Maverick Life

BOOK REVIEW

Lester Walbrugh’s ‘Elton Baatjies’ shows us the treacherous terrain of stepping into who we are

Lester Walbrugh’s ‘Elton Baatjies’ shows us the treacherous terrain of stepping into who we are
‘Elton Baatjies’ by Lester Walbrugh book cover. Image: Supplied / Karavan Press

Elton Baatjies is a tour de force. It is a carefully crafted book and its temporal sense of time and location are brought to life beautifully.

Elton Baatjies is based on the story of Norman Simons who stalked and killed boys on the Cape Flats between 1986 and 1995. Dubbed “the station strangler”, Simons is thought to have been responsible for sodomising and strangling 22 boys. The evidence at the time could only link him to the death of one, 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen. Simons was a schoolteacher, which made his arrest particularly shocking.   

Elton Baatjies is set in the Elgin Valley, about an hour’s drive from Cape Town. The story opens with Elton taking up a job as an English teacher at a local school. The community is in uproar because six boys have been raped, murdered and dumped down the side of the mountain. 

The book is beautifully written and is an exercise in stereogramming – holding intricate, less-visible pictures within broader, more obvious ones. An example of this is in the writing style of the book, which comes across as being beguilingly simple, but when you look closely, you find that it is layered with complexity, with incisive technique. 

Then there is the stereogramming of the main character and the community. Elton does not want people to notice him. He wants to “blend in”, to be invisible. He wants others to underestimate him; they must not poke beneath the surface of his hermit-style life. Yet, at the same time, a part of him wants others to see that he is different. He finds it infuriating that others cannot see that he is more intelligent, that he is superior. Similarly, the community in Elgin in which Elton settles is also a stereogram. 

On the one hand, Walbrugh brings to life the simplicity of life there – the beauty of the ebb and flow of teatime get-togethers, the uncomplicatedness of life outside of busy urban areas, the intimacy of school fairs, and a close-knit group of people who care about each other. Yet the underbelly of this calm community setting is socioeconomic hardship and its attendant traumas – rampant poverty, drug and alcohol addiction, and discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation. An extract from the book – one where a local newspaper is asking the community to look into the mirror of its soul, illustrates this:

“As a community we must do some serious digging and ask ourselves how are we failing our children, and don’t come talk Scriptures to me, I am God’s child as much as the next person, but praying hasn’t helped. Jy kan ma sê. Praying isn’t only to make ourselves feel better, so we can move on, and it’s not enough anymore. And, enough of ‘dissie wie ons is nie.’ This is who we are. We only want to say the good things are us. These drugs, gangsters, violence and gesuipery, are also us. Bekvekoep and the Daily Voice call for a social revolution. Print this out, give it to your neighbour, your friend, vertel ve die mense in die taxi. I don’t have the answers, but let us start by asking the right questions.” 

The story is told through multiple points of view. There is the distinct, omnipotent voice of Elton Baatjies, the main character. Then there’s Junaid Japtha, the detective assigned to investigate the death of the boys. Junaid is no fool and is determined to crack the case, to make his mark as the person who nails the murderer terrifying the community.  And then, illuminating the pages, are the voices of the young boys who are struggling with their gay identity, the ones being preyed upon. We are privy to their dreams and aspirations, their fears about being gay, their family lives, and the harsh reality of living in poverty. The different voices work well together – there is no sense of a staccato, disjointed narrative. Instead, the counter-narratives flow smoothly and are in conversation with each other.   

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Elton Baatjies is essentially a story about prejudice, violence, and the difficulty in identifying as queer in a social context governed by conservative, normative values. The book shows up the restriction of binary thinking – such as the divides between urban/rural, queer/heterosexual and white/black. The book makes us engage with the notion of “becoming”, of the treacherous terrain of stepping into who we are. It is enticing because we want Elton to come to terms with who he is, to find a different way of living his truth. Walbrugh is adept at making us both loathe and empathise with him. Mrs Diedericks, the school principal, hires him because she sees the person we want to believe in:

“Mr Baatjies came to the interviews impeccably dressed and gave thoughtful answers. He had a familiar quality about him, like one of their own done well. More than one member of the board felt pride welling up, and a sense of hope.” 

There are moments in the book when we desperately want Elton to find redemption. Walbrugh fuels this adeptly. One example is when a fellow teacher invites Elton, who never celebrates his birthday, to celebrate at her house. At the heart of the scene is the struggle between trying to fit in and not belonging. While there is never a doubt that Elton is cold, calculating, and devoid of emotion, we see his vulnerability play out in this scene:

“They share stories of growing up. Elton in the Koue Bokkeveld and Sheila here in the valley where revving car engines down the road signal the start of the weekend. Their stories, as Sheila intimated, are similar. They could have been in the same town, neighbours. They knew the same type of people. Then they start feeling old, reminiscing, and Sheila turns the music up and opens a bottle of tequila. They practice old dance moves, together they jazz, and laugh at themselves.” 

Elton Baatjies is a tour de force. Its scenes are carefully crafted. The book’s temporal sense, its location in time and place, is beautifully brought to life. Walbrugh is proficient in bringing the ways of a small town to life – the ways of finding meaning, the ways of being, and the predominant sociocultural norms. There’s an art to this – the tea drinking, the effusive respect, the way of talking to others without ever using direct pronouns. Interwoven with this, is Walbrugh’s pointed humour. 

The book will make you both cry and want to laugh aloud. The scenery of the Elgin Valley and its surrounds – the mountain, passes, and beaches – is evocative. The book brings the landscape to life – its colour, texture and sounds take vivid form before us. Elton Baatjies deserves to take its place as one of the most accomplished South African books. DM/ML

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