his eyes flicked to and fro as he scanned their faces. It seemed like he was trying to assess their resolve in pursuing a case against the Indians. Aaron got the feeling that policeman was calling their bluff, possibly in the belief that they would drop the charges and leave the two policemen in peace.

Aaron looked at Dominic and he nodded.

"Yes we are serious about wanting to lay charges," Aaron said.

Carlos was becoming increasingly agitated. He began to shout a whole lot of incoherent stuff in Portuguese that he could have been killed and all that. Aaron and Dominic could see that the two police officers were taken aback by this sudden outburst of anger and frustration from Carlos. Dominic and Aaron tried to calm him down; but their efforts made him more aggressive. He started shoving them away. He clenched his fists. He began to loudly insult the police officers in Portuguese. Something was definitely wrong with Carlos; he was behaving weird. On hearing the commotion in the charge office the burly stern looking station commander marched in. On seeing Aaron's bloody face he wanted to know what was going on. Carlos continued to mumble stuff in Portuguese.

" _Wat gaan hier aan_? (what is going on here?)" He asked in a gruff and irritated voice, as he hiked up has pants which had slipped down over his hips.

" ' _n Klomp Indians het hulle met klippe bestook by die klein klipdam naby Hercules Skag. Dit lyk of hierdie outjie'n bietjie harsingskudding opgedoen het. Miskien moet 'n dokter hom ondersoek, ek weet nie_ ?(A crowd of Indians attacked them by throwing stones at them at the small rock dam behind Hercules shaft?)" The tall constable answered.

Taking in the situation, the station commander sighed and sat down on a stool behind the counter. He ran his fingers through his hair, pulled at the ends of his handlebar moustache, stroked has his short goatee beard, smoothed out both his bushy eyebrows simultaneously with forefinger and thumb, tugged and rubbed his right ear lobe, yawned without covering his mouth. He took his pipe out from his pocket, and knocked out the old burnt-out ashes into an ashtray. He thoughtfully stuffed fresh tobacco into the pipe. After clamping the stem of the pipe between his lips, he struck a match and lit the pipe while sucking air to ignite the tobacco. The tobacco began to smoulder and burn. He sucked hard on the pipe and puffed out large clouds of smoke. The aroma of burning tobacco filled the charge office.

The lighting of the pipe prompted the two constables to also light up their Texan cigarettes. The stout constable while squinting his eyes in deep concentration he took a draw from the cigarette between his lips. He took the cigarette from his mouth. He maintained his eyes fixed in a studied squint as he appeared to sink into a state of deep mental concentration. He exhaled a cloud of smoke and then drew deeply again on his cigarette.

Aaron wondered about what the problem could be. Why were the police being so reticent?

The station commander continued puffing his pipe in silence. None of the police officers spoke. Aaron, Dominic and Carlos stood there watching them smoke. The tall one put his cigarette down in a glass ash tray on the charge counter. A tangled thin thread of smoke twirled up from his cigarette. It seemed that they needed to smoke in order to think.

The station commander seemed to be weighing up all the options one by one. He sighed again and shook his head. He glanced at his wrist watch. He wished that this would all go away, so that he could end his day with an untroubled afternoon. The large clock on the wall in station showed that it was nearly 16.30. The three friends continued to stand at the counter, waiting as the minutes ticked by, for the Station Commander to reach a decision.

Aaron began to look around at the charge office. The paint on the walls had aged from white to an ivory-cream colour. Patches of paint were peeling off the walls and ceiling. The wooden floors of the charge office were worn and dull. On the desks were several piles of yellow and brown folders. He guessed that they were case dockets. On the counter there was a large police stamp and a tin box which contained the ink pad.

The charge office began to feel uncomfortably hot. The rectangular two storey red face brick building was north-facing. The whole day it had received the full radiation load of an extremely hot January sun. Now, in the late afternoon the walls began re-radiate the heat that had built up in the building. Their faces shone bright with perspiration. Their sweat dampened shirts clung to their bodies. Aaron listened to the drone of the Friday afternoon home time traffic flowing up and down Commissioner Street. In the distance the siren of an approaching train grew shriller as the frequency increased due to the Doppler Effect.

Random thoughts began to distract Aaron.

He became aware of the sound of the clock ticking on the wall. He glanced up at the clock, his attention began to drift, and a stream of unconnected thoughts flowed from nowhere into and out of his conscious awareness.

He remembered something, something quite puzzling.

Gillian had mentioned a paper that she had read. It was a paper on time written a long time ago. It was written by a person with a strange name, someone called John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart. Who could ever forget someone with such an unlikely and unusual name? Apparently, according to Gillian, he said that nothing that exists can be temporal and that therefore time was unreal.

What did he mean by saying that time was unreal? Plato also seemed to have also implied that nothing that exists could be temporal. If something was unreal does that also mean that it cannot exist. According to Plato only real things can exist. Temporal things are not real.

Intuitively it would seem that time involves change. People talk about something being frozen in time, or time standing still, when something has remained the same, unchanged by the passage of time. Does the existence of time depend on the occurrence of change. If nothing changed would there then be no time, would time cease to existence if everything remained the same, instead of changing? We would not know that time had passed if everything remained the same, if there was no perceivable difference between what was before and what was now. If everything remained the same it would be as if the clock had stopped. The end of motion would be the end of time.

Gillian said that the most important thing about solving any problem in science and philosophy was to first ask the right question. For this you had to formulate the question.

OK then Aaron thought, if that is how one must proceed, then what is time? If such a phenomenon as time did indeed exist, then what causes time? Is time something that can be caused, or does it need to be caused in order for it to exist?

He glanced up at the clock. How were the workings of the clock related to the passage of time? How were motion and force related to the passage of time. If there were no forces could time still exist?

Through the perception of motion we become aware of time. We also perceive time in terms of moments which are past, present and future. The idea of time in terms of past, present and future seems natural.

It also seems obvious that time does have a direction and is not reversible. It seems obvious that measurable durations exist between past and present events, between before and after, between earlier and later. An interval of time, which involves some kind of duration, separates the before from the now. Everyone has conscious awareness of duration. Everyone can experience the feeling or sense of duration between the before and the after, between the then and the now.

The rate of change of something, moving from past to present to future or moving from future to present to past, can be measured in terms of regular periodic clockwork motions of the sun, the stars, the seasons or even the beat of the heart. If the pulse beats at the rate of sixty beats per minute, then the time interval between pulse beats is one second.

If time is measured in terms of the length or duration of the intervals between regular periodic motions, then time appears to be nothing more than comparing one standard succession of periodic beats with another standard sequence of periodic beats, or one standard motion with another standard motion. If this is the case, then time does not have an independent existence, it is defined and measured in terms of the relative relationships between different kinds of motions or different kinds of change or different kinds of periodic beats.

Aaron glanced again up at the clock. He became aware of how his thoughts had drifted, he was conscious of how odd and incongruous it was for him to be thinking about the naure of time, especially given the dramatic turn of events which had brought them to the present situation at the police station. One only dreams of these kinds of situations.

You cannot change the past once it has happened. The past and the future differ ontologically. The past is closed and the future is open. Max always said that there was no future in the past. Past and future are asymmetrical. The future is contingent, the past is fixed. No grounds exist for being a fatalist. We don't know what tomorrow holds. We don't know what the next moment holds. The future is unknown.

The clock marked out the spatial positions that supposedly measured the flow of time or marked out the passage of time from one moment to the next. The mechanism of the clock that gave rise to the regular clicks counted out the passing moments of time. Each tick of the clock marked both the instantaneous vanishing of the present into the memory of the past and the instantaneous arrival of the future. The past exists only as a memory and the future does not yet exist. What is the present time, if anything? The statement that there is no time like the present is ambiguous or meaningless. We should rather say that there is no time like the future. Time does not exist in the past. The present is too transient to exist even as a moment in time. Aaron wondered whether time only existed as future time, if it exists at all.

Each mark corresponding to the 12 numbers on the clock face marked out positions which were earlier from those which were later, relative to the moving hour and minute and second hands.

Aaron gaze remained fixed on the clock.

He watched the second hand going round and round, ticking off the minutes. Is that time? He wondered. Could he be seeing the spatial representation of time? Was he seeing time as motion, as in the motion of the second hand? What did the clock face indicate if not the spatialization of the passage of time? Was he actually seeing time happening? Could he actually see time passing away before his very eyes? What would happen if time stopped?

What if John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart was right and time did not exist, that time was not something which was real? What if the moving second hand on the clock was not time, but the illusion of time? Gillian said that Spinoza, Kant and Hegel all treated time as something which was unreal. Mystics also deny the reality of time. All he could see was the clock hands rotating continuously clockwise through 360 degrees. Apparently this was not time.

He could now also the hear shouts and the cracking sounds of tennis balls been struck by rackets drifting in from the police tennis courts. Far away, a rifle was also being fired on the shooting range. It was been fired intermittently. In his mind's eye he could visualize the scene. A large red flag would be fluttering in the breeze above the target side of the shooting range. Two men would be laying side by side, each with a rifle. Through a telescope on a tripod they would view from their prone positions at the 100 m mark, the grouping of the shots on the target and adjust their rifle sights until the groupings were dead centre on each of the targets.

Hanging under the clock on the wall was a large black and white photographic portrait of Verwoerd. Nowhere had he ever seen an official portrait of Verwoerd stuck up so high on a wall. Maybe this was the only portrait of Verwoerd in an official building in South Africa. Maybe it was a mistake, an oversight, but it had been put up and now it will probably hang there forever as it was too high to take down without a ladder and it would be too much effort to find a ladder and take it down when the time came for it to be taken down one day in the future. The portrait would just hang up there forever and as time went by he would look more and more out of place and his face with its steadfast gaze into the future would become a picture of absurdity, of complete stupidity.

But here today Verwoerd's face was on display, granite like, unmovable. He was facing the camera but not looking into eye of the lens when the picture was taken; therefore his gaze never meets the eye of anyone viewing his portrait. Instead, his firm unflinching determined indomitable gaze seemed to be fixed on some object or vision beyond the camera. The object of his gaze, whether it was a vision of the true, good and beautiful or something else, will forever remain a mystery, always hidden from the sight of anyone viewing the portrait.

From his Latin teacher he had learned about Sextus Empiricus. He enjoyed Latin. Sextus Empiricus, who lived in the 2nd century AD, codified the doctrines of scepticism. Everything anyone thought they knew could be shown to be dogged by all kinds of uncertainties. For what kinds of things does the evidence of the senses provide support for? To what kinds of truths does one have access to on the strength of the evidence of the senses? Are there any perceptions that could possibly provide the necessary signs which would show in a compelling manner whether something was true or false? Gillian said that any given criterion of truth needs another criterion to show that it is a reliable and dependable criterion. For every philosophical proof we need another proof to prove its reliability, and so on, ad infinitum. Does any firm ground exist for anything that may count as the truth? Or is the only certainty, the unhelpful certainty of the existence of the quick sand of the infinite regress that lie waiting to swallow all claims to certainty in the sinking mud of bottomless doubt?

What about Verwoerd? What grounds did he have for the certainty of his beliefs? Maybe he had no grounds. Maybe he believed in fairy tales. But even if he did believe in fairy tales the whites still worshipped him. At the drive-in theatres when he appeared in black and white news reels, the head lights of the cars would be flashed and the hooters would be blown in an idolizing orgy that climaxed in a frenzy of mass ecstasy. White women swooned and fainted in the cars. White men clutching their steering wheels gazed deliriously at the man on the screen and became feverish with patriotic passion.

Why had the station commander's demeanour become transformed into a living portrait of scepticism? Aaron felt that he did not believe their story. Why would their testimony of what had happened at the Rock Dam not be credible? Was the unprovoked stone throwing attack by the Indian youths something too far-fetched to believe? Did he really think that the three friends were the real instigators of the attack and therefore deservedly got their just deserts? Did he really think that they had made up the story? What was the station commander thinking?

Aaron blinked. Something at last was going to happen. Maybe the station commander was going to take their complaint seriously.

The station commander finally stood up and began to drum his thick fingers on the charge office counter. The loud drumming of his fingers had interrupted the flow of Aaron's thoughts. The three stood there watching the station commander, waiting. Eventually he made up his mind about what he wanted to say and started speaking.

" _Dis 'n moeilike situasie. Kyk, ek is baie jammer vir julle oor hierdie voorval. Maar ons kan nie 'n klopjag uitvoer in Kalamazoo en elke blerry huis besoek vir verdagtes nie, kan julle net dink_ ?(This is a difficult situation. Look, I am very sorry about what has happened to you. It is going to be an impossible task to conduct a house by house search in Kalamazoo for the suspects, can you just image?) " He asked.

The decision stunned the three boys. They stood rooted behind the counter staring in disbelief at the station commander.

Carlos blinked his eyes, and muttered, "What the bloody hell? You can do anything in this country and no one gives stuff."

The insolent remark took the station commander by surprise. The sudden display of disrespect caught him completely off guard.

He first looked angry and irritated, but then he quickly calmed down and regained his composure.

The station commander seemed to be now having second thoughts. It seemed that he was undergoing a change of mind. It could have been their shocked expressions of utter disappointment. It could have been Carlos's outburst. It could have been the unexpected intensity of their spontaneous anger that erupted on their faces, hot on the heels of their disappointment. Their faces had quickly hardened into dark menacing scowls; they glared at the police with eyes that glowed with ire, annoyance, and frustration. His own gaze wavered with hesitation. He recognized that these English-speaking boys had that mean tough street fighting streak possessed by boys who grew up on the East Rand. He did not want this to escalate into something that could have been avoided. He did not want to live with any regrets. His face suddenly began to soften, the hard lines of his face melted away as he mentally resigned himself to the inevitable.

" _Alright, neem hulle na Kalamazoo . Miskien sal hulle 'npaar van die verdagtes herken en uitwys, maar ek twyfel. As julle een of meer van hulle kry, praat met hulle ouers, sê vir die ouers hierdie soort gedrag is ontoelaatbaar_ , (OK. Take them Kalamazoo. Maybe they will be able to identify some of the suspects, but I have my doubts. If they do recognize any of the suspects, then speak to the parents, let them know that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated,)" he said, in manner which also allowed him to wash his hands of the whole sorry saga and protect his backside at the same time.

The policemen started debating about which vehicle they should use. All the squad cars were out on police duty. There was only the recently acquired brand new Plymouth Valiant parked in the yard which had been purchased for the special investigative assignments of the stations CID and security branch. The two constables suddenly became excited at the prospect of driving the new valiant with its powerful V8 engine.

Aaron wanted to urinate and wash the blood off his face.

" _Ek wil die toilet gebruik. Waar is die toilet_? (I would like to use the toilet. Where is the toilet?)" He asked.

" _Die toilet is in die gang af, eerste deur aan die regterkant_ (The toilet is down the passage, first door on the right)," said the short stout constable as he pointed to a door which opened into a long dimly lit passageway.

Carlos and Dominic followed Aaron down the passage to the toilet.

In the toilet he washed most of the blood off the side of his face. He inspected the wound in the mirror. It was a deep narrow cut just above his left eyebrow. It definitely would be needing stitches. They were all thirsty and gulped down water from the basin tap. Carlos and Dominic joined Aaron at the communal stainless steel urinal. They all began to pee in silence.

They walked down the dim corridor back to the charge office. They passed the stairs which led down to the holding cells. The constables put on their hats. The stout one took the car keys from the steel vehicle key cabinet and retrieved the log book for the vehicle from one of the filing cabinets. The friends followed the two constables out of the charge office through the backdoor that opened into the spacious tarred courtyard behind the building. They followed them to the new sinister looking shining black valiant in the covered car park. The police unlocked the police vehicle and the three friends squeezed into the back seat.

### CHAPTER 4

The driver turned the ignition key and revved the engine. He reversed the car out of its parking bay. The valiant was driven slowly out of the police station yard, turning left into Rissik Street. The robot turned red. The driver waited for the robot to turn green. Manny was still standing outside his shop, on seeing the three sitting in the back of the valiant he waved, and they waved back. The robot turned green and driver turned left into Commissioner Street.

The tall constable switched on the car radio and began to tune through the different radio stations; he stopped when he found a radio station that happened to be playing the old 1961 release of the hit song, _Dedicated to the one I love_ by The Shirelles. He began to sing along with the lyrics.

He actually had a good voice and could hold the tune. Aaron smiled and looked at Dominic; he just raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes. Carlos who was in the middle was dribbling and still mumbling away in Portuguese.

The police car drove due west going past Aaron's home at 98 Commissioner Street, and then past the turn off to the Hercules Vertical Mine Shaft. At the next robot the car turned left into Elsburg Road. The car then turned left again off the Elsburg Road into Location Street. Stirtonville, a sullen, dusty and drab location lay sprawled out in front of them. The Central Mine Compound abutting onto the western side of location came into view across the veld. On Ramsammy Road a long straggling line of mine workers were returning to the Compound. Through the front windscreen Aaron could see the slimes dams that formed the southern boundary of the Native section of Stirtonville Location. In the sky in front of them a large V-shaped formation of Sacred Ibises passed overhead, flying west into the sinking sun.

Looking out of the car window, on the left he could see the headgear of Hercules shaft looming above the blue gum trees behind the Indian shanty town. A blue heron was sitting on top of one of the trees. Behind the headgear he could see the grey outline of the cone shaped ore dump.

In the veld on the right hand side of Location Road Mr Whitehead's herd of dappled and speckled cattle with their long curved horns were grazing in the veld. A white cattle egret was sitting on the back of one of the cows, an animal with a pitch black hide covered in white speckles. One of the cows was on heat and another cow was trying to mount her. Mr Whitehead was the father of Gavin, Irene and Helen. He was the manager of the Central mine workers Compound. Aaron's father Max once asked Mr Whitehead why he ran such a large herd of cattle on mine property. He could still distinctly remember Mr Whitehead's answer:

"Mr Ashkenazi says that money is a Jew's weapon. The Zulus also have a similar saying. They say that cattle are a weapon in the hands of a man. Ownership of cattle brings dignity, respect, influence, power and authority. I am the big boss, the chief of Central Compound. The mine boys must know this. My cattle are a symbol of my status, power and authority. I am in charge. I am the bull. The bull of my herd symbolizes me."

The Finnegan family had lived on the back doorstep of Kalamazoo for as long as Aaron could remember. It was about a five minute slow bike ride from Aaron's own backyard. Kalamazoo had over time become an Indian shanty town. It had sprouted up out of the veld in 1907 like some ineradicable alien weed in the shadow of the Hercules Vertical Shaft headgear. As kid, Aaron and his friends used to ride up and down the dusty streets of Kalamazoo for fun.

Through the left window the occupants of the police car gazed across the veld at the Indian shanty town. It had just turned 5.00 pm. They could hear faintly across the veld the familiar Mohammedan call to prayer: _Allahu Akbar, Ash-had an-la ilāha illa llah_.

The constables seemed to be a bit too relaxed and a bit too gung-ho for Aaron's liking. Aaron began to feel a bit agitated. What could the two constables possibly be thinking? Shouldn't they have switched on the blue flashing lights and siren? Instead it seemed that they were on a Sunday afternoon drive to a picnic at Cinderella Dam.

At the intersection the driver turned the shiny black valiant left into Ramsammy Road and drove into the sombre Kalamazoo settlement. He then turned the car left into Seethal Street, and then left again into Mohamed Street. The tall policeman in the front passenger seat sent out a police radio message:

"Delta Echo, Delta Echo, Romeo Pappa Zero Niner Testing over."

A few seconds a reply crackled on the radio: "Romeo Pappa Zero Niner from Delta Echo, 5 over 5.

" _Het julle genoeg geld vir 'n bottel Oude Meester brandewyn en 'n family size Coke_? ( Do have you got enough money for a bottle Oude Meester brandy and a family size bottle of Coke?)"

"Delta Echo, Delta Echo, Romeo Pappa Zero Niner, _jou sleg hel, jy skuld my nog geld vir die laaste bottel brandewyn. Gaan jy ons join venaard vir snook_ er ?(You devil, you still owe me money for the last bottle of brandy I bought. Are you going to join tonight for a game of snooker?)" the tall constable replied.

After proceeding some way down Mohamed Street, the driver decided to turn into Saya Street. They then patrolled all of the side-streets that intersected with Mohamed Street. First they patrolled down Temple Street, driving past the old Hindu Temple, and then they drove down Moodley Street, then back into Seethal Street, driving past the old Mosque, then down Armooum Street, and so on.

As a result of the recent rains the gravel streets of the shanty town was pock marked with water filled potholes. The police car was forced to weave slowly around and between the potholes. No one spoke a word; the silence was broken only by the intermittent splutter and crackle of the police radio. They peered right and then left, scanning the streets, doorways, yards and widows. There was no sign of the stone throwers. They had vanished into thin air. Indian women dressed in saris standing in doorways gawked silently at the police car as it drove past.

The stout constable began again to sing his favourite hit tune _Dedicated to the one I love_. Children playing in yards rushed over to stare at them. Some men sitting in a semi-circle under a large apricot tree turned their heads and gaped silently at the slow moving black police car.

Chickens scratched in the dirt next to the road. A black rooster with white speckles and large blood red comb ran in a zigzag fashion in front of the car. A large white Muscovy duck with a large red wattle over its beak waddled slowly across the road, forcing them to stop. A thin scurvy skinned black cow with one horn curved up and the other curved down stood under a tree chewing the cud. It was tethered to a long chain attached to a steel pole. A group of goats stood in a row on top of a pile of timber stacked next to a corrugated iron shack. One of the goats had managed to climb onto the roof of the shack.

It began to feel hot and humid in the car. They wound down the windows. A nauseating smell of raw sewage crept into the car. They all simultaneously quickly wound up the windows again. The two constables hurriedly lit up cigarettes, drew deeply and exhaled clouds of blue smoke.

" _As ons weer verby die koelie winkel ry gaan ek daar stop. Ek wil gou 'n paar goeters daar koop en met die eienaar praat. Die ou bliksem sal seker niks weet van enige klipgoeiery. Ek is seker daarvan_ (When we pass the Indian shop again I am going to stop there. I have to buy some stuff and I can also speak to the shopkeeper. The old bastard will probably deny all knowledge of the stoning, I am sure of that)," said the stout constable.

The stout constable began to speak about playing snooker and having a few beers when their shift ended. From his conservation Aaron gathered that there was a pub and snooker table at the police station. The stout constable started singing again. At the corner of Khan and Temple Street the driver stopped the squad car in front of Patel's General Trading Store.

" _Ek gaan gou sigarette, brood en melk koop. Ek is nou nou terug_ (I am going to quickly buy cigarettes, bread and milk. I will be back in a moment)," said the stout constable as he climbed out of the driver's seat, leaving the door wide open.

The police radio continued to crackle intermittently. They waited silently in the car; the driver had left the engine running. A teenage girl standing on the covered porch outside the entrance of Patel's General Store caught Aaron's attention. Still dressed in her school uniform, wearing white socks, a short grey skirt and a short sleeved white shirt, she lingered on the porch clutching a loaf of white bread and a carton of milk. To Aaron her beauty was both captivating and disturbing. Her beauty was disquieting, unsettling, confounding, it was all of these things at once, because it happened to be clothed not in a skin of a paler shade, but instead it was dressed in a flawless, exquisitely toned skin that was as deeply pigmented as those dark skinned women who live in the arid foothills of the Nuba Mountains in the Sudan. The attractive women belonging to the Nuba tribe represent the darkest pigmented female phenotypes in the human race. He glanced at his two comrades to see if they had also noticed the girl.

They had not noticed her. Their eyes had become vacant; they simply sat in the back of valiant passively staring into space, seeing nothing.

But, Aaron could not stop staring at her. She was not just black, she was magnificently black, she was the incarnation of blackness, she was not just dark skinned, she was as black as the ace of spades. Her face was as black as ebony, yet her face was so strangely appealing, so striking, so eye-catching, so startling attractive, in a mysterious kind of way, that Aaron felt instantly drawn to her by an incredible force of attraction.

She had large black eyes, a beautifully formed nose, high cheek bones, full lush lips, long straight, thick, lustrous, black hair that reached to the middle of her back. She was both exquisite and exotic. Her dark legs were shapely. She appeared to be between fifteen or sixteen years old.

He suddenly recognized her. But where had he seen her? He began to wrack his brain. Then he remembered where he had indeed seen her before. Until very recently she had attended, quite regularly, the Sunday morning Mass at St Dominic's Catholic Church. Like many other non-white people from the Wattville Location and Stirtonville Location her family had also been regular visitors to St Dominic's. The non-white families sat at the back of the church in pews that had been reserved for them.

Her raven black hair glinted, glowed, sparkled and shimmered, playing with the sunlight like the tail of a Sakabula Bird. She stared back at Aaron and the others in the police car. Her face was alive with curiosity, her sparkling eyes brimming with intelligence. Her features were inexplicably striking to Aaron; he became aware of the cognitive power that her bright eyes exuded. From the amused but also inquisitive expression on her face it was clear that the slow seemingly aimless patrol of the police squad car through the muddy streets of Kalamazoo had become a comical spectacle, if not a pointless exercise in futility.

The police must have been aware of this. It would have explained the lukewarm and leisurely approach they had taken with respect to their mission.

Aaron realized that the police station commander and the policemen in the squad car had merely gone through the motions of an elaborate pretence purely to placate him and his friends. The police patrol through Kalamazoo was a complete charade, an impotent masquerade bordering on the carnivalesque. It had been a joy ride for the constables; it had become merely an opportunity for them to test-drive the new valiant, and nothing more than that.

It had been a complete waste of time. They should not have even bothered going to the police station. Aaron began to feel uncomfortably ridiculous sitting in the back of the black valiant, especially in the presence of the staring black girl.

He could also feel that they were being watched from all sides by many hidden pairs of black eyes. Behind the reflecting panes of every shanty window many pairs of alert and worried dark eyes had silently watched their progress through the muddy streets of Kalamazoo. While parked outside Patel's, the stealthy surveillance continued, their every move was been watched with bated breath. Aaron felt the heaviness of the hostile silence that had descended over the shanty town. Even the roosters were not crowing, nor were the dogs barking. He looked at Dominic and Carlos. They sat in an apathetic slump.

The figure of the solitary black girl stood out on the porch as a complete stark anomaly. She was the only visible presence in the normally busy street.

Their situation had not improved since the stoning, it was getting steadily worse. It was becoming pretty obvious that the Indians were going to get away scot-free, and they would regale themselves for years to come about how they stoned those unsuspecting white boys at the Rock Dam. They would laugh hilariously, slapping each other on the back, at what a big joke it was to watch the black valiant winding slowly and ridiculously on its vain journey through the muddy side streets of Kalamazoo, with the three white-faced boys sitting glumly in the back seat, peering right and left with big anxious eyes.

Their defeat, their humiliation, their powerlessness had become palpable; it had been paraded as a spectacle to an invisible audience.

He felt that they had inadvertently landed themselves in an increasingly awkward and embarrassing situation. It also felt demeaning to be in the situation of a helpless victim. The police were clearly and visibly indifferent, they just wanted to get to their snooker game and open the bottle of brandy.

Aaron learnt a lesson in perception, in that perception does not always correspond to reality. In reality there was actually very little the police were able to do about their situation. If they had been killed it would have been a different matter.

The girl did not seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere. For some odd reason she just stood there on the veranda waiting to see what was going to happen next. Aaron found it strange that she did not move; she could be one of them. She could be a sister of one of the stone throwers. She could be their look out, their observer, she could even be their spy. Then again maybe she was not one of them. Aaron concluded that she was standing at her post as an observer so that she could report back to their assailants, so that they could exult in their triumph and gloat over the humiliation of the boys.

Was she Indian or Coloured? She could even pass for a Native girl albeit a rare but beautiful incarnation of a Native girl. To Aaron she could be Indian or a Coloured or even a Native. But he knew that Natives never have such long straight hair. So he decided that she must be an Indian girl. He noticed that she had also not stopped staring at him. He speculated that she must have also recognized the three friends from Mass. This was also the first occasion where he had an unobstructed view of her face. During Mass she always had her head covered with a mantilla which obscured her face. Sometimes she wore the mantilla with one end draped down over her chest, with other end crossed over and draped over her shoulder onto her back. Other times she would have both ends of the scarf draped around her neck, over her chest. Sometimes the mantilla was white, sometimes coloured and other times it was black. It seemed the mantilla was used by her as symbol of her Catholic piety. But now she stood there on the veranda of the shop, unobscured by her mantilla. To any other passing observer she could have been Hindu or even Muslim, who would have guessed that she was actually Roman Catholic?

Now he too could not stop staring at her. Under any circumstance it would have been quite absurd, even taboo, for any white boy to become so enchanted, so engrossed, so distracted, by the conspicuous appearance of some random solitary but extremely beautiful dark skinned Indian looking teenage girl, especially in the middle of some shanty location called Kalamazoo, where no white person would venture under normal conditions.

They had now remained parked outside Patel's shop for what seemed to be an interminably long time. Aaron finally accepted that the police patrol into Kalamazoo had ended in failure. They were not going to find and charge any of culprits who had hurled stones at them a short while ago.

He continued to look at the girl.

Aaron glanced at his two companions. He noticed that they had remained totally oblivious of the girl. He was the only one of the three boys that had become completely fascinated by the presence of the girl. Carlos and Dominic had not given her a second glance. Was he seeing something that they could not see? Could she really be invisible to them? Had he learnt to look at the world differently? Was his construction of reality different to theirs?

Could they not see that she was a splendid, amazing and magnificent creature? Was she only attractive beyond words to him alone? Was she really so beautiful, or was he just seeing things. Could it be possible that his imagination was playing tricks on him? Could she really be as beautiful as he thought? Only the opinion of his friends could verify that she was indeed very attractive. But he felt it would be kind of weird to nudge Dominic and ask whether he thought that the black chick was a good looking dame. No he couldn't do that.

He looked at Dominic. He looked back at Aaron. There was an expression of resignation on his face.

Aaron now knew that he was the only one in the car who had noticed the dark girl. All the others remained blind, indifferent, and inattentive to her presence. He began to realize that she was actually invisible to them, and it could only be because she was a deeper shade of black. Could blackness veil beauty and make it invisible? Aaron and the girl kept on making eye contact. The expressions on their faces confirmed that they had now recognized each other. They were both aware that an element of mutual reciprocity had come into existence between them. It could have been because they were both Catholic. They had shared the same Mass. They had shared the same meal, they had eaten the same body of Christ as a thanks giving meal from the same table. On at least one occasion they had drank the same blood of Christ from the same chalice. In the sharing in the Eucharistic feast they had drank the same blood from the same cup and ate the same body of Christ from the same table. They were now linked intimately together as one body by the invisible and common bonds of Roman Catholicism. There were members of the one and same undivided Catholic and Apostolic Church. A Church whose spiritual leaders and many of its members were suffering the intense pain of the forced segregation that had been imposed on its parishes and congregations. Its leading clergy and humble parish priests were at loggerheads with the governing authorities.

He did not avert his eyes, nor did she drop her gaze. She was in a very special and intimate sense his Christian sister. She met his gaze boldly but not defiantly. Her eyes were now filled with kindness. He remained completely and utterly transfixed by the sight of the girl. Her stare remained fixed on him, and his eyes remained fixed on her.

A subtle smile began to play on her lips. She felt drawn to him. She had also often seen him riding his bike down the sand road that ran pasted Kalamazoo. Whenever she happened to be in the vicinity at the right time, her gaze would follow him as he peddled his bike back and forth from his visits to the Central Compound.

He also felt an attraction towards to her. At the same time he thought of Gillian. Her shadow had loomed over all the other girls that had crossed his path. Gillian had been a kind of a standard for his expectations regarding girls, but now a black girl had stepped into the sunlight of his attention. There was now someone else besides Gillian.

It dawned on him that it must be a very powerful innate instinct which drove him to look at her, this black girl. He was certain that he had very little control over wanting to look at girls in general. Who does not like looking at girls anyway? Now he discovered that he had acquired the propensity to look at a black girl in the same way he would stare at a white girl like Gillian. It was clear that he was also deriving unexpected pleasure from looking at her as had been the case with Gillian. But the erotic gaze is more than the simple pleasure of looking. It is the desire to possess the beautiful that animates the erotic gaze. This is what he began to feel with regard to the girl standing on the veranda of Patel's shop. The same thoughts that preoccupied him with regard to Gillian had now shifted to the black girl. What it would be like to possess her, this black girl, he wondered. What could it possibly be like to hold her hand, to put his arm around her waist, to kiss her cheek, to kiss her lips? What would it be like to embrace her tightly?

He felt liberated from the bonds of attraction that had held him captive to Gillian.

He also began to realize that it was a truth, beyond doubt, that a rare glimpse of a particular embodiment of beauty, or a particular singular incarnation of beauty in someone, or a particular instantiation of beauty in a single person, could transform the viewer almost instantly into a lover of that person. Beauty provokes desire. Desire once provoked seeks possession of that which is beautiful. He wondered what it would be like to have a relationship with her.

Before he had wondered to the point of obsession about what it would be like to possess Gillian, to have her as his own, and at the same time to be possessed by her. But every time these thoughts filled his imagination, their age difference loomed as an unbridgeable chasm. It was a miracle of self-control that had stopped him from confessing outright to Gillian that he loved her.

So many times he found himself at the brink of wanting to tell Gillian that he was in love with her. At times he was convinced that she wanted him to kiss her. It was only fear that he may be misreading the signs that held him back. If she had reached out and took his hand he would have become her faithful lover for all eternity.

But now he had faced another kind of chasm. It was the chasm of race that separated him from her. A yawning unbridgeable abyss stood between him and the black girl standing on the shop's veranda. Could he ever possess this black girl as he had wanted to possess Gillian? Could this black girl in turn ever possess him? Would she even want to possess him, a white person? Could she even contemplate such a thought? What could be more profound than that thought, that a black girl would want to possess a white boy as her lover? Was such a thought impermissible? In what kind of Universe would such a thought be impermissible? In what possible Universe would such a thought be a crime, a transgression, a repugnant desire? How could it ever be morally wrong to entertain such thought? Why on earth should it be abnormal or inconceivable for a black girl to contemplate possessing a white boy as her own true love?

'Fuck Apartheid, fuck Verwoerd, fuck all the white arse holes that flashed their lights and blew their hooters at the drive-in movie theatre when Verwoerd's grim face appeared on the screen,' he thought to himself. Fuck all white South Africans, fuck all the generations of white South Africans that have made racial segregation through an exercise of collective historical will into an inviolable binding creed enforced by severe and punitive social and legal sanctions. Fuck them all! Maybe he should become a communist. White South Africans hated communists and he was beginning to loathe white South Africans, he had begun to perceive his fellow countrymen through eyes influenced by Gillian's political opinions. She had become the midwife of the insights that he had given birth to. He had become her Theaetetus.

After cursing the Nationalist Party government he became lost in contemplation and preoccupation with ideas about love, desire and the possession of women. He momentarily felt oblivious to everything, without realizing it he had lapsed into a state of reverie, bordering on a trance.

Ever since Plato, the problem of the One and Many in relation to the Idea or Form of beauty and its appearance in an individual has haunted Western Philosophy. It had haunted and troubled Western Civilization for more than 2500 years. In his dream state, Aaron began to wonder whether Gillian was right, maybe Plato was not passé. In both the _Phaedrus_ and _The_ _Symposium_ Plato argued in line with his theory of the Forms, that to contemplate and apprehend the Idea of beauty required the ascent of the soul from the earthly empirical realm of fleeting phenomena to the heavenly non-phenomenal realm of the eternal Forms, or the Universals, in more modern day parlance. The ascent of the soul was only possible if the erotic desire stirred by the physical beauty of a single unique individual could be transcended. Looking at the black girl, Aaron knew that he could never transcend the erotic desire he now felt for a beautiful woman such as the one standing on Patel's shop veranda, the girl who had now superseded Gillian.

As a person interested in art the question of beauty was of deep concern to Aaron. It was a question that had been constantly stirred up in his mind when he tried to fathom the purpose of the artistic urge to create.

What is it that is so mysterious about feminine beauty, he wondered? Is there more truth regarding the nature of beauty in the moment of its fleeting temporal appearance than could be fully comprehended? In its transient instantiation does it become the real moment of absolute beauty? Can there be an unknowable atemporal timeless beauty beyond time? There may be more truth in the visible appearance of beauty compared to its invisible timeless dis-incarnate form. A form that remains hidden behind the surface of its fleeting temporal appearances or in its brief incarnations in a single unique individual. Could it be that the true idea of beauty does not lie hidden as an invisible immutable reality behind appearances but only exists as fully unveiled in its visible incarnate form at the moment of its appearance when it becomes fully manifest in the light of sense perception? Does everything only exist at the moment of its appearance?

Why was the police officer taking so long in the shop?

Just then a movement brought him out of his reverie. Mr Patel had emerged with the constable from the shop.

Mr Patel looked quite petrified with his protruding eyes as the constable escorted him to the police car. He bent down low and peered through the open window at the three friends.

"This is not good. I am earnestly sorry about what has happened to you, you know," he said.

His concern and anxiety over what had happened to the three friends seemed genuine. The constable told them to get out of the car and show Mr Patel their wounds. Stiffly and awkwardly they climbed out. He looked at the cut above Aaron's left eyebrow.

"You need to get to a hospital straight away. It's a deep cut. You will need stitches."

Mr Patel noticed blood oozing from the back of Carlos's head. No one had yet noticed that Carlos had a wound on the back of his head. Mr Patel's protruding eyes grew even larger as they became filled with panic. He suddenly became extremely nervous and agitated, his voice began to quaver, and became high pitched, almost querulous.

"You need to get to a hospital quickly there is a very bad wound on the back of this boy's head. It has swollen into large lump, like a tennis ball."

Aaron looked at Carlos. This was the reason why he had not been acting his normal self. He was suffering from concussion. Carlos began to speak in a deep voice as if he was drugged. He slurred his words.

"We could have been killed, we could have been killed...," Carlos said, with a wild look on his face.

Mr Patel's eyes remained large, showing the whites of his eyeballs. The constable told them to lift up their T-shirts and show Mr Patel the bruises on their backs. The three standing in a row turned around, with their backs facing Mr Patel and they pulled up their T-shirts. Mr Patel gasped in shock at the extensive black and blue bruising on their shoulders, back and arms. Both Dominic and Aaron began to run their fingers through their hair to see if they also had any head wounds that they were not aware of. Both could feel several tender swollen bumps on their heads. They showed Mr Patel that the pair of them also had bumps on their heads. He gently moved his fingers over the lumps on their heads clicking his tongue in a show of sympathy and concern. For an Indian, he seemed to be getting paler and paler. He seemed to be terrified. His hands were trembling. His body began to quiver. It looked like he wanted to burst into tears. Aaron began to feel sorry for Mr Patel. He felt a sudden strong compulsion to tell him not worry and to reassure him that they were OK. Aaron knew that his two friends would not be happy if he caved in and started to forgive the Indians. Aaron could not help himself and he said:

"Don't worry, its nothing, we will be OK."

Dominic glared at him. Mr Patel noticed that Dominic was bristling with anger. Dominic could be a hot headed Italian if he so wished. Mr Patel responded quickly, in an attempt to pacify Dominic, whose eyes were starting to flash with anger.

"No, No, it's not OK. I am very sorry about this. This is not good, this is not good. It is not good for our community. We have been disgraced. Please wait here I am going to get you boys something from the shop," he said.

He quickly came back with some cokes for everyone. Aaron glanced at the girl again. She had been watching the drama that had unfolded on the covered porch of Mr Patel's trading store. She was now frowning, her expression changed from curiosity to one of sympathy and concern.

She came over and stood next to Mr Patel. Aaron could still not keep his eyes off her. She remained aware of his gaze.

"I am also very sorry," she said in a quiet soft voice that expressed genuine empathy. She did not speak with an Indian or Coloured accent. Except for Carlos, everyone began to recover their composure. Dominic also relented and began to reassure Mr Patel.

"No it's nothing. We were just angry with the boys who threw the stones at us. It is only natural to be angry, you know that. But it is OK now. We don't bear any grudges. We are not going to lay charges," Dominic said.

Dominic had calmed down, but Carlos began mumble on and on, he still did not seem to be his normal self.

"We could have been killed, I am sure we could have been killed. No, no, no, we must lay charges, they must go to jail."

Mr Patel became alarmed again.

"You got to get this boy to a hospital quickly. He has serious head injuries, please, we have to get him to the hospital," he said, in a pleading tone of voice to the police.

Mr Patel began to grovel and apologize profusely on the behalf of the Indian community. It seemed that at any minute he was going to fall before them on his knees begging for their forgiveness. Aaron felt sorry for him. But a little voice in his head also said don't be crazy, this guy should not get off lightly. But everyone finally accepted his apologies. Out of honour they could not now go back on the decision to let things be. They began to drink their cokes. And Mr Patel's demeanour began to show signs of relief. As the tension evaporated, he became increasingly talkative and lively, almost garrulous. He then became very earnest, expressing the desire to rebuild the broken bonds between the three friends and the shanty town community.

He began to speak rapidly. It must have been due to the nervous energy that gripped him.

"Do you boys live on the ERPM property? I know you boys very well, you know. I am sure I have seen you riding your bikes around the township, you know? Yes, I recognize all of you. Yes, I have known all of you from when you were small boys, always on your bicycles riding up and down our streets, up and down, up and down, all day long. There were never any problems. You just rode your bicycles up and down, yes riding up and down the streets. You are most welcome, yes most welcome, you know, you are welcome here anytime in the location. Please feel free to come here anytime, you know. You are also most welcome to my shop, anytime. I can promise you that there will never, never, ever be any trouble again from our boys, you know," said Mr Patel.

Looking at the policemen he made the following remark.

"Hey Boss, you know, these boys are like my own children, you know."

Aaron turned and looked at the girl again. She was smiling broadly; she had obviously been inadvertently drawn into this spontaneous eruption of unscripted impromptu theatre on the covered porch at the entrance of Mr Patel's store. It really felt like they were all on a stage, acting out some drama filled with irony, farce and tragic comedy. In a very short span of time they had gone from tragedy to comical farce. They had progressed from the melodramatic public display of wounds to the sudden relief expressed in the outburst of unburdened amiability that accompanied the transformation of Mr Patel, who had metamorphosed before everyone's eyes from a nervous wreck into an increasingly affable shop keeper. Drawn in as a participant into the drama the girl also extended and supplemented Mr Patel's invitation. "I also welcome you to the location".

The word 'Location' sounded so funny to Aaron's ears. No one had ever invited them into the 'Location' before. They had never asked for an invitation before. They had always freely intruded into the Location, taking short cuts through Stirtonville from the Central Mine Boy Compound to Cinderella Dam. There was a deep ambiguity to the word Location. Locations are where non-whites live. When the girl used the word it sounded different, almost sacred, when it rolled off her lips. The Location was her home. It was her universe. Being her home it had now become a sacred space, a special space; it was no longer the old space. She lived and breathed in an intimate living connection with the Location and its community. In the Location she was not an outsider or stranger. To Aaron the Location had become a zone into which one ventured, usually as the uninvited. Aaron and his friends had never visited the Location as invited guests, they only ventured into it as unwelcome, uncaring intruders, speeding through the Location on their bicycles, bent low down over the handle bars and peddling like mad they had raced through the dusty streets of Stirtonville countless times, feeling invincible on their bikes, using the streets of the Location as their shortcut to the beach at Cinderella dam when riding with Gavin from the Central Compound.

Mr Patel then extended his hand. They all in turn, including the constables, shook Mr Patel's soft pudgy hand. Aaron took the opportunity to also shake the girl's hand. He turned around and extended has hand to the girl, grasping her hand firmly, maybe a bit too firm, maybe a bit too long.

"Thanks for the kind words. I am Aaron Finnegan," he said.

"I am Geraldine McNamara."

Her hand did not lay limp and lifeless in his hand, when he squeezed her hand ever so slightly; she immediately tightened her fingers around his hand, increasing the firmness of her grip, which did not slacken until he released her hand. Her face beamed. There was a mysterious smile on her face. The brief expression of physical intimacy between the two had escaped the notice of the others, including the sharp eyes of Mrs Patel who had come out of the shop and started sweeping the veranda.

Her surname surprised him. It was not an Indian surname. Her name echoed and bounced around in his head. His first thought was that maybe Indians who had converted to Catholicism changed their names to Catholic sounding names.

The policemen signalled that it was time to go. They all got back into the police car and drove off. Thinking in retrospect, Aaron concluded that the girl had obviously noticed the police car patrolling around the township, she saw them in the back and had recognized them. Then out of curiosity she had decided to hang around outside Patel's shop to see what was going to happen.

" _Daar is niks wat ons verder kan doen nie. Die wonde aan julle koppe is erg. Ons gaan julle nou dadelik hospitaal toe neem_ , (There is nothing more that we can do. Your injuries are serious. We are going to take you to the hospital,)" said the stout constable.

The police dropped them off at the casualty entrance of the Boksburg Benoni Hospital. A white male nurse briefly examined them. Aaron needed stitches for the cut above his eyebrow. The nurse examined the nasty wound on the back of Carlos's heat. He also needed stitches. Dominic just had bruises. A young intern, Dr Erasmus came to attend to their wounds. After cleaning the wound above Aaron left eyebrow he closed the wound with 4 stitches. He also gave them tetanus injections. They had to shave off quite a large patch of hair from the back of Carlos's head. He also received 4 stitches. The doctor was worried about Carlos's wound. The doctor confirmed that Carlos was slightly concussed from the injury. He asked if Carlos played rugby. No, he did not play rugby, only soccer. The doctor recommended that he refrained from playing soccer for six to eight weeks. Another bump to the head or heading a football could have serious repercussions. Carlos was not too happy to hear the news. At about 6.30 pm they left the hospital. They walked home along Railway Street. The road ran parallel to the railway line and also formed the southern border of Plantation. As they walked back towards Boksburg Station, Dominic began to complain bitterly about how useless and incompetent the police had been.

"It was obvious that Patel knew who the culprits were. He was hiding something. I wouldn't be surprise if his boys were involved. He was so terrified that he was shaking. I can't believe that the police could not see that he was hiding information about the culprits. That Patel was as guilty as hell. They should have taken him to the police station for interrogation," Dominic said.

"There is no justice in this country," he sadly concluded.

"Look, we did the right thing to walk away. Let's just get over it; we have to live with the buggers. You and Carlos stay in Plantation. I live right next door to the bloody Indians and also the damn Coloureds. You know that all our poultry was stolen a week before Christmas. We were completely cleaned out. Everything was taken, the bantams, ducks, geese, turkeys. We had geese and Muscovy ducks sitting on eggs. They were stolen right off their nests. All that remained were the cold eggs in the nests. That Muscovy drake waddling across the road in the shanty town belonged to me. It was my duck, I really loved it. I recognized it immediately," Aaron said.

Again they walked in silence with Carlos to his home in Plantation which happened to be quite close to Boksburg Station. When his mom saw Carlos's condition she reprimanded them. Afterwards Aaron said bye to Dominic as he headed for the station bridge to get across the railway lines. At Boksburg station he crossed over the railways lines via the whites-only steel pedestrian bridge. He arrived home at 18.45, just in time for supper. Everyone immediately spotted the stitched up cut above his left eyebrow and he had to tell them the whole story.

Night had fallen over Galeview. Geraldine's parents were surprised when she decided to go to bed so early on a Friday night. She shared a small bedroom with her little sister and her small twin brothers. After washing her face and brushing her teeth she climbed into the bed that she shared with her sister. In the other bed the twins lay fast asleep. The small room was stifling hot. She got up and opened the windows. After pulling off the bed covers she climbed back into bed and pulled the sheet over her sister and herself. Through the open window the Friday night sounds of the Coloured Location drifted into her room. Somewhere close-by in someone's backyard someone was strumming a guitar. A sudden loud uproar of argumentative shouting interrupted the guitar strumming. She could hear swearing. The sounds of the guitar stopped. The commotion gradually subsided. After a brief period of silence the guitar strumming resumed.

She lay on her back; her eyes wide open, reviewing the events in her mind that she had witnessed that afternoon. She smiled in the dark as she pictured in her mind's eye the three boys taking off their shirts to show Patel their bruises and wounds. An after-image of Aaron's toned upper body that had been sculpted by years of swimming was still vivid in her mind. She could visualize his face. She thought he was very handsome. Before falling asleep she whispered to herself: "I can't help myself, I am falling in love with you, my dearest Aaron."

### CHAPTER 5

After supper while they were in the lounge, Hillary started fiddling with the radio channels, much to the annoyance of Max and Rachel. The telephone rang just as the voice of LM Radio's Dona Emilia made her hourly announcement: " _Aqui Portugal Mocambique fala-vos O Radio Clube em Lourenco Marques transmitindo em ondas curtas e medias._ "

It was after 9.00 pm and no one expects a phone call this late on a Friday night unless it was an emergency or bad news.

Rachel answered the phone. It was Jimmy McBride, Rachel's father. When they heard that it was Grandpa Jimmy on the line, Hillary lowered the volume of the radio. From Rachel's questions and comments, they managed to reconstruct the conversion that was taking place between Rachel and her father. Fortunately it was not bad news. It was something or other about day old chickens.

Were they interested in some unclaimed boxes of day old broiler chickens? Jimmy McBride worked at the dispatch and receiving depot at Johannesburg Park Station. The farmer who was supposed to have collected them had gone into liquidation and did not want the chickens. No one else wanted them. By Monday next week they would certainly end up dead from starvation or dehydration or both. What are broiler chickens? They are chickens that are raised for slaughter. What were the Finnegan's going to do with a couple of boxes of unclaimed day old broiler chicks? How many were there? Jimmy was not too sure, it sounded like that there could several hundred, maybe more. Where were they going to keep several hundred day old chicks? Were the chickens still at the station? No. Then where are the chickens now? Jimmy had them all at his house. He could keep a few of them in his empty budgie aviary, but definitely not all of them. Rachel asked him to hold on while she spoke to Max. For years Grandpa McBride had been raising unclaimed day old broiler chickens in the empty budgie aviary in their backyard in Belgravia.

After she had put down the receiver on the entrance hall sideboard, Rachel stood in the lounge doorway looking in at their faces. She looked exasperated.

"Do we really want several hundred day old chickens?"

Max rolled his eyes and Hillary burst out laughing. Nathan who was the youngest child in the Finnegan family was ecstatic:

"Yes, yes, tell Grandpa we want the chickens. They can replace our poultry that was stolen just before Christmas."

Aaron managed to persuade Max and Rachel that they could keep them in the spare double garage that was standing empty. It was a large almost barn sized corrugated iron clad wooden structure with a cement floor that had stood unused for years in the far corner of the yard. So it was finally decided that they would take the chickens. But Max insisted that they were not going to become pets like the previous collection of bantam chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys. He stressed that it would be necessary to get rid of the majority and only a few would be kept.

Early Saturday morning Jimmy arrived in the old Plymouth. It was packed full of boxes of chirping downy yellow chicks. Piled on the back seat and front seat were boxes of chickens. Boxes of chickens had also been stuffed into the large boot of the car. Aaron and Nathan carried the boxes into the garage. Max, Jimmy, Nathan and Aaron then rushed off in the old blue VW Combi to the Germiston Market. Max bought bags of chicken feed, chicken feeding trays, bell waterers and bags of wood shavings. Jimmy seemed to know what was needed. When they got back, Max installed additional low hanging lights to keep the chickens warm. Some spare wooden planks were used to construct a barrier to prevent the chickens from escaping when the garage doors were left opened. Nathan covered the cement floor with the wood shavings. The feeding trays were filled with chicken feed and the bell waterers were topped up with water. The chicks were then turned loose into the garage. In a feeding and drinking frenzy they immediately swarmed around the feeding trays and bell waterers.

Within three weeks the chickens were hopping onto and over the barrier into the yard. In no time they invaded every nock and cranny of the large Finnegan residential property. Like a Biblical plague, chickens were everywhere, in the yard, on the backyard veranda, in the scullery next to the kitchen, on the front veranda, in the flower beds, and on the lawns. Every patch of the property was occupied by chickens busy chasing each other, chasing grass hoppers, pecking at toads, pecking at lizards. One chicken running with a mouse hanging by its tail from its beak was being chased by about twenty other chickens. The _lazier faire_ approach to raising more than a thousand chickens turned the Finnegan yard into a gladiatorial arena where only the fittest would endure the struggle for survival.

Since their meeting at Patel's store, Geraldine had been on the lookout for Aaron. From time to time she caught fleeting glimpses across the veld of Aaron riding his bike past Kalamazoo to the Central Mine Boy Compound. From afar she watched Aaron and the others riding horses in the paddock adjoining the Compound. Hidden from view, while standing under a lone Karee tree in the middle of the strip of open veld that lay between Galeview and Kalamazoo, she waited patiently in the tree's shadows to get a glimpse of Aaron as he cycled past. Her female intuition told her that Aaron was attracted to her. She trusted her intuitions.

Mr Whitehead ran quite a large livery at the Compound and the Vet constantly reminded him that most of the horses needed a lot more exercise than what they were currently getting. So, under the watchful eye of Mrs Wendy Foxcroft, Gavin and his sisters Helen and Irene, Dominic, Carlos and Aaron, rode the horses regularly during the week and on weekends.

Today Geraldine observed that only Gavin and Aaron had been busy with the horses. Later in the day, storm clouds began to build up in the west. On noticing the gathering storm, Geraldine had a sudden inspiration for an audacious plan. She rushed home and volunteered to go buy bread and milk at Patel's shop before the rain came. It was her plan to linger next to the road and wait for Aaron to ride pass, hoping to catch him in the middle of a Highveld thunderstorm. When her parents expressed concern about the gathering storm, she managed to persuade them that she would be back before it rained. However, if it started raining, she would wait out the storm in the shelter of Patel's shop.

Her plan was to stand at the roadside and wait for Aaron.

As she stood at the roadside waiting for Aaron, the sky continued to grow ominously dark. In the meantime, Aaron and Gavin raced to get the horses back into the shelter of the stables. After they got all the horses into their stables, Aaron decided to try beat the approaching storm by racing back home on his bike. Peddling like mad down the sand road towards the Hercules Vertical Shaft, he caught sight of a girl with long black hair. She was standing at the side of the road that bordered the Indian shantytown. She was holding a loaf of bread and a carton of milk. The skirt of her short white dress was billowing in the strong wind that the storm was sweeping up. Aaron heart skipped a beat, he recognized her. It was Geraldine McNamara. It seemed odd that she was standing next to the road at the edge of Kalamazoo, especially while a violent storm was looming so menacingly over them.

Huge drops of rain began to fall. The boom of crashing thunder closed in on them. Dazzling and brilliant flashes of lighting struck wildly everywhere. Clouds glowed with a ferocious luminosity as if they had been set on fire. Jagged zigzagging silvery white forks of lightning filled the dark skies. Then a massive electrical discharge of millions upon millions of volts between two huge rolling black storm clouds illuminated the headgear of the Hercules Shaft with an explosion of blinding phosphorescent light that cracked the domed vault of the sky wide open, releasing a shower of ice cold burning shrapnel.

It seemed that the lighting must have struck the towering headgear of Hercules Shaft. Almost immediately after the lightning flash, a gigantic shock wave of thunder shattered the sky like an exploding bomb shell. Geraldine stood frozen like a statue with a shocked expression on her face. Aaron pulled the hand brakes sharply and skidded to a halt next to her and shouted above the noise of the storm that they needed to dash for shelter. He pointed to the veranda of Patel's store, which had a zinc roof covering the veranda of the shop. She immediately kicked off her sandals, bent down, quickly grabbing them, turned around and bolted like a hare bare-footed ahead of Aaron to the store. He rode as fast as he could, peddling furiously to catch up with her. Great sheets of hailstones began to fall.

The deafening drumming of hail followed by the pounding of rain on the corrugated iron roof of the shop's veranda drowned out all chances of conversation. They stared in silence at the ferocity of the storm beating down on the shacks and streets of Kalamazoo. After a while, the intensity of the rain subsided and the noise of the storm abated sufficiently for them to hear each other speak. Her hair and face were wet. Her soaking wet dress clung to her body. She stood there bare footed, still clutching her sandals, the bread and the carton of milk against her breasts. She did not seem to mind that her clothing was soaking wet. Both were obviously awe struck by the violence of the passing storm.

Aaron could not think of what to say. Smiling radiantly she eventually broke the awkward silence.

Opening her eyes wide in an exaggerated imitation of wonder, she exclaimed, "I got such a fright. My ears are still ringing from the thunder of that lighting strike."

From the veranda, they noticed a horse cantering across the veld. It had broken out of its stable, possibly because of the thunder. Soon the two grooms, July and Mac, in blue overalls, black gum boots and floppy hats came jogging across the veld. One of them was carrying a halter. They managed to drive the horse back to the paddocks.

"I often see you on your bike going past Kalamazoo on your way home," she said in a sort of matter of fact way, and added "after you and your friends have been riding and jumping the horses at the Mine Compound."

From the raised veranda of Patel's shop, they could see the grounds and buildings of Central Compound; they could also see the stables, paddocks, the compound kraal and the Whitehead's house. The roof and gables of the Elephant Trading Store was also visible behind the Whitehead's sprawling red corrugated iron roofed home.

"Do you live in Kalamazoo?"

She laughed. She found it funny that he thought that she stayed in Kalamazoo.

"No I stay in Galeview," she pointed in the direction of Galeview, "those houses over there across the veld."

Her lips were pleasant to look at and her teeth were white and perfect, her gums were dark purple in colour. Again, Aaron wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips.

"I come almost every day to Kalamazoo to buy bread or milk. Patel's shop is the only shop left after the Indian Bazaar was demolished."

Her eyes lit up and twinkled with subtle humour. She inclined her head at him and looking mildly amused, she said:

"So you thought that I was an Indian?"

"Yes I did."

"No I'm not Indian. I am actually Coloured. So you really thought I was Indian?"

"Yes. I apologize," he said feeling slightly uncomfortable. It was not every day that the opening discussion between two teenagers of the opposite sex began with the female party so flippantly disclosing the true character of her non-white racial identity.

She laughed again.

"You don't need to apologize. I find it funny. Everybody thinks that I am Indian when they first meet me."

Aaron could not help smiling at his blunder even though he felt embarrassed that he had been mistaken about her racial identity. In his mind he thought, 'Fuck Apartheid, fuck Verwoerd and fuck the Nationalists.'

"Many people have mistaken me for an Indian. Even the Indians staying at Kalamazoo and also the Indians at the old Indian Bazaar thought that I was an Indian from Durban because I have this Natal English accent," she explained trying to make him feel better.

"I am a human chameleon; I can change into an Indian, a Coloured or even a Native. If I really wanted to, I could quite easily pass for a native girl as well and no one will know the difference, I can change into any race just like that," she said, snapping her fingers loudly to emphasize her unusual ability to become any race she wished.

He smiled at the obvious irony of the fact that while she was a so-called human chameleon, she could never ever present herself as a white, a fact she did not bother to mention.

The remark about her ability to be a human chameleon was not made flippantly; she was earnest, even sincere. He looked at her searchingly, trying to fathom her. She was deadly serious, even though there was a playful smile in the amused curl of her lips and in the gleam of her big dark brown eyes.

Human chameleon indeed! He suppressed the spontaneous urge to burst out laughing. He realized in a sudden epiphany that he was indeed white and that there was nothing he could do about that. He wanted to say that he cannot be anything but white. He was undeniably white. He wanted to laugh out loud at being white. It was hilarious. It seemed absurd to be white. Suddenly it felt unnatural to be white. How on earth did he become white?

The words white, _blank_ , and European were supposed to capture his essence in a nutshell. Being white was supposed to somehow fully define his essential nature as a human being. Did he indeed embody some kind of unique, magical, special, mysterious and potent essence that made him white? What was it that made him white? Did being white entail more than having a white skin? Could you have a white skin without being 'white'? 'Whiteness' or being 'white' was an unscientific ideological construct, as Hillary had reminded Max and Rachel in a heated political argument about Apartheid over dinner. She said that being white was a social construct, it was class construct, it was a political construct, it was a cultural construct, it was something that had been invented by white men. Being white was an invention, it was the product of some kind of magical, fantastical and fabulous anthropology; it was something phantasmagorical.

He realized that he had very limited options at being anything but a white person. He couldn't be Indian, he couldn't be Coloured, and he could definitely not be a Native or an aboriginal of Africa. He was obviously white in the most pregnant sense of being white. He was unmistakeably white; he did not need to be reminded of this fact. It was plainly evident.

In the end everything boiled down to the fact that he was white. Being white came with absurd advantages, with absurd preconceptions, with absurd expectations, with absurd demands, with all kinds of absurd claims to status and privilege. Being white supposedly linked him to the incredible achievements of thousands of years of Western Civilization. Being white supposedly meant that he was a captive of the Western Mind; he was possessed by the Western Mind, by the Western Way of comprehending reality, of understanding the nature of the world, and the Universe. Was all of this true? Could he perceive the world in any other way? Was there another set of spectacles, another prism, through which his perception of the world would undergo a profound _gestalt_ change? Gillian said that the work of Karl Marx allows us to see history and the world with new eyes. What about Plato's parable of the cave?

Did he in fact see everything through Western Eyes? Was it true that being white made him automatically a product of Western Civilization? It was not his decision to be white. He was thrown into the world as a white person.

By being born white, even though he had been born in Africa and by birth he belonged to Africa, yet in spite of belonging to Africa as is it were, he had supposedly leapfrogged to the highest plane of human existence, he had been placed at the top of the pinnacle of all humanity, at the very summit of the human race; but who or what had placed him there? Power, white power had placed him at the summit of the human race. Possession of power made whiteness possible, without political power, the existence of whiteness would not be possible. Whiteness was a way of being in the world, which meant a lot things, it included a way of perceiving, a way of believing, and a way of acting.

The grand narrative said that it was white men who had conquered every frontier on this planet. Apparently white men held all the power in the world. It was said that no one could escape the positive impact of the creative and inventive forces that the hands and minds of white men had brought into the world for everyone's benefit! It was common knowledge for all eyes to see that the world was littered with all kinds of beneficial artefacts that had apparently been created by the hands and minds of the white man. All these things were signs and symbols of whiteness, which were supposed to remind everyone that the whites had arrived, that the whites had been here, that the whites had been there, and that whites had come to stay even though they were not welcomed. They were not welcome, even with all their things, even with all their knowledge and rational powers. They arrived without notice, like a thief in the night, they arrived unexpectedly like a dark cloud; they came like a plague of locusts, devouring everything in their path, leaving behind a trail of devastation. They even devoured children, women and men.

The heads of white men were filled with this kind of stuff. This was the problem with white men, this was the problem with being white, this was the burden that comes with being white, this is what makes being white so intolerable, and this was what made it so difficult to be anything else but white.

As student of Darwin, he was convinced that there was nothing innately special about being white. The Dominican friars working in the Locations said that the whites were not inherently superior to anyone or any other race. Whites just got lucky; it was by pure accident that fortune smiled on the Europeans. They were not more deserving or more clever or more superior, they were just plain lucky.

Max, Mr Noble and Mr Whitehead all agreed that the Arabs, Indians and Chinese had a head start on the road to civilization long before the whites. They built an advanced civilization while the whites were still primitive ancestor worshiping barbarians in the forests of Europe. Mr Whitehead reckoned that the Arab economic dependency on slavery was possibly one of the reasons that their civilization eventually went into decline.

Mr Whitehead said that the Arabian and Turkish African slave trade that stretched over a period that exceeded a thousand years was more massive, more inhumane and more destructive than the trans-Atlantic African slave trade of the Americas which lasted for a much shorter period. With such a plentiful supply of black bodies in Africa the Arabs and Turks were not bothered with breeding black slaves, this was why they castrated or emasculated every single African male that was enslaved. Arab slave traders would raid African villages and slaughter all the older men and women. Children, young women and men were then enslaved. Males were either emasculated or castrated at eunuch stations that had been created along the Arab slave routes. This was also why the Arab and Turkish slave trade turned out to be such a large scale genocidal enterprise. Mr Whitehead believed that the massive southwards migration of the Bantu was probably undertaken to escape the genocidal depredations of the Arab slave traders.

Her wet dress clung closely to the shapely curves of her body. She was aware that Aaron eyes were roving over her. She did not mind, it pleased her. She wanted Aaron to look at her, to want her. While brushing away a strand of wet hair from her cheek she announced in a sort of matter of fact non-confidential manner:

"I am much darker than the rest of my family. They all have very light skins. My mother's name is Rosanne; she has a very fair skin. Her skin is lighter than your skin. Your skin tone could pass for Coloured. Coloureds have the full spectrum of every possible shade of skin tone, from milky white to the darkest ebony. But most light-skinned Coloureds preferred to marry partners who also have lighter complexions. My parents must have been shocked when I was born with such a dark skin."

"The colour of a person's skin should not matter," he said while carefully watching her face for her reaction. He wondered if they should be talking about the sensitive issue of skin colour. Being white he became aware that he did not feel very comfortable speaking so candidly about the topic of the colours of one's skin with a person of colour. Yet he was drawn to her by some strange, powerful magnetic erotic fascination, he was drawn to the incredibly dark tone of her smooth, lustrous and silky skin. He was drawn to the attractiveness of her blackness and to the attractiveness of her sparkling personality.

"You will be surprised. The colour of your skin does matter, especially among non-whites," she responded, smiling indulgently at his remark.

She knew intuitively that her dark pigmentation did not matter to him. She knew this from the way he had kept on looking at her and the way that he had held her hand when they first shook hands. The tightening of his grip was an unmistakeable signal of attraction. He had held her hand a bit too tight and a bit too long. It had left her heart pounding like mad and made her weak at the knees.

Still smiling, she stroked and caressed her wet arm, while closely examining her pigmentation. "I don't understand why I am so dark. Maybe I have some kind of Indian blood. Only Indians can get as dark as this. Most natives in South Africa have chocolate or coffee coloured skins; they are not ebony or black like I am. All dark people only become really black if they spend a lot of time in the sun. Some of the mine boys are very black, even as dark as ebony. They do not come from South Africa. They come from the far north, from the tropics."

"I must admit you do look very Indian. I don't think you should feel insulted if people mistake you for an Indian. And don't worry about skin colour, it really doesn't matter to me," he said, he could still not shake off the feeling that it seemed wrong to talk about one's skin pigmentation. He decided to steer away from any talk about pigmentation.

"No, don't get me wrong, I don't feel insulted, I just find it amusing," she said, with dark her eyes fixed attentively on his face.

"When I first arrived at the Boksburg Coloured School two years ago, they also thought that I was an Indian. The people in my class couldn't believe that I was the daughter of my parents."

She put her sandals down and slipped her feet into them.

"At least my sandals are dry," she said while wiping a strand of wet hair from cheek with the back of her hand.

"We will be leaving Galeview soon. My father has bought a stand in the new Reiger Park Township they are developing, where the old Indian location used to be. You must remember the old Indian Bazaar. The house we are renting in Galeview is so small and cramped. It is a real dump. My dad already has the plans for our new house. They are going to start with the building quite soon. At last, I am going to have my own bedroom."

He was curious about her age. She seemed so mature, so bright and full of confidence. He also enjoyed listening to her speak. She had a very pleasant sounding accent.

"What standard are on in?" He asked.

"I am in standard 9."

Her long hair was hanging loose, she run her fingers through her hair, threading her wet hair between her fingers, twirling and curling long strands of wet black hair around her forefinger.

"And you, what standard are you're in?" She asked.

"I am in standard 10, in Matric. I am so glad that it's my last year of school."

"Which school do you go to?"

"I go to Boksburg High School."

"Is it a nice school?"

"It's OK I suppose. I would have been happier if biology was offered as a subject."

"Oh that's a pity. Do you like biology?"

"Oh yes."

"What subjects have you taken?" He asked.

"Well my subjects are Maths, English, Afrikaans, Science, Geography, and Zulu." She answered.

"You are taking Zulu. I am impressed."

She smiled.

"What subjects are you taking? She asked.

"I'm taking Maths, English, Afrikaans, Latin, History, Art and Science. I am also taking biology as an extra subject on a self-study basis. My mom Rachel organized it for me so that I can take it as an additional subject."

"Why are you taking 8 subjects for Matric?" She said with an incredulous look on her face.

"I didn't want to choose between Latin and art. I like both of the subjects and on top of that, I wanted to do biology as well."

"Do you like to draw and paint?"

"Yes."

"You sit with your brother, sister and mother at Mass."

"Yes."

"I have not seen you at Mass for a long time," he said.

"We are now going to St Francis here in Reiger Park."

"Why do they call the Location Reiger Park?"

"I don't know, maybe the Coloureds chose the name," she said, feeling quite puzzled by such a strange question.

"You haven't always stayed in Stirtonville. You said that you came from Natal."

"Yes we are originally from Durban. I grew up in Durban. I was born in Merebank. Merebank is quite near the sea. We then moved to Wentworth and then roughly two years ago we moved here to Stirtonville Location. My father is the vice principal of Boksburg Coloured School in Reiger Park and my mother is also a schoolteacher at the school. She is the HOD of English. My parents have managed to get senior teaching positions on higher salary scales by accepting a transfer from Durban to Reiger Park. That is the main reason why they decided to come," she smiled, "so here I am from Durban to Boksburg. Can you believe it?"

This bit of information explained why her accent was so different from the Coloureds in Stirtonville. Her English accent was similar to his cousins who stayed in Empangeni.

"Where are Merebank and Wentworth?"

"Do you know Durban?"

"Yes."

"You know where the Durban harbour is?"

"Yes."

"Well just across the harbour you get the bluff. Further, down from the bluff you get Brighton Beach. Merebank and Wentworth are quite close to Brighton Beach."

"It must have been one heck of adjustment for you to get used to the Transvaal."

"Oh yes! It was always so green and humid in Durban. Here everything seems to stay brown for most of the year and the air it so dry here in the Transvaal. The climate here really dries out my skin and lips. I have to apply lots of lotion to my skin. I am always putting on lip ice. I cannot get used to this dry climate, it definitely has an effect on my skin. Even my eyes feel dried out all the time. "

In spite of the dryness of the air that she mentioned, he noticed that her skin definitely did not look dried out.

"Many Coloureds and Indians avoid the sun like the plague. They fear the sun will darken their skins. They don't want darker skins so they stay out of the sun as much as possible, especially the Indians who have lighter skins. I love the sun. It doesn't bother me much. I cannot get sun burnt," she said, smiling.

He wondered why he was drawn to her. It was more than a physical attraction. She was an extremely sensual person; she seemed to be bursting with animal-like overabundance of health and vitality. But there was more to her than her physical appearance. She had a magnetic personality. It was evident to Aaron that she did not realize just how attractive she was. Her lively, earnest, sincere, intense, open, honest, warm, compassionate, empathetic and passionate personality had a powerful, overwhelming effect on him. She laughed so easily. She found things funny. He felt himself falling under her spell. When she spoke her face became lively and animated, filled with emotion and feeling. From the expression on her face and the intensity of eyes he felt that he could see the words that she spoke. Her large dark eyes were warm, expressive and kind. Her gaze was penetrating and always searching. She radiated an inner strength, resilience, a confidence, that was almost palpable.

Apart from Gillian he had never met any other girl that exuded the kind of qualities that he sensed in Geraldine. She showed both vulnerability and confidence. She was also seemed to be a deeply enigmatic personality, the kind of female person that he wanted to be with, the kind of female person he felt comfortable with. She seemed to be precisely the kind of girl that he had been had looking for, and she was someone who would not stand in the shadow of Gillian. He sensed that even though she was teenager, she was also a towering personality. It was important that he felt comfortable with her. And this was confirmed by fact that it felt good to be with her, she also made him feel elated, almost jubilant which was odd. She was definitely having an effect on him.

"Yes it is quite different here in Reiger Park compared to Wentworth. Firstly, there is no beach. I really miss the sea. Secondly, I think that almost all of the Coloureds in the old Reiger Park speak Afrikaans as their home language. In Durban, most of the Coloureds only speak English. I cannot speak Afrikaans very well. I even have trouble understanding Afrikaans. When they speak Afrikaans to me, I have answer in English. It is so funny, we end up communicating in two languages. I speak English and they speak Afrikaans. They understand English better than I understand Afrikaans, but somehow we manage to have a meaningful conversion. My Mom and Dad speak Zulu fluently."

"I am also trying to learn to speak Zulu," he said.

"Really, that so nice, I can help you learn isiZulu."

"Thanks that will be so great."

"When you stayed in Durban did you go to the beach often?"

"Oh yes we did, all the time. I love swimming. I loved swimming in the sea. "

"I also love swimming. I also like water polo. I play water polo for the ERPM swimming club."

"I have never played water polo. It must fun."

"My father used to be a life saver at Treasure Beach near Wentworth and he also used to surf. You won't believe it but I used to also surf," she said in a sort of matter of fact way. Aaron could see she was trying to gauge his response.

"Shoo that so amazing. I would never have guessed that you surfed. My cousins in Empangeni also surf a lot."

She could not suppress a modest smile at the compliment. "I still surf whenever we go to Wentworth for the school holidays. We have family there in Wentworth. We all shack up at their house. I have my own surfboard."

"What about sharks? Are there shark nets?"

"No there are no shark nets at Treasure Beach. It is quite a dangerous beach, but you get used to it. But you don't think about the danger. I have swum with my dad right past the breakers. It gets very creepy, when you swim beyond the breakers, treading water, bopping up and down in huge swells. My dad is fearless in the sea. He is an exceptionally strong and powerful swimmer. I am also quite a good swimmer."

"One good thing about Stirtonville is that there is much less pollution. Air pollution in Wentworth was very bad. It was located close to all the factories in Durban, whereas here we have only mine dumps surrounding the Location. OK on a windy day the mine dump dust can become very polluting, and then I sneeze continuously."

"Well at least Stirtonville Location is close to Cinderella dam. There is even a small beach," she said.

They both laughed at the comment that she had made.

"There was a lot more air pollution at Wentworth. Smoke from the surrounding factories has poisoned the air. We all suffered from asthma and respiratory problems as young children. You can smell the toxic chemical fumes from the factories. I find it is so boring here in the Location. There is nothing to do here. My parents worry about the gangs. However, there are gangs in all Coloured locations. There were gangs in Wentworth. You cannot get away from the gangs."

He noticed that it had stopped raining. Doors began to open. In a yard across the street a dog lying on the door step stood up and stretched. Children emerged and began to play outside in the street. The streets began to fill up with people. Women draped and wrapped in colourful saris began to stream past them in and out of Patel's shop. Aaron noticed there was some variation in their sari draping styles which he had not noticed before.

"Did you know that Sari means strip of cloth?" She asked.

"No I did not."

"There are more than fifty ways of draping a sari. The most common way to wear a sari is to simply wrap it around the waist and let free ends drape over the shoulder, leaving the midriff bare," she said.

"Have you ever worn a sari?" Aaron asked out of interest.

"Yes I have worn a sari. I have my own sari which I wear sometimes to Mass," she laughed.

Indians in the vicinity of Patel' shop could not help noticing the presence of Aaron and Geraldine on the veranda. Neither Aaron nor Geraldine were strangers to the residents of Kalamazoo. They were both known by sight by most of the inhabitants of Kalamazoo. But the jarring anomaly of their presence on this occasion was the fact they were together, and not just together, there was an obvious intimacy in the way they were speaking to each other, the way they laughed, the way they smiled at each other and the way they looked at each other. Aaron began to feel the full weight of disapproval in their dark unblinking stares and in the whispering among themselves. He was well aware that a conservative Indian community lived in Kalamazoo. He knew that Indians did not encourage open public socialization of young people of the opposite sex especially if it could be construed as courtship.

He glanced back at them, fixing his eyes momentarily on their dark frowning demeanours. Geraldine remained quite oblivious of the fact that they had become conspicuously visible in a very public space.

Engrossed in intimate conversation, it was impossible for them not draw attention to themselves. It was plain to any discerning inhabitant of Kalamazoo that the two teenagers were busy transgressing social norms and racial boundaries and they were doing this quite brazenly in full view of the inhabitants of Kalamazoo. They had blatantly and audaciously entered into a forbidden, dark and dangerous no man's zone. People should stay with their own kind; they should not try to cross the boundaries. People should not upset the order of things. What they were doing could only mean trouble. They were playing with fire, these two young people of the opposite sex from different worlds consorting so openly. It was almost a spectacle. They knew that the boy was the son of a prominent ERPM mine official, and that boy and his friends were so arrogant in the way that they behaved.

They could clearly see that Geraldine's face beamed with pleasure as she spoke to Aaron; her attraction to Aaron was obvious. It was also plain that she didn't seem to care what others saw or thought. Why should she care, her own parents were practically white, everybody knew that. Everyone knew who Geraldine McNamara was. They knew that her father was a prominent person in the Reiger Park Coloured community. It was common knowledge that if it were not for her, her parent could actually become white. It was she who prevented them from becoming white. She held them back from making the transition that would allow them to cross over into the white world. She thinks that she belongs to the same social class as the white boy; she thinks that she is equal to him. She is in for a big surprise that black girl flaunting herself so openly in public, fluttering her eyes, smiling and laughing. It is a disgrace, she has no sense of modesty, no sense of decency, she is shameless, standing there in her soaking wet dress clinging so tightly to her body, showing everything, leaving nothing to the imagination; she might as well be standing on the stoep naked in front of that white boy.

What about the white boy? They all knew him by sight. He was a familiar presence. They all knew what had happened at the Rock Dam.

Patel had also noticed that Aaron and Geraldine were on the veranda outside his shop. Even he began to wonder what the boy was doing in the company of the McNamara girl. His wife, unable to contain her curiosity, stood like a sentry at the entrance of shop, her eyes fixed on the pair, her ears straining to hear what they were saying.

"Has it been easy to make friends in Stirtonville?" He asked her.

"It may sound strange to you but I have not made any real friends here. Well I must admit that I did not have many friends in Wentworth. I am used to not having any real friends. I am very close to all my cousins in Wentworth. I am close to my aunt, my mom's younger sister. She is like my older sister. Sometimes I have wished that she was my mother. I love her very much. I can speak to her about anything. They are also having a house built in the new Reiger Park. Their house is almost finished."

"I love children. They are less complicated I suppose. One day I would like to work with children. Maybe I will become a primary school teacher. What do you plan to become one day?" she asked him.

"I am interested in animals and I like maths. I would like to work with animals so I would like to become a zoologist."

"Oh that so interesting and also unusual. I have never met anyone who said that they were interested in animals or wanted to be a zoologist. I also like animals. It is strange that only white people love nature, and animals, and birds, and scenery, and sunsets and all that kind of stuff. White people also like camping and roughing it the bush," she said, freely confiding her opinion to him as if he were not really a white person.

Her thoughts about the habits of whites amused him. It sounded both funny and strange to Aaron to hear someone talking about white people as if they were an alien species with all kinds of odd eccentricities.

"Do you live close by?" she asked.

Aaron pointed to the Hercules Shaft Head Gear standing tall behind the blue gums. "Our house is in Commissioner Street just behind the mine head gear."

"Oh that is so very close, it is practically in Kalamazoo. We almost live in the same neighbourhood." She laughed, finding what she said funny.

"I know," was all Aaron could say looking a bit bemused.

"It is getting late. My parents are probably wondering what has happened to me. I better get going. It was really nice talking to you," she said.

Even though the stares of the Indians made him feel uncomfortable he did not want to take leave of her. It felt natural being with her. The conversion between them flowed so easily, so spontaneously, every word they spoke sounded so pure, so uncontrived, so pregnant with meaning, as if each word had been freshly minted with profound significance. They spoke with their bodies, with their hands, with their eyes and with their lips; they spoke with expressions on their faces that made their words dance with brilliant colours. They literally hung on each other's words. Her words rung with genuineness, with authenticity; her openness was uncontrived, her honesty made her vulnerable. For a person who said that she had no friends, she came across as a friendly and likeable person. It did not make sense that she had no friends; it was incongruous that such an exuberant personality did not have any friends.

He answered: "It was also nice talking to you, and it would be really nice to see you again. We must watch out for each other. I come down this road quite regularly. I am here in the vicinity almost every Saturday and also Sunday afternoons."

"I know. I often see you. In future, I will look out for you. For me it was also really nice speaking with you, I really enjoyed your company and our interesting discussions," she said

"It would be really nice see you again soon," he said.

"Hope to see you again soon, too," she answered.

Wiping some strands of wet hair from her face she looked at Aaron and smiled.

"Well unfortunately I have be going," she replied.

The words 'hope see you soon, too' seemed to seal something that was happening between the pair. Their departing words were pregnant with promise. As he rode off, he felt a strong compulsion to stop and look back at her. He turned his head and saw her walking away along the sand footpath across the veld towards Galeview. He stopped next to a rock by the side of the road and supporting the bike with his foot on rock he sat balanced on the bike saddle and watched her walking along the path across the veld towards Galeview. After a few seconds, as if she knew she was been watched, she turned her head around and when she saw that Aaron had stopped and was sitting on his bike watching her, she also stopped and turned around. A radiant smile of pleasure lit up on her face, she felt a sudden warm glow of elation. She stood still there for moment, a solitary figure in the middle of the rain sodden veld, her wet white dress bright against the leaden skies; she held up her arm and began to wave it vigorously. He waved back. They both continued to wave to each other, overcome with exhilaration, she began to laugh at Aaron waving vigorously at her, lightning flashed in the distance, a light drizzle began to fall.

She knew then that something had happened between them. She walked hurriedly home across the wet veld to Galeview, basking in the warm afterglow of their encounter. She smiled a mysterious smile to herself. She knew, as only a woman could, that they had both fallen into each other's orbit of mutual and reciprocal attraction. She knew that this would grow into a love affair from which neither would be ever able to escape. Of this, she now felt absolutely certain.

At home, Aaron climbed into a steaming hot bath. He lay in the bath, his mind fully preoccupied with thoughts of Geraldine. She was so graceful, so sensual, so erotic, and above all, she was so friendly. Yet she also bore an aura of profound innocence, chastity and purity. In spite of what he had felt for Gillian, he had never before encountered any girl in his life to whom he felt so strongly drawn and so comfortable to be with. She came across as such an intrepid character. She was so full of the most extraordinary zest for life. She was spontaneous. She had radiated such extraordinary warmth towards him. It felt so good, so pleasurable to be in her presence.

Later that evening at supper Rachel noticed that he was distracted.

"Are you not going anywhere tonight," she asked Aaron attempting to start a conversation with him. It was Saturday and normally he would get together with Gavin, Dominic and Carlos, either at one of their houses, or they would go to the Stella to watch a movie, or they would go to Prince Park Stadium to watch a football match. There was not much teenagers could do for entertainment on a Saturday night in Boksburg. Now that he was in Matric, they did not monitor his coming and goings as long as he was home by 12.00 pm on a Saturday night.

"No I have made no plans. I think I will just listen to LM radio and do some painting or reading, or something," he answered.

"How did the golf game go?" He asked Max.

Max was in a good mood. He knew exactly how to indulge Aaron in a conversation.

"Well as you know, playing a decent game of golf is constrained by many factors. Even when thoroughly armed with all the knowledge of the physics of projectile trajectories, it is still quite difficult to get a golf ball into the hole under four strokes on average. So many things prevent the ball from getting from the tee to the hole. Playing golf is also constrained by the rules of the game. Golf is also constrained by a lack of information. If I had perfect information about everything and I was able to act on this information, then I would play golf only like God can," he answered.

"So I gather your game was constrained by a lack of perfect knowledge," Aaron said.

"Precisely," Max answered.

He continued.

"After the game we had a couple of beers in the club and we got to speaking about the game of golf being a metaphor of the world," Max said.

"How so?" Aaron asked.

"Let's leave that talk for another day," Max said

After supper he went to his room, turned on the transistor radio which was already tuned into LM and adjusted the volume. He heard that it had started raining again.

While lying on his back on the bed with his arms folded behind his head he began to think about the fictional representations of relations between Coloureds and whites within the rural setting of the Karoo by Afrikaans authors such a Mikro. He had grown to dislike his Afrikaans teacher and he guessed that the dislike had become mutual. The Afrikaans teacher could not hide his dislike for Aaron. The tension between Aaron and his teacher began after Aaron argued that Mikro's book _Toiings_ failed to reveal the truth about the actual social reality of master-servant relations in the rural Karoo which tended to be brutal, violent and coercive. Instead, the narratives depicted Coloureds in a false and distorted manner as brown people who were stupid, naïve, childlike, and comical. The Afrikaans narratives also portrayed them as people who unquestioning accepted their subjugation to white farmers.

The frequent exposures to the threatening, intimidating and often violent encounters with Coloured teenage gangs from Galeview on the shores of Cinderella Dam during his adolescent years had an educational value.

Aaron stuck to his view that Mikro's representations and images of the Coloureds in the Karoo did not bear any correspondence to the reality with respect to the way Coloureds may have experienced their world as farm labourers. The knowledge of hindsight derived from reflecting on his experiences with the Coloured gangs reinforced his views that Mikro's work was a gross distortion of the reality of Coloureds. He did not hold back his punches when he expressed his opinions during Afrikaans lessons.

In the end the argument over the value, quality and the truthfulness of Mikro's literary oeuvre degenerated into a disagreement about what makes a person white and what makes a person Coloured. Aaron insisted that in South Africa there existed a continuous gradation in skin tone between whites and Coloureds which made the differentiation between Coloureds and white on the basis of skin pigmentation a completely arbitrary exercise. The argument with the teacher came to an abrupt end when Aaron stated that he personally found Apartheid repugnant. His blunt remark which bordered on insolence did not go down well with the teacher.

The teacher tried to catch Aaron out by asking him if he would one day let his own daughter marry a black, that is, if he had a daughter one day in the future. Aaron without a moment's thought hesitation replied 'yes I would.' Aaron's admission left the teacher momentarily speechless. The teacher then shook his head in disbelief and said 'I feel very sorry for you Mr Finnegan. If you find Apartheid so repugnant, then maybe you would be happier staying in Reiger Park amongst the Coloureds.'

At break after the Afrikaans lesson Dominic said to Aaron: 'Hey man what's going on with you, you have become all political. You are pushing things too far. I can see all the stuff that Gillian and your sister have been talking about, like Plato, Socrates, _Das Kapital_ and philosophy has gone straight to your head. You got to cool it my china, it's going to get you into trouble just like Socrates got into serious trouble.'

Aaron chuckled at the recollection of Dominic's admonishment not to push philosophy too far as it can only get one into serious trouble.

He thought about 'all the stuff' that had gone into his head. He knew it had changed him. He was convinced that he was right in his beliefs. He was aware that philosophy had made him disrespectful and defiant in class at school. It was philosophy that was driving him into the arms of Geraldine. It was philosophy that was giving him the moral courage and fortitude to defy Apartheid. Philosophy gave him the moral strength of conviction that comes from certainty in the truth of one's beliefs. The man who is tolerant of everything is a man without convictions. He had grown increasingly certain about his convictions. He felt resolute. He was going to be unyielding and determined. Fuck Apartheid. Fuck Verwoerd. Fuck the Nationalists scum bags. Fuck the Afrikaans teacher.

His thoughts drifted back to Geraldine. He knew that an emotional bond had formed between them. For Plato the emotions and passions associated with the love of a beautiful person can drive the soul on its quest for truth. His falling in love with Gillian had taken him on his first journey in search of truth. He knew that he was falling in love with Geraldine. In his heart he believed that the attraction he felt for Geraldine was going to grow into a love that would join them as partners on the journey to truth. Aaron agreed with Plato that love (or Eros) opens the eyes of the soul to the world of truth, goodness and beauty.

### CHAPTER 6

Aaron had become aware that sign boards had been erected at various strategic points around Stirtonville Location. The sign boards announced the imminent commencement of a new township development. Appearing on the bottom of the sign board in small print was an official municipal notification. It stated that on the 6th of April 1962 the Native residential area formerly known as Stirtonville had been re-proclaimed as the site for the development of a new 'Coloured Township'. A small map on the sign boards showed the plan of the new Reiger Park Coloured Township with the layout of all the new streets and stands.

This was to be the new Reiger Park, not to be confused with the neighbourhood known as the old Reiger Park. Posters on other sign boards showed a happy Coloured family standing in front of their newly built three bed room home. The poster also showed a brand new car in the driveway parked in front of a single garage.

Within weeks of the sign boards going up new houses began to be built on an open area on the north-eastern side of the Location, where the old Indian Bazaar used to be. A bull dozer had cleared away the rubble of the ruins of the Indian Bazaar which had recently been razed to the ground.

Also, in an open stretch of veld near the old Indian Bazaar new stands had been marked out with white washed wooden pegs and stakes. Newly graded roads that curved the ground plan of the new township into blocks were being tarred. On all the street corners, at every road intersection, brand new white painted signposts had been erected. Fixed to the top of these galvanized steel posts were fresh, white painted rectangular metal plants emblazoned with the new street names painted in black. Deep trenches for water and sewage pipes were being excavated, and along the new roads tall street lamps with electric lights were being erected. On many of the new stands the foundations corresponding to the ground floor plan of the house had already been marked out with lines of string and were being dug out by gangs of boys armed with shovels and picks. Almost daily new piles of building stone, building sand and huge stacks of bricks were being offloaded by trucks in the veld next to the newly tarred roads.

In the meantime the old Stirtonville Location had also been renamed Reiger Park. Something in Aaron rebelled at the prospect that the name Stirtonville was going to disappear. He felt that names of places were part of living memory and should not be changed. There was something odious and wrong with the changing of names. Street names and township names should be permanent. Stirtonville was not just the name of a Native Location, it also represented the identity and existence of a longstanding community of human beings who had established and developed exceedingly deep roots in this piece of East Rand real estate. They were part of the desolate East Rand gold mining landscape that become filled with mine dumps, slime dams, compounds, headgears, railway lines, and neat rows of white houses in white suburbs with their downtown central business districts.

Stirtonville was gradually being transformed into a Coloured Location. When the McNamara's first came to Stirtonville two years ago, there were only about 261 Coloured families living in the Galeview and Jerusalem sections of the Stirtonville Location. Now an additional 1414 Coloured families had been moved from Actonville and other Reef towns into the new rapidly burgeoning Reiger Park. All the Indians in Stirtonville with the exception of those living in Kalamazoo had already been relocated to Actonville in Benoni. Benoni almost had no Coloured residents left within its municipal boundaries and Boksburg had reduced its Indian population by more than ninety percent. White government officialdom with police backup had started moving the Natives living in Stirtonville to Vosloorus. By the end of 1964 the authorities planned to have all the Natives relocated from Stirtonville Location to Vosloorus, which had been established about 10 km to the south of Boksburg.

The foundations for the new home of the McNamara's had also been laid. Their house was being built in Goedehoop Street. The new home of Mrs McNamara's sister who was currently living with her husband in Actonville, was being built in Drommedaris Street and it was almost complete.

While on the way to Central Compound, Aaron stopped to watch a yellow grader emitting clouds of black smoke as the scraper shaved away layer after layer of earth that once covered the narrow strip of pristine Highveld grassland which separated Kalamazoo from Galeview. While watching the grader, he spotted someone approaching Kalamazoo on the foot path across the veld. The person began to wave vigorously. It was Geraldine. He got back on his bike and rode down the road until he reached the foot path. He turned onto the foot path and rode towards her. She left the path and walked over to a lone Karee tree standing near the footpath. She waited in the shady cover of the Karee tree for Aaron. It was one of the few indigenous trees that had managed to survive for what may have been decades. It had not only survived the frequent veld fires that burnt across the ERPM landscape every winter, it had also survived the establishment and existence of Stirtonville. It was in all likelihood older than Stirtonville. It could have been more than hundred years old. It was older than any of the blue gums in Boksburg. It was a tree that had coppiced prolifically over many years. The tree trunks refused to grow upright. Instead there had developed with time confused profusion of twisted trunks growing in all directions at the most absurd and wild angles, from which vertical branches sprouted and grew straight upwards forming a dome shaped canopy. The lone Karee tree had become their preferred rendezvous for meeting.

She greeted Aaron with a smile that overflowed with many secrets and teasing eyes that shone with girlish mischief. She was in a radiant mood. He could see that she knew something and that she was bursting to share the story.

"Mr Patel's son Rashid was the main ring leader and instigator in the stone throwing incident. That is why Mr Patel was so terrified on that day when the police came to his shop. He actually thought they were coming to arrest his son. Then he realized that the police did not suspect the involvement of his son. But he believed this was just the first stage of a criminal investigation into the violent assault. He was so worried that one of the white boys was the Compound Manager's son. What's his name?" She blurted out.

"Gavin."

"Yes, he was worried that Gavin had been injured. He was terrified that if Gavin had been injured, then Mr Whitelord the Compound Manager would have destroyed his business. He said Gavin and his friends were big trouble makers; they terrorized everyone by charging at them on horseback and beating them with _sambokke_ and _knopkerries_."

"Mr Whitelord?"

"Yes, Mr Whitelord, that's what Patel kept calling the Compound Manager. He said that Mr Whitelord thinks he is the lord of the manor."

"His surname is Whitehead, not Whitelord."

"Oh sorry, Mr Whitehead then. He called Mr Whitehead a gangster. He was worried that Mr Whitehead would get the mine compound police to patrol Ramsammy Street in order to stop the mine boys from coming to his shop. He said that Mr Whitehead could easily arrange for the shop to be burgled or even burnt down. Apparently, Mr Whitehead is a very powerful man with lots of influence. He is like a mafia boss. Mr Patel said that the Native Compounds on the gold mines are run by a mafia. He is also convinced that Mr Whitehead wants to speed up the destruction of Kalamazoo so that the only remaining competition with the Elephant Trading Store would be removed."

Aaron's sceptical and wary demeanour told her that he did not believe what he was hearing. Geraldine found the impact of her story on Aaron very entertaining and she could not resist wanting to tease Aaron.

"Mr Whitehead is not a gangster. He is a gentleman. The Compounds are not run by any mafia. That's a complete joke, I promise you. ERPM is definitely not run by mafia bosses. I grew up on ERPM, I should know," he said defensively.

"Anyway, he was very relieved when he realized Gavin was not one of the boys who had been hurt. But he is still worried that Mr Whitehead would get to hear about the stone throwing incident," she said.

"Mr Whitehead does not know anything about the stone throwing. Even if he did, I am absolutely sure he would do nothing to Mr Patel or any of the Indians. He is actually a very kind man and a real gentleman. He would never ever stoop so low as to cause harm to Mr Patel or any of the Indians. It is definitely not in his nature. I grew up on the mine. I know all the mine bosses and the compound managers. They are all basically very decent, hardworking and kind people. It is not easy running a mine the size of ERPM or any mine for that matter. It is also not easy running a Compound. You know that Central Compound is huge. It has over 5000 mine boys."

She found it very difficult to suppress her feelings of hilarity which had been stirred by the seriousness of Aaron defence of Mr Whitehead. It was the exact response she was expecting from Aaron.

"Shoo that is definitely a lot of mine boys. You know how much money 5000 mine boys can spend? This is the issue with Mr Patel. He says that the Elephant Trading Store is like a huge sponge which soaks up all the wages of the mine workers, leaving them with nothing to send home to their families," she said, pretending to be serious.

"I totally disagree. If the Elephant Trading Store did not exist, I guarantee you that the Indians would be robbing the mine boys blind. The prices of everything, from bicycles to transistor radios to musical instruments are all fair and much cheaper than any Indian would charge."

She smiled; she was struggling to contain her amusement at Aaron's defence of Mr Whitehead and all the mine bosses.

"A long time ago I don't know if you remember, I came to buy some stuff at the Elephant Trading Store and you served me. You were behind counter. Do you remember?" she asked.

He did remember.

"Yes, I remember. When was that? About two years ago?" He asked.

"Yes, it was about two years ago. We had just arrived here from Durban," she said.

"Is it true that your family co-owns the Elephant Trading Store?"

While feeling suddenly embarrassed that Max his father was indeed one of the owners, he owned up to the fact.

"Yes, my dad is one of the partners. How did to you find that out?" He asked.

"Mr Patel said that Whitelord, sorry I mean Whitehead, he said that the Whiteheads, Finnegans and Nobleman are the owners of the Elephant Trading Store and they want to destroy his business in Kalamazoo. He said that they are powerful and ruthless families who use the Mine Compound system and the actual mine to make money for themselves. He calls your dad 'Mr Sticky Finnegars'. He says that whenever anybody's money flows through Mr Finnegan's hands a lot of it sticks to his fingers, because his fingers are very sticky."

He was first visibly shocked to hear this. She could see the shocked and amazed expression on Aaron's face. It made her chuckle.

"Are you making this up as joke? I'm sure you teasing me?"

All of this had become so funny to her. She could not stop laughing at Max being called Mr Sticky Finnegars.

"So Mr Patel calls my dad Mr Sticky Finnegars?" he asked.

"Yes. Sorry, I cannot stop laughing it is so funny, you should see your face, it is such a picture," she said

"It is not Mr Nobleman, his surname is actually Noble," Aaron said.

"Whitelord, Sticky Finnegars and Mr Nobleman, you got to admit it, it all sounds so comical, and especially the way Mr Patel says it," she said, before she burst out laughing.

She starting laughing, she could no longer suppress or control the laughter that was boiling up from her belly, she laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks. Aaron began to laugh as well. From what Geraldine had told him, he gained some insight into the way whites were viewed by the local non-white community, and it surprised him to learn that the whites were viewed in such a negative light. He was also learning to appreciate and enjoy her sharp wit and keen sense of humour, which enabled her to see the funny side in otherwise serious matters.

"Maybe he was exaggerating. Don't worry I don't believe in any of Mr Patel's gossip. Look, it is just what I hear in the shop. Mr Patel can't keep his mouth shut. He speaks non-stop to all the customers and also to all his friends who hang out at his shop. Anyway your family can't be that bad. They are good Catholics. Every time we have visited St Dominic's your family were at Mass; was that your mother, sister and brother sitting with you?"

"Yes."

"Your surname, Finnegan, is it also Irish?" she asked out of interest.

"Yes, my great grandfather came to South Africa to find work on the gold mines in the 1890s I think."

On hearing this bit of information she made an astonishing disclosure.

"You know that my great grandfather, Mr Robert McNamara, was also a miner. He also came from Ireland. In fact, he came from some town in Ireland called Kilkenny. He too worked on the Gold mines shortly after the discovery of Gold on the Rand. When the Boer War broke out, he joined an Irish Commando that fought on the side of Boers against the English. My great grandmother was the daughter of Coloured sharecroppers who worked on a farm that was burnt down by the English. Her parents and sisters were placed in a concentration camp. They all died in that camp. She managed to escape on horseback. My great grandfather, Robert McNamara, found her in the bush near Ladysmith. She also rode with the Irish Commando. When the war ended they got married and moved to Durban. She had six children of which four were boys. That's how the McNamara family started in Durban. So I can also say that in a way, my roots also go back to the Gold Mines and then further back to Ireland," she said.

She suddenly remembered some additional things about her ancestors from Ireland.

"But that's not all. My mother's great grandfather's name was Mark Dooley. He also came from Ireland and he also fought with Boers against the English," she said, "so I have two ancestors who came from Ireland, from my father's and from my mother's side of the family."

Aaron was amazed by her story. He had also been intrigued about her surname. Most of the Coloureds had Afrikaans surnames or typically Coloured surnames. But McNamara did strike him as a strange surname for a Coloured. And now there was also this Mark Dooley character. Aaron also had a story to tell.

"My mother's grandfather, Mr Trevor McBride, also came from Ireland to work on the Gold mines. In fact, he worked on Cason mine. You know the mine dump called Cason Dump. Well, he worked on that mine. When the Boer War broke out he also joined an Irish Commando and fought for the Boers against the English. On one of the battle fields a dying Boer commando asked him to deliver some letters that he had written to his wife who was in a concentration camp in Middleburg. After the war Trevor McBride managed to find the Boer's wife. Her name was Hannah Struwig. He ended up marrying her. They came back to Boksburg and he resumed his job as a miner at Cason. In fact, he stayed in Plantation. He was one of the leaders in the 1922 mine workers strike."

She listened attentively.

Aaron continued: "But that is not all. My dad's grandfather, Samuel Finnegan, also came from Ireland. He also fought in the Boer War against the British. Now here comes the interesting part, Samuel Finnegan and Trevor McBride were first cousins. My dad and mom only discovered this after they had become engaged. So my mom and dad are sort of related, they are distant cousins."

She was intrigued by this disclosure, and then her face lit up:

"Maybe one of my great grandfathers is related to one of your great grandfathers. We could be also distant cousins! Could it be possible that we are related?" She said. Her eyes widened with wonder.

The prospect of being related to Aaron excited her. She felt it gave her a kind of claim on Aaron, they could be kin, and therefore they belonged naturally together.

"What about your great grandfather Samuel Finnegan?"

"He actually fought in the same commando as Trevor McBride. He also married an Afrikaans Boer War widow. Strange but true both my grandfathers also married Afrikaans women, maybe it was because their own mothers were Afrikaans."

"What are the chances that we are the descendants of the three or even four Irish cousins?" She asked.

She became very thoughtful.

"How could we find out whether our great grandfathers were related?" She asked.

"I don't know," He said, trying to think how one would go about this. Then his face lit up. He had a sudden brainwave.

"You could write a letter to the Irish Embassy in South Africa. You can explain that you have a friend whose two great grandfathers came from Ireland and you can also inform them that you have two great grandfathers who also came from Ireland. You can then ask whether it is possible to find out whether the two cousins, McBride and Finnegan, were related to either McNamara or Dooley, or something like that," Aaron proposed.

"That's a brilliant idea. How do I get the address of the Irish Embassy?" She asked.

"The Irish Embassy might be in Pretoria. If you can get hold of a Pretoria telephone directory, you may be able to find the address and phone number of the Irish Embassy."

"There is something else I have been meaning to ask you. Why is the shop called the Elephant Trading Store?" She asked.

"I don't know. The name has always intrigued me as well. How did Kalamazoo, Hercules Mine, Cinderella Mine or even the place called Jerusalem in Stirtonville get their names? I don't know, but I would like to know," he said.

"I know how Jerusalem in Stirtonville got its name, it not because of the number of churches. There are no churches there. It is because the houses are so close to each other that when a person sneezes in his own house, the next door neighbour says 'Bless You'. That's how the place got the name 'Jerusalem'. It is typical example of a Coloured sense of humour. No one else could have thought that up or made that connection."

He could not help smiling at this.

Mine boys began to troop past. They watched them. A small group of the miners were singing a traditional Zulu song: _Lalele lomuntu omemezayo_!

"I know that song. It is Zulu praise song or _izimbongo_. It is a song in praise of Shaka. I remember going to a Catholic singing eisteddfod. At the eisteddfod a Catholic Zulu youth group that called themselves _Lalela Zulu_ sang the same song. _Lalela_ means 'listen'. A Priest said the song resembled Psalm 29."

Flocks of swallows flew low over the grassland and swifts flickered rapidly high up like specks in the fading sky. Squadrons of Ibises flying in formation passed over on their homeward journeys.

They both turned their gaze up to the sky. They watched a lone blue heron flying by with its slow determined wing beats, its neck tucked-in and its long legs trailing behind.

When it eventually disappeared from sight, she turned to Aaron and said:

"I have to go," she said with a sad look on her face.

"It is getting late, my parents will be wondering what has happened to me. I must go."

He felt an urge to embrace her and kiss her, but instead he said:

"Don't be sad, we will see each other soon."

"I hope so, see you soon, until then, bye for now," she answered.

### CHAPTER 7

It was Good Friday. Aaron had just woken up. It was drizzling outside. It had turned out to be a grey, wet and misty morning. The window was half-open and a gentle breeze made the lace curtain billow, bringing into the room the damp smell of autumn. From somewhere he could hear the forlorn and haunting deep bubbling doo, doo, doo, doo, doo call of a bird. It sounded like the call of Burchell's Coucal, the bird commonly known as the Rain Bird. He listened attentively. He knew it was strange to hear this bird in their garden; he also knew that one only very rarely saw this bird in Boksburg. It preferred dense bushy thickets.

He once saw a Burchell's Coucal in the thickets bordering the ERPM golf course next to the ERPM swimming pool. It had made a kind of clumsy crash landing into the foliage and then disappeared into the surrounding brush when he tried to get a better sighting of it.

It intrigued him that some bird species were so abundant like sparrows or weavers, while some were relatively scarce in comparison like Cape Robins, Thrushes, Hoopoes and Bokmakierie shrikes. The relative abundance of the different species of birds was something that always puzzled him. His curiosity about what kind of factors could have influenced the relative abundance of the different species of birds that he had managed to identify over the years in Boksburg drove him to search for answers the Boksburg Library's reference book and non-fiction shelves. After fruitless searches through many books he eventually stumbled on some rich information about the theory of the niche concept. He discovered information on niche theory by pure chance while poring through a section on Ecology in one of the many Encyclopaedias that the Finnegans had collected over the years. As an aspirant naturalist it opened for him a completely new way of perceiving the living world.

He wrote in his own words in the naturalist notebook that he kept to record his notes on natural history: 'Every kind of species of living organism found on the planet occupies a specific, special and definable kind of multi-dimensional space whose boundaries can be rationally specified. This definable multi-dimensional space with its identifiable boundaries constitutes the ecological niche that a species or a collection of different species occupies.'

He also added a very important note that he had found in his readings: 'No similar species can occupy the same ecological niche.'

A multi-dimensional space that constituted an animal's niche was not something that was visible to the eyes. It was an abstract object that could only be perceived mathematically by the mind and not by any of the senses. Yet, even though it could not be seen by the senses it represents a concrete object that actually exists out there in the external world. He liked the idea that birds conducted their business within a complicated mathematical space whose coordinates consist of multiple resource gradients and environmental variables. The sudden insight gave him immense pleasure.

It opened up the eyes of his mind to the idea that philosophy and natural science and mathematics, and also ultimately theology, all dovetailed into a seamless tapestry.

There are many things, entities, or states of affairs that exist as real objects in the Universe, which can only be perceived by the mind's eye, in a manner of speaking. These objects exist in the form of invisible mathematical objects. The fact that the study of Zoology could be advanced by discovering the existence of complex mathematical objects that describe and explain animal behaviour, reinforced the value of studying Zoology in conjunction with Mathematics, especially if mathematics could be used as a powerful tool for exploring how animals make a living in a complex environment.

The secretive and elusive Rain Bird was a voracious and opportunistic predator consuming practically anything that moved within the stands of dense bushy vegetation that formed its preferred ecological niche. If two different species of coucal that were similar in size and diet requirements moved into the same niche within the same geographical location, then an intensive and unremitting competitive conflict would arise between the two species which would eventually result in the expulsion of one of species from that niche. This phenomenon was called Competitive Exclusion. This meant that any given niche can only be packed with a selected finite number of different kinds of bird or other animal species, each of which would occupy within the same general habitat, different non-overlapping co-ordinates or spaces. They would select different breeding nest sites or they would forage for different kinds of food resources or food items and so on.

He wondered about the Rain Bird, why was it here today, at the very margins of its natural niche range. He also wondered whether it could be the same bird that he had seen and heard once before, or one of the offspring, that was now searching for an unoccupied niche in which it could set up business.

While he lay in bed listening to the Rain Bird, Dominic, Carlos, and Richard Summerhouse materialized at his bedroom window. They knocked on the windowpane to get Aaron's attention. Carlos stuck his head through the open window.

"Hey man, get up and come, we going to climb Cason Mine Dump."

He quickly got dressed, washed his face and brushed his teeth. He did not really want go with them mainly because he did not like Richard. Last year, after playing water polo for over an hour at the ERPM swimming pool, they finally got out of the pool and decided to lay on their stomachs in a circle on the sun warmed concrete apron that bordered the perimeter of the pool. Jonathan was still in the pool. He and Richard had pitched up shortly after the group of friends had starting playing water polo in the pool. Richard and Jonathan had shared the same change room booth; they quickly changed into their bathing customs and joined the others in the pool, playing water polo.

When they got out of the pool, Richard disappeared into the booth to fetch his towel. Wrapped in his towel he called out that he was going to the tuck shop.

As the friends lay on the warm concrete enjoying the sun on their backs Richard returned from the tuck shop with a large brown paper packet filled with those pink chewy sweets. He poured the sweets out into a heap in the middle of the circle of friends and shared it out among the group. He kept a small pile for Jonathan. Richard lived in one of the houses in a block of ERPM double story semi-detached mine houses just west of Plantation near the Angelo Mine Compound. Before Jonathan got out of the pool to join the party, Richard confided that he had stolen money from Jonathan's pocket. He had used the money to buy the sweets. It was a mystery why he felt the need to tell everyone what he had done. But the knowledge of this fact made everyone who had eaten the sweets an accomplice to the deed. He had set up the whole group.

After drying himself Jonathan went into the booth that he was sharing with Richard. He returned to the circle of friends lying on the warm concrete. They all noticed that there was a very puzzled and perplexed look on his face. He remained silent, frowning the whole time. His demeanour became glum and despondent. Richard pushed a small pile of sweets towards Jonathan.

"Here, we saved these sweets for you," he said.

As the group lay chomping on the sweets, Jonathan reported that his money had been stolen. No one ever told Jonathan that it was his best friend Richard who had stolen his money.

After Aaron joined them outside in the garden, they set off for Cason Dump. Aaron had not eaten breakfast. Fasting for the whole day on Good Friday was a tradition that Rachel had imposed on the Finnegan family for Holy Week. Friday evening they would break their fast with a modest meal of pickled fish and then go to bed early.

After crossing an empty Commissioner Street, they raced each other up the concrete stairs to the top of the concrete ramp. The concrete ramp had the appearance of a giant three-dimensional S shaped structure that had been draped over the railway line and Railway Road. Railway Road probably got its name because it ran parallel to the railway line. At the top of the ramp, the four craned their necks over the concrete barrier and watched a huge black steam locomotive, hauling at great speed, a long train of freight wagons filled to overflowing with coal.

From their elevated vantage point, they could see the two words, Horizon Clinic, painted in white on the red corrugated iron roof of the building at number 8 Railway Street. The clinic where the AA members held their meetings was located behind Dokshitsky's Bicycle Shop which was also known among the friends as Dog Shit's Shop. Next to the bicycle-shop was Castos' fish and chips shop, where Rachel bought the curry fish or pickled fish or the fried hake and chips for the Finnegans Friday's suppers. On the corner, across the road from the bicycle-shop, was the café and supermarket owned by Peter the Greek, where the friends bought their paperback westerns which they swopped among themselves.

Walking down the ramp to the other side of the railway line they followed the oak tree lined road to the ERPM swimming pool. Leaving the road, they walked through the neighbourhood of mine houses until they reached the blue gum plantation. They followed a footpath into the plantation which formed a barrier of vegetation between the mine houses and the slimes dams. The foot path lead them to a site deep within the plantation where some logs had been arranged in a circle around a small oval arena of smoothly swept ground that had become hardened by years of foot stomping. The Zionist Christian Church used the spot for their church services. Today all the ZCCs had gone off to Moria near Pietersburg in the Northern Transvaal.

They lingered there for a while, standing in the centre of the oval arena. Richard drew their attention to a massive thick trunked blue gum tree that stood majestically a few meters away from where they were standing in the oval arena. It towered like a mutant giant above all the other trees. It must have been one of the first trees planted by the mines before the end of the nineteenth century. Six-inch nails had been hammered into the main trunk to a depth of about three inches. They were all familiar with the ancient tree. It was an old acquiesce that they had grown to know intimately from childhood. The nails sticking out of the trunk had been used by generations of schoolboys for climbing to the top of tree. Close to the top of the tree, at about forty meters above the ground, someone had built a platform from split poles. No one knew who hammered the nails into the tree or who had built the platform. They had all climbed up to the top of the tree on numerous occasions and had spent hours sitting on the lofty platform talking about every topic under the sun, which in their adolescence years began to increasing include speculative gossip about girls. The platform had become rickety and was no longer safe. The nails had rusted and the split poles had begun to rot. It was quite a distance to fall. At about ten meters up there was a branch sticking out from the main trunk of the tree.

Richard pointed up at the horizontal branch.

"See that horizontal branch up there. That is where Jonathan hung himself when he committed suicide. To hang himself from that branch, he must have climbed the tree and crawled along the branch, tied one end of the rope to the branch and then the other end round his neck. Just image it. The congregation of the Zion Christian Church discovered his body hanging from the branch. He must have hung himself on the Saturday afternoon knowing that the ZCC would find him the next day."

"Why do think he hung himself?" Carlos asked.

"I suppose it was because Richard gave him the smallest pile of pink sweets," Dominic quipped.

"Don't be so damn callous!" Carlos interjected.

"I don't know why he killed himself. But it was rumoured that he was queer. He must have committed suicide because he discovered that he was queer," said Richard.

"And you were always using the same changing booth with him at ERPM swimming pool during our water polo practices, so maybe you were both queer. How do we know that you are not also queer? For all we know you could also be a faggot. It is possible that you were banging each other in the change room before and after water polo practice. Knowing you, it would not surprise me, especially when you think nothing about digging into other people's pockets," Dominic replied.

"Fuck you, I am not a faggot!" Richard replied angrily.

"You brought up the allegation that he was queer, so give us evidence," challenged Carlos.

"Well, he never spoke about girls. You know Veronica from Comet," Richard replied.

"Yes. We know all about her," said Carlos

"Well, she went out with him for a while. She told me that Jonathan was definitely a queer," said Richard.

"As usual, you are talking utter rubbish," said Dominic.

Aaron could see that Dominic for some reason wanted to pick an argument and possibly a fight with Richard. He glanced at Carlos. Carlos winked and gave Aaron a knowing look, as if to say leave them alone, it seems like Dominic wants to orchestrate a confrontation with Richard. There is score to be settled and if it gets to fist fight, so be it.

"Hey Richard, it not so bad being a faggot, even Alexander the Great was a queer," Aaron said.

"Fuck you too, I am not a bloody faggot," he shouted at Aaron.

"I agree with Aaron, there is no shame in being a faggot. Being a faggot actually places you in very good company. Both Shakespeare and Michelangelo were also queer. For whom do you think Shakespeare wrote his sonnet 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day'? Was it written for, some dame? Or was it for his boyfriend?" Carlos said in a very calm matter of fact manner.

"How can Shakespeare be a queer if he wrote _Romeo and Ju_ liet? It seems like you believe everyone is a faggot, you all could also be faggots, for all we know," Richard countered.

"Well I am not so sure about Carlos being a faggot. Nor am I sure whether William Shakespeare was queer, but many of the Greek philosophers were definitely queer. Both Plato and Socrates were queer for sure, I am certain of that. In fact, every one of the guests present at the drinking party was queer," Aaron said.

"What drinking party are you talking about?" Dominic asked with an amused grin on his face.

"Plato's book _The Symposium_ has also been called the _Drinking Party_ ," Aaron replied with grin of his face.

To redeem himself, Richard took up the challenge to engage in some verbal sparring and intellectual arm wrestling.

"Okay, how sure are you that Plato and Socrates were queer?" He asked, challenging Aaron.

"Have you ever read Plato's book called _The Drinking Party_ or have you ever heard of Plato's book called _Phaedrus_ or Plato's book called _Gorgias_? Do you know anything about ancient Athens in the time of Socrates?" Aaron responded.

Both Carlos and Dominic burst out laughing. Richard thought Aaron was having him on.

"What do you mean _The Drinking Party_? There is no such book called _The Drinking Party_ written by Plato. Plato was a famous philosopher, the greatest thinker in the history of mankind, this I know. He was the first real philosopher. However, he definitely was not a queer nor was Socrates a queer. How could they be, our whole civilization is based on Plato and Socrates? "

Carlos then challenged Richard.

"Obviously you are a complete idiot. Aaron is an expert on Plato; he has got all of Plato's books and has read everything written by Plato. It has been his hobby ever since I have known him. If he says that Plato was a queer then Plato was a queer. If Aaron says that Socrates was the biggest faggot in ancient Athens, then Socrates was the biggest faggot in the whole of Greek History and Western Civilization. If he says the Plato wrote a book called _The Drinking Party_ which was about queers having a party, then such a book was written."

"OK, let's see how much you know about Plato, the founder of our great civilization, name just one book that Plato wrote," said Dominic.

Richard remained silent. He could not think of any book that Plato had written. Aaron interpreted his non-reply as an invitation for him to continue.

"Yes Plato did indeed write a book called the _Drinking Party_ , but it is more commonly known as _The Symposium_. Every guest at the drinking party, including Socrates, was queer. In fact, just like Carlos said, it was a party just for queers and the topic of the symposium was about erotic love between men."

Richard was becoming angry.

"If you guys think I am also a queer, well then you can all go and fuck yourselves. I definitely know that Jonathan was a queer. I have proof. I remember at Central School we were once on our way walking together to the change rooms to get ready for swimming. It was the PT period. We were in standard five then. If you recall, I was not in the same class as you guys. As we were walking to the change room he began to ask me all kinds of funny stuff about my tool."

"Like what?" Carlos wanted details.

"Well, he wanted to how big my cock was and whether I had any hair, stuff like that."

Dominic then prompted Richard.

"Well did you show him your tool?"

"No, not really, but he couldn't wait to show me his tool with its great bush of hair," Richard replied.

They all packed up laughing, except for Richard.

Richard realized that he was becoming the butt of their jokes, so he tried to save face.

"Speaking of cocks do any of you know what _ukujuma_ or _ukuhlobonga_ means?" He asked, trying to change the subject away from homosexuality.

They all shook their heads. Carlos and Dominic's demeanour became quite solemn and very attentive. They all sat down on the logs waiting to hear what Richard had to say. Richard remained standing in the centre of the cleared circle in which the Zionists danced and beat their drums.

"Well, Mr Whitehead told Gavin and me everything there was to know about ukujuma. The Swazis and Zulu have this custom. They teach the teenage boys and girls how to have non-penetrative sex. The boy and girl get undressed. She lies on her left side and the boy lies on his right side on top of his right arm. She keeps her thighs tightly pressed together so that he cannot shove his penis up her vagina. She clamps his penis tightly between her thighs. He puts his left arm around her, pulls her tightly against him, she put her right arm around him, also pulling him tightly toward her body, and then he gyrates his arse until he ejaculates between her thighs. Can you believe it that the natives actually teach their kids to do this?"

"Just proves one thing, the natives are more advanced than we are and they are having a lot more fun than us. I can think of many girls I would like to _ukujuma_ or _ukuhlobonga_. Imagine, if could go up a girl and say let us _ukujuma_ , it is very safe, you will still be a virgin, you will not get pregnant and I will not tell if you do not tell. Wow, it would solve so many hassles. We could all be doing the _ukujuma_! It would be a new kind of dance with everyone gyrating on the ground. Imagine our aunts or uncles or school teachers taking us aside and saying to us, well it's time for you learn about the birds and the bees, but we don't want any unwanted pregnancies and we know that your hormones are raging, so here is what you should do. You do the _ukujuma_! " said Dominic with a broad grin on his face.

Under the sombre grey of the overcast skies, in the sombre gloom of the blue gum plantation, the soft thick drizzly early morning silence was ruptured by the ringing of loud howls of hilarity as Carlos, Dominic and Aaron burst into uncontrollable stomach clutching mirth.

Richard sullenly watched the gay spectacle of merriment with a dark scowl on his face.

"Maybe the Swazis and Zulus learnt the _ukujuma_ custom from the ancient Greek faggots in Athens, who were also the founders of our great civilization," piped Carlos, barely able to suppress his laughter.

The three friends had all heard many versions of the same _ukujuma_ story from Mr Whitehead.

None of them liked Richard. Aaron continued to wonder why Carlos and Dominic had brought him along. Maybe they did not bring him along for any reason.

"That ukujuma story is nothing compared to the story about the Merino rams. Did Mr Whitehead ever tell you about the bunch of rams that all turned out to be queer?" Carlos asked Richard.

Everyone had also heard the story about the queer Merino rams.

"It is a genuine story. Mr Whitehead grew up on a sheep farm near Queenstown or somewhere in the Karoo. They had a bunch of rams that only mated with each other. The rams were actually queer," Carlos announced triumphantly.

"Well, what's the point you want make?" Dominic asked. "Are you implying that because there are some queer sheep wondering around in the Karoo, that it is also natural for some humans to be queer? Are you proposing that being queer is not against the laws of nature?"

"I don't know. Richard has a lot more change room experience than any of us, you better ask him," Carlos replied drily.

"No, homosexuality is definitely a crime against nature," Richard answered adamantly.

"Is it possible to commit a crime against nature by what you do with your tool?" Dominic wanted know.

"Well, depending on what you do with your tool, it can be a crime against God," Richard said.

"Is masturbation a sin?" Carlos asked.

"No, I don't think masturbation is sin," Dominic said with solemn conviction.

"Anyway, what I want to say is that homosexually is a crime against nature, because it goes against the complete balance of nature, I am certain of this," Richard muttered.

"What do mean by the balance of nature?" Aaron asked Richard.

Richard seemed to be stumped by Aaron's question for a moment.

"Well, you know it is like when the lions keep the number of wildebeest in check and that kind of thing and if you kill all the lions you will upset the balance," Richard answered.

"Are saying that the balance of nature means that all living things are in dynamic equilibrium?" Dominic prompted Richard.

"Yes, I would agree that the balance of nature means everything is in dynamic equilibrium," Richard responded while casting a cautious look at Aaron to see if another trap had been set for him.

"What if I told you that the whole idea of the balance of nature is a complete myth? Nature is not in equilibrium. If it were in a state of equilibrium or balance then everything would be unchanging and static, which is not the case. Nature is always been buffeted by random external and internal disturbances that continuously upsets any balance of nature or equilibrium. Haphazard disturbances which continuously disturb the balance of nature also play an important role in driving evolution," Aaron said.

"I don't believe in evolution," Richard responded with a combative tone in his voice.

"Why don't you believe in evolution?" Carlos asked.

"It is against the Bible and the teaching of the Church. It also implies that there is no God," Richard answered defensively. His family belonged to some Protestant Evangelical Church.

"According to our Church, evolution is not against the Bible or the teachings of the Church, nor does it imply that there is no God," Dominic replied.

"Well that may be what Catholics believe, it is not what Protestants believe," Richard said.

"What do Protestants believe?" Carlos asked.

"About evolution?" Richard asked.

"No, not about evolution. We know Protestants do not believe in evolution. But what do Protestant's actually believe in that makes them real genuine Protestants?" Carlos pressed Richard.

"You know very well, we were in the same class in standard eight when we did the history of the Reformation, you must remember the three pillars of the Reformation, _sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia_ ," Richard answered.

"Can you spell out the full meaning of _sola fide_ , we learnt that in class, it was basically drummed into us," said Aaron.

"Yes what is the full meaning of _sola fide_ ," Dominic challenged Richard.

"You all know, why must I re-tell you what you all already know from school, anyway I can't remember all the precise details of the exact wording?" Richard countered.

"Don't you remember it was the great Reformer Melanchthon who wrote, _sola gratia justificamus et sola fide justificamur_?" Aaron answered.

"But you are Roman Catholics and Catholics don't believe in justification by faith alone," Richard sniped.

"Who told you that?" Carlos countered.

"Isn't it in the Councils of Trent? We were also taught that in class. The Councils of Trent rejected justification by faith alone as the only means of salvation," Richard replied.

"Well we can tell you that it is not true. The school text book is wrong. Catholics believed in justification by faith alone long before the Reformation. No Catholic will tell you that we are not justified by faith alone. Anyway the Catholic Church is two thousand years old, the teachings of the Church known as the Magisterium has dealt thoroughly with every possible question that could be raised with respect to matters of faith and belief. The Roman Catholic Church has received its teaching from the Holy Bible and directly from the Apostles and also directly from the fathers of the Christian Church. Protestantism is a mere five years old and has fragmented into hundreds of different dominations with each minister teaching his own favourite interpretation of the Bible," Dominic elaborated.

"OK that is enough! Let's not get bogged down in religion. It can get quite boring," Carlos interjected.

The party left the site of Jonathan's suicide and walked silently in single file along the footpath, which lead them out of the plantation. The path continued along the perimeter of the sprawling slimes dam. They continued to follow the footpath until they reached a large area of open veld where the Comet Main Reef Gold Mine was once located. Originally established in 1889, it had now completely vanished from sight.

In 1895, ERPM bought the mine and renamed it the New Comet Gold Mine. ERPM was one of the oldest gold mines in South Africa; it was established as a mining company in 1893. Also, by 1895 ERPM was the major shareholder in the Angelo Gold Mining Company, Driefontein Consolidated Gold Mining, Agnes Munro Gold Mining Company Ltd, Cinderella and New Blue Sky. In 1904 trainloads of Chinese, mine labourers arrived at the New Comet Mine to replace the striking black mine workers. The Chinese mine workers eventually left in 1910. Between 1909 and 1926, East Rand Propriety Mines Ltd, initially under the leadership of George Farrar, had bought up more mines. The additional new mines that ERPM acquired included Cason Gold Mines Ltd, Hercules Company Limited, Angelo Deep Gold Mines Limited and the H.F. Company Ltd. By 1926, ERPM had become one of the biggest gold mining companies in the world and economic locomotive of Boksburg. Also by 1958, ERPM had the deepest level underground workings in the world at Cinderella Deep.

They stopped at the edge of the brown coloured veld. On the other side of the veld, running from east to west, was the Main Reef Road which became continuous with Cason Road. Beyond Main Reef Road lay the neat, sedate and leafy suburb of Comet. Further north laid Ravenswood.

Cason Road formed the southern border of the white working class suburb called Boksburg North. Kempton Park and Jan Smuts Airport were located a few kilometres from Boksburg North. Planes approaching Jan Smuts started their descent over the south of Boksburg and roared at regular intervals quite low of over Comet and Boksburg North.

Other very significant Cason Road destinations on the way to the Dunswart Steel Works and Benoni included the Boksburg North Drive-in theatre and the famous Fire Place Roadhouse.

"Where are we going now?" Richard asked.

"We want to go and check out the old shaft of the New Comet Gold Mine," Carlos said. Carlos lead the way to the old mine shaft. They left the footpath and cut a path through the chest high thatch grass and kakiebos towards a concrete dome like structure that stuck out above the sea of tall thatch grass.

"You know how funny that sounds, the old mine shaft of the New Comet Gold Mine?" Dominic chuckled to himself.

"I did not know that there used to be a mine here," Richard said.

"There used to be a mine here but it was worked to exhaustion a long time ago. My grandfather used to work on this mine when he was a young man. All the traces of the original mine are now all gone," Carlos said.

"Yeah everything is destined to become a ruin," Dominic remarked philosophically.

"Nothing lasts forever, that is for certain," Aaron agreed.

Carlos gave Aaron a puzzled look, so Aaron decided to elaborate.

"Yup, that is the one thing that we can be certain of, nothing in this world or the Universe is permanent, nothing remains unchanged, everything changes, everything is temporal. Plato argued that things which are subject to change are not real. It is only the things that are atemporal or eternal or unchanging which are real. In other words, only things that are immutable are real. Everything else is unreal and temporal," Aaron said.

"I don't think that things that undergo change are any less real than things which remain unchanged, are you telling me that Cason Dump and the Fire Place Roadhouse are not real?" Richard quipped.

"The idea that everything that changes is not real is kind of weird don't you think?" Carlos added, ignoring Richard's comment.

"If time does not really exist, can anything still change? Is the occurrence of change evidence for the existence of time, or is the existence of time evidence for the occurrence change?" Dominic asked, remembering something that Gillian said about the existence and non-existence of time according to some big philosophical debate in England or something like that.

Carlos was right, all the above ground buildings and infrastructure including the winding house and the headgear of the New Comet Gold Mine, had vanished with time.

The only sign left of the original mine was a conspicuous landmark in the form of a concrete dome standing out above the sea of dense thatch grass and _kakiebos_. It stood there like some kind of monument to the original New Comet Mine. The dome had been constructed to cover the original main vertical shaft to prevent anyone from accidentally falling down the shaft. Located in the centre of the dome was a square opening of about one square meter. Thieves had removed the heavy steel mesh cover a long time ago.

"According to Plato the world of appearances or the phenomenal world, the world of sense perception is transient, and therefore cannot be real. In his book called _Timaeus_ Plato speaks about two kinds of Worlds, the real, invisible, eternal, immutable World of Being and the transient changing World of Becoming. He makes a categorical distinction between the different kinds of things that can be found in the two Worlds. There are things that 'are' and there are things that 'become.' Everything that 'is,' is real and is therefore not transient or in a state of 'becoming' and whatever is transient or in a state of 'becoming' is not real. Everything that has a beginning or starting point in time is something that has come to be. According to Plato in his _Timaeus_ , all things that are visible, tangible and have a body, and therefore have a sensible appearance or can be sensed or perceived by our senses, belong to the visible and changing World of Becoming, or the World of Phenomena, in other words," Aaron expounded while the others listened attentively.

Aaron glanced at their faces and noticed that they looked perplexed. Carlos' brow was creased in a frown. Usually he would make light fun out of anything mildly philosophical. But the desolate landscape, the grey skies, the brown veld, the sterile lifeless giant pyramid tomb-like yellow-white slimes dams and the light drizzle, seemed to dampen Carlos usual spirit of spontaneous frivolity when Aaron's conversation became a bit too heavy for his liking.

"What is Being?" Dominic finally asked breaking the silence.

"Well according to Plato the Forms or Ideas belong to the realm of Being, therefore only they have Being, so it follows that only the Forms or Ideas are real," Aaron answered.

"You have not answered my question. What is Being?" Dominic asked.

"OK, we got two separate Worlds or two Realms, the invisible and imperceptible World of Forms and the visible and sensible World of Phenomena. Forms and Phenomena have different modes of being. Being implies existence. Something must exist for it to have being. Forms and phenomena have different modes of existence. The mode of being for phenomena is....," suddenly it seemed that Aaron had overreached himself, he also began to look visibly puzzled.

They all realized that the conversation had taken an unexpected turn and Aaron was at a loss for words and seemed to be truly stumped.

As he searched his mind he looked up at the sky. It looked grey and grim, devoid of any hint of answers. He gazed in silence across the desolate wet autumn landscape. He delved deep into his memory. He suddenly recalled a conversion in which Gillian had spoken about some strange German philosopher called Heidegger. In fact he remembered that she said there are people who believed that this Heidegger chap may be the greatest living philosopher of the twentieth century. But she also said that he was definitely not greater than Plato. All that Heidegger seemed to speak about was 'what is being' or 'what was the meaning of being.'

Heidegger seemed to think that this was the most important question in the whole of philosophy; in fact he thought it was the most important question in the whole of life. In his mind the meaning of everything hinged on the answer to this question. He had written a whole lot of books in his quest to discover the meaning of being. Apparently, he never really found any answer that would be plain and straightforward to any ordinary person. The answers that he did find became more and more mysterious and arcane.

The deeper Heidegger searched for the meaning of being and the more he struggled to articulate or verbalize the precise meaning of being in unambiguous plain language, the more the meaning of being itself became increasingly unfathomable, deep, obscure hidden, unknowable and secret, until it was lost in a kind of thick impenetrable fog.

In the end Heidegger's search for the meaning of being became completely mystical according to Gillian. She said that originally he got his inspiration for his search to find the meaning of being from an ancient Greek philosopher called Parmenides. She said that Heidegger's preoccupation with the meaning of being had inadvertently triggered a philosophical movement called existentialism and one of its leading lights was a fellow called Jean Paul Sartre, a Frenchman living in Paris. Apparently existentialism was all the rage in Paris during the 1940s and 1950s. Gillian could not understand why. She felt that everyone who had fallen under the spell of Heidegger, including this fellow called Sartre, were mistaken; they were all on a false trail that would lead them nowhere. It was because their use of the word "Being" as a substantive rested on the mistaken belief that things possessed a property called Being, and this why they could not find Being.

Mulling over the meaning of Being Aaron gazed up at Cason dump; crowned with a halo mist the massive dump stood immobile under the ashen sky. The mine dump seemed to hold all the answers about perceiving, appearing, knowing, being and believing. But something was missing that would be important in linking the ideas of appearing, perceiving and knowing to the concept of Being. It was on the tip of his tongue waiting to be dredged out of the depths of his mind.

Aaron was groping for an inspired guess. But again he suddenly felt out of his depth. It was the first time that he had come face to face with this whole issue of the meaning of existence and being, an issue which he had not given much thought. It was the first time he had grappled unaided with this kind of stuff, the subject matter which Gillian had referred to as ontology. He did not want to disappoint his friends. They waited in anticipation.

He finally found something to say on the matter.

"In philosophy very puzzling questions are often asked, such as, does the table that I am looking at actually exist, does my hand which I am looking at exist, or does Cason Dump standing over there exist? In all of these questions about whether something exists we presume to know what the phrase 'to exist' actually means. But, in fact, do we really know what it means for something to exist or for something to have being? This is the real question of the meaning of being and in it lays the quest that will lead to the answer to the question 'what is being' or to the question of what does it mean for something or anything 'to be'?"

Aaron's answer came as a disappointing anti-climax.

"To be is to exist, to be or to exist is to be present and not absent, what is so difficult to understand about that?" Carlos said with an incredulous expression on his face.

"Yes, what is so difficult and confusing about that?" Dominic quipped.

"I also agree, there is nothing really difficult about existence or the question of the meaning of being, anyone can see that it is just the pure presence of a thing, anyone can see if something is present or absent, anyone can see whether anything exists or doesn't exist, " Richard added his own opinion.

"Maybe to be or to exist is not something that is as plain or as simple as you all think," Aaron countered defensively while racking his brain about how he was going to get out of this conundrum, this muddle, that he found himself in with respect to something so obvious, such as the meaning of existence or being or whatever it was.

What about the two words, 'being' and 'existence', which they had being using interchangeably without any qualifications, were they the same kind of thing, did they have the same meaning? This was another question that suddenly flashed through his mind. But he felt that he best ignore that as he did not want make things more complicated than they were at the moment.

"OK, show us why the meaning of 'to be' or 'to exist' cannot be made plain so that any idiot can understand the problem," Dominic challenged Aaron.

"OK, I will show you. Over there we can all see Cason Dump. It is standing there huge and visible in plain sight before all of us. We can see everything about the dump. We see all the properties that we associate with dump. For example, we can see its height, its shape, its size and its colour and so on, but we nowhere can we see its existence in the same way that we see its shape or colour. Does it possess existence as a discernible property in the same way that it possesses shape and colour as discernible properties? But even though we cannot see existence as property in the same way that we can see colour or shape as property, we know that existence does belong to the dump or else it would not exist for us to see," Aaron replied.

They looked even more perplexed.

"But we can see that it exists, we can see its existence, it is present, it has being, we see it because the dump is present, and we are all aware that it is present right over there in plain sight, who in his right mind could possibly dispute that fact?" Dominic asked in exasperation.

Aaron thought long and hard as they all stood staring at Cason Dump trying to see its existence as a visible property that it should possess. Aaron realized that they were all facing one of the most burning philosophical problems that had plagued the mind of man since the Greeks.

"I am saying we can list all of the sensible or perceivable qualitative and quantitative properties of Cason Dump. We can objectively, without any hesitation, record its colour, its size, its shape, its mass, its chemical composition and so forth, but we cannot list its existence as a sensible qualitative or quantitative property. In what way can existence be a sensible or visible qualitative or quantitative property of anything? Can we write down existence as one of the many properties possessed by the dump as if it were a perceivable property like the dump's colour or height or shape? Is existence just another property alongside all the other properties possessed by the dump? Is existence just another ordinary predicate that has a relationship to the dump analogous to the predicate yellow which stands for the dump's colour? What does the predicate 'existence' stand for in relation to the dump? Where in the dump will you find the property of 'being' or 'existence', are we supposed to find two different kinds of things, its 'being' on the one hand and its 'existence' on the hand, but this does not sound right, so I think we have to agree that in this case, the two words 'being' and 'existence' must mean the same thing?" Aaron said.

"Why can't existence be a property of Cason Dump, why can't it be the property of presence or the property of being present before us, why can't it be the property which gives it its temporal endurance or persistence or the property which makes it present, that gives it its presence?" Carlos asked.

Suddenly Aaron realized that the idea he was looking for was the idea of presence. Dominic had mentioned presence in relation to being and existence, and now Carlos had also mentioned it. The missing word was 'presence'. Something had to be present for its appearance to be perceived. But what does presence mean, what does being present really mean, can it be grasped? Can the present as in presence be grasped? Is anything ever present, when the present is constantly vanishing into the past, when the present is constantly being devoured by the future? Maybe nothing is really ever present when there is no 'now', as in now, as in now, as in now, where is the 'now', it is gone? If the 'now' is gone in the very moment that it is glimpsed then where is being? Surely being is linked to our grasping of the 'now' as in present, as in presence. Is being in a constant state of flight, as with the present?

"OK, I agree that somehow the meaning of existence or being is linked to the notion of presence and being present may be taken as a kind of property possessed by things that we are able to directly perceive around us, but what is presence, what does it mean for something to be present, does the present exist, does it actually really exist, especially when the present is always vanishing? So maybe Plato was right about the nonexistence of phenomena or temporal things which are in a constant state of becoming. Maybe temporal things don't actually exist or do not actually have any reality in the same sense as the atemporal Forms or Ideas do. Maybe all things that are temporal are not real because they are never actually present, because there is no such thing as 'now', because the 'now' is always gone, it does not persist even for a moment, " he finally said.

Even while he spoke Aaron began to realize other things. The problem was exploding like a bomb.

Aaron realized that the infinitive 'to be' as in 'being there' which also entails the idea, the notion of 'being present' shares something in common with the majority of verbs. In the majority of English verbs, the infinitive and the present indicative are the same. The notion of presence is also connected with the idea of time. The idea of time or temporality is embedded in the verbs of our language.

"Surely for something to be present, time must fit somehow into its being present, to be present it cannot cease to be present, yet the present does not exist, it vanishes into the past and is constantly being replaced by the future," Aaron mused.

"What is time?" Carlos laughed.

"We have gone full circle," Dominic said, starting to laugh. It was a startled laugh. It was the laugh of astonishment, of disbelief. He clapped his hands.

"Wow, this is crazy, being, existence, presence and time, what the bloody hell, we becoming like Gillian and Hillary, we will never get to the end of this, we will grow old and possibly even go mad trying to get to the bottom of this," he said, laughing.

"Well, old Mr Goss if you remember, also reckoned that time does not exist," Carlos said with an insane grin on his face. Mr Goss was the physical science teacher at Boksburg High.

"What exists if anything, surely something must exist?" Carlos continued as he burst out laughing.

"What must you have or what must you be or what must you do in order to exist, who was that guy who said _cogito ergo sum_?" Dominic asked.

"Descartes," said Aaron.

"Can you exist without sense organs or a body or a brain?" Carlos asked.

"If you don't have sense organs how will you know whether or not you exist?" Dominic replied.

"Can anything exist without a mind?' Carlos asked.

"Yes of course, a rock exists and it does not have a mind," Dominic answered.

"But a rock does not know whether it exists," Carlos replied.

Aaron listened with one ear to Carlos and Dominic's exchanges on the matter of time and existence. He began to realize that there was something circular in the relationship between being and presence, that is, being is defined as presence and presence is defined as being. Being and presence are one and the same thing. Again the same question pops up.

If this is the case, then once again, what is presence? What does it mean for something to be present, to have presence, if not being, if not existence, for that matter? The whole thing was circular. Presence, being, time and existence are just words whose meaning were defined in terms of each other, presence is being, being is presence, existence is presence, presence is existence, time is linked to the present, the idea of the present is linked to time, the idea of time is linked to presence as in the past, presence and future moments, existence is being and so on, and so on. World without end, Amen!

They climbed onto the dome and lying on their stomachs, the three friends stared down the deep, black shaft. Richard stood sullenly to one side away from the opening. He was still sulking.

Quite a strong draft of moist hot air was blowing up from the shaft. The rock face of the shaft was moist. Algae, moss and ferns covered the section of the shaft's rock face which received some sunlight through the hatch. They collected some rocks and proceeded to drop them down the shaft. They listened to see if they could hear the rocks hit the bottom. It seemed that the old mine shaft was as deep and as dark as a black, bottomless abyss.

Richard driven by curiosity decided to peer down the shaft through the hatch. He cautiously crawled on his hands and knees to the square opening and lay down on his stomach. He was fearful of any horse play. He had a strong feeling that Carlos and Dominic would grab and drag him to the hatch in a game of pretending to thrown him down the mine shaft. He was worried that an accident could happen and that he could find himself falling to his death down the black mine shaft.

Nervously he stretched his neck forward over the edge of opening so that he could stare down into the dark chasm of the old vertical mine shaft. He found himself shuddering with terror as he stared down into the dark depths of the shaft.

Fighting his fear Richard continued to force himself to stare down the shaft. Aaron, Carlos and Dominic pulled back and sat down on the dome at a safe distance away from the open hatch. Now that the three had moved away, Richard found he could relax and come to grips with his fear. He did not trust the three. They could become very rough.

Hot moist air rushed out through the opening in the dome, it condensed in the cold morning air, creating clouds of steam that looked like the ghosts of miners that had died in the stopes of the New Comet Mine more than sixty five years ago.

Richard crawled away from the hatch and sat with the three friends. A light drizzle began to fall again.

"I don't know about you guys but I have had enough of this weather, I don't want to catch pneumonia, so I think I will be going. I am going take a walk to Comet and see if Veronica is home, check you guys," Richard said as he got up to leave.

Once Richard was out of hearing range Aaron asked:

"Why did you bring Richard along?"

"We didn't want to. He pitched up at my house at the crack of dawn," Dominic said.

Aaron then turned and faced his two friends.

"So what if Jonathan was a queer. He was still a good water polo player and a good soccer player. This is how I remember him."

While not admitting anything, it was palpable that they all felt guilty about their betrayal of Jonathan with the pink sweets episode. Today they felt that they had done something, which had somehow settled their debt to Jonathan. It was as if they had participated in a rite. Throughout the whole morning there had been an undertone of threat and violence beneath their banter. Richard not only recognized it in their faces, he felt it in his bones.

The three friends wanted to redeem themselves, they were in search of absolution and Richard was a constant reminder of their own moral failure. He had been craftier than all the other animals in the garden in causing their moral contamination at the swimming pool that day.

Dominic became serious and solemn.

"Don't laugh at me, but I think we need to go to confession. I need to confess." he said.

Aaron and Carlos did not say anything.

"Look, I think it would be a good idea if we all as individual say sorry to Jonathan and then observe a minute's silence. I suppose we should go to confession," Aaron said.

They each in turn verbalized their admission of guilt to Jonathan and offered their sincere felt apologies, speaking to him as if he were present. Afterwards they remained silent, standing on the dome surveying the surroundings.

"It is hard to believe that a whole mine has vanished from this spot," Dominic remarked breaking the silence.

"I don't think many people know why the suburb across the road has been called 'Comet'," said Carlos thoughtfully.

"I have been on the top that slimes dam after a veld fire has burnt away all this thatch grass. From the top of the slimes dam, you will be amazed what you can see after the veld has been burnt away. You can make out the all the traces outlining the complete layout of the New Comet Mine. It is still etched into the landscape. You can easily make out the imprints of the winding house, the foundations of the headgear, the boiler house, all the stamps for the crushing the rock and the outlines of the old gold reduction works."

Carlos looked at Aaron and Dominic expectantly, trying to see whether they had taken in the significance of his observation.

"It's the same at the old Cinderella Mine. I have also once stood at the top of Cinderella Dump after a veld fire had swept through the surrounding veld. I could also see where the stamps originally stood. I could also see the outline of the ruins of the old reduction works which has become partially buried with sand from the Cinderella Mine Dump. It was incredible, like you said," Aaron said.

"Nothing lasts forever," Dominic observed.

"Definitely not a gold mine," Carlos said.

"If it wasn't for gold mines, I don't think we would be here today," Aaron muttered.

They headed off to the Cason inclined mineshaft. They were sticking to their plan to climb up Cason Dump by walking between the cocopan rail tracks using the rail sleepers as steps. The cocopan rail line had been laid on the Trichardt Road side of the dump. The cocopan rail track curved to the right at the top of the dump.

The three walked around the corrugated iron winding house of the Cason inclined shaft. They decided to have a look at the inclined shaft. Nobody was around, not even a mine police boy. The coast was clear so they started walking down the inclined shaft. After going down about a hundred meters it became too dark to continue with their descent, they decided to go back up. It was also getting late. They decided to go up Cason dump along the cocopan rail line.

As they climbed up the Cason Dump, the low-lying clouds started to envelop the mine dump, making visibility poor. At the top of the dump, they inspected the eight old rusted cocopans that had been left standing on rail tracks at the southern side of dump's summit, which overlooked Boksburg Lake. The cocopans had been manufactured in England in1880. In the old days, the cocopans were winched up to the top of the dump. Because of the thick layer of mist, they could not see the lake or town below.

The mist and cloud density steadily increased until there was barely five meters visibility on the top of the dump. It became very quiet. The atmosphere at the summit took on an almost dream-like quality. Aaron thought about the transfiguration.

_And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking to Jesus. Peter said to Jesus,_ " _Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah_ ". _He did not know what to say, they were so frightened. Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them_..."

The dreamlike silence was broken by the toll of church bells. Aaron glanced at Dominic

"What is the time?" Aaron asked.

Dominic glanced at his watch.

"It is three o clock."

The bells were from St Dominic's. In the distance they could also hear the bells of the Anglican Church, St Michael and All Angels ringing. The Good Friday mass was being celebrated at that moment. Father O Reilly would be raising the Host. The friends glanced at each other. They spontaneously made the sign of the cross. After a moment of silence Dominic uttered the words:

" _Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani_ ?"

"I think it is time for us to go down," Carlos said

### CHAPTER 8

They descended down the steep south facing slope of the dump. They descended by running in a crisscross zigzag fashion down the dump. At the bottom of the dump, they emptied the sand from their shoes. Looking back up at the summit of the dump, they could not see the top; it was now completely hidden under a thick blanket of cloud.

None of them had eaten all day. Aaron announced that he was starting to feel very weak with hunger. No one listened to him. Both Dominic and Carlos seemed to be preoccupied.

Looking up at the dump Carlos became profound:

"While it is a true fact of geography that Cason Dump is the highest, largest and oldest mine dump in the world, this information has never appeared on any 'Did you know?' Chappies bubble-gum wrapping papers."

Turning their heads upwards, they gazed up at the dump. Its towering immobile presence was awesome, especially when one stood at it base. In a way it was a colossal monument to Boksburg's gold mining heritage. The man made mountain had dominated the landscape of Boksburg for as long as most people could remember. The three friends were all born in 1948 in the Boksburg Benoni hospital in the shadow of Cason Mine Dump.

Dominic also started to become deeply reflective. Aaron could see he wanted to say something even more profound than Carlos's comment; he wanted to state something so significant, so dramatic, that it would resonant with their mood and live in their memories for the rest of their lives. Carlos and Aaron waited, both looking expectantly at Dominic.

"I don't think that there is any other town in the world which also has a gigantic mine dump on the door step of its CBD. Its stark ugly prominent visibility is only softened and counter balanced by the Lake with its extensive lawns, palm trees, fir trees, poplars, willows, blue gums, bridges, gazebos, pavilion, children's play park and the extensive promenade around its shores, " said Dominic, while staring up at the dump.

Carlos and Aaron looked at Dominic. They were not sure whether he was clowning with them. His demeanour was serious. There was no smirk on this face. He was not trying to be profound in an ironical manner. It crossed Aarons mind that maybe they were all growing up, becoming more serious, more mature and more deep. Today Aaron also experienced, for the first time in his life, the antiquity of ERPM.

The three friends walked down Railway Street until they reached Trichardt Street. From Trichardt Street they made their way to the Lake. Ever since it became filled with water, Boksburg Lake has functioned as a much-needed public space for recreation and relaxation on weekends. Rachel, while working for the Boksburg Mirror had unearthed a pile of old photographs of Boksburg Lake from the Boksburg Mirror archives. Aaron found it fascinating to see that nothing had changed over the years. For years, members of the Caledonian Society had dressed up in their kilts and played their bagpipes, trumpets and drums on the lawns in front of the Pavilion on at least one Sunday a month. On most Sundays, tea and scones with cream and jam were served at the Pavilion. If one had nothing to do in Boksburg on Sundays, then the Lake was always an option for amusement.

"Do you think Cason Dump will be here forever?" Carlos asked.

"Who knows?" Aaron replied.

"Nothing lasts for ever," Dominic said thoughtfully, "not even Cason Dump."

"Yeah, you can believe that, the only remnant of land surface left from the original supercontinent of Gondwanaland is on the top of the Drakensburg, the rest of the surface has been eroded away, so I don't think Cason dump is going to be around forever, " Aaron said.

"You guys are something else, the whole day you have been going on about 'nothing lasts forever.' What is going on? It is actually making me feel quite depressed," Carlos said, looking a bit exasperated.

"Well it is good to confront one's own finitude. It puts everything into perspective," Dominic replied.

"Just think about it, even Jesus as God incarnate, faced the prospect of his own personal extinction and finitude on Good Friday," Aaron said.

The sky began to darken and a cold wind started to blow.

"It is going to rain," Dominic said.

"That is a surprise. I thought it has been raining the whole day," Carlos replied with a look of amusement on his face.

"It has been drizzling, that is hardly rain," Dominic countered.

Aaron shivered in his thin damp T-shirt.

"Hell I'm starving, does anyone have money?" Aaron asked.

"I've got some money, we can buy fish and chips at the Apollo Fish & Chips Café," Carlos said, as he felt in the pocket of his shorts, from which he retrieved a sodden R1.00 note.

"Hey Carlos has got quite a lot of boodle, I am also hungry, lets hit the road Jack and get some chips," Dominic said.

"Where is the Apollo Fish & Chip Café?" Aaron asked.

"Down Commissioner Street about three blocks past the Stella Bioscope," said Dominic.

"So are we going to break our Good Friday fast?" Dominic asked.

Aaron hesitated for moment.

"I am really cold and hungry; we have been physically active since early this morning. Any way the Bible does make allowances. _At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them_."

"OK, I reckon it is will be alright if we eat now on account of the rain and cold and physical exertion," Carlos said.

"What is the time," Aaron had forgotten to put on his watch.

"It is half-past-three," Carlos said.

"It feels more like five-o-clock," Dominic said.

They walked down Trichardt Street towards Commissioner Street. At the robots they turned left into Commissioner Street proceeding eastwards past the OK Bazaars. The town was deserted, all the shops were closed, the streets were empty, there was no traffic, and not a soul was in sight.

"Now what is this idea about what is really real and what is not actually real according to Plato?" Carlos asked as they walked to the nearest fish and chip café in Commissioner Street.

Aaron and Dominic did not seem to hear what Carlos had said.

"Did anyone hear me? OK, I'm not here, I don't exist, I am not real, I am the invisible man," Carlos commented

"What are you muttering on about?" Aaron asked.

"Nothing of great importance," Carlos replied.

"Oh, OK," Aaron said as they walked into the fish and chip shop.

"You guys are something else. I am not real, I am not real, I don't exist...." Carlos muttered as they tramped past the CNA.

Every inch of the walls of the tiny fish and chips shop was covered with pin-up pictures of various glamour models.

Carlos asked for three jumbo packets of chips, three large pieces of fried hake and three bottles of Seven Up.

While they waited the boys cast their eyes over the pictures of scantily clad women in a variety of supine poses and other convenient postures.

"Remember that slide show on an introduction to the nude that Boris Havenga gave us in standard nine when we started our nude painting assignment?" Dominic asked.

"Yeah, it was really weird, but not as weird as that sex talk that our music teacher Danny Odendaal gave us in standard six," Carlos replied.

Dominic started giving an improvised impersonation of Boris Havenga.

"Class, will you please settle down and be quiet, I have something very important to tell you today. Today we are going to re-consider the representation of human beauty in the form of the so-called nude. I must warn all of you that the depiction or representation of human beauty in the form of the nude has always been a moral minefield. As you all know, in polite and refined company it is not considered very good form to look at dirty pictures, and in this painting assignment, I am definitely not encouraging you look at dirty pictures. Anyone who uses dirty pictures for whatever purpose will lose marks. OK now back to the problem of the nude, and I need not remind you once again that understanding the aesthetics of the nude is a very serious problem indeed. I need to alert you to the fact that the visual representation of human beauty in the form of the nude more often than not results in the creation of an object of lust, sorry, I mean an object of desire....sorry, I don't seem to be able to find the right words, anyway what I really wanted to say was that the artistic representation of the nude creates an object of infinite fascination and interest for the intelligent and sophisticated viewer. Please keep this in mind when doing your painting. The artistic representation of the nude should be tastefully done, with due respect for maintaining proper decorum or something like that, anyway what I really mean is that the paintings of your nudes should not resemble a cheap pinup calendar picture that does nothing aesthetically for the viewer, other than titillate and encourage all kinds of dark and dangerous thoughts. This is not something that I wish to encourage. Anyway, let me....let me....what was I going saying? Oh yes, I remember now, about four thousand years ago, the Emperor of the Xia Dynasty in China said that a picture speaks a thousand words. I am going to take the Emperor at his word. Now Sharon will you please come to the front of the class and take off your school uniform so that I can discuss the finer details of the female anatomy in relation to its artistic representation in the aesthetic form of the nude....." Dominic said, acting out an amazing imitation of Boris Havenga.

The boy's loud laughter drew the Greek proprietor's attention.

"You like pictures?" he asked, nodding at the pictures pasted on the walls.

"Oh yes, we find them infinitely fascinating and interesting, especially for the more sophisticated viewer," Carlos quipped.

"Yes, pinups are indeed infinitely fascinating; they are the key that can open up the doors of erotic perception. Who needs mescaline to open the doors of perception when you can have a wall full of pinup girls? Once you have stared long enough at pinup girl pictures, you can actually see with your imagination an invitation to experience an inexhaustible range of possibilities," added Aaron.

"Whatever that means, and what the hell is mescaline?" Dominic asked.

"It's a hallucinogenic or psychedelic drug that comes from some cactus growing in the Mexican desert," Aaron answered.

Carlos burst out laughing again, his face bursting with mirth; his laughter became an uncontrollable howl. In between howls of laughter with tears running down his cheeks he kept on repeating:

"What the hell is mescaline, ha, ha, ha..... that is so funny, psychedelic cactus, doors of erotic perception, pinups......doors of perception...... I have never heard of anything so funny...ha, ha, ha......don't you get it....?"

"No I don't," said Dominic.

"I get it. I get it."

The voice came from behind them, they turned round and saw that it was the Greek speaking to them.

" Me too, I also like to fuck them all one time," the proprietor said with a broad grin on his shiny unshaven swarthy face as he bashed the stainless steel mesh basket filled with chips and three pieces of hake against the side of the deep fryer that was bubbling like a devil's cauldron.

They looked at each other with amused grins on their faces.

"Yeah the dirty pinup pictures are great social levellers. At least the Greek is honest and even virtuous in the sense that he has the courage of his convictions regarding his erotic imagination. He feels no shame; he is completely free of all inhibitions and hang ups. He has a total disregard for public opinion. Who else would put on public display his collection of erotic pictures? It is a kind of public declaration. He is not hiding his preoccupation with the erotic. He owns up to it. 'I fuck them all one time.' The more sophisticated viewers belonging to the higher social ranks of bishops, school principals, senior advocates, doctors, dentists, police station commanders, politicians, and company directors are a lot more secretive and furtive about how they conduct their libidinous viewings of pinup pictures. Their private viewings are usually conducted covertly, surreptitiously, sneakily, confidentially and discreetly behind closed toilet doors," Aaron remarked.

"Definitely sneakily, I would say," Carlos chuckled

"I would never have guessed that you are such a cynic," Dominic remarked grinning broadly.

"Bishops looking sneakily at dirty pictures behind closed toilet doors, who would have guessed that?" Carlos laughed.

" _He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone_ ," Aaron remarked ironically.

"Have you noticed how quickly the latches are stolen from public toilet doors?" Carlos added.

"I know, there is someone out there who collects toilet door latches as a hobby or as a fetish. He must have a whole shoebox full of them and every night he takes the box from its hiding place and inspects each stolen latch. That is how he gets his kicks," Aaron said.

Carlos paid for the chips and hake. They picked up their piping hot packets of chips with the pieces of hake. Outside it was pouring with rain. They walked around the corner and then dashed across Leeupoort Street and took shelter at a bus stop in Leeupoort Street outside Laerskool Baanbreker, the Afrikaans primary school situated next to Boksburg High School. They sat there eating their hot chips and hake, washing it down with swigs of Seven Up.

"Well we are coming to the end of the Lenten journey," Dominic reflected philosophically.

"And what did we find at the final milestone of our Lenten journey of reflection? A wall of pinup pictures in a fish and chip shop at the precise moment that we prematurely broke our fast!" Carlos said staring into the rain.

"It was very clever of Father Gilhooly to tell the parish that in place of giving up something for Lent they should rather reflect and meditate for forty days on the comprehensive meaning of each of the Ten Commandments and the full debt burden of sin associated with our inability to completely obey each of the commandments," said Dominic. "And if we did this, we would not have to give up anything for Lent. All we needed to do for Lent was read _Leviticus_ and ponder on how easy it was to sin! If you just did that little exercise then we would not have to give up anything for the forty days of Lent."

"Just imagine reading the book of _Leviticus_ forty times!" Exclaimed Carlos with a grimace on his face.

"Dominic is exaggerating. Father said we had to mindfully study the Ten Commandments everyday. So if you want to do the arithmetic we had to read the Ten Commandments forty times," Aaron corrected.

"How many times did you read the Ten Commandments during Lent?" Carlos asked Dominic.

"Not once," Dominic answered with a straight face.

"Well at least you have another sin to confess," Carlos grinned.

"Among my many other sins," Dominic said shrugging his shoulders.

"What is the catch? There has to be a catch, how can one observe Lent without giving up anything?" Carlos said.

"The catch was that we were supposed to have learnt a deep and lasting lesson of the extent of our moral complicity in every one of our acts or thoughts. We were supposed to have learnt this lesson _in lieu_ of abstaining from things. The catch was all about coming to a full realization of the extent of our moral complicity with regard to all our actions, non-actions, motives and intentions. We were supposed have become conscious of what it means to be accountable and responsible moral agents. This would make us conscious of our culpability in everything we do or think. Remember, he actually said those words, 'we are moral agents', and we cannot escape the reality that there is a moral dimension to our lives, there is a moral dimension to the way we exist in the world. There is a moral dimension to all our actions including our thoughts. There is a moral dimension to our way-of-being-in-the-world. If you can remember, those were the exact words that he used, he repeated the actual phrase: 'there is a real moral dimension to our way-of-being-in-the-world'."

"We are in-the-world, but we are not part of the world," Dominic added.

"Yes, that was part of the point he was making. But how can we stop from being part of the world? That is the question and the answer should have been the lesson that we were supposed to have learnt during Lent," Aaron added.

"Well what was the lesson supposed to have been actually about? How are we supposed to stop being part of the world when it is not clear in what way we are part of the world. What does it actually mean to be part of the world. How are we part of the world. Anyway what is meant by the world? What is this world that we are not supposed to be a part of? Surely we cannot escape from being part of the world if we are already in the world. How can we be 'in' and at the same time not 'part' of. Obviously I didn't learn anything during Lent," Carlos said with an ironic grin.

"Not to be part of the world means we must not be slaves. We must live as free men," Aaron replied.

Aaron thought for amount.

"The lesson was that no one, no matter how hard they try, can keep the Ten Commandments. It is practically impossible to keep the Ten Commandments. If you went through the conscious exercise of meditating on all the ways in which we can actually break the Ten Commandments then we would have been truly observing Lent, not by giving up things, but by doing all the positive things that are entailed by observing the Law. By doing positive things we would have given up doing negative things. Giving up negatives things by doing positive things would have been the best way we could have observed Lent, and we can only do this by meditating on each of the Ten Commandments for forty days," said Aaron.

"So the point of Father's challenge was for us to give up doing negative things for Lent," Carlos said, realizing how clever the priest had been.

"Today we have broken every one of the Ten Commandments by gawking at the pinup pictures," Aaron said, looking thoughtful.

"So gawking at the pinups is a negative thing?" Dominic asked.

"I don't get it, you have lost me. How can looking at pinups cause us to break all Ten Commandments? How can one negative action result in breaking all Ten Commandments in one go?" Carlos asked with look of complete disbelief on his face.

"It is easy to prove that. Father Gilhooly said we must reflect on the comprehensive meaning of each of the ten commandments. He was actually saying that we must study the Ten Commandments like a Rabbi would," Aaron replied.

"OK prove that we broke all Ten Commandment by looking at those pinups," Carlos challenged Aaron.

"If you remember at the first Mass after Ash Wednesday he gave a homily on what he meant by a comprehensive understanding of the ten commandments. He first spoke about the rich man who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Then Father spoke on each of the following verses:

'.... _if thine eye offends thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire_.'

And then he also spoke about the verse:

'... _but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart_.'

And then he also spoke about this verse:

'... _but I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, 'Raca,' shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, 'Thou fool,' shall be in danger of hell fire_.' "

"OK, I remember what Father said. I see where you are going," Dominic said

"Well what is the point? I do not get it. I was also at Mass," Carlos said.

"You were obviously not listening," Dominic replied.

"I was listening. But I would like to hear how all of the Ten Commandments can be broken by looking at those pin up pictures in the fish and chips shop," Carlos said.

"The point he was making was that it is impossible not break the Law and that it was impossible not to incur the judgement of the Law," Dominic also tried to explain.

"OK, how did we break the Law of Moses by looking at the pinups?" Carlos asked

"We did in fact break the first commandment by looking at the pinup girls. The first law states:

'... _you shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them_.'

The pinup pictures have the power of Graven Images and we served them by looking at them with great interest and fascination. The pictures instantly captivated us. We fell under their spell. We served the pictures by becoming slaves to the pleasure of looking at them. Remember Havenga's slide show on the artistic theory of the nude. The way we look at any image involves an act of choice that has a moral dimension, that has moral consequences. To the Catholic there is a moral dimension to nudity. We usually only see or notice images that captivate our eyes, we usually notice images which have the power to draw our attention; we usually only notice images that have the power to cause us to look at them with interest and fascination. We are never passive in all of this, to become captivated requires a conscious awareness of the form and content of the image, and to continue to be captivated by the form and content of the image involves us in a conscious act of choice, and when faced with a choice we become moral agents for good or bad.

We know as artists that the form of the image represented in the picture, its attributes, properties, and qualities have all been intentionally designed by the painter or photographer to have a certain kind of effect on the viewer, and this represents the power of the image. The image has been endowed with agency or power; it becomes a graven image, enticing the viewer to serve it, inviting the observer to become its slave, seducing the observer to give up his freedom. To give up your freedom has moral consequences. The viewer cannot be indifferent or immune to the effects of the image without exercising a moral or ethical choice. The power of the image transforms the viewer into a moral agent. To look at the image brings the viewer to the brink of decision, you cannot view the image neutrally, in viewing the image you have to make a decision, you have to make a choice, either in favour of or against the image and what it symbolizes. The image can be provocative. It provokes to respond in a predetermined manner. In doing so, you become enslaved, you give up your freedom of choice.

To look, to view, to gaze, to stare always involves a decision or a choice. Why do think the Mohammedans cover up their women? In the act of looking, in the act of gazing, you are forced to decide in favour for or against something, you cannot evade being a moral agent. That was the exact point that Father was making. We cannot evade being a moral agent. To look is to choose, to choose is to reciprocate, to reciprocate is to participate, to reciprocate is to engage, to be effected, action and reaction, to act in favour of the image or to act against the image. To look with fascination and favour represents an act, an action, to look with favour represents agency, it represents moral agency, it represents an act of choice, looking always involves a decision for something. All of this can end in the breaking of the two greatest commandments, which is equivalent to breaking the Ten Commandments. Remember last Sunday's Mass when in preparation for Holy Week Father spoke about the two greatest commandments. Remember he read the verses:

' _And one of them, a doctor of the Law, putting him to the test, asked him, "Master, which is the great commandment in the Law_?" _Jesus said to him, "'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind_.' _This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it,_ _'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets_.'

You cannot serve or become captivated by a graven image and at the same time love God or love your neighbour with all your heart, soul and mind," said Aaron.

"Personally I think you are over analysing things. They are just pictures of pretty girls. It is natural to be curious. We were just being curious. We were not sinning. It is perfectly normal to look at pinups. If you don't want to look at pinup pictures then there must be something wrong with you. There is nothing immoral or sinful in looking at pinups." Carlos argued looking quite adamantly at Aaron.

"Going back to Havenga's slide show on the artistic theory of the nude what do you think of the pinup girl paintings of Gil Elvgren, Harry Ekman, Haddon Sundblom, and Joyce Ballantyne? They were all masters of their craft," Carlos said.

"All those guys took photographs of models in various poses and used the photographic images for their paintings. All those girlie paintings have no artistic merit whatsoever. The purpose of the pinup image is the erotic captivation and erotic fascination of the viewer, but they don't have the same calculated and raw provocative erotic impact of the pinup pictures taken of photographic models like June Palmer, Teddi Smith, Barbara Ann Lawford, and Donna Michelle that we saw in the fish and chips shop," Dominic said.

"Do you think those semi-nude pictures of like June Palmer, Teddi Smith, Barbara Ann Lawford, and Donna Michelle have any artistic merit?" Aaron asked.

"No artistic merit whatsoever," Dominic replied.

"So they are not beautiful in any aesthetic sense?" Carlos asked, wanting clarity of reasons from Dominic.

"They are erotically attractive but not beautiful pictures in an artistic sense," Dominic said.

"Havenga said that beauty, in whatever form it appears, always arrives as an object of sensory pleasure. Do you agree with that?" Carlos asked.

"In the visual arts and in life generally the object of beauty, especially when it appears in the form of a person, is always a delight to the eyes, something that is always pleasant to the sense of sight, in the same way that good music is pleasant to the ears," Dominic elaborated while chewing his chips.

"What about Havenga's problematic? Because an object of beauty is a source of sensory pleasure, it automatically becomes an object of desire, and therefore a moral problem. We cannot disconnect the representation of beauty, whether in the form of an object or a person, from the desire to possess it for the sake of gratification," Aaron said.

"And desire can never be satisfied, you said that yourself Aaron," added Carlos.

"Erotic desire can never be satisfied. Maybe in the big scheme of things it was never supposed to be satisfied. We are all junkies of pleasure and the effects of the fix always wear off. It all makes perfect sense; it is the way things are. According to Darwin's theory of sexual selection, the sensation of pleasure is associated with the perception of beauty. And the perception of beauty always triggers desire and desire is fuelled by the expectation or anticipation of pleasure and the success of sexual reproduction depends on the rewarding of desire with pleasure. Desire is awakened by the perception of beauty, and the form of beauty is continuously moulded by desire, and the reward of desire leads to the success of sexual reproduction, which in turn leads to the further enhancement of beauty and the re-captivation of desire in a process that goes on indefinitely," Aaron said.

"So, if the relationship between beauty and desire is all part of nature and therefore all perfectly natural occurring phenomena, then how did the moral problems associated with beauty, pleasure and desire, arise?" Dominic asked

"Well maybe the pleasures of sight and sound, beauty, desire, love, fidelity and morality all come together as one package deal. If the focus is only on the pleasure of sight and the mindless treadmill of unfulfillable desire, then the exorable fate of beauty will always be its desecration," Aaron replied.

"Are you implying that desire provoked by beauty can never be fulfilled outside the package deal? And without the package deal the insatiable but unfulfillable drive for the gratification of desire will always necessarily end in the desecration of beauty?" Dominic asked.

"Yes," Aaron said. "But I'm not saying that desire provoked by physical beauty is in itself a bad thing."

"Then what are you saying?" Carlos asked.

"I am saying that the desecration of beauty leads to the violation of the Two Commandments," Aaron answered.

"But I am also arguing that erotic desire caused by the presence of beauty can, under the right circumstances, become a force for authentic and genuine life enhancing goodness, which at the same time leads to the fulfilment of the Two Commandments," Aaron said.

"Is this what Plato said?" Dominic asked.

"Not in the same sense that I am proposing. For Plato the possession of any physical embodiment of beauty can never in itself satisfy erotic desire. Every kind of physical embodiment of beauty will fail to satisfy Plato's conception of erotic desire. The soul's fleeting or passing or unfulfilling possession of the various possible physical embodiments of beauty represents the different stages of the journey of the soul's ascent to the knowledge of the Form of beauty," Aaron replied.

"Just changing the subject for a moment, would you say that good and evil also come together as one package deal?" Carlos remarked.

"It could be," Aaron replied.

"But desire, as a response to beauty, does not have to be evil or a source of moral problems." Aaron answered thoughtfully.

"Maybe it is not beauty that creates desire; it could also be the other way round. What if desire creates beauty, what if desire actually summons beauty into being, into existence in the eye of the beholder? Maybe when I see a girl who I find for some unfathomable reason to be incredibly desirable, my desire for her transforms her into an exceedingly beautiful person in my eyes only. At the same time no one else notices her or bothers to give her a second glance, to them she remains invisible," Aaron said.

"If desire does indeed summons beauty into existence, then you have given the saying that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' a new meaning," Carlos noted.

"You know I have had a personal experience which confirms what you have said about desire creating beauty. Do you remember Jeanette when we were in standard eight? To me she was really a plain Jane. I never gave her a second look. Then one day her friend corners me in the corridor at school and tells me confidentially that Jeanette really likes me. It was like someone had turned on a switch in my brain. I didn't say anything to her friend. I began to steal glances at Jeanette in class and once or twice she caught me staring at her and she smiled back at me. I am telling the truth. I don't know how it happened, the next moment I fell in love with her and she became the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life," Carlos said with a bemused grin on his face.

"Yeah I remember you and Jeanette, I could never fathom what you saw in her," Dominic said.

"Well thank you for that edifying observation," Carlos said.

"What is beauty? That is the million dollar question. Remember Boris Havenga asked the class if we could define beauty," Dominic said.

"Well, at the very least we should be able to objectively recognize beauty, especially when it comes to broads," Carlos said.

"Yeah, but recognizing beauty or giving objective examples of beauty does not in any way define beauty. What is beauty in itself, this is what Socrates wanted to know," Aaron said.

"That is precisely the point that Havenga was making if you can remember," Dominic said.

"I remember, he referred to Plato's concept of the Form of Beauty which fully, and perfectly and absolutely embodied the full truth of what beauty is in itself," responded Carlos.

"Yes and Havenga also said that everything that is recognizably beautiful participates or shares in the Form of Beauty," Aaron said, "and all of this brings us back to the Plato's problem of the One and the Many."

"I remember that too. He did talk about the One and the Many? I was actually surprised after hearing Gillian and then you speaking about the One and the Many," Carlos said.

"Do you remember, Dominic," Carlos asked looking at Dominic.

"Not explicitly as far as I can remember. What was it about again, was it about the real and unreal and all that kind of stuff, you know, being and becoming and so on?" Dominic asked in reply.

"Yes it was about what is real and what is not real, the whole damn story all over again," Carlos laughed.

"This topic is not going away, it is refusing to die, we have not stopped speaking about it. Real and unreal, being and becoming, the One and the Many, OK, Aaron explain to us again what is real or what is reality again?" Dominic asked with a sigh of resignation.

Aaron shook his head in an imitation of despair. Carlos laughed again.

"Before we distinguish what is real from what is non-real according to Plato's conception of reality, we need to first define what kinds of things exist in terms of his idea of the One and the Many. For every property there are always two kinds of things, the One and the Many. In the case of the Many, these are many similar individual or particular things which all share the same property. Each of the many similar particular things all resemble each other because each one of them exemplifies or possesses the same property, say the colour red for example. So there can be many red things which all resemble each other with respect to being red in colour. Now while there can be many things that exemplify the colour red, there exists only one special entity which is red itself or redness itself." Aaron said at length.

"I still don't understand," said Carlos, with that grin that was meant to exasperate the most patient teacher.

"OK. Let take beauty as the property instead of the colour red. We are all able to recognize which girls are beautiful and distinguish them from those girls who are not as beautiful," he said.

"Except in the case of Jeanette," Dominic interjected.

"Thanks Dominic," Carlos muttered,

"OK guys, give me a chance to finish," Aaron appealed.

"OK, shoot my china," Carlos said.

"OK, getting back to beautiful girls, including Jeanette, we can all recognize that the many different girls who have all individually qualified to be participants in a beauty pageant are all similar because they all resemble each other in one particular way or in one particular sense, and that is they are all beautiful. They all share the attributes or the qualities that we all recognize as been fully constitutive of female beauty. But what is it that constitutes beautifulness in itself irrespective of individual examples of beauty? What is it that defines beauty in itself independent of any particular concrete actual example or any particular exemplification or illustration of beauty in we see embodied in a given individual girl, say Sharon or Janet for example," Aaron elaborated.

"Or Gillian," said Carlos.

"Yes, or Gillian of course, we all agree that she is the perfect embodiment of beauty, and she also has a beautiful mind as well," Aaron agreed.

"Which makes her extraordinarily beautiful," Dominic quickly quipped.

"So are you saying that there can be many particular individual girls like Sharon and Janet or even Gillian in a beauty contest, who all resemble each other because each of them in their own way recognisably exemplify beauty, however, there is something else over and above these many beautiful girls, which we can refer to as the One, which the real, true and absolute embodiment of female beauty," Carlos said.

"That's it! I could not have put it any clearer," Aaron said.

"For Plato the One would correspond to the only real, true and absolute embodiment of female beauty. This One would be the Form or Idea of female beauty. In more modern terminology the One would correspond to the Universal form or Idea of female beauty," Aaron expanded.

"OK now what is the point of all of this?" Carlos asked.

"Well Plato had made quite a significant philosophical innovation. He said that the Forms or Ideas or what we now call the Universals could exist independently of any actual observable particulars, where the particular things represent the Many. So the Forms which represent properties or predicates or qualities such as beauty, goodness, redness, tallness, courage, virtue, justice and so on can all exist independently of any particular thing or entity in which these Forms could become exemplified or embodied. While the Forms can exist independently of particular things, the particulars can only possess properties or qualities by virtue of their relations to the Forms. Somehow all things derive their qualities or properties or characteristics from the Forms. Qualities or properties of things such as their redness or their beauty are derived from their relationship with the Forms," said Aaron.

"How do the particulars or things derive their characteristics or properties from the Forms, how is this relationship supposed to work? How does this transfer of properties from the Forms to particulars work?" Dominic asked.

"I have also thought about that. It is not clear. Plato talks about things deriving their properties from the Forms by sharing or participating in the Forms, for example, a thing is beautiful because it shares or participates in Form for beautify," Aaron answered.

"And how does this sharing or participation happen?" Carlos asked.

"I am not sure, but however it may happen, it always happens imperfectly. Plato was unable to fully explain how this sharing or participation could have taken place. Sometimes he described the relationship as one of imitation. Going back to the issue of imperfection, according to Plato the properties represented by Forms are exemplified only imperfectly in a particular things. The properties that particulars share in with respect to their relationships to the Forms are not identical or even perfect embodiments of the Forms. For example the Forms for perfect justice or complete equality are never perfectly exemplified or perfectly represented in any society or nation state," Aaron answered.

"So particulars are always imperfect copies of the Forms?" Dominic asked.

"Yes, that is so, and this point has important consequences for Plato. Because the particular things with all their characteristic and properties are never more than imperfect copies of their Forms, from this it follows that the Forms are more real than the particulars, or the One is more real than the Many. The Many exists as fleeting and passing phenomena in the world of sense of perception which is unreal when compared to the invisible imperceptible world of the Forms. " Aaron replied.

"At last, it seems that we are finally getting to understand this whole complicated business of what is real and what is unreal," Carlos jested.

"I see now, so according to Plato the unchanging Forms are real and the passing phenomena of particular things are unreal," Dominic summarized what he had now learnt.

"Precisely, I could not have said it any better. OK it is like this, all observable particulars are less real because their existence is transient, they are also undergoing continuous change, their properties are dependent on the Forms. All of these factors taken together make the particular things less real compared to the Forms. Forms happen to be real because they are unchanging, independent to particular things, and eternal," Aaron said.

"Does time feature in all of this? Is not the perception of time associated with change?" Carlos asked

"I think you right. But let me finish. Plato argued that we cannot have genuine knowledge of particular things, even if they are observable, because they are in a constant state of continuous change. They do not remain the unchanged, so each time we observe them, they are no longer the same object we observed at an earlier moment, instead they have become a different object, and this makes it impossible for them to become objects of genuine knowledge. The crux of the matter here it that according to Plato observation of external objects cannot give rise to genuine or reliable knowledge, because the nature of these external objects are transient or subject to change, so it is impossible to establish their essential nature," Aaron said.

They noticed that the rain had stopped.

"I suppose we should be heading back home. It's getting late," Dominic said.

They walked in silence past Boksburg High School. At the corner of Leeupoort and Trichardt Street they waited for the robot to turn green. They stared at the deserted old synagogue across the road.

The robot turned green and they walked down Leeupoort Street past the Girl Guide Hall, past the Library, past the Presbyterian Church. At the robot next to the Boksburg Fire Station, at the intersection of Rondebult and Leeupoort Street, they waited for the robot to turn green.

Dominic finally broke the silence.

"What did you mean by the erotic perception being the gateway for inexhaustible possibilities, what kind of feat does the erotic perception actually accomplish when we look at a beautiful girl?" he asked.

"Are you talking about a feat of the imagination or of a feat of the nervous system?" he continued to probe.

"I will go with the idea that the erotic perception is a feat of the chemo-mechanical-hydraulic system of the body, if you know what I mean," Carlos said with his usual lascivious grin.

"That is exactly what I would expect from you, but come now let's be serious," Dominic said.

"I was only joking," Carlos said, looking bemused at Dominic's sudden seriousness about the subject of erotic perception.

"I know, I know, but I want to know if there is something more than simple hydraulics behind the erotic perception of a beautiful girl, I just want to know whether pinups are covering up something, it's just an idea that I think needs some exploring, if you know what I mean," Dominic said. His demeanour was deadly serious.

"Ok I get you," Aaron responded thoughtfully.

"Ok, based on the views of Boris Havenga, I would think that the erotic perception can also be construed as an ethical and moral awakening. Isn't this what actually happened after Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? After eating the fruit they had their first erotic perception. They saw that they were naked, they had become trapped in a mutually reciprocal libidinous gaze, which in reality was a good thing, because without the libidinous gaze there could not be any procreation, so sexual reproduction was a also a consequence of the eating of the fruit from the tree," Aaron said.

"Erotic perception and the libidinous gaze are actually important concepts in art. Procreation flows from the erotic perception; it is also an interesting point in the 'procreative act' of artistic creation. Now what does it really mean to see someone naked, to see a beautiful woman naked?" Dominic pressed the point.

"For a Catholic, the sight of a naked woman always provokes some kind of ethical or moral dilemma. From an artistic point of view, the image that depicts the naked woman in the form of a nude is also a provocation and an invitation, which has a moral overtone. The naked female body always invites a response once it falls under the gaze of a male. The body of a naked woman always invites a viewer to participate in a voyeuristic gaze, which can only be a libidinous gaze or an erotic perception, which is not a morally neutral way of looking at any object, thus the voyeur cannot escape being a moral agent. I would say that this is the Catholic view of female nudity," Aaron remarked.

"What response does the erotic perception of a naked woman trigger in the voyeur that creates a moral crisis?" Carlos asked.

"The response that happens to be inadvertently triggered is the purely hydraulic one that you so kindly drew our attention to," Aaron said, smiling at Carlos.

"It was a pleasure Aaron," Carlos replied.

"But it is more than hydraulics. To the un-numbed Catholic soul, to the fully sensitized Catholic soul or mind or imagination, the erotic perception is a life shattering experience because it opens the gateway to the infinitude of inexhaustible possibilities; it opens and extends the invitation to participate in the experience of the knowledge of Good and Evil. The gateway that the erotic perception opens leads one along the pathway of wonder, awe, mystery, enigma, surprise, intimacy, trust, faithfulness, possession, shame, humiliation, betrayal, jealousy, degradation, anxiety, fear, dread, horror, pleasure, excitement, play, wantonness, flirtation, joy, laughter, risk, danger, uncertainty, insecurity, courage, honour, creation, procreation, and ultimately through all of this, the erotic perception brings one to the threshold of infinity, to the Gateway of God, to the communion with the Other. To have knowledge of Good and Evil is to have knowledge of everything, not of only the ethical or moral. To have knowledge of everything is to be become omniscience, like God," Aaron explained.

"Who told you all of this?" Carlos asked.

"Gillian," Aaron replied.

"What else did Gillian tell you?" Dominic asked with an eyebrow raised in curious appraising fashion.

### CHAPTER 9

The Whiteheads and Wendy Foxcroft had taken the horses to a horse show. With nothing else to do on a Saturday afternoon, Aaron decided to take a walk down to the beach at Cinderella Dam. It was late April so while the days were not yet chilly it had become too cold to swim in the dam. The sandy beach had always been one of his favourite haunts ever since primary school days. At the beach a channel with a white sandy bottom had been opened up between the reed beds a long time ago. The channel which was approximately thirty meters wide provided a shallow corridor of water to the deep and wide open body of water. The channel was also flanked on both sides by reeds in which swarms of red and golden bishops birds nested in the summer months.

The water was always crystal clear and for some reason there were occasions when the channel became crowded with carp. They would swim around listlessly and lethargically close to the surface. One could easy stalk up to them and club them with a heavy stick over their heads. Max reckoned that the oxygen tensions in the water had fallen to exceedingly low levels and this would explain their strange behaviour.

The channel was ideal for swimming and fishing. Except for a beach close to the yacht club, this was the only other decent beach for bathing at Cinderella dam. The wide beds of reeds that lined almost the entire shore of Cinderella dam make free access from the shore to the open waters of the dam difficult.

The reed beds also supported a profusion of bird life. As he approached the sandy beach an African Rail disappeared swiftly from sight into the dense reed bed near the channel. He sat on the short dark green grass that covered the shore bordering the beach. The grass was tough, wiry and twisted. It was completely unpalatable. Not even the goats in the Location grazed it.

On Saturday and Sunday afternoons ZCC congregations from Stirtonville would arrive at the beach in their blue, green and white uniforms. They would congregate under the under huge blue gum trees that stood close to the beach, beating their drums, singing songs that often sounded forlorn and grew more and more melancholic, especially as the autumn shadows of the blue gums started to stretch towards the small beach in the late afternoons. Sometimes on Sunday afternoons to the accompaniment of joyful singing and the beating of drums, there would be baptisms at the beach. Standing in the shade of the nearby blue gum trees Aaron had witnessed many ZCC baptism rituals.

Today for some reason there was an armada of yachts on the dam. After sailing past the beach the yachts make a sharp hairpin 180o degree turn around an anchored red coloured buoy. As the yachts turned and changed direction their colourful sails snapped, cracked, clapped, and flapped in the light wind.

He listened to the distinctive throaty calls with the accompanying rippling trills of a pair of Black Crakes.

Beyond the reeds in the open waters the sounds of coots calling, _kreck kwrek kreck, chook chwook chook chwook kreek kreek_ , could be heard. On a raft of reeds a blue heron stood motionless like a statue. Above the reed beds lining the shores a Marsh Harrier glided effortlessly on the light breeze rippling across the dam.

A Dabchick bobbed up and down on the small waves generated by the passing yachts.

The silence at the beach was broken by sudden peals of loud laughter and excited chatter. He turned around to see a cheerful band of Coloured teenagers striding down the sand road towards the beach where he was sitting. He was pleasantly surprised when he spotted Geraldine among the group of teenagers. She immediately recognized him and her face brightened up into a broad smile as she waved. He waved back.

They had not seen each other for nearly two weeks. Since he had last seen her she had been constantly on his mind, always pleasantly ambushing his thoughts at unexpected moments. She had even begun to invade his dreams.

As they walked towards him he stood up and waited for them at the beach.

"Hi Aaron, these are all my cousins from Durban, they are staying out our house. We have moved into our new house. They came up for a wedding," she said. She could not hide her elation at seeing him.

She introduced each of them by name, and they all shook Aaron's hand.

He was struck by one of Geraldine's cousins, a teenager of about 14 years old whose name was Felicity McNamara. She had long very dark red hair, freckles, light brown eyes and a milky white skin.

"What you are doing?" He asked.

"Nothing really, we are just bored, we couldn't find anything to do so we decided to come down to the dam. We are going to take a walk to the dam wall," she said.

"Why don't you come with us," she eagerly invited him, giving him a very meaningful look.

Walking close together, Aaron and Geraldine slowed their pace so as to allow her cousins to get some distance ahead of them. She noticed Aaron's look of uncertainty.

She let out a naughty chuckle.

"Don't worry, they don't know anything. When we saw you I told my cousins that you are a school friend and that you also stay in Reiger Park," she whispered confidentially.

Aaron was quite tickled to hear how audacious she had been.

"Do they really think I am Coloured?" he asked, his face a picture of incredulous amazement.

She broke into a fit of loud mirth-filled laughter when she noticed the look on Aaron's face in response to the news of his new Coloured identity as a result of her cheeky audacity. Tears of laughter glistened brightly on her cheeks. The cousins turned round. They gave the pair a puzzled glance and then continued walking ahead.

"Well now, just look at them. They are not exactly dark. Felicity is whiter than any white person in the whole of Boksburg. You have a few freckles, hazel eyes and dark burgundy hair, with a very slight stretch of the imagination you could also pass for being a Coloured."

She walked next to Aaron, her mood was buoyant, her demeanour a picture of joviality that threatened to break into an uncontrollable convulsion of laughter at anything that was just remotely funny.

"Look at Felicity, you don't have to be like a white person when you are actually physically white in every sense of the word," she said.

"I don't understand what you mean?" He asked.

"Felicity could easily pass for a white, but she is classified racially as a Coloured. She doesn't want to be white in the way white people are white even though her skin pigmentation is white. She does not perceive herself as a white. That means she does not perceive herself in the same way that white people perceive themselves. When she says that she doesn't want to be white, she actually means she does not want to be like the white people in South Africa who are classified legally as racially white people," she looked at Aaron with eyes filled with ironic humour.

"What is white person?" He asked with a frown creasing his forehead.

"What is a white person? That is an interesting question," she laughed.

"I am serious, what is a white person?" He asked, curious to know her opinion.

"Well for one thing, white people in South Africa are very different from Felicity. All white people in South Africa believe that they are very special and very important people in some strange and magical way. Being white is supposed to give them the right to trample on all people who are non-white. They have been indoctrinated to see themselves as completely different in every way from all the people who they have identified as being non-white. They think they are more superior to anyone who is not white, they do not consider themselves to be equal to people who are not white, and above all, they want to dominant and control people who are not white, they also want to make all the non-whites work for them. Whites want to be the boss, they definitely don't want black people to be the boss. Deep down white people are scared of non-white people. White people don't believe that all humans are the same and that all humans are equal.White people don't care about what non-white people think or feel about Apartheid, they have no interest in the opinions of non-white people. White people cannot appreciate that black people have feelings, that black people have emotions, that black people can feel hurt. They relate to non-white people as if they are animals and not humans. Black people must just shut-up and do what white people say. It is all of these things that make a white person 'white'. White people are incapable of compassion and empathy when it comes to non-white people, white people are incapable of feeling anything when it comes to the pain and suffering of black people. White people are uncomfortable in the presence of black people. All these things make a white person 'white'," she said.

"Can anybody who is white change into a person like Felicity who is only white in appearance but not white in her mind, in her nature, in her manners, in her ways, in her beliefs, in her perceptions and in her behaviour," he asked with a serious and concerned look on his demeanour, which also made him appear visibly uncertain and vulnerable.

"Aaron you are white, you are unmistakably white, but then again, you are also not altogether one hundred percent a white person in your head. I can see that in your mind you do not always think about things completely like a white person would," she said, as she laughed good-naturedly.

"But I am different from Felicity, she knows what it is like to be non-white, she is not white in her head like me," Aaron said.

"That may be true in reality, but right now you are a Coloured in their eyes, and also in my eyes, so you are now one of us, so enjoy being Coloured while you can," She said, with an indulgent comradely expression on her face.

"Felicity thinks you are a Coloured like her. As long as she believes that you are Coloured she will not see you as a white person. She will relate to as you as a genuine non-white person or as a black person if you like," Geraldine said, with amused laughter in her eyes.

She walked with a jaunty spring in her step. Her verve, vivacity, exuberance was so infectious that it prompted him to say:

"I have missed you."

"I missed you too," she answered.

She turned her head and looked at him. Her mood became serious. Her face softened into an affectionate intimate smile.

He reached out to take her hand and squeezed it. She immediately reciprocated by tightening her fingers around his hand. His heart began to pound wildly. She continued to hold his hand tightly. He looked at her face. She stared ahead smiling.

She suddenly remembered that she had important news to tell him.

"Something has slipped my mind completely. I have something really incredible to tell you," she said, "you won't believe it, it is too good to be true."

"Don't keep me in suspense. Tell me."

"I received a letter on Friday. No one knows about the letter. I have hidden it," she said. "It is so amazing, it is almost completely unbelievable. We are the descendants of three intrepid Irish Catholic cousins who took up arms to fight under the flag of the Transvaal Boer Republic on the side of the Boers against the British."

"So we are actually related?" Aaron asked with astonishment.

"Yes, we are related, we are family, so we belong together," she said, beaming with delight.

"I did exactly what you told me to do. I found the address of the Irish Embassy and wrote them a letter. I told them I was a Coloured girl living in Reiger Park and I wanted to know more about my family tree. I sent them all the information about our great grandfathers and it transpired that McBride, Finnegan and Dooley were indeed three cousins who came to Johannesburg to work on the gold mines."

"I am amazed that they bothered to answer your letter," he said, "so this makes us distant cousins."

"Yes it does. Don't you think it is wonderful? I was actually so completely flabbergasted when I found this official looking letter addressed to me in our post box when I arrived back home from school," she said.

"After reading the letter I was almost beside myself with excitement. I kept on re-reading the letter. I must have re-read it a thousand times. I so much wanted to get hold of you, but it was like you had disappeared off the face of earth. I have had this perpetual smile on my face. My parents even noticed it. They even asked me why I looked so happy."

"So what do you think? Don't you think it is truly amazing," she said as her face became ecstatically radiant.

"Maybe all this was meant to happen," he answered.

"What do you mean? Are you implying that it was actually ordained that we should have met?" she asked.

"Well mathematically speaking, maybe it can be proved that unlikely accidents do not happen by chance alone," he said.

"Now you are speaking over my head."

"Sorry, what I meant is that our meeting and discovering that we were related was not an accident, it was not a coincidence. Something must have drawn us together," he said.

"Do you believe in fate?" she asked

"No, I don't believe in fate. I don't believe that the future is predetermined and that we are somehow slaves to a pre-planned destiny from which there is no escape," he said, " I believe the future is open, I don't believe that the Universe is causally closed."

"Aaron, you are again speaking above my head."

"OK let me explain what I mean. If the Universe was indeed causally closed then it would be like a giant cuckoo clock that has been wound up and set on the mantelpiece and left to tick away without ever being tampered with again. Everything that the clock does until it eventually winds down and stops ticking will be completely predetermined. There will be no surprises. Just like the clock ticking away on the mantelpiece nothing unexpected will ever happen in the Universe if it were causally closed. The entire future will be foreordained. We would be living in deterministic Universe without any free will."

"Could it be that this Universe is in fact like a giant clockwork machine that has been wound up and left to run by itself until it eventually winds down and comes to a stop or something like that?" she asked.

"They say that the Universe will eventually run down, in that sense the fate of the Universe is predetermined, but still while it is running down, a lot of stuff can happen in the Universe which possibly is not predetermined," he answered.

"What are you saying? Are you saying that the Universe is not a giant clockwork machine?" She asked.

"Yes, I don't think the Universe works like a giant clockwork machine with intermeshing cogs and gears that don't allow any fluctuations, any freedom of movement or motion. I think the Universe is causally open in the way that a giant clockwork machine can never be, especially once it starts running. The future is not completely determined, the future is open to all kinds of different possibilities and this makes the Universe open rather than closed. Only the past it closed. No one can change the past," he said.

"Are you saying the Universe is open to surprises?" she asked. "Do you really believe that? Can God be surprised by an unexpected turn of events?"

"Why not? The Centurion surprised Jesus. Yes I do. I believe that the Universe is open to all kinds of possibilities, even the possibility that we could meet. Maybe God creates each future moment anew with an open mind to allow the unthinkable to happen," he said

"Could our meeting have been a happy accident because the Universe is open to all kinds of possibilities?"

"Maybe. If the Indians did not stone us I would never have met you," Aaron admitted.

"Everything is then possible with God. Do you think God brought us together?" She asked.

"Maybe," he said.

"But then again, if we believe that God is all knowing and all powerful, then nothing can happen independent of God's will or foreknowledge or predestination. If this is the case then nothing surprises God. God does not have to wonder what will happen next. I think it would be illogical to say that God could be surprised. God does not have to wait for anything. He does not have to wait for the future to happen. He makes the future happen, he makes time flow. I don't think that God sees things in terms of 'past, present and future.' If God does not have to wait for anything to happen, then all things that could possibly happen are already present all at once to God. Even though God makes time flow, God himself is not subject to the flow of time. He does not have to wait for time to end or for time to begin. He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of all things. He creates each moment, but He does not exist in time. If He is the creator of each moment, then He is not bound by time. Time depends on Him for its very existence; He does not depend on time for His own existence. He is the creator of time; He does not exist alongside time, where time is something that happens independently of him. Maybe time only flows for us but not for God. He is not subject to time like we are," he said.

"Are you saying that our entire lives, from being to end in every detail, stands spread out all at once before God's timeless eternal gaze like a page in a comic book?" She asked.

"I really don't know. It is something we have to think through," he answered.

A light autumn breeze rustled the leaves of the beds of phragmites and bulrushes. Grey headed gulls wheeled and turned in the faded sky bidding a melancholic farewell to the swifts and swallows that flew fast and restless above the mobile yacht sails.

They walked together holding hands like old friends enjoying the intimacy of the invisible bonds that had formed between them.

Her cousins slowed had down so that they could catch up with them. He let go of her hand. She twirled the ends of her hair between her fingers and subconsciously bit her lips. He could see that she wanted to say something important. She spoke quickly and nervously in a hushed voice.

"Next Saturday night I am babysitting my cousin Sharon at my Aunt and Uncle's house is the only built house in Drommedaris Road. You could come and visit me at 8.00 pm, if you like. They usually leave at about 6.00 and come back around about 12.00. I need to give Sharon her supper, bath her and get her to sleep. So by 8.00 she should be sleeping," she said, "I will bring the letter for you to look at."

"Will you be able to come?" She asked softly.

Wild horses would not stop Aaron.

"I will be there at 8.00 pm."

He could see she was visibly relieved to hear his acceptance of her invitation.

"That would be so great; they have a great collection of LPs. We can listen to music and just sort of catch up on things, you know," she said.

Her pupils had become dilated. The nervous tension vanished from her face. She stopped twirling her hair. Her words 'come at 8.00' and 'will you be able to come' rang in Aaron's head.

They reached the dam wall.

Aaron masquerading as a Coloured from Reiger Park strolled casually along the stone and concrete dam wall next to Geraldine. Apparently, hazel eyes and a few freckles seemed to be sufficient qualification for transforming him into a Coloured.

The bottom of the stone and concrete dam wall sloped steeply down into the deep crystal clear water. The bottom of the dam wall was visible. Anchored to the bottom was a dense underwater thicket of aquatic plants belonging to the green algae. They included Chara, Nitella, and Lagarosiphon. Waves generated by the turning yachts made lapping sounds against the dam wall.

The water decanting over the weir flowed into the Natalspruit River which in turn flows into the Kliprivier, which in turn flows into the Vaal River. Before reaching the Kliprivier the Natalspruit River flowed into a huge wetland and vlei teeming with birdlife near the sprawling Natalspruit Native Location, which was located on the outskirts of Alberton and Germiston.

"As kids we used to dive down and collect samples of the algae growing on the bottom for our fish ponds and fish tanks," Aaron said.

Looking at the aquatic plants she shuddered, pressing close to Aaron, she wrapped her arm around his waist, and he kissed her gently on her smooth cheek.

"It looks so creepy down there, I could never dive down amongst those weeds, I would be too scared that the weeds would wrap around my ankles and legs and I would be trapped underwater. No thank you. I like diving, but definitely not among underwater weeds."

He put his arm around her shoulder and hugged her. Her hair smelt wonderful. She held him tightly with her arm around his waist.

An African Jacana was walking delicately with its spindly legs and long toes over a floating mat of reeds that had built up by the weir. It was a rare sighting. Only on a few occasion over the years had Aaron spotted a Jacana at Cinderella Dam. It definitely was not a permanent resident at the dam; it was possibly only just a visiting nomad. They stayed at the top of the dam wall while her cousins scrambled down the slope of the dam wall and made their way to the rock pool.

"What kind of bird is that," she asked, noticing Aaron's sudden interest in the bird.

"It's an African Jacana. It is actually a very unusual kind of bird. The male and female have reversed their roles. The females mate with multiple male breeding partners. The males build the nests, brood the eggs and bring up the chickens. In fact, the female keeps a harem of males to brood and look after her eggs."

Her lips curled into an amused incredulous smile while she watched the Jacana. She kept her arm round Aaron's waist, and turning her head up, she gazed intensely into his eyes:

"I have never heard of a female bird that kept a male harem," she said softly with a puzzled frown on her brow, "it seems so funny."

"I'm not making it up. It is true. It happens in many other animals as well. It is a very interesting kind of reproductive behaviour."

"It is so weird, I never thought that this could happen in nature," she replied. "How many male mates does she have?"

"I think up to five or even as much as seven sometimes. She lays between 3 to 5 eggs I think," he answered. "A reproductive strategy that involves a female mating with multiple males is called polyandry. In polygyny males mate with multiple females.

"What other animals practice polyandry?"

"Quite a few, the naked mole rat is a very good example. They live in large colonies. In these colonies only one female produces offspring and she also mates with multiple male partners."

"Why does it occur?" She asked.

"It is an evolutionary puzzle," he said.

"It's occurrence maybe linked to the kind of habitat or niche that is occupied by the bird. Bird polyandry is most prevalent among shorebirds. The African Jacana is good example of a shorebird. I have been unable to find any theory which explains why polyandry works as reproductive strategy among some species of shorebirds. But it is an interesting fact that this kind of reproductive behaviour occurs primarily among birds that occupy the shoreline as their preferred habitat."

"What about polygyny. Is that not the same as polygamy?" she asked.

"Yes."

"What is better, polyandry or polygyny?" She asked.

It was a funny question. She was serious and he did not want to laugh. He did not want to state bluntly that in nature there was no morality, there no right or wrong. Right and wrong, good and bad belonged only to humans.

"In nature mate desertion is a common occurrence where polygyny happens to be the reproductive strategy, so maybe polyandry is more benign than polygyny."

"Why do you say that?" She asked.

"In many polygynous mammals such as lions and gorillas, a new male can only take over an existing harem of females after he has toppled, driven off or killed the older male. Once the newcomer has succeeded in taking over the harem, the first thing he does would be infanticide. He will kill all the young offspring of the old male that he has usurped."

"What about polyandrous females like the Jacanas, don't they also so do the same if they have displaced a female from her male harem?"

Aaron laughed, Geraldine was sharp.

"Maybe she does. Maybe she will destroy all the nests that belong to the male harem of the female that she wants to usurp. She could drive off the old female and then destroy all the nests and eggs."

"Wow! Can Nature be so crazy, cruel, violent and unfeeling? "

"No, that's a wrong way of looking at Nature. Nature is not really cruel or crazy. Nature may appear unfeeling and indifferent, but it cannot be evil, cruel, or immoral. There is nothing immoral or evil to the suffering that animals experience in Nature. The suffering experienced by animals in the state of Nature is not caused by any kind of moral agency. Within in nature no nonhuman moral agent exists in the form of an animal or insect or fish or reptile or bird that is able to act with cruel, sadistic, evil or irrational intentions. Suffering and cruelty as the consequence of evil actions can only be consciously and intentionally caused by humans. Only man can act in ways that are cruel, immoral and evil. No animal can commit cruel, immoral or evil acts, so in the State of Nature there are no victims of cruel or evil or immoral acts."

"You really think so? If only man can commit evil, cruel and immoral acts then is this because man has left the state of nature. I can see that man no longer exists in a state of nature. Man has definitely left nature; he is not really part of nature like wild birds and animals. Is it possible that Adam and Eve originally lived in a state of nature? This could be the reason why they were perfect and innocent, especially innocent. Could the Garden of Eden represent the state of nature where it was natural for Adam and Eve to be naked among the animals? Could Eden represent the State of Nature, the State of Innocence? What about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, what does that tree represent? What does the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil actually symbolise? Was it really an actual tree that God planted in the Garden to test Adam and Eve's obedience? What about the Tree of Life. There were two trees, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life," she said.

They stood next to each other and looked across the dam. They could hear the rhythmic sounds of the beating drums coming from the Cinderella mine compound.

"What is a moral agent, and what do you mean by something being an agent?" She asked.

"Well, loosely speaking, anything that has the power to act, to cause an effect is an agent. It has agency or possesses agency in a manner of speaking. Many things exercise or are capable of agency by virtue of their capacities or powers. The rain, the ocean tides, wind, the sun, the moon, the stars, birds, insects, disease and the animals, all have agency, they have the power to cause actions that bring about effects. See the yachts out there. The wind has power, it fills the sails and causes the motion of the yachts, so in a manner of speaking, the wind has agency, it possesses the power to act. It can blow a tree down, but the wind does no intentions, it never intended to blow a tree down, it is an unconscious force, it exerts its power without malice or evil intentions. Things like the wind and the rain and animals are all example of non-human agents. The effects that they cause do not have any moral virtues or moral qualities, the effects that are caused by natural non-human agents are neither morally good or morally evil, the effects are just facts of nature and nothing else, so they cannot act as moral agents or be moral agents, their actions are morally neutral, their actions are not motivated by any conscious intentions to do either good or evil. All actions of things or non-human agents, which are not motivated by any conscious intentions do not have any intrinsic moral value; they are neither good nor bad in any ethical or moral sense."

"The wind blows, the rain falls, the river flows, the tide rises, a gust rustles the leaves, in the breeze the reeds sway to and fro. ' _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_?'" She said softly in response to Aaron's description of moral agency while gazing at the sailing yachts.

"Have you ever been on a yacht?" she asked.

"No," he replied.

"They say that Genesis cannot be literally true because it is not compatible with the Theory of Evolution." she said. "What do you think about?"

"I am not convinced that it is as simple as that," he said.

"Why?" She asked.

"I have read all of Darwin's books. The Theory of Evolution is true, but that does not make Genesis false. Genesis is truer than we could ever have imaged, just as you said. It is true because man did once upon a time exist in a State of Nature, but now he does not. Man is no longer innocent. It is as if he had left Eden or became exiled from Eden, banished forever because he has indeed acquired the Knowledge of Good and Evil," he said.

"He cannot go back?"

"No, it is not possible."

"Was it because they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?"

"Yes, in a manner of speaking."

"If man was banished from the State of Nature, where was he banished to? Where is his place of exile?" She asked.

"The World," he answered.

She looked puzzled.

"The World? What do you mean the World?" She asked with her face still perplexed.

"Well they had to be banished to a place of exile and it was not the wilderness, so it had to be a World, in a manner of speaking," he said.

"What is a World? Is a World different to the Earth, different to Planet Earth? The Bible says, do not be conformed to the World. It also says He came into the World. What World has man been banished to? Did a World exist outside the gates of Eden? Could a World have existed outside the gates of Eden before the Fall of Adam? Where would Adam find a World to live in after he left Eden? Surely after Eden he had to live in a World?" She asked

"I don't know; let's call it the World of Man, the symbolic universe that he has made for himself."

"Apart from the weeds, thorns, sweat, toil and pain of childbirth, is it a good place? Can it be a good place to be?" She asked.

"Yes, it has to be. God became incarnate for us in this World, surely God's incarnation not only affirms the intrinsic goodness of the Universe and the Earth but also the inherent value of the World that man has created as a place in which he can exist and live a meaningful existence, the World in itself is not intrinsically evil. The World is not synonymous with a realm of evil, evil is always an intentional act that causes harm and injury, and the World is a place, but a 'place' in itself cannot be evil, only men can be evil through their actions," he said.

"I like that. But the World of Nature does reclaim man eventually," she said.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Man dies; Nature reclaims him, dust to dust," she said.

"I like that," he said.

She smiled.

Her cousins arrived back, interrupting their conversation.

Aaron walked back with them to Reiger Park. Leaving the sand road they cut diagonally across the veld walking in single file along a foot path. To keep up the show that he was a Coloured friend of Geraldine, he walked with them to Geraldine's parent's new house. The house looked exactly like the one in the poster advertisement. It was a neat looking three bedroomed home surrounded by a diamond mesh garden fence. It had a single garage. A number of cars with Durban ND number plates were parked in the driveway and in the road. Kids were running around in the garden playing some kind of game.

After saying goodbye, Aaron walked down the road into the heart of the Coloured Location, in order to give substance to the pretence that he was Geraldine's Coloured school friend, and that he was going home to where he supposedly lived, which was somewhere close to Galeview.

Aaron thought about what she had said. She said his skin was a shade darker than her parent's complexion. He concluded that her parents where whiter than he was.

As he left, he heard someone ask her: "Is Aaron in your class?"

"No, he is in Matric," he heard Geraldine reply.

The dogs in Reiger Park were not fooled; they knew that Aaron was white. As he walked briskly down the street, dogs with fur bristling and saliva spraying barked furiously at him through diamond mesh fences. It seemed that all the dogs in the Coloured Location were barking at Aaron as he walked towards Kalamazoo.

### CHAPTER 10

Except for the street lights, the new suburb of Reiger Park was covered in a blanket of inky darkness. Drommedaris Street which had been freshly tarred was deserted and ghostly silent. Aaron stopped outside Geraldine's aunt's house. A new diamond mesh fence had been erected around the small stand. The neat small three bedroomed face brick house with a black tiled roof house was eerily isolated, which seemed to be a good thing. It was surrounded by half built houses and empty stands. He opened the gate and pushed the bike to the front door. It was one of the very first houses that had been built in the new Reiger Park. Burning lights were the only signs of life in the other completed houses that were scattered widely around her aunt's new home.

His arrival had definitely gone unnoticed, yet his heart was pounding like mad and he felt slightly breathless. He knocked on the door. Geraldine opened the door immediately. She was dressed in a blue sleeveless blouse, short white skirt and flat heeled leather slip on sandals. She had makeup on, eye shadow and lipstick. He had never seen her with makeup before. She didn't need to wear makeup. A mischievous smile filled with intrigue and conspiracy lit up on her face.

"Come in, Sharon is already asleep in bed. It's just us."

Aaron entered the lounge. She quickly closed the door behind him. He felt tense and nervous. She could see the tension in his face.

"It is OK, you can relax, you are safe here in Reiger Park," she laughed as she put her arm around his waist. He hugged her in return and kissed her on her cheek.

He felt like an alien intruder; he had no idea of what kind of sensations, mood and atmosphere he would experience once inside the intimate and private space of a Coloured home without the knowledge of its owners. His eyes darted around the room taking everything in. Not knowing what to expect he was caught by surprise when saw the lounge décor with it arrangement of space, surfaces, lighting, colour, textures, objects and furnishings. To his artistic eye the arrangement of the homely interior revealed the _mise-en-scène_ of an aspiring middle class Coloured family, that had recently created a new home for themselves with its unique and characteristic features, signs and symbols that supposedly represented the essence of Coloured domesticity. It was more than just a newly built house in a brand new Coloured Location, it was someone's special personal place and space and he was a trespasser, and not their invited guest.

No picture, no movie or theatrical scene could have prepared him for the intensely novel corporeal experience he felt as a visitor in his first encounter through sensual contact with the foreignness of someone else's home that was filled with all kinds of familiar things. He saw the structured arrangement of very familiar and ordinary things with fresh eyes, as if he was seeing it for the very first time.

He was surprised to see an elegant and tasteful arrangement of objects and furnishings that imbued the room with an aura of modernity and urbanity that overlapped with the 1950s, and which shared startling similarities to the home décor of his own parents, and also with that of the homes of his friends. He found it difficult to decide whether he was in a Coloured home or not. The essence of middle class Coloured domesticity did not differ much from what he was used to or what he would expect to see in a white home let alone in a Coloured home.

The highly polished external wooden finish of the Pilot Radiogram with it combined radio and record player caught his attention. Its location was prominent against the wall in the gap between two lounge chairs. A baroque sofa was positioned near the front door against the wall by the lounge window which opened onto the small front veranda. Geraldine drew the gold coloured velvety curtains and arranged them so that the drapes fell behind the sofa. The lounge floors were covered with polished wooden parquet tiles. A fringed square carpet filled the space between the two lounge chairs and the sofa. It had floral and bird of paradise motifs.

Aaron's gaze was drawn to three large Vladimir Tretchikoff prints hanging on the lounge walls. Here they were again, the three mysterious Oriental ladies, gracing with their presence yet another wall in a South African home, but this time in a small lounge in Reiger Park. Most art critics in South Africa did not rate Tretchikoff very high. Apparently the critics made Mr Tretchikoff laugh all the way to the bank.

Facing the sofa on the opposite wall was _The Green Lady_ or _The Chinese Girl_ with her red lips, her green or blue tinged face wearing her a bright yellow-gold silk embroidered Chinese jacket or top. He had seen her so many times before, in so many lounges, above so many fire places, she was everywhere, almost omnipresent. She did not even look very Chinese, yet she was obviously Oriental. Why were the prints of this particular Oriental woman so popular? It was one of the most popular prints of an original printing that had ever existed. And here she was again, tonight. She was looking away and seemed to be unaware of Aaron's anomalous presence. She was as anomalous as Aaron. They were both anomalous presences in the lounge. Her lips were bright red, her hair jet black, the colour contrasts were aesthetically staggering.

Aaron had often wondered if anyone had actually seen the original of the green-faced _Chinese Girl_. Maybe the original painting did not exist. On closer inspection her face looked decidedly blue; he concluded that it was definitely not green. He thought that this may have had something to do with the reproduction of the print. Blue or green, it could also have something to do with the light in the room? He could not decide.

Ever since Galileo had by conceptual sleight of hand stripped all external objects of their secondary qualities, like colour, sound, odour, and texture, the crack separating appearance from reality had widen into an unbridgeable yawning chasm.

It was Mr Boris Havenga, Aaron's art teacher at Boksburg High, who made this point about the influence of Galileo on the modern theory of sense perception. He felt that artists and art critics had been too uncritical in so readily accepting this as conventional wisdom. If everyone accepted the conventional wisdom, then many of the properties of external objects such their colour, fragrance and taste did not have an independent reality. They could not existence in the absence of sense perception. It was the senses that brought colour, fragranace and taste into existence. Or was it? Aaron was not sure about the reality of colours. Did the Chinese girl in the picture cease to have a green face, bright red lips and jet black hair in the absence of a viewer?

Mr Boris Havenga has said that Descartes, Locke, Berkley, Hume and even Kant had fallen under the same spell which made people believe that all secondary qualities of external objects such as colour, taste, sound, odour and texture, and even temperature did not belong in some independent sense to these objects, but were manufactured by the brain. Except for the primary attributes of objects such as shape, size and mass, the rest of the external world was believed to be as featureless as an apocalyptic nightmare where only disembodied souls wondered. So whether her face had a greenish or bluish tinge depended only on the viewer's subjective perceptions. In another world _The Chinese Girl_ would be invisible.

Aaron felt himself lapsing into a state of artistic reverie as he gazed at the paintings. External objects did seem to exhibit secondary qualities or properties such as colour, sound, odour and texture. The appearances or qualities or properties that are associated with independently existing external objects have been also called accidents. Does another reality exist behind these accidents or appearances? As a Catholic, Aaron had learnt to believe that the world does not consist only of what anyone can plainly see or perceive with the five senses. He was sure that there was another reality beyond the appearances, beyond the accidents. There was a hidden face to the world. Behind every cause there was always another cause, behind the visible order exists a different invisible ineffable and mysterious order. To the Catholic imagination nothing is what it seems to be. This is the first thing that Catholicism had taught Aaron about reality. Maybe this is why he had become so prone to or rather receptive to Platonism.

But then again he was also becoming aware that there was a possible downside to Platonism, maybe Gillian was right. Platonism also lurked as a disturbing undercurrent in Saint Augustine's _Confessions_ , a book which he had just finished working through in Latin. For Plato and Saint Augustine, the desires and pleasures excited by the five senses of sight, taste, touch, smell and hearing made them mistrustful of the senses. The incarnate carnal body of flesh with its sense organs has always been deeply distrusted by the philosophers, even by Immanuel Kant, because the senses are quick to awaken dormant desires which pave the way for the destruction of the soul. The doors of perception open the external world to the lust of the eyes, to the libidinous gaze, and to the erotic perception through which one discovers the knowledge of good and evil.

_When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate_.

_It was a delight to the eyes_. Through the gratification of the senses we seek and gain empirical knowledge of the world. Is this knowledge inferior, illusionary, because it has been contaminated by the sensuous body? Is this impure knowledge polluted by the sense organs of embodied beings less true compared to the pure uncontaminated knowledge of the heavenly Forms that is only accessible to the mind of the purified soul?

Through the senses we fall prey to desire, to the temptations of sensuous pleasures, to the delights of the eye. Should the body be purified of desire? Surely the Hebraic vision of sensuous reality would say an unequivocal 'no' to a de-eroticized Hellenistic vision of truth. Surely the Incarnation and the Resurrection of the dead shouts a loud No to the de-eroticized Hellenistic vision of truth.

The erotic is an immanent presence, it is felt in every sensory perception, in every sensation. To be in the world is to be erotic, to be is to be erotic. Even our relationship to God is an erotic one. Even prayer is erotic.

He turned to look at the other two Tretchikoff prints. On the adjacent wall, above a display cabinet hung another picture. It was the _Chinese Girl in Blue Jacket._ Looking carefully at the print he became convinced that the woman's face in this particular portrait had a light greenish tinge. She also did not look typically Chinese. He knew that Trechikoff did use actual Chinese models to pose for the portraits of _The Green Lady_ and the _Chinese Girl in Blue Jacket_. Looking more closely he concluded that the goldish brown eyes of the greenish faced Asian woman was neither cold nor warm. She seemed cool and aloof, possibly even indifferent or remote, why? Could it possibly be that the emotions communicated in her facial expressions were hidden behind an Oriental veil that was impenetrable to a Westernized gaze?

On the other wall hung the print of _Miss Wong_. She appeared to be the most accessible.

Geraldine seemed to be amused by Aaron's preoccupation with the portraits.

"Do like the portraits?" She asked.

"Oh yes. I find Tretchikoff's work interesting."

"Tretchikoff?"

"He painted these pictures."

"Oh. I have never really looked at these pictures. They are everywhere. You are the first person I have seen who has actually looked at them."

"Would you like some Oros orange juice?" Geraldine asked.

He looked at Geraldine's face, there were distinct blends of both Caucasian and Oriental elements in her facial features. But her eyes were African. They glowed with the warmth and humanity that can only come from African eyes. Her high cheek bones contained the mysteries of the Orient.

"Yes please."

She disappeared into the kitchen. There was a small bookshelf and display cabinet against the wall adjacent to the Pilot Radiogram. He stepped over to the display cabinet and bent down to look at the books. He was surprised to see Kafka's _Trial_ and Dostoevsky's _Brothers of Karamazov_ stuck in between the Louis L'Amour westerns and the James Hadley Chase detective paper backs. He pulled out the _Trial_. The display cabinet which was filled with medals and trophies for ball room dancing also drew his attention. On top of the cabinet were framed photographs of Sharon as an infant, as a crawling toddler and a recent one of a two to three year old little girl with curly black hair dressed in a white dress. Next to the framed photographs lay an open typed letter.

Aaron picked the letter up thinking it was the letter from the Embassy. Instead, it turned out to be a letter from the Transvaal Non-European Ballroom Dancing Association. It contained the agenda for the next meeting. Pages of the minutes of the previous meeting were stapled to the agenda. He glanced at the minutes. In one of the matters arising there was the issue of having to depend on white judges because there were no properly qualified Non-European judges for adjudicating in Non-European ball room dancing competitions.

When he heard Geraldine coming, he put the letter down and picked up the book.

"Here is your cool drink."

"Thanks. They have won quite a lot awards for dancing," he said.

"O yes, they are the best in the business. I also love dancing. They taught me so much about dancing. My parents are also terrific dancers, well I should say they used be. They never go dancing anymore. I have been very fortunate; I have had the best dance teachers in the world. Do you like dancing, I mean ball room dancing?"

"Well, I don't know, I can't really dance. I don't even know the basics. I know something about music, but when it comes to dancing I am completely ignorant," he said.

"Do you want me to teach you a few steps and some moves? It is really quite easy," she said.

Aaron's first instinct was to find some excuse which would come across much softer than a straight No. But instead he found himself saying: "OK."

He could see she was a bit surprised by such a spontaneous display of interest. He actually surprised himself as well.

She saw the book in his hand she asked: "Is that a good book?"

"Oh yes we also have a copy plus all the others by Kafka. You should read it."

He passed her the book. She opened it, flipped through some pages.

"Looks interesting, I will read it if you think it's good," she said as she put the book down on the top of the cabinet.

"Well, let's see what music we have."

After putting her cool drink down on a side table, she knelt in front of the record player, opened the two cabinet doors at the bottom and began to flip through the record albums.

"Oh, here is some music for the Rumba, the Rumba is really easy to do and it's quite nice, let's start with the Rumba if you like."

"Sounds good to me. I trust your judgment."

She took the LP out of its sleeve and put the vinyl record on the turn table. He looked at the LP cover and read the blurb on the music. The Rumba is a dance full of love, passion, and sensual movements. It originated in Cuba before the 1920s........

"Let's roll up the carpet and move all the side tables out of the way."

The music started and Geraldine gave Aaron a quick demonstration of the basic quick-quick-slow steps with the distinctive rhythmic sensual side-to-side hip motions.

"As I said, it is actually a very simple but also quite a nice dance to start off with, especially for beginners. This is how you start. Stand with both feet together, then step forward with your left foot and sidestep with your right foot like by sliding it about 45o to your right side. Then move your left foot to your right foot. Now step back with your right foot like I am doing now. And then sidestep backwards with your left foot by sliding it at about 45o to your left, see like this. Then move your right foot to your left foot. And there you go, as simple as that. You see the Rumba steps form a box."

He watched her demonstrate the dance steps tracing out the box, and immediately started to feel confident that he could do it. Next she spoke about the music:

"Now listen to the beat of the Rumba music, can you hear it has four beats per bar of music? The basic count is slow, quick, quick for each of the forward three dance steps and for each of the backward three dance steps. You will see, just look at my movements and listen to the beat of the music. So here I go, left foot forward slow, then quick with the right foot, and quick with the left foot, slow the right foot back, and quick slide the left foot back and quick bring the right foot to the left foot."

"It's actually quite a slow dance; the tempo is between 26 to 32 bars per minute. The Rumba also feels wonderful to dance because the tempo for the steps fit perfectly into four beat bars of music. It can also be quite a sensual and seductive dance, especially for the woman partner. To really enjoy dancing the Rumba you must try imagine, act out and feel the mood of the Rumba, which should be sensual and sexy. Imagine that it's a hot Cuban night; you at a beach-front night club; if you listen carefully you can hear the surf the crashing onto the beach. Now, look at your rumba dancing partner, she is the girl that you are in love with, she is dark and beautiful, a mulatto girl with long black hair, the moon has risen over the ocean, the night is silvery, it is romantic, see the palm trees on the beach, the evening air was initially just a tiny bit steamy because of the humidity, but now it is not too uncomfortable, because a slight sea breeze has risen. Just visualize this while you dance and listen to the music, let yourself go!"

He must have had a funny expression on face while she was speaking, because when she finished she burst out laughing.

"This is why I love dancing so much, because you can let your imagination take over," she said.

"Ok let's go together slowly through the basic steps. Come over, now stand in front me, put both of your feet together, you can place your right hand either flat behind on my back or my left shoulder. Okay put your right hand on my shoulder. Now lift your left hand and hold my right hand like this. There we go. Now I must put my left hand flat behind on your back like this. Now we are ready. Don't worry if I nudge you a bit, you will quickly get the hang of it, just let yourself go, now wait for the beat, Okay lets go, left foot forward....."

With a bit of gentle nudging and pushing Aaron soon got the hang of it. He discovered that she was absolutely right, it felt quite wonderful. After a while she commented.

"I am actually quite proud of you. I see you have a good sense of rhythm and you also have picked up the basic steps quite fast. Now I want to show how to move your hips. The sway and hip movements for the Rumba are very simple to do. You need to move your hips from side to side with the motion generating by the bending and straightening of the knees, plus good ankle action. Wait a minute; just let me go for a minute. Watch how my foot, ankle and knee movements create the motion of my hips. See, once the action of foot, ankle and knee movement have been carried out correctly with each step, and then the hips take care of themselves. You can even exaggerate the hip movements; look what I am doing now. Come, let us practice together, there you go, that is so nice. Oh, you have it, I do not believe it, you are really catching on so fast, and you really do have natural rhythm. I can see that are we going to have such great fun together. Wow, we going to turn my aunt's lounge into our own dance club or nightclub or whatever, at this rate," she said, laughing.

The music came to an end. She turned, walked over to their cool drinks, and handed Aaron his glass of Oros.

"Let's sit down."

They sat down on the sofa sipping the Oros orange juice.

"I must play you something. I hope I can find it. It is a lovely _bossa nova_ lyric called _The Girl from Ipanema_. Have you ever heard it? I love it, it is so sweet, so very kinda cute, I think."

"No, I have never heard the song before. What is the _bossa nova_? " Aaron asked.

"The _bossa nova_ is a style of Brazilian music that was started in the 1950s. It evolved as a kind of blend of jazz with the music for the samba. The samba is a Brazilian dance that was invented by poor people living in Rio de Janeiro in shanty towns called _favelas_."

" _Favelas_?" He asked.

"Yes, places that as just like the Indian shanty town, Kalamazoo, where Patel's shop is. I always imagine that the _favelas_ look exactly like that," she explained.

"How do you know all this stuff? I really find it fascinating," he said. Aaron was taken aback with surprise; she seemed to know so much about music and dance.

"Well, you just have to spend one Sunday afternoon here in this lounge listening to my aunt and uncle, they are fanatics about music and dance, they know everything. It was from them that I heard about the samba, the _bossa nova_ music, the _favelas_ and the new song _The Girl from Ipanema_. There is a record here, I must just find it," She answered.

She went over to the radio and searched through the LPs.

"Oh here it is."

She removed the Rumba LP from the turn table and played The Girl from Ipanema. When the music track came to an end she asked Aaron whether he would like to learn some other dances. After mastering the rumba in a fashion, his confidence in his dancing ability had grown so he said yes. Over the next hour she took him on whistle stop dancing tour. He was introduced into the basics of the Cha Cha, Tango, Foxtrot, Mambo, Samba, Jive, Swing and the Waltz. In the process he also learnt about different kinds of dance music that he knew nothing about. He found his head spinning with an information overload.

After packing away the LPs she found a record that made her chuckle:

"Here is something I am sure you can do."

Smiling wickedly to herself she took out an LP from its folder and put on the turn table. Aaron heard the familiar penny whistle sounds of _Kwela Kwela_ that was often blasted from the speakers of the Elephant Trading Store.

Geraldine stood up and starting dancing, doing the intricate rhythmic foot work, and arm movements, and shoulder movement, and hip movements, and leg movements, in fact all of the body movements that he had seen at the Mine Compound and in the Location.

It was a beautiful sight!

"See what I learnt from watching the mine boys dancing outside the Elephant Trading Store. Come join me."

Aaron got up from the sofa and imitating Geraldine's dance movements, he too began moving his shoulders, arms and shuffling his feet as rhythmically as he could. He had grown up watching the mine boys dancing on the veranda of the Elephant Trading Store. Now he too was trying to dance like a mine boy.

"Let yourself go Aaron," she chuckled happily, "imagine that you are a mine boy."

Aaron let himself go. Dancing with Geraldine he felt free, it was the most spontaneous uninhibited act he had ever done in his life trying to imitate the black dancing movements that he had watched for years. He wondered whether this could this really be him? At Geraldine's prompting he had surprised himself. He was doing things that he would never have dreamt of doing. He felt that he had entered a new exciting world. He felt completely uninhibited with Geraldine.

She started to clap her hands at the spectacle and then collapsed while laughing on the sofa, tears running down her cheeks. The clapping and laughter had woken Sharon. She pushed open the door and walked into the lounge.

"What are you doing, when are you coming to bed? I am missing you," she said.

She looked up at Aaron uncomprehendingly. The question, 'Who are you?' was written all over her face. Geraldine did not say anything about Aaron, instead she said:

"Don't worry my little darling; we are going to bed right now."

She winked at Aaron and signalled with her head for him to follow. The passage was dark. She took Sharon back to her room. Geraldine switched on the bedside lamp, pulled back the covers. Sharon hopped onto the bed. Geraldine kicked off her sandals and climbed onto the bed and snuggled up to Sharon and put her arm around the child.

"Please pull the covers over us and put the lamp off. Don't go; just sit down at the end of the bed. This is my typical bed sitting routine. I usually sleep with her until the morning. I don't even hear her Mom and Dad when they come back."

After about 10 minutes Sharon was sound asleep. Slowly and carefully Geraldine extricated herself from the bed and they tip-toed back to the lounge. Geraldine switched on the lamp in the corner and then put the main lounge light off. She packed all the LPs neatly back. And then took out an LP.

"This is Vincenzo Bellini's _Casta Diva_ , I love it."

She adjusted the volume down so that Sharon would not be woken up again and sat down close to Aaron on the sofa. He put his arm around her waist and lifted her legs so that they rested on top of his thighs. She had a gold chain and gold cross round her neck. He lifted the little gold crucifix and examined it. He then looked at her sensual lips.

It is said that the mouth is one of the windows to the soul. Even when eating the mouth is more than an aperture for food. In many cultures, when eating food from a communal plate, the passing of food from one's fingers into one's mouth becomes an intimate act that always needs to be accomplished with grace, poise and elegance. In the Roman Catholic Mass the wafer, the bread, the living Presence, the real body of Christ is received intimately into the open mouth.

They pressed their mouths together, their lips touched, and they began to cautiously kiss each other. It was the first time for Aaron and Geraldine. He had never kissed a girl before. Through their lips it felt as if they were touching each other's very selfhood, touching each other's souls. They embraced tightly and began to kiss each other more passionately. He did not want to stop, nor did she. Afterwards they basked in the afterglow of an incredible experience. They both could feel the mutual and reciprocal flow of loving affection. By embracing and kissing they both knew that they had made themselves deeply vulnerable to each other.

As _Casta Diva_ ended she asked if Aaron ever had a girlfriend before. He answered no, which was the truth.

"You are the first girl I have ever kissed and I have never been with a girl like tonight."

Aaron could see that this pleased her very much. He asked her a similar question: "have you ever had a boyfriend?'

She laughed: "No, of course not. My parents are too strict. You are also the first boy that I have ever kissed and been with like tonight."

"No one knows about us," he said.

To both of them everything felt unreal. They both realized that what was happening to them was something unique, something inconceivable, an experience so improbable that it was unimaginable, an occurrence so improbable that it could only be a miracle. But then again highly improbable events do not happen by sheer chance. They were also aware that had crossed a boundary.

Through their simple innocent act of affectionate intimacy they had secretly defied the rules, expectations, norms and laws which controlled and ordered their world in strict accordance with the dictates of their racial classification. They had intentionally crossed over into the forbidden twilight world of Erotic transgression.

They would no longer be able live out their lives on a path that would remain connected, in unswerving, undisrupted continuity, with the course of their previous lives; the course of their lives, ever since that day he saw her standing on the covered porch of Patel's shop, had changed inexorably.

Their previous lives had come to an end. They would never be the same again after tonight.

Each encounter had brought them closer, as the emotions bonds grew between them, they slowly shed their previous lives, sloughing off the clinging and defining legacy of their past with all its lineaments. The rupture, the discontinuity, between the past and the present had become a gaping gulf. They had changed. They knew that they had left the world that they used to live in.

Aaron thought of Albert Camus's opening paragraphs in _The Rebel_ :

Heathcliff, in Wuthering Heights, would kill everybody on earth in order to possess Cathy, but it would never occur to him to say that murder is reasonable or theoretically defensible. He would commit it, and there his convictions end. This implies the power of love, and also strength of character. Since intense love is rare, murder remains an exception and preserves its aspect of infraction. But as soon as a man, through lack of character, takes refuge in doctrine, as soon as crime reasons about itself, it multiplies like reason itself and assumes all the aspects of the syllogism. Once crime was as solitary as a cry of protest; now it is as universal as science. Yesterday it was put on trial; today it determines the law.

Like Heathcliff he felt that nothing on earth would be able to stop him from possessing and loving Geraldine.

She felt and she knew in her woman's heart that Aaron would never leave her. For Geraldine the only reality that really mattered was Aaron's embrace, his presence and his love, everything else did not matter.

Emboldened by the emotional intensity of the moment Aaron asked her:

"Can we be boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"I would really like that," she answered.

"So are we going out then, like in being steady and all that?" He wanted to make sure she understood what he meant.

"Yes."

They embraced and began to kiss each other. After a while she pulled away and stared closely at his face.

"What?" he asked.

"You know I have been meaning to tell you that I love your name. Aaron suits you. A better name could not have been chosen for you. It's the right name for someone who is an artist, who is both masculine and handsome, and who is also priestly," she said.

"Priestly?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied laughing.

"There is something priestly about you," she said.

"I don't believe it," he replied looking a bit puzzled.

"Yes there is," she said, laughing again.

"You really look uncomfortable about being called priestly, it is actually funny, I didn't mean to tease you," she said.

She looked at him.

She felt intoxicated, exhilarated, alive, relieved, everything all at once. But she felt especially relieved. She was now in the relationship with Aaron that she had so earnestly desired. She wanted the mutual commitment that they had made to each other. She was iridescent with elation. She loved Aaron deeply, in fact she adored him. Now he belonged to her and she belonged to him, it was like a dream that had come true. 'Thank you Lord,' she subvocalized in a prayer of thanks for the gift of love that God had provided. It felt like a miracle had happened in her life. God had answered her prayers. She prayed every day for this moment. From the day she first saw Aaron she had prayed that he would be given to her, for her to have as her own. She had asked God for the impossible. Prayer is always about the impossible. Why pray about the possible, especially when the possible lives in the realm of the attainable?

"How are we going to do this? It is not as if we can simply be together any time we wish?" She asked with a frown of concern.

Aaron did not answer her immediately. He thought for a while and arrived at an idea.

"At the end of Drommedaris near Middel Road there is a tall blue gum tree. It must be more than sixty years old. I will drill a hole in the trunk at chest height. I can drill it so that it is half inch wide and about three inches deep. We can communicate all the time by writing messages on paper. You can roll the paper up and then stick it into the hole. In this way we can also arrange to meet like we did tonight for example."

"I do a lot of babysitting for my aunt and uncle, at least twice a month. They will soon be qualified judges for ball room dancing so they will be going to a lot of dance functions. We can meet like this. It is a pity my parents don't go to Mass any more at St Dominic's."

"I'm sure we can see each quite often here at my Aunt's home. I am so glad you enjoy dancing. It was important to me, but I had a strong feeling that you would like dancing. We can listen to music. We can dance. We can practice. It was such fun tonight. I have not enjoyed myself like this for ages. In fact I have never ever enjoyed myself so much. You are not so bad at dancing yourself. I am good teacher don't think," she said.

"I can also still see you every Saturday at the tree in the veld. We can meet there as well," he said.

It was already 11.30 pm. It was time to go. Aaron took his leave. He pushed the bike through the garden gate. As he closed the garden gate he saw the curtains move. The lounge light was still switched on. Geraldine stood framed in the window waving. Aaron waved back. He then climbed on the bike and rode off. Under a street light a Cape Eagle Owl sat in the middle of road, it flew off silently as he peddled his bike towards it. A bat circled briefly under the street light lamp and then vanished into the dark. Another bat flew low across the road in front of him. Even though autumn had arrived, it did not seem to matter. The creatures of night were out and about. It was an unusually warm night. Warm enough for the crickets to chirp and for the frogs to croak. Nearby in the dark a pair of dikkops whistled to each other.

In the distance somewhere in the location a dog barked.

Faint sounds of forlorn singing and beating drums came from the congregation of a Zion Christian Church that had assembled under one of the blue gum tree on the shores of Cinderella Dam. He had often heard singing and drumming going on non-stop throughout an entire night.

He stopped and listened to the singing and drumming of the Zionists for a while.

As he rode down Middel Road, he saw the headlights of an approaching car. It was a blue Zephyr, a man driving, a woman sitting close to him in the front passenger seat. The man wore a tuxedo.

After having a quick shower, he brushed his teeth and he climbed into bed. He tossed and turned, he could not sleep. He turned on his back, eyes wide open he stared in the dark at the ceiling. "Why do I love her so much?" In his mind he tried to answer that question. He could not find an answer.

"I love her so much. I love her for every possible reason that I can think of. I love everything about her. I love her smile, her voice, her personality, her humour and wit, her mind, her black skin, her black hair, her black eyes, her hands, her arms, her legs, her feet, her eyes, her breasts, her hips, her thighs. I love everything about her because they are hers. What a strange thought. I love her because she is who she is and what she is. I love her deeply because she has allowed herself be mine to love."

Before sunrise Aaron got up and began to write a love letter to Geraldine. It turned out to be a long love letter in which he elaborated in detail on the depth of his love for her. As the sun rose on that Sunday morning Aaron returned on his bike to the blue gum tree. He used a hand drill to bore a hole into the tree at breast height. When he had finished he rolled up the love letter in a thin tube and pushed it into the freshly bored hole.

He then pedalled down to the beach. The ZCC church congregation who had been singing and beating their drums all night had disappeared.

In the stillness of the early morning he stood on the beach. He yearned to see Geraldine. He yearned for her presence.

Later that morning after Mass, Geraldine slipped away and made her way to the blue gum tree. It took all her self-control not to start running towards the tree. At the tree she checked to see if the coast was clear. With no one in sight she went behind the tree and quickly spotted the freshly bored hole. She pulled the tube of paper from the hole and unrolled it.

Standing out of sight behind the huge tree trunk she read and re-read the love letter.

At the end of each sentence the incredible pleasure that the words stirred in her forced her to whisper: "Oh Aaron my love I feel the same for you!"

Never in her sixteen years of life had she felt so overwhelmed with such a heady sense of pleasure and happiness.

"It feels so good, so good, so good, so amazing, I am in love, I am in love," she said to herself as she walked back home.

The feelings that were raging through him were also new and powerful. He had never felt so wonderful in all his life. He also realized that he could not bear to live without her. He could not imagine his life without her. How can this happen to anyone? He had no control over his feelings for her. They had enslaved him, they taken possession of him. He was completely given over to her. He started to reflect on the feelings of love for Geraldine that overwhelmed him.

He sunk into deep thought.

This kind of passionate love for someone, this earthly Eros, is a form of worship. This adoration for someone, this intense feeling of love and desire for someone, which seems to fill my entire being, could it also be a kind of idolatry, because it becomes so close to divine worship, divine adoration. Does this worship and adoration for another person compete with one's love, adoration and worship of God in such a way that it is idolatrous? But the second command clearly commands us to love persons other than God. God commands us to love others, to love our neighbour, whoever our neighbour may be.

Can anyone be commanded to love? It is impossible to be obedient to this commandment. How can love for others be fulfilled as an act of obedience to God? How can we feel any form of love for our neighbours especially as an act of obedience to a divine command? This is an impossible feat to be expected of mankind. But God has made quite explicit the form of love that we need to express in a concrete way towards our neighbours. We are commanded by God to love others as we love ourselves, and this profound love, which is performed as an act of obedience to God does not count as idolatry, because the very act of obedience to the second commandment fulfills the first commandment, because any act of disobedience to God is a form of idolatry. So not loving our neighbour as ourselves is to commit an act of idolatry against God.

All sin is a form of idolatry. All sin is a transgression against our neighbours, and in that respect, always also against God. All sin is ultimately an expression of contempt for God and contempt for God is an act of idolatry.

It is impossible to have a right relationship with God. It is impossible to be _in a right relationship_ to God. It is impossible not to sin against God, it is impossible not show contempt for God, it is impossible not to commit idolatry. It is impossible to keep the Law.

Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.

Our relationship with God is plagued with contradictions, tensions, misgivings, paradoxes, doubts, riddles, perplexities, rebellion, antagonism, superstition, guilt, enmity, and ultimately with idolatry. Idolatry is inescapable. The condition of idolatry is the state of the religious man. We live in a state of continuous and chronic idolatry. Man's relationship God is intrinsically and inescapably dysfunctional. Religion is inevitably idolatrous and violent and repressive and false, precisely because it is based on a dysfunctional relationship with God. So, blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven.

He begun to think aloud, subvocalizing silently in his mind.

My name is Aaron. I am named after the brother of Moses. I am named after a man who was a creator of idols, of graven images. I am named after an idol worshiper, an artist who made the golden calf. I am Aaron. Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven.

He thought about what she had said about his name. _Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him_.

He said softly to himself, 'My name is Aaron.'

In the days that followed the balance and order of his life began to change. He became increasingly indifferent to everything that had previously defined him as a white South African. He began to relinquish those bonds, detaching himself mentally from everything that bound him to that world.

He began to think his own thoughts, articulate his own perceptions, discover what he believed in, and recognize what was true. He started to perceive the world differently, and he began to recognize a new reality.

This love of one's own, _ons eie_ , was something that Aaron had always found absurd, repugnant and nauseating. To be swallowed up in the dark pit of racial solidarity was the most extreme form of estrangement and alienation from being truly human.

To be in love with a black person and to feel the love of that black person was like discovering what it was like to be a normal human being instead of being merely white. To be liberated from the prison of one's own whitehood was like finding a way to breathe again, a way to be alive again. To be phenotypically white, white only in appearance was bearable, possibly even liberating if it was experienced as something purely biological and nothing more than that; but to be white in the form of a binding, stifling, suffocating ethnic membership was to be in enslaved to a state of mindless zombifying bondage.

Everywhere there were signs reminding him that he was white and privileged. Whites Only, Whites Only, Whites Only, Whites Only. Everywhere the signs defined who he was, what he was and ultimately what was expected of him as a white person. He was a white. Legally he was white. Socially he was white. Economically he was white. Politically he was white. Psychologically he was white.

If only he could give up being white in the South African imposed manner, and be simply human instead, then he would not feel so alienated. If only he could escape this awareness of all the negative aspects of being white and feel simply human among humans, then he would feel like a normal person. If only he could shed this constant conspicuous self-awareness of being white in the world, then a great mental burden will have been lifted. If only he could get over the disturbing, irritating, annoying, emotionally draining self-consciousness of being white in the world, then he would be truly free.

While thinking along these lines he became increasingly aware that there were other ways of being white. This would become his journey of discovery. He made a commitment to embark on this journey. He told himself that it would be a disciplined exercise, almost like the one that Descartes undertook in his meditations. He would systematically work at stripping away the perceptions and preconceptions that had shaped the way the world appeared to the socially conditioned gaze of the average white person. He would systematically strip away all preconceptions about the nature of both blacks and whites that he inherited. It would cast doubt on every one of them.

He would train himself to look at the world through the eyes of the philosopher and through the eyes of the scientist. He would let Reason be his guide in all his judgements. At the end of this process he would cease to be white or black. He would transcend the unreflective mode of being in the world. He would become free, he would become liberated. He would be an individual who thinks for himself and judges all things for himself. He would live the life of the philosopher; he would live the life of the mind. Reason will be his guide. He will train himself to question everything. He will accept no claims on any matter that can be shown to be based on nothing more substantial than on habit, tradition, conditioning, indoctrination, brain washing, suggestion, convention, authority, belief or opinion.

He felt emotionally re-invigorated after making this commitment. He also felt restless. He felt the need to go on a long bicycle ride which would be an activity conducive for his mind to mull untrammelled and undistractedly through everything that he needed to think about with regard to the new life that he was about to embark on.

### CHAPTER 11

Max had built perches for the fowls to roost on in the double garage. But there was insufficient perching room to accommodate all the fowls. At night the fowls roosted wherever they could find a perch. Supplying food was even a greater problem. To solve this problem Max managed to organize a steady supply of waste food from the Mine Compounds to feed the chickens. The fowls thrived on the waste food from the Compounds. When they reached six weeks they began to slaughter and pluck the chickens. The Finnegan's lived on a daily ration of fried chicken, roasted chicken, cold chicken with salad, various chicken pies, curry chicken and rice, chicken ala king, chicken soup. Eventually they could not face another meal with chicken. They began to give chickens away to friends and strangers, dead or alive, just to get rid of them. Their long suffering neighbours were at their wits end, the interminable noise of the chickens had reached an intolerable crescendo.

And then the hens began to lay eggs in every imaginable place. Freshly laid eggs were found in every conceivable and inconceivable place. Eggs appeared not only in the garage, but everywhere, in the garden, on the veranda, in the scullery and several times in the entrance hall in the cat basket under the telephone table. Some nests were never located and hens began to appear with clutches of chickens in tow. As fast as the Finnegan family gave away chickens, hens began to re-appear out of nowhere with fresh clutches of chickens.

One night at supper, while discussing how to solve the chicken population explosion problem, Aaron proposed that they could dispose of all the chickens by selling them cheaply in the Location. So that's how the Finnegans started selling chickens in Stirtonville Location. Max and Aaron removed the back passenger seats from the old blue VW Combi. Max constructed some makeshift wire cages for the chickens. At night Aaron caught them while they were roosting and packed them into the wire cages.

So by pure accident they started selling boiler chickens in the Location.

Rachel's willingness to assist in the selling of the chickens surprised Aaron. In spite of all her pretensions to be quite a posh person, she showed another gritty and determined side to her nature as they set out on their first excursion one late Friday afternoon into Stirtonville Location in the Combi loaded with chickens. Neither Aaron nor Rachel had any idea of what they could expect.

On their short journey to the Location Rachel drove the Combi down Commissioner Street in an easterly direction. At the robots she turned right into Rissik Street; driving past the Police Station she followed the road until they reached Middel Road. She turned right into Middel Road and drove across the level crossing of the ERPM railway line, proceeding southwards towards Cinderella Dam. They had decided on this route so that they could enter the Location through the 'back door' as it were via a deserted sand road. Rachel began to ramble on about some trouble or other with the Natives in many Locations in the PWV region over the pass laws. She saw the worry grow on Aaron's face. She then said that she was actually more worried about them being intercepted by the police in the Location. Furthermore, she was not sure whether it was legal to sell chickens in a Native Location without a permit or without any kind of official authorization. So Aaron began worry even more about the wisdom of what they were planning to do.

Two large slimes dams formed the southern boundary of Stirtonville. Falling within this southern boundary was the Old Reiger Park where most of the Coloureds lived. Galeview with its small two bedroom homes and small backyards fell within the Old Reiger Park. Most of the Coloureds lived in Galeview. Galeview was quite a rough neighbourhood. A large part of the old or original Native Location occupied the region west of Galeview, between the slimes dams and the Elsburg Road. Another residential area in which many Coloureds lived became known as Jerusalem. Jerusalem consisted of small houses built on top of each other. On the western flank of the Jerusalem settlement was the single quarter housing complex occupied mainly by Natives. In the old days this entire area was originally called Stirtonville Location. Ramsammy Road and a strip of veld formed the northern boundary of the Galeview housing complex within the Old Reiger Park. Location Road connected the Old Reiger Park and Ramsammy road to the old Elsburg Road which ran past the Elephant Trading Store which the Finnegans co-owned with the Whiteheads and Nobles.

The Elsburg road ended at a T-junction with Commissioner Street which historically was one of the first main streets of Boksburg. It ran through the Boksburg CBD in an east to west direction.

When they drove into the Location on that very first afternoon, they found the streets crowded with people returning home from work. Rachel decided to stop at the corner of Vilakazi and Mabuya Street in the Native section of the Location. Their arrival was completely unexpected. Everyone stared at the Combi parked at the street corner. Aaron climbed out of the cab and slid the passenger door open. Standing in front of the opened door he began to shout:

"Chickens for sale, very cheap price, chickens for sale, very cheap."

Rachel did not get out of the cab. She remained sitting stiffly in the cab, her hands clenched tightly on the steering wheel, her face tense.

Very soon a curious crowd began to mill around the Combi. There was quite a bit of pushing, jostling and shoving as bystanders pressed forward to get a glimpse of the chickens that had been packed into the Combi. Everybody was speaking at once.

Standing in the crowd Aaron noticed a tall dignified old man with grey hair and twinkling eyes. Their eyes met. He must have noticed the perplexity and desperation written on Aaron's face. He stepped forward, pushed through the crowd until he stood in front of Aaron. He introduced himself:

"I am Wellington. I can see you need help."

He must have felt sorry for Aaron. He asked what price they were asking for the chickens. Aaron replied that he did not know what price should be charged. He could see that this admission astonished Wellington. Aaron told him that they had discussed possible prices, but now he had doubts on what to ask.

The curious onlookers crowding around Combi listened attentively with amused smiles on their faces to the exchange of words that took place between Wellington and Aaron.

"How can you come into the Location to sell chickens without been sure about the price?" He asked looking incredulously at Aaron.

Wellington then suggested a price which seemed to be OK to Aaron.

It was a tiny bit less than what he had in mind. But he acquiesced to the price that Wellington had suggested. With the price settled he began to help Aaron sell the chickens. He practically took over. Aaron promised that he could take a few chickens as payment for helping him.

With the price being cheap, business was brisk. Within an hour there where only four chickens left and Aaron decided that he would give them to Wellington as payment for his assistance.

Aaron glanced at his wrist watch; it was already half-past five.

"We have sold everything," he called out to Rachel. She climbed out the cab and walked round to where Aaron and Wellington were standing.

In the last dying moments of the day the grey wispy clouds of the winter skies turned from purple, crimson and magenta to silver and gold as the sun began its rapid descent. A diffuse orange yellow red haze glowed suddenly across the western horizon like a wild veld fire that was blazing out of control.

Aaron's pockets were bulging with money. Wellington's pockets were also bulging with money. He emptied the cash into Aaron's cupped hands. The few people still standing around began to drift away into the smoke filled gloom of the Location. Twilight had faded quickly into night and as darkness started to envelop the location the low pressure sodium vapour streets lamps began to flicker and blink. Smoke spewing from hundreds of coal stoves filled the streets with smog. Row upon row of street lamps illuminated the location with glowing cones of yellowish light. Moths attracted to the light began to flitter around the street lamps in endless spirals, crashing repeatedly into the lamps. Head lights of passing cars transformed the people walking home into a parade of giant shadows.

Aaron introduced Rachel to Wellington. He extended his hand and she shook it. Some of the crowd where still lingering about holding their chickens talking and laughing, they seemed to be in no hurry to go home.

It was getting late. Both Rachel and Aaron were beginning to feel a bit anxious and wanted to leave the Location. Aaron gave Wellington the four remaining chickens as payment for his help.

"Are you coming again?" Wellington asked.

"Yes, definitely, we will be here again next week," Aaron answered, and Rachel nodded her head.

After bidding Wellington farewell they climbed back into the cab.

As Rachel started the car, a number of youngsters jumped onto the back bumper and clung to the little gutter around the perimeter of the Combi's roof. Rachel engaged the gears, released the clutch and made a U-turn in Vilakazi Street. She drove slowly down the street obviously worried about injuring the youngsters riding on the back bumper. They shouted gleefully, whistled and waved as Rachel drove through the streets of Stirtonville Location. People in their yards laughed as they drove past. Rachel gradually increased the speed of the vehicle and eventually they jumped off and ran laughing behind the Combi until they could no longer keep up. Aaron and Rachel both felt relieved and elated as they turned into Middel Road. Their first excursion into Stirtonville Location had been an adrenaline charged hair rising and nerve wracking experience. But it had also been surprisingly successful, thanks to Wellington. After supper Aaron poured out the cash into pile on the kitchen table. It looked impressive. The Finnegans were now in the chicken business.

Over the next few weeks they made frequent successive trips into Stirtonville. Each time Wellington would pitch up to help. Gradually they grew accustomed to the sights, sounds and rhythms of the Native section of the Location. Random dogs still stormed out of the yards barking furiously at the Combi, with hair raised, white fangs snapping, and saliva spraying.

Crowds of workers streamed past the parked VW Combi, talking loudly to one another as they walked home.

Everywhere the streets buzzed, hummed, and bubbled with the sounds of talking, singing, and laughter. Bits and snatches of conversation drifted through the air.

" _Ngokubona kwami_ ". " _Ngifane ngakwenza ukuze ngikujabulise_." " _Uma-nje ngangazile_." " _Ngikhathele_." " _Lalela_." " _Usho ukuthini_."

Workers returning home after a day's hard work, walked in the road together joyfully singing:

" _uJesu uyinkosi, uJesu uyinkosi, uJesu uyinkosi, uyinkosi yamakosi, uJesu unamandla, uJesu unamandla, uJesu unamandla, uyiNkosi yamakosi_ , "

Children playing games in the street screamed excitedly to each other. Donkeys, goats and sheep wondered aimlessly into the roads. A black and white coloured cow chewing the cud blocked their way. Rachel blew the hooter. It stared at them with its uncomprehending bovine eyes. In the match box houses fires were being lit and plumes of grey-white smoke billowed from countless chimneys.

One evening, after the last chicken was sold Rachel and Aaron fell into a long discussion with Wellington. They were surprised to discover that he had been working at ERPM for more than forty years.

"I started working at New Comet Mine when I was eighteen. When that mine closed down I went to Angelo. I stayed in a little corrugated iron shack in the Indian shanty town near Hercules Shaft, you know the place they call Kalamazoo. In those days Whites, Blacks, Indians, Coloureds and even Chinese people all lived together in Kalamazoo. Some white men had taken black wives. In those days many white men fell in love with black native women, with coloured women and with Indian women. It didn't matter, no one cared. People were happy. There were lots of shebeens. No, I can tell you everyone was happy. There were no problems. Kalamazoo was a nice place. Aaahhh it was such a nice place in those days. I also have such good memories of the life in the Location here at Stirtonville. Life was hard. But we were happy. There were no problems. Everyone was so happy. At night you could hear music everywhere. The people loved to dance. They danced all the time. Everyone was happy, even though times were very tough and life was hard. Yes life was very hard. It was long before the big strike in 1922. I worked everywhere, at Angelo, Cinderella, Hercules, South East Vertical, and Central Vertical Shaft. I did not go underground; I worked on jobs at the surface. I also worked at the workshops. My best job was at the stores. I learnt many different jobs on ERPM. I even worked as a clerk at the Central Compound. In 1932 I moved to Stirtonville Location. We have been staying in the same house since 1932. It is my house, but now I must move to Vosloorus. I have to give up my house. It is not easy. Life is hard. I don't know what is going to happen to me and my wife," Wellington said.

Rachel offered him a lift home. They all crammed into the Combi's cab and drove to his home at 47 Dube Street. Rachel always felt uneasy when nightfall descended over the Location. Brooding silhouettes in the streets caused her to imagine that the most dangerous time of day had arrived. In the dark, every shadow appeared ominous to her as she drove the Combi down the dusty smog veiled streets of Stirtonville.

Every fleeting shadow perceived by the anxious wary eye of a white person travelling after nightfall in a Native Location becomes instantly transmuted in the mind of that white person into something menacing, feeding the excited senses with fearful premonitions.

As images embodying all kinds of threatening dangers forced themselves into her imagination, Rachel asked Wellington if there were many _tsotsis_ in the Location.

He burst out laughing.

"No there are no _tsotsis_ in Stirtonville. A white person is completely safe in the Location even at night. The madam has been here in the Location so many times without having any problems. A white person can walk safely late at night in Stirtonville and nothing will happen to him, madam has seen how friendly the people are in Stirtonville Location, you have nothing to fear."

He continued to laugh heartily. Aaron decided to talk about the incidents that he had experienced as a youngster at Cinderella Dam:

"When I was still in standard five there were gangs of Coloured teenagers that came down to the beach at Cinderella Dam. They gave us a hard time. They stole my shoes while we were swimming. They would crowd around us and ask for money and cigarettes. They had flick knives, sticks and _ketties_. They even shot one of my friends on his elbow at point blank range with a _kettie_."

Wellington started laughing again

"The Coloureds are different. Even I am scared of the Coloureds. There a lot of skelms among the Coloureds in Stirtonville. "

Rachel got a concerned look on her face

"You never every told me about this. You said you had lost your shoes. I knew that there was something wrong, and that you were not telling me the whole truth. Why don't you trust me, have I ever bitten your head off over anything? We have never punished you. All we want from you is to tell us the truth and don't keep secrets about things we need to know as parents. I can't understand it but you can be such a dark horse. "

Wellington burst out laughed as Rachel reprimanded Aaron in front of him.

"Aahh Madame Rachel I tell you all young people are the same. You can never ever know what they are up to. It is the same everywhere. Young people, they never think, they just act. They never listen to their parents. Everywhere it is the same."

They stopped outside Wellington's tiny matchbox house. Flickering candles and paraffin lamps became visible in the tiny houses. Blue flames of primus stoves glowed in the dark. The aromas of cooked pap and spicy foods filled the night air. They could hear the sounds of _Marabi_ music; it was coming from the house on the corner. Richly textured and rhythmic syncopating sounds filled the air.

"That house is a shebeen. Those men dancing with the women are mine boys. Those women are no good. They are bad women."

Towards the end of autumn it quickly turned chilly soon after the sun had set. In the Location everywhere _konkas_ would be lit to keep warm and to cook food. Women even walked briskly in their yards or across streets carrying flaming and glowing _konkas_ on their heads

With all the chickens having been sold, the Finnegan household settled down to normality.

As was their custom after supper the close-knit Finnegan family sat around the kitchen table drinking tea. Just before 7.00 pm, Max out of habit would turn on the transistor radio which was kept in the kitchen. Every evening they would listen to the familiar Peter Stuyvesant cigarette radio commercial just before the news. After the commercial everybody had to keep quiet while Max and Hillary listened to The World at Seven PM.

After the news they listened to the science fiction serial called _No Place To Hide_. The heroes were Mark Saxon and Sergei. Sergei had a pistol called _Petruszhka_. Hillary thought the serial was stupid, but she never missed an episode. Max and Rachel both listened with half an ear as they read the Star and the Rand Daily Mail. After supper, Emily the maid, cleared up the table and washed the dishes. Rachel usually asked her to make a pot of tea before she retired to her room for the night.

### CHAPTER 12

Aaron was in two minds about what to do. On the way to school he stopped at the Bowling Greens in Commissioner Street. After a minute's contemplation he took the right turn into Middel Road and rode towards Cinderella Dam. He had decided to skip school. It was snowing in Boksburg, and that seemed to be a good enough reason to skip school. At the level crossing for the ERPM railway line for no good reason he stopped again. Everything around him seemed so 'unobvious' that it was actually quite alarming rather than just puzzling or strange or even unfamiliar. Unobvious rather was the word that sprung into his mind.

Transfixed, Aaron stood next to his bike at the level crossing gazing at the white shrouded landscape. It seemed so unreal. What could be more real right at this moment than the sublime beauty of this icy white vista, which by tomorrow would have vanished forever?

By some unconscious process working behind the back of his conscious awareness the phrase ' _petitio principia'_ sprung into his mind. This morning, if he had gone to school, after the first bell had rung, his first two periods would have been Latin. Today he would be missing two periods of Latin. In the last Latin lesson the phrase _petitio principia_ had cropped up. The Latin teacher Mrs Dickerson had spoken at length with great enthusiasm about the meaning of this phrase to a bored and inattentive class.

It meant assuming as correct and truthful the very thing that you would want to prove as correct and truthful. She said that all philosophy was fatally infected with this flaw. It also meant begging the question, circular arguments, or circular reasoning. It involved the logical fallacy of making the conclusion one of the premises in an argument. Hillary always spoke about the vicious circles that had plagued the entire history of philosophical endeavour. She said that even reason was fatally infected with this logical virus. The philosophic disease of circular argumentation was incurable. Everyone assumed or presupposed the very thing they wish to prove.

Couldn't there also be virtuous circles in reasoning, virtuous because God's existence was the condition of all possibilities, including knowledge, certitude, and meaning? Surely this must be the answer. If the Universe is comprehensible then there must be an answer, an answer that includes the purpose and meaning of life.

Otherwise, what then would be the ultimate source, the unshakeable foundation, the invincible criteria for any possible certitude regarding the true nature of the Universe and the true meaning of our lives in this Universe, if we cannot find this certainty in sense perception, in logic, in mathematics, in deductive reasoning, in inductive arguments? Maybe the Universe has been designed so that through logic, mathematics, deductive and inductive reasoning certainty could be attained; maybe this is the answer to everything. Maybe we can and should trust our senses. These were the kind of thoughts that occupied Aarons mind; thoughts which Gillian like a Diotima personage had planted in his mind over several summers in conversations that always seemed to verge on the erotic.

While ruminating on this question Aaron noticed a Black Shouldered Kite sitting all stiff and puffed up because of the cold on the top of a nearby wooden telephone pole. The snow had started to fall again. He turned around and caught sight of a man dressed in a black overcoat cycling slowly towards the level crossing. He was also wearing a bowler hat which caught Aaron's attention. The hat looked very conspicuous; actually its appearance on the man's head was incongruous with everything.

The hat seemed to be definitely out of place. It made him think of Charlie Chaplin on a bicycle. The man wearing the hat braked his bicycle sharply when he noticed Aaron. He stopped at the level crossing next to Aaron. Aaron caught a glimpse of his white clerical collar and a large silver Celtic crucifix fixed to chain hanging on his chest. The Priest was dressed in shiny black shoes, black socks, black pants, a thick navy blue jersey, black jacket and some kind of coat. There was also a large black leather bag strapped to the back carrier.

In a very posh English accent he asked: "Is this the road to Stirtonville Township?"

Aaron answered: "Yes it is the road to Stirtonville Location."

He used the word so easily, it simply rolled spontaneously off his tongue, he had used it subconsciously because the word 'Township' did not have the same powerful connotations or ironic ring as the noun Location. In Boksburg no one ever used the word township in the same way that he had. It was always 'Location.' Natives stayed in Locations and whites lived in villages or suburbs, and maybe townships. Until he met Geraldine he had never thought much about the pregnant sense of the word 'Location', he had always taken the ostensive meaning of the word for granted until Geraldine used it. Location is the place where 'non-white' people lived. Horses live in stables, cattle live in kraals, pigs live in pigsty's and 'non-whites' live in Locations. Geraldine had said that she too lived in a Location, and that changed everything. However the word Location would have sounded quite odd coming from the mouth of this stranger with his posh overseas English accent.

Snow continued to fall as the two of them stood next to their bicycles at the level crossing. It increased in intensity. Snowflakes accumulated on the Priest's shoulders, on his coat sleeves, on the rim and on the crown of his strange looking bowler hat.

In the distance Aaron could hear the faint chuff-chuff of an approaching steam locomotive. It was coming from South East Vertical Shaft.

He turned his head and saw the black and green ERPM steam locomotive No 6 appearing from behind Cinderella Mine Dump at the bend next to the Cinderella Deep Vertical Shaft. As it drew nearer to the level crossing, the driver began to pull the chain of the steam whistle. Seeing the pair standing to close to the level crossing he jerked the chain several times. A series of loud, shrill, long single-note whistles pierced the frozen morning air. Great white puffs of condensed steam escaped from the whistle orifice each time he yanked the chain. A mixture of extremely hot exhaust steam and blue flue gases blasted from the locomotive stack, expanding rapidly into a huge swirling and billowing whitish-grey cloud of smoke.

They heeded the warning and moved back a few meters from the level crossing and watched in silence as the locomotive approached. As the speeding locomotive passed over the level crossing a few meters away from them the chuff-chuff sounds of the steam engine exploded into a roar as steam escaped violently from the cylinders with each revolution of the rapidly shunting pistons. They both caught a glimpse of a huge muscular bare chested man shovelling coal into the red hot fire box. His face and body glistening with sweat as he fed the ferocious furnace. The driver was wearing black overalls and cap; he seemed to be hovering over brake levers, crank handles, switches handles, valve handles, pump handles, temperature gauges, and pressure gauges. They waited as the trucks laden with broken ore swept past. Eventually the clickety-clacking racket of the ore trucks faded away as the train disappeared past Hercules Vertical Shaft on its ways to the crushing station at the gold refinery next to the toxic lake that was called Angelo Pan.

Aaron knew that the ore had been recovered during the night shift at South East Vertical Shaft. Late yesterday afternoon sticks of dynamic would have been placed in holes drilled into the gold bearing conglomerate reefs that lined the stopes which dipped several thousand meters below the surface. During the night hundreds of tons of broken ore had been hoisted, skip load after skip load up the vertical shaft to the surface. Throughout the night the smashing and crashing sounds of ore being tipped from the skips into chutes, then from the chutes into the train trucks, would have echoed in the frozen darkness across Cinderella Dam.

At that very moment while Aaron and the Priest stood near the level crossing the night shift teams of mine boys were probably now trudging wearily back in the snow to Cinderella Compound. The day shift was probably already busy drilling with jack hammers at the stopes. ERPM never sleeps. The night shift had probably been working throughout the night on more than a dozen stopes. They would have been oblivious of the fact that it was snowing at the surface.

The Black Shouldered Kite spread its wings, flapping them stiffly in the frosty air. Looking at the Priest, Aaron wondered to himself what had driven a stranger, a complete foreigner to be peddling down this forlorn stretch of road so early in the morning. A thought flashed through Aaron's mind: 'To this stranger I am a native or at least some kind of a native.'

Both foreigner and native had found themselves thrown together into the most exotic setting imaginable on Middel Road in the middle of nowhere. The Priest's disconnected and dislocated presence heighted the sense of unreality that Aaron was experiencing. Everything felt so outlandish and out of place. He began to feel mildly intoxicated. Could he be dreaming all of this? Then again does it really matter or change anything if this was actually a dream that he was dreaming. He could still feel the cold chill in the air, dream or no dream. Even if everything appears to be so vivid, so life like, so comprehensible and therefore so reasonable and rational, it still does not matter, nothing had changed; it could still be a dream. A dream in which time no longer exists because everything happens at once and not in any ordered sequence of events.

Aaron's curiosity about the Priest's business increased. The Priest looked at Aaron with a puzzled expression on his face.

"I am Jonathan Blakemore, actually Rev Blakemore".

"I am Aaron Finnegan".

"Why do you want to go Stirtonville?"

Why would anyone want to go to Stirtonville Location on a morning like this, especially when Stirtonville would soon cease to exist?

As Rachel had once remarked, Stirtonville was a place defined by invisible boundaries, it occupied a hidden space, was inhabited by concealed communities, existing only at the margins of the cities and towns they served, a transient people who were about to vanish. How could a foreign Priest on a bicycle in a snow enveloped landscape possibly fit into this complex ordering of people, time, space and things? To the ordinary plain man in the street, all of this, the picture of the Priest on the bicycle at the level crossing with the snow falling, on the road to Stirtonville, when taken purely at face value, would on outward appearances look like something that was completely incomprehensible, completely bizarre. It would be like walking into a cinema theatre in the middle of a Charlie Chaplin movie and not being able to make sense of the plot.

"I am an Anglican priest from England. I am a new member of the Community of the Resurrection at St Peters Priory in Rosettenville. I am a member of a group of brothers who are Anglican missionaries. Today I am looking for Anglicans."

On a day like this he was looking for Anglicans. He was looking for Anglicans in the most desolate landscape that any missionary could imagine. Aaron marvelled. Never in his life had he felt such a pregnant sense of the presence of God. He felt convinced that he had actually perceived God at that very moment. If the Priest had said at the moment, 'join me in my search for Anglicans,' Aaron would have dropped everything and followed the Priest in his search for lost Anglicans on the streets of all the Locations in South Africa.

Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. Now as he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the [son] of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.

Turning round Aaron pointed to the stone church steeple in the distance.

"That church over there is St Michaels and All Angels. It is an Anglican Church".

The Priest turned around and looked at the church which Aaron had pointed out. He saw the stone steeple of the Church behind the row of houses in South Street. With a wry grin on his face the Priest said:

"Well actually, I am not looking for Anglicans who are members of the parish of St Michaels and All Angels. They already have a rector. They already exist on the parish roll. I am looking for the other Anglicans who are not members of that parish."

"I know Stirtonville like the back of my hand. I could show around," Aaron replied.

"Are you not on your way to School?"

"Well not really. Because it does not snow every day in Boksburg and all that, I have decided to skip school just for today, I would be quite happy to show you around Stirtonville as I really have nothing else to do today, if that is OK with you".

He took the Priest straight to the Native section of the Location. The Priest spoke to a number of people in the yards and in the street. He would first introduce himself and then explain the purpose of his visit to the Location. For Aaron it was all kind of odd, but today was a peculiar day, marked by a mixture of oddness and the presence of God.

The Priest would doff his hat and say: "Good morning Madame or Good morning Sir. I am Rev Jonathan Blakemore. I am an Anglican Priest. I would like to meet with Anglicans this morning."

Aaron could clearly see that the Location Natives to whom he spoke immediately recognized from his manner, sincerity and demeanour that this was not a typical white man, that his purpose in the Location was very serious and very genuine. They no longer saw him as a white man. He was there for them and for them only, a shepherd looking for lost sheep. They somehow recognized that this man was also poor, very poor indeed, and possibly even poorer than they were. They instinctively knew that this man had forsaken everything including money, comfort, home, family, friend and career to be with them.

Aaron was completely amazed to see how quickly the word got around that there was a Priest in the Location who wanted to meet with the Anglicans of Stirtonville. Very soon it was organized that they would meet in someone's backyard as the houses were too small to accommodate a crowd. They were led to the venue by several old women. Chairs were brought to the yard. A number of red hot _konkas_ (braziers) materialized in the yard and everyone arranged themselves around the _konkas_ because it was so bitterly cold. Aaron sat next to the Rev Blakemore; both of them leaned forward warming their hands over a konka. While they were waiting for more people to arrive, a tray with two large steaming enamel metal mugs of sweet tea and a plate of buttered slices of white bread covered with apricot jam was presented to Aaron and the Rev Blakemore.

He bowed his head and said grace over the food.

After he had said grace, they both thanked their host for the food. Together they drank the tea and devoured the jam sandwiches. Aaron suddenly realized that if the Priest was going to celebrate Mass he should not have eaten the sandwiches or drunk the tea. But he could not remember reading a passage anywhere in the Bible were it says you should fast before receiving Mass. But it was a tradition of the Church. Maybe Rev Blakemore, a genuine follower of Jesus, would be excused like the hungry disciples who when walking through a field of wheat on the Sabbath began to pick and eat kernels of wheat.

His disciples were hungry and began to pick some ears of corn and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, ' _Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath. He answered. 'Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry_?'

Aaron began to wonder about the Anglican Holy Communion. He had never witnessed the Anglican celebration of the Eucharist. As a believing, practicing and committed Roman Catholic he was always conscious of his minority and insular status in an overwhelmingly Protestant country. As a strongly Protestant country there was always an undercurrent of anti-Catholicism in South Africa, most especially amongst most of the whites and especially from the Afrikaners. For Aaron as a Roman Catholic the celebration, the thanks offering and the sacrifice of Mass was an extraordinary event. In the consecration of the wine and bread the Mass was real food that satisfies real hunger; and only the consecrated wine could slake real thirst.

Once the congregation had assembled around the _konkas_ in the backyard the Rev Blakemore stood up and introduced himself. He explained where he was from and why he was here. He told them he was so glad and overjoyed to be with them on this particular morning. He told them that he had got up at 3.00 am in the morning and discovered that it had been snowing throughout the night. Even so, he got onto his bicycle and rode to George Goch station, bought a train ticket and caught a train to Boksburg. He did not know how to get to Stirtonville but God had sent Aaron, to show him the way.

Many of the people recognized Aaron. They nodded their heads in agreement. They also believed that God had arranged for Aaron to show the Priest the way to Stirtonville.

All the people also laughed and clapped their hands. Aaron could also see that many of them recognized him as the chicken seller. He felt the friendly embrace of the parishioners.

A dark shadow of stubble had formed on Rev Blakemore's jawline. His deep blue eyes were ecstatic with joy. His face glowed. Aaron looked at the assembled congregation and noticed that their faces were also glowing. Rev Blakemore opened his big black suitcase and took out small pocket sized Anglican Prayer Books and distributed them among the congregation.

A small table was brought over and set before Rev Blakemore. A woman spread a white cloth over the table. Rev Blakemore retrieved a number of items from his big black leather case. While placing the items on the make shift altar he briefly explained their function to the seated congregation. This is the chalice for the wine, this is the ciborium in which the wafers are stored, this is the paten in which the consecrated wafers are served, these are the two candle holders, here are the two candles sticks, and this is a bottle of sweet wine. He arranged the items in their prescribed order on the make shift altar. Next he retrieved from the case a set of clothing items. He said these are the priest's liturgical garments. He held up each of the items and said this is the alb, this is the cincture or girdle, and this is the stole or liturgical vestment. These decorations at the ends of the stole consist of a fringe of tassels. They have been fixed to the stole in accordance with the Biblical instructions given in Numbers 15: 38 – 39. The congregation listened intently to everything he had to say. He then pulled the alb over his clothes and tightened the girdle round his waist. He then draped the stole or liturgical vestment around the back of his neck with the two ends hanging parallel over the front of the alb. He lit the candles. The snow began to fall steadily. He placed the opened the Prayer Book on the table. While standing he spread out his hands and said:

"The Lord be with you"

Without any prompting the people answered: "And with thy spirit".

He said: "Lift up your hearts"

Again without any prompting they answered: "We lift them up unto the Lord".

He said: "Let us give thanks unto our Lord God".

They answered: "It is meet and right so to do".

Then all the people stood up, shifted back their chairs and knelt in the snow. Aaron also knelt in the snow. In his clear, educated, crisp and posh BBC accent he recited the Anglican Eucharist in the falling snow. Aaron glanced at the faces of the kneeling congregation; their eyes were brimming with tears. Tears rolled freely down their cheeks, tears were also rolling down the Priest's face and now they began to run down his own cheeks. He had also become all choked up. In spite of all tears and soft weeping of the women the Priest continued chanting the Eucharist in the tradition of the Anglican high church rite:

".....who, in the same night that he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you. Do this is in remembrance of me...."

The Priest then genuflected before the consecrated host, he then rose to his feet and elevated the host held in his right hand above the ciborium which was held under the host with his left hand. As Aaron gazed upon the Blessed Sacrament the white host began to shine extraordinary bright, almost dazzling in it whiteness; or so it seemed to him. He realized that this was definitely not a typical Anglican Mass. He had never before seen the raised host shining with such luminous brilliance that he automatically crossed himself in its presence.

Sincere and believing Roman Catholics like Aaron all seemed to have the imagination necessary for being able to discern the Real Presence in the Mass. Aaron as a Roman Catholic believed that what can be seen plainly also embodies the unseen veiled behind the accidents. Hidden behind the obviousness of the accidents lurks another unseen reality. In the case of the Mass it is the Real Presence of God in the consecrated host. But how could an Anglican Eucharist in the snow in Stirtonville Location be so holy, so special, so moving, and so sacred? Did not the Anglican Church break away from Rome, from the true faith, the faith that has its institutional, liturgical and theological roots in Mount Sinai, in the synagogue, in the Temple and in the very holy of holies, and also in the teachings of all the Apostles, in the Gospels and in the teachings of the all the ancient and venerable fathers of the Church?

The congregation then all signed themselves with the sign of the cross. It was not the Catholic signing of the cross; they were using the motions of the Eastern Orthodox churches for the signing of the cross, motions that had emanated from the East and not from the West. In Stirtonville Location the Natives gracefully made the very ancient Orthodox sign of the cross. They signed themselves like the Russians, like the characters in a Dostoevsky novel. It was a revelation to Aaron.

The Priest then continued with the consecration of the wine.

"Likewise after supper he took the Cup, and, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this, for this is my Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me........."

The Priest then genuflected before the makeshift altar. After rising to his feet he elevated the chalice of wine. The congregation again made the Orthodox sign of the cross.

The Priest then broke the consecrated bread saying:

"The bread which we break is not a sharing of the body of Christ?

The congregation replied:

"We, who are many, are one body for we partake of the one bread."

Before the Priest could proceed the congregation began to sing:

Mvana ka Thixo, Mvana ka Thixo, esusa isono sehlabathi:

sensele inceba.

Mvana ka Thixo, Mvana ka Thixo, esusa isono sehlabathi:

sensele inceba.

Mvana ka Thixo, Mvana ka Thixo, esusa isono sehlabathi:

_siphe uxolo lwakho_.

After the completion of the Eucharistic prayers the congregation assembled in a long queue before the altar. Aaron remained behind sitting on his chair, he didn't know what to do, he was a Roman Catholic, he did not know whether he could receive the sacraments from an Anglican Altar, he did not know whether he was allowed to have communion at an Anglican Table. He decided that he would not receive Mass from an Anglican Table.

As they queued to receive communion the Location congregation began to sing.:

" _Modimo re boka re wena_

_Tsohle di entswe ke wena_ "

After the Priest dismissed the congregation with words "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord," they replied: "In the name of Christ. Amen."

They then began to clap, dance and sing the Great Amen:

" _Masithe, Amen Siyakudumisa_

Amen Siyakudumisa

Amen Bawo, Amen Bawo,

Amen siyakudumisa.

A re re, Amen rea o Rorisa

Amen rea o Rorisa

Amen Ntate, Amen Ntate,

_Amen rea o Rorisa_ "

Before the congregation dispersed to go their different ways after a very emotional and moving service a spokesman for the congregation got up to say something. He was a fragile and stooped old man with grey hair. He said:

"We feel very much honoured and very much humbled today. You have come all the way from England, from Cambridge; you came by ship, by train and by bicycle to Stirtonville, a small insignificant Location in South Africa. You have brought joy and hope to our hearts. Today we as poor people no longer feel poor, instead we feel rich with wealth that money cannot buy. We feel rich because today God has shown us that he has not forgotten us. Today God came in the falling snow to Stirtonville. We pray to God that you will come back again to minister to us and be our Priest so that we can build an Anglican Parish here in the Location."

After everyone had shaken the Priest's hand, the Rev Blakemore and Aaron got on their bikes and cycled slowly away. The snow was beginning to melt. Rev Blakemore's face beamed. He was elated and was beside himself with enthusiasm for the Location Natives. He kept on exclaiming that what happened today was beyond his wildest dreams and expectations. He felt so deeply for the welfare of the Location Natives.

Aaron informed Rev Blakemore that very soon all the Natives would be transferred to a new Location ten kilometres away called Vosloorus. All their match box houses will be bulldozed flat and a new Coloured township would be developed on the razed site.

Stirtonville was about to vanish forever. Very soon Vilakazi Street will be gone, Mokholo Street will be gone, Dhlomo Street will be gone, Makoena Street will be gone, and Naheng Street will be gone. The addresses of families who had lived here for ages will be gone. The names of streets and residential home numbers will vanish. The details of streets addresses will only exist on the death certificates of people who had already died while living at these addresses. After Stirtonville had been razed to the ground and finally eradicated forever, Stirtonville's street addresses will exist only as an entry on a piece of paper in the national archives on death certificates or on criminal records. Aaron was merely repeating what Rachel had gloomily predicted on their final chicken selling trip into the Location.

"Well, then I will have to go Vosloorus to minister to the Anglicans," he said adamantly, with a determined steadfast expression on his face.

"It will be a bit too far to go by bicycle."

"How far is Vosloorus from here?"

"It is about ten kilometres."

"It does not matter even if it were twenty or thirty kilometres. I will still serve them as their Priest," he said.

"What standard are you in?" he asked, changing the subject of their conversation.

"I'm in my final year of school, I am doing my Matric," Aaron replied.

"And what are your plans after you finished with school?" he asked.

"I'm planning to study zoology and mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand." Aaron said.

"Zoology and mathematics? That is an unusual combination of subjects," he said, looking a bit surprised

"I seem to have an aptitude for mathematics and it is something I enjoy," Aaron said.

"I also loved mathematics. I did my first degree in physics and mathematics at Cambridge," he said.

"Did you then study to become a priest?" Aaron asked.

"No. I didn't study to become a priest right away. I got quite a generous postgraduate scholarship, so I ended up doing a doctorate in cosmology at Cambridge," he said.

### CHAPTER 13

"Cosmology?" Aaron repeated the word. He had never heard of the word before.

"Yes, I investigated the physics underlying the formation of solar systems from clouds of gas and dust," he said with a smile.

"Are you saying that the sun and all the planets of the solar system with their all masses and motions arose from a cloud of gas and dust?" Aaron asked with surprised look on his face.

"Yes indeed. About five billion years ago or thereabouts, our entire solar system was formed from a gigantic drifting interstellar cloud of cold gas and opaque dust. Throughout space there exist these interstellar astronomical objects called nebula which consist of enormous clouds of gas and dust. Nebulae are created from the gas and dust ejected from exploding supernovas."

"How was the sun and planets of our solar systems formed from a cloud of dust?" Aaron inquired.

"Stars, suns, planets or entire solar systems do not form spontaneously from the nebulae. Something has to trigger the process that results in the transformation of an amorphous nebula into a solar system like our own solar system. Without any triggering event nebulae can after their formation drift unchanged through space practically forever. In order to become a star or solar system it is necessary for the nebula to contract. The only way that it can contract into a denser ball like structure is by undergoing gravitational collapse. Because the gas and dust of a nebula is not sufficiently dense enough for it to undergo spontaneous gravitational collapse, its gravitational collapse must be initiated by some external event." He explained.

"What kind of external event can trigger the gravitational collapse of a cloud of gas and dust?" Aaron asked as listened in rapt attention.

"There are certain kinds of special events in space that can trigger the gravitational collapse of nebulae. For example, if a nebula becomes exposed to the shock waves produced by a nearby supernova it can undergo gravitational collapse. If the shock waves generated by the exploding supernova deliver a massive glancing blow to the passing nebula, the cloud of gas and dust will start spinning around an invisible axis. The shock waves also cause the aggregation and coalescence of the gas and dust into dense clumps within the rotating nebula. You can think of the shock waves as compressing the gas and dust like the piston of bicycle pump. The clumps of gas and dust which are revolving around the main axis of the rotating nebula are also spinning around their individual axis. The revolving and spinning clumps grow larger and denser as they suck up in more gas and dust from the surroundings through the force of gravity. Soon the entire rotating cloud of gas and dust begins to collapse under its own gravity towards the central axis of the spinning nebula. As the rotating cloud of dust and gas collapses in on itself it starts to spin faster and faster like a spinning ice skater when she pulls her spread out arms inwards closer towards to her body. The increasing rate of rotation and the contraction due to gravitational collapse also causes the cloud to flatten out like a pizza or record disk. As it becomes flattened out into a spinning disk most of the matter becomes concentrated in the centre. This dense ball of gas and dust at the centre of the spinning disk gives rise to the formation of proto-star or proto-sun at the centre of the disk."

"What are supernovas? "Aaron wanted to know.

"Supernovas are massive stars. They can be eight to ten times larger than our own sun. Because they are so massive they tend to burn out rapidly. Once all the fuel in the core of the star has been used up the star's core becomes unstable. It becomes unstable because there is insufficient pressure to prevent its gravitational collapse. So the star's core collapses under the influence of gravity. As it undergoes gravitational collapse the star heats up, becoming very bright. Pressure due to energy released as consequence of friction generated by the gravitational collapse of the stars matter becomes so intense that it can drive another round of nuclear fusion reactions in the star's collapsing core. Eventually due to the energy released by the thermonuclear fusion reactions the build-up of pressure in the core begins to exceed the gravitational force. When this happens the star explodes. When the core explodes huge amounts of matter are ejected into the interstellar space. Most of the heavier chemical elements found in the Universe are formed in the actual supernovae explosion. In this way supernovae seed the interstellar spaces of the Universe not only with matter in the form of clouds of gases and dust but also with all the elements of the periodic table."

Aaron listened to the unfolding story of the origin of solar system and all the elements of the periodic table with utter astonishment.

"The dust is made up of different chemical elements produced by nuclear fusion reactions taking place within stars. Basically, all chemical materials out of which we our bodies have been constructed were ultimately derived from star dust, in a real sense we are nothing but star dust, we owe our existence to exploding stars and gravitational forces," he said while dodging a gapping pothole in the road.

"So our sun and all the planets of the solar system including earth arose from the gravitational collapse of a spinning cloud of gas and dust?" Aaron remarked with genuine amazement written all over his face.

"How does the sun or a star form from a collapsing cloud of gas?" He asked, wish to get a more detailed description of the all the events.

"As the gas density increases in the centre of the rotating nebula the gravitation forces cause this gas cloud to contract into a spherical structure. All the gas particles start accelerating towards the centre. While the gas particles are undergoing free fall toward towards the centre, their kinetic energy increases. As the density of the gas particles increases they collide more frequently and the contracting gas ball starts to heat up, much like when you compress air in a bicycle pump while pumping up your bike tire. As the gas become more and more compressed, it becomes hotter and hotter. Nuclear fusion reactions begin to take place within the core as soon as gas densities and temperature become exceeding high. At this stage we have the formation of a star. Nuclear fusion reactions kick start the process of nucleosynthesis in which the many of the elements of the Periodic Table are formed from hydrogen. The rest of the other elements are formed during the supernova explosion. Within the core of the star the heat energy released from the nuclear fusion reactions increases the internal pressure to such a magnitude that gravitational collapse of the star is held in check. Soon equilibrium between gravity and pressure is established within the star and the sun's diameter does not increase or decrease, it stays the same size."

Aaron realized from this discussion that the solar systems, stars, planets, the elements of the periodic table and ultimately everything had come into existence contingently. This realization was going to transform his life; it triggered a chain reaction of questions. If the Universe came into being contingently and not through any necessity of its own then it could not cause itself to come into existence.

"Where did the Universe come from?" Aaron asked

"There were only two simple answers. Either the Universe caused itself to come into existence or it was caused to come into existence by something else. It either exists necessarily or else it exists contingently and therefore not independently of any external agency other than itself. Obviously the Universe by itself could not cause itself to come into existence independently of any other agency other than itself. To cause itself to come into existence it would have to precede its own existence which is impossible. No effect can precede its own cause, so nothing can cause itself to happen. If it cannot be self-causing then it could not cause itself to come into existence. So if it is not self-causing it does not exist necessarily but depends for existence on the causal agency of something else for its being, for its coming to existence, something which is other than itself," he explained.

"What is the 'something' that acted as the causal agent responsible for the Universe's existence?" Aaron asked.

"This something, the causal agent if you like, could have been another contingent being, in which case it too would also be dependent for its own coming into being or existence on another contingent being, and this contingent would itself likewise also be dependent on another contingent being for its own existence, and so. You can see that we end up with infinite series of contingent causal agents with each one being dependent on another preceding contingent being and so on ad infinitum. So we end up with a situation involving a never ending series of contingent agents. We could argue that the existence of an infinite series of contingent causal agents fails to represent a convincing or rational argument for the existence of our current Universe. Our Universe had a beginning and I don't believe that there is any warrant or justification that behind the beginning of our Universe stands an infinite series of causes, with each cause being preceded by its another cause, like a never ending series of falling dominoes. So if an infinite series of contingent beings with each one dependent on a preceding contingent causal agent for its existence cannot provide a compelling explanation for the beginning and existence of our Universe then it seems infinitely reasonable to accept some other explanation for the existence of our Universe. It would be more reasonable to accept that the Universe came into being as the result of the causal actions of a single necessary being than as the result of an infinite series of contingent beings. You can try and undermine this argument in any way you like, but it is impossible to provide a convincing case that the Universe was self-causing or was caused by an infinites series of contingent beings. If the Universe was not self-causing then its existence is not self-explanatory. We have to find the reasons for its existence outside of itself," he explained,

"So something cannot come out of nothing, nothing can only give rise to nothing. Something can only come from something. It is simple as that?" Aaron asked.

"Yes it is as simple as that," he confirmed.

At the station after examining the timetable he realized that there was still an hour before the next train. Aaron quickly suggested that they go and have a cup of tea at the café next to the station. He also quickly volunteered to the pay for their tea.

They sat down at a table in the tearoom, and he ordered two cups of tea. On one side of the tearoom there were three pin ball machines. Some young men with tight jeans, sharp pointed black shoes and leather jackets were playing pin ball. Their hair was bryl creamed and combed back in an Elvis Presley kind of hair style. They were called duck tails. A juke box stood in the corner. One of them put a coin in the juke box. Pressed a button and selected Roy Orbison's _Dream Baby_. Aaron took out his sandwiches which he shared with the Priest. After the Priest said grace and they wolfed down the sandwiches which Rachel had made, while listening to _Dream Baby_.

The café was owned by Dominic's aunt, his mom's sister. She immediately put two and two together when she saw Aaron. She guessed that Aaron had been playing truant. She came up to their table eyeing out Aaron.

"I heard from Dominic's mother that Carlos and you got into serious trouble the other day at School because you did not do your Afrikaans homework."

"I did my homework. It's a long and complicated story. It was actually Carlos who did not do his homework. Dominic and I got into trouble because we found everything so funny".

She asked: "Why was it so funny?"

"Well we were supposed to have read an Afrikaans book of our choice and prepare a five minute speech in which we required to give a description of the book's plot in Afrikaans. Carlos didn't read any Afrikaans book. Instead he wrote a speech in Afrikaans on a plot which he took straight from one of J T Edson's western novels. The novel was about a cowboy hero called Dusty Fog. You know that we, that is myself, Carlos and Dominic have read every single one of J T Edson's Dusty Fog westerns. We actually read them in Mr Poggenpoel Afrikaans's classes while he was teaching. Anyway Carlos had been speaking for about two minutes when Mr Poggenpoel stopped him and asked him if this plot which he was describing came from a genuine Afrikaans novel because he had never heard of an Afrikaans novel about gun slingers, rustlers and cowboys. He asked Carlos who the author was and what the title of the novel was. Carlos said he could not remember the author or the title of the book. It was then that I began to laugh, it was so funny. Dominic then roared with laughter almost falling out of his chair. His laughter was so contagious that I couldn't control my own laughter and I too began to roar loud with laughter. Carlos began to laugh as well. Poggenpoel first became very perplexed; you should have seen his face. Then his face become blood red and he became extremely angry. Then his face went purple and he became hysterical. He asked Carlos to show him the book immediately. Carlos said the book was at home. Poggenpoel then told Carlos to go home and fetch the book and bring it back immediately. Carlos left on his bicycle and never came back. In the meantime he kicked Dominic and myself out of the class and told us that he never wants to see us in his class ever again. We got into trouble with the principal and he whacked us. That is the story," Aaron said

She said: "You, Carlos and Dominic must go and apologise to Mr Poggenpoel."

The Priest looked very amused. The aunt was also Catholic and also belonged to the St Dominic's parish. She could not figure out why Aaron was with a Priest. She did not recognize him, but Aaron guessed that she thought he could be a visiting Dominican priest

It was time for him to catch his train. Aaron went with him to the platform. He shook Rev Blakemore's hand and said it was great to have met him. As the train approached Aaron asked:

"Do you believe in transubstantiation?"

He smiled back: "Why do you want to know?"

"I am a Roman Catholic. I noticed that you venerated the consecrated Mass. You would have only done that if you believed in transubstantiation and the Real Presence."

The train slowed down to halt. Just before he climbed onto the train he said:

"I believe in transubstantiation. I am an Anglo-Catholic. I believe what you believe as a Catholic. C S Lewis never converted to Catholicism, but he also believed in his heart what all sincere and devout Catholics believe. He was a Catholic. There are many of us who are Catholics in our hearts and minds. Rome the eternal city still exerts its influence."

Aaron helped him get his bicycle and things onto the train. He stood on the platform until the train disappeared from view. He had never seen a man so possessed by the passion for the Gospel,

That night at supper Max informed the Finnegan family that he was planning to embark on another new business venture.

"Well with the success of the Elephant Trading Store and now with you and Rachel having had such success with the chickens got me thinking about the chicken business. Last Saturday after playing golf at the ERPM club with Keith Whitehead and Ian Noble, we had a couple of beers at the club house. I told them about your chicken selling escapades in Stirtonville Location. We all got quite excited about producing slaughter chickens for the Native Locations and Mine Compounds. We got talking about getting a small plot to start a chicken business, anyway one thing lead to another, and we have convinced ourselves that we should buy an 800 ha farm called Brandkraal near Heidelberg in the Rooikraal district. It happens to be one of the largest farms in the district. "

Even Rachel was surprised to hear of Max's new business proposal. He had hinted that they needed to expand their business interests, but nothing on this scale.

"Do you think it wise darling to embark on such a venture?" she asked.

"There will be hardly any risk. The farm is has become part of a deceased estate. Ian Noble has done some inquiries and we can get it for a very good price."

"Why is the farm called Brandkraal?" Hillary asked.

"It has a very interesting history. It was one of the farms that the English targeted during the Boer War. It was originally owned by a real bitter einder Boer rebel. They eventually caught him after he made a brief stop-over at the farm. The circumstances of his death involved a complete breach of war ethics. After killing him they burnt down the farm. His entire family, wife and all five young children, perished in the concentration camps."

"We plan to register a company called Brandkraal Pty Ltd."

"So the plan is to produce broiler chickens on the farm?" Rachel asked.

"Yes, but also pigs and cattle, and even crops. Aaron can work on the farm on weekends and holidays for pocket money if he wants to. "

"Maybe one day Aaron and Nathan can run the business for us or even take over the business," Max said sort of thoughtfully.

### CHAPTER 14

Spring had arrived. The evenings were no longer chilly. The fragrance of Jasmine filled the air. Aaron had arrived early at Cinderella Dam and leant the bike against a tall blue gum tree. The sun had already sunk below the horizon, but there was still sufficient soft and diffuse light for following the erratic flittering flight of bats against the purple grey evening sky.

When the last light faded away and the stars began to appear in the night sky he walked a few meters away from the trees so that he could stare at the night sky. Mosquitoes started to buzz around his head. A meteorite streaking across the black sky glowed brightly before burning up.

A bit more than a month ago, on Friday the 24th July 1964 John Harris a member of the underground anti-Apartheid African Resistance Movement (ARM) planted a bomb on the concourse of Park Station. He placed the bomb under a bench near the stairs that went down to platform 6.After warning the police and the newspapers about the bomb threat, the bomb on the direct authorization of the politicians at the highest level of Government was allowed to explode at 4.33 pm just before the afternoon home time commuter rush.

And before this incident, about three months ago on the 12th June 1964 the eight accused in the Rivonia trial eight were sentenced to life imprisonment. The eight included Nelson Mandela, Dennis Goldberg, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, James Kantor, Andrew Mlangeni, Elias Motsoaledi and Raymond Mhlaba. It appeared that the underground South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress (ANC) had been dealt a crippling setback.

At ten to eight Aaron started peddling his bike slowly to Drommedaris Street in the new Reiger Park.

The lounge lights were on at her aunt's house in Drommedaris Street. Before he reached the gate, the front door opened and Geraldine walked to the gate to meet him.

"I am so glad you could make it. I prayed the whole afternoon that you would get my message in time," she said as she put her arms tightly around his neck and kissed him affectionately full on the mouth before he could push the bike through the gate.

She was wearing a sleeveless bright red dress with round neckline. The hem hung just above her knees and she wore black sandals. The shampoo that she had used to wash her hair had a pleasant fragrance.

Once inside they promptly rolled up the carpet. This had become their routine whenever they managed to get together for a few hours. For the next two hours, they would be dancing the Tango. Both of them had become addicted to the Tango. Aaron took his leather soled black dancing shoes out of rucksack and slipped them on and tied the laces.

They not only danced the Tango, they also spoke about the Tango. Geraldine shared what she had learnt and Aaron gleaned information from the covers of Tango LP albums. From this unlikely source of information he learnt a surprising amount about the Tango.

Aaron soon discovered from reading the condensed information on the LP jackets, the wide diversity of ideas expressed by Tango _aficionados_ on what constituted the essential nature of the Tango. The variety of views appeared to be endless.

The sheer diversity of views expressed by different Tango _aficionados_ , anthropologists and ethnomusicologists threatened to make any attempt at comprehending the essence of the Tango a bewildering mental exercise.

The Tango in fact, has always being a bewildering phenomenon; it continues to be bewildering because it seems to embody everything at once. For example: it is a riddle, it is paradox, it is an enigma, it is infinite, it is finite, it is intimate, it is extrovert, it is elegant, it is defiant, it is intense, it is playful, it is introvert, it is feet caressing the floor, it is feet walking, it is provocative, it is exciting, it is sexy, it is spontaneous improvisation, it is erotic, it is passionate, it is explicit, it is explosive, it is theatrical, it is fabulous, it is social, it is individual, it is foreign, it is a spectacle, it is secretive, it is a meditation, it is egalitarian, it is the dance of natives, it is domination, it is the dance between strangers, it is filled with tension, it is exploitation, it is seduction, it is men dancing with men, it is prayer, it is elaborate, it is evocative, it is the dance of the underclass, it is African, it is European, it is dramatic, it is forbidden, it is about contestation, it is about resistance, it is the dance of the immigrant and the foreigner, it the dance of slaves and prostitutes, it is women dancing with women, it is the dance of lovers, it is the dance of love, it is the dance of the black woman with the white man, it is pain and suffering, it is graceful, it is fluid, it is staccato, it is abrupt, it is syncopated, it is fantasy, it is desire, it is the transgression of social boundaries, it is protestation, it is an unfolding drama, it is nostalgic, it is a protest, it is powerful, it is magical, it is simple, it is complex, it is moody, it is poignant, it is filled with despair and hopelessness, it is mysterious, it enigmatic, it is melancholic, it is practiced in the milonga, it is danced on the stage, it is danced in the cabaret, it is danced in the street, it is danced in the privacy of the home.

It seems that the interrogation of Tango, in order to comprehend its ultimate meaning, will never reach finality. Its essence can never be encapsulated in a single concept. Its meaning will forever remain a battle field of contestation. From the choreography of the brothel to the theatrical spectacle of the cabaret, the Tango has defied all ambitious attempts to fit it into some kind of totalizing synthesis.

Apart from being a recognizable way of dancing, the Tango in its authentic expression cannot fail to be a choreography of intense pathos. This is the outstanding hall mark of the Tango. At the level of the cabaret there is always the danger that the Tango can easily lapse from pathos into banality. That is, a banality in which the Tango of the cabaret becomes reduced to a hollowed out and eviscerated shadow dance without any aesthetic substance. The danger of cabaret is that the Tango can become reduced to an empty lifeless 'to and fro' robotic-like mechanically automated manoeuvring.

Uprooted and transplanted as an exotic importation for commercial exploitation it often withers and fades under the glare of stage lights into a passionless spectacle. To the paying audience there is always the risk that it will be transformed into a dried out extravagant flourish of mimetically contrived gestures; it then becomes an amusing burlesque parody of the traditional native Tango.

The choreography of the native Tango originally erupted into life among the underclasses or proletariat living in the _Río de la Plata_ of the New World, on the margins of the burgeoning city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Tango could not have come into existence without the miscegeneous intermingling of race, choreography styles and music genres, all of which took place within the destitute and marginalized underclass communities that were comprised of 'native Argentinian whites', _pardos_ , blacks, European immigrants, _mulatos_ , and _mestizos_.

The Tango has its own choreographical vocabulary, its own choreographical nomenclature. In addition, the Tango had its own language, its own Universe of meaning. The discourse of the Tango throughout the ages has been populated with words, words that have carried their own surplus freight of meaning; words that have multiple meanings, like the word 'Milonga', which is part and parcel of the world of the Tango.

It has always been acknowledged as a deep truth, that the Tango represents the choreographical, lyrical and dramatical embodiment of its own peculiar narrative. The Tango articulates in its lyrics, in its music and in the dance itself, a discourse, a dialogue, a dialectic, a mythology, and even a rhetoric that reflects the life and struggles of the people of the Río de la Plata. It is from this unique _lebenswelt_ , the world of lived experiences, with its own unique and characteristic Argentinean ethos and milieu, which permeated the _Río de la Plata_ , that the Tango derived its original sense and its meaning.

Within this underworld of lived experiences, the _dramatis personae_ that personified the intimate and secret meanings of the Tango were the _milonguero_ and the _milonguita_. They were the personalities, drawn from the South American natives, from the African slaves, from the settlers and from the colonialists that populated the New World. It was them who brought the narratives of the Milonga to life. The _milongueros_ and the _milonguitas_ were also drawn from the waves of Old World immigrants that included white prostitutes from every city in Europe. They flooded into Argentina during the late 19th Century; many finding their new homes in the brothels were the Tango had been incubating as new choreographic development.

The life of the Tango, the life of the milonga, is nurtured and sustained by music and lyrics. Its life depends on a very specific genre of music, which is filled with the signature sounds of the _bandonéon_ , a kind of concertina or accordion. The sound of _bandonéon_ is the heartbeat of the Tango. Tango music has its own unique genre of lyrics that contribute to the dramatic mood of Tango.

Rhythmically, the Tango is danced to the musical score known as the _tango milonga_ or the _milonga tangueada_. Often in a milonga, several Tango lyrics are sung in succession, in sets of three to six songs that are three to five minutes long, which together form the Tango _tanda_.

Generally, Tango lyrics are also dialectical in the sense that they articulate more than the emotions of loss, melancholy, nostalgia, despair and anger, they also summon up moods, sentiments and conscious feelings of defiance and protest. These are the kinds of contrasts which create the dialectical tensions that infuse Tango music, and the Tango dance.

The Tango lyrics together with the Tango dance were born during the convulsive social upheavals and social dislocations that accompanied the rapid urbanization that took place during the 1880s in Buenos Aires. Social disintegration, economic crisis, degradation, disenfranchisement provided the fertile grounds for the emergence of the milonga with all its dialectical tensions and contradictions which became thematised in the Tango lyrics and dramatically expressed in the Tango dance.

Given the conditions of its genesis within the turbulent, volatile and violent zones of urban marginalization and abandonment, the Tango necessarily embodied an aggressively defiant confrontational and challenging attitude, not only to political authority but also to social, racial, ethnic, gender, class and cultural differences.

The Tango cannot be understood without the milonga. The milonga is more than a place, it is style; it is also an occasion. It is place and occasion of intimacy, a place and occasion of memory, a place and occasion of moody defiance and resistance. The milonga is also a place called home, a place where Tango dancing styles and performance find authentic and genuine expression, in the presence or in the absence of an audience, on stage or off stage, in private or in under the gaze of friends, family, acquaintances or strangers. In the world of the Tango, the Milonga represents life.

Since they had been meeting at Geraldine's aunt's house he had learnt about the manifold intricacies of the Argentine Tango from Geraldine.

For Aaron it was an utter miracle that a thing like the Tango could have flowered into life in a place like Boksburg, and more specifically in a place called Reiger Park, of all places. It was by a strange coincidence, a fortuitous accident that a young exponent of the Tango in the person of Geraldine McNamara, the girl from Reiger Park, had landed up in Boksburg.

If ever Boksburg had a hidden secret, a deep secret that would never be revealed, never disclosed, and never unveiled, a secret that in fact would go to the grave, then that secret could only be the Tango nights that took place at Drommedaris Street, Reiger Park.

In the Argentinian Tango the bodies of two people come together in an embrace, a leader and a follower, two bodies embracing, two pairs of legs stepping. Four legs, male legs and female legs, walking, turning, and legs briefly lingering, standing, or pausing momentarily, with both feet together. Between subtle pauses, legs and feet move through a series of beautiful stepping motions, each fleeting pause sensually decorated with erotic embellishments.

Walking, turning, pausing, and embellishments, these constitute the different Tango movements, which together make up the four building blocks of the Tango. Building on this minimalism, the Tango transforms the simple actions of walking and turning and pausing between steps, into the most amazing variety and flexibility of movement imaginable. The Tango is the supreme choreography of the imagination; it is the choreography of infinite improvisation. No two Tango dances need ever be the same. Each individual step of the Tango is a new creation, uniquely different from both previous and the next step.

This is the magic of the Tango. This is what gives the Tango its metaphysical dimension. This minimalist system of the four building blocks represents the _langue_ of the Tango. The walking through the steps of the four building blocks represents the infinite and never ending _parole_ of the Tango.

_Langue_ represents the grammatical rules and conventions that constitute the operating system of a language and which makes speech or speaking possible, or _parole_ possible, in other words.

The four building blocks of the Tango gives the Tango dancers complete freedom to interpret the music in the form of walking through the steps of the Tango dance ( _parole_ ) within the framework ( _langue_ ) of the four building blocks. This is the mystery of the Tango, a dance filled with unexpected surprises, a dance filled with infinite possibilities. This makes the dance an astonishing journey to an unknown destination. The Tango defies destiny, the Tango reinvents the future with each passing beat, before the birth of each melting moment. The Tango is infinite presence.

For Aaron the Tango felt like a celebration of the open Universe, a Universe opened to unexpected possibilities, a Universe that allows freedom to erupt in the space of indeterminacy, a Universe in which the future is not closed to possibilities and surprises. For Aaron this became for him the essence of the Tango. This is what also made it such an incredibly addictive, exciting, and unpredictable experience.

"I think I am going to borrow a pair of aunt's old Tango high heels. I will be back in a minute," she said.

She came back wearing a pair of black stilettos with three inch heels.

"How do they look?" She asked as she swirled around.

High heels transform a woman. Geraldine became something quite astonishing while wearing the stilettos. He watched her walk over to the Pilot radiogram. There is an art to walking gracefully with perfect balance and poise in stilettos. Her posture was balanced, strong, solid and full of grace; she walked with an air of exquisite and self-assured sophistication, with the confident sensual step of an accomplished dancer. Her legs looked longer; her stride was shorter, with each step her hips swung, with each step her calves contracted. Each step accentuated the shapely and mobile musculature of her dark thighs.

At the radiogram, she sat down on her haunches and flipped through the LPs. She selected one, pulled it out and stood up.

"This is _La Cumparsita_. It is one of the most famous Tango pieces in the world. It was composed by a Uruguayan called Gerardo Matos Rodriguez in 1916."

She pulled the LP out and gave the jacket to Aaron to look at. While she bent over and placed the record on the turn table he read the information presented on the back of the LP cover. She stood up and stepped away from the radiogram, he also stood up, putting down the LP cover on the sofa seat, he stepped into the centre of the small lounge, and they embraced each other in a close-embrace in the style of the Argentinian _milonguero_ and the _milonguita_ , with her left arm draped around his neck. Her stilettos gave her sufficient elevation so that their upper bodies made light contact. She had once said that very few Tango dancers outside Buenos Aires knew the Tango of the milongas.

He could feel the warm smooth skin of her face pressed against his cheek. The physical closeness of her body felt so pleasant, he became aware of the soft pressure of her firm breasts against his chest, he breathed in the bouquet of her hair, the perfume from her neck, the scent of her body, she responded to every movement of his body, as if they were one. Dancing in a close intimate embrace, their steps were small and elegantly simple, dancing to the beat they lost themselves, carried forward only by the flow of time, time measured in the sequence of steps, time measured in the beats of the notes.

Unlike music, unlike the Tango, unlike melodies, unlike stories, unlike flowing lyrics, unlike the narratives of lived experiences, Plato's Forms and Ideas, like the rules and laws of logic and mathematics, exist immutably, without any change outside the flux of time.

As timeless entities they are non-contingent, their necessity coincides with their very essence. Unlike the time-dependent contingency of matter, the Platonic Ideas exist independently, unchanging, untouched by the random vicissitudes associated with flow of time.

As unchanging entities, the Ideas can only exist in the timeless realm of necessity. Veiled from the time-bound world of contingency, hidden beyond the world of sensory perception, they are eternally inaccessible. They exist beyond the reach of any empirical bridge. The Ideas, the Forms, the Universals, all exist outside the space-time-bound physical boundaries of the Universe. By their very nature they remain forever inaccessible to sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Their eternal unvarying truthfulness remains secure for all eternity, untouched by the ravages time.

But outside the stream of time there is no sensual life, there are no erotic possibilities to excite the imagination, there are no lyrics to give life to the emotions, no musical notes and no rhythmic beats to arouse passionate feelings of intensity. This state of affairs, this situation arises, all because outside the flowing stream of time there are no thoughts, there is no speech, there is no passion, there is no _parole_ (only _langue_ ), there is no imagination, there is no melancholy, there is no ecstasy, there is no joy, there is no happiness, there is no sadness, there is no dialogue, there is no dialectic, there is no rhetoric, there is only writing, there is only the eternal Word. The Word becomes alive and living, to men and women, only in the stream of time, in the stream of consciousness. The eternal Word beyond time, becomes living in the temporal act of reading, the eternal unchanging Word becomes living in its incarnation. In the flux of time the eternal Word becomes flesh and lives among men.

Plato's Ideas exist outside the flow of time; the Forms cannot change or vary. Existing beyond time, the Ideas are beyond sensibility, they exist beyond the grasp of sense organs and beyond the reach of the incarnate body. But life is sensibility, life is sensuousness, life is language spoken, life is the thinking of thoughts, life is the telling of stories, life is reading the written words, life is passionate longing and passionate longing is the well spring of melancholy. Life is the dance of passion. Life is like the Tango. Life is pathos.

In order to become the sensible objects of the senses, the Ideas, the Forms, the Universals, need to become materialized, they need to become instantiated in the stream of time, they need to become incarnated, individualized, exemplified, they need to take on the life of finite changing phenomena.

Unlike the Platonic Ideas or the concept of the Universal, the Tango is an instantiation, an individualization, a materialization, a concretization, an incarnation of lived passion, of sensuousness, of sensibility, of emotions, of imagination, of pathos, of thinking, of feeling, of hearing, of tasting, of seeing, of touching, of smelling, of speaking.

There is no Idea or Form or Universal for the being of the Tango, because the essence of the Tango is change, the essence of the Tango is contingency, the essence of the Tango is individuation, it is incarnation, it is exemplification. The Tango can only exist contingently in the sequence of musical beats, in the series of walking steps, in the impassioned whispers of lovers; it can only exist as the fading shadow of events in the flowing stream of time, in the sung words of the Tango lyrics. This gives the Tango its heart rendering melancholy, this gives the Tango its unbearable pathos, and this gives the Tango its stark beauty, which becomes embodied in the fleeting beauty of the vulnerable lives of the Tango dancer.

Geraldine would often remind Aaron that the Tango at its most fundamental level was really about walking. Learning to walk, and to walk the Tango, involves listening to the beat, hearing the beat was the secret behind mastering the steps of the Tango. 'Listen to the music,' she often whispered to Aaron.

Aaron would listen to the _bandonéon_.

"Listen carefully, can you hear the notes, can you hear each note? Notes in a bar of music makes up the series of beats, each note has its own beat value in the bar, listen to the tempo of the beats, listen to the sequence of beats, hear the different kinds of beats, some beats can be fast or slow, listen to the beats, some beats are hard, and others are soft. Listen to the beats, hear how they make up the rhythm, the rhythm is a collection of beats, and a collection of rhythms makes up music. Listen, if you can hear, you can walk, hearing is stepping, hear the beat, step on the beat, step and beat, we are walking together the Tango."

Aaron listened as Geraldine whispered, her warm sweet breath in his ear, her cheek pressed against the side of his face, he could feel the movement of her lips as she whispered close to his ear; he could feel the rhythm of her body echoing her words. It was the intimate whispers of lovers, telling their partners what to do, what to feel. In the Tango their souls merged, their bodies felt as one.

Walking to the rhythm of the syncopated beat, the hard beat is followed by the soft beat. In walking the notes of the Tango you step on the strong beat and step over the weak beat. Only the knees work, lifting the feet, nothing changes in the upper body, which remains unbending and straight. Rhythmically, your steps begin and end precisely on the strong beat. As you step over the weak beat your ankles pass each other resulting in the smooth rise and fall of the Tango.

Each step must be executed in one smooth flowing motion, starting with the foot accelerating as it leaves the floor, then slowing as the mobile ankle passes the stationary ankle of the other foot, and then accelerating again as the foot steps down on the strong beat. Fleetingly, the collection of the feet together occurs in the brief pause between two consecutive steps, the ankles are momentarily brought together. In this manner an island of perfect balance is reached between steps. From this island of perfect balance the next step can be negotiated.

In the Tango each step ends with a brief pause that coincides with the collecting together of the feet. It is this pause, this brief interruption in the flow of the Tango, which allows for the eruption of beauty, which allows for the possibility of spontaneity, which allows for contingency. It is this occasion of contingency which provides the opportunity for the infinite variability of movement, for the unpredictability of the Tango. It is the moment of _ex nihilo_ creation.

It is the pause in the flow of steps which allows for the boundless and endless flexibility of the Tango, for the unlimited possibility, for spontaneous improvisation, all of which takes place in the slight pause before the next step.

The Tango is life. Life is lived as a journey, and the journey is walked, the steps are the heart beats of the Tango, and the feet are second heart of the body.

Because the walking of the Tango is a journey in a time frame that is crowded with infinite possibilities, the Tango requires a continuous negotiation between leader and follower with every step, and in every pause. How the next step will be danced is based on a negotiated communication between the leader and the follower. It is this structure of the dance that allows the Tango to be a danced in the form of a continuous improvisation of movement. Improvisation can be decided and executed on the spot. This gives the freedom that is necessary for the creative interpretation of music. This freedom to interpret the music is an inherent feature of the Tango.

When a man and woman come together and embrace each other so that they can together walk the Tango their feet can follow the stepping pattern of the cross walk or the parallel walk. The cross walk is executed when the leader steps with his right leg forward and the woman steps with her right leg back or when the leader steps with his left leg forward and the woman with her left leg back. In the parallel walk when the leader steps with his left leg forward, the woman steps with her right leg back or when the leader steps with his right leg forward and the woman with her left leg back.

In the Argentine Tango, the leader can initiate a switch from the cross walk to the parallel walk or from the parallel walk to the cross walk. The signal that he uses for the switch is by changing his weight from one foot to the other while the follower's weight remains unchanged. In the promenade both leader and follower face the same direction and step forward together like two lovers walking in the park or down the street.

In the Tango the length of each step is negotiated by the leader. The leader arms his leg for action of the next step by bending his standing leg. The amount of bending in the standing leg communicates the length of the next step while the free leg remains lithely stretched in its position. The arming of the next step is subtly communicated to the follower by the slight and very subtle lowering of the waist as the leader prepares to arm the next step. In the Tango the load of the dancer's weight always rests fleetingly on the leg that happens to be momentarily stationary. This is called the stationary leg. The other leg is the free moving leg, which also is the stepping or landing leg, which then becomes the stationary leg. The stationary leg then arms itself for the next step by the bending of the knee. Thus the length of the next step is communicated from the leader to the follower, and no pushing and pulling takes place between leader and follower.

Standing, stepping, standing, turning, stepping, fleeting, momentarily, lithely, gracefully, turning, stepping, standing, turning, stepping, motion flowing, movement fluid, walking smoothly, walking lightly, walking with elegance and precision, walking, stepping, standing, turning. This is the Tango.

While they danced Geraldine's mind became one with the dance, the dance became her meditation, her confession, her mindful reflection, her dialogue with the great open Cosmos. She danced the words as they flowed through her mind. She imagined. She thought. She meditated. She confessed. She danced with her eyes closed; she danced with her cheek pressed against Aaron's cheek. She whispered the soundless vocalization of thoughts that yearned for the undefinable, the undiscernible and the unfulfillable. She thought about all the things that Aaron had talked about.

What is the Tango? What is the metaphysics of the Tango?

He learnt from Gillian that metaphysics by definition is the search for certainty and without certainty all claims to know the truth are ultimately vacuous. What is the truth about the Tango, if such a question could be meaningful posed? From Gillian he had also learnt that the metaphysical search for certainty always ends in the 'self-reference paradox.' It is impossible to embark on any search for certainty on any matter without having to rely on sense perception and language as the only means we have to arrive at the truth, about matters like the existence of entities or the nature of the Universe.

The self-reference paradox can be simply stated as follows: it is impossible to establish by means or procedures, which are also dependent on perception and language, the reliability of perception and language. It is also impossible to establish by means or procedures, which are also dependent on perception and language, the extent of the contribution which both perception and language have made to the formation of the picture of Universe or the World, which we talk about and which we are able to perceive with our sense organs and body.

Outside sense perception and language the grounds for establishing the certainty or reliability of sense perception and language are inexpressible, and because they are inexpressible we cannot know them.

There is only one exit, only one reprieve, only one solution, only one escape, from the self-reference paradox: Stop bothering about metaphysics. Stop bothering about philosophy. Stop thinking! Stop questioning. Stop asking why. Stop trying to explain why. Forget about the what, why, how and wherefores. Avoid all 'why questions'. Accept that the search for certainty is ultimately a futile and meaningless exercise. Accept that there are no grounds, no foundations, for establishing certainty. Accept that there are no self-evident and self-explanatory grounds that will guarantee the certainty of any belief regarding the existence or the meaning of any entity, whether it be of mind or matter.

All endeavours to establish with certainty, what is ultimately true, must end at the inexpressible, which becomes the wall of silence, because the answers for what is ultimately true lay beyond the reach of sense perception and language.

Anything and everything that is inexpressible lies beyond the reach of sense perception and beyond the reach of language. Could it be that the Ultimate Truth is also beyond the time-bound reach of language, beyond that of what can be spoken of, in human created words?

'Ultimate certainty is beyond the reach of language, beyond the reach of speech, beyond the reach of spoken words, beyond the reach of writing, beyond the reach of the written word, beyond human thought.'

Those words stuck in Aaron's mind.

They were uttered by Gillian during that December day, when she and Hillary had completed their final year of philosophy. After reading and speaking about Ludwig Wittgenstein's _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ , she tossed the slim volume with a flick of her wrist onto the top of the ornate wrought iron table. She sighed philosophically as she reached for her cool drink. She sipped deeply on the ice cold passion fruit and then lay back on the deck chair by the pool side and soaked up the sun.

Aaron was curious about the book. He picked it up. To his surprise he discovered it was a book filled with pages of numbered statements. The whole book had been written in point form. Each statement expressed a proposition. He had never seen a book that had been written in this fashion. On the last page of the _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ he read:

6.54. _My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them – as steps – to climb up beyond them._ ( _He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it_.)

_He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright_.

7. _What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence_.

We can only pass over in silence that which is inexpressible.

He wondered whether there was still philosophical life beyond the self-reference paradox. In place of certainty there was still the idea that certain beliefs are credible, because they have warrant, they have warrant because it makes sense to accept them as reliable.

Maybe we don't have to worry about the self-reference paradox, after all.

What if reason and rationality are actually woven into the very fabric and texture of reality, into the fabric of matter, into the fabric of the Universe? It seems that matter is intelligible, that reality is intelligible, and that the Universe is intelligible. The Universe happens to be intelligible because we have been able to fathom how it works. Scientists have worked out how stars are formed, how solar systems are formed, and how all the elements of the Periodic Table were created. We understand that the elements are created through the process of thermonuclear synthesis during the different stages of the life cycle of stars. We know for a fact that living organisms arose from inanimate matter.

If the Universe was not intelligible then science would be impossible, it is simple as that, and we would not know how the elements of the Periodic Table came into existence.

But we do know for certain how the elements came into existence? This at least is a significant start.

Matter in itself, possesses the power, the properties, and the capacity to give rise to the human mind. This is a fact. It has happened. The human mind, with its capacity for conscious awareness and for reason, emerged naturally, spontaneously, in accordance with the laws of nature, from the elements of inert, inanimate matter. The human mind with all its intellectual, cognitive and creative capacities emerged from inanimate life-less star dust. Maybe the human mind evolved a built-in capacity to know things with certainty. It was given that gift.

Without gravity acting on matter in the birth and death of stars, mind would not have arrived on the scene, in the fullness of time. Maybe without the Supreme Mind, the source of Infinite Reason, there would not have been gravity or matter or human mind.

The human mind as intellectual activity, as cognitive power, has discovered through science, that reality and matter are indeed intelligible, that reality and matter have mind-like qualities, that the Universe is mind-like in its intelligibility, and that there exists an affinity between mind and matter.

The Universe is intelligible, because a relationship exists between mind and reality, because a relationship exists between mind and matter, because a relationship exists between mind and the Universe. There exists a key-lock relationship between the mind and the Universe. The mind possesses the key to unlock the meaning of the Universe. Reality appears to be susceptible to interrogation by the senses and its secrets can be revealed and comprehended through the medium of language. This makes the Universe intelligible to science. It is intelligible, because it is responsive in a meaningful fashion to rational sensory, mathematical and linguistic interrogation, and this is the basis for proposing or even hypothesizing, that a relationship exists between the human mind and the Supreme Mind behind the Universe.

The relationship between the mind of the individual person and the Mind embodied in the Universe is a relationship of many affinities, of many complementarities, of many kinds of rational responsive reciprocities. It is the rational responsive reciprocities between the human mind and the Universe, which provides the grounds for believing that the human mind enjoys an intimate kinship, of love, of Eros with the Cosmos. According to Plato it is through the erotic engagement of the mind of mankind with the Mind behind the Universe which leads to true knowledge and certainty. The Mind behind the Universe is responsible for the Universe's form and nature.

Without free will the human mind could not possess any creative power or be able to engage in any reciprocal relationships or discover any affinities or be erotic.

As a Catholic Aaron accepted that human free will was a miracle, a gift from God. He believed that it was the gift of free will, or the miracle of free will, which made man the _Imago Dei_ and gave man the power to perform creative acts, to create _ex nihilo_. By creating the artifacts of technology, science, literature, culture and civilization with its systems of signs and symbols, man demonstrated his creative power to communicate, to articulate, to narrate the story of the Universe. Revelation is the resonation of man's creative narrative with the Eternal Transcendent Word. God speaks in the resonating echo of man's own voice. Theology is ultimately philosophical anthropology. Man can only speak about God by speaking about himself, the _Imago Dei_.

By means of the gift of free will, God gave man the power to be a moral agent, to do good or evil. If man has been invested with the power of moral agency to do good or evil, then there can be no truth in Calvin's idea of double predestination.

Without self-conscious awareness man would not be free to think, free to reflect, free to meditate, free to confess, free to engage in dialogue, free to choose and free to act.

Man's self-conscious awareness is time-bound, one thought follows another thought.

If the stream of consciousness involves the succession of thoughts in time, then how does the mind of God work outside time? Can speech exist outside time? Can thoughts exist outside the stream of time? What is time? What does it mean to exist? The Tango is the unfolding of time in discreet steps. Is time discreet? Can the moment be sliced into infinitely smaller slices? Or is there an absolute limit to the thinnest slice of a moment, to the shortest possible interval of time. Things can only exist beyond the threshold of this finite limit that defines the shortest interval that a moment can endure, before that moment nothing exists.

'What does it mean to exist?' Aaron often wondered, as he felt Geraldine's warm smooth satiny perfumed cheek against the side of his face.

Aaron remembered that Descartes in his _Second Meditation_ concluded that he was at least something; he accepted that he was something, even if he denied having sense organs or a body. Descartes could not persuade himself that he did not exist or that he was nothing! That would be self-defeating.

In the Second Meditation he concludes that as long as he can think of something then he must exist. The belief that he existed was derived from the fact that he had thought about something, it doesn't really matter what he thought, just as long as he thought something. Apart from thinking something, there was no other activity that he believed would give him certainty that he was indeed something.

Doing something, apart from thinking, did not seem be enough to convince Descartes that he exists. Aaron meditated on this:

That I am walking does not seem to give me the same certitude about my existence as thinking would. I think something therefore I must be something, rather than nothing.

Descartes believed that even if a demon tried to deceive him, the demon could never convince him that he was nothing, as long as he thought that he was something.

Aaron wondered from what kind of reality, or from what kind of act, could his own existence be logically inferred? Can the performance of an act, other than thinking, such as walking, provides grounds for the conclusion that he did indeed exist, that he was indeed something, rather than nothing?

What is the difference between thinking something and walking? If I think that I am walking, is that not also a thought? If I am deceived into thinking that I am walking is that not still a thought, and that therefore I am something, even if it were a false thought? If I am deceived into believing that I have sense organs and a body, is that false thought not also a thought? It is still a thought about my being something.

If a demon or a dream put a thought into my head, such as, 'you are walking, you are running, you are seeing something' and if at the same time I self-consciously reflected or meditated on that thought, no matter where it came from, then I must be something, rather than nothing, I must exist.

I walk therefore I am. I walk therefore I exist. I walk and time flows, I walk the present fading into the melancholic memory of the past and I walk the future steps into the fleeting, vanishing present. I walk in erotic anticipation, I walk in breathless expectation. I walk the beat; I walk the syncopated beat, heavy, light, heavy, light, heavy, and light. I step in time, I step each step in the flow of time, I step into the flux of time, I step into the stream of time, never stepping into the same stream twice or thrice, stepping only the 'finite once' that does not endure beyond the instant, each step unique, each step dying as it is born, each step mournful, each step melancholic, each step a passing memory, each step a recollection, each step sensual, each step erotic, each step on the beat, the beat heavy, the beat light, the beat heavy with life, the beat light, the beat now unbearably light, the beat now unbearably heavy, palpably heavy, poignantly heavy, filled with pathos, the beat light, unbearably erotic, the beat heavy, unbearably melancholic, erotic, melancholic. The Tango becomes the dream of melancholic eroticism, the beat heavy, the beat lift, the syncopated beat of life.

When the LP came to the end, she put the LP back in its jacket.

"How is my progress so far? I am getting things right?" Aaron asked.

"Aaron, you must not be too overly concerned about how you are dancing the Tango, otherwise you are not going to enjoy our dancing. I can feel that you are really listening and hearing the music. I can feel in your movements that you are hearing the pauses, you hearing the hard and soft beats. You are learning quite quickly to use the pauses to create opportunities for openings in the dance during which time the female follower can exercise her freedom in interpreting the music through appropriate embellishments," she said with a serious look on face, and then she smiled,

"You don't really need any reassurance or do you, Aaron?"

"It's the man's responsibility to lead the woman to do her part and you are getting that right," she said. She searched his eyes while her lips curled subtly into an unfathomable smile.

"I love you when you get this very vulnerable expression on your face. It's a side of your character that you hardly ever show," she said.

"The most important thing is that we are connecting and enjoying each other. This is the first rule of the social Tango that my aunt has always stressed. We are not doing ballroom Tango. We are dancing for each other and this is what counts. Since a small girl I have listened to grownups talk about how various couples dance and so on. We are both becoming quite sensitive and intuitive to each other. We dance very close and intimately with each other because we are in a relationship, we are couple. We are not dancing as strangers to each other."

She continued:

"My aunt has a saying it goes like this 'the Tango is like everything in life because it sad, it is sensual, it is exciting, it is unpredictable, it requires creative improvisation, it is sacred, it is intimate, it is putting your trust in someone else's hands, it is accepting a partners eccentricities, it also about accepting your partners faults and above all else it is very sexy," she said as she put away the LP."

She smiled.

"We have made wonderful progress. Look, we are teaching ourselves. But I am confident that we are doing things right."

"You are a good teacher," Aaron said. "I enjoyed it when you did that tapping thing with your toes, and that other movement that you did was quite amazing. What were you doing?"

"It was a Tango embellishment called the _caricia_ or the caress."

Aaron had learnt that all the different kinds of Tango embellishments or adornos in Spanish are small decorations performed with the foot or leg that can be added to the steps usually by the female follower. He had seen that it was the different foot and leg embellishments which involve interesting and beautiful movements of the free foot or free leg. The free foot or the free leg is used to decorate the dance with a variable range of adornments.

It is these embellishments or adornments which differentiates the Tango from all other social dances. Adornments are often used to accentuate the music. They also make the dance look and feel more beautiful. Embellishments are inserted into the dance between pauses in the movements that are led by the man. Usually during a brief pause the female partner may use her free leg to perform fleeting embellishments that surprise and excite.

The Tango is a dance filled with surprises.

The most elementary Tango embellishment is the _golpecito_ which involves making one or more taps with the free foot as part of the step or during the pause. Geraldine had started doing this decoration from time to time. She had also started to introduce a few of the variations of the _golpecito_ called the _punto_ , the _golpeteo_ , the _fanfarron_ , the _picado_ and the _zapatato_ , in their Tango routine.

She was keen to also start introducing other embellishments such as the _boleo_ , the _caricia_ , and the _gancho_ into their dance routines. Aaron had started to learn what they would entail from the demonstrations she had done on a number of occasions.

"Could you show me again how you did the _caricia_?"

The _caricia_ was one the Tangos most sensual foot embellishments.

"OK, I can do that. Let me see if I can find some music which would be nice for doing the caricias," she said as sat down on her bottom with folded legs in front of the Pilot radiogram.

"Aaah, this looks promising, Tango music by the Argentinean composer Osvaldo Pedro Pugliese, this should do it."

She put the LP on the turntable.

Aaron knew that it was a beautiful truth that men usually take great pleasure in watching a woman dance. Nothing can be more wonderful and beautiful than to watch the sensual movements of a woman's body, legs, and feet when she dances, especially when the woman is a fine and skillful dancer who is able to effortlessly blend emotion, elegance, balance, grace, poise, strength, fluidity, rhythm and sensuality in the Tango.

The structure of the Tango gives a woman the full freedom to interpret the music as an expression of her emotions and imagination. She can express her emotions and interpretation of the music through leg projections and leg extensions, weight transfer, elegance of step and leg placements, through foot or toe tapping, through the embrace, through pivoting, through facial expression of emotion and finally through embellishments or beautiful exquisite and playfully teasing movements of her feet, movements that are called foot adornments.

During the walking of the Tango the woman often plays and teases with her feet. The feet, the feet, watch the feet of the Tango dancer. She can express herself sensually through the motions of her feet in the _boleo_ and especially with the _caricias_ which is the caress. The caricias is one of the most sensual and seductive embellishment. In _caricias_ the female dancer caresses the inside or outside of her own leg, that is, the standing leg with the free foot.

Geraldine demonstrated the _caricias_ while walking the Tango to the beat of _La Mariposa_ , 'the butterfly.' Aaron watched Geraldine as she effortlessly flash flicked her free leg to caress lightly and quickly with the stiletto of her free foot, the skin on the side of her stationary foot, or her stationary calf, or the thigh of her standing leg, each time gracefully executing the caricias before stepping down with her free foot on the beat. She caressed the inside and outside of her standing calf, then on the next step caressed the inside and outside of her standing thigh with her free foot before stepping down. When she had finished her demonstration Aaron asked her to do it again, and then again, and again. Aaron could not get enough of watching her do a solo dance while walking through the steps for the _caricias_.

When he watched her, he remembered Descartes' _Meditations_. He remembered Augustine's _Confessions_ , and he then also remembered the dialogues of Plato. Meditation, confession and dialogue is the essence of a authentically lived life and an authentically lived life is impossible without reading and thinking, an authentically lived life is impossible without meditation or confession or dialogue. He remembered that 'to do' as in 'to do something' is to exist. I read therefore I exist. I meditate therefore I exist, I confess therefore I exist, I speak therefore I exist, I swim therefore I exist. I ride a horse, a horse that is galloping, therefore I exist.

Since Jonathan's suicide he also often thought about death. What was it like to die? Death seemed to be synonymous with non-existence, the cessation of conscious existence. How could one continue to exist beyond the death of the body? The body and its corporeal existence were fundamental to the Judeo-Christian idea of the resurrection.

Still the nagging thought, what does it actually mean to exist? Do my sense organs confirm my existence? Does my mind, the fact that I think confirm that I exist. Can I only exist sensuously?

He thought about Descartes, about Augustine and about Plato.

He meditatively and reflectively thought:

"I watch Geraldine dance the _caricias_ therefore I exist. I dance therefore I exist. Doing something, whatever it may be, is existing. I see, I smell, I touch, I hear, I taste, I feel, I imagine and I do something rather than nothing therefore I exist. I do something, if I do it whatever it is, then I must in reality, exist.

Sensations fill my Universe. I am immersed in an ocean of sensory experiences.

If I am immersed in a sea of sensation then in what way are the senses unreliable? What is it that is in question which makes the senses unreliable? What is the principle in question that makes sense perception unreliable? What is actually made in the claim that the senses are unreliable? Gillian said that the principle revolves around the claim that whatever is sensed by the sense organs exists, furthermore whatever it is that is sensed, the same is believed to actually exist in the form in which it appears to the senses.

It is said that we can only learn about the existence of things through the senses. What is wrong with this claim?

How do I exist? How do I know that I exist? Why do I exist? How is it possible that I exist at all? Why is it possible that I exist at all? What is it that exists? What is being? What is the meaning of being? What does it mean to exist?

To be seen is to exist, can this be a precondition for one's existence, to be seen?

To say that I don't exist is contradictory. I can only utter the words 'I do not exist' only if I do in fact exist.

I have sense organs, I have a body, therefore I exist. I do not have sense organs, I do not have a body; can I still exist? What can I do or what must I do in order to exist? What must I have or possess in order to exist? Must I have a mind? Must I have thoughts running through my head? Must I be thinking something?

What must I do in order to exist, if doing is existing? Must I be able to think, to meditate, to reflect, to confess, to speak the unspeakable, in order to exist? What must I be in order to exist? What is being? What is time, what is it to exist in time, what is it to exist outside of time? He wondered what Descartes was actually meditating on.

What does it mean to be present? Do I have to exist in order to be present? Do I have to be present in order to exist? Does the present actually exist?

The _La Mariposa_ came to an end.

She saw Aaron glancing at his watch. It was 10.30 pm. They wanted to hold each other for a while before he left. While she packed away the LPs, he unrolled the carpet and moved the furniture back. She went to the kitchen and came back with two glasses of ice cold Oros.

They sat down on the sofa and embraced each other. Aaron caressed her thighs, her calves and her arms as they kissed long lingering kisses. She drew back and looked intensely at Aaron's face, her eyes moving up and down as if searching for something, and then she said:

"I can never tell what colour eyes you have. Sometimes they are brown, then they look greenish, then sometimes they even look yellowish "

"You said I have hazel eyes," he replied.

"Yes I know I did," she replied staring into my eyes.

She ran her fingers through his hair.

"You have amazing hair. I cannot figure out the colour of your hair. It seems dark brown, but then its seems like it's a dark brown with a darkish reddish tint," she said, " I wonder if we were to ever have children what they would look like?"

"My mom Rachel and I have the same eye and hair colour. It is a very dark burgundy colour. Our eye and hair colour are quite rare I suppose. I am actually glad I am not fair or have blue eyes."

"Well I like your eyes and hair colour. What I am saying? It sounds so strange but there are Coloureds with hazel eyes and deep burgundy hair like yours. Yes, it is a strange world we live in, very strange indeed. Anyway, I like you the way you are. You are very good looking. I cannot help it but I am very jealous of you. I always get into quite a state when I have not seen you for a while. That was why I posted you a message the moment I was asked to baby sit for tonight."

He looked into her eyes; they seemed to glow with such incredible warmth and affection.

"I like your glowy eyes and your glowy soft silky skin," he said, "I also like you just the way you are. To me you are the most perfect and beautiful woman in the world. If it makes you feel any better, I am also jealous of you."

She raised her eyebrows, and made her eyes big in mock disbelief and then burst out laughing. Her teeth were whiter than white and perfect. Her gums were dark, almost dark purple.

"Are you happy?" she asked him.

"I am very happy," he replied.

"I am glad," she said.

"And you are you happy?" He asked.

"Oh yes, I am extremely happy and contented, I have everything I want in life," she said looking intensely into his eyes.

He pulled her close and they kissed each other deeply and passionately.

"We don't need to be jealous," he said.

"Yes I know," she answered, "it is a destructive emotion."

"It is better to trust and believe. It is better to allow oneself to be vulnerable to the one you love and to give yourself over to your partner than to be vigilant and suspicious and in need of constant reassurance," she said.

"I agree, we must agree to guard against jealously," he said.

"I will try, "she said.

"I have to go," he said.

She unlocked the front door. He quietly pushed the bike to the front gate. She stood silhouetted in the yellow lit door way and when he turned around to wave she blew kisses.

At home, he found that the front door was unlocked. He parked the bike in the entrance hall and walked quietly to his room. He could smell Geraldine's fragrance on his clothes. He changed into shorts. After washing his face and brushing his teeth, he switched the main bedroom light off, put the bedside lamp on and climbed into bed. He had finished reading and re-reading Plato's _Phaedrus_. He had studied every commentary on the _Phaedrus_ that Hillary had brought home courtesy of the library of the University of the Witwatersrand.

Aaron picked up a copy of Plato's _Symposium_ and began to read it until he was overcome with sleep.

### CHAPTER 15

It was Carlos's idea that they should get together on a Sunday afternoon as a kind of final farewell before the Matric exams. The three friends meet at 14.30 at the boathouse at Boksburg Lake. Carlos had brought the cooler bag with quarts of beer buried in ice cubes. They walked along the promenade towards the Pavilion. Carlos spread out the picnic blanket that he had also brought along, in the shade of a tall palm tree on the lawns close to the Pavilion. Carlos opened a bottle of beer. From the same bag he fished out three fine heavy lead crystal beer tumblers that were nicely chilled. After opening the bottle, he carefully poured the beer into the glasses. A nice head of white froth formed on the top of each glass of beer that he had poured. An overflow of foam and froth ran down the sides of the chilled tumblers.

They toasted each other, clinking their glasses together.

Dominic took a quick sip of his beer and smacked his lips. He wiped away the froth sticking to his upper lip. Satisfied with the flavour of the beer, his face broke into a rapture of pleasure. He then held up his tumbler with the froth running down the side, the foam dripping onto the grass next to the blanket and announced in the best Russian accent that he could muster:

"Salute," A broad healthy boyish grin lit up like a summer's day over his face.

Aaron and Carlos acknowledged his toast with their own foreign accented versions of 'Salute'.

They sat on the blanket sipping their beers. After a few moments they spread themselves out into more comfortable reclining positions. Learning on their elbows, they surveyed with a mild sense of curiosity the various activities going on around the lake.

While looking around Aaron was quite surprised to see how busy a Sunday afternoon at the Lake could become.

Crowds of people promenaded along the paths around the shores of the lake. Families with young children fed bits of bread to quacking and gaggling flocks of ducks and geese. People stood talking while waiting patiently in a long queue for their turn to go on the Sunday afternoon boat ride around the lake. Anglers relaxed next to their rods reading the Sunday newspapers or chatted to people passing by. A group of boys with pieces of steak tied to the end of strings caught crabs near a huge willow tree that was learning precariously over the lake. Girls shrieked as a boy lifted a huge crab dangling on the end of a string out of the water. The crab refused to let go of the meat. It hang on, its giant nipper clamped on meat in a vice grip. The boy dropped the crab into a tin and a crowd of kids gathered round the tin to gawk in awe at the crab while it waved its claws in a threatening display of crustacean aggression.

Other boys were catching tadpoles with a net and collecting them into quart size glass milk bottles. Aaron remembered the time when he was convinced that he had seen a salamander in the lake. It was during a family picnic at the Lake and he was very young at the time.

For a number of years he searched fruitlessly with Carlos and Dominic for the salamanders which he thought he had seen in Boksburg Lake. Then one day, while watching some tadpoles in the lake, which were at different stages of development, he noticed one that had a tail and four legs. There was his salamander that he had been searching for during those childhood years.

"So tell me, what have you guys been up to this weekend?" Carlos asked.

"Studying Macbeth for the exams," Dominic replied.

"And you?" Carlos asked, looking at Aaron.

"Also studying Macbeth for the exams," Aaron laughed.

"Me too, I have also been studying Macbeth," Carlos laughed, and proceeded to recite Macbeth's dagger soliloquy:

" _Is this a dagger which I see before me, - The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. - I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. - Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible -To feeling - as to sight? or art thou but - A dagger of the mind, a false creation, - Proceeding from the - heat-oppressed brain? - I see thee yet, in form as palpable - As this which now I draw. - Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; - And such an instrument I was to use.- Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses_..."

"So what do guys think? Was Macbeth convinced that he had actually seen a dagger?" Carlos asked.

"Obviously, he could not have actually seen a real dagger. Macbeth could not have perceived something that did not exist," Dominic commented.

"Do think it is logically impossible to perceive things, which did not exist?" Carlos asked, with a devilish look on his face. He wanted to debate.

"It depends on whether you want to accept the evidence of the senses. If you insist on saying that you actually saw something, then you may think that this gives you enough reason to believe that what you saw actually exists. How many times have we already gone over this problem?" Dominic asked.

"Many times," answered Aaron.

"I remember Aaron's salamander. Like you, I also actually believed that he had seen a salamander in the Lake. Aaron was so persuasive and insistent that he had seen one. But was it logically possible for Aaron to have perceived or to have seen a salamander swimming in Boksburg Lake even if it was impossible for salamanders to be swimming around in Boksburg Lake because salamanders do not occur naturally anywhere in Africa?" Carlos responded, taking up the cudgels for a robust debate.

Aaron listened with an amused smirk on his face as they spoke about him and his salamander as if he were not part of the conversation.

"In a certain sense Aaron did indeed at least see something that looked like a salamander swimming in the water. In fact, he was so certain of this that he searched for salamanders in the Lake for years, if you can remember. Remember how both you and I searched the lake with him. We were all searching in vain for the elusive salamanders. I even began to believe that there were salamanders in the Lake. Aaron was so convincing. He gave such an accurate description of the salamander that he had seen, that we both ended up believing him," Carlos said, with friendly chuckle.

"How old were we when you thought that you saw a salamander in the Lake?" Dominic asked Aaron.

"I was in grade two when I thought that I had seen a salamander. I can even show you the exact spot," Aaron said, also chuckling at the memories of their salamander hunting expeditions to the Lake.

"It is a well-known occurrence that under certain circumstances people can and do perceive things, which do not exist in the ordinary sense of existing, that is, as actually being there, in the form of a real external object in the world. Most philosophers would argue that in a dream or in a hallucination, nothing real is actually perceived. Gillian once proposed that in a dream or a hallucination one could argue that something has indeed been perceived, but only in the form of mental images. Similarly, anyone can use their memory or imagination to perceive things, which only exist in the form of mental images in their mind. Anyone can also see or perceive non-existing things in the form of after-images or as visual recollections in their imagination. But it is obvious that after-images or visual recollection of mental pictures or things perceived in dreams do not exist in the same sense that a table exists as when someone actually observes a table in a room, and announces there is table standing over there, in plain view for anyone to see. So according to Gillian, things can exist in two possible senses or in two possible ways. Something could exist as a thing that has been perceived in a dream or even as an after-image or as a visual memory in the form of mental pictures that can be recollected by an act of the will. Or a thing can exist in the form of an actual external tangible object that is really there, as in the case of a table standing before an observer," Aaron explained.

"Are you proposing that after-images, dreams, or things that we image in our minds, can exist as 'things' by virtue of the fact that someone has perceived them in their minds, but even so, they are still nothing more than imaginary things. They don't really exist, surely. They do not have an independent existence like something concrete which really exists as a sensible, tangible external object in the world out there. In my mind real external objects exist independently of anyone's mind or perception, am I right, or what?" Dominic asked.

"I think so, but then there are different kinds of things, which are able to exist in different kinds of ways. Anyway, what does it mean for something to exist? That is an important question? If a thing only exists in someone's mind then it still exists as some kind of object. It could be a mathematical object. It could be a scientific or a mathematical theory, which is also a kind of object, which one can visualized in one's mind, and as an object it is real, just think of Plato's Ideas, they are not less real than the palm tree standing over there," Aaron argued.

"OK, that is an interesting point. Do those intangible abstract objects exist 'somewhere'? Can they exist anywhere independently of the mind? Do they cease to exist as objects if they are not being perceived in any one's mind? Do they exist in some abstract realm waiting to be discovered?" Dominic asked

"Maybe they exist in God's mind, waiting for us to discover their existence," Aaron proposed.

"So Macbeth actually perceived a dagger?" Carlos asked, interrupting their argument.

"Yes, he perceived a dagger," Aaron answered with mischievous grin on his face.

"But what if we can only perceive things that exist?" Carlos asked.

"But we agree that the dagger did not actually exist," Aaron replied.

"Yes but this does not change the fact that he saw a dagger," Carlos insisted.

"So you are saying that we can perceive things that don't exist?" Dominic said with a sceptical expression on his face.

"Why not? We do it all the time as artists, as painters, or as writers of fiction, it is part of being creative, works of creative activity can trigger the formation of vivid and enduring impressions in the mind, bringing into existence a universe filled with images that we treat as possessing some kind of reality, as being true in some sense, true as in believable. Fiction trades in the believable even when the author makes a disclaimer denying any connection between actual reality and the realm or world or universe of the narrative. Why would the writer or novelist feel compelled to make a disclaimer? It is because the story becomes believable to the reader," Aaron said, playing the game of devil's advocate.

Aaron had a sudden insight, a brain wave.

"We live out our lives within two overlapping Universes. First there is the Universe of things out there which we have not created and second there is the Universe of signs and symbols that we have created. In both Universes we perceive things, in the Universe of signs and symbols we perceive meaning, we perceive truth and we are also able to imagine all kinds of experiences and things that could occur in that Universe, things which cannot be seen with the naked eye. We can also imagine the existence of various kinds of situations as well, that involve places and occasions filled with all kinds of occurrences and events and state of affairs, which are so believable, that we became persuaded to take it be true in some special kind of sense, even though happens to be fiction," Aaron said as he continued to stretch the point further.

"So fiction is in some sense true?" Dominic challenged.

"Why not?" Aaron asked.

"True with a capital T?" Carlos interjected.

"Why not?" Aaron challenged.

Carlos shook his head incredulously.

Carlos opened another bottle and filled their glasses. They were beginning to feel quite mellow.

He held up his glass:

"To the Universe of signs and symbols which we have created, in which Truth with a capital 'T' dwells in magnificent splendour, salute!"

"To the Truth, in all its radiant and magnificent splendour! You shall know the truth and it will set your free," Aaron said, laughing, as he raised his tumbler of beer.

"To the Truth, as we know Him," Carlos raised his beer in acknowledgement to Aaron's toast.

"Salute, to all the signs and symbols that fill the Universe with meaning, and also to things that exist but are not real in the ordinary sense of the word, yet we can still see them with our naked eyes, salute!" said Dominic with touch of teasing irony.

"Salute!" said Aaron, in response.

"But what about that mad Frenchman called Descartes? According to Gillian he doubted the existence of everything including his sense organs and body," Carlos asked.

"Yes what about Cartesian Doubt? That is what she called it. Descartes invented the idea of Cartesian Doubt where he became sceptical about all of his beliefs regarding everything, including sense perception and common sense," Dominic added.

"I also remember everything Gillian said. I remember her exact words. How do we know whether the external objects which we perceive actually exist and possess the properties or qualities that we perceive with our five senses? For example, how do we know that there are material things out there? Concrete material things, or substances as she said, which happen to be either colourful or colourless, flavoured or tasteless, fragrant or odourless, light or heavy, soft or hard, smooth or rough, silent or noisy, hot or cold, solid or hollow, animate or inanimate, living or dead, organic or inorganic, existing or non-existing and so on," Carlos said as stared at his frosty beer in an attitude of deep contemplation.

Carlos was on a roll.

"Take this glass of beer in my hand. We can spend the whole afternoon philosophizing about it. The glass feels cold, it is hard and smooth, it contains a liquid that smells like beer, and which tastes like beer. The glass makes a clinking sound when we make a toast and it is filled with a substance that has the colour of beer. Can I really doubt any of this? Is it possible that this glass of beer does not exist as I perceive it? Is it possible that there is no connection of resemblance between what I see and the actual thing in itself out there?" Carlos asked.

"What do you think Aaron?" Dominic asked.

"Well Carlos has described the problem of Realism, and I think I agree with a Realist view of things. I believe that we are able to perceive things as they really are," Aaron said.

"Didn't Gillian ask whether existence precedes essence or was it the other way round?" Carlos asked.

"What are you getting at?" Dominic wanted to know.

"OK let me explain, if this glass of beer actually exists, then it has to have a temperature, an odour, a flavour, and a colour. Surely if something exists is must possess properties or qualities. It cannot exist with having essences. Can anything exist without having a single sensible property? I cannot go along with Descartes." Carlos said, still looking intently at his glass of beer, "I think I am beginning to see into Gillian's mind."

"There are too many loose ends that you have not connected. What is the relationship between perception, realism and the existence of things?" Dominic asked. He wanted Carlos to explain.

"Hey man, I am not the resident philosopher, I don't have all the answers," Carlos laughed flippantly.

Aaron began to feel nostalgic. Memories of the long summers days spent lounging at the pool side at 98 Commissioner Street flooded his mind. The intellectual jousting that they had enjoyed with Gillian and Hillary and her other university friends, and the sparkling laughter, all seemed to have been a dream, a perfect dream that was almost unbelievable. An era was coming to an end, he become increasingly aware that he was standing at the threshold of a new juncture in his life. His friends would be moving on and starting their own lives. Gillian and Hillary will also be moving on. In a way, all this will set him free. It will no longer be necessary for him to live a double life like some kind of schizophrenic double agent. There will only be Geraldine, and he would be able to feel more integrated as a person. He could stop living two lives.

He looked at Carlos and Dominic. He had known them since grade 1. He had known them for twelve years. His loyalty to them was unquestionable, and he knew he could count on their loyalty. They did not know that he had been living a double life for most of the year.

"Hey Aaron, why have you become so quiet and forlorn?" Dominic suddenly asked.

"I was just thinking," he answered, shaking himself out of his reflective mood.

"You have a dark scowl on your face? You look absolutely morbid," Carlos laughed.

"I am just thinking about the world as we experience it. We live in a world filled with sounds and permeated with the fragrance or smells of odours, a world in which every surface has its own specific texture to the sense of touch, a world that is alternatively wet and dry, cold and hot, a world crowded with all kinds of objects. But above all, we live in a world that is visible. A world made visible by streaming photons, particles of light. We live in a sea of electromagnetic radiation, a vast cosmic ocean filled with photons, all racing around us in every possible direction, in straight lines, at a speed of about 300 000 km per second. Yet we cannot see a single photon. They are all completely imperceptible. We cannot even see the actual photons which make the various objects around us visible. Objects become visible to us as a consequence of photons physically colliding with the surfaces of objects and ricocheting back at us. The ricocheting photons pass through our pupils and with the help of our lenses they physically crash at high speed into the cells that make up our retina. We cannot see the photon colliding with the special proteins within the cells of our retina. We cannot see the changes that the photons cause in the structure of these proteins as a result of crashing into them. We cannot see how the changes in the structure of these proteins trigger electrical impulses in the neurons of our optic nerve. When we see a tree we don't see that the electrical impulses in the optic nerve consists of waves of electrical depolarization across the membranes of neurons; all of these invisible events that occur in our neurons are necessary for us to see the tree, just think, all of these invisible microscope processes makes the tree visible to us. When we see that the leaves of the tree are green we don't see the electrical impulses that excite the various neurological centres in our brain, again all of these invisible neuron events are necessary for us to see the colour green. Through this long chain of internal and invisible causal events involving our nerve cells, the world becomes visible to us."

He continued to explain.

"The external world becomes visible without us seeing any of the processes that make it visible to us. We do not see how it is possible for us to actually see the world as a picture out there or as a mental picture inside of our heads while we hold the world fixed in our gaze. We do not see how the world emerges out of flying photons and electrical impulses. We only see the end result at the end of a long causal chain of events; we only see the final effect and not the sequence of causes. Whatever it is that we see in the end, we take on trust that the image we have in our minds actually resembles the real external world, which actually exists there for us to see, as it is in itself," Aaron elaborated.

"Where does this image exist, where does it reside, is it in our heads or is out there like the pictures on a cinema screen. I don't know how to put it. Do we actually see the world out there; is there a real connection between the external world and our sense organs? I can't explain myself, it is all very puzzling to me," Carlos said looking genuinely perplexed.

"This sounds all very complicated to me. What is the point that you guys are trying to make?" Dominic asked.

"I suppose we are trying to find a way to connect the loose ends you mentioned. That is the point. We are trying to see the connection between perception, Realism and existence," Aaron said.

"The point is what do we actually see and hear when the world becomes visible and noisy to us?" Aaron replied.

"I understand what you getting at," Carlos said.

"Well I am not too sure if I am getting it," Dominic admitted

"It does not matter?" Aaron said.

"No, I think it matters a lot," Dominic protested.

"Ok, the point can be stated as follows, do we perceive the effects that objects have on us only in our minds, or do we perceive the actual reality of objects as they are in themselves existing out there external to our minds and also independent of our minds? Or do we only see or hear only what goes on in our minds or brains, do we perceive the external world as it actually is in itself or do we see only the creations of our minds or brain or our mental apparatus or whatever we wish to call it? Does the world exist exactly as we perceive it, independently of our perceptions, or does the world cease to exist as we perceive it, when it is no longer under the surveillance of an observer? Are colours still red if no one is looking? Is the glass of beer still cold if no one is holding it? Does beer still smell like beer if no one is sniffing the glass? If the tree falls in the forest does it still make a sound if nobody is there to hear it?" Aaron said.

"In other words, do we really see, hear and smell external objects as they actually are, and do they remain in that way, that is, being colourful, noisy and smelly even when we are not around? Or do we, through the means of our sense organs and nervous system see, smell and hear only the effects that objects impress on our bodies, and when we are not around then there is nothing, there is no colour, no noise, no smells? According to this view the objects of sense perception are not actually colourful, smelly or noisy in themselves. It is only through our sense impressions that they are able exist as colourful, smelly and noisy objects in our minds, but these properties of objects do not have any real independent existence in themselves. So, is it true that external objects out there cannot exist as colourful, smelly and noisy objects independently of our sense organs or outside of our minds? Is it true that the world which we see, smell, hear, feel and taste exists only as a creation of our minds, a creation that has been triggered by the action of light, sound waves, jiggling molecules and friction on our nervous systems through a process that involves neuron excitation and all that kind of stuff?" Aaron asked.

"Anyway, to get back to our topic of conversation, do you think that all the sensible qualities that we associate with the glass of beer that we happen to be holding this moment, its colour, taste, odour, touch and its temperature are produced in us, in our minds and imagination, by the action of the glass of beer on our sense organs?" Aaron asked.

"What do mean by its action on our sense organs?" Dominic asked.

"Well, the various sensory perceptions that we experience have to be triggered in some way in order for us to perceive properties that we normally associate with external objects such as colour, taste, sound, touch and odour. Some philosophers propose that properties have powers to produce the effects that result in the sense perceptions or sense impressions or sensations or whatever. Properties are the powers possessed by an object to produce effects such as colour, odour, sound, taste or tactile sensation. If we view the object as being composed of a substance, then properties represent the powers of the substance to produce effects such colour or odour or sound or taste and so on," Aaron elaborated.

"So if an object is composed of a substance then the substance has the power to trigger effects such as the sensation of properties such as colour or temperature? Is a sense perception the same thing as having a sensation?" Carlos asked.

"Yes, I would think so; I would say that perceiving something can only be possible if a sensation is experienced. I can't imagine perceiving anything without experiencing at the same time some kind of sensation," Aaron speculated.

"Sensations can be produced mechanically if you like. Sound is produced by the mechanical action of sound waves on our ear drums, colour is produced by the action of light particles on our retina, flavour is produced by chemicals colliding with our taste buds, touch is produced by friction, odour is produced by jiggling molecules in our nose and so on," Aaron tried to explain.

"Let us get this straight. Are perception and sensation the same kind of thing?" Dominic asked.

"That is a good question," Carlos noted, "I would say that perception and sense perceptions are the same thing, to perceive is to have a sense perception, and having sense perceptions must involve seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. That is why we can talk about the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, the sense of smell, the sense of taste and the sense of touch."

"OK, I agree. Perceiving is the same as experiencing a sense perception, and we cannot perceive anything without experiencing a sensation of some kind," Aaron said thoughtfully.

"And a sensation is the effect of the powers possessed by substances out of which an object is composed, I think I am getting it," Carlos added.

"I think so," said Aaron, his forehead knitted in deep concentration.

"I would really like to know what is the point of us continuing with philosophy if we believe that our sense organs are deceiving us and if we believe that sense perception may be completely unreliable, and that everything that we think we know may actually turn out to be fictions or illusions that our brain has invented, and what if there is no way of disproving that this may be the real truth about everything we think we know," Dominic argued.

"Dominic has got a point. What kind of life are we actually living if everything that we have believed in and taken for granted turns out to be actually false?" Carlos also asked.

"This is why Gillian always said that when we are doing philosophy it is difficult not feel like a complete charlatan or con artist," Aaron said.

"If that is the case, then why don't we just walk away from doing philosophy, why don't we just give up doing philosophy if it really is such a futile exercise?" Dominic asked.

"No we can't. Philosophy has a powerful hold on us we cannot avoid doing philosophy, it is impossible to give up the metaphysical life as Gillian put it," Carlos said.

"Carlos is right; we cannot run away from doing philosophy. We cannot ignore the problems of philosophy. As long we are able to wonder about what is true and what is false we are condemned to engage in philosophy. Philosophy has always been a never ending quest to get to the bottom of the question of truth and falsehood. It is the Socratic legacy that has defined Western Civilization," Aaron remarked.

"Do you think South Africa is still part of that civilization?" Dominic asked.

"No, definitely not! In South Africa the rule of falsehood applies. Everything you believed in and took for granted about South Africa is actually false," Aaron remarked.

"What do mean?" Carlos asked.

"Everything about this country is a mess, it has become a morass of lies and deceit," Aaron said.

"I don't know so much about that," Carlos said.

"Well speak to Gillian or Hillary," Aaron said.

"They are anti-everything," Carlos said.

"Going back to philosophy, if Gillian is right, then we will never get to the bottom of things on any matter, so why get all excited, we are condemned to live in ignorance," Dominic interjected in an effort to steer the conversation away from politics.

"If I have learnt anything, then this is what I have learnt so far: The very nature of philosophy as a critical activity makes philosophy a problematical and paradoxical enterprise. It is in the nature of philosophy to find reasons to doubt the reliability or the truth of all kinds of claims. Philosophers will find reasons to doubt the reliability of our beliefs about everything. A clever philosopher will be able to find all kinds of reasons to doubt any of the evidential sources that we may try to use to justify our beliefs about the nature of reality or our beliefs about the nature of things or our beliefs about the nature of the Universe. We cannot escape the corrosive element of doubt; in philosophy nothing is every settled, since ancient times philosophers have found reasons to cast doubt on our beliefs about the reliability of sense perception or the reliability of our memory or even of our ability to reason our way to the truth on any matter," Aaron said.

"I agree with you my china. One thing I have learnt this year is that nothing is settled, nothing is final, especially when it comes to looking at the world with philosophical eyes. Even the reasonableness of reason can only be justified by reason alone. That takes us back to what Gillian said about the circularity of reason. We cannot escape all those circles," Carlos said.

They sat in silencing sipping their beers and pondering over what they had been speaking of.

"Hey man what is going to happen to us?" Dominic suddenly asked.

"My china, believe me, we don't want to know," Carlos grinned.

"Whatever will be will be, _que sera sera_ ," Carlos added, philosophically, as an afterthought.

Dominic raised his glass. His face was flushed.

"I would like to propose a toast. To old, new and good friends. How does it go? To friends past, to friends present and to friends future, to friends departed, to friends far away. Salute !"

They all clinked their glasses together and said in unison 'Salute."

"To friends, Salute," Carlos said again.

Carlos raised his glass once more: "To Jonathan, Salute."

Dominic raised his glass: "To Jonathan. He was a terrific water polo player and a magical soccer player. Hell, he was an amazing left wing. He could run with a ball. He could kick a ball. Hell he could run with a ball, kicking and chasing it, he was sheer poetry in motion, remember when he scored that goal, he booted while in full stride, the ball curved, such a beautiful curve into the corner of the box, I will never forget that goal."

Aaron raised his glass: "To Jonathan. A first rate fellow. We really miss you Jonathan, you were one helluva guy. We miss you cowboy. Salute."

"Hey what is this cowboy stuff?" Dominic laughed.

"It is just an expression I heard someone use, I think it is appropriate to honour Jonathan," Aaron replied.

"Well he definitely was not a cowboy," Carlos said.

"Let's just leave it," Aaron replied,

"Talking about cowboys, why don't you tell us the story of Plato's _Drinking Party_. You never got to finish the story. I think it would be quite appropriate for this...what should I say... for this... yes for this important and auspicious occasion and all of that, to hear the full-unabridged version of what actually happened that night in ancient Athens. You have been speaking about Plato for years now. Look, I only read westerns and detective novels. All that philosophical stuff about the One and the Many and also Eros, all of which Socrates spoke about, comes from Plato and I don't think I will ever read any book that Plato wrote, but at least I will know something about the _Drinking Party_ , so let's go for it," Carlos said.

Carlos opened another bottle and filled up their empty tumblers.

"Yes I would also like to hear about what happened at the drinking party. You said that there were a bunch of queers at the party," Dominic said.

They could see that Aaron was not too keen. Dominic urged him: "C'mon Aaron, we are genuinely interested."

Carlos supported Dominic: "C'mon Aaron. This is our party we need to do something that will make us remember this farewell occasion for the rest of our lives. Come end of November, we will be going our separate ways. I will be starting work with the Davidson Firm of Auditors. Dominic is starting work at some other accounting firm. You are going to Wits to become a Zoologist. Then maybe you will become a Jesuit Priest and disappear into the Amazon rainforest to preach to the Indians and study insects and stuff. Who knows? This may really be the very last time that we are going be together as the three musketeers. We may all be married soon and shackled to our wenches with a bunch of howling kids, and then we will live with regrets forever because we never got to hear about what happened at the Drinking Party."

Everybody seemed to think that Aaron was going to eventually become a Jesuit Priest. He often wondered where they got that idea from.

Aaron finally relented.

"OK, I will try to give an interesting and entertaining account of _The Drinking Party_."

"Let me start from the beginning. Plato's book _The Drinking_ Party also called _The Symposium_ , involves a dramatic dialog that took place at a dinner party hosted by Agathon in celebration of some or other prize he won as a tragic poet. Instead of been entertained by flute playing slave girls, the guests, on the prompting of Phaedrus, all agreed to give speeches in praise of love. The guests at the party were Socrates, Aristodemus, Phaedrus, Pausanias who was Agathon's lover, Eryximachus a doctor, and Aristophanes a comic poet. Alcibiades pitched up late for the party in a drunken state with a crowd of intoxicated high-spirited revellers. He was quite a notorious figure in Athens. More gate-crashers pitched up at the party after all the speeches had been given and then all hell broke loose as everyone partied until the early hours of the morning."

He paused briefly as he gathered his thoughts.

"So as I was saying the issue of love was the focus of the drinking party. Talking about love and all that, some scholars reckon that apart from Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_ , Plato's _Symposium_ and _Phaedrus_ are two of the greatest books on love and the erotic ever produced in Western Civilization."

Aaron took a deep sip of beer: "Salute."

Dominic and Carlos raised their glasses: "Salute, to Love."

"And to Eros," Carlos said, raising his glass again.

"Yeah to Love," Aaron replied raising his glass.

"If you read the English translations of Plato's _Symposium_ , you will quickly become aware that the various participants in the dialogs seem to be using the words 'Love' or 'Eros' in different ways, often interchangeably. Sometimes they treat the word Love or Eros as a noun and then at other times it is treated as a verb. For example, in the _Symposium_ the word 'Eros' which is equivalent in meaning to our understanding of romantic love is used not as an abstract noun but as a personalized noun. As you know, a personalized noun is a word that refers to some kind of individual or being or personality or entity. For example, the word Love when used as a noun in the _Symposium_ refers to some kind of being called a _daimôn_. The English word 'demon' comes from Greek _daimôn_. In Greek mythology a demon acts as a kind of messenger between the gods and human mortals."

"So Love is actually a demon?" Carlos remarked.

"Yes and no. _Daimôn_ is a Greek word used for some kind of spirit-like being that differs from the demons that we find mentioned in the Bible. It is not like Legion, the demon of Gadarenes in the Gospels who answers Jesus saying 'My name is Legion, for we are many' or in Latin ' _Legio mihi nomen est, quia multi sumus_.' "

Aaron glanced at Carlos and Dominic.

He was surprised to see that both Carlos and Dominic remained interested in what he was telling them. Spurred on by their interest he continued:

"I can't remember exactly what Aristodemus, Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes or Agathon had to say in praise of Love. Maybe it will come back me. But after each of them had given their speeches, it was Socrates turn to give his speech."

"Socrates starts his speech by making a show of being modest. He begins his speech by saying that everything he knows about the meaning and art of Love was taught to him by a woman called Diotima."

Carlos looked a bit puzzled.

"I thought you said Socrates was a queer, so how was Diotima a woman going to teach him anything about the art of Love or Eros?" he asked.

They all laughed.

"No, it was not anything like you think. The woman called Diotima did not teach Socrates anything specific about sex or that kind of stuff. Instead, she explains to Socrates the meaning of Love by describing how the daimôn called Love came into existence. She describes how the daimôn called Love was conceived and born. The conception and birth of the daimôn of Love is quite complicated, but it has great significance for the meaning of Eros."

Aaron took another deep sip of beer. Carlos pulled an opened bottle out of the cooler bag and topped up everyone's glasses.

"On Aphrodite's birthday the gods had a celebration. The gods Poverty and Plenty also came to the party. The god called Plenty was also referred to as Poros or Abundance or Resourcefulness. And the god called Poverty was also referred to as Penia. Anyway, Poros got totally drunk on nectar wine and went to lie down in the garden of Zeus. He then fell asleep in the garden. Penia or Poverty thought up a scheme on how she could escape her state of absolute poverty and general wretchedness. She thought that if she could get Plenty to make her pregnant, she would gain all the resources that she lacked. So she lay down next to the sleeping Plenty and somehow managed to get pregnant. This was how Love or Eros was conceived. Eros was the love child of Poros and Penia. As their love child Eros inherited characteristics from both is mother and father. Eros then became attached to the beautiful Aphrodite because he was born on her birthday. He was sort of adopted by Aphrodite because he happened to be conceived or born on her birthday; this is how the connection between Aphrodite and Eros came about."

"How did Plenty make Poverty pregnant if he was asleep? Did they actually screw each other?" Carlos remarked.

"I don't know. It is only a myth and myths leave out a lot of the details. I think we can accept that Penia seduced Poros which must have been quite a feat in itself, given her status."

"While Love or Eros was the son of Poverty and Plenty he did not escape his mother's condition of poverty nor did he turn out to be very beautiful. I think his not been beautiful was one the important points of the story. He inherited his mother's condition of being in a state of poverty and therefore being in constant state of need because he lacked everything except the characteristics of being a skilful and resourceful schemer. These attributes he inherited from his father. The characteristics he inherited from his mother and father sort of compensated for the attributes that he lacked. So his state of being chronically needy was compensated by his ability to be a skilful and resourceful schemer."

"So the daimôn called Love was male?" Dominic noted.

"Yes that is correct."

"So while Love was the offspring of the gods of Poverty and Plenty he was not a god himself?" Carlos commented.

"Yes, that is right. So although he was the offspring of two gods, the god of Poverty and the god of Plenty, he was not a god himself even though he had inherited certain attributes from both his mother and his father. So it turned out that Love was a sort of a hybrid being or a kind of in-between-being. For example, he was neither immortal nor mortal, he was neither fully human or fully god, he was never rich but also never completely lacking in resources, he was neither beautiful nor ugly, and he was neither wise nor ignorant. By definition, a god cannot lack anything, a god cannot be mortal, a god cannot lack wisdom. Gods by definition in Greek mythology are always immortal, wise and beautiful. So all in all, Love was incomplete as a being, because he was lacking in all of the essential qualities that would have made him a complete being. Only a god is complete being."

"How can Love be neither immortal nor mortal?" asked Dominic.

"He is mortal in the sense that he dies everyday but because he shares some of his fathers' powers, he is reborn afresh every new day."

Aaron continued: "Love or Eros was incomplete or lacking with respect to wisdom and beauty. I suppose we can also say that he was lacking or incomplete with respect to the possession of knowledge and beauty. So maybe the two, knowledge and beauty go together as two sides of the same coin. Because of his profound deficiency with regard to knowledge and beauty he desperately desired to possess both wisdom and beauty. In this context we can use love as a verb and make its verbal meaning very explicit by interchanging the word 'love' with 'desire'. So remember this, we exchange or substitute the verb desire for the verb love, this is a key point that must not be forgotten."

"Once we have switched the verbs, we can see that Eros the individual who is half-human half-god is also the being called Love who desires or loves all the good and beautiful things that he does not possess himself simply by virtue of who he is. But most importantly he desires the beautiful, because he is lacking in this quality. But beauty also represents all the qualities that happen to be also good. The beautiful and the good are inseparable."

"I have got it. Love is the being that represents the Lover who loves or desires to possess the beautiful which turns out ultimately to be all the good things or qualities that he as a being lacked." Carlos said.

"Yes you are absolutely right. I am impressed. Let us see if you can answer the question that Diotima asked Socrates. She asked him 'what will Love have when all the good things that he wants to possess eventually become his own?' " Aaron asked his two friends.

"I don't know?" Carlos replied.

"He will have happiness," Aaron answered.

Dominic added his understanding to the topic to the conversation:

"So the possession of good things is the answer to the question of what ultimately makes people happy. Is this the conclusion that was reached? Is this the point of happiness? "

"Yes, but we cannot go and ask why people want to be happy because like Diotima said, there is no point in asking what is the point of happiness. There is no answer to this. To be happy is the final point of everything. I think this is the point of the Symposium and the Phaedrus."

"In both books I think the point of everything in living a life is to achieve happiness," Aaron said.

"Would you agree that to be happy is to be fulfilled?" Carlos asked.

"I suppose so," said Aaron.

"Would you say that to experience fulfilment involves possessing the good things in life?" Carlos asked.

"I have a problem with that. If the possession of good things brings happiness, then it is important to know what the genuinely good things in life are. What do the good things stand for? This point has not been made clear. Are the good things material objects or material possessions? If the possession of material things or stuff does not bring happiness, then the possession of material wealth cannot bring happiness," Dominic said, "so the good things must be something else rather than material wealth."

"Yes it is only the possession of good things which do not correspond to material wealth or material things."

"Ok, if this is so, then we need to be clear on what these good things are. So that it is possible to live a happy and good life," said Dominic.

"We need to possess what is beautiful in order to be happy, right?" Carlos asked, "and what counts as beautiful are not material things, but rather the attributes or qualities that a person can possess, is that right?"

"Yes," Aaron said.

"The Good, the Beautiful and the True are not material objects that can be possessed or acquired through the means of wealth. But even though they cannot be bought for all the wealth in the world, they happen to be the only genuine and authentic good things that Love or Eros truly desires. They are only things that Love would love to possess. Only by possessing the Good, the Beautiful and the True will Love or Eros lack nothing. Only then will Eros be completely filled with happiness. Only then will Love be authentically fulfilled or satisfied or gratified. Remember, Eros's desire can only be gratified with what Eros lacks. Eros lacks beauty and knowledge, which is equivalent to saying that Eros lacks the Good. And Eros will only lack nothing once Eros has authentic possession of the Good. This is the highest state of being that the soul can achieve," Aaron said.

"Wow man! This is really heavy stuff," Carlos admitted with a serious expression on his face.

"I would agree with Socrates that the possession of the Good, the True and the Beautiful is also the final and authentic goal or the final and authentic destination of man's quest for meaning which brings man to a state of completion, fulfilment and happiness," Aaron speculated.

"To be fulfilled is to lack nothing and you can only be happy if you feel fulfilled. Therefore, to lack nothing is to be happy. How does this argument sound?" Dominic said.

"Sounds logical to me, it sounds real Zen Buddhist to me," said Carlos.

"It sounds very Catholic to me," Aaron countered.

"You say that because you are just like a Jesuit," Dominic countered.

"Where do you guys come with this idea that I am going to become a Jesuit?" Aaron laughed.

"It is the way you are. You are always looking for the angle that comes back to Roman Catholicism," Carlos said.

"Is that a bad thing?" Aaron asked defensively.

"Hell no, we are all Roman Catholic, and that is a good thing," Carlos said.

"Are we done with the speeches at the _Drinking Party_ , what happened next?" Dominic asked.

"Well, at the end of Socrates' speech, all the guests at Agathon's house clapped their hands in loud applause and just at that very moment, a huge commotion erupted outside the door of Agathon's home. Alcibiades, accompanied by slave girls playing flutes, had arrived with a large drunken party of loud and noisy revellers. Alcibiades, who was also Socrates lover, began to bang loudly on the door. They had come to gate crash Agathon's dinner party, which was to celebrate his winning of a prize for his poetry. Alcibiades, the flute players and revellers were invited in and then the serious drinking and partying began. Soon after that, another drunken group of revellers finding the door wide open, also gate crashed the party. The party became wilder and wilder as the night wore on into the early hours of the morning. Just before dawn many of the guests had already left, those that had remained behind had passed out on the couches. Only Agathon, Aristophanes, and Socrates were still awake and still drinking at the break of dawn when the roosters began to crow. Socrates was still talking, but Aristophanes had fallen asleep in the middle of the conversation. Agathon had also drifted off into a deep slumber. Only Socrates was awake with a cup of wine still in his hand. He had never got drunk in his life, no matter how much he drank."

"Hell, so Socrates was quite a party animal and he could drink anyone under the table," Carlos said.

"Yeah he could," Aaron confirmed.

"Socrates is my man!" Dominic laughed.

The sun had begun to set. Rock pigeons started returning from their long range foraging forays to roost in the palm trees. The rock pigeons circled about the palm trees like homing pigeons circling around a loft before swooping down and alighting on a roosting perch.

Under a nearby palm tree laid two lovers on their blanket. They had been completely oblivious to their surroundings for the whole afternoon. They began to make their final embrace with urgent lingering kisses.

On the island in the centre of the lake a male peacocks began to wail: _hellllp....hellllp.......hellllp_. A peahen echoed an answer: _hell-O........hell-O_.

Most of the visitors to the Lake had gone home. Those that had remained behind started to drift off.

Aaron looked at his watch. It was almost 7.00 pm in the evening. The sun finally disappeared behind the horizon and the bells of Saint Michaels and All Angels began to ring, calling all parishioners to Evening Song.

### CHAPTER 16

In 1965, each morning at 6.00, Aaron caught the train to the University of the Witwatersrand to study Zoology and Mathematics. In the morning rush hour all the seats in every coach were normally taken by the time the train reached Boksburg Station. The commuters boarding the train at Boksburg Station squeezed into any vacant space left over for standing. During the early morning rush hour, the trains to Johannesburg Station did not stop at the smaller stations. After stopping at Boksburg Station, trains packed to over-flowing with commuters, flashed past the smaller stations like Angelo and Delmore. Standing commuter's rocked and swayed in unison with the motion of the train.

Germiston Station and President Station were the next two train stops.

Germiston Station had a vast sprawling spaghetti tangled shunting yard. Beyond the shunting yard lay the extensive South African Railway's mechanical engineering workshops that manufactured most of South Africa's rolling stock.

At Germiston Station, the non-smoking coach that Aaron normally boarded always stopped at the platform directly opposite the railway police station. Most mornings several youthful railway police officers in their dark green uniforms lounged outside the police station's charge office smoking their cigarettes and gawking at the passing stream of passengers.

The Beatles had just released their new hit _Ticket to Ride_. South Africa, like the rest of the world, was in the grip of Beatle mania. Beatle dolls of Paul, John, George and Ringo were on sale at the toy counters at the OK Bazaar in Johannesburg.

Local magazines published regular feature articles on Mary Quant's iconic new fashions. Insidiously, like a creeping epidemic, the first waves of the new European and British fashions began to lap onto the ancient shores of what used to be the inland sea of the Witwatersrand basin. All along the Reef, during the morning rush hour the usually dull and drab grey station platforms were briefly transformed into colourful scenes that looked almost like spontaneous fashion pageants as young white women spilling out of the trains rushed to the platform exits. Shapely young female legs encased in multi-coloured tights, feet stepping in stilettos, hair cut in sharp geometric styles, bodies barely covered in thigh exposing just-above-the-knee couture designs, provided an early morning delectable spectacle for appreciative libidinous stares. The English invasion in the form of Carnaby Street and Piccadilly Circus had arrived in the big cities of South Africa.

Aaron gazed at the parade of youthful white powdered faces with black mascara eyes and bright coloured lipstick. Their pretty faces were empty of anxiety, suffering, intensity, and angst like the faces of brightly dressed mannequins in shop windows. They stared vapidly into space without emotion. They stared with indifferent eyes, with eyes that showed no anguish and no torment. These law-abiding white citizens had freely exercised their collective wills in perpetuating the disenfranchisement, oppression and exploitation of the non-white people of South Africa. They had acted as willing accomplices, as willing moral agents, as fully legal persons, in the infliction of harm, injury and suffering on tens of millions of ordinary human beings. They had carried out the necessary actions and non-actions to make this horrifying reality possible without experiencing the slightest pangs of conscience and without the slightest tinge of remorse or regret.

They had done it with heartless and callous indifference. They had done it with cold hearted intent, without mercy. This was their reality. This was the kind of people that they were in reality. They were actually monsters. They were not morally different to the German citizens in Nazi Germany, who in various ways, were ultimately responsible for the propping up of a regime that shipped millions of Jews to the death camps. This was who they really were in all their whiteness. They were all criminals, every last one of them.

Aaron had come to the conclusion that the communists were right. In South Africa they stood for a worthy cause in their fight against Apartheid. He agreed fully with what he had heard at student meetings at Wits. In South Africa, South West Africa, Rhodesia, Mozambique and Angola, in each of these countries, beneath the apparently tranquil surface of ordinary life, a desperate life and death class war was raging; it was a class war against a bourgeoisie and capitalist class who had gone completely mad and who were also white.

He understood why people in South Africa had become communists. It was out of genuine and deep moral outrage. He understood the moral imperative that lay behind their decision.

On the daily homeward bound train journeys, he often lapsed into brooding and obsessive reflections which he struggled without success to suppress. He worried about his mental state. He had become vigilant and reserved, monitoring carefully what he said. He felt a strong personal moral obligation to avoid duplicity and complicity. He did not want to feel morally compromised. He mostly refrained from openly expressing his opinions, preferring to avoid courting controversy.

He could not help noticing that the majority of the homeward bound commuters all wore self-satisfied smug expressions. Their faces were not creased with lines of worry. Their faces were not drawn and gaunt. A mood of peaceful tranquillity pervaded the coach. It was plainly evident that without an over exertion of effort a complacent worry free life was within everyone's grasp. In fact a worry free life was virtually guaranteed to every white man and woman. Employment was virtually guaranteed, it was virtually impossible to be jobless. To be chronically jobless, one had to be an incurably lazy degenerate reprobate.

The good life was with very little effort virtually guaranteed as a right, if you happened to be white. Job reservation ensured the full employment of all whites who were willing to get off their backsides. Generally speaking, a decent life in South Africa was essentially assured to any white person. For the average white person, a comfortable and trouble-free existence could be enjoyed without any need to over exert oneself in mentally taxing or physically strenuous labour. Most of the thinking for white South Africans had already been done for them on their behalf. So it was generally not required that white South Africans should think too deeply about anything.

With white South Africa being in a state of mental inertia, the white population was generally immune to any kind of intellectual or cultural awakening that was taking place in the rest of the world.

Yet in spite of this pervasive mental inertia, the 1960s counter-cultural revolution did not leave South Africa totally unscathed.

One of greatest ironies of the counter-culture of the1960s for South Africa was the spread of the sexual revolution. Without disturbing the languid mental apathy of South Africans, the sexual revolution through the Trojan horse of fashion trends and rock music managed to establish a welcoming bridgehead into South Africa. Given the endemic mental stagnation, carnal appetites took precedence over the life of the mind. Supported by the birth control pill, the 1960s sexual revolution became a popular life-style importation that quickly prospered and flourished like a plague amongst the susceptible and eager youthful members of the white population in South Africa.

Like a barren arid landscape, the deeply reactionary mind set of white South Africa was generally unreceptive to any ideas that may have challenged the status quo. In South Africa the liberating potential of the political and social radicalism of the 1960s had become eviscerated, defaced, domesticated and mutated into a kind of hollowed out fascist pop-culture by the corrosive forces of a deeply suffocating and stifling white anti-intellectualism. Intellectually everything in white South Africa was skin deep, superficial and impervious to new ideas.

Contrary to worldwide social and political trends, the growth in sexual promiscuity among whites in South Africa occurred without any softening of their conservative racist attitudes. On questions of race relations, whites remained inflexibly segregationist in all spheres of social life. It seemed that the life of Eros on its journey of desire up the ladder of love had taken a strange closed-minded downward spiral in white South Africa.

Aaron began to experience for himself the deeply alienating cultural and social desolation that typified white South Africa. He was beginning to have first-hand experiences of exactly the kind of South Africa that Gillian and Hillary had spoken so critically of. Within South Africa the apparent greatness of Western Civilization had never been a reality, it existed only as a grotesque caricature, like some kind of cargo culture on a forgotten island. It was plain to Aaron that whatever could be identified as the essential features of the Western Lebenswelt had in fact never actually flourished as a living intellectual legacy in South Africa. The 'West' had never left the shores of Europe; the 'West' had never taken root in foreign colonial soils. The whites born in Africa had ceased to be European, and had not become Africanized.

It was also plain to Aaron that the so called 'Western Mind' in Southern Africa had withered away a long time ago. White South Africa had withdrawn from the world community, they had also withdrawn from Africa, and they had estranged themselves from the aboriginal people of South Africa who formed the majority of its population.

In the minds of whites, the society and institutions that white settlers had created over the past 300 years were taken literally to be an exemplification, a genuine and authentic embodiment, of the values and heritage of Western Civilization. In reality it resembled something that had degenerated into a paper thin counterfeit façade of Western or European Civilization.

While the West may be the best, while it may represent the highest summit of intellectual achievement that had been scaled by modern man since the great global Neolithic agricultural revolution, it was effectively dead in South Africa. It had died on the frontiers of white expansion into Southern Africa. It's intellectual and imaginative spirit was gone, it had been exorcised from the white body, from the white brain, from the white mind. With the white shell swept clean, other wandering and alien spirits finding it vacant, took up residence.

Aaron became convinced that the great Western cultural heritage of Europe had never set deep roots in South Africa. Only disembowelled remnants of that cultural endowment could be found scattered here and there. Whatever could be identified as Western existed only in terms of empty forms that had no depth and breadth when it came to actual substance. In other words there was no substance to the claim that white South Africa possessed the necessary ecclesiastical or social or political or cultural credentials that would qualify it to be a genuine member of the family of nation-states that conformed to the controversial, contradictory, impossible and enigmatic idea of Christian Western Civilization.

Anyway, Aaron was not unaware that the reality of Christendom no longer existed anywhere in the world, so all talk about protecting or preserving Christian Western Civilization in South Africa would not only be anomalous and strange, it actually had no foundation or substance, and was also empty of all meaning. Belonging to something that is called Christian Western Civilization was a convenient myth. You cannot belong to something that does not exist. Even as an idea it could not exist. This is what made white South Africa so phantasmagorical.

In reality the whites living in South Africa had become socially, culturally and intellectually an impoverished people. Their universe had become spectral, cold, lifeless and dead. By the 1960s the overwhelming majority of whites as a group within South Africa were neither European nor African. At best they were alien creatures. Alien creatures who like domestic animals that were originally introduced into a foreign country, had in time managed to escape from their domestic state into the wild. The early settlers who broke their links with the colonial administration in the Cape became like feral animals, that is, like domestic animals that had escaped from their original domestic state. Like feral animals they likewise turned into aggressive invasive aliens that destabilised the indigenous ecology.

Remote and isolated and severed from the rest of the world, white South Africa had become claustrophobically parochial. The frigidity and barrenness of the white intellectual landscape threatened to petrify the white mind into the rigidity of a death-like slumber. The icy grip of cultural rigor mortis had become irreversible in Verwoerd's bleak and grim republic.

English super models like Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton had become the new fashion trend setters to be emulated. Apart from the mini-skirt that had become popularized in the magazines displaying the anorexic looking Twiggy, the real cultural revolution of the 1960s never actually reached South Africa. The only visible and tangible evidence in South Africa that something dramatic had happened in the rest of the world during the 1960s was the sudden change in the hem line of the dresses worn by white South African women. While the counter-cultural revolution swept through England, Europe and North America, white South Africa remained stuck in a cultural wilderness of backwardness.

Also, paradoxically, while the rest of the world, including Black South Africans embarked on a journey of intellectual, artistic and cultural exploration beyond the old frontiers of the 1950s white South Africa wallowed in stagnation, slipping hopelessly into a social, cultural, economic and political cul-de-sac. While the rest of the world was crossing all kinds of frontiers that marked the various milestones of the 20th Century, white South Africa was comfortably and blissfully unaware that it was on a downhill road into oblivion. White South Africa had in fact regressed and was marching like mindless lemmings towards the edge of a bottomless abyss of social, cultural and political darkness.

Apart from the changing hem lines, nothing of significance from the 1960s counter-culture took root in South Africa. The overwhelming majority of white South Africa continued to exist in a conservative culturally insular and social backwater, cut off from the rest of the world.

The white South African withdrawal from the rest of the world involved a bizarre and other worldly cultish kind of migration into a fantastical imaginary bastion, a remote, isolated and fortified promised land that would be a light to the rest of the world; it would be the last surviving outpost of 'Western Christian Civilization.' It would become a living conservatorium of Western Civilization. Given its perception of the decline of the West, white South Africa took upon itself the Herculean task to become the world's last surviving custodian of the cherished values of Western Civilization. To this end it would be a bulwark against the march of communism.

Following in the footsteps of Gillian and Hillary, he soon aligned himself with the student Marxist left against the Liberals and right wing conservatives.

He increasingly became aware of the pathological cognitive dissonance that shaped the perceptions of white South Africa. It was difficult not to believe that whites had succumbed to a form of mental disorder, to a kind of collective mental disease that had spread insidiously like an incurable epidemic through the white population, creating nationwide symptoms that had the colour of mental and emotional retardation. An everyday mundane banal condition of insanity was evident everywhere, it was ever present in many forms as a visible symptom of a chronic and untreatable social-psychological disorder. Its manifestations were fearful like the nightmarish 'vapours of black vile' that Descartes spoke about in his First Meditation. Pathological mental disorders seemed to have become the natural condition in most whites. Aaron began to seriously believe that he was living in a demonic regime that was under the reign of madness and idiocy, a dark zombified underworld that could be quite readily incorporated into Dante's seven circles of hell that made up the inferno.

Bram Fischer of the South African Communist Party (SACP) was on the run. He had gone into hiding and was still at large in spite of a massive man hunt. The internal organization of the SACP seemed to have been completely destroyed with Bram Fischer being the last remaining high profile communist left in South Africa. Contrary to the opinions of the average white South African, Gillian and Hillary had only good things to say about Bram Fischer, and naturally Aaron was influenced by their views, and even developed a positive interest in the SACP and in its history.

Aaron had acquired through one of Gillian's connections a copy of the illegal and banned Communist Manifesto. He read and re-read it. He felt that there was no reason why a Catholic could not find broad agreement with the portrait of human suffering and the reasons behind that suffering that Marx and Engels had so cogently and vividly painted.

At Germiston Station, seconds before the train jerked forward, an almost inaudible male voice on the platform public address system announced that the next stop after President Station would be Jeppe Station. The sharp shrill sound of the conductor's whistle signalled the departure of the train from Germiston Station. The doors closed and the train started to move, gaining speed, it accelerated, gathering momentum, it whizzed past, Driehoek, Geldenhuis, Cleveland, Toronga, Denver, and George Goch Stations. After stopping at Jeppe Station the train then sped off past Ellis Park and Doornfontein Stations. The sudden accelerations and de-accelerations as the train snaked through the sharp bends always caused standing commuters to grab and clutch onto any fixed support to avoid been thrown off balance.

During the early morning peak hour at Johannesburg Park Station, trains packed to overflowing with commuters would arrive every few minutes from the West and East Rand. White and black passengers were strictly segregated into separate sections of the train, the train had a white half and a black half. Almost the entire population living on the East and West Rand appeared to work in the City built on gold.

Aaron had become accustomed to the cacophony of sounds that filled the air at Johannesburg Park Station. The constant background noises of trains braking, as they approached the platforms under the station concourse, never seemed to end. An un-interrupted flow of loud barely decipherable and confusing announcements regarding arrivals and departures blasted almost continuously from the public address systems on every platform under the station concourse. From almost every platform could be heard the non-stop shrill piercing sounds of whistles that filled the air with a relentless tidal wave of deafening vibrations. To add to the morning confusion a chorus of conductors shouted simultaneously in Afrikaans, English, isiZulu and Sesotho the departure times for different destinations.

The first, second and third class non-white coaches at the segregated black end of the train always came to a standstill exactly at the black end of the station platform, which was generally out of white- sight at the far end of the station platform. From this end of the station came the loud droning noises that sounded like swarms of angry wild bees. The ominous drone was generated by the lively loud tense hum of isiZulu and Sesotho that resonated deeply in the morning air from the non-white sections of Park Station.

After each train came to a shuddering halt, commuters surged out of the sardine packed coaches. They milled around on the jam packed segregated white and non-white sections of the station platforms. Pushing, jostling and shoving, the passengers stormed like termites in a delirious frenzy up the platform exit stairs. They spilled out of rows of exits from the dimly lit bowels of the station platforms into the brightly lit cavernous concourse of Park Station. Without a moment's hesitation, they anonymously bomb shelled into every direction, rapidly dispersing and scattering into the streets of Johannesburg.

From Johannesburg Station a motley straggling line of University students walked briskly through Braamfontein along Smit Street, Melle Street, and Jorrison Street in order to get to Jan Smuts Avenue. At the main Jan Smuts Avenue University entrance, students scrambled up the stairs and scattered in great haste in every direction to their different lecture theatres.

Only in the late afternoons after five o clock was it possible for Aaron to get a seat on the train. He often sat at a window seat when travelling home. The train weaved along its winding track from Park Station through the mine dump lined Central and East Rand railway corridor to Boksburg Station, Aaron's destination. The corridor through which the rail line passed also ran almost parallel to the Main Reef Road. The Main Reef Road roughly marked out the geographic location of the original gold bearing rocky reef outcrops.

The same corridor was once part of the largest and most extensive gold field that had ever existed. After almost 80 years of continuous gold mining, most of the narrow band of countryside surrounding the towns of the West, Central and East Rand had become degraded into a desolate, bleak, grim, sterile, toxic, and blighted dystopic wasteland. From the train window the passing scenery was littered with abandoned mineshafts, rusting headgears, ventilation pipes, ventilations shafts, decaying compounds, dilapidated workshops, white and yellow pyramidal slimes dams, yellowish mine dumps, stone grey ore dumps and derelict gold reduction works.

For decades radioactive effluent from the gold reduction plants had drained into the surrounding streams, spruits, wetlands, lakes and dams, filling them with a toxic cocktail of poison. Only exotic plantations of tall alien white trunked blue gum trees from Australia thrived in the spaces between the mine dumps and slimes dams. Yellow coloured streams crisscrossed through the veld, draining into a patchwork of wetlands. Orange, magenta, yellow, emerald green, violet and cobalt blue coloured ponds formed like suppurating sores along the margins of vast stands of reed beds that had sprung up in the hollows and depressions between the surrounding slimes dams.

On a late Friday afternoon while the train jerked, pulled, rocked and cruised its way to Boksburg Station, Aaron tried to digest the contents of Geraldine's letter.

Aaron was looking forward to seeing Geraldine on Saturday night. But there seemed to be an unexpected dark cloud looming on the horizon.

Recently Geraldine had left a disturbing letter in the hole that Aaron had drilled into the blue gum tree which functioned as their dead letter box. Aaron retrieved the letter from his bag and reread parts of the letter that Geraldine had written.

I am having a dreadful time. The girls in my class have been unbelievably cattish and spiteful. My self-esteem has been affected by all the hurtful and cruel remarks that I have to endure almost every day at school. At every opportunity they make snide remarks about my appearance. They ridicule my accent. They seem to find the way that I speak very funny. I have never fitted in very well at this school. I am not exaggerating when I say that I feel like an outcast, like a visiting alien from another planet. I am sure it would have been otherwise in Durban.

I have discovered that in South Africa skin colour matters a great deal. Why should I be surprised? Don't we all know that? Even Coloureds are preoccupied with skin colour. Your status as a person depends on how light your skin is. It seems that I am too black to be a Coloured. Strange don't you think? But my facial features are a mixture of European and Asian. My nose is perfectly shaped! It sounds ridiculous talking about the shape of one's nose. Well I like my nose, I am proud of my nose, it is a beautiful nose. It seems outlandishly absurd to speak about one's nose. I must be part European, part Asian and part African. Maybe I have some Oriental blood in my veins. I would not be surprised if I also had Chinese blood in my veins. That would be a great joke! You can just imagine. I'm a mixture of three or four races, hard to believe don't you think, but it's a fact! I am a human chameleon!! It's so funny, but I am actually blacker than the average Native in South Africa! The other day at school I was called a Dalit, whatever that is! I have also been called a chara, coolie, darkie, nigger, and kaffir meid.

See you on Saturday night at 7.30 pm.

Love you lots

Geraldine.

Geraldine was in Matric. She was the deputy head girl and had been awarded her a colours for athletics and netball. She was an excellent sprinter and had broken the under 18 inter-high school athletic records for the 100 m and 200 m for Transvaal Coloured girls. She was about 64 inches tall and weighed about 124 lbs. Except for a slight bit of padding on her hips which enhanced her overall figure, she was all muscle. She was a physically strong young woman. Given her physical strength and her natural ability as a sportswoman, Aaron was surprised to learn that she had to endure verbal bullying from the other Matric girls.

He would be seeing her the next day and was anxious to hear the full story behind her letter. He folded up the letter and put it back in his bag.

Right from the start he had quietly taken a great interest in the student political debates that frequently took place in the Great Hall. He had become converted to the Left. He had grown to feel estranged and alienated from the whites. He felt no racial solidarity with whites. He avoided all socialization with whites on the train journey. They reminded him of fat white maggots wriggling and squirming in a rotting carcass.

### CHAPTER 17

On that Saturday evening at 7.30 pm sharp, Aaron knocked softy on the door of her aunt's house. Usually she would be watching for his arrival from the lounge window. Tonight it was different. After a minute or so, she opened the door and smiled weakly. Her eyes were sad. He had never seen her looking so downcast.

"I'm really not feeling myself tonight. I am so glad that you could come," she said, "I am in desperate need of your tender loving care."

"I read your letter," was all Aaron could say.

"Yes, I am still wondering what it really means to be a Coloured," she said, "come inside, I need to talk about it so that I can get it of out of my system."

He wanted to say that he was trying to understand what it means to be a white but he decided that this was not the time to speak about that topic. Anyway how do you describe to any intelligent person what it is like being a white in South Africa without feeling like a complete imbecile?

They sat down.

"I feel completely abnormal, like a freak. My parents, my aunt and my cousins all look like whites. I have the darkest skin not only in the school, but also in the whole Location. I do not even look like anyone in my family. Sometimes I even feel like a stranger to myself, even when I look in the mirror, I don't even recognize myself when I see this black face staring back at me," she said.

"You are beautiful. I cannot believe you are saying these things. It so unlike you," Aaron said.

"I know, but I can't help it. I only really feel like a real person, like myself, when I am with you. When we are together I do not feel like a Coloured, I do not even feel black, I feel like an ordinary person. I do not even see you as a white person anymore, and I do not see myself as black person when we are together. In fact I have never seen you as a white person, even though there are a lot of white things about you," she said.

"White things, what do mean?" He asked with an amused smile.

"No it is nothing really serious. Don't take it as an offence. I find it endearing," she smiled.

She looked at with him with searching sad eyes. He did not know what to say.

"This is not how I want it to be. I do not want to be seen as a white person. In a sense, I also want to be normal. I yearn to be normal. I just want to be an ordinary person, not a white person," Aaron said with conviction.

He could empathize with her. Having gradually isolated himself from all his white school friends after finishing Matric and going to Wits, he was now struggling with his own identity crisis. He had avoided making new friends at Wits, and had become a bit of loner.

His remark that he just wanted to be an ordinary person managed to bring a smile to her face.

"Can you imagine what it means not to be a white person?" She asked.

"It is not an easy question for me to answer," Aaron replied.

"What do see when you see me?" she asked.

Aaron looked into her dark eyes. Her eyes were filled with emotion. However, they were also shining with an intensity that he had never seen in any other women before.

"I see a very beautiful young woman, I don't see you as a Coloured, and I can't explain it. I feel natural with you. It feels normal to be with you. We are related, that must mean something," he said.

"You may not know this but there are so many different kinds of Coloureds. I have concluded that Coloureds are beyond classification. There are actually too many different types of Coloureds. Cape Coloureds are different from the Coloureds from Natal. Coloureds from Natal are very conscious of their European ancestry. Coloureds from the Cape are descents of Hottentots and speak Afrikaans. I view myself as a Coloured. It's the identity that I have accepted for myself. I cannot imagine myself not being Coloured. But at School even that has been taken away from me. I am too black, whatever that means. I am not attracted to blacks. I am also feeling more and more alienated from Coloureds. This sounds so contradictory. I sound so mixed up. I really don't know where I stand. I speak English. They speak Afrikaans among themselves. My Afrikaans is terrible. Most Coloureds realize that they don't have an identity. What is a Coloured? Objectively a Coloured is simply a person of mixed blood. We Coloureds have mixed blood. We are not pure. We are a mixture of races. Anyone who is not obviously African, Indian or white in South Africa ends up being put into the Coloured box."

"Who am I? I am a Christian. I am Catholic. That is my identity. I take great comfort in this fact. Lately I often get very depressed. I am trying desperately not to feel sorry for myself. That would be so pathetic! "She continued on the theme of identity.

Aaron was completely bowled over by Geraldine's outburst of angry frustration.

With Geraldine, he had always avoided like some terrible taboo any word that had any connection with human pigmentation. He had learnt that in the Population Registration Act a Coloured person was defined as person who was not obviously a white person nor was generally accepted as a member of any of the aboriginal races or by any native tribe of Africa. He also knew that the amendments to the Act sub-divided Coloured South Africans into different racial categories such as Cape Coloured, Cape Malay, Griqua, Chinese and "other Coloured". Geraldine seemed to fall into one of the "other Coloured" categories. Clearly, this was how she was being perceived by the girls at her school.

"I don't know much about politics but I know from personal experience that racial classification has a very negative effect on any normal human being," she said, her face still looking dejected.

"There is no conclusive evidence that a white looking person in South Africa is really white. Strange things can happen to you in South Africa. For example, even if you look very white, just the mere fact that you spend all your time with Coloured friends could result in you being re-classified as a Coloured. Aaron you got to be careful, even you could re-classified as a Coloured, especially with your yellowish-greenish brown eyes, freckles and dark auburn red hair, this could happen, especially if they caught you spending a lot of time with Coloureds. This is how bad Apartheid has become," she said with a faint ironic smile on her face.

Aaron was again almost completely bowled over by what she said. He had never heard something like this before. It must have shown it on his face because she began to elaborate on this strange possibility.

"I remember reading a terrible story in the newspaper. I had to read it for myself because my parents were so shocked about what happened to this poor man. He grew up as a white person and got married to a white woman. One day after work, some government officials came over to his house and told him that he has to resign from his job at the railways because only Europeans were allowed to work in the job that he was employed to do. It must have been some kind of office job or something like that. Anyway, they showed him his birth certificate which stated that he was not pure but was of mixed blood. When his wife heard that he was of mixed blood and not pure white blood she left him. She even called him a Hotnot. He tried to commit suicide by swallowing a whole bottle of aspirins. Luckily he did not die. He was kicked out of his own house. He was disowned by his own family, including his brothers and sisters. They did not have anything about mixed blood on their birth certificates so they could stay white. I think they must have lived in fear that at any moment some government officials carrying bulging suitcases could come knocking at their door and tell them they were no longer white. I still remember the words that the newspaper quoted him saying.

He said: 'I now had to walk into a new world, never to be a white man again. My own family feared and despised me. My youngest sister, the wife of a railway ticket inspector, never even told me of my mother's death'."

"You must read the Song of Songs in the Bible it is quite amazing. It is about a black woman," Aaron said.

"Are you having me on?"

"No I am not. Go fetch a Bible."

She went to fetch a Bible. He showed her the place and she read aloud: "I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon."

She was astonished at what she had just read. She began to cry. Aaron put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. He kissed her head and then her tear stained cheeks. She sat down on the sofa and read the whole of the first chapter. Aaron sat down next to her and put his arms around her pulling her close to him. She sobbed and sobbed.

"I'm sorry I am not very good company tonight." She got up to go and blow her nose.

When she had regained her composure, she said:

"I want show you what my aunt has given me. I will be back in a minute."

Geraldine returned. She had put on a Tango dress and a pair of three inch high heels.

"How does it look? My aunt gave me the shoes as well, they also fit perfectly," she said as she spun around. The high heels were the pair of stilettos that she had worn previously.

It was a black tango dress with a very low cut open back. The bottom part of her dress or skirt consisted of two asymmetrical flared rumpled triangles hanging loosely directly from the waist. In the front the triangle was shorter reaching her knees and the back triangle was longer, almost reaching the middle of her calves. The two asymmetrical triangles exposed the tops of her thighs almost to her hips. Thin halter straps held the front bodice of the dress in place. The low neckline in of the bodice exposed the full cleavage of her breasts. The front panel of the dress below and around her breasts was designed to provide bra-less support and gave lift to her breasts, showing her cleavage above the bodice.

The dress accentuated her athletic figure. She was spectacular; she had the most magnificent legs and body. Aaron was pleasantly astonished. She looked absolutely stunning in the dress.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked beaming from ear to ear, with her hands on her hips.

"Wow, you look really amazingly fabulous, it is a beautiful dress," he said, as he searched his mind for suitable superlatives, but he could not think of any better adjectives.

"So you like it? Maybe we should both get dressed up for a special Tango evening. I will be back in minute. I am just going to change back into my clothes."

"No, don't change yet. I want to stare at you for a while. Stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself while I look at you. Look at yourself; see what a magnificent woman you are. I cannot stop feasting my eyes on you. You have a perfect face and a perfect figure and perfect legs, any sane person would die to be you," Aaron said.

"Die to be me? What are you saying cowboy? Who would want to die to be me?" she said, managing to laugh, while looking at herself in the mirror.

She turned around and looked at Aaron, smiling.

"No don't look at me. Look at yourself in the mirror. Is it not true that women enjoy being looked at? Doesn't a woman also only see herself through the eyes of others?" He asked

She laughed.

"Yes it is true, but it is not a problem for women in general," she replied, "all women understand this. Seeing ourselves through the eyes of others is part of being a woman I suppose. Women want to be looked at. It's a paradox of womanhood. Men are creatures of vision. For men, seeing is more important than being seen. Men, I think, do not see themselves through the eyes of others. They are just too preoccupied with looking at women," She said.

"Women also look, not only at men, but also at other women, so as to compare themselves with any other women who happen to be in the vicinity. I am sure this is also why they are obsessed with mirrors," he said.

'You are so right," she said, laughing at how absurd all of this sounded.

"Should we dance?" She asked, "It will cheer me up a lot."

"Yes, why not?"

"Should I change?"

"No keep the dress and shoes on."

"I really want us to have a real special Tango evening where we both get all dressed up. That would be so magical. Just think how nice it will be. You in a suit and tie and I will be dressed like a real Tango dancer. Getting all dressed up is like showing respect and honour towards the Tango. Anyway that is what my aunt has said."

They embraced and began to walk the Tango. Afterwards he said:

"I want to see you give a demonstration of the _boleo_."

She selected a LP with music suitable for demonstrating in a dramatic and creative fashion the Tango _boleo_ embellishment.

Aaron sat down on the sofa and watched her as she began to walk the Tango steps for the _boleo_ across the room starting from his right side.

At the heavy beat she stopped in front of Aaron with her two feet together. She stepped backward with her left leg. As the left foot landed she swung her right leg, which was now her free leg, very sharply in a clockwise direction at ankle height behind her stationary left leg which was now the weight bearing leg. Her upper body rotated clockwise with the swinging leg. When her swinging right foot landed on the beat she was now facing towards Aaron's right, with her right leg stationary and bearing her body weight.

She immediately swung her left leg clockwise round the front of her stationary right leg, rotating her body in the same direction until she was facing towards the left again. Then again she stepped backward on her left leg which on landing she swung her right leg clockwise behind her stationary left leg. But instead of landing firming on the right foot, she immediate swung her right foot anticlockwise round the front of her stationary left leg. When the right foot landed she immediately stepped off in a forward direction with her left leg. She would fleetingly in a flash tap the floor with the toe end of the stiletto as she swung her free leg.

She continued for a few minutes performing in rapid succession multiple alternating clockwise and counter-clock turns in a spellbinding rendition of the _boleo_. She carried out the successive turns with graceful fluid smooth whip-like semi-circular rotations around the axis of her stationary leg. She skilfully executed each rotation while simultaneously tapping the floor with her toe midway between the arcs of her free leg swings. She stepped and moved her free leg in complete synchrony with the every beat, with a precision was awe inspiring.

To watch her move in this fashion to the beat of the Tango was an incredible visual experience for Aaron, It was a delightful, sensual and pleasurable sight. He could not help clapping his hands in surprise, wonder and astonishment at her magical demonstration of the _boleo_ movements.

When the music ended, she asked Aaron:

"Do know anything about the flamenco?"

"No, what is the flamenco?" He asked out of interest.

"I will give you a demonstration. Just let me go and fetch the right shoes from my aunt's collection."

When she returned there was a mysterious smile on her face.

Let me find some real flamenco music," she said as started searching through the stack of LPs. She eventually found the LP that she looking for.

After taking out the record she gave the LP jacket to Aaron.

After examining the dancer in a typical flamenco dance pose on the front cover, he glanced at the information on the back. Scanning his eyes quickly over the back cover, he randomly read bits of information on the flamenco.

:....the flamenco evolved as the music of the poor, of the oppressed and the under privileged...even though the flamenco is based on a rhythmic cycle of 12 beats with accents on the third, sixth, eighth, tenth and twelfth beat... the guitar with its steady pulsing strum is the heart of the flamenco.... each performance of the flamenco is unique and unrepeatable...it never follows a rigid set routine of steps and movements.....the repertory of the dance varies continuously...the rhythm of flamenco music is complicated and syncopated....in the more modern recent developments in flamenco music there are elements of the blues, jazz, the basso nova, music of the middle and far east..... flamenco music belongs to a way of life with its own unique emotional landscape of loss, pain, hurt, suffering, grief, injustice, and sorrow; and it has its own unique philosophy that resonates with the lives of the poor, the oppressed and the common people...the flamenco comes originally from Andalucía in Spain....it embodies a mixture of cultures, people and music....it has been shaped by Gypsy, Moorish, Jewish, Indo-Pakistan and Byzantine influences...

She put the LP on the turn table and adjusted the volume and quickly closed the lounge door so as not to wake up Sharon.

She stood in the centre of the lounge floor in front of Aaron. The first strains of the music started to play. It sounded foreign to Aaron's ears. A palpably exotic sense of suspense suddenly pervaded the lounge.

And then on cue with the music, she lifted up her arms and hands gracefully moving them about above her head in a slow theatrical gesture, and then suddenly without warning she began to make movements with her arms and hands that were sweeping, that were dramatically beautiful, that were intricately graceful. Most of the sensuous flowing movements that she made were concentrated in her upper body, her torso, her arms, her hands and her shoulders. To the distinctive and characteristic beat of the flamenco she also suddenly started to simultaneously execute complicated and rhythmic percussive foot work and stylish leg kicks that left Aaron feeling dizzy with soaring astonishment.

Without warning, the dance suddenly underwent an unexpected transition in mood and tempo. Her movements became stormy, energetic, turbulent, wild and almost violent. The beautiful but awesome volatile eruption of Geraldine's dramatic embodiment of the flamenco stunned Aaron with surprise.

Her dark face became intense and passionate, reflecting the tempestuous mood of the flamenco. He became spellbound by the music, by the expression on her face, by the movement of her arms and hands, by the precision of the rhythmic and aggressive stomping of her feet, and by the beat, the relentless beat of the marching feet of the poor, of the wretched, of the oppressed, the beat of countless feet all marching in step, and the relentless guitar strumming overlaying the beat heightened the tension to breaking point. There was no end to the continuous never ending beat, no faltering, no flagging in its rhythmic pace, together the beat and the guitar strumming lifted and carried the flamenco to volcanic heights, the tension, the mood, the despair, the anger, the rebellion, the sadness, that filled the small lounge in Reiger Park became almost unbearable. Images became palpable in the beat, countless ghosts from the past all crying out for justice marched through the lounge to the sound of the inexorable, unremitting, unyielding flamenco beat. In spite of its beauty, the tension it created was emotionally exhausting.

When the music finally came to an end, she bowed and made a curtsy in front of Aaron. He jumped up from sofa and started clapping his hands excitedly. His face was a picture; he was in state of rapture.

She smiled and then put a finger to her lips.

"Shhh we mustn't wake up Sharon."

After tidying up the lounge they sat down. She looked at him earnestly and said in serious tone of voice:

"I want us to learn Spanish. I think that if we can both speak Spanish we can immigrate to Argentina and live in a small, but comfortable, apartment in the middle of Buenos Aires. You can teach maths and I could teach English. On Fridays and Saturdays after Mass we can go to our favourite milonga or Tango Night Club. Wouldn't that be amazing? This is all we really need and it will be more than enough. We will have God, the Mass and the Tango, we would be in heaven, don't you think? Oh Aaron can't we escape, can't we flee from this country to Argentina and start living another life uncomplicated by Apartheid?"

It was sort of funny the way she put it. Even though she had presented the proposal in serious manner Aaron couldn't help laughing.

"Why are you laughing at me? I am being very serious."

"If we immigrate to Argentina would you go to Mass in your Tango custom?" He asked.

She smiled at the thought.

"Yes, but I will wear a long coat and mantilla," she answered.

"What will I be wearing?"

"You will be wearing a suit or nice trousers and a jacket with a tie," she answered, "and when we are old one day we will go to Mass every morning and every evening. After evening Mass, we will also spend every evening at the milonga and dance the Tango. This will be our life, the Mass and the Tango. In the day time, in between the Masses, we will go and sit in the park and you will paint and I will sit next to you and watch you paint."

There was a certain charm to her proposal. Aaron had already entertained in his own mind the idea that they could have a life together. He now knew that she was also thinking on similar lines.

"What language will we speak if we stay in Buenos Aires?" He asked out of interest.

"Spanish, of course," she said, "we do not want to be taken for immigrants."

"So we will cease to be South Africans?"

"Yes. It would like shedding our old skins and getting new ones. You and I will become completely new people, and our children will be Argentinian."

"So you will marry me?" Aaron asked her.

"Yes of course I will marry you; you just have to ask me."

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes of course I will, I love you," she answered.

### CHAPTER 18

Geraldine's matric examinations were over. Aaron's first year exams were also over. He retrieved the rolled up message from the hole in the tree.

She had written the following letter

Dear Aaron.

On Saturday night there is going to be an end of matric party at a house in Excelsior Avenue. Park at the corner of Eike Street and Excelsior Avenue. I will slip away from the party and meet you there at 8.00.

Love Geraldine

It turned out to be a hot December night. There was also a new moon rising. At 7.45 pm Aaron parked, the VW Beetle that he had recently bought and fixed up, at the corner of the designated streets. At 8.00 pm sharp, Geraldine came running down Excelsior Avenue to the car. She was wearing a shiny black blouse and a short black skirt that revealed her shapely legs. She was in state of rapture when she arrived at the car. Excited and almost breathless she hastily climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. She had washed her hair with that special shampoo that always gave her hair that incredibly erotic fragrance.

He asked her, "How was the party?"

She answered, making a wry face, "It was so boring. Everyone was behaving so stupidly. Some of the guys were drinking alcohol and smoking. The music was terrible. I couldn't wait to get away."

"Did anyone ask you why you were leaving so early?"

"No, I don't think anyone even noticed that I had left."

He started the car and switched on the car headlights.

"Where are we going?" She asked.

"I don't know, maybe we should go and park at the beach, listen to the frogs, look at the moon, gaze at the stars, have a moonlight swim in dam, take a walk or just talk."

She gave him a funny look.

"Listen to the frogs and gaze at the stars? Hmmm, OK that sounds like a good idea. I am not too mad about swimming in the dark. Wow! Aaron, look at that moon, it's so bright and big," she said.

"I am so glad to be finished with school. So are we going to the beach then?" she said when they turned into Middel Road.

He hesitated, slowing the car down, he stopped by their blue gum tree. He seemed to be undecided.

"I just remembered something. We could go to Cinderella Compound and watch the film they showing tonight in the amphitheatre. We can sit among the mine boys. No one will even notice us."

"What is showing?"

"I don't know. They show mainly cowboy flicks and comedies like Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy."

She looked sceptical about the suggestion.

"Come on, let's go. I have never had the opportunity to take you out to a cinema or even on a proper date even though we have been going out for almost two years. This will be the first time we have met outside your aunt's home at night. It actually feels quite strange to be alone with you in the car."

"I know, that is why I was so excited. I wish it could be always like this," she said.

"What time are your folks expecting you home?" he asked.

"Well it's the end of the year matric party that I am supposed be at and this will go on until the early hours of the morning. I don't think they will be expecting me home before 12.00."

Aaron and Geraldine arrived at the Cinderella Compound at about 8.10 pm. The amphitheatre was crowded to full capacity. They managed squeeze tightly in between a group of Malawian mine boys sitting just below the projector room. They watched several Charlie Chaplin films and two Laurel and Hardy films. Geraldine found the goodbye scenes in the Laurel and Hardly film called _A Perfect Day_ extremely funny. In the one scene, everyone kept on waving good-bye with no one actually leaving.

The show ended at 10.30 and Geraldine felt that it was too early for Aaron to drop her off at home so they decided to drive back to the beach at Cinderella dam.

At the beach, they could see the moon's dazzling reflection glowing like a floating opalescent oval disc on the dam. The glittering reed beds shimmered in the scintillating effulgent shower of moon light.

"Wow I can't believe what a magical night it has turned out to be. I cannot believe how spectacularly beautiful everything is tonight!" She exclaimed jubilantly.

"Should we go for a swim?" he asked.

"You can't be serious; the water looks too black and scary. Just thinking of it gives me the cold shivers."

"No, I am serious."

"No, you are joking."

"No, I am not joking."

"OK then, I dare you to swim to the middle of the dam."

Aaron opened the car door and got out of the car. Standing in front of the car, he took his shoes and socks off, he then pulled his T-shirt over his head and threw it on the short grass in front of the car. Geraldine also got of the car. Standing next to him she began to laugh.

"You are bluffing me."

He loosened his belt and pulled his jeans off. He turned his back to her and pulled his scants off, and run naked into the water.

"Aaron, Aaron, come back, are you crazy."

He began to swim out to the middle of the dam. He found it exhilarating. After swimming for a while he stopped and began to tread water. He stared up at the moon. Geraldine began calling from the shore.

"Aaron please come back, I can't see you. Aaron you are scaring me. If you don't come back now, I will come and fetch you."

He could hear she was anxious and called back.

"I am coming," he called back to her.

He swam back until he could feel the bottom with his feet. He stood in the water it was chest deep.

"Don't be a scaredy cat. The water is warm."

"OK, OK, I am coming, if you insist."

She took a band out of her handbag and made her hair into ponytail. In the incandescent moon light, Aaron watched her undress. She kicked off hers shoes, pulled off her skirt, pulled her top over her head, unclipped her bra and tossed it on top of her skirt and top which was laying on the grass next to Aaron's clothes near the car. She pulled off her panties. She did not turn her back towards Aaron. Instead, she lifted her arms to wrap her ponytail into a bun on her head, exposing her erect, firm and shapely breasts. Naked she looked breathtakingly beautiful. Aaron's heart began to pound. His breathing rate increased. He became strongly and very pleasantly aroused at the sight of her exquisite body, its magnificence was brilliantly illuminated by showers of silvery moonlight streaming brightly over the dam.

She walked to the edge of the water. She tentatively dipped her foot into the water.

"Shoo. You were exaggerating the water is definitely not warm, it is icy cold."

He called out to her.

"Cinderella dam is not as pure as the water of the river Ilissus where Oreithyia once bathed."

"What was that?" She asked.

"Don't worry, it is not important," he answered.

"Don't be like that, I want know what you said," she replied.

"OK, I will tell you when we get out."

Holding her arms across her breasts, she walked slowly towards him on tiptoes until the water covered her breasts. She then swam breaststroke towards him, holding her head high out of the water, so as not to wet her hair.

"Yooooowww it's so creepy."

She put her arms around his neck and then clamped her legs firmly around his waist.

"Hold me tightly I am scared and cold."

Aaron put his arms around her and carried her back to the shore, her naked breasts pressed against his chest. He carried her to the grass. She lowered her legs and pressed her body against his.

"Brrrr I am so cold, hold me tight against your body, you are so warm."

Aaron held her tightly against his body. They pressed their lips together and kissed. After a while Aaron released her from his embrace. He bent down and grabbed his T-shirt; he then began to dry her off with his T-shirt, rubbing her back, arms and legs. His desire which had been kindled into a smouldering fire while she clung tightly to him in the water began to abate, becoming quenched by an incredible sense of tenderness towards her. She tried to avert her eyes, but in the end she glanced at his loins. In her state of unclothed vulnerability he sensed that she trusted him completely. She quickly slipped her clothes on and he got dressed as well. They climbed back in the car; it was warm in the car.

"Skinny dipping in Cinderella dam was actually quite nice. I am glad we did it, but it was so creepy, I nearly died of fright. You are such a daredevil. I never thought you would do it."

They sat quietly holding hands. Aaron put his left arm around her shoulders. She snuggled tightly against him and leant her head against his shoulder. She became very quiet. Aaron actually thought she had fallen asleep. In order to start a conversion he asked:

"What you are plans now that you have finished school?"

"I must find a job," she answered.

"Have you considered studying further?" He asked.

"Yes. I did consider going to University but it such a rigmarole for a Coloured to enrol at any of the Universities that I gave it up as an option. Anyway there was no money. My parents could not support me. My parents have a big bond to pay off on the new house. My dad's car is kaput. He wants to buy a new car. They also made quite a lot of HP debt. They bought a new washing machine, new furniture and other stuff. Anyway, my dad reckons it is best to study by correspondence through the University of South Africa or Unisa. My mom agrees with him. They both studied through Unisa while they worked at factory jobs in Durban. My dad has actually got several degrees and diplomas through Unisa. He also did a BA honours in education and then an MA in education. They both agree that I should first get a job and save enough money to pay the Unisa fees. My father is quite an educated man."

She continued after pausing for a second:

"They say that if I paid for my own studies, then I will take my studies more seriously. If I were paying with my own money, I would not be wasting theirs if I dropped out and so on. They said I should aim at getting a B Com or a law degree. However, my first priority they say should be to find a job. Therefore, you can see I am under a lot of pressure to find a job. They are not going to let me sit around the house doing nothing like some of the others who have finished school. I have an appointment on Monday at Colgate Palmolive and then on Tuesday I have an appointment at Sonny Colbert's garment factory in Boksburg North. I saw the job adverts in the Star. My parents also started their careers as factory workers, so it is a tradition in the McNamara family I suppose. I hope to get one of the jobs. Both are in Boksburg so it will be quite convenient. Getting a job will give me more independence. My parents are so strict. I really feel restricted, but once I am earning my own money I am not going to allow them to dictate to me. I have been a good daughter. I have not let them down. But they are greedy hey! Can you believe it my dad wants me to pay rent! OK so I will pay him his damn rent! Then they must not boss me around. I will not have it! No more telling me whether I can go out or not. I will came and go as like. I am no longer a school girl. They have to realize that, I will be eighteen soon. I will have my own bank account and I will be paying my own way!"

"So once I am earning my own money I am not going to sit at home on Friday and Saturday nights. We are going out, even if it is to the Compound Bioscope. They do not need to know what I am doing in my personal life. You know, before I worried a lot about us been caught. I was actually worried about how it would have affected my Dad and Mom if we were arrested. They could have lost their jobs. Well maybe not. That sounds quite drastic, hey? Do you think they would have lost their jobs? However, I can just image how embarrassed they would have been. They would have sent me off to Wentworth to live with relatives. But we have never done anything wrong, I have a clear conscience," she said.

"No we have done nothing wrong! I was not so worried about my parents. But I did worry about your parents. However, what could they arrest us for? What crime could they charge us with? We were not having sex. Was it a crime that was seeing each other?" he asked.

She smiled at him and then laughed at the idea that they were committing a crime by seeing each other.

He was beginning to realize what a feisty character she had become.

"If you decided to study through Unisa, will you do a B Com or some law degree?"

"I have been thinking about it. Both the B Com and law do not appeal to me. I cannot see myself as an accountant or a lawyer. It does not interest me. They make a lot of money, but I also want to do something that I like and that interests me. You are going to laugh at me, but I actually would like to be a teacher. Yes, a primary school teacher. It must run in my blood. Both my parents are teachers. So there we go. I would like to become a schoolteacher, definitely a primary school teacher. I love children. So, if am going to study further then I am going to study to become a primary school teacher. I have made up my mind. You see, I can make my own decisions. I know that they will try to persuade me not become a teacher. I would like to study English, Biblical Studies and definitely a course or two in Spanish. However, I am also interested in sociology and philosophy. In addition, I would like to do Zulu. I cannot make up my mind on what I want study."

She looked at him. Her face became serious. There was concern in her eyes.

"What is going to happen to us?"

"We are going to be together for ever," he answered.

"How is that going to be possible?" She asked as she pressed against him, holding him tightly.

"We will be together for ever," he insisted.

"I know, but how?" She asked.

"There will be a way, nothing is going to separate us," he said.

"Is that a promise?" She asked.

"Yes," he answered.

They sat in silence listening to the sounds of the night.

The chirping of the crickets, the croaking of the frogs, grew louder, and louder.

Somewhere nearby in the veld behind the car, they could hear the _pi pi pi pipi, whee-yu-ee_ , calling sounds of a pair of Spotted Dikkops. Across the veld from afar they could just hear the distinctive metallic hammer striking anvil alarm calls of a family of Blacksmith Plovers. Something must have had disturbed them.

"Who was Oreithyia?" She asked as she gazed across the moon lit dam.
