The Smell of Apples

The afternoon Frikkie arrives, the two boys eagerly head down to the bay. They see a schoolmate, Zelda Kemp, two years their junior, who is something of an outcast because her family has little money and they live in the “scummy” neighborhood that borders the Coloreds. With typical insensitivity, Marnus’s mother has told Marnus, “it’s a tragedy that such a cute little girl doesn’t have much of a future” (56). Frikkie decides to play a joke on the girl. The boys snatch her beloved hat and lure her to the quay that runs along the thundering surf by dangling it over the waves. A sudden wave crashes against the concrete, and Zelda is swept out into the churning surf. After an uneasy moment, the boys see her wash up along the quay. The terrorized girl agrees not to tell on the boys to their parents.

Later that day, the boys meet the Chilean general, and the two listen as the adults discuss the volatile political situation in South Africa. The boys are too young to understand the implications of the conversation, but they understand the deep animus Marnus’s father feels toward the country’s blacks and how foreign agents, Communists, are bent on assisting the blacks in their efforts to overturn the white minority government. White South Africa, the father declaims with pride, is on its own, ostracized by the international community. Its only hope is its army and its ability to help neighboring nations in their efforts to avoid falling to Communists.

Because the father promised the boys a fishing trip in the morning, the boys are too excited to sleep. Rather, they take a blood oath—literally, they prick their fingers and mingle their blood—and swear on a Bible never to hold secrets from each other. Marnus whispers the truth about “Mister Smith” as well as other foreign military figures who have come to the house for clandestine meetings. Then, Marnus goes to his bathroom and is surprised when the General, dressed only in a towel, appears behind him. Unconcerned about the unseemly appearance of the General’s presence, Marnus is more fascinated by a deep scar along the General’s back.

Early the next morning, the two boys and two men head to False Bay to fish, although the bay has been nearly depleted: “[T]here’s no life left in the sea […] and it’s getting more and more difficult to believe the old stories about how many whales were caught in False Bay every year, long ago” (84). The group casts from the water’s edge. The day grows hot, but still no fish.

Then Marnus feels a powerful tug on his line, and for the next several hours the boy engages in a fierce struggle to land a huge fish. As the battle draws out, Marnus fatigues, his arms hurt, his shoulders burn—but his father, with mounting anger, pushes the boy to reel in the humongous fish, saying, “Move on to the beach and stop being a crybaby” (97). Just as Marnus glimpses the fish, a magnificent sand shark, the line slackens, and the shark sails free. The father says only, “He beat you” (98); Marnus, exhausted and humiliated, cannot understand why his father did not help him.