YD6-42 Aetheria from oblivion along the Dragon tail

“In this chapter of “Vitrine of Consciousness,” Aetheria, amid a father from New York exercising his sons’ visitation rights in South Africa. As they adventure amid the northern Drakensberg, Aetheria solidifies her presence from oblivion, through vivid interactions, of human experiences and the intangible nature of consciousness.

As Helios dips below the distant mountains, yielding to the creeping embrace of Nyx across the slasto terrace, impressionable Lionel and Gavin stand by. Grappling with the years of whispers and shadows that cling to my brother-in-law, Johnny. As he stands by tending the barbecue. I settle into a chair beside Ilse and Gerard, who have just arrived, with Gavin by my side. Their voices emerge from the shadows. Ilse and Gerard, parroting the naive optimism since Ilona courted him, “Johnny has changed.” — ‘Only his clothes!’ I’m reminding myself.

Seated in a chair facing the driveway, the neighboring farmhouse, ablaze with halogen floodlights, casting an eerie glow through the avocado's orchard, to deter creatures lurking in the dark. “I thought they were gone,” I blurted out, while talking to my boys, whichever member of the family lends me an ear. Meanwhile, Lionel and Gavin insist. “Can we go for a swim?”  

“Bom-Ma, we don’t want to go by ourselves.” 

“Alei na togh. . . ── Come on! You can go, and swim next door, the people aren’t home, anyway!” De-M’ma says.

Barefoot and in swimsuits, we crossed the gravel driveway, ducking under outreaching Avocados branches. We emerge into the tall grass, and onto the lawn, reaching the large pool’s deck. I plunge into a warm body wash, surfacing to meet Lionel and Gavin. We climb out to an embracing air chill. I’m escaping along the coping stone, only to plunge back in for warmth. After a while, we climbed the pool steps out, tracking back through the orchard.

Just as we returned to the terrace, a stranger emerged from the plants into the light. At the terrace stairs, addresses Johnny. Freezing their souls, Ilona, and wide-eyed, trouble is brewing, the siblings, Paul, Tanya, and Patrick’s figure standing in the shadows next to the man in defense. 

‘What’s that about?’ I wonder, deciding not to get involved. ‘The story will leak out ─ just wait.’ Emerging from the front door, De-M’ma, her Sun in Monkey, a soothing honeyed voice, speaks to the stranger, dissolving the argument. 

Johnny flips the meat on the grill, sizzling to white bursts of steam, as he douses the charcoal with splashes of water, quelling the flickering flames. “It’s ready,” he announces. Stacking chops on a plateau beside the grill. “Take some,” he offers to everyone gathered, — I’m caught in the paradoxical fragility, of my earlier words I dropped in earlier, contrasting Gerard and Ilse.

Lionel settles onto the doorstep, balancing his plate on his knees, as he eats. I chatted with Tanya. Her gaze, sharp with suspicion, fixates on her eldest brother. ‘Ho no, Patrick, what have you been up to again?’ Although Paul seems uninvolved, he doesn’t escape Tanya’s glares, and accusing words, “Look At them,” she spits out. “What drugs have done. Their brain is ruined. What else can you expect?”

Paul, with his Sun in Snake, and his Moon in Aquarius, remains calm and passive, smiling eyes, a liquid tone of voice, “It’s not true. I’m not on drugs. I’m fine,” he says. In contrast, Patrick, fueled by his fierce nature, strides treads to the terrace. He grabs a plate, stands by his father, and dishes himself up chops, steps over to the salad bowls to complete his meal. Disappearing into the shadows, crouching, a terrace light shines on the back of his bald patch. Sits close enough to hear the conversation. He interjects, “I didn’t go, and swim there.”

De-M’ma, in her characteristic mix of English, Flemish, Afrikaans, and French, scolds her grandson. “… — Patrick, people don’t mind, but you mustn’t bring those friends from the security.” 

“Bom’Ma!” Patrick says. “I didn’t take my friend there.”

“… — Patrick, why would the man complain? He is the foreman of the farm. It’s only because you’ve done something wrong,” De-M’ma scolds, her voice sharp but gentle. “Those friends of yours who work in security. . . ‘They’re all up to no good’.” She trails off as we are eating our supper. 

“H’t was warm gist’r . . . ── It was hot yesterday. ‘Thirty-four degrees!’ A woman who came in at the Spar, saying.” De-M’ma says. The night’s eerie calm, to frogs croaking in the distance, crickets shrieking in the grass. At the house corners, insects swarm light bulbs — the ex-‘s, and this ex- talk in this farming community.

I do a mental conversion. ‘Ninety!’ I exclaim to my boys. “No wonder we felt weak and dehydrated after golf? The night deepens, the family disperses. Cars pull away, headlight sweeping the dark orchards to life, heading for our respective lodgings.

De-M’ma had already left for work when I'm entering the kitchen with Lionel and Gavin. We whisk up eggs and pour milk into another soup plate. Pick from a loaf of bread slices to dip in milk, with a spatula transfer soak in the eggs and flip. Tending the stove, transferring the egg coated dripping slice to the pan, to sizzle, in pairs and flip. Pile the golden-brown fried slices on a plate and approach a mid-morning sunlight on the leafy orchards canopy, we join the boys’ Bom’pa cleared breakfast corner. Engrossed at the head of the table with his stamp collection. We come to sit and occupy the middle. Sprinkling cassonade on our French toast, and eating, I savored a flavor forgotten in my childhood. Highlights chatting around the table, turns to yesterday morning’s eighteen-hole golf game, and when the afternoon was still young, the sweltering heat discouraged us playing another round. 

“Should we go for a walk?” Lionel suggested. 

“Yes Daddy. Where are we going to walk to?” Gavin asks.

“I don’t know. We’ll see …” Lionel intercedes, ‘where the road takes us to.’ saying. “Dad, I’ll show you the road I took that night.” 

“Ok. Should we take the dogs with us? Then we can see where Heiger goes and gets all wet.” The dogs perked up, eavesdropping on the conversation.

Lionel and Gavin, their voices echoing through the house. Heiger, De-P’pa’s Alsatian, Bengy, Balu, Sputnik, come scrambling from the shadows where the kitchen and bedrooms corridor converge, slipping around the flat arch, tails wagging. They frolic across the autumn hues of gleaming slasto, weaving between our legs as we cross the dining room and step out onto the sun-drenched terrace. Heiger takes the lead by the footpath through the parterre of vibrant tropical colors, to the dirt road we drove up to the farmhouse a few days earlier. By the granadilla orchard beginning, opposite the Guava trees’ ending. He pauses, tongue dangling over his fangs. Bengy, puppy clumsy son, kicks up puffs of dust, as he pugs alongside the skeptical small Fox Terrier. Balu, my sister, Ilona’s Chow-Chow, lags, in solitude by the offside looming farm machinery. 

Arriving at the bottom of the Granadilla orchard, Heiger wanders off in the bamboo field, and strays. Lionel and Gavin calling out, “Heiger, Heiger, Heiger. . .” until behind us, from the machinery yard, Heiger strokes out to the dirt road. He overtakes us and the other dogs, heading along the curve toward the bridge. Before engaging the bridge, ‘Pay attention here!’ Heiger’s pauses, his gaze tells us. Our little group approaches the stream. Heiger leads us onto the sturdy log bridge. “Come,” I say to my boys. “Let’s sit down for a moment.”

I cross my ankles, down scissoring legs, a hip resting on the edge log, I kick my feet off to swing over the edge. Gregarious, Gavin crouches beside me on the thick doubled-log structuring the edges. Lionel comes to stand behind us. “There are supposed to be crocodiles and Hippos in the river, Bom’Pa said.” Peering over our shoulders, upstream, scanning the silty waters for lurking dangers. Twigs leaves’ fingers tease the surface, as ripples escaping the low-hanging branches, to die in the shallow pool along the river bank. Gavin says, “Can you see any?” 

Lionel creeps forward, stirring Sputnik, the skeptical fox terrier, and with Bengy they cross the transverse logs launching the dirt road ahead. Prompts Gavin and me, uncoil with a hand support, kick our feet onto edge logs rising to our feet. On the road, our little group turns to the upstream side, where Heiger descended the abutment. 

“You can’t see crocodiles lurking under the water,” I tell my boys. 

“Yaa Dad. They can just strike.”

“That’s how crocodiles drag antelopes underwater to drown them, when they’re drinking along riverbanks,” I say, glancing at Gavin, as we’re imagining the dangers lurking in the murky depths. 

Bengy follows his father, Heiger, pawing the shallow sandy edges of a silty bay. The cool water entices Heiger to venture deeper. While Bengy captivates the water cooling his paws, playful, clumsy edging in and out of the shallows. Then Heiger feels the threatening current pull, and with a forepaws jump chute, in a few leaps, he bounds out of the water. Shaken. His shaggy coat sends a spraying of water glistening in the sunlight.

Bengy, enchanted by the cooling water, ventures deeper. Losing his footing and adrift. Shattered. The puppy stresses a sinking sensation, pawing the surface without grip, to a rising desperation. In a panic, the current pulls him, farther and faster, toward the middle of the stream. Our call “Bengy. . .” echoed his growing fear, frantic paddling, his snout, and wide eyes out the murky waters. Heiger, Sputnik, and we are helpless, as he drifts toward the bridge.

Bengy’s face in a floating rag carried by the wash through the abutments, into the shadows beneath the bridge. Lionel and Gavin rush up the embankment, leap over the road, run along the riverbank, getting ahead of the dark wet pelt. Calling out, “Bengy, Bengy, Bengy. . .” Ahead, marshy ground and dense undergrowth, risk venturing into unfamiliar terrain. He washes away from the driving current, approaches to the peaceful riverbank. Forepaws, in his frenzy, slip off the muddy bank. Gavin ducks under the low-hanging branches, grabs Bengy’s paw, in his second attempt, pulls him limping from the water. 

Sputnik disappears, but as Heiger and Bengy edge back along the trail. Sputnik reappears tall on the bridge, watching us approach. We climb the embankment, and Sputnik edging onward, across the bridge to the launching dirt road where Balu sits in the middle, in a brief sniff of sweat, shares his adventure. 

As we diverged toward the machinery yard, drawing us to a pause with the pets, en route toward the neighboring farm. An approaching engine roars, accompanied by choirs of evening chants. Seeking through branches and foliage, the emergent red tractor towing a trailer from the blind bend. Crossing the bridge, the trailer packed with woman farmhands, chanting and passing along the leading farm road. With a wrist twist and a glimpse at the dial. “It’s five O’Clock!” I exclaim, wondering where our time had gone.

Lionel ventures off, leading us into a sunlight dappling ground through gaps in leaves, emerging from the orchards to the tracks of a bordering banana plantation. Under a golden sky, the dogs return home. Stepping indoors, we find the table dressed for dinner. The dogs scramble to greet De-P’pa in the kitchen, and settle across the kitchen slasto. 

Heiger’s ears prick up, lifts his head, rocking, and jumps to his paws. The dogs follow suit, rushing out of the kitchen, by the whispers of routines. Headlights flash through the windows, Lionel and Gavin stroll after the dogs out the front door. After a break, the dogs return excited, ahead of De-M’ma’s cheerful voice mingling with Lionel and Gavin. Entering chatting, as De-P’pa emerges from the kitchen, carrying a pot, with a butler’s reverence. He places it on the table, returning to the kitchen. We take a chair, sit around the table, for the meal, spend an evening chatting after clearing the table, “Slople. . . — Good night until early tomorrow.”  

De-M’ma had left in the morning when we were preparing French toast. Lionel and Gavin sitting with their Bom’Pa, chatting while savoring breakfast. Stand up, clear the table to the kitchen. Readying to leave and find their Bom’ma’s dirt road course through the plantations to the Spar.

Entering the Spar, with a brief greeting to Ilse amid the row of check-outs, reminding a cashier, the rules. Heading for the aisles, passing by the kaleidoscopic array of brands shelved on our way to the refrigerators. Cross De-M’ma for a brief chat, heading to the rear of the store. In Good Receiving, greeting Gerard, we turn back across the supermarket and exit. 

Lionel, carrying a six-pack of Coke, and Gavin with Schweppes bitter lemon. We cross the parking area amid Spar’s customers. Lift the trunk of the borrowed Volkswagen Jetta, stack the cooler-bag, close the trunk, to slip into our seats. I tweak the ignition key, shift into reverse gear, pulling out. Driving out of the parking area, to pass the Total driveway, and veer onto the main road. A sign for “Sabie,” pointing short of the country road that snakes by the vineyard across the bushveld shallow valley. Lionel and Gavin insist, “Can we go and see the potholes?” North, but I turn off.

The local map, highlighted in different colors, offers a scope of road stretches through a vast expanse of country. Overlapping a flashback with Yael, driving a perpetuating highway, upstate New York. Save my outing with Lionel and Gavin, my mind conjures Sabie, short, from loosing ourselves into the vast countryside. We meander high in the wooded hill, upstream along the deep, glistening Sabie River. The panoramic escarpment bathes in sunlight rising on the horizon in our approach. Our arrival route along the steep rocky wall across the gorge, speckled houses herded to the edge. On a U-course through the piedmont town with shades of the Voortrekkers’ settlement. We emerge from town. A sign flashes “Graskop — grass head,” spiking to mind a reassuring next town. 

Driving the serpentine road through the Drakensberg — Dragon Mountain, we reach a grass plateau, zigzagged by a grid of suburban houses. I realized we left behind a main street lined with shops sheltered under lean-to roofs. When the asphalt road leads to a J-course, affording us a glimpse of the gorge, a vista branching out craggy walls to the skies. When a sign raised a place to eat. Around the curve, the plateau’s grass tufts amid a field of peeking boulders, leveling off. Puzzled, I break the silence. “I think we must have passed the place. But that’s strange, I didn’t see any driveway. Let’s turn back. We’ll ask there by that flat roof farm house. Hey Cooks!”

“Yaa, Yes,” Lionel and Gavin reply. I spin the steering wheel with the heel of my hand. The tires crunch on the gravel shoulder. We rock back onto the asphalt, and over to the opposite shoulder, pull away. The tires quieten to a whisper. “You see! The ‘100m’ sign,” I say, in a questioning tone to the boys. “I didn’t see that coming up the road.” — ‘Did you?’

The tires crunch on the gravel, and stones ping against the chassis, as the single track road straight through sprawling these bushy boulders among the rugged grass. Straight uphill to an incongruous box-architecture, Larssen-profile corrugated asbestos roof. Pulling to a standstill before a boom, and park offside. We step out, and the only car, silent by the oddity of a boom to the driveway apron, to a brick-paved path. Approaching the blend of face brick walls and glulam beams frame — bathing in bright noon sunlight cast our reflection on the large storefront and breaching the glaze into shadows of the interior — I push open the plate-glass door, crossing the threshold a waft of air absorbing the aura of our souls.

Behind the cash register, a woman in a floral dress, lizard eyes and dead still, her body overflowing the seat of her stool, didn’t acknowledge us entering. We step to a café corner among displays and glass shelves stacked with curios and toys. We pull out chairs from the nearest table. The obese woman heaves herself off the stool, and walks away from us, the least I expected. Leaves behind a backdrop of colorful displays of tiny toys and trinkets. She crosses the floor. A back door cracks open, she calls out, then returns to her seat behind the glass counter.

A maid approaches from behind the kitchen door, in a traditional maid outfit. With a rural submissive regard, she gingerly steps crazy slasto cross the pristine hall, to hand us menus. ‘I’m here to take your order,’ her passive demeanor says, waiting in silence. The familiar in our mind, we order, and she turns away. My thoughts blurted out to my boys, “she’s taken out the comfort of her straw hut, scared!” — ‘shame on the establishment,’ breezes my mind, eying the maid distancing while piecing together the Boers’ homely way of life, lagging within the face of modernization. Vanishing, she leaves the door swinging on its spring hinges. 

The waitress-maid reappears. She dresses our place settings, serves up our drinks, serves our toasted cheese and tomatoes, and clears the table. We rise from our chairs, stroll by the curios stacked on glass shelves, in a gradual approach to the obese woman behind the counter. I hand her our ticket for our snacks and drinks, while hesitant, I say. “You know, I missed the entrance to this place. . .” My words weren’t registering until she motions and glances at me, saying flatly, “The arrow is there.” 

“Yes, but! The driveway can’t be seen in the grass rocks,” I say. Regretting bringing it up, reading her thoughts, ‘Don’t bug me — you found the place!’ I walk away with my boys, across the store, trailing with a palm on the glass outdoors, the path to the boom. "Dad. We're lucky it's not as hot as yesterday,"Lionel says. We sidestep, get into the Jetta, doors smack shut, the tires crunch on the gravel, we turn around. Coast down the track, veer onto the asphalt. We accelerate toward the hills’ lush green canopy, overshadowed by threatening tropical clouds.

Gavin’s question. “Daddy? Will it rain?” 

“I don’t know, Gavy. It might.” I reply.

Drops fall on the windshield, in answer and I switch on the windshield wipers, just before we turn off the roadway finding the driveway. We pass a raised gum pole barrier entering the park. Alongside on the grass scatter families tending barbecues, packing their belongings and rush toward parked campervans spit for the flat-roofed face-brick building. I steer away from the building to stall into a bay among oblique parked cars, cutting the engine. After a reflection, I say, “I think it will be alright. What else can we do? We don’t have umbrellas. This isn’t New York, where street vendors seem to rise from the sidewalks with three Dollar umbrellas.” Come Cooks, “the worst is we’ll get wet — let’s go.”

We dash into a breezeway, catching a breath, with little family groups. Heading for the curiosity behind a side door. We find ourselves among tourists in a museum, walking a round of posters exhibiting earth’s crust erosion and the formation of striated potholes. Showcases rock formation and eroded rock samples, fossils to browse souvenirs, exit the curio store. Finding families huddled along the walls. Creeping toward the skies, stop crying ropes, to a drizzle, onto dripping from the soffit. The one, then another brave man, egresses the breezeway. While we’re on the plane of sight of a remnant riverbed washed bald undulation to the earth’s crust. Each man peered over the handrail, their gaze drawn into the mystery of the earth.

Invigorated by the sun, Aetheria’s aura surges — as we glance into the canyon’s depth, and follow the railings. Sunbeams dry puddles on the stone path. We cross families along the mini-canyon’s winding railings. Branching trails to leap boulder to boulder across the Blyde River’s widespread finger-streams.

Walking across the third footbridge, by the guide of the handrails, nearing the distant gaping breezeway through the face-brick building. I lean on the railing, my thoughts drifting into millennia past. Imagining the flood of waters, and receding to rivers grounding down the rocks, to the remaining converging streams whirls. I awoke by the sun in her golden hair, and rose from the handrail, to a girl, Lionel’s age across the canyon. blond and angelic, she leads her family, approaching from behind. with her repeated glances following us. “Lionel!” I say. “Don’t you think she’s pretty?”

“Dad!” Lionel hisses, “She’s Afrikaans.” But Aetheria’s aura, permeating the blurry zodiacal threshold, reaches into the tangible, prevailing with a notion of presence. We cross the deserted breezeway, emerging to the row of parked cars' taillights, for the Jetta. Climbing into our seats, driving away, to veer onto the northbound road. In a stretch along the way, a corrugated iron shed, misplaced in the wild bushy-rocks. Caught by the curiosity of the derelict, We ease off the asphalt, onto the gravel shoulder, veer onto the tracks, tires grinding stones pinging against the chassis, to pull up the massive shed. Step out, circle the abandoned sheep-shearing barn. We climb back into the Jetta, turn, coasting back to the asphalt road.

Crossing far spread cars, entering the forest-green winding road. The mountain cloaks, opening a breathtaking gorge. Lionel breaks the soft talks, exclaiming, “There’re the Three Rondavels!” We pull up on the parking dirt apron, drawn by the portly peaks that shape traditional beehive huts.

We walk toward the viewpoint, to stand by a mind visual illusion of depth and distance warping the mind. Lionel tosses a pebble toward the rondavel that the canyon swallowed. With Gavin, I waited to hear an echo bounce from the quartzite and shale — That the gorge wasn’t to reveal. But surge a whimsical thought, to reach a rondavel’s domed summit’s green. “Maybe with a golf club. . . A driver hit a ball. . .” I say. The idea fades, turning back to the Jetta. Leaving the illusions behind, we drive away, following the meandering road that hugs the hillside. 

Glimpsing the reflective skies far down on the Blyde River Dam, we leave behind tapering a lizard’s tail glaze to the sneaking Blyde River into the extending gorge. The windshield ducks into the shade. Passing through an arcade of concrete columns, flitting by with a panoramic view of the sunny gorge. Emerging onto the cliffhanger road, and further along the way ducking through the J.G. Strijdom tunnel. Wind our way eastward, the rugged cliffs yield back to mellow green slopes, alongside the waning gorge, sprawling to a hilly valley. Meandering south the hills sink, undulating road stretches further ahead through the Bushveld, traffic augmenting. Thinking, ‘we’re going through an arid patch.’ I think. Emerging, scattered mud rondavels appeared, on either side of the leading asphalt road. “We must be in a homeland — Which one?”

The peaceful road teems with overcrowded minibus-taxis. The dirt road shoulders pushback wayside Bushveld vegetation. The barren earth spreads in our approach, bleeding into a jumble of mud and straw rondavels and men’s dream cubic houses, in time unfinished left to the weather. Traffic thickened and convolute with battered sedans weaving amid people swarming dirt and dusty road shoulders, on foot mumbling, riding bikes through village cracks, as the asphalt road leads us through, heading toward Hazyview. 

As the sun sets over the escarpment, by the Total service station, we turn off the main road, to the short stretch into the Spar’s cul-de-sac, returning De-M’ma’s needed Jetta to drive home. We cross the driveway apron to enter the supermarket. Weave our way past Ilse, in the aisles, Lionel and Gavin standing back, eyes greeting their Bom’Ma, chatting with a late customer. I handed over the Jetta keys. The little stubby man pushes his shopping trolley on, with a ducky waddling, As we exit the supermarket, Ilse mentions to Gerard,  “… Caesar Camino’s Kiepersol farm house, De-M’ma and P’pa rents from him.” After a brief greeting, we cross the drive away. We scatter around the Bakkie’s tailgate, stepping in - smack, smack - doors shut. I tweak the ignition key, reverse, and drive away. 

In the twilight, the Jetta pulls up in the carport, De-M’ma steps out, as we welcome her. She steps indoors, chatting. De-P’pa greets her with a dinner table. We take our chairs around the table, each of us dishes up, hasn’t lost our childhood ritual, father’s words echoing, “What you take you eat!” While Lionel and Gavin chatted with their Bom’ma, the course of our day has taken. Her voice tinged sadness, as the scent of losing our presence in the morning evades her.

The morning sun streams through the house's windows. We crossed De-M’ma, prepared French toast, the boys joined their Bom’pa at the head of the table, and the vacant place setting De-M’ma left behind. After breakfast, in her absence with packed bags, we step out, short of Jetta’s spot left bare under the carport. We load our bags into the cargo bed of the 1400 Datsun Bakkie. Helpful, Lionel, slips the rope through the eyes. “Wait, Lionel.” I say, “Let’s cover the suitcases with a blanket and make it less tempting.” We found a few pieces of black plastic to use as a tarp. Gavin tucks in the corners, under a web of nylon rope, and a few bricks hold down from flapping corners. 

“Cooks, Come on, let’s say goodbye to Bom’pa,” I suggest.

We returned from wishing De-P’pa a respectful farewell, his face etched with a mix of pride and regret — himself to blame, forbidden De-M’ma to hug us. “It makes children weak,” he maintained. A trait with Jean, passed down to our boys.

As we walk along the back wall toward the carport and the tailgate of the Bakkie, Lionel’s question, “Dad, can I drive?” in the morning breeze swallows the mapping road that lies ahead out of my mind, 

“Lionel. Not this time.”

“Dad, why?”

“I can’t teach you to drive this Bakkie in the few minutes. Besides, we’re cramped in the cabin, unlike in Bom’Ma’s car. . .” I'm imagining us packed like sardines, unable to react in an emergency. 

“But Dad──?”

“Lionel, It’sn’t safe. . .” I say, cutting off his protest. Before I can verbalize, I’m in no mood and explain the feels of driving. Without a qualm, Lionel rounds the tailgate to follow Gavin by the passenger door. Gavin steps in, scoots along the bench seat. Smack - Lionel pulls the door shut. I tweak the ignition key, As I reverse, as a reminder of the track that stretches before me, The dirt roads I used to drive at his age, weaving between poultry farms in Kyalami. I’m driving over the bridge, ‘Lionel could have driven, up to the asphalt,’ I concede to myself. As my mind’s compass settles, I veer onto the leading road toward Hazyview. 

At the Total gas station, we turn off onto the side street toward the cul-de-sac and park. We step out, cross the driveway apron to step into the Spar. Lionel and Gavin wishing Bom’Ma their goodbyes, we follow suit. In the goods-receive cage big enough for a delivery truck, wishing Gerard, and in the store's front, surrounded by a cashier who left her post, calling Ilse's attention. Wishing my sister, Ilse, farewell, strolling out of the supermarket, stepping into the Bakkie, driving away.

We turn away from the blind bridge through the shallow valley, upstream the Sabie River. Riding our ascent over the rolling hill, the sky’s dome last stars fade in the haze to a dark horizon. With a shade of gray, raises the wall silhouetting the panoramic escarpment. Lying the piedmont in darkness, Nyx’s residing in the zoo of the skies. Across punctuating mountain ranges’ fading grays. The mist-shrouded forest coats raise the zodiac threshold in Helios’ upcoming dreams. Against the backdrop, in the still scene, we find our asphaltic road emerges from the skipping closer waving hill crests, blending into the vibrant bush greens that slip past us en route.

“Daddy, are we going to the Sudwala caves?” Gavin asks, interrupting my thoughts as I map course over the Highveld.

“Yes, Gavy,” I replied. “… if we can find the road.”

We meander higher into the hills with glimpses of the deepening Sabie River stream, as I lose track of the back country road, and with it the caves, we missed on entering.

“Daddy,” Gavin says. “We’ve seen the Dinosaurs.”

“Next time you come,” Lionel says . . . ‘Next December . . .’ “We can come back and see the cave.”

“Yes. Cooks,” I agree, to feel the pang of sympathy for Gavin, who always seems suppressed behind his big brother.

“The twelfth, we are going back to school. Dad,” Lionel says. 

“Daddy,” Gavin protested, his voice airing an unspoken dread. 

The thought of my flight back to New York hangs heavy in the air. None of us spoke over my booking a ticket with the Sabena for the fifteenth, corresponding with the new school year. We all know that the day of my departure always comes too soon.

The town perches where the bushy gorge meets our incoming road. Exudes a golden-rush-era breeze, its quaint colonial post office dominated the plaza. Flanked by wide leafy branches that shaded the Avenue, “That’s nice,” I said, parking among scattered cars. Lionel hopes out, and I along. “Gavy, you don’t have to eat.” I call back to Gavin. “Just grab a drink — We can’t leave you behind.” Gavin and I, strolling toward the yellow-hued and hewn face-brick facade and steps. Lionel waits at the top by the door, a silent ‘Hurry up Dad’ etched on his face. 

We enter, sidestepping the unattended cash register, and a teenager man and woman leaning against the counter hatchway. In a confident stride, a tall and well-dressed man. He took over the pancakes brand my niece, Tania, had introduced to me, a few years ago. Crossing the dining hall under glulam beams, pass behind the new owner posturing at a crowded table, while we exit to the terrace table, to sit, taking the menu, which I reread, asking, “What’ll be for you, Lionel? Gavy?” 

Gavin, eyeing the ice-cream, asks, “Daddy, is it going to make me sick?” He’s prone to car sickness on winding roads. The teenager, who spurt out his clothes, had followed us, to an army stance, pen and pad at the ready. His heavy Afrikaans accent resonates with careful English. “May I take your order?” 

“Lionel! What are you having? I’m having mushrooms.” I say.

“Dad, I want the cheese ──.” Lionel says. 

“Have it, Gavy,” I interrupt, “you’ll be alright. The ice-cream at Ilse’s only made you sick because you ate too much.” 

“Daddy, I think I’ll be alright,” Gavin assures.

The young waiter collects our menus and takes our order, while against the backdrop of the cash register, the dark-headed girl, wraps up a little family rising from around a table. As behind the counter, fatherly, passes the boy’s instructions behind, through the hatch to the kitchen.

While the waiters serve our drinks and pancakes, a sports car drives away in the street beneath the terrace toward the escarpment. After enjoying our meal, we stand by the cash register, paying our bill. The same two-door car pulls up in the parking lot. A mother steps out of the car, holding the seat forward, for the bewildered sevenish boy who climbs to the back seat. The scene of preoccupied parents flirting with their sport’s car, sadly, laughable, forgetting their boy in a parking lot. 

We descended the stairs. Squeeze into the Bakkie. Pull away. Held up at the traffic light, the First National Bank’s iconic tree shines as a beacon. We turn from amid the town’s architectural pride, subsided to the convenient column arcades supporting sheltered storefronts in line by lean-to roofs. We leave the town’s translucent gas station canopy behind to face the escarpment. The little engine strains, alongside the suburban piedmont, to venture into embracing bushy hillsides.

The vegetation clears to the raw cliff-hanging road, ascending beyond Sabi far below, climbing higher to overlook the expanding panoramic Lowveld flocculent green canopy fading in the distant haze. We pass through the Long Tom Pass, halting wayside to stroll past native vendors, seated stretched legs on blankets, to their display of soapstone statuettes. We leave two groups of people, returning to the Bakkie. Continue along vegetation, creeping up to the road. Stop to read a sign. “This is the highest motorway in the republic.” After which the road diverts inland, overlooking the Highveld’s sea of pointy hilltops. Sunk meandering amid hills, until the little engine bellowing brakes our descent, entering the outpost town of Lydenburg. 

Across town, the road lurches into the rural countryside, I grow to doubt. I turn around, retracing our path. Encountering a group of natives. A gas station’s rising translucent canopy from the veld. Refueled, and back on course, the roadway perpetuates through subtle changing bush velds, joining with the highway. The rearview mirror reflects the harsh flickering windshields. Ahead, the sun’s last golden beam goes lying on the savanna, offering a respite from the glare amid vacationers’ homeward rush. A metallic blue Mercedes rides up the hill along the median of cropped grass. We couldn’t overtake despite the throttle floored. Catching up, the traffic spread out. The last vestiges of sunlight retreat over the horizon. While the mirror reflects, the night catches up from behind, overtaking us, settling across the undulating hills and heralding the fierce glare of headlights. 

I cross the culvert’s interrupted median strip. Cut back to edging wild bushes. I pass the concrete parapet trimming the gap. Feeling ambushed as from behind bushes before the median’s ongoing strip up the hill, a provincial uniformed traffic officer waves us down. I pull over on the dirt shoulder, aware I can’t charm my way out, when a young officer approaches me, winding down the window. By the music of his Afrikaans, saying. “Jy het die spood oorstrji ── You have exceeded the speed limit.”

The thrill at the gates of Afrikaans, attending the Pretoria technical college. After years of silence, I nod, connecting, engaging with the officer. “Hierdie bakkie kan nie so vinnig ry nie ── this little pickup can’t go that fast,” I say. 

My cockiness didn’t faze the young officer in a khaki uniform, but I’m cringing. ‘It’ll backfire on you.’ I hear the officer saying, “Honderd-veertig. . . ── hundred-forty …” — “Hoeveel es did ── how much is it?” I blurted out. To get it over with and calm my frayed nerves. “Honderd-twintig . . . ── Hundred-twenty . . .” the young officer reiterates the highway speed limit. ‘It could have been worse,’ I’m thinking, ‘I’ve been hitting the hindered and sixty!’ 

“Het jy ‘n ry-bewys ── Can I see your driver’s license?” The young officer asks, as I fumble in my pocket, retrieve my wallet, boasting, “Ek het net my New York lisensie — I only have my New York license.”

“Vijs mij — Show me?” The rookie officer asks. I hand over my license, he brings a torchlight beam shines on my card. Hailing out toward his elder patrol officer in uniform, “Hy’s van New York.”

“Laat hom gaan ── Let him go.” The chief officer calls out from a stance by the patrol cars behind bushes. As the young officer hands back my New York driver’s license, echoing in Afrikaans the chief’s words, “Ji can maar ry — You may go, but remember the speed limit is hundred-twenty here.” — “Dankie — Thank you,” I replied, rushing to pull away. 

I'm watching my rearview mirrors for the blowback, but the young officer was gathering his senses, fixating on the tailgate of our Bakkie, taking distance. When bells ring in his mind — ‘We’ve been had!’ Report to his chief. Over the next hill, we reach the ambush barrage’s traffic officer on his two-way radio. I retreat behind a van. The first wave’s message fails to register how they were tricked. To believe in a ‘New Yorker’ driving in South Africa, spotting the Bakkie too late cruising his own gullibility.