Game Auction

Game Auction
Paul D Blumer

From the car park, the excitement is already audible. Afrikaans crackles from the loudspeaker, and the low buzz of side conversation fills the air between the savory sizzle of boerwors and the sticky-sweet waft of pankaku. We make our way toward the big striped tent, weaving through kids running around with cap-guns, camo, barefeet, and tow-heads. People peel away from the concession windows with koeldrinks and waters, beers and styrofoam cups of tea or coffee.

Inside the grand tent is a semi-circle of spartan benches on brick-fronted risers. Big Dutchmen with serious expressions lean forward, making notes in belly-balanced booklets. Watching, weighing numbers. Calculating, predicting. Grumbles or nods at each lot passed. A handful have number placards in shirt pockets. These are the bidders. But dozens more are paying full attention, keeping up with the business trends. Their pulled-low camouflage caps all point toward the tall dais in the center, rising above a quarter-pie-shaped livestock gate on wheels, which is used for displaying cattle and sheep. The Vleissentraal auctioneers sit at a table up above, keeping their own notes. One stands at the lectern with a microphone, chanting and pointing and laughing at his own jokes.

"Lot thirty-five," he sings, "kudu bull, and what-a fine bull! Do I hear five-point-five? Okay, four, starting at four—four-and-a-quarter—four-point-five—" A constant thrum of words, English and Afrikaans in a swing-rhythm jumble. He hits a rolling steady galloping pace, calling numbers, pausing, pointing left, right, center, and back. "Five over here, five to my left—five-and-a-half in back—five-seven-fifty right up front, do I hear six, six anywhere? Five-seven-fifty up front once—six in the back! six thousand rand..." Hand pointing to the last bidder; eyes aimed at the next. Inviting competition; mocking, chiding, scorning hesitancy with practiced jollity. "Six thousand rand for the fine kudu bull. The hammer is up... And down."
BANG!
"One up and done. Buy-a-donkey! Many thanks! Baie danke!"

At a lull, we tour the lots, groups of animals behind palisade-fenced bomas with lot descriptions in chalk. Impala, 1m 3f. Gemsbok, 6f. Bloewildebees, 1m 2f. The animals are nervous, hearing and smelling but not seeing intruders. Some pace the boma floors. Some paw the sawdust ground anxiously.

Nyala stand like crazy wizards, with long dark beards, twisted horns, and small white pince-nez markings on their faces. Darting eyes. Cape-like fringes of hair along flanks and legs. A kudu bull stands quietly, 45" horns spiraling proudly. An enormous eland bull chews grass, with a chest dewlap you could use for a blanket. A wildebeest with a broken ankle, standing calmly now, after a pisser of a tantrum. Jagged bone pokes through the skin. He's done-for. Someone's staff will eat well tonight. We pass several skittish lots of impala. In one, a calf tries and fails to nurse. At the corner of the corridor, in a taller boma than the rest, a group of giraffes glare through the cracks, kicking the walls with rifle-crack suddenness.

We return to the auction, happy to have finally seen these wild animals up close, but saddened that they're behind bars. Once bought and transported, they'll adapt, but it's a humbling sight.

There's a heavy quiet after the final lot, not much more than postcoital murmurs of conversation as the spectators disperse. A few chatting dawdlers left behind the rest of us spill back into the afternoon sun. Discussing last season, the next big auction, prices, the fattening effect of a heavy rainy season, and other farmish fragments. The whole shebang wraps itself up like an auctioneer's gavel, and we all go about our business.

Drops of Rain

9 July

There was rain today.
A brief, quick patter on the tin roof, of such duration as to compete with the longer of shooting stars. At the first clatter, an easy dismissal. Must be dust and wind. Shouldn't be rain until October or thereabouts. The skies threaten—or promise, depending how you look at it—but nothing happens. Rain starts in spring. Spring starts at the end of September. A grim acceptance settles—unlike the dust, which hangs thick.
Dust splashes where you step, and little baby cyclones pick up paper thorns, chips of grass, withered flaky leaves, and powdery sand, dancing dervishly across the yard and depositing its giddy finds right at your doorstep. Sweep to your heart's content. The job will never be done. Desiccated twig tips of the trees out back claw at the siding and rattle on the tin roof, trying sanity and parrying patience away like a wilted daisy.
But this...
It can't be...
I hold my hand out under the porch eaves. It's wet. In the sky.
I open my mouth, hold out my tongue. It's sweet. Clean. Exciting.
But I shiver, and the wind blows cold at the back of my neck. Of course it wouldn't rain on one of the hot days.
And then it's gone, and even its little footsteps disappear in the thirst of seasonal drought.
But the sand looks solid. The air smells fresh. Everything swells just a little, nature heaving a wistful sigh. A few birds sing their amazement to each other. Leaves whisper of coming attractions. This spot of moisture has merely whet their thirst. Drops in the sand become little dry donuts. What green remains stands out from the dust.
A friend phones.
Hey, howzit?
It's raining!
I know it!
News is news. This is a bizarre event. It's not supposed to rain today. Not for another few months. And then it won't stop. It will flood, replenishing and destroying at once. Survived the dry? Learn to swim.
Nature is tough here.