The Smell of Apples: A Novel by Mark Behr

Author:Mark Behr
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Apartheid, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780312152093
Publisher: Picador
Published: 1997-03-14T13:00:00+00:00

I'm glad Frikkie's here, because I don't feel like playing with the Spiros. I'm still angry at them for running off yesterday when I fell down Mrs Streicher's steps.

But that's exactly what the English are like. They always run away. Dad says it's the Afrikaners that will have to keep this country safe when trouble comes. The English will all emigrate in droves, and run off to America and England because half of them have foreign passports. After the Anglo-Boer war, all the English soldiers left South Africa without even thinking about the thousands of women and children they had murdered in the concentration camps. Poor Ouma Kimberley was born in the concentration camps. Dad says it's typical of the British to criticise Hitler, when they themselves were actually the ones who started putting people into camps. Once, when we were driving past Rhodes Memorial, Dad said Cecil John Rhodes had been an imperialist who stripped our country of gold and diamonds. And when he died after ruining our country, he had his ashes strewn in Rhodesia rather than in this country he had milked dry. Dad said the Rhodes Memorial should rather be named after someone like Verwoerd, who had given his life in service to the Republic.

We see the old man walking towards us from the direction of Kalk Bay. He bends forward, and picks up an empty Coke bottle from the water drain. At first we don't pay him any attention, but then I recognise him: it's Chrisjan. It's the first time I've seen him since he walked off with our

Mark Behr

fishing gear. He's wandering along with his eyes on the pavement, and it seems like he's looking for something.

'Dag, Chrisjan,' I say, from where Frikkie and I are sitting on the pavement. He comes to a sudden standstill, and tries to straighten his shoulders.

'Afternoon, my Crown. Doesn't the Crown have a little loose something for an old man? The hunger's eating at the stomach.'

He's acting as if he doesn't recognise me. But he has to know me. After all, he worked in our garden for thirty years, first for Oupa and then for us. He bends forward, holding out his palm like a bergie. Dad usually gives them money, but I haven't got any for him. And anyway, Chrisjan isn't a bergie, he's simply unreliable and on top of that he's a thief.

'Stop pretending you don't know who I am. Dad's going to send the police to come and lock you up. They'll take you to Robben Island to chop rocks. That's what you'll get for stealing our fishing reels.' That isn't really true, because Dad never wanted to call the police. He said we weren't one hundred per cent sure that Chrisjan was the one who had stolen the reels. But all the same, we knew it was him, so I just want to frighten him a bit. When I start talking about the police, his eyes open wide and he denies that he knows anything about the reels.

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