Based on real events

[MajGenl.Meade]

WEEKEND

I see that Jori Potgieter has gone to Johannesburg, said Oom Willie, to meet his pretty wife who never came back from her mother’s funeral. He is going because he now thinks two years has been long enough for just waiting alone. I asked, had she agreed to this meeting? No, but the first time they met in Jozi was by accident before they got married. So, he demanded, why should that not happen again?

Any one of us could answer such a question. It would be better to wait until he found out where she is. Then they might collide on purpose. But a clever wife would not blunder into the same kraal twice. Especially a pretty one such as Rachela. But even a useless plan is better than no plan at all, I told Jori. He was pleased at the compliment. And so, he has gone.

I have never lost a wife in Johannesburg. But she once almost lost me, though not in Joburg and it was this way.

If you look at our bookshelf, you will find many books, and most are not mine but Janita’s. I have there only three books. One is the Bible and so is another one, but in English. The third book is of short stories by H.C. Bosman who you all know is South Africa’s most famous author. Because it is a slim paperback, I can hold it with great comfort when lying in bed. In the very first story where someone falls asleep, the writing is so good that I fall asleep too.

I have read the start of this one many times and have it by heart but may never finish the rest of In die Withaak se Skadu. I want to read more in this book. But it would not be right to move on to the next story until that first tale is planted in my mind, ripe and harvested like my mealies. So, you know how happy I was to learn of a group who have already done all this agricultural work.

Up in Northwest, these people have a Herman Charles Bosman weekend every October. Right there in Groot Marico they make plays out of Bosman; they have mampoer; there is music. Best of all, they read the stories out loud all the way to the end without falling asleep. I think these people are not as sensitive as me to good writing. This, I say to Janita, is a journey we should make. She did not think so, which is why I went there alone and how she almost lost me even though she says that unlike Rachela, I am not clever or pretty.

It was on a Friday that I left the farm to drive to Groot Marico in the excellent Mercedes of mine, that had been my father’s car before he died. That car is also not pretty or clever but works well at speed across my fields and on the roads, dirt and tar. It is only not so good when my Janita is sitting next to me and tells my Mercedes that it is old and dirty and not working.

It is well she stayed home because in less than the five hours needed to reach Groot Marico, the Mercedes would believe her and would not get there at all. With just me and the open road all would be well, and so it was for the first few kilometres until just past Glen. I had forgotten the R30 has changed to a toll road. It seems wrong to pay today for what was already built many years ago. Thinking of this injustice kept me busy until I reached the first road works.

We all have been stopped by many road repairs. The red flag is waved by the workers admiring our approach at 120kph past the signs that say 60. We wave back. Ahead, one side of the road is closed, and we know that SANRAL has learned much over the years. A red light and a white line never yet stopped anyone, let alone a taxi. No, these days the road crew drag a heavy barrier in the way to show they are serious about the stopping. Always this is next to a sign that threatens “Expect delay +/- ten minutes”.

You must have come to a small road work where you can see ahead to the other end where there is no traffic halted to wait. But before you can drive through, blink goes the red light and scrape goes the barrier and the worker looks hard at the sign, so you must read it too. It says to expect the delay for ten minutes and they don’t want to disappoint you, plus or minus. But you know in exactly ten minutes, they will let you take the empty road ahead.

Sometimes, this system is challenged when one car arrives at each end at the same time. Who then will be disappointed by not having to wait ten minutes? The workers pick up their walkie-talkies and argue it out. Both cars must wait. One driver can wait for nine minutes then is released to speed through. The other driver stays in place for one minute past the ten for his freedom. This makes exactly twenty minutes for two cars. There are many pluses and minuses in the new South Africa.

Now, on the R30 after two or three repair stops and the reminder that my toll is paying for me to stand still, I was not in the best of moods when turning onto the N4, almost at the end of the trek. The long line of cars and bakkies crawling slowly toward the single operating toll booth was a bad thing. When I saw the toll was to be 75 Rands, I had too long to wait to keep just in shock. Instead, I moved on to argue.

“What is this seventy-five Rands for?” I demanded of the collector. Yes, he says, it is the toll for the next section, a very long way. But I only need to travel two kilometres to Groot Marico; not the very long way. Is there a discount? No, because you also have been driving on this road already to get to this booth, neh? But that also was only two kilometres from the short way to the R30. Yes, but that way avoids the first toll booth and you have not paid for this piece of road you are now on. But I didn’t drive on the piece of road from that toll booth to the piece of road I am now driving on, except I am instead standing still. Yes, seventy-five Rands, please.

It was a good discussion but from behind me there came indications that my fellow travellers did not appreciate either justice or logic. Will you be here on Sunday, I asked before paying and feeling cheated twice over. It would be another seventy-five Rands to go home and my collector would not be there to continue the debate. I might have to drive to Johannesburg to get the full value of such excessive tolls. Meantime, I had driven right past my hotel by the side of the N4 and must make a circle back.

This was a most satisfactory place for me to stay. A group of thatch-roof chalets, quite large perched on the hill right above the petrol garage, a restaurant, an Indian shop, and a bottle store. I saw an ABSA ATM and a swimming pool and Krazy golf. Well, and so the pool was a half-metre of very green swamp liquid and the little golf place a bit hidden by bird droppings and a strong suspicion that asking for putter and golf ball would be like wishing for honest government. That is, a thing so far in the past that no one remembered it. I switched on the TV to see some rugby. It did not work, even up so high on a special shelf on the wall which should keep it from being damaged by disappointed golfers and swimmers.

“Ach, I will fetch the man to fix it,” said the owner as she pressed the remote button over and again. When he came, the man did fix it. You see, he said, this is the DSTV remote only for the box. The TV remote has been stolen. You move this furniture and climb up on it to turn the TV on and off, like so. Remember, don’t use the remote or the box will stop working again.

They left me. I tried to change the channel on the remote to rugby. The DSTV box turned off, leaving the television to shine brightly in blue. I climbed up on the furniture and hit the switch. Reading would be better than TV anyway. I lay on my back upon the bed to read my Bosman story about the leopard all the way to where it says, “So I lay on my back, with my hat tilted over my face, and my legs crossed, and when I closed my eyes slightly . . .”

Next thing I knew it was time for the evening programme at the Bosman Cultural Centre which I must now find. They had told me there were only three streets in Groot Marico, but I think there are five perhaps. At least, I found four wrong ones before seeing the big white signs saying BOSMAN with an arrow to the right place.

There was an NGK with pleasant grassy areas and a sizable outbuilding for events, but we would not go in those until next day. Tonight, we gathered beneath a huge red tent roof held up by long poles, swaying and bulging in the fresh night wind. There was a stage and a cash bar to the front and over to the right were open fires with large pots of pap and heaps of boerewors. The wonderful smells floated under the tent roof and curled around the many tables and chairs rapidly filling with people just like me who wanted to hear the end of a Bosman story at last.

I went up on to the stage because I could see we must register there and get our tokens for Saturday and Sunday. Mine was a tin cup with a blue ribbon. Everyone had tin cups with different colours of ribbon, but we did not need these to buy the Bosman books set out on a long table. I did not know there could be so many.

Turning some of the pages, I could see that a story about the Mafeking road was in at least four different books. Now in the case of stories, it seems you can pay more than once and get the same road over and over. This is not like the N4 where you pay twice for nothing much at all. This needed some considerable thought, and my thought was that a man does his best thinking with a beer and perhaps a bottle of wine.

Waiting at the bar, I met a man from Holland. I was impressed that his Dutch was adapted well to Afrikaans as he had been to South Africa many times before and learned such refinements. He was wearing motorcycle clothing and came with important cameras attached. He worked, said Jan, as a reporter for motorcycle magazines and was on another trip to write a story and being a Bosman fan, he took the chance to come here. We bought each other a beer and then a bottle or two of wine to share with whoever was at our table for two.

Jan showed me three Bosman books he had just purchased. I asked about the books and the same stories in so many. Did he not feel cheated? He leafed through them and saw my point. Yes, but surely, he said, you might purchase a CD by your favourite musician who is . . . Four Jacks and a Jill, I said. Then, said my friend, might you not purchase another CD of a Jack and Jill concert – live music that had many of the same songs as your first CD? Yes, but they would be sung differently with some dancing and these Bosman stories are the same, neh?

For a moment, he looked like those people in the line behind me at the toll plaza. Aha! said Jan. But do you have more than one Bible at home? Yes, I have two. Those, he said triumphantly, are also identical; the stories are the same, but you bought more than just one. And he knocked over a glass of red wine. There was a panic until I saw it was his own glass. But one Bible, I replied, is in Afrikaans and the other in English – different, like the CDs you spoke of. Let us get dinner, he replied, giving up too easily for my liking, and so we did.

Now it is dark and on the stage a lady comes to speak about how much fun they have making this Bosman Weekend. She introduces some of the people who will be leading events tomorrow and Sunday. Then tonight there will be a performance in a few minutes, and we must enjoy it and then go to our beds. She was replaced by two young men who had invented a performance of Bosman’s story, Die Rooinek.

This was not a reading you understand, but their interpretation of the story, the details of which I did not know then and I still do not know. They ran about a lot. It was a warm night for beer and wine. Fight as I might, they were doing Bosman so well that my head was nodding already in the first scene. And it nodded itself into a long pause in the puddle of wine on the table.

I woke up with a shock as Jan pulled my head up from where red wine had stuck my hair and face to the table. My Dutch friend asked didn’t I think the students had done an excellent job of Die Rooinek and did I know I had finished my bottle of wine and then another and should not drive? Now he had awoken me, should he take me to my hotel on his motorbike? I had not drunk enough to overcome my doubts about a motorcycle and a Dutchman who’d matched me glass for glass.

We said goodnight and I found my car after walking past it only three times. Despite my careful observation of all rules of traffic, I became lost again and then very tired indeed. My Mercedes is comfortable and easy to sleep in, but better not while moving. So, I stopped the car near a railway track and an FNB cash machine there with a bright light. I shaded my eyes with my Bosman book and lay back to think some more about a withaak.

A strange thing happened. There was a crash of thunder and my Mercedes jumped sideways, and I saw it was near dawn and smoke curled up and all around. There were flames close by and I was glad it was only a dream for the smoke looked like a man walking toward me, carrying a large gun. I wanted to laugh. But then suddenly I knew. It was a man all right. Not a dream but a man. Behind him, the FNB cash machine had gone. Well, I could still see it going.

The man walked right up to the window of my Mercedes and tapped the glass with his gun. I opened the window. He put his face up to mine and sniffed. In this moment, you know in advance you are dead and only waiting for events to catch up. He touched my face and hair with his finger, scraping a little at the red wine stain. I did not shake or quiver, because I was a statue ready to be placed among the graves. He shook his head. Then he turned and walked away, back through the thinning smoke, to where I could see his friends scrambling to load the shattered ATM into a white Toyota Land Cruiser.

And that is how my wife almost lost me, far from home. I don’t know why he did not shoot me, that man. I was a witness and never will forget his face, the only bank robber I ever met. Mostly, my friends back home do not believe there was a man. Oh, the ATM was on the news so that was a fact. I showed scrapes and dents on my Mercedes from the explosion, but among so many others, who was to say when they came?

In Groot Marico I knew that the festival was over for me. I got my bags from the hotel and started for home in the early morning along the N4, ready to argue with the new toll collector. But I did not get to argue in the end. At the toll station, fire trucks were scattered about, ambulances waited and the station itself had holes in the glass and walls. Impatient police waved drivers through, toll-free and I felt pleased and a little disappointed. Then, a short distance beyond, I passed a shattered cash machine by the side of the road and then a car upside down in a great cloud of smoke. Flaming rubber from the tyres still dripped onto the road. It was barely recognizable as a white Toyota Land Cruiser.

[Gob]

Wow!! Well written.

[Burning Petard]

Yes Gen'l, I thank you. I got a good return for the time I invested to read it.

snailgate

[Joe Guy]

Very well done!

And I learned for whom the road tolls...

[MajGenl.Meade]

For any interested in (a) the (much better) story from Bosman and (b) what I fumbled for in this one . . .

https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/t ... aks-shade/

or for those who like to listen, David Muller from the very Bosman Festival that I attended, along with Jan the Motorbike Writer and much wine. Unlike me, David recites Bosman from memory.

[Long Run]

[Big RR]

Very well written Meade; if I'm not mistaken, I believe I heard that story on NPR in one of the story telling shows (not sure who read it).

[Sue U]

WEEKEND

Hadn't we seen this one before? Just as good the second time around, though. You have quite a knack for this writing thing.

[Guinevere]

Meade - NPR reported this morning that SA is lifting most of its COVID restrictions. Thoughts? Do you feel safe?

[MajGenl.Meade]

WEEKEND

Hadn't we seen this one before? Just as good the second time around, though. You have quite a knack for this writing thing.

Drat. I worried about that but didn't find it. PD prevent dupes as I recall from my telegraph past life

[Big RR]

Maybe it wasn't on NPR then; I just recalled the previous one.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Meade - NPR reported this morning that SA is lifting most of its COVID restrictions. Thoughts? Do you feel safe?

Well, the modifications to Level 1 are minor - 7 days quarantine rather than 10; no quarantine for a positive test if asymptomatic; and something else.

What they need to relax is the farcical "tracing" rules - 99% of the country gave up on recording name/address/phone nbr/temperature at the door (bars, restaurants, hotels etc) many moons ago. They also need to relax the number of people allowed to watch a sporting event and so on.

Yes I feel safe enough - had covid, had the two Modernas, maybe had covid again. I have a church for foreign farm workers (who don't get Afrikaans, only English) and we don't mask or avoid shaking hands. I wear a mask to walk 3 steps to a restaurant table where I'm apparently safe from all germs and take the mask off. . . it's all a bit silly. But I wear the mask while shopping because it's the law. Woolworths is a million times more dangerous than McDonalds

[Sue U]

WEEKEND

Hadn't we seen this one before? Just as good the second time around, though. You have quite a knack for this writing thing.

Drat. I worried about that but didn't find it. PD prevent dupes as I recall from my telegraph past life

It was a memorable story, told quite well. You should write some new ones.

[MGMcAnick]

I THOUGHT I remembered that, and having asked what series of Mercedes he'd inherited from his father. He stated that it wasn't HIS inherited Mercedes 230-4 (a model I've never seen here) but Oom Willie's from his father.

[MajGenl.Meade]

It was a memorable story, told quite well. You should write some new ones.

Appreciate the thought. I put so much into the General Lyon book, which has been updated many times as small bits of data trickle in (and searches continue) that I've burned out a bit. But need to get back in the swing of things. I need a story into which I can put "Is she the lying bitch in the wardrobe?" Nasty that.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Is a "lying bitch in the wardrobe" a sort of Narnia-inspired "madwoman in the attic"?

[Big RR]

Or would that be the "lion bitch"?

[MajGenl.Meade]

I saw it more as a funny (?) child's answer to a question about the White Witch of Narnia asked by a kindly buffer grandfather. Just a misheard lyric.

[Sue U]

I saw it more as a funny (?) child's answer to a question about the White Witch of Narnia asked by a kindly buffer grandfather. Just a misheard lyric.

[Big RR]

I know I'll regre this--what's a buffer? I know Michael Buffer ("Let's get ready to rumble") but I don't think that's it.