Max’s Passage

The sun was just rising over Cape Town, a beautiful spring morning, softly illuminating the sweep of the lower levels of Devils’ Peak to the ocean in the bay. The sunlight played on the waters of the Atlantic, which sparkled like diamonds as the light played on the surface. Max Long gazed out of his dorm room window, mesmerized by the beauty of the early morning. As he contemplated the sun rising just to his right and the way in which it gave the morning a magical look, wispy clouds lazily meandered over a flat blue sky. Outside the noises of the city just starting to stir from the slumber of night reached up to him as he breathed in deeply and savoured the feel of that new day.

Cupped in the basin at the foot of Table Mountain, Cape Town is a city like no other in the world. The mountain rises from the sea to a height of some 1000m, so the city looks like it is clinging to the side of the mountain in order to stop sliding into the ocean. Table Mountain faces roughly North with Devils Peak to the east, Lion’s Head and Signal Hill to the west and the Twelve Apostles stretching to the south, towards Cape Point. The approach to the city over Table Bay is one of the most breath-taking sights in the world. But, for Max, there were no such thoughts today. His feelings were a mixture of both excitement and apprehension. This was the start of his third term of the sixth form, the beginning of the end of his school career.

The Lord Somerset Private School in Gardens, Cape Town, situated at the top end of Upper Buitenkant Street, is one of the oldest Private High Schools in Cape Town. Like many others that cater to the educational needs of the children of the wealthy and privileged, it is full of stuffiness and its own self-importance. But, in most other respects, it is very like most schools anywhere in the world. Situated on the lower reaches of Devil’s Peak, the senior dorms - Charles Court – are found on the corner of Wexford Rd and St James St, some two kilometres away from the main school. Transport to school from the dorms for the sixth formers was by school bus or car. For Max and his cohorts, today, for the first time, it was to be by car.

Already too late for breakfast, Max knew he must now hurry or be left behind. After hastily dressing, he rushed downstairs. In the parking lot he met Marco, Steven and Calvin waiting for him at Marco’s new red Mini Cooper. This would be the ride that would herald the start of that first morning of the second last term of their last year together.

“Hey, morning all, been waiting long,” Max called out to them, cheerfully. They were looking very irritated at both his tardiness and unrepentant attitude at being late, but he wasn’t going to let them get to him, not on this wonderful day.

“Why the hell are you so late? Where have you been?” asked Marco, the irritation clear in his tone.

“Calm down, boet,” Max answered, condescendingly, “Or you’ll bust a gasket, let’s get in the car and go, please, we’ve wasted enough time already.”

“So, where were you this morning at breakfast?” asked Calvin as Marco swung left into St James Street. They drove past their sister school - The Lady Ann Barnard Private School - and then right into Highlands Rd.

“Just overslept,” he responded as he squinted against the sun that was a little too bright that day. The traffic was quite light and they whistled at the girls as they drove past. They made it to school in under the customary ten minutes that it usually took by bus.

It was a warm and balmy spring day as they drove through the main gates that morning. There were two imposing stone columns on either side of the road at the main entrance. The road weaved its way up to the main administration building, which was a Sir Herbert Baker designed double-storey edifice that was built out of red brick and covered in ivy. They parked in the visitors’ parking area. They were not supposed to park there, but it was almost the end of their time at the school and it was doubtful that anybody would object. The four alighted from the Mini, and walked through the archway that passed through the main building and emerged out into the quadrangle. The entrance through which they had just come was at the northern side of the quad. To their right and behind them was the library with the Dining Hall to their right on the Western side and the chapel on their left. Right in front was the fountain, situated in the middle of the quad. They sauntered over to the concrete benches that faced one another adjoining the fountain and shed their suitcases. This was their customary position from which they could survey all the happenings of the school just emerging into the reality of another normal school day, but for them the beginning of the end. They had gathered at this point every morning for the last three years

To look at them on this day, you would struggle to find anything too special about them. Perhaps they are a little loud, perhaps they are a little too cocky, too sure of themselves, but we can forgive them for this. They have their whole lives ahead of them and they still believe that they will change the world. They are all full of the optimism and naiveté of youth. Today there is only promise, today there is only potential, today there is only the present and the future. Not for them, yet, the regrets, the missed opportunities, the moments of “what might have been” and the endless “if-only’s”. Right now they are in love with life and it is life that pulses through them like fire.

They are enamoured with the golden magic of youth and vitality. They believe they can do anything and go anywhere, they believe that the future holds only good for them. One day they will know better. If we were to look into their faces from this vantage point, much later and wiser, as they stand frozen in this moment before our eyes, and we search back and forth for some sign of where and how the heaviness and gravity of life will touch them, we will not easily find it. But, there is not a trace of pain and sadness there now.

Marco Pentz is the tall, dark one; Calvin McCullum, the slightly built redhead; Steve Coulter, the one with a smile in his eyes. As they laugh and joke with one another; they have the easy familiarity of those who have known each other for a long time. They have been in the same class for the last five years and have been close friends for the last three. For them, this is an eternity. Pierre Long, nicknamed Max is the tall blond one in the middle of the group. Dimly in the distance Max hears his name being called.

“Max, what do you think?”

“About what?”

“Focus, Max, focus,” said Marco impatiently, “Try and stay with us.”

Max scowled at Marco. “I was right here all the time,” he snapped, irritated.

“But your mind was far away,” said Calvin, the small red-headed boy, “What were you thinking of?”

“I was thinking of the wind blowing through the willows on a hot summer’s night and the rain thundering down on a tin roof in Gauteng in summer. I was thinking of a hailstorm so severe that you are not sure if your house will survive. I was thinking of all the women that I would like to share these moments with instead of the likes of you three.”

“I knew there were women involved,” said Marco, triumphantly. He had dark hair that looked like thatch and a bad skin. He was the most romantically cynical of them all.

“Oh, don’t be so negative,” said the red head, “Max here is a dreamer and he dreams of things other than women sometimes. Don’t you Max?”

“Yes, Calvin, I do sometimes dream of the sea and the mountains and what our lives will be like once we are finished with this place, but for now, I dream of women, mainly.”

Steven stretched himself out in the longish grass and looked up at the sky in its flat blueness. Steve didn’t dream of women, he had no need to for they found him irresistible. He always had two or more at his beck and call at any particular time. But, despite all the others, there was always Melissa, the love of his life.

“When we finish in this place - what then?” he asked wistfully. It was a common question and usually elicited little response, but not today.

Today Marco answered this non-question by becoming animated. It took them by surprise. Steven sat up on one elbow and even stopped chewing his piece of grass for a moment. “When I get out of this place, I am going to fly. I shall take to the skies and get away from all this trouble on the ground. They will never catch me. I’ll be free to be ... What is the matter with you?”

Marco’s passionate outburst had caught them off guard and they were all grinning at him. It was strange to see Marco, usually so reserved and a bit sullen, so passionate, so animated and so excited. They all knew that he longed to be free of an alcoholic father and a broken home, but they had never heard of his dream to fly until now. They guessed that the holiday must have been particularly difficult and that Marco must have made a decision never to go back home if he could help it. Max’s attention, however, was shifted from Marco’s speech to the stairs behind him and this is what had stopped Marco mid-sentence.

This was the moment when it all began to change for Max. The moment that Max would never forget the first moment that he saw her. She had walked along the corridor and was ascending the steps of the junior block on the eastern side of the quad, behind his friend who had just told them of his dream to fly. When he first saw her, he was not sure whether she actually existed or whether he had made her up. He wanted to run to her and make sure she was real. He wanted to stop this moment in time. Yet that was not to be, for time did not stop; she did not stop. She carried on walking and Max felt like there were only two people in the world, yet she did not know that he existed. She took his breath away. She seemed to move like one who did not have contact with the earth - she seemed to glide above the earth. She seemed to not be of the earth; he wondered again if she was real. She was small and looked as if she had been hand made from the most fragile porcelain. At once, Max wanted to protect her from all the evil in the world, but he knew that she did not need his protection; even he could recognize that there was strength about her. She was dressed all in white and as the early morning sun stroked her brown hair it fell about her face like a halo. She looked like an angel. Her skin was soft and clear and even though he was too far away Max knew that she smelled like a spring day in a rose garden. All that the others saw at that moment was his face and his wide-open mouth. We seldom recognize the moments when change takes place, but Max knew it instantly. He knew that that this was the point where it all began for him, where it all began to end. This was the point at which Max was in limbo. And it looked that way to his friends.

Slowly the others turned to see what had captivated his attention. They saw the same person before she was taken from their sight, but they did not hear the music that Max heard. They did not see a bright light from heaven or hear the angels sing at that moment. Like the companions of St Paul on the Damascus road, they experienced the same thing outwardly but missed its significance. Suddenly, jarringly, the bell rang to signify the start of the day. The other three began to make their way to their classroom to begin the day, but Max merely tagged on behind, his mind a whirl of thoughts, ideas and emotions.

During the course of that day, Max discovered that her name was Lily Solomon and that she was a new teacher who had started at their school on that fateful day of their last year of school.

From that day, Max invented ways of making sure that their route to some of their lessons took them past her classroom. Max lived each day just to catch a glimpse of her. Together with the others, they would assemble at the foot of the stairs every morning and they would wait for her to walk by. It became their daily ritual, the observance of her pilgrimage to her classroom from the staff room, past their little group of worshippers, of which Max was the high priest, at that fountain. The ritual gave meaning and purpose to his life; it was a religious act for him. If for some reason he missed it, he felt somehow incomplete. He never spoke to her, he never allowed her to see that he was watching her, but he was captivated by her as she moved to her classroom. He longed to be the air that surrounded her, he longed to the sunlight that kissed her, he longed to the wind that brushed the silky softness of her skin. He longed to run his fingers through her hair. He longed to tell her that he would do anything for her. He knew it could never be, but the sheer magic of the ritual was enough. He revelled in the distance between them and the impossibility of it ever being crossed because he could make her be whoever he wanted her to be. It did not matter that his creation bore no relation with the real person. He reasoned that the reality would only be a disappointment, so he was happy to worship her from a distance.

Needless to say, his friends found it amusing, this schoolboy crush. They teased him and he ignored them. He felt no compulsion to explain himself to them. But he knew it was much more than a crush. Instinctively he knew that some men get married to women for whom they have never felt as he felt for her, as he felt from that first day he ever saw her. He knew from that very first moment that he loved her with his whole being. The feelings that he had for her were not only physical, but he was drawn to her essence: he was drawn to her. She represented to him the absolutely most beautiful truth that life can offer: the potential to love and be loved. She represented that for him and she came to embody that for him, but he knew that he could never speak to her about it, for then it would end. The dream would be gone. Like a person who wakes up from a good night’s sleep and resents being awake, he was happy to sleep, and to dream.

So he lived in this private torture chamber for the most part of that term. Despite his fears, he longed to speak to her. He wanted to promise that he would do anything to make her world a better place, that he would gather the moon and the stars together for her if she should just ask. He longed to speak to her about the truths that were deep in his heart and he felt sure that she, of all people, might understand. Yet he knew that this was impossible. Besides being too inaccessible for him even to consider how to go about such a thing, he dreaded that she might laugh at him and shatter his carefully crafted illusions and elaborate fantasies. So he went on in silence, enduring the laughter of his friends. Their laughter he could bear; hers would be the end of him and that he did not want to even think about.

When he was alone with his thoughts, he would wonder about her. What did she think about, what did she worry about? What were her dreams and aspirations? All these and many more were the questions that he longed to ask her. He longed to be able to watch her; see her walk and sit and sleep. Watch her in the morning, afternoon, evening. He longed to be with her every moment of the day and to share with her the beauty of the world in which they lived. But, each time he thought that he might speak to her sometime, he dismissed the thought as impossible and became, again, a worshipper from a distance.