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tits. Tiny little tits, not even the size of apples. Her legs were streaked
with blood, not badly, just a bit messy, you know.
And then? I asked, when he fell silent again for a long time.
You know, Dad, I actually felt like taking off the top of my track-
suit or something, to cover her up. But what use would it have been?
If one s been going for so long and if so much has happened to you,
you no longer really think about what you re doing.
I suppose it s inevitable if you want to survive, I said, as sym-
pathetically as I could.
Hell, he said, without appearing to have heard me, there isn t
much left of a girl when she s taken off her clothes, is there? Some
of them looked so tough, but once you had the clothes off them
And that little one, Jesus!
I waited in silence. It took some time before he spoke again:
There were other occasions too. In other villages. Not often,
for the PFs kept a close watch on us. But from time to time a few of
us would break out. Just for the hell of it, even if we knew there was
short-arm inspection coming up afterwards. We usually found liquor
somewhere, and Black women. Suddenly he sounded irritable. But
that wasn t important at all. It wasn t that.
What was it then?
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I wish I knew. I don t think it was anything in particular. No, it
wasn t as easy as that. He sighed. It s just that everything was
such a bloody farce. We were cheated. Right from the first day when
the PFs in the camp told us to volunteer.
How do you mean?
I don t mean they used force on us or anything. But, hell, there s
only two things in the army: it s either in or it s out. And not to go
to Angola was out. You know the sort of argument: If you boys got
any guts, then sign here. Any bugger not signing up, is lower than
the shadow of shark shit on the fucking bottom of the sea. You think
any of us would like to be shamed in front of his pals? So we went,
the lot of us, boknaaiers and pansies and cannon donkeys, the lot. I mean,
Jesus, what did we know about where we were going? They just
spoke about the border all the time. It sounded like one hell of an
adventure.
But you liked camp life last year. The weekends you came home
you couldn t stop talking about it.
What does one know about war while you re in the training
camp? You shit in the pump and they give you hell, especially while
you re still a blue-arse and some old man s slave, but it s the army and
it s all right, and in a way you even learn to enjoy it. But Angola
Another pause; another unexpected start: Do you know what one
feels like in that godforsaken bush, within farting distance of Luanda,
when a group of ous are sitting round the fire listening to the radio,
and you hear the Minister or some other top cunt telling the public
not to worry, our men are just on the border protecting our instal-
lations at Ruacana and Calueque, we re not interested in occupying
other people s countries Then you sit there and you think: Jesus,
they re pretending we re not here. They re pretending we don t even
exist. Even if we bloody well die here in the bush they ll just pretend
it didn t happen. And that s when you start asking yourself what the
fuck you re doing there.
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I restrained the impulse to scold him about his language. Perhaps
he wouldn t even have heard me, for now that he d got started he
seemed unable to restrain himself any longer:
One day a group of Top Brass arrived to look around the
operational area. We slaved away to make everything shine and
then they arrived in their helicopters. Big booze-up. All smiles, the
lot of us. Oh what a lovely war and all that shit. But late that evening,
when I took some more booze to the big boys, I heard one of them
saying he was rather far gone by that time: Hey, listen, General,
there s one thing. I d appreciate it if you could cut down on all the
bodies you re sending home, you know. I m getting sick and tired of
attending a bloody hero s funeral every week.
The dawn had grown lighter and I could see Louis sitting up.
Let me tell you, Dad, that s when one starts feeling all sour
inside. You start thinking again: It s for all you cunts down there in
Pretoria we re getting blown to pieces in this bundu. It s your bloody
war, not ours. We don t want to have anything to do with it. But we re
getting killed while you keep your fat little hands clean.
I think I understand your feelings, Louis, I said, uncomfortably,
not really knowing how to handle his anger.
How can you understand? he said. I haven t told you anything
yet. You know nothing!
It was unnecessary to coax him into talking any longer. Nothing
could stop him now. It was like a dam bursting inside him, and all I
could do was to allow the flood to go its own cascading way.
Don t get me wrong, Dad. I didn t feel sorry that I d gone. One
always wonders, you know, especially in the training camp: If it really
comes to the push, if war broke out, how am I going to shape? Will
I shit in my santamarias or get through to the other side?
You got through all right.
Yes, I got through. I never shat in my pants. I wasn t a coward
after all. I suppose it makes some people feel good. But it did
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nothing to me. How can I explain it? I mean, when I got there and
the mortars started exploding and the bombs bursting and the bullets
whizzing like bloody flies past my head, I found it was quite irrele-
vant wondering about cowardice. It s not a matter of courage or that
sort of crap at all. All that matters is whether you can switch off all
right. Not that I stopped thinking it wasn t that. If only I could.
But well, you know, emotionally, sort of. I didn t care about what
was happening. I couldn t feel a thing. And then, when I got on the
other side, I realized that nothing could shock me any more. Nothing.
Death, wounds, filth, atrocities, I couldn t care less. I could take it
all. I d become a man, hadn t I? And then there s something else you
discover. You find out that this whole country depends for its sur-
vival on the fact that you can shut off your conscience. Otherwise it
wouldn t last for another day. And just because I d succeeded in being
cold-blooded and fucking callous enough, I helped to keep this coun-
try going.
It seems a very natural reaction to me. You re still suffering
from shock. Just give it time.
Shock has nothing to do with it. It s the opposite. Nothing
shocked me and nothing can shock me. Don t you understand?
But what happened to change you so much then? I repeated.
And once again he said: I told you: there was no isolated inci-
dent. It was the whole caboodle as such. Some of my pals came out
all smiles on the other side. No scars on them at all. They re the same
good and solid ous they d been before. Because they managed not to
think.
Think about what?
Anything. Just the plain, simple act of thinking as such. I told
you. I could handle the feeling bit. But thinking Jesus, that was
different. One day just after we d passed Pereira d Eca, right in the
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