THE SECRET OF THE PENGUINS
It’s not always just a piece of wood, you can feel sorry for a walking stick. Especially one so intricately and artistically carved that you fear something will damage it, or one so attached to you it starts to feel like a member of your family.
After the apple stick broke, I put her on sick leave, afraid she’ll break again; I tell myself it’s only for a while, in the meantime I have other sticks that have been waiting patiently to go for a spin.
I’m afraid it’s going to be a very long sick leave for the apple stick. I’ve been taking walks with several sticks, finally chose the shiny red one as my new favourite. It’s solid and hard, if I got caught in a scary situation I could knock out a few teeth with it. Don’t ask me what kind of wood the red kierie is made of, it’s been called everything from cherry to teak; a hard layer of varnish makes it difficult to see the wood properly, and if you sand deeply you might damage the wood.
When my son realized my apple stick was on sick leave, he suddenly decided he longer wanted to walk with his willow stick: “Papa, I need to tell you something. The willow’s too short, I walk like old people, my back’s killing me.”
So I gift him my most ordinary stick, the one I found in a eucalyptus copse after my unfortunate canoe trip over a waterfall. I’m sorry, I love my boy but he’s not going to break another stick of mine.
Ruhan is six year old when we go for a longish walk one Saturday morning, to a place we often just drive past. I don’t know it yet, of course, but today something beautiful and unforgettable will happen.
Ruhan discovered on my phone there’s a penguin hospital in the nature reserve by the river. He is getting very fond of my phone these days, it has to accompany him when he goes to the toilet. I know this, because I’m the one who has to go in there to wipe his butt. When his royal highness climbs down from the throne and offers me his bottom like a baboon, he keeps following some app or game on the phone. Yes, I know: six years old, understands everything about a phone but still can’t wipe his own butt. His therapist aka his mom believes it will work out in time.
We enter the nature reserve with my red and his eucalyptus stick. You can walk around here for free, but no fires or littering allowed. Ruhan and I imagine the place has a great secret, one we will definiotely uncover today. Two of his imaginary friends are along for the walk: Baby Yoda rides on my shoulder and Gorilla Friend clambers about on Ruhan’s back. Baby Yoda eats frogs and star in a sci-fi series when he’s not visiting Ruhan. Gorilla Friend eats bananas and King Kong is his daddy, but he lives with Ruhan because Skull Crawlers on Kong’s island want to eat him. I do Baby Yoda’s voice but it sounds more like Mickey Mouse with a throat problem. My boy does Gorilla Friend; it’s probably what he will sound like when puberty strikes.
Ruhan has developed his own philosophy about imaginary friends: “Pretend is fun, real is scary.”
He does have a point.
We walk through a green, silver and grey forest full of sunlight and birdsong, under a hot sun, and I don’t yet know what lies ahead today. I do know Ruhan has gone very quiet. I decide he’s listening to the birds, the trees are alive with them.
The reserve’s dirt road curves through a tunnel of trees towards the silver Seekoei River. Yes, the word means hippo. I suppose there used to be some of those giants in the river. Birds glide from tree to tree. Green and yellow tortoises, two of them, cross the road. In slow motion, of course. Ruhan gently helps them along with the tip of his eucalyptus kierie.
A notice says the penguin hospital is dependent on public support; the notice is riddled with bullet holes. Hunters in a nature reserve?
Ruhan points at tracks hardened in road mud. “Look, dinosaur. It’s a raptor.”
I feel I should introduce a touch of reality and say, “It’s some kind of small buck, darling.”
He gives me a look. “In my world, Papa.”
In my son’s world, a small buck is a fearsome raptor, King Kong a single parent, and Gorilla Friend fears Skull Crawlers.
“Sorry, darling, my mistake. We’re in your world today.”
Ruhan doesn’t know what lies ahead either. We’ve never been here before. We discover all kinds of buck spoor in the road, but no wheel tracks. Vehicles are no longer allowed in the reserve.
We eventually walk around a bend so thick with tall and dense cycads we don’t realize the hospital is right in front of us. A few yards on we do see it.
There’s a large and probably deep pool set in cement. Ruhan imagines injured penguins recuperating by the pool, I imagine they have sunglasses on, monkeys dressed as nurses serve them milkshakes.
“Yes, strawberry, Papa!”
My son only drinks strawberry milkshake. Unfortunately our dream hospital quickly crumbles before reality: the pool is, in fact, a sick green soup in which floating rats and millions of mosquitoes are rotting. The stench is brutal. The hospital building resembles one in Gaza after Israeli missiles hit it.
This used to be a recovery centre for penguins brought here with broken wings and other injuries. Government support and the kindness of strangers clearly stopped working some time ago.
My little boy just stares at the ruins, he’s gone quiet again. I touch his shoulder and ask in Baby Yoda’s voice if he’s okay. He doesn’t do Gorilla Friend back at me. Even the birds are quiet here. This is exactly how a place of ghosts should be. I take out my phone, start doing a video to send to Ruhan’s mom; she will want to know what the secret of the nature reserve is.
“No, Timmy, you can’t go there!” Ruhan suddenly exclaims in his real voice.
I realize he’s addressing a green and yellow tortoise, very small, just a baby. It’s scurrying through the tall grass growing out of cracked cement next to the pool. The baby’s heading straight for the evil green soup.
Timmy is the name of another imaginary friend who, for some reason, had to stay home today. Timmy the Tortoise. Am I now doing a video of this baby’s last moments?
But fear not, Timmy. Superhero Ruhan is here. He flies over the tall grass and lands right in front of the little tortoise. He quickly uses the eucalyptus stick to halt its advance to the terrible pool, then carefully carries it back to the safety of the forest. And I’m getting this on my phone, all of it.
“Don’t let it pee on you, son.”
“Timmy will never pee on me, we’re buddies.”
The tiny tortoise doesn’t pee on him.
The boy who returns from the forest and climbs atop a stone circle is not the quiet and pensive boy of a few minutes ago. The circle, once a barbecue pit for visitors, is now his pulpit.
“I need to tell you something, Papa.”
It takes me a beat to realize Ruhan’s talking to the entire forest, not just me. I know he’s never seen William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, but he seems to be doing a fierce Marc Antony addressing the Roman crowd. He points out that everything has been abandoned here, solemnly promises the hospital will be fixed and the pool will be fixed, then ends with a dramatic flourish:
“And the penguins will rise again!”
It comes from my boy’s heart, sincerely meant, every word. His father has it on video, the solemn oath taken by Ruhan Adriaan Venter before me and the forest and the ghosts of a great many penguins.
I will admit I’m impressed to the point of tears, but my eyes remain dry. I’m done crying for the day. Ruhan and I had a session of that in my small apartment this morning. He wants me to move back in with him and his mom, but I can’t, damn it, she doesn’t want me as her husband anymore.