The Antenna

A few weeks ago, a guy from my campus residence died when he fell off an open-top party bus. The bus was named after one of the many South African words for “hangover” and the company that ran these events was soon cancelled.

I didn’t know the guy personally, but I’d seen him around the dining hall and in my South African history lectures. He seemed the archetypal freshman, bright-eyed and breathing in that fresh “new freedom” air that campus life offered us, which usually manifested in drinking binges and promiscuity.

I didn’t attend his funeral, but his passing left a hangover floating across the entire residence. There’s a dull pounding in my head and it massages intrusive thoughts of death and how random it can be. I don’t know how my friends feel, and we don’t talk about it. For some, it appears as if he never existed, thus saving themselves from the distressing belief it could easily have been one of us. It’s sobering realizing your peers can die so easily, yet morbidly we celebrate his life by toasting him as we continue our freshman quest of one-upping each other through alcohol and sex.

It's jarring seeing his empty seat in the lecture hall as our professor drones on about the Security Branch during Apartheid, and how they silenced dissent by simply making people vanish. I walk out when he starts with the torture: the electric shocks, the sleep deprivation, the beatings.

This holiday is a blessing as it’s been a horrible year. While I was away, my parents had fulfilled a lifelong dream of theirs – to move out of the ghetto and settle in an area once limited to white people.

The house sits atop a hill with a glorious view over the valley below, peppered with thatched rooftops and greenery. Ahead of us is a block of mountains which leads to the icy blue of the ocean.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect this,” I tell my mom, as we have breakfast together before they leave to visit their grandkid in Kimberley.

“Took a long time, but we’re here,” says my dad, smiling and nodding to himself as if he had just won a great battle.

“You know that is the beach, James?”

I know this story well and I don’t want to hear it again. During Apartheid, my mom’s family was violently turned away from a beach on Boxing Day. The same beach we can now see from our house. It was a law and my granddad, a drunk, tried anyway. To the detriment of his then ten-year-old daughter, who was yoked to this traumatic incident her entire life.

I smile for my mom’s benefit.  “Yeah, I know Mommy. How are the neighbors?”

“Who cares, look at the view!” replies my mom and rises. “We must get going, the drive is long.”

“Is there anything I should know?”

“They’re nice, your mother is just, you know. Remember to take the garbage out on Friday morning.”

“They always come?”

My dad laughs. “Yes, every Friday morning like clockwork. The way things are meant to be.”

I hug them goodbye and send my love to my sister and her family. As I close the front door, I see our cat, Killi, scratching an old newspaper page. I know the one, we’ve all seen it. It’s the paper that broke the story about the bus accident.

I wonder why they didn’t say anything.

#

The neighborhood is quiet and from our balcony I see dog-walkers and joggers. These activities were non-existent in our previous setting. There’s a palpable sense of tranquility here, as if there is no rush to do anything and the world will take care of you.

In the ghetto, we were assaulted by drama nearly every day. Gangsters were always out gangstering and their lore is spread all over those tightly knit communities. Most of them use some form of illegal stimulant and this manifests in extraordinary feats of daily randomness and lack of foresight. It can be tiring but can make for good distraction. Eventually, you realize nothing ever changes but you might as well not get trapped in any loops.

Our next-door neighbor has a “Star Wars” setup on his roof near the back of his house. You can’t view it from the street because of the design of the home. I have never seen anything like it, so I snap a few pictures of the massive antenna and prompt ChatGPT, which tells me it’s a Mosley TA-33 Senior antenna. When I query the use case, I’m told it’s for amateur radio enthusiasts, but this one is impressive because it’s a directional high frequency radio antenna, designed for long-distance communication.

In our world of smartphones, I find owning this contraption as bizarre as seeing it in this suburban setting. It dominates your view when you notice it and I can’t seem to shift the idea there is something strange about its imposing presence.

Since I’ve been here the windows next door have been shut and the lights have been off. Every morning, I find myself in the garden having coffee and staring at the antenna, which reminds me of an anaconda in its relative size to every other home aerial or satellite dish in this country. It boggles my mind why someone would have this. I checked the price online and it was outrageous.

After about a week, a bald white man in his late sixties pulls his RV into the neighbor’s driveway. The recreational vehicle has beautiful charcoal drawings of lions, leopards and elephants on both sides.

I wave at him from the balcony, and he waves back. He’s built like a bear, a bear who has just entered hibernation and is proud of its bulk. A German Shepherd bounds out of the RV and stares at me but doesn’t bark. It doesn’t break the gaze until I look away and go back inside.

The next day, I’m in the garden performing my daily ritual when I notice the man sweeping his backyard. I walk to the fence and say hello.

“Welcome to the neighborhood,” he says in a thick Afrikaans accent.

“Thank you. My name is James.”

The man’s brow furrows for a few seconds. “Mr. Van Rensburg.”

“Cool. Like my parents moved in a few months ago.”

“I’ve not seen them.”

“Yeah, this seems to be the way here, right? Like you barely see people really.”

“Sometimes it’s better that way.”

“I was wondering, what’s up with the antenna on your roof?”

His eyes flare like an X-ray, probing behind my innocent intentions and he looks me up and down.

“This is ham radio, do you know it? It’s… admittedly, a nerdy hobby, but it gives a break from these crazy times of AI when you can’t trust anything.”

“I’ve read up on ham radio and I think it’s interesting. But who do you talk to? Or is it because of what happened in Durban and the riots?”

“No, I have family overseas. And friends in rural areas where there is crappy phone coverage.”

“Ah, I see. Cool. Anyway, enjoy your day.”

“You too.”

I drink my coffee in the house. He’s lying about something. You don’t need a massive radio setup to contact your friends in rural areas. We are in South Africa and not on Sentinel Island or “Africa Country”; Mzansi has 100 percent connectivity.

I try not to think of it any further but it’s hard not to. Especially given my recent inability to finish anything – whether film, book or YouTube video. Boredom is insidious because after a while it fools you into a sense of decision paralysis. It doesn’t help we’re drenched in entertainment options, forever drowning in distraction.

#

“Killi has not come home,” I tell my mom on the phone. “Is that usual now that we’ve moved?”

“Of course not, go and find her, James! That’s never happened before!”

“Yeah. Okay. You guys take care. Like I’ll update you.”

I get dressed and walk the wide streets calling her name. You’ll never find a cat if they’re not willing to be found, but I know Killi and she’s just such a spoiled, picky, routine-focused pet. Something must be wrong. I just wanted my mom to give me some hope and reassurance.

Van Rensburg’s garage is open when I return, and I figure I’ll ask him about Killi. For a fleeting moment, I see him slide a loose floor tile to the side and place a small, flat object underneath. He then replaces the tile meticulously. I pause when I notice his dog in my peripheral vision. I don’t want to startle Van Rensburg, but he’s heard me and quickly turns around as if nothing has happened.

“Good morning.”

“Hi, Mr. Van Rensburg. Our cat, you haven’t seen her? She’s orange and white.”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Cool, but if you see her, please let me know.”

As I say this, Killi strolls up to Van Rensburg and rubs herself on his calf. He picks her up and strokes her head. “This is your cat?”

Killi likes Van Rensburg and is fine with the presence of the dog. My mom would say she’s pandered to white people. “Just moved out of the ghetto and accent has already changed,” I hear her in my ear.

I laugh and take Killi from him. In my mind, she only cozies up to good people. Later, I play-scold her for being a traitor.

#

The new house has servants’ quarters which my mom has turned into a study because she doesn’t believe in domestic help. The room is separated from the main house and offers a strategic blind spot to observe Van Rensburg. I keep the curtains drawn, with a slight opening for my camera lens which streams the video to my laptop.

Van Rensburg is isolated, no one visits him. He tends to the backyard garden every morning and walks his dog in the afternoon. Lights are out at 8 P.M. but every three days, one light is turned on in a small room at the back of his house. This happens at 10 P.M. and ends at midnight. I refer to this space as the “radio room.”

Cape Town has discarded its winter jersey and will strip layers every week from now until December. I could take the thirty-minute walk down to the beach, but I’m content with smoking bowls and bingeing my favorite new reality show, Keeping Up with Van Rensburg. Today, we’re in luck because he’s welcomed the change in weather by opening all his windows and curtains.

He’s dressed differently. It’s an army fit of some sort, light green camo. On his dining room table is a bottle of liquor, likely brandy. I zoom in and notice stars on his lapel and the vibrancy of the green cloth. I can’t make out the words, but I take a few pictures for ChatGPT. I watch him swig back drink after drink and I gasp when the AI reveals the truth.

#

It took me a week to make sure and muster up the courage. My South African history textbook and notes proved invaluable.

“Hi, can I come in?”

Van Rensburg is groggy, his lips parched. His brute of a dog beside him.

“Hello, why?”

“I think it’s best if we talk inside.”

“No, sorry I’m busy.”

He moves to close the door.

“Is it Mr. Van Rensburg, or should I call you by your real name, Pienaar?”

#

His lounge smells of marijuana, fragrant strains with hints of diesel oil and grapefruit. The interior has no personality. It’s as if we’re inside a model home built on spec. Minimalist, bland, functional, nothing of note or worthy of recall. A template never built upon.

“Smells pretty good in here.”

“Help yourself,” he says and points to a half-smoked joint in an abalone shell on the coffee table. “And have a seat.”

I sit opposite him, the table separating us.

“What is your name?”

“I came here to speak about your name, seeing as you already know mine.”

“Your full name. And what else do you do when you’re not spying on old men? Is it some kind of kink thing you youngsters enjoy?”

“Look, it’s nothing like that, alright. If you must know, my last name is Jacobs. I go to UCT.”

“UCT. Fancy. I read in the paper that a drunk boy fell off a bus and died. Did you know him?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. It’s just a strange death and I wonder if you knew him. I was in the army, and I saw death. Some were my friends, some I only saw when we all ate together. But I thought deeply about each loss.”

“What about those you killed? Those you tortured, those families you ruined? Did you think deeply about them, too?”

Pienaar reaches for the joint and re-lights it. He takes quick, desperate drags and coughs.

“When I was a teenager and feeling bad, one time my father came into my room to talk to me. Nowadays there’s a word for what I had, depression they say. My father, after a few brandies, asked me how I felt. This is after saying that to talk about stuff like that he needed booze. I was silent. He then asked me if I ever thought about suicide. Because he had many times when life gets rough. I told him no, which was not true. The next month I went to the army. But I never forgot that conversation with my father. It lives in me and sometimes I still don’t understand. That’s why I asked you about your friend.”

Pienaar raises his gaze, and his blue eyes are dull yet streaked with red veins. He passes me the joint and I smoke it.

“It’s like no one cares, you know. I guess, like you say, people don’t think deeply about it and obviously that’s the right way because I see them on social media, everyone is just having the fucking time of their lives. Like I also don’t care, really.”

“From an old man to a young one, it’s best to care because that stuff comes back much later to fuck you.”

“Listen, I think we can make a deal.”

#

There’s a version of me somewhere in the multiverse who came across Pienaar and beat him to death. Perhaps there was waterboarding involved or flaying of skin and spitting on him and all that horrific shit you see in the underground war feeds. There are facets of that person in me. I can feel him across the hypothetical. I am tired of hypotheticals though and of misinformation; I want truth from mouths.

He’s been amenable to the deal, whereby I won’t out him to the world in exchange for a daily meeting where he would answer my questions. These days, it’s difficult to believe everything you read and watch, so having such a controversial subject at hand is priceless.

The marijuana mellows him and softens his aggressive, bear-like first impressions. The brandy twists him all around. To be truthful, the old man has grown on me in the last couple of days. Even his dog, Yster, ignores me when I visit now.

“We always circle back to this, but why? Like, how do you get that mindset?”

“It’s easy when you’re isolated with a thought process. You’re born, taught something and it stays with you. You only mix with people who have those same beliefs, you never truly question it, because it’s your parents, your family, your friends. People who you love, people who love you.”

“A bit like religion.”

“Yes. Similar. And like most religions, there is fear. In the case of religion, it’s fear of going to hell or not satisfying God and getting punished on Earth. But for us, it was more tangible. Slaughter of our families, raping of our women, ending of a prosperous civilization that we built. Of course, religion itself was used because it can be used for any purpose.”

“I don’t know enough about religion to comment, but I can see what you mean. It’s said that during Apartheid, white people lived with a GDP that rivaled California.”

“I can’t vouch for that. I’ve never left Africa.”

“Still, you didn’t see us as equal! I don’t know if I can ever understand reasons for treating people like slaves.”

“You say that now, but you’ve not been put in an extraordinary situation or lived in a real society with shared beliefs. It’s easy to be a, how do you say, keyboard cowboy!”

We both laugh at his comment.

“We are obviously all equal. It’s just that back then I honestly did not believe it. Now, we have pictures and constant coverage of wars. We have your generation that passively absorbs that stuff and makes judgements about morality and ethics. But back then, there was no coverage of anything. You lived your own reality. You lived what was in front of your face. And in times of war, that reality brings out the animal in every man.”

A butterfly flies close to my face. I catch it before setting it free through the kitchen window.

“I don’t know, old man, the thing with people talking about how great life was in Apartheid, they don’t take into consideration that it only catered for 10% of the population. Like the same would happen in any other place. The 10% who benefit from all the resources would live vastly different lives to everyone else. It doesn’t mean that Apartheid was an economic miracle.”

“Perhaps, but isn’t that fair? If ten percent built everything, then don’t they deserve the biggest take of the spoils? This is the way of Musk and all those other fools.”

“No, it’s not true that people of color were simple idiots that couldn’t take care of themselves and needed white saviors.”

“Did you know that we had nuclear weapons during Apartheid? That the world sanctioned us for years and we still flourished without their help?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. But damn, they would have come in handy now! We could have had some clout in this fucked up world and not be bullied. I’m just trying to say that we’ve lost power, that’s all. We can be so much more.”

“But only under a white rule!” I laugh.

“I used to think that, but sometimes I see young people like you. You’re a different breed to the generation that fucked up this country.”

“You’re just saying that because I hold all the cards now.”

“Do you, really? Everything I did was pardoned by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Pardoned by Mandela.”

“Then why change your name, and what is the true use of the antenna?”

“What do you think?”

I smoke more of the joint and drink some water. Van Rensburg strokes his dog lovingly.

“I see Trump has welcomed Afrikaners as refugees, so you can move to the States if you want. Higher GDP there than even Apartheid days.”

“Never.”

“Why?”

“This is my country. I will never leave. Imagine being a refugee in that poephol Trump’s America,” he sneers.

“It’s different when you’re white and Christian and not queer.”

“Look at it like this, right. Why are we seen as foreigners or invaders in South Africa, when the only difference between us and black people is that we arrived later to a land that was already occupied?”

“Bantu Expansion. European Colonialism. But it’s not about that, it’s about what you did.”

“But listen. You’re Cape Town Coloured, but the rest of the world would call you mixed race. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your ancestors were probably Khoisan, the indigenous people of this land, and then later Xhosa, Dutch, Huguenot or British, Malay slaves from Indonesia. You have no problem saying you’re South African and no one stresses you because your skin is not white and you have that hair. We, white South Africans, must fight for that right. Even though, like blacks, we were not the first here, but we settled here. It’s the only home we have!”

“I didn’t say you weren’t South African. But there’s a lot of nuances to what you said.”

“Voetsek, Trump!” he roars in a paroxysm of anger, stands up, and pours himself another brandy. “We don’t need your fucking refugee status! You don’t know struggle! We have always taken care of ourselves! Jy’s a joke, Trump!”

He quickly downs his drink and reloads. “Do you want to see it?”

I nod and follow Pienaar to the back of the house.

The door creaks open and releases a musty odor, a cocktail of old electronics and dust. It isn't what I expected. For such a massive antenna, I pictured something high-tech, blinking lights and digital displays. Instead, it feels like I’ve stepped into a black-and-white photograph of the Jazz Age.  

The centerpiece is a large, silver metal box. I’m guessing it’s the transceiver. Wires snake out of it in every direction, connecting to various smaller boxes with dials and meters. A thick, coiled cable disappears through a hole in the wall, presumably leading to the anaconda on the roof.

The walls are covered in a motley collection. There are maps, some old and faded, with lines and grids drawn on them in green markers. One map of South Africa catches my eye, with certain areas circled. Sets of pictures of burly, blonde young men in khakis and their similarly clad children. Colorful postcards are pinned on a corkboard, mostly with foreign stamps.

“My international friends,” he beams.

A large microphone sits on a stand in front of the transceiver. Next to it is a logbook, its pages filled with ugly handwritten entries: dates, times, call signs, and strings of numbers and letters that resemble code.

Pienaar chuckles, seeing me squint at it. "My father always wanted me to be a doctor! Just my way of saying hello to the world, young man."

There's a sense of organized clutter, a feeling that everything in the room has a specific purpose, even if I don't fully understand it.

Pienaar checks his watch and smiles for the first time I’ve known him. “My grandkids should be home from school by now. Let’s speak to them!”

This isn't the lair of a supervillain, just a room filled with the tools of a peculiar hobby.

He fidgets with the transceiver but stiffens and clutches his chest. Pienaar falls to the floor with a groaning thump. His eyes glaze over, and I call for help.

#

I read his obituary. It only highlights events from his alternative life and even mentions his love of ham radio.

I am at the funeral. I told my parents I was going to pay my respects because I got to know him in their absence, but the ulterior motive is closure. My initial ideas for using the antenna for nefarious means were false. The poor old man was probably undiagnosed autistic and hyper-fixated on his hobby to deal with his trauma. His final intention was to radio his grandkids.

There are a few elderly people at the gravesite. It’s warm, but the Cape Doctor wind is up to its usual mischief and makes ripples in everyone’s clothes. As the bespectacled pastor drones on in Afrikaans, I recall our discussions and realize I was kind of fond of Pienaar. He was the only person who spoke openly about death, and he was honest with me about his thought process. For this, I will grant him the anonymity in his passing which freed him in life.

Honoring our deal.

In these times when sections of the country have lost faith in Nelson Mandela’s vision, it’s important to note that forgiveness, empathy and closure can grant you a lot of mental peace.

When I get home, I watch the eight o’clock news broadcast with my parents. My vacation has ended, and I’m expected on campus next week for summer school.

The skinny newscaster informs Mzansi there has been a series of coordinated terror attacks all over the country. The Scorpions, South Africa’s Secret Police, have already arrested some of the culprits and linked the attacks to an Afrikaner right wing supremacist movement.

Whilst the newscaster talks there is video of a bloodied Soweto shebeen, destruction of an infamous Cape Town LGBTQ Mosque, and a bullet-ridden nightclub in Durban’s Point Road.

He continues but I struggle to breathe when the Mosley TA-33 Senior antenna snakes into frame and just stays there, frozen, like some fabled curse.

“Fucking white people,” says my mom.

The End