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I didn't want to go to lunch, but I had to. The only time you were allowed to miss a meal was if you were legitimately ill and for that you had to go to sickbay. The kind of illness I had couldn't be diagnosed by a doctor.
I am hard pressed to describe what was going on inside me. Uppermost of the jumble of emotions was my fear for Ben's safety. The SADF was well known for being able to achieve any nefarious purpose they set their minds to. The South African Nationalist Government, and by extension the SADF, was well known for being ruthless when it came to correcting "errors". Many so-called "Communists" and dissidents of all colors and creeds had ended up dying in custody, their genitals being subjected to electric shocks, beaten to a pulp and reaching medical facilities when they were beyond help. There were men who specialized in covert operations, who employed means so dark, so evil, that good honest Afrikaners were not allowed to know about their work and would, when confronted with the facts called you a bald faced liar.
As big a man as Ben Jordaan was, he was no match for a state machine that had declared him a threat. If I said that it felt as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest without an anesthetic, I would be describing my feelings poorly. The worst was that I knew that nothing that I could do would be of any benefit to Ben. He was at the mercy of men without conscience or regret, who operated under the delusion that they were doing what is necessary for the safety and security of their country. There is no delusion stronger than that, carefully wrought through decades of propaganda that conferred the right to employ any means deemed necessary to ensure the safety of our freedom and way of life.
What compounded my mental and emotional agony was the deep conviction that, should I give myself up and admit that I was a willing participant, I would be negating the heroic sacrifice that my man had made to keep me safe. I was in an agony of impotence and grief. It would truly have been easier if I knew that Ben were dead, because then I knew he would be spared the torture and agony he was sure to be subjected to.
So as I wheeled my way to the mess hall in a daze, my eyes dull and unseeing, my heart was a heavy burden in my chest. My stumps were only the physical symbol of the most devastating of violations I had yet endured: that of my heart. It seemed a cruel and merciless fate that would first give me somebody as out of the box as Ben, a man that had declared his love for me in spite of his orientation, and then to have stolen him from me in the most callous and painful way possible.
I wanted to die. Not because I couldn't stand to live without Ben (that was a given) but because I knew that he would be suffering inhumane cruelty and abuse, and would suffer so much more, because he had succumbed to his feelings for me. I felt that I was Ben's de facto executioner.
In a sad parody of breakfast that same morning, somebody, I don't know who, had brought me my food, as Ben had, in his silent testament to his growing love for me. It seemed like a lifetime away. His pale blue eyes haunted me as I sat looking at my plate with my hands in my lap.
"Bennie." A voice shook me from my reverie. I looked up. Tobie was sitting across from me, Wessels on his right.
"Bennie, are you alright?" Tobie asked, concern etched on his ruddy face. I nodded slowly.
"I'll be ok. I've been thinking..."
Both guys nodded to encourage me to continue.
"Why didn't they take me? Everybody knows that I'm a queer. Until now nobody has made any noises about taking me away. Why take Ben?" My voice was low, so as to avoid listening ears.
Both guys, and Coert, who was sitting on my left, chewed slowly as they pondered my question. Wessels was the first to speak.
"And why now? I think there's something else going on. Maybe nothing has happened up to now because nobody has complained."
"But this morning Ben threatened Parvus, so maybe he snitched on you two guys alone in the bungalow while we held cavey, " (kept lookout) Tobie continued.
Coert, as mentioned before, rarely spoke and then only in very soft tones, so when he cleared his throat to speak, we all turned to him.
"Bennie, didn't you mention that Lt. Vosloo was acting kind of strange? You said when we were stoned he made you cum in your shorts."
I blushed in spite of myself. "Now that you mention it, he has been acting weird. At first he was a real dick, and then suddenly he was all kind and gentle, and then he started acting like a shit again, when he heard that Ben and I got close last night."
"And Parvus and he seemed real tight at breakfast this morning, so maybe he's been checking up on you..." Wessels finished.
"But why? He hates my guts...! But then, when they took Ben away..." my voice caught in my throat and I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes again and the awful reality that I might never see my beautiful, strong lover again penetrated my momentary forgetfulness. I pulled myself together with a huge effort.
"But when they took Ben away," I tried again "Vosloo looked me in the eye and said `That could have been you.'"
Coert was the one who put two and two together.
"So it was Ben that was the target, and not you. Vosloo had something to do with the fact that you didn't get taken and Ben did. But Why?"
"He's just a fucked up asshole on a power trip trying to mess with Gay Boy because he can. That's all. I don't think the stupid "doos" (cunt) has the brains to think up some clever scheme!" His voice was rising in anger and all of us shushed him before he drew too much attention to our discussion.
"And to make matters worse, he reminded me that I still had to go and do his washing at 14h00. Shit! I have to be alone with that psychopathic asshole! Fuck knows what he's going to get up to."
"I'm sure the fucker has a screw loose," Tobie added.
"Fuck!" I exclaimed. "Look!" The room grew silent as Parvus walked by our table on his crutch. Oddly, he wasn't sporting his usual camp swagger. When he got to our table, he slowed down and stopped. He looked like he had something to say.
"What the fuck do you want, you fucking piece of shit!?" Wessels hissed. He stood up and his chair scraped across the floor and shattered the awkward silence. I reached over the table and tried to stop him but he flung himself across the space between them and was on top of Parvus and knocked him to the ground. He didn't hit him but sat on his chest and had him by the throat.
I catapulted out of my chair and found myself on my hands and knees next to Wessels with my hand on his shoulder. My knees hurt where I had connected with the ground to break my fall and protect my stumps.
"Come boet (brother), don't do this! He's not worth it!" It took a moment for the sense to return to his eyes as he looked at Parvus' rapidly reddening face. "Wessels! Let him go!"
He got up off Parvus' chest. The latter remained lying on the floor on his back. As an after-thought he leaned over and spat on the small, ugly man's face.
"You're dead, you fucking piece of scum! Dead! " he hissed.
I leaned forward and gripped the prostrate man's hand and helped him up to a sitting position. Every eye in the mess was on us.
He had his hand to his throat where Wessels had throttled him and tears still streamed down his pitted cheeks. His thin little frog lips worked as he tried to catch his breath.
Tobie and Wessels wheeled my chair up to me and both of them being more or less able bodied (each only shy of one foot), between the two of them helped me back into it.
Parvus was still sitting on the floor. He had lost an entire leg to just above the knee, and was unable to help himself up from his current position. It didn't help that his crutch had gone flying when Wessels had jumped him.
"Boys please help him up." I nodded in the direction of the local snitch and I could see that Wessels particularly wasn't keen. My expression said `Please' so they conceded and helped him awkwardly to his one foot. One of the guys at the other table, where it had landed, tossed the crutch to Tobie who snatched it from the air and handed it to Parvus.
"Here, 'Your fucking Shittiness,'" he said, bowing elaborately and at the last moment faked a blow to Parvus' head. The poor guy ducked and shielded his face and Tobie just bared his teeth in a grimace of disgust.
I wheeled my chair closer and motioned for Parvus to help himself upright by holding on to the side of my chair. He seemed grateful as he grunted, laboriously bringing himself to his remaining knee. He stayed there and leaned in, closer to me. When he spoke it was so only the two of us could hear.
"Bennie, I didn't know what they were going to do to Ben. Vosloo ordered me to keep my eyes open and tell him about anything that you did, and when he heard that you and Ben...you know, last night...he went ape shit. I swear I thought he was going to have a stroke. He kicked his trommel and when I asked him what was wrong he swore and told me to fuck off, so I left quickly.
"Bennie, you must be careful when you're alone with him today. He said you were to come to him to do his washing and that he would `sort you out'. I'm sorry for what happened to Ben. I really am. He was...is a good guy and he doesn't deserve what they're going to do to him. I'm really sorry man..." he mumbled as he put his crutch under his shoulder and made off, a low hiss of disgust from the collection of guys in the room accompanying him as he made his way out of the room without eating.
I hadn't touched my food and I didn't feel hungry at all. Parvus' warning stuck like a chicken bone in my gullet. His apology didn't make things better, only worse. That the sleazy little guy had felt it necessary to warn me about Vosloo was not a good sign. And the story that he told about how that schizo fucker had reacted when told about Ben and me only made the whole situation worse. I wheeled myself over to the table, took my varkpan and lay it on my lap so I could take it over to the to the washing area.
Tobie, Wessels, and almost the whole of our bungalow moved along en masse, all arranged around me like a troupe of bodyguards.
When we got back to the bungalow it was 13h30 and I had half an hour to get my act together and meet Vosloo at his room. I made my way over to the bunk that Jordaan and I had shared, to dress more informally, since I was to be doing washing. When I reached the two-tier bed, I was shocked to see that all Ben's stuff, including his trommel and his bedding, was gone. All that remained was the white mattress, with the pisvel (piss sheet, or mattress protector) folded neatly on top of it. Any physical sign that Ben had occupied my sleeping area, or even my life, had vanished. The realization of my loss dropped into my guts like a rock into a well and I sat in my chair facing the gap in my life, while tears ran down my cheeks and sobs wracked my body.
My buddies pulled together and found me a brown T-shirt and quickly dressed me. I was numb as they also pulled down my brown long pants and replaced them with a pair of regulation shorts.
"Come buddy," Wessels whispered in my ear. "Let me walk with you to see Vosloo."I got a grip on my feelings and shook my head.
"No, my friend, I'll be ok. This shit isn't going to get the better of me." I wiped my face and blew my nose and breathed deeply to still my emotions. I turned my chair around and aimed it at the door. The guys called out their greetings to me and a wave of support and goodwill buoyed me THe up and out of the bungalow. I straightened my spine and threw back my head and went to face my demon.
When I got to Lt. Vosloo's room I knocked on the door. It was 13h59. When it struck 14h00, the door opened and swung away from me.
Lt. Vosloo stepped out from behind the door. He was naked.
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