Read Online Scribbling the Cat: Travels With an African Soldier by Alexandra Fuller - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Alexandra Fuller
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the seclusion and remoteness and as if his heart had finally broken. He seemed to me then to be a man not so much wallowing in his good fortune, but accepting his inevitable punishment.
“You know”—K cleared his throat—“I was called up when I was seventeen. I was an appy at a workshop in Que Que when I got my papers. I wanted to be a welder.” He sighed. “See? I started off with good intentions. Then . . . well, I was called up into the regulars and the first week in camp I was slow getting out of bed one morning, so the sergeant—some bullying prick— comes up to me and boots me as hard as he can in the small of the back. He told me, ‘Get up, soldier!’
“Ja, well I learned to defend myself in boarding school, so man . . . I didn’t mess around. In about three seconds I had the sarge with my hand around his neck, pinned half a meter off the floor to the barracks door. I knew right then that if I stayed in the regulars I’d end up killing someone on the wrong side—I mean on our own side: some idiot who didn’t have a clue and who thought he could bully me just because he had a stripe on his shoulder and I didn’t.
“What you have to understand is that I grew up in the shateen, I grew up with a gun, I grew up with the gondies, I grew up fighting. The war was not a mission for me. It was like I’d done all my life except instead of hunting game, I was hunting gooks.”
The early afternoon had turned a mellow golden color. The rain swallowed itself back up into the clouds. The lemon-colored sun sank down and bulged in the high western sky. The land beyond the river looked as if it was steaming gently.
“And I could hunt gooks better than anyone because I could think like one. When I was a laaitie, my folks had a farm in Kalamo, in southwestern Zambia. It was still Northern Rhodesia in those days. I must have been about four when my grandfather took me with him herding cattle from Munz to Kaleni. I walked with the munts the whole way—a couple of hundred kilometers—while the old boy drove. At night, the old man camped in a tent, and I slept with the cattle boys around the fire. And they showed me how to think like a munt, and how to track—even after cows have trampled the shateen down to a toothpick, they showed me how to pick up traces of spoor—and they showed me to hunt, just little things, like mice and rabbits.” K paused. “If you can track a rat, you can sure as shit track a person. So,” continued K, “I joined the RLI.”
“Did they check under your fingernails to make sure you were white?”
K laughed. “No, but they sent me into the shateen with a savage sergeant to see if I could survive for three weeks in the bush with that arsehole. Which I could. Then they gave me a gun to see if I could hit a target. Which I could. Then they did everything they could think of to kill me for months and months, and when I was still alive at the end of it, they said, ‘Congratulations.’ They gave me a bazooka and said, ‘Go forth and scribble.’ So I phoned up my dad and I told him I was in Thirteen Troop and he said to me, ‘If you want to fuck up your life, go ahead.’ ” The muscles in the back of K’s jaw hopped. “But”—he let his breath out—“it was too late by then. I was in.”
“Do you regret it?”
K looked at me for a long time, considering the question. “Not like you’d expect,” he said at last. “My whole life would have been different if it hadn’t been for the war so . . . In some ways, the war years were the best of my life. Those boys that I fought with—there were four of us in a troop, that’s it . . . man, I knew them better than I knew myself. You walk into the shateen with three strangers and a month later you walk out with ous that you’ve had to trust with your life and who have trusted you with their lives and you know them so well. You’ve seen them shit themselves with fright, you’ve cried with them, you’ve laughed a lot. . .
“You know”—K cleared his throat—“I was called up when I was seventeen. I was an appy at a workshop in Que Que when I got my papers. I wanted to be a welder.” He sighed. “See? I started off with good intentions. Then . . . well, I was called up into the regulars and the first week in camp I was slow getting out of bed one morning, so the sergeant—some bullying prick— comes up to me and boots me as hard as he can in the small of the back. He told me, ‘Get up, soldier!’
“Ja, well I learned to defend myself in boarding school, so man . . . I didn’t mess around. In about three seconds I had the sarge with my hand around his neck, pinned half a meter off the floor to the barracks door. I knew right then that if I stayed in the regulars I’d end up killing someone on the wrong side—I mean on our own side: some idiot who didn’t have a clue and who thought he could bully me just because he had a stripe on his shoulder and I didn’t.
“What you have to understand is that I grew up in the shateen, I grew up with a gun, I grew up with the gondies, I grew up fighting. The war was not a mission for me. It was like I’d done all my life except instead of hunting game, I was hunting gooks.”
The early afternoon had turned a mellow golden color. The rain swallowed itself back up into the clouds. The lemon-colored sun sank down and bulged in the high western sky. The land beyond the river looked as if it was steaming gently.
“And I could hunt gooks better than anyone because I could think like one. When I was a laaitie, my folks had a farm in Kalamo, in southwestern Zambia. It was still Northern Rhodesia in those days. I must have been about four when my grandfather took me with him herding cattle from Munz to Kaleni. I walked with the munts the whole way—a couple of hundred kilometers—while the old boy drove. At night, the old man camped in a tent, and I slept with the cattle boys around the fire. And they showed me how to think like a munt, and how to track—even after cows have trampled the shateen down to a toothpick, they showed me how to pick up traces of spoor—and they showed me to hunt, just little things, like mice and rabbits.” K paused. “If you can track a rat, you can sure as shit track a person. So,” continued K, “I joined the RLI.”
“Did they check under your fingernails to make sure you were white?”
K laughed. “No, but they sent me into the shateen with a savage sergeant to see if I could survive for three weeks in the bush with that arsehole. Which I could. Then they gave me a gun to see if I could hit a target. Which I could. Then they did everything they could think of to kill me for months and months, and when I was still alive at the end of it, they said, ‘Congratulations.’ They gave me a bazooka and said, ‘Go forth and scribble.’ So I phoned up my dad and I told him I was in Thirteen Troop and he said to me, ‘If you want to fuck up your life, go ahead.’ ” The muscles in the back of K’s jaw hopped. “But”—he let his breath out—“it was too late by then. I was in.”
“Do you regret it?”
K looked at me for a long time, considering the question. “Not like you’d expect,” he said at last. “My whole life would have been different if it hadn’t been for the war so . . . In some ways, the war years were the best of my life. Those boys that I fought with—there were four of us in a troop, that’s it . . . man, I knew them better than I knew myself. You walk into the shateen with three strangers and a month later you walk out with ous that you’ve had to trust with your life and who have trusted you with their lives and you know them so well. You’ve seen them shit themselves with fright, you’ve cried with them, you’ve laughed a lot. . .
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