The History of Man. Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
sorely lacking in his life. He would escape into the wild worlds that the authors created and wish that the stories would never come to an end. ‘I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman …’ In a month, he would read those lines at least twice, eagerly opening King Solomon’s Mines and beginning the adventure anew. Emil particularly liked that he shared his birthplace, the place that he no longer remembered having lived in, with the man who had fast become his hero, Allan Quatermain. ‘I, Emil Coetzee, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman …’ he would write over and over again in the margins of his exercise books as he watched the city’s life pass him by and daydreamed about being in the bush again. While this writing in the margins never did make him feel that he was ‘of’ Durban, it did, nevertheless, make him feel that he could perhaps be the hero of a story.
His schoolmaster, Mr Bartleby, was quite a perceptive and sensitive man and noticed that Emil’s transition to city life was not a happy one. When he saw Emil devouring book after book in the library, he supposed that what he was witnessing was a very studious young man. A studious young man whose life had to be filled with adventures – the kind of adventures not found in the city. The kind of adventures found in the savannah of the country they lived in.
Mr Bartleby took the boy’s many scribbles of ‘I, Emil Coetzee, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman …’ as cries for help and set about searching for a way to save him. Once he found it, he called in the boy’s parents. As they sat before him looking like beautiful movie stars straight out of a picture show at the bioscope, Mr Bartleby understood that some people just had serendipitous lives and found their perfect other, and, simultaneously, that he had had no such great fortune visit upon his life.
‘The Selous School for Boys,’ Mr Bartleby said, as he pushed the pamphlet across his desk towards them.
The wife picked up the pamphlet and frowned at it slightly.
‘Best school in the country,’ he explained to her frown as he watched her peruse the pamphlet and deepen her frown before passing it to her husband, whose turn it was to frown.
‘That is where the boy should go,’ Mr Bartleby explained, realising that there was an order in which he should have done things and that it was now too late to try to establish it.
The perfect couple exchanged confused expressions before she said, ‘The boy? You mean our boy, Emil?’
‘Yes. Yes. Emil. That’s the chap. Yes.’
The husband chortled charmingly. ‘I’m afraid we don’t understand.’
We don’t understand, not I don’t understand. Such uniformity of mind must be a wonderful thing to have, Mr Bartleby conjectured.
‘The boy has already secured himself a place and a full bursary.’
They exchanged their perfectly confused expressions again.
‘He wrote an essay in my class about casting his shadow over Rhodes’s grave up at World’s View. Very affecting stuff. I sent the essay to the headmaster of the Selous School for Boys. He read it and was rightly impressed by it. We both agree that the best thing for the boy is for him to leave Milton School at term’s end.’
‘Leave Milton at term’s end?’ the husband mumbled beneath a beautifully trimmed moustache.
‘Yes.’
‘But I have always dreamed of Emil attending Milton. And besides, we live just up the road, the Prince’s Mansions at the corner of Borrow and Selborne. It is so convenient and I do so enjoy walking him to and from school every day,’ the wife said, her mouth beginning to pout becomingly.
Mr Bartleby so hated to go against her desires, but he was afraid that there was nothing else to be done. ‘The boy is not entirely happy here.’
This had evidently come as news to the perfect couple because they looked at each other questioningly.
‘He has the call of the wild, that one, and will never be truly happy or at home in the city.’
‘Oh,’ they said in unison.
‘Where exactly is this school?’ she asked, reaching for the pamphlet that her husband still held in his hands.
‘The Midlands.’
‘The Midlands!’ they exclaimed in unison again.
‘I cannot stress this enough. It is the best school in the country. The very best.’
‘A boarding school? But he is only nine years old,’ she said.
They exchanged yet another look. Mr Bartleby understood the look of dread that passed between them. Their own, probably not so happy, boarding-school memories were flashing before them.
‘The school itself is situated within hectares and hectares of untamed savannah. He will be able to explore, hunt, fish, camp … all while getting the best education that a young man can get in this country.’
‘The best?’ she asked, still a little wary.
‘The very best. The Selous School for Boys turns boys into the men of history,’ Mr Bartleby said, hoping that this would impress upon them how much they were supposed to be impressed.
At dinner that evening, Gemma’s natural flair for detail deserted her. She could not quite capture the essence of the meeting when she announced, as she placed more cucumber salad onto his plate than Emil could ever possibly eat, ‘Poppet, we have met with Mr Bartleby and it has been decided that you shall attend the Selous School for Boys at the beginning of the coming year. Is that not a wonderful thing?’ she concluded with a weak smile.
Johan scrutinised his son’s face. The first thing to register on it was confusion.
‘It is in the Midlands,’ Johan added cautiously.
‘The Midlands?’
The second thing to register on Emil’s face was panic.
‘It is the best school in the entire country,’ Gemma said.
‘The very best,’ Johan corrected.
‘You’re a lucky duck for getting in,’ Gemma said, her smile weaker still.
The third thing to register on Emil’s face was fear.
‘Have I done something wrong?’
‘Wrong? What could you possibly ever do wrong, poppet?’ Gemma said, giving Emil’s cheek a gentle squeeze. ‘This is a good thing, darling. A wonderful thing.’
Emil stared at his father, his eyes pleading with him to, for once, take a view contrary to his mother’s.
‘Lots of hunting and shooting to be had, so we’re told, our boy. Just your sort of thing,’ Johan said, as he reached over and ruffled his son’s hair.
‘It will be just like living on the outpost, but this time you will be receiving the best education in the country,’ Gemma said as her fingers gently righted Emil’s ruffled hair. ‘The very best.’
‘They turn boys into the men of history.’
‘Or some such thing.’
‘In the Midlands?’
‘Yes. In the Midlands,’ Gemma and Johan said in unison, both also trying to reconcile themselves to this fact.
Things moved along with frightening alacrity after that. Term’s end came. Mr Bartleby told Emil that his life was just about to change for the better, that he was very fortunate to have this rare opportunity afforded him and that he had every confidence that Emil would prove worthy of it. As Mr Bartleby said all this, Emil tried not to cast his eye on a postcard of the gargoyles at Sanssouci Palace on the schoolmaster’s desk. After Emil whispered a confused, ‘Thank you, sir,’ Mr Bartleby gave him a cowboy hat as a parting present. Neither Mr Bartleby nor Emil could have known at that moment that a cowboy hat would one day become a permanent fixture on Emil Coetzee’s head.
Gemma