Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
I’ve never completely grasped why my father doesn’t maintain guards around the perimeter of the property. All of our neighbors do. But ours has always been uniquely devoid of any heavy artillery. Of firepower.
I have to assume it’s almost a dare. A challenge to the world that says, Give it your best try. This is the van den Berg home. You know who we are.
Fokken hell, I would wager that the only reason my father even keeps the diamonds he trades in the obscenely large safe upstairs is because he’s protecting them from me. Because he thinks that if they weren’t locked away, I might just do something insane like scoop them right up on a lark. Simply for the fun of it.
No idea where he’d get an idea like that from.
And, off that thought, Christine now appears on the roof of the house, popping up like some type of teenaged ninja, silhouetted by the South African moon, holding a velvet bag in her hand that, even at distance, one can tell is weighted down appreciably more than it was when she entered the home. Probably about seven carats heavier than it was before, if one had to guess.
Lars looks to where Danny and I are watching and then back at us. “Are you kidding?” he asks. When we don’t respond, he repeats, “Are you fokken kidding me, Alec?”
“Ay!” I say to him a little louder than I mean to. “Watch your tongue, man. You don’t need to be using that type of language.”
It is not lost on me that I am the last person on the planet who should be counseling someone against using coarse language, but it’s some kind of big brotherly instinct that takes over. Not, Don’t steal, or, Try not to go around killing anyone, but, Don’t use naughty language that might offend delicate ears. I don’t know why. I may still be relatively young, but I’ve already given up on trying to find logic in things.
“What did you do?” he asks as Christine slides down the side of the house and scampers over to us.
“Let’s go,” she says upon arriving. “Hey, Lars.”
“What did you do?” he repeats.
“Nothing, man. Just… nothing,” I tell him as I turn to leave.
He grabs my arm and jerks me back toward him. Strong little fokker, he is. “Alec,” he starts, and then stares at the three of us all dressed in our cat burglar gear. There’s something in his eyes that doesn’t scare me exactly, but causes me to take an extra breath.
“Yeah?” I finally say in response.
“I want to come.”
I sigh in deep and heavy through my nose. Let it out the same way. I look at Christine and then Danny, who sort of shrug like it would be fine with them if Lars came along to… wherever we’re going next. I’m not even sure yet myself where that will be.
Looking back at him, I see the want in Lars’ expression. The almost-but-not-quite pleading in his eyes. I understand it, obviously. This is not a welcoming home. Not a warm home. Our mother has done her best, but she is overshadowed by the sheer force of nature that is our father. The more powerful he has become, the more his presence dominates everything he comes near.
I think for a moment of my Zulu great-grandfather and my yarpie great-grandmother and the risks they took and bravery they displayed to be together and to have the daughter they had who went on to marry my grandfather and begin the van den Berg legacy that has now, today, become a story of greed, avarice, and power.
A love story that migrated its way into something more resembling a tale of corruption and violence. And for the sharpest of seconds I think that I should just take Lars with us. Bring him on whatever adventure we will set ourselves upon next. Let him see love. Let him see communion. Let him see what family can look like. However uncommon and unlikely and unexpected that family may be.
But then the second passes by.
“You can’t,” I say directly into his pre-teen face, which shows its disappointment even before the second word is out of my mouth.
“But—”
“You can’t, man.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t need to be doing what we do. You need to stay in school and—”
“She didn’t!” Lars exclaims, pointing at Christine, who looks away.
“She’s… That’s different,” I fumfer, knowing full well that the question he will ask next is not one I will be able to provide a good enough answer for.
“How?” he asks, right on cue. “How is she different? Why?”
“She just is,” I tell him, reaching out to stroke his head. He knocks my hand away. As he probably should. He’s breathing heavy. I can tell he’s trying not to explode or cry or whatever the guardian of his emotional fortress is instructing him not to do.