Double Negative Read Online Free

Wits have spoken a hole in your head,’ was the gist of his reply. ‘What do you know about the world? When you’ve lived a bit, seen a few things, you’ll know better. If your black brothers ever get hold of this country, they’ll run it into the ground. It’s happened everywhere in Africa.’
    My father cracked a few jokes and tried to change the subject. When that failed, he gave me a pointed look, a stare that seemed to stretch out his features and make his nose long and sharp. It was the look he used to give me as a boy when I wouldn’t listen. Go to your room, it said. Now . Before I lose my temper.
    We went from calling each other names to pushing and shoving like schoolboys behind the bicycle sheds. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Netta getting to her feet and my mother turning in her chair to see what the commotion was about.
    Louis had what Jaco liked to call a donner my gesig . His sorry mug was begging to be hit. I would have done it, I suppose. Apparently I raised the beer bottle like a club. But before I could go further, my father slapped me hard through the face. One blow was all it took to knock the world back into order. Louis straightened his shirt and his mouth. I was told to apologize, which I did. We shook hands.
    Then, in fact, I went to my room.
    On the way, I stopped in the bathroom to splash my face with cold water. There was a red mark on my jaw. My father was all talk when it came to discipline. He would unbuckle his belt and say, ‘Do you want me to give you a hiding?’ Don’t be ridiculous. He had never raised a hand to me. That he had hit me at all was as shocking as the blow itself. I found the shapes of his fingers on my cheek like the map of a new country.
    The Van Huyssteens stayed for coffee, to avoid the implication that the whole day had been a catastrophe. Later, I heard them gathering up the sleeping children, Ag shame and Oh sweet , and going down the driveway. It was the last time they ever set foot in my parents’ house.
    Voices rumbled in the kitchen. Then my father came into my room.
    I was still a little drunk or perhaps I was drunk again. The room was drifting, and so I stayed where I was on my bed, with my hands behind my neck, insolent. I was ready to be furious, but the look on his face made it impossible.
    â€˜I’m sorry, my boy,’ he said.
    â€˜It’s okay.’
    â€˜You understand that I had to do this? I couldn’t have you hitting a visitor in this house.’
    â€˜Ja.’
    â€˜You were spoiling for a fight.’
    Spoiling. To spoil for a fight. What exactly does it mean?
    â€˜I had to hit someone.’
    â€˜Then you should have hit him ,’ I said. ‘He was asking for it. Fucking fascist.’
    I imagine the expletive was more surprising to my father than the political persuasion, which I had been bandying about lately.
    â€˜Perhaps. But you don’t settle your differences with your fists. Not under this roof.’
    We spoke a bit longer. My father made a joke about watching your step around Afrikaners with law degrees. Never klap a BJuris! Finally, he reached out to show me something in his palm. It was a moment before I understood the gesture. When I stood up to take his hand, I saw that there were tears in his eyes.
    My father’s remorse lasted for a week. Then one evening he called me into his study, sat me down in the chair facing his desk as if I were a sales rep who’d pranged the company car, and read me the Riot Act.
    My argument with Louis had given him the jitters. The family motto had always been: ‘Don’t rock the boat.’ He was worried, although he did not express it in so many words, that I would get involved in politics, that I would fall in with the wrong crowd. There was really little danger of that. Politics confounded me. The student politicians I had encountered were full of alarming certitudes. By comparison, my own position was