Waiting It Out

"Shh, I think I hear something."

I held my hand over Dabir's mouth, as he had been moaning loudly. If the walls of this flimsy Soweto school building were thin enough for me to hear the whistling approaching, the pain-pleasure of Dabir's moaning might filter back to the whistler. There would be little mistaking what was going on in this small infirmary room, more a closet, the only place there was even a cot in the school building.

Dabir, nearly my age in his mid-twenties, young, handsome, trim, and ebony to my ivory, was crouched in my lap, facing me, rising and falling on my shaft, using the leverage of his bent-leg knees that hugged my hips closely to fuck himself on my cock. We were only able to meet like this in late afternoons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which was when Dabir's teaching duties included doing what cleaning was possible after the students had left for the day.

Our coming together like this wasn't just impolitic, it was extremely dangerous--to the point of life threatening. Although the atmosphere was showing signs of the change we had waited for for so long, we were only five years beyond the 1976 Soweto uprising, in which student protests over Apartheid had resulted in a bloody crackdown. So many young people, including students from this very school, had died at the hands of the Division: Internal Stability unit of the South African Police. The danger we were entertaining in our sexual couplings in the dark here in the Soweto school went far beyond Dabir being black and me white. I was a police constable. I wasn't in the Internal Stability unit--I was only a first-rung street policeman--but I was a policeman and, worse, my grandfather was a major in the Internal Stability unit. If he learned what I did--what my sexual preferences and choice of partners were--it would kill him. But he would kill me first, and, in these volatile times, the public outcry would be intense. He would also see to it that Dabir didn't survive.

We held, barely breathing, aware that there wasn't much more than plywood for the wall I was leaning back to and pressing my shoulder blades against as I held Dabir's waist and helped him rise and fall on my cock. The whistling grew louder, but it didn't pause on the other side of where we held position. There was a window by the foot of the cot, but we didn't have a light on inside and the bed sheet curtain should be sufficient if the whistler thought to try to look inside. There was no reason for him to do that, though, unless he'd already heard us and was brave enough to investigate. The school was closed for the night.

The whistling continued on by us and receded into the distance. We tried to take up from where we had suspended the fuck, but we had lost the urgency and the fear of exposure overpowered us.

I whispered, "Sorry," feeling myself losing my hard.

Almost simultaneously, Dabir whispered, "Sorry," having lost the rhythm we'd attained. He rolled off me and sat on the floor next to the cot.

"There will be other times," I said.

"Can we really count on that?" he responded.

I had no answer for that and didn't bother to try one. I ran my fingers into his close-cropped, wiry hair and found myself humming the tune the person who had passed by on the other side of the wall had been whistling. We both gave another little, nervous laugh. There, just for a few moments, we'd been beyond the reality of South Africa and had been in a heaven all our own. We were back in the dirt of Africa now, though.

"No reason for either of us to be sorry," I murmured. "Really, just being able to be here with you for a short time is worth the danger." "Someday it won't be like this. Someday, we will be able to declare ourselves in the open."

"I'm not sure I can see that day from here," Dabir said.

"The international community is pressuring Apartheid now. Companies are divesting; countries are imposing sanctions. South Africa can't exist in a vacuum."

"I wasn't here for the uprising," Dabir answered, "but the other teachers in this school were and they still speak of students lost just protesting. And it isn't just the race issue. It's you and me--wanting each other. I can't see the day that will happen here. And you're a constable--the white establishment. Maybe elsewhere. Maybe if we went somewhere like France."

I didn't bother arguing the point with him. I could see the nervousness within the government and the white establishment. They understood what was coming even if they were pretending they didn't. I could understand if he couldn't believe it was inevitably coming. The Apartheidists put up a good front. But it was all unraveling. It was inevitable, I thought. Then we could...

"I think it is easier for you," Dabir said. "You have someone you can confide in. Me, I have no one. I know you fear your grandfather ever learning of this. But it is not much different for me. No one in my family would understand or accept."

"Yes, I have Dorthea," I admitted. My aunt was very perceptive. She had seen it. Her husband, my uncle, John, had also been in the police--a sergeant--but he was not as hardnosed as his father, my grandfather. Dorthea was sensitive. She had guessed and then she had worked to shield me and, more than once, to cover me from my grandfather finding out.

But John and Dorthea were gone from Cape Town now. She had taken ill, some sort of wasting disease, and my uncle had been burned out by the police work. They had gone into the interior, into the Breed River Valley, near the town of Robertson, and had a small vineyard now. They said they needed a simpler life than the turmoil--much of it wrapped up in Apartheid--here in Cape Town. Thinking of that made me remember.

"I won't be able to come on Thursday."

"Why?" Dabir asked. His disappointment was obvious.

"My aunt has asked me to visit them in Robertson. She says it's important. She's been so good to me--so understanding and protective of us--that I must go. I fear it's about her health. I hope not."

"I will miss you."

"The times are changing, Dabir. I promise you that. We just have to wait it out."

It was dark and the area of the school was deserted, but the care with which we both left the schoolhouse--separately, surreptitiously--gave proof to just how dangerous our relationship and our understanding of that was. It was doubly dangerous in this time. It wasn't just that I was white and he was black. It also was because we were gay--and were gay together. We were doubly damned in this society.

* * * *

When my Uncle John had left the police force and he and my aunt, Dorthea, moved to the Breede River Valley area, they had told my grandfather, Pietr Adams, that it was for Dorthea's health. I had known she was in delicate health, but she'd always been and she'd had a good job in an agricultural consultancy in Cape Town. She seemed to love city life. But just as she had protected me from my grandfather learning that I was gay--and that my lover was black--she protected her husband, my uncle, from having to tell his police official father that he was burned out in police work. At least that's what I thought, and that was part of it, but I was to learn that it wasn't all of it.

When I arrived at the vineyard near Robertson, I had to give credence to Dorthea's health having played a large part in the decision to leave the busy city for the slower-paced country. She looked quite ill and obviously was weak. I had to check myself in how I greeted her. I couldn't say either that she looked well, because she didn't, or that country life was good for her, because there didn't appear to have been anything good for her in this move since the last time I saw her.

Her housekeeper, Lewa, who they had brought with them from Cape Town along with her twenty-year-old son, Zula, the family's gardener in Cape Town and vine worker here at the vineyard outside Robertson, greeted me at the door and took me to Dorthea, who was seated in the kitchen. Uncle John wasn't there. Dorthea looked a wreck and emaciated. I could well understand why she hadn't greeted me at the door--that I had to be brought to her. I know the shock involuntarily showed in my expression.

Lewa went to the sink and cupboards, preparing tea and biscuits for us, delivering it to the table with a cautioning look for me on her face, and then returning, facing away from us. I knew she'd been with Dorthea forever, but I was surprised at what Dorthea was willing to reveal while a black servant was in the room. I had to admit that Dorthea never treated Lewa in that way, though.

"I would get up, but I can't--not today," Dorthea said, giving me a wan smile and holding a hand out to me. She and I had always gotten along well and her knowing about Dabir and not criticizing or condemning me seemed to have only brought us closer. She had always been honest and straightforward with me. "Some days I can move around. This doesn't seem to be one of them."

"And this is why you asked me to come to the valley to see you?" I asked.

"No, I could have told you I wasn't getting better on the phone or in a letter, and I'm told there's nothing imminent--that this could take some time, which isn't really all that reassuring, I will have to admit. The nights are the worse. Lewa stays here with me. John is staying at her cottage now--at least for the nights."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "So, if that's not what you asked me to come about, what... not that I'm not glad you called me. I always appreciate the opportunity to visit with you."

"Before you sit down," she said, not addressing my question, "I think perhaps we should have a nice fire." There was a fireplace by the kitchen table alcove in the old main house of the winery. "And I know you want to look in on John and let him know you've arrived..."--there was a pause as Lewa had dropped a glass at the sink and she and I were engaged in getting the shards up. Dorthea didn't make a fuss of that happening other than to seek assurances that Lewa hadn't been cut.

"There's a wood pile by Lewa's cottage and I know John is there," Dorthea continued. "You could check in on him and bring some wood back, and we could have a nice fire going before we chat."

"Certainly," I said. Such was my concern for her that I'd do anything to make her more comfortable. This wasn't my first visit here. I knew where the cottage was that Lewa and her gardener son, Zula--a handsome, strapping young ebony man some five years my junior who was a hard worker and devoted to the family--lived now, having come up from Cape Town with Dorthea and John. I didn't occur to me that Dorthea hadn't mentioned where Zula was sleeping since Lewa had moved into the house to help Dorthea at night and John was now in the cottage.

But of course Dorthea had it all planned out.

At Lewa's cottage I was about to knock, when I found that the door was ajar and I heard the sounds of their exertions before I could call out to ask where Uncle John was.

They were in a bedroom, on a bed, fucking unabashedly and openly. It was obvious they didn't worry about either Dorthea or Lewa being surprised about finding them in this position. I have to admit that, although I'd suppressed the thought, I couldn't be surprised either, having seen how the two interacted when they lived in Cape Town. I'd just chalked that up to my being oversensitive with my own feelings in secret for Dabir.

They were both naked, Uncle John in good condition for being in his mid-thirties, but Zula a young, muscular god. John was on his back, a bolster under the small of his back, rolling his pelvis up to give Zula deep access. His legs were bent and spread, feet flat on the mattress, giving John leverage to rock his hips up to take Zula's downward thrusts deep. His back was arched and his arms were stretched out in a sacrificial position, his cheek pressed to the mattress. His face was turned from me. I don't know if he knew I was there or not. I had a feeling that he didn't care whether I knew or not. Didn't I lie with an ebony lover too and John know that I did?

Was I any different from him? But, yes, I was. I wasn't married or otherwise in a relationship with a woman. I wasn't any more legal here in South Africa or in concert with social morals and demands--but I wasn't involving anyone but Dabir and me.

But that wasn't true--because of my grandfather's beliefs and position in the police, with both John and me in the police as well, I had involved both John and Dorthea in my choices as well. They had helped shield me from the wrath of my grandfather, society in South Africa, and the Apartheid laws.

Zula, a beautiful, vibrant, virile, and vigorous young man, was kneeling between John's spread thighs and hovering over my uncle's prone body. He was palming John's pecs, and he was fucking John deep, his body glistening with sweat from his athletic exertion, his firm and muscular buttocks clenching and releasing, as he mastered my uncle with long, deep, vigorous slides.

I backed out of the door. The stack of wood was there to the side, on the porch. I took up an armful, wondering to what extent Dorthea knew what I would find here, and staggered back to the main house. Before I arrived, it became clear to me that I saw exactly what she wanted me to see, as I noticed for the first time that there was another stack of wood right there next to the door into the kitchen.

They were both where I had left them--Dorthea sitting at the kitchen table, sipping tea, and Lewa at the sink, facing away from us. I no longer wondered why she hadn't been sent away for this conversation. Zula was her son. This was her concern as much as it was Dorthea's--or mine. She seemed as resolved to the situation as Dorthea was.

"So, you saw," Dorthea said, when I'd laid the wood and gotten the fire going. My morose demeanor had assured her I did.

"Yes," I said. What could I say in terms of anger or moral disgust? I was having in on with Dabir. But John had a wife and I did not.

"I can understand them. But I don't understand how you could--"

"Sometimes reality steps in unavoidably," Dorthea interrupted. "None of us can help what life deals us, Paul. Surely, you, of all people, should know that. Marriage is more than sex, and sex is something I don't have to offer anymore. John is devoted to me in all ways that still matter. He easily could abandon me in my sickness and gone with a totally different life, but he hasn't."

I let that sink in. She obviously was making the best she could of the situation. "So, Uncle John didn't leave the force and move you to the country because you were ill. This relationship developed while you were still in Cape Town."

"It's true I'm ill. But I could be ill in Cape Town as conveniently as here. So, yes, we left Cape Town because of John... and Zula. As dangerous as this is for John, it is devastatingly so for Zula. And Lewa and Zula are family to us."

She paused to catch her breath. I looked toward the sink, where Lewa was standing, facing away from us, her shoulders sinking down. I could only imagine what a struggle this was for her.

"We didn't think we could keep it a secret from your grandfather and others as well as you and Dabir have," Dorthea resumed. "I'm sorry I didn't just tell you, but this saves time and effort, and I don't have the strength for histrionics or long conversations. I have a request and then I will need to rest before dinner. We'll all be together for dinner. Lewa will fix it, but she eats with us--something we couldn't do in Cape Town and something we can enjoy here in the vineyard. John and Zula will be here too. I told John I'd handle everything with you, so we can just be open and comfortable for the rest of your visit."

"Of course. You and John have been so good about Dabir and me that I'll accept and do whatever you want."

"I hope so. But it's asking a lot of you," Dorthea said.

"If it's about grandfather, I won't say a thing and I'll help in anyway that's needed to keep him from knowing--just as you have with Dabir and me."

"That's comforting to hear, but there's more, I'm afraid. You'll have to give up more."

I didn't understand, and for a few seconds I was afraid she was asking me to give up Dabir so the situation wouldn't be compounded. But that was nonsense. She'd never ask that of me.

"It's the vineyard," Dorthea said. "I'll be here for a while, but chances are excellent I will go before John does. You're our nephew--our only close biological relative. You have every right to expect the vineyard to come to you when John dies." She had to stop to have a brief coughing fit, one that wracked her whole body. But it gave me time to absorb what she was asking, the reference to biological relative being all I needed to understand, and to formulate my response.

"John wants to leave the vineyard to Zula, doesn't he?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, the expression on her face from the smile on mine appeared to lift a burden from her. "John wants to take care of Zula. He has nothing else and you have a good job. There should be money to leave to you, but Zula works the land. This vineyard wouldn't thrive without him. It would be difficult under Apartheid for the vineyard to be left to him--especially if there are other relatives--but there's a change in the air in South Africa. John says we can wait it out and reach a time when there is none of this forced division, when black and white don't matter--maybe when men with men doesn't matter. I don't think I'll live to see that, but I hope you and Zula... and your Dabir do. If we both go before Apartheid does, the farm with naturally come to you, but what we'd like, even then--"

"Yes, of course, that's fine with me," I said. "I have no desire to farm. Even if the changes don't come and Zula can't own the farm, he and I can make arrangements for it to be as if he did until he legally can. I just hope that Dabir and I can find a situation as exists here now so that we don't have to live our love in fear. We'll just have to try, as you said, to wait it out."

* * * *

Waiting it out largely worked out, mainly because Dorthea held on for more than four more years. I attended her funeral at the Westpark Cemetery in Cape Town. An indication of what she'd given up to move to Beede River Valley and help cover for her husband was that she insisted to be returned to Cape Town for her final rest. My grandfather, the internal stability police division major, Pietr Adams, who died in 1984--thankfully before he saw the South African world he'd known collapse--was buried in the South African Police Services Memorial section at Westpark and had wrangled plots for his son, John, and Dorthea there. I doubted that John would wind up there, though, if he had time and inclination to make other arrangements for Zula and him. We all could just wait that one out.

The country was opening up. Apartheid was officially dead, and it was increasingly losing its grip even on the recalcitrant with each passing day.

I attended the graveside service alone. John was there, of course, and Zula was there too, but propriety was observed by his presence being able to be understood as physically supporting Lewa, who was almost beside herself in grief. All of Dorthea's friends could readily understand and appreciate the bond, regardless of color, between Dorthea and Lewa. I thought it right that John and Zula be there, but not holding hands, to honor the sacrifice that Dorthea made for them.

As people were leaving, John called me aside. "My solicitor is here, Paul," he said. "Could you stop by the cemetery office for just a minute and witness the signing of something?"

"Your will?" I asked. "Changing Dorthea for Zula for the beneficiary for the vineyard upon your death?"

"Yes, if you'll sign. Legally, it will make all the difference if you have agreed to sign as a witness, thereby accepting and approving the transaction. I hope--"