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 I didn t sleep too well last night, she said flatly. But on her
doorstep she stopped for a moment to look round at me.  Sometimes,
you know, she said,  sleep is like prayer. A way of appealing for help
to a place you can t reach otherwise. Before I could answer she
closed the door between us.
Louis was lying on his bed already, covered by the eiderdown,
reading the comics. I took off my shoes and my trousers and moved
in under the blankets. Rest invaded me like warmth. But beyond the
superficial satisfaction it stirred up older, familiar things. Turning my
eyes away from Louis, it was easy to imagine he was Theo (except
that I would have preferred not to think of Theo) and we were
children again.
In our childhood holidays there had been an oppressive feeling of
being caged in on Sundays which had made it different from any other
day of the week. Especially in the afternoon, those endless summer
afternoons with the sun burning over the valley, windless and hot.
A NDRÉ B RI NK
Grandpa and Grandma had always taken a nap after dinner; Dad too,
while Ma would retire somewhere with the Bible. And we boys would
be instructed to stay in the stoop room until four, the curtains drawn
to shut out the world outside. The slightest sound coming from our
room before four o clock would invariably result in a hiding for both
of us, with the worn grey strap Ma had taken with her wherever she d
gone, even on holiday. Possibly that had been my earliest associations
of good and evil:  sin meant making a noise on Sunday afternoon;
and being  good consisted of lying motionless on your bed with the
heavy heat pressing down on your body and itching in the perspira-
tion in your armpits and between your legs.
As a special favor we d been allowed, as we d grown older, to take
some reading matter to the room with us on those afternoons: reli-
gious journals Grandma had selected for us, or the brown volumes of
Fanny Eden. Sanctity had been identical with boredom. Even in sub-
mitting to it neither of us would have considered for a moment the
possibility of resisting parental authority, unlike today s children!
there had been something about those Sundays disturbing me long
before I could formulate it to myself: an awareness of the unnatural
discrepancy between the two young boys imprisoned in that oppres-
sive room, and the wild summer world outside, the dam and the
stream, and moist earth and virgin forest and shady wild figs; the
green smell of foliage and the shouting of piccanin voices down by
the water; and all the extravagant ferocious heat of the sun. It wasn t
the stuffiness of our little room in itself, even though that had been
bad enough, but the shocking discovery of being separated from that
luxuriant world you yearned for with an almost physical, almost sex-
ual, fervor.
Sunday after Sunday we lay in that baking oven of a room, count-
ing off the progress of the clock in the passage: one o clock, quarter-
past, half-past, quarter-to, two o clock and then three o clock and,
incredibly, hallelujah!, the redemption of four decisive strokes, followed
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by Grandma s coffee and rusks and milk tart and green fig jam, and
deliverance to the freedom of the farm. Only once in all those years
had I dared to slip out on a Sunday afternoon, taking Theo with me,
down to the piccanins cavorting in the dam. That had been the occa-
sion on which I d nearly drowned, to be saved by Pieletjie of the
swinging prick. It had been God s way of punishing me. Followed,
mercilessly, by Ma s grey strap.
Such had been the conditioning of the Sundays of my youth
which had contributed to my dazed bewilderment, that afternoon on
Bernard s farm, when Elise had taken off her clothes and dived naked
into the dam. It had been an heraldic act, a ceremonial liberation from
all the prescriptions of a Calvinist religion, a fleeting but unforget-
table glimpse of a wholly free existence in a paradise beyond sin and
Sundays and measured hours and the anger of God. She d suggested
something which, before that, had been no more than presentiment
or hope. She would teach me to be free. She d confirmed, in my
absolutist adolescent mind, the possibility of innocence.
And it had all come to nothing. Those words on our wedding
night  Let s first ask the blessing of the Lord  denied everything
I d hoped to find and achieve through her. Had it been no more than
illusion then? Had I really misjudged her? Or had she herself been
unaware of what, in that ephemeral magic moment, I d recognized
and fallen in love with in her? She had been the conclusion of my
Early Romantic Period, my dreams of becoming a writer, my
preposterous faith in happiness. And it was just possible that I d
never quite forgiven her for it.
I preferred not to read the papers that afternoon. I didn t want to see
what they had to say about the riots at Westonaria; and I was even less
inclined to read about Bernard s trial. So I turned past the news pages,
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glancing only briefly at the political comment. But in the business
section something caught my eye: a photograph of myself in a column
of the paper s Businessman of the Week. I scanned the report, mainly in
search of errors, knowing one couldn t trust any journalist; but it was
reasonably accurate. There had been numerous similar articles on my
achievements in the newspapers before, mostly in connection with
 Afrikaner leaders in business, etc.; occasionally more personal pro-
files of  the man behind the success formula. One learned to accept it
as part of the routine; still, it remained reassuring, a barometer of
achievement like success with women.
Theo was also mentioned in a paragraph of the column,
 Mynhardt s younger brother, an architect of considerable stand-
ing. In my interview with the reporter I d made sure he took
down the particulars about Theo, feeling that in a sense I d owed
it to him.
Perhaps I wasn t quite fair to Theo when I referred to him a little
while ago. But I honestly believed at that stage that this narrative
could do without him. Now I realize it s inevitable I bring him into
it. Strange how compulsive this sort of writing can become.
I was amazed when he telephoned me that morning to find out
whether he could come and see me at my office.
 Why don t you and Marie come over for dinner one evening?
I suggested.  Then we can relax and have a proper chat. It s a long
time we haven t seen one another.
 Good idea, he said.  But there s something else I ve got to dis-
cuss with you alone.
I consulted my desk diary.  What about Wednesday week? We ll
be back from our visit to the farm by then.
 Actually I d prefer to see you before you go. It s something well,
rather important 
 When will you be in Johannesburg again?
 I m in town at the moment.
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R UMORS OF R AI N
 Oh, well what about this afternoon then? I have an appointment
for lunch but I can always cancel it.
 No, I d rather not go to a restaurant. I prefer your office.
 You sound terribly secretive.
 It s not really as bad as that. It s just oh well, I ll see you at three
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