in the bedside cabinet. The Coetzees did these things in silence and afterwards sat awkwardly on the bed until the matron came in and smiled before telling the parents that they needed to leave.
Emil, with a heavy heart and wishing that he had the courage to break the silence, walked his parents back to Scott Fitzgerald’s car. His mother kissed him on both cheeks as she smiled back tears. Someone, unseen, made a whistling sound as Emil’s mother hugged him briefly before quickly getting in the back seat of the car. His father, gazing at the space above Emil’s head, offered him his hand, which Emil shook, hoping for so much more.
Emil stood on the tarred road as he watched the car drive away. He thought of the quiet that existed in that car and could not bring himself to wave goodbye to it because, even though it was new, he understood that it would be with them for some time.
Long after Scott Fitzgerald’s car had disappeared from sight, Emil found his way back to the dormitory that contained what was now his bed. He sat at the very edge of the bed and tried to stop his knees from knocking as he scanned the bare white walls, fluorescent strips of light affixed to the ceiling, rows of iron-rail beds with chipped and peeling cream-coloured paint, and made a failed attempt to feel welcomed by the room. When a bell finally rang, Emil made his way, as did all the boys, to the dining hall where Sunday Lunch, as the menu on the long table heralded, consisted of roast beef, boiled potatoes with parsley and mushy peas for the main course and Black Forest trifle for dessert. Emil ate but did not taste any of the meal that he was sure he would have enjoyed under different circumstances.
As leaden feet carried him up the stairs that led back to his dormitory, a group of older boys passed him and said that they could still smell his mother’s milk on him. Emil, understanding full well what they meant by that, regretted having promised himself, only earlier that day, never to cry again.
The silver lining was that at no point in all his imaginings had he thought that his first day at the school would be anything but a misery, so at least his first day at the Selous School for Boys was meeting, if not exceeding, his expectations.
As he made his way up the stairs, the weight of the day suddenly exhausted Emil and when he arrived at his dormitory, he collapsed on his bed and, briefly comforted by his mother’s rosewater scent on the bed linen, fell fast and deeply asleep and dreamt that the chick he had seen earlier that day had flown onto his shoulder and walked along the veld with him.
Emil awoke to hands rudely and roughly pulling him off the bed and shoving his face towards grey and grimy unpolished boots.
‘Lick my boots!’ a pompous voice instructed.
Emil was too shocked and scared to cry.
‘Lick my boots, I say!’ the pompous voice repeated and this time the words were followed by a thump in the small of Emil’s back, flattening him to the ground.
An unpolished boot pushed itself against Emil’s lips.
‘What? Too high and mighty to lick my boots, are you?’
There was another thump on Emil’s back.
Emil knew that this torture would only end when he licked the boot. So he closed his eyes, stuck out his tongue and licked the boot.
‘You’re a bootlicker,’ the pompous voice said triumphantly.
There were guffaws and snickers.
Emil, expecting that the worst was over, chose to lie there with his eyes tightly shut until they were all gone.
But, of course, the worst was not over.
‘What are you?’ another voice asked, clearly second in command.
Someone grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head. ‘Not only a bootlicker, but you also still smell of your mother’s milk.’
‘What are you?’ the pompous voice asked.
It would have been the easiest thing for Emil to say the words ‘I am a bootlicker,’ but something within him railed against the idea. He knew, deep within himself, that he would never say those words and that gave him the courage to do what he did next. He collected a gob of saliva in his mouth and blindly spat it out, not caring much where it landed as long as it made contact with someone’s skin.
Everything happened quickly after that. There were several hands all over his body stripping his clothes off, leaving him only in his underdrawers, carrying him away from the dormitory ward, down the stairs, out the door, and throwing him onto the ground. Emil was certain that the worst was yet to come and prepared himself for it, but all he heard was the sound of feet moving away … and then a sniffle. The sniffle did not belong to him and so he opened his eyes to see who it belonged to.
He was surprised to find that night had fallen. He had slept through supper and no one had bothered to wake him up. This was the best school in the country?
Emil heard the sniffle again and squinted through the darkness until he made out a figure: a boy, standing about a metre away from him. He was about to speak to the figure when another sound got his attention. Several voices carrying lights were travelling towards him and the figure of the boy.
Soon the voices manifested in the form of several men, European and African, carrying on their shoulders a magnificent beast, and holding in their hands lamps that looked like luminous, nocturnal flying creatures. The arrival of these men was the most marvellous sight that Emil had ever witnessed; it was the stuff of legend. These men seemed to have been born of the night itself. Speaking in low voices, some began to make a fire while others began to skin and disembowel the animal. The lamps made the pooling crimson blood glisten in the dark. The figure a metre away from Emil made a gagging sound and then coughed.
The men instinctively and immediately stopped what they were doing and listened to the darkness. One man, carrying a hurricane lamp above his head, broke away from the hunters and made his way towards Emil and the figure beside him.
Even though he did not know what would happen next, Emil was grateful when he was illuminated by the light of the hurricane lamp. He basked in its glow and almost forgot that he was near naked.
The man carrying the lamp peered down at him, his expression difficult to read because of the shadow falling over his face. The man’s eyes travelled to the figure standing a metre from Emil. Emil turned to observe the figure as well. The silhouette was of a slightly plump boy who was about Emil’s age and who looked every bit like a cherub that had lost its wings. Emil was not surprised that the boy had been targeted with a face like that.
‘Ah! You must be the Two Unfortunates,’ the man carrying the hurricane lamp said. ‘Every year they pick the two boys that they deem to be the weakest and ostracise them. It is all very predictably Darwinian.’ The man blinked at the two boys. ‘You are not weak, are you, boys?’ Emil felt himself shake his head, not because he believed that he was not weak, but because he felt that the man standing before him truly believed that he was not weak and Emil did not want to disabuse him of this notion.
‘We are supposed to be creating men, but sometimes, I could swear, we are creating little horrors,’ the man continued, more to himself than to Emil and the cherub beside him. ‘So, Unfortunates, what are your names?’
The two boys eyeballed each other, both willing the other to give his name first.
The man smiled briefly. ‘I am Archibald Bertrand Fortesque the third. Unfortunate, I know. Luckily, you can call
