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.