?Archives. They call them Internet archives.?
?Aaah . . .? he said. ?Would you show me??
?We don?t really do training.?
?I will pay.?
He could see the synapses fire behind her pale green eyes: the potential to make good money out of a dumb black, but also the possibility that it could be slow, frustrating work.
?Two hundred rand an hour, but you will have to wait until my shift is over.?
?Fifty,? he said. ?I will wait.?
He had taken her unawares, but she recovered well. ?A hundred, take it or leave it.?
?A hundred and you buy the coffee.?
She put out a hand and smiled. ?Deal. My name is Simone.?
He saw there was another shiny object on her tongue.
Viljoen. He was not tall, barely half a head taller than she was. He was not very handsome, and wore a copper bracelet on his wrist and a thin gold chain around his neck that she never much liked. It was not that he was poor?he just had no interest in money. The Free State sun had bleached his eight-year-old 464 pickup until you would be hard pressed to name the original color. Day after day it stood in the parking lot of the Schoemans Park Golf Club while he coached golf, or sold golf balls in the pro shop or played a round or two with the more important members.
He was a professional golfer. In theory. He had only lasted three months on the Sunshine Tour before his money ran out because he could not putt under pressure. He got the shakes, ?the yips,? he called them. He would set up the putt and walk away and line up and set himself up again but always putted too short. Nerves had destroyed him.
?He became the resident pro at Schoemans Park. I found him that night on the eighteenth green with a bottle in his hand. It was weird. It was like we recognized each other. We were the same kind. Sort of on the sidelines. When you are in a hostel, you feel it quickly?that you don?t quite belong. Nobody says anything, everyone is nice to each other and you socialize and laugh and worry together about exams, but you are not really ?in.?
?But Viljoen saw it. He knew it, because he was like that too.
?We began to talk. It was just so . . . natural, from the beginning. When I had to go in, he asked me what I was doing afterwards, and I said I had to catch a lift back to the hostel, so I couldn?t do anything and he said he would take me.
?So when everyone had gone, he asked me if I would caddy for him, because he wanted to play a bit of golf. I think he was a little drunk. I said you can?t play golf in the dark, and he said that?s what everyone thinks, but he would show me.?
The Bloemfontein summer night . . . She could smell the mown grass, hear the night sounds, and see the half moon. She could remember the way the light from the clubhouse verandah reflected off Viljoen?s tanned skin. She could see his broad shoulders and his odd smile and the expression in his eyes and that aura about him, that terrible solitariness he carried around with him. The noise of the golf club striking the ball and the way it flew into the darkness and him saying: ?Come, caddy, don?t let the roar of the crowd distract you.? His voice was gentle, self- mocking. Before every shot they would drink from the bottle of semi-sweet white wine still cold from the fridge. ?I don?t get the yips at night,? he said, and he made his putts, long and short. In the dark he made the ball roll on perfect lines, over the humps in the greens, till it fell clattering into the hole. On the fairway of the sixth hole he kissed her, but by then she already knew she liked him too much and it was okay, absolutely okay.
?He played nine holes in the dark and in that time I fell in love,? was all she told the minister. She seemed to want to preserve the memories of that night, as if they would fade if she took them out of the dark and held them up to the light.
In the sand bunker beside the ninth hole they sat and he filled in his scorecard and announced he had a 33.
So much?she teased him.
So little?he laughed. A muted sound, sort of feminine. He kissed her again. Slowly and carefully, like he was taking care to do it right. With the same care he stretched her out and undressed her, folding each piece of clothing and putting it down on the grass above. He had knelt over her and kissed her, from her neck to her ankles, with an expression on his face of absolute wonder: that he had been granted this privilege, this magical opportunity. Eventually he went into her and there was intensity in his eyes of huge emotion and his rhythm increased, his urgency grew and grew and he lost himself in her.
She had to drag herself back to this present, where the minister waited with apparent patience for her to break the silence.
She wondered why memories were so closely linked to scent, because she could smell him now, here?deodorant and sweat and semen and grass and sand.
?At the ninth hole he made me pregnant,? she said, and reached out a hand for the tissues.
14.
Barkhuizen, the doctor with the thick spectacles, his long hair in a cheeky plait this time, came around again the next morning after Griessel had swallowed his breakfast without enthusiasm or appetite.
?I?m glad you?re eating,? he said. ?How do you feel??
Griessel made a gesture that said it didn?t matter.
?Finding it hard to eat??
He nodded.
?Are you nauseous??
