Being asked to raid a dead man’s library is surely an invitation to one of voyeurism’s forgivable sins.I was asked recently by the man’s daughter to come and have a look, and was encouraged to help myself. She knew I was a sportswriter (her dad was one, too) and she was about to cart off the collection to the Hospice store in Orange Grove. Could I pop by and see if there was anything I wanted?Curious and grateful, I went along and, watched by a house full of objects in various states of disarray, rummaged through the dusty jetsam of a life. The books I found were supplemented by items once collected, little things secreted away on the bookshelves: coins and cartridges, a button or two.An old Mercedes-Benz engine — for spare parts, I was told — was mounted on a desk nearby. Abutting the koppie at the top of the garden, there was a croquet lawn, flat as a flapjack. Above that, Johannesburg’s depthless sky.As I rummaged, I was reminded of a story I once wrote about an SA infantryman in...
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