*
He must have blacked out for a few moments, because all of a sudden he’s once again aware of the clods under his cheek, and the flamboyant cannas, and a sensation as if someone’s hammering a nail into his leg, that’s how painful it is, and he must have shed a few tears, because he tastes moisture on his upper lip (salty) and minutes later the startled face of a woman bends over him and she says: Ag shame, my boy, now who’s gone and hurt you like that?
The old couple help him into the house, give him strong tea with plenty of sugar, and the man takes him to hospital. Fortunately only a flesh wound, though deep, and a few stitches and a tetanus shot, and his pants a goner. He must buy a new pair of jeans (normally he avoids Mr Price like the plague), have a new key cut for his car (which thank God for small mercies was left just like that). What was he thinking — that everything’s hunky-dory in this bloody town? And the words of Led Zeppelin keep milling over in his mind: ‘Jesus, gonna make up my dyin’ bed/ Meet me, Jesus, meet me in the middle of the air.’
He sends Hendrik a text message:
Some prick potted me in the cemetery. Flesh wound. This trip’s no picnic.
*
During the day Ignatius Hofmeyr no longer ventures out. He stays in his room. He lies on his bed in the semi-dusk. The coolness is merciful and he is safe here. Out there the light is too glaring and the honking of the geese (depraved souls that know they will not inherit the kingdom), the taunting sounds of the birds in the trees (the souls of the damned), the foul grunting of the swine (souls lapsed into disgrace) still threaten to demoralise him. He prefers to stay in his room because it is crucial that his attention not be distracted by torment and slander. He must not allow himself to be provoked. Especially not by the Headman. While awaiting the transformation, he must not be derailed by those who for so long — for months — have tried to bring about his downfall. And even though the conspiracy against him is coming to a head in these days, he must not allow himself to be put off his stride by that knowledge. God is on his side and God will help him to vanquish his enemies. This is the end of his long, drawn-out and indescribable agony.
He need not venture out to visit all the sites of depravity in the farmyard. Every detail of every one of the rooms has been branded into his memory. Especially the room with the swine’s head — the hub of the domain of the cloven-hoofed.
*
Maria Volschenk phones the visiting academic — the agricultural economist — the moment she arrives in the town. Yes, he does very much want to see her again. Probably as much in need as she of distraction so far away from home and hearth. He is bigger than she remembers. She has also not remembered how dark his eyes are. To be quite honest, she has not given him much thought of late. She leaves him to do the talking. It suits her. They once again sit outside. It’s a fine evening, cooler than during her previous visit, mid-May already, but still pleasant out-of-doors. There is a crescent moon — blood-pink. Is the Daisy Duck upper lip an appropriate description of his mouth — the outline of the lip exceptionally prominent and the lip furrow (the infra-nasal depression — she’s looked it up) particularly well defined? He is temporarily attached to the sociology department at the university. He is a specialist in the field of agricultural economics and land reform, but this evening he tells her about an article he’s recently read about theories of extinction — man-made and natural catastrophes. As far as she’s concerned a winning combination: the Daisy Duck upper lip and the cosmic catastrophes.
She lets him talk, she likes listening, even though her attention wanders from time to time. (Just slightly. Distracted by the blood-coloured crescent moon. The warm, caressing breeze. The thought of the mountain, or mountains, surrounding them. The texture of his skin over his collarbone.) Twelve possible scenarios, he says, some more probable than others, that could radically transform life on earth by 2050. He enumerates them. The decisive proof of the existence of several cosmic dimensions will radically alter our perception of reality, he says. To this point in time there have been many indications that the known universe is only a shadow of a higher-dimension reality. (Of this she has already taken note, of our limited perception of three dimensions — as on the spout of a teapot in a universe of nine or more dimensions.) Tomorrow she’ll be meeting Benjy, then she’ll probably find out the nature of the trouble in which he is embroiled. She has no idea what it could be. As she knows Benjy, it will form part of some or other entangled (always entangled, complicated, complicating) scheme or idea that has failed. This wouldn’t be the first time that something like that’s happened. A nuclear cataclysm can still not be totally excluded, says the man, although the end of the Cold War and the ongoing weapons control programme have appreciably reduced the threat of a global atomic wipe-out. But if a nuclear war should erupt between, say, countries like Pakistan and India, he says, in the course of which both countries would probably deploy their whole arsenal, then it would have an effect equivalent to about a hundred Hiroshima-sized bombs. Apart from the twenty million people who would be killed instantaneously, many outside the immediate area of conflict would perish in due course. A nuclear war of this magnitude would release approximately five million metric tons of soot into the upper atmosphere. Depending on prevailing weather patterns, soot particles could circle the globe for a week, and within months blanket the whole planet. The darkening sky will deprive plants of sunlight and disrupt the food chain for ten years. The subsequent famine will claim the lives of millions of people dependent for their survival on the marginal food supplies.
Yes, thinks Maria, talk to me about cataclysm, about famine, plagues of locusts and frogs. That is what I want to hear. Blood on the lintels and the death of the first-born. Heaven help us. The man is broad-shouldered. Women are apparently conditioned by evolution to react positively — sexually — to this, she’s read. For her part, she’s more attuned to a man’s buttocks. She likes the shoes he’s wearing. She couldn’t sleep with a man who dresses in the normal Afrikaner gear — a particular kind of Grasshopper or some such, whatever it’s called. A passion killer if ever there was one. Somewhere she shouldn’t lose sight of the locust and the frog. They have yet to help her through the First Gate. A thorough investigation of the natural world remains a priority. She is not intending to allow her attention to be diverted from this. And a dimple to boot, the man, what a fucking heartbreaker.
The rising of the oceans will radically transform the contours of the world as we now know it, he says. The approximately seventeen centimetres that the oceans have risen since 1900 (as a result of warm water taking up more space and the ongoing melting of the poles), is a fraction of what awaits us. By 2100 the polar regions will be free of ice, and the coastal contours will present a completely different aspect. Two hundred million people are at the moment living a metre above the present sea level, and that includes eight of the ten greatest megacities in the developing world. These cities will thus in due course have to relocate. Even a gradual rising of the sea level increases the danger of catastrophic storm swells, how much more with a more drastic rising.
He proceeds to mention the possibility — indeed, the probability — of a mammoth earthquake on the west coast of America; the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there is a ninety-nine percent chance that California will before 2038 suffer an earthquake measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale. Another possibility of a natural catastrophe, though less likely, is the collision of the earth with an asteroid. And besides that, there is still a fifty percent chance of the eruption of a deadly pandemic disease.