Devil's Valley Read Free Page B

reported than rapes), and this happens twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, right? As Alan Paton said, “Ah but your fucking land is beautiful.” And we still have Mandela. But all I’m trying to say is, ask me a thing like that and I’m your man. But don’t come to me with symposiums and conferences and shit. So what does a man do? You go. That’s what you do.
    In a Corner
    Crap of a high order, lasting a whole morning and afternoon. Afterwards the big brass decamped to a reception in the rector’s house, while I ended up with a few other rejects and off-cuts and a group of rowdy students in a pub.
    I landed in a corner, a position I’m no stranger to; and by the fourth or fifth round, when I was comfortably leading on points, I was approached by a spotty youngster. Little-Lukas Lermiet, the name registered after the second or third attempt. As nervous as a fucking puppy not sure whether he’s going to be stroked or kicked. Quite an intelligent, narrow face, but his eyes looked like a frog’s through those thick glasses, and he had a bit of a st-stammer. The kind of dude that just begs to be screwed out of his senses by a really wild girl to change him into a fucking prince.
    He clearly wasn’t much of a talker; and I was, not to put too fine a point on it, introspectively inclined. It was a mere week after Sylvia had left me the note (with two typos) and both children had telephoned to make sure I had no doubts about who was to blame; and striking up a conversation with a pimply youth was not high on my list of priorities.
    “Sir, there was s-something you said this morning…” began Little-Lukas.
    Few people call me sir; and my contribution to the morning’s discussion, I knew perfectly well, had been a load of shit. So there was much bleary-eyed suspicion mixed with my feigned curiosity.
    “…about the D-Devil’s Valley in the Swartberg.”
    I could vaguely remember the reference, yes. Some stray off-the-cuff remark about topics still waiting to be investigated.
    “I-I live there.”
    Deep in my guts I felt something stirring; the old rat was gnawing again.
    He was the first inhabitant of the Devil’s Valley I’d ever come across in the flesh. It would seem that an old pedlar, a smous, had plied him with books in the Valley, until much pleading and effort and bargaining at long last landed him permission to study outside. Before his time the odd bright youngster had from time to time been allowed to go to school in one of the towns outside the Devil’s Valley, but Little-Lukas was the first and only one ever to go to university. As far as I could gather, however, more and more young ones in the past few decades had simply left the place for good. Then why did one never run into them? Perhaps no one thought of asking; also, most of the exiles presumably chose not to broadcast the matter. It sounded as if the valley had become practically deserted, in spite of a tradition of large families. “There’s only the old ones and the very young ones left,” he said, “and of course the h-handicapped ones.”
    Had I met the little nerd thirty years earlier it might have made a difference, but when I first became interested in the history he’d not even been an itch in his father’s balls yet. Now it was a bit late in the day. Still, we started talking. In fact we got so carried away that after the pub closed we went off to his digs where he produced, of all things, a bottle of Old Brown. Now I pack a mean slug, and I take my Scotch as it comes from its mother, it’s part of the job description, but OB plugs my arsehole.
    Godforsaken Place
    The first part of the conversation I could still follow. Little-Lukas spilled whatever beans the Devil’s Valley could muster about its founding father, the Seer. His first arrival at the deep valley in the Swartberg. The perilous descent, for which the rear wheels had to be removed and the wagons propped up on bundles of wood to brake