Triomf Page 8

  ‘So, Lambert,’ Treppie says, seating himself on one of the crates. He pulls Pop by his sleeve. Pop sinks slowly on to the other crate, wiping his nose with his sleeve as he sits down.

  ‘So, what are the issues supposed to be now, old boy? What’s this election all about, anyway? Come, explain to us a little now.’

  ‘Ag no, man,’ Lambert says. He says it carefully and softly. He still doesn’t feel right. He’s just going to have to kick Treppie’s questions right out of touch. Carefully he says: ‘Here. Read for yourself.’ He passes Treppie a bunch of pamphlets. Treppie knocks them out of his hand. They fall on to the floor.

  ‘Ag, sorry about that, man, didn’t mean it,’ Treppie says. ‘Just a little accident.’ He kicks the pamphlets away with his feet. Pop bends over and picks them up. Then he puts them down on the bottom end of Lambert’s mattress, where Treppie can’t reach.

  ‘Come, what can you tell us, Lambert? Things are looking a bit mixed up, aren’t they?’

  Treppie looks around the den, first at the floor, which is full of Flossie’s engine parts – loose spanners, hubcaps, pieces of old silencer and rusted exhaust pipe. Then he looks up at the things hanging from the ceiling. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six,’ he counts, looking at the strips of flypaper. ‘Such a bother, these flies, hey,’ he says. ‘Looks like they just love messy places like this.’

  Now he’s looking at the roll of second-hand razor-wire. ‘It will stop the burglar, but it won’t keep the fits out,’ he says.

  And then he says, ‘Tsk-tsk-tsk, shame,’ as he sees the old Austin’s radiator-grid. The one Pop gave Lambert to hang up in his den, for old time’s sake.

  Treppie’s full of sights. Now he’s looking at the Tuxedo Tyres calendars, the ones they go fetch every year on Ontdekkers. For the pin-ups. They’re lined up next to each other on the walls of the den, just under the ceiling, so that he, Lambert, can pick and choose when he’s lying down on the bed. They’re all there, from 1971 onwards.

  But Treppie doesn’t want to pick and choose, he wants to fuck around. He stiffens his neck and he turns his head, inch by inch, making little click-sounds, just like the fan’s head when it gets stuck. ‘Click-click,’ he says, as he looks at the calendars, one by one.

  All the calendars are the same. There’s a fat lorry tyre on top of each of them, with TUXEDO stencilled on its grip. A girl in a bikini sits under all the tyres. The only part of her body you can see is from her head to her stomach, straight from the front, against a bright blue background. The girls all look the same, except for the hair and the colour of their bikinis.

  ‘Tits and tyres, tits and tyres, the chickens are back in the coop and they’re all a bunch of liars,’ Treppie says, shaking loose his neck.

  Pop wants to stand up, but Treppie stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Pop says nothing. He stays on his seat. There’s that drop hanging from the tip of his nose again.

  Treppie looks at the Fuchs and the Tedelex standing open at the back of the room. Boxes and magazines are stacked on top of them, right up to the roof. They’re full of black fingermarks on the inside, and their seals are rotten. Lambert’s half-loaf of white and a tub of margarine lie at the bottom of the one, and there’s a half-full bottle of Coke in the other one’s door.

  Treppie shifts his crate and leans forward. He’s looking at the paintings on the wall. Lambert follows Treppie’s eyes, looking everywhere he looks. When Treppie looks at his den like this, it feels like a strange place. Treppie must stop this now.

  But Treppie looks like he’s seeing everything for the first time. South Africa’s outline, almost completely faded by now. Koki’s fade like that. Their house, with the postbox in front, the carport with the Volksie underneath; the dotted line going upwards; all the things on the lawn and in the sky. Treppie frowns, shaking his head.

  ‘Fucken mix-up! What’s that?’ He points to the wall. It’s a drawing with writing and arrows.

  ‘It’s been there for a long time,’ Lambert says. ‘It’s how a fridge works.’ He clears his throat. It’s hurting from trying to keep his voice even. ‘You drew it there yourself, when we started working here in the yard.’

  ‘So you know how a fridge works, hey, Lambert?’ says Treppie. ‘Then you should also know how the NP works. Compressor: warm. Evaporator: cold. Thick gas, thin gas, round and round: prrrr, choory-choory-chip: off.’ He smacks both his hands on his legs, looking serious now.

  ‘Come now, Lambert, we don’t have all morning. What are the vital issues in this election?’

  ‘Well,’ Lambert says, ‘it’s the constitution, it’s the people who’re going to write the new constitution. We have to vote for them.’

  ‘And?’ Treppie’s eyes are glittering.

  ‘Well, um,’ Lambert looks at Pop. Pop must help him now. ‘We’ve always stuck with the NP—’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Treppie says quickly. He waves at the flies. ‘We’ve also stuck with Sunlight. That’s how you keep the flies out, you wash yourself with Sunlight soap. Your arse and your head and your floor and your bed, the whole lot, whiter than snow.’

  Lambert tries to straighten up. This is going too far now. If Treppie wants him, then he’s going to get him. But his head’s zinging. Pop signals: stop it now. He says please. Lambert shuts his eyes. Maybe that’ll help his head a bit. Pop’s voice is so soft, all Lambert hears is ‘ease’. Then it’s Treppie again. He’s talking to Pop. Treppie sounds like a preacher.

  ‘If you ask me, Pop, the National Party are a filthy lot. What’s more, they’re also confused and they’re getting more confused by the day. One great fucken scrapyard, if you ask me. Now they say they’re going to get their house in order, again. How, I ask you? How? Where will they begin? They must first get their fingers out of their backsides. That’s what, and then wash them with Sunlight. That’s all I can say, Pop. That’s the hard reality. Old Lambert here, he knows very well what I’m talking about. He reads those pamphlets. And he’s not stupid, not by a long shot.’

  Lambert opens his eyes. The only thing you can do here is play along. ‘At least they’ve stuck to one thing from beginning to end. It’s like a golden thread,’ he says.

  ‘Oh yes?’ Treppie says. ‘Now that sounds better. What golden thread?’

  Lambert leans forward so he can get his pamphlets. Pop helps him, pushing them closer.

  ‘Wait, let me read it.’ He looks through the pamphlets till he finds the right one. Then he looks up. Pop stares down at the floor. Treppie looks him straight in the face. He reads.

  ‘“The National Party of today is no longer the National Party of yesterday, but—”’

  ‘Fuck but!’ Treppie says, shooting up like a jack-in-the-box and grabbing the pamphlet out of his hands. ‘It’s not even the same party you voted Yes for that last time. Remember, when you could still fit into your smart clothes, your black charcoal pants with the shiny leather belt, and those boots with no laces. What did it say again on the label of those pants? Smart pants, those!’

  Treppie gets up and walks carefully over the broken glass to the steel cabinet against the wall. He tries to shake open the doors, but they’re locked. ‘Quickly, give me the keys so I can see what that label says.’

  ‘Boom!’ Treppie slams his hand against the steel door. Pop jumps.

  ‘Man About Town! That’s it. Now I remember. Man About Town! That’s what it says on the label. I still remember. The coolie at the Plaza showed us the label, at the back, on the inside.’

  ‘Can I carry on now?’ Lambert asks. Talking politics is bad, but not as bad as talking about his pants. It’s not his fault he got so fat. It’s the pills.

  ‘“But …”’ Lambert reads, ‘“there’s a golden thread that runs from the early years of the National Party right through until today.”’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ Treppie says. He sits on his crate again.

  ‘“Our first priority remains our own, our own minority, our own language and culture, and our own Christian fai
th.”’ He reads in stops and starts, the words swimming in front of his eyes.

  ‘And our own postbox!’ Treppie shouts.

  Lambert raises his hand for silence. He reads: ‘“That’s what we call the protection of minority rights. All minorities. So that there can be no domination by a black majority …”’

  ‘So, do you buy that story, Lambert?’ Treppie asks.

  ‘Well, um, to an extent,’ Lambert says.

  ‘To an extent! You sound just like that pamphlet, old boy.’

  ‘Well, if things don’t work out then we’ve at least got a plan!’ Lambert says. ‘Remember what you said, then we take Molletjie and we load the petrol into the front, and on the roof-rack, and in the dicky, and then we go, due north. All of us, even Gerty and Toby. To Zimbabwe or Kenya. Where you can still live like a white man. With lots of kaffirboys and-girls to order around, just as we please! They’re cheaper there!’

  Treppie looks at him. He looks at Treppie. Why’s Treppie looking at him like this now?

  Treppie was after all the one who thought up the plan, one day when he, Lambert, was lying here at the back, when he couldn’t pull himself together after a fit, and all he could do was pull his wire, but even that didn’t want to work any more. When his mother was sick in the hospital. From asthma. At least that’s what he thought. But then Treppie said it was a nervous breakdown ’cause he had fits all the time, ’cause there was nothing for him to do and he was wearing his mother out. And then Treppie came and sat here on a crate and said he’d found just the thing to keep him busy: the Great North Plan for when the emergency came. Yes, they must start storing up petrol, Treppie said, ’cause you never knew. He, Lambert, must dig a cellar under his den to store up petrol, ’cause petrol couldn’t be stored above ground, at least not here at the Benades’; there were too many sparks flying around when they started welding. Treppie said the silver bags inside wine boxes were the best for storing petrol. They took up the least space, and you could fold them up when you were finished, and then fill them up again later. He remembers thinking it was a real stroke of genius. Treppie’s got a lot of plans. But that’s not all he’s got a lot of and he mustn’t come and be a nuisance now. He, Lambert, didn’t go scratching around rubbish dumps just for nothing. On Monday nights, when people put out their rubbish, he walked up and down the streets so he could check those rubbish bags for wine boxes. Then he’d pull out the silver bags and throw back the boxes. By the time he got home he was stinking of wine and old rubbish. Sometimes people heard the scratching at their gates, and a few times they even came out with their sjamboks and their catties, ’cause they thought it was dogs eating their rubbish. Then they’d start shooting without even taking a good look to see who it was. One night a man with a pellet gun hit him a shot in the backside as he stood there scratching around. He hadn’t even seen the man. And he didn’t go looking for him, either, ’cause then he’d have to please explain what he was doing there in the rubbish. He couldn’t very well go and tell other people about their plan, ’cause then they’d also start doing it, and then the petrol would run out too quickly. It’s true what Treppie says, when there’s trouble in the country it’s always petrol that runs out first. Treppie said he, Lambert, could learn from the NP government – every time they got the country into trouble, they just stashed away more petrol. Treppie’s like that when he talks politics. Actually when he talks anything. You never know if he means something’s good or bad. And if you ask him, he says he’s not interested in those two words, things are what they are and that’s all there is to it.

  Treppie wasn’t even sorry for him when he got that pellet in his backside. He just stood there and laughed, holding the torch so his mother and Pop could get the little bullet out with a tweezer and a needle. Fuck, that was sore! He must have drunk a whole bottle of Klipdrift, lying there in the lounge on the loose blocks, with his backside up in the air.

  ‘Lambert,’ says Treppie, shifting a little closer. ‘What if she wants to come with us …’

  ‘Who you talking about?’ Lambert asks. Pop looks down at the floor. Like he knows what’s coming. Well, Lambert thinks, then Pop must know more than he does.

  ‘Your girl, of course. The one we’ve ordered for your birthday.’

  ‘You must be joking,’ Lambert says, but he actually likes the idea. The thought never crossed his mind that she might want to come too.

  ‘Yes, man, maybe she’ll like you so much she’ll want to come with us. Just after the election, when the shit starts flying.’

  ‘But, um, Molletjie … there won’t be enough space.’

  ‘She can sit on your lap, man. And when you get tired …’ wink-wink, ‘then she can sit in front for a while, then we put Pop on her lap. Look at him, he’s like a feather, man, he’s ready for take-off.’ Treppie lifts one of Pop’s thin little arms and then drops it again.

  ‘Hell’s bells, that’ll be something, hey,’ Lambert says. He sits a little more upright on his mattress.

  ‘Yes, man, it’ll be fun. Just there after Beit Bridge, after we cross the border, we can buy a Coke and chuck some Klipdrift in and chill out a bit. Then you and her can go take a walk in the bushes.’ Wink-wink.

  Pop shakes his head. ‘Treppie,’ he says. ‘Treppie.’

  ‘Ja, Pop, man, I think she will. What do you think? You also saw her, man!’ He pumps Pop in the ribs. ‘Come, Pop, let’s show Lambert how that girl danced in the disco there in Smit Street. You see, Lambert, it’s like a display cabinet where all the girls stand and do their thing on a little dance floor, with a strobe-light and nice sexy music.’

  Treppie gets up. He pulls Pop up too. He pushes out his hips and wiggles his shoulders.

  ‘Come now, Pop, dance a little so Lambert can get the idea!’

  Pop sways, first this way, then that. As if he wants to turn away from something. He stares at Lambert with a dull look. Like he’s trying to look in somewhere where it’s closed and dark.

  ‘You see, we went to check them out a bit. You could say we went window shopping, me and Pop, when we went to look for her. Hey, Pop? So she can prepare herself for you!’

  Treppie nudges Pop and winks at Lambert. ‘Cleopatra’s Queens. Cater for everything. Do anything you ask. For anyone. Discretion guaranteed. House-calls included. Cheapest rate is at the customer’s house. Otherwise you have to rent a room, and pay for room service, towels, sheets, pillows. That kind of thing.’

  Treppie lights up a cigarette and blows out smoke. He looks at Lambert through squinted eyes.

  ‘It wasn’t exactly easy to choose. Me and Pop stood there, trying to pick one out. Then I saw a tall one, a blonde, and I thought, that’s her! That’s Lambert’s girl! But Pop said no, Lambert doesn’t like long and thin, he likes short and fat. Then Pop pointed, there, look at that nice round one, on that side. Not so, Pop? And then I said, don’t point, Pop, it’s bad manners.’

  Treppie laughs, slapping Pop so hard he almost falls off his crate.

  Pop says nothing.

  Treppie clears his throat. ‘Well now, the one we chose for you in the end … should we tell him, Pop? Come on, Pop, be a sport, man …’

  ‘Pop?’ says Lambert.

  ‘Ag, you know him. He’s too old. He just wants to sleep. He’s too old for this kind of thing. Farmed out, dried up. A dead shoot. Forget him, man. Now where was I …’

  Pop stands up. He shuffles towards the door. Then he stops and shuffles around in a half-circle facing them again. He looks at Treppie and Lambert sitting with their heads together. Lambert’s swung his legs off the mattress and he’s smoking one of Treppie’s cigarettes. He can see Pop wants to say something, but then he says nothing. He just turns around and shuffles out of the room. ‘Click-clack’ he goes over the loose blocks, down the passage.

  ‘So, how’ll you like it if she comes with us, hey, Lambert?’

  ‘Well, it depends if she wants to. If she’s game.’

  ‘I promise you, she’s game for anything.�
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  ‘But if she comes with us she won’t have a job any more.’

  ‘No, but then she’ll have you, don’t you see?’ says Treppie, laughing out of the back of his throat. Suddenly he stops laughing and looks dead serious again. His eyes are shining.

  ‘But, Lambert, old boy, I need to talk to you seriously now. You’ve got to do something about your fat stomach,’ he says, prodding at Lambert’s belly. ‘And your bum too,’ he says, reaching for Lambert’s backside.

  Lambert pushes away his hand.

  ‘Oh my,’ says Treppie, looking at Lambert’s crotch. ‘Looks like you really want that floozy, my friend, like you really want her bad. Look at your dick standing to attention, just from a little talk. So, you want her to leave her job and come with us, right?’

  Treppie gets up from the crate. Now he’s all businesslike.

  ‘Come, let’s look at your clothes, then, old boy. Look, you’ve got those boxer shorts and another pair, and three T-shirts. That’s all I ever see you wearing. A man can’t go to the North looking like that. Especially not with a woman at his side. You’re going to have to get back into your smart clothes. Your Man About Towns.’ Treppie sways his hips.

  ‘Look, you’re welcome to borrow a shirt from me, but you see how thin I am. Like a plank.’ He slaps his stomach. ‘And then there’s the mock leather jacket you got for your twenty-first. Come open here, man!’ Treppie pulls at the doors of the steel cabinet. ‘Come, come open up a bit here!’

  ‘Just leave me alone!’ says Lambert.

  ‘Well, Lambert, please yourself, but if you ask me what’s the most important issue in this election, then I’d say it’s the fact that your birthday is the day before we vote. And that you’re turning forty. And that we’ve been saving up out of Pop’s pension and my salary for a whole year to pay for a girl. Just for you, alone, for a whole night. So we can get some peace and quiet in this house. Especially your mother. She’s getting old. She’s taking strain. It’s your only chance, man. And now you want to go and fuck it up with white bread and polony. And Coke. It’s a bladdy shame, if you ask me. Come now, come open this cabinet for me.’