Ghost Boy Read online

  Now I try to still my heart as I lie in bed. I must fall asleep again, however fearful I am of being sent back to the world I try so hard to forget. I want to be bright and alert tomorrow at work. I can’t let what happened once ruin this chance for me. I can’t let it pull me down.

  I close my eyes, but still I see her face.

  27 THE PARTY

  The girl sways as she stands in front of me. Her eyes look dazed, and she’s smiling.

  “You’re handsome,” she says. “I’m going to flirt with you.”

  Music pumps out of a stereo. The beat is like a hammer, and the room is full of students I don’t know. I’m at a party on the university campus with Erica and other friends called David and Yvette I met through her.

  I can’t quite believe I’m here. The theme of the party is “jungle,” and I’m dressed as the king of it with banana leaves in a crown on my head. I’ve even tried alcohol for the first time after so many people asked me if I wanted anything to drink that I asked Erica to get me a rum and Coke.

  “What do you think?” she asked with a smile as I took a sip.

  The alcohol filled my mouth before tickling my nose. It was strong and pungent. I didn’t like the taste. I smiled half-heartedly at Erica, who was wearing a sarong and had her fluffy toy monkey Maurice hanging around her neck. I leaned my head forward to finish my drink. I wanted to get the odd-tasting concoction out of the way as soon as possible.

  “Sip it!” Erica shrieked before laughing.

  I took another gulp of the drink and swallowed it quickly.

  “Why don’t I get you a straight Coke?” Erica asked.

  I smiled at her before she disappeared into the crowd, and I wondered if she’d find her way back to me or whether anyone else would talk to me. My alphabet board was lying on my lap ready to chat, but I wasn’t sure anyone would see me sitting down because the room was so crowded. Then the girl who is standing over me now found me.

  “What star sign are you?” she asks as she leans towards me.

  She is wearing a gold dress and butterfly wings on her head. She has dark hair and a mouth full of huge white teeth. She is pretty and has nice eyes.

  “K-A-P-P-R-Y-K-O-R-N,” I spell out on my board.

  “Crappy?”

  “K-A-P-P-R-Y-K . . .”

  “Oh! Do you mean Capricorn?”

  I nod. My spelling is still very bad. People have to think laterally if they want to talk to me.

  “That’s no good,” the girl says. “I’m Libra.”

  What does she mean? I look at the girl as I wonder what to say. She is drunk. Why is she talking to me about astrology? Is this just the white noise that I’m supposed to fill before asking her out on a date? I know nothing about how men and women behave with each other. All I’ve seen is what’s on the TV or in stolen moments of other people’s lives. But slowly I’m discovering that talking to women in any other way than as friends is like using a language I hardly know exists, let alone speak. Is this one in front of me now flirting, as she promised she would?

  I have the words at my disposal to talk to women, of course, the lingual mechanics of sex and relationships that Mum and I inputted onto my word grids. It was inevitable we would get to a topic that is just a short step from words like hug and kiss. And even though my mother was the one who had to give the new vocabulary to me, I knew I wanted to have it because sex intrigues me as much as it does any twenty-something man. People might think someone like me has been neutered, but they’d be wrong.

  In the early days of my awareness, I would count down the time until a French TV drama was shown at the weekend because I knew I’d see women wearing corsets so tight their breasts spilled out of them. Seeing them made me aware of feelings I’d never had before, and I enjoyed them. My sexual awareness then told me I wasn’t completely dead. It’s something I’ve thought about more since learning to communicate, as I begin to hope that one day a woman might want to be with me.

  “Where shall we start?” Mum said in her most resolute voice as we sat together to build the new grid of words. “Erection?”

  At least she didn’t have to explain that one. I had them like everyone else.

  “Vagina.”

  No need for a description of that either. I’d picked up most words on this subject along the way.

  But I could have sworn Mum’s voice was getting louder and I prayed that David wouldn’t hear what we were doing.

  “Orgasm,” Mum exclaimed.

  “Ejaculation.”

  “Sperm.”

  My face turned crimson as I waved my hand to plead with my mother to stop.

  “No, Martin!” she said. “You need to know all this. It’s important.”

  Time stood still as my mother carried on intoning words from the sexual vocabulary. With each second that passed, I wished harder than ever that she’d stop, as I railed against being a suddenly unwitting hostage to her desire to ensure I was fully informed. It was only when Mum had finally decided enough was enough that I could ask her to hide the grid deep within the others, somewhere only I could find it.

  I’d suspected then that I might not use it that much, and now I know I won’t as I look at the girl standing in front of me. The words I have are too cold and clinical. Talking to women is more about understanding the gaps between the words than the words themselves, interpreting the silent nuances that mean so much. But I have no idea how to do it. I know nothing. Does this girl expect to be kissed by me? And if she does, what do I do? Does she want me to reach out for her or sit waiting until she kisses me? And if she does, then how do I kiss? I’ve never kissed anyone before. The list of questions in my brain gets longer and longer until it almost seizes up, just as a computer crashes when too much is asked of it.

  “Do you know that Capricorns and Libras are incompatible?” the girl asks suddenly.

  I really don’t understand what she’s talking about. I decide to change the topic.

  “What course are you doing?” I spell out on my alphabet board.

  “Economics.”

  I’m not sure what economists look like but I don’t think they usually wear butterfly wings on their head. I’m silent as I wonder what to say and the girl weaves around in front of me.

  “I’m going to talk to my friends,” she says suddenly. “Bye.”

  She lurches off across the room, and I’m left alone again. I’m too difficult to talk to. Will I ever understand? My eyes scan the room as I look at men and women dancing and chatting, laughing at each other’s jokes, and leaning closer towards each other. One couple is kissing, and another man has his arm around a girl’s shoulders. I wonder if I’ll ever learn the code that will gain me entry to their world.

  “Are you okay?”

  It’s Erica. At least things are simple with her because we both know there’s nothing more than friendship between us. Erica has a special place in my heart because over the past three months she has shown me so much of what the world has to offer.

  Before we met, my parents did things with me like taking me shopping and to the cinema. I knew I would never forget the first moment in that twilight world when people stared upwards as music started to play and faces the size of skyscrapers rose on the screen above me. I could hardly believe it was real. Why then did everyone around me look almost expressionless? I could see neither fascination nor delight on their faces, and I wondered if it was possible to get so used to joy that you stopped noticing it?

  But with Erica I’ve seen how people my own age live. I’ve experienced the fun of eating hamburgers in McDonald’s, wasting an afternoon wandering through a shopping center, and tasting biscuits that she’s just baked in the oven. We’ve also visited botanical gardens and an orphanage, where we cuddled abandoned babies who would die without the kindness of a human touch. I understand that feeling well.

  All of it amazes me, and Erica seems to enjoy showing me. She’s a special person—the first I’ve encountered, apart from my family and those paid t
o care for me, to accept my physical limitations without question. With Erica, I know these limitations are only part of what defines me rather than the whole, and she treats me as she would any other friend. She’s never said a word or given me a glance that has made me feel like a burden she’s embarrassed to carry. Even when I’ve stayed over at her flat, and she has had to lift me on and off the toilet or get me dressed, she’s done it easily. Care that’s given in spite of someone’s distaste is easily recognizable, but with Erica it’s not an issue. Perhaps that’s why I can sleep for hours on end when I stay at her flat, free of my nightmares for one precious night.

  “Are you ready to go?” Erica asks.

  We leave the party with David and Yvette and cross the road to Erica’s. When we get to the flight of stairs leading to the flat, David and Erica stand me up out of my wheelchair and support my weight as I slowly shuffle up the stairs step by step. I smile as I listen to the others talk about who did what, where and with whom. I wish I understood what it all meant.

  “I’m sorry if that wasn’t the best first party,” Erica says when we get into her flat. “The music was awful, wasn’t it?”

  I have no idea, but the party was unforgettable.

  28 HENK AND ARRIETTA

  Love between men and women has always interested me: the way it ebbs and flows like a living thing, or how it is revealed in secret smiles or anguished conversations. Perhaps I’ve always found it so captivating because it was the starkest reminder of how alone I was.

  The first time I saw love was soon after I became aware again. At that time a woman called Arrietta was working part time at my care center, and her son, Herman, was a pupil there. Arrietta had a daughter called Anya, who must have been about three, and on this particular day she was with us at the care center as we waited for my father to come. I knew Arrietta’s husband, Henk, would soon arrive to take his family home, just as I knew my stomach would thrill when he did because I’d be able to see the gun he always carried on his hip. Henk was a policeman, and however many times I saw the gun I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to see a real one up close.

  Henk knew Arrietta would have to stay until I was collected when he saw me lying on a mat on the floor. I watched him kiss Arrietta before sitting down at the table and opening his newspaper, just as he always did. Herman and Anya were playing outside on the veranda. As Arrietta walked out into the sunlight to check on them, I watched the contours of her breasts appear through the thin fabric of her blouse.

  “Did you have a good day?” Henk asked Arrietta as she walked back inside.

  “Long,” she replied as she started to pack up some toys.

  They were silent for a minute.

  “We need to stop at the supermarket on the way home,” Arrietta said absent-mindedly. “What would you like to eat?”

  Henk looked at Arrietta.

  “You,” he replied, his voice a little deeper than usual.

  How could Henk eat Arrietta? I didn’t understand what he meant. She stopped what she was doing to look at him as she laughed softly.

  “We’ll have to see about that,” she said.

  Suddenly it felt as if time had stopped as Henk and Arrietta smiled at each other. I knew I was seeing something new: the secret world of adults that I’d begun to suspect existed as I grew older. I knew my body was changing when chairs I’d used for years slowly became too small for me, and I was being shaved regularly. It was then that I caught glimpses of things between adults that I’d not seen before. They intrigued me.

  Now there was something about Henk and Arrietta’s voices, the softness in them and the smile they shared. I didn’t understand what it was but the air between them hummed for those brief moments, as Henk looked at his wife and she smiled. Then they looked away from each other, and the moment was gone.

  “Tell me about them,” Henk said to Arrietta as he gestured at the empty room.

  They were back to their ordinary selves just as quickly as they’d gone to a place I didn’t recognize.

  “Who?”

  “The children here—I come every day and don’t know anything about them.”

  Arrietta sat down next to Henk as she started telling him about some of the children I knew so well: Robby, who’d been injured when his father’s car crashed into the back of a coal truck, and now he cried for hours each day. Katie, who was born with a degenerative syndrome and loved food so much that she’d been nicknamed “Little Fatty;” Jennifer, who’d been born with a brain the size of a chicken’s egg after her mother fell ill during pregnancy, and now Jennifer shrieked with joy every time she saw her father at the end of each day; Elmo, Jurike, Thabo, and Tiaan; Doorsie, Joseph, Jackie, and Nadine, who each had a story. Then there were the children who came and went so quickly I never learned their names, like the little girl who was born with learning difficulties and raped by an uncle whose final act of cruelty was to set fire to her genitals.

  “What about him?” Henk said finally as he gestured to me.

  “Martin?”

  “Yes.”

  Arrietta told him my story and Henk listened silently until she’d finished.

  “His is the saddest,” he said as he looked at me.

  “Why?”

  “Because he wasn’t born like that. He was healthy and then his parents had to watch their child suffer. I don’t know if I could bear it.”

  Arrietta put her arm around him as they looked at me.

  “None of us knows what we can bear until we’re asked,” she told him gently.

  29 THE HEALER

  After seeing Henk and Arrietta’s secret world, I was on the lookout for love as I discovered that what I’d seen was rare. It was something unlike anything I’d ever known, and I hoped to get another glimpse of it. Although I had to wait, eventually I saw love again when I was about nineteen.

  It happened after my father had a work meeting with a man he didn’t know, and the stranger turned to Dad as they ate lunch together afterwards.

  “How is your son?” he asked.

  “Which one?” my father replied in surprise.

  “The one who’s dying,” the man said.

  A rush of anger filled Dad at being asked about the most private part of his family history. But something about the man piqued his interest and that night I heard him telling my mother about their conversation.

  “He wants to see Martin,” Dad said as I listened. “He’s a faith healer and believes he can treat him.”

  My mother had no reason not to allow it because she’d accepted long ago that the answer to the mystery of my illness would never be provided by traditional medicine. So a few weeks later Dad took me to a flat in the suburbs, where a short, gray-haired man with a beard was waiting for us.

  He told me his name was Dave and I knew at once he was kind: his eyes were full of light as he looked at me. I was lifted out of my wheelchair and laid on a bed. Then Dave fell completely silent as he closed his eyes and placed his hands a few centimeters above my chest. He started moving them up and down my body, following the contours of my withered frame but never making contact with it. I felt my skin prickling with waves of heat.

  “Your son’s aura has been fractured,” Dave eventually said to Dad. “It’s rare, but it happens when something traumatic has occurred.”

  Dave fell silent again and spoke only once more during the next hour to tell my father that he thought I had problems with my stomach because he could feel pain there. I didn’t understand how he knew what none of the doctors did, and it scared me. But Dave didn’t say any more as he fell silent again and carried on working.

  “Can I pay you for your time?” my father asked when Dave had finally finished.

  “No,” he replied. He never once asked my parents for a penny although he continued to see me every week for the next three years. It was as if Dave had a calling to treat me, a belief so strong that he had to act.

  Each time I saw him, a look of complete concentration would come over his
face as he tried to open up the deep reservoir of self-healing energy he believed my body held. Running his hands over the air just above it, he would map the aura he said he could feel had been damaged by my illness. His face still, peaceful, and relaxed, his eyes always closed, he concentrated on healing me. Then, when the treatment was over, his features would become as animated as ever.

  Months turned into years, and as far as the people around me knew, there had been no improvement in my condition. But Dave’s faith didn’t waver. He still saw me week in, week out, and bent to hold his hands above me with the most intense look of peace and concentration I’d ever seen.

  Gradually I began to look forward to seeing him more and more, because as time passed he started talking to me more, laughing and joking with me, telling stories about lions and animals that I wished he would write down in books for children one day. His words came in a soothing stream of smiles and jokes as I was laid on the bed, and he worked to cure me.

  It was about two years after I first met Dave that he married a fellow healer called Ingrid, and the two of them started to treat me together from time to time. One morning, as I lay looking up at them, they abruptly stopped what they were doing as they gazed at each other, and suddenly the world stopped just as it had when Henk and Arrietta looked at each other. There was no reason why Dave and Ingrid had stopped, no sign that it was going to happen. But just as a ball hangs in the air a moment too long before plummeting towards the ground, time slowed down. Emotion crackled between Dave and Ingrid as their eyes locked, and they leaned forward to kiss each other.

  “I love you,” they murmured before smiling.

  I knew I’d seen that secret world again and wished I understood it. I didn’t know what happened between two people. It seemed so strange and mysterious, like an alchemy that willed something into existence. But that was the only time I saw it happen between Dave and Ingrid; I knew afterwards it was always there.

  About six months later Dad and I pulled into Dave’s driveway one weekend to see an unfamiliar car parked there.