Читать книгу By any means - Kurt Ellis - Страница 6

The year 1992

The top half of his forehead was noticeably lighter in complexion than the lower part of his face. A clear brown border had been made by the Stetson hat he always wore. A hat that was placed over his right knee at that moment. He was sitting on a concrete step, his forearms across his thighs.

The three boys sat cross-legged in front of him, two of them with eyes dinner-plate wide and paying close attention to everything he did. The third, a little younger and fairer-skinned, was more focused on a line of ants trooping past. They called the old man Oupa.

Oupa’s fingers worked skilfully, squeezing and rubbing together the green grass that was in the palm of his left hand. He had three fingers on his right hand – he was lacking the pinky and the ring finger. With his thumb he ground the weed further into his palm.

His eyes did not leave his hands when he said: “I am not happy about all of this, boys.”

The two boys lowered their eyes to the ground.

“School is important,” their grandfather continued. “Education, my boys. Education is your ticket to a better life. That is what we are fighting for. That is what I gave these up for.” He showed them his mangled right hand. “So that you can go to school. Not like me.”

His scarred and three-pronged hand slid down the side of his perch and grabbed hold of a sheet of newspaper. “The only use newspaper is to me is to roll up my zol in and to smoke.” He tore a strip of paper from the sheet and formed a green line down the middle of it with the grass. He licked the edge of one of the sides and rolled the paper over.

“Me, I can’t read a word. I don’t know numbers from letters, my boys. Ask me what is one plus one, and I will say it is apple. But that is okay. It is not my fault, because I wasn’t given the chance to learn proper. And it was not what God wanted of me. I had to go fight against that bastard Verwoerd and his people. I had to hold a gun and not a book. But you have the chance. To go to school and to learn. And to be intelligent. But for you boys to duck from school, for even one day …” He finally looked up and shook his head at them. “That is not on. That insults me. That insults every single one of my comrades that died for you. Education is important. That is why I buy these books in there.” He gestured to the shed behind him. “I can’t read a word, but I will buy as many books as I can get. Any book. I don’t care what book, but I will buy it. Dumb people get sweet fu …” He checked his language. “Sweet nothing in this world.”

Their grandfather placed the home-made cigarette between his lips and patted his brown pants, searching for matches.

“You know what?” he continued. “Look around you, boys. This is the world I am giving you. It’s not much. But you can make it better. I know you three can.” He found what he was looking for, opened the box and struck a match. He put the flame to one tip of the newspaper and pulled deeply on the blunt. When the paper caught fire, he blew sharply on it to extinguish the naked flare, so that all that was left was the soft glow of orange embers.

He sighed. “You are better than this. Smarter than this. And you must look after each other, because no one else will. If someone hurts one of you, the other two must destroy that person. You fuck them up. You hear me?” The three boys nodded. “And never back down. Never. Not from anyone or nothing. If something is not right, you say so. But don’t you dare ever back down when things get hard. You just need to get harder.” He pulled on the marijuana cigarette and shut his eyes, savouring the smoke in his lungs. “Yup. This is not much that I am giving. But you can change it. You can make it better.”

Their grandfather leaned forward, closer to them. So close that they could smell the dagga on his breath. “My children, your parents suffered because I was not here. I’m not happy with … But it isn’t their fault. It’s mine. Because I was too busy crawling through mud and bush in Botswana and Swaziland to be a proper father.” He slowly shook his head. “I was not the parent they needed. But you boys …” He smiled. “You boys are where the changes is going to happen. You will be the generation that sorts everything out. You have to be. I know there isn’t a lot of good role models around you. And me …” he shrugged. “I’m not gonna be around forever. But you don’t need role models. You have yourself. You know what is right or wrong in your heart.” He stabbed himself in the chest with his finger. “That is where God speaks to you boys. And you must listen.” He let thick smoke ooze from his nostrils. “But above all, you must do better than this. You must succeed, by any means necessary.”