The Folly

by Ivan Vladislavic

  A few meaningful glances were exchanged. Malgas went home to fetch his wheelbarrow. Mrs tried to attract his attention through the bedroom window, but he looked the other way. When he returned, whistling to disguise the unseemly scree-scree-scree of the axle, Nieuwenhuizen had rolled aside the hearthstones from the mouth of his tent to make space for the big heap.

  In the gathering darkness they loaded the provisional heaps onto the barrow one by one and conveyed them to the depot. A jaundiced eye may have observed that Nieuwenhuizen did a great deal of pointing and waving, whereas Malgas wielded the fork and pushed the barrow. It was dark by the time they were done. The darkness brought with it, paradoxically, a boyish lightheartedness, which Nieuwenhuizen acknowledged by leaping onto the barrow and standing to attention, and Malgas confirmed by stepping once more into the breach and taking him on a tour of the site. When Nieuwenhuizen had had his fill of swaying hilariously and waving to unseen crowds of spectators, Malgas deposited him in the shadow of the heap.

  The mountain of rotting vegetation towered over them. Here and there the turned leaves glowed like embers in the faded foliage, as if the whole mass would burst into flames if they so much as whispered near it.

  With due caution, Nieuwenhuizen angled his face away and spoke for the first time since work had begun that morning. “Malgas, you’ve done a splendid job. I don’t think I could have done it without you. I give you my word: nothing will grow here again, unless we want it to. Go home now. Rest. When you’ve refreshed yourself, come back, if you like, and we’ll burn this heap to the ground, root and branch. Thanks a million, see you later.”

  Malgas understood intuitively the significance of this effusive utterance, just as he had appreciated the abbreviated chit-chat of the morning: it was in direct proportion to the satiated fullness of a job well done. So he himself embarked on a comprehensive response, which Nieuwenhuizen graciously allowed to run to three paragraphs before bidding him farewell and crawling without further ado into his tent.

  Malgas went home.

  Nieuwenhuizen lay on his back, with his head pillowed on one of his boots and his bare feet cushioned on his hat. A candle in a bully-beef tin rested on his stomach.

  An insect was scaling the vault of mosquito-netting above him, and he followed its progress with interest. In everyday circumstances he would have squashed the intruder for reasons of hygiene, but he felt reckless tonight; and in any case, he had held the candle up a moment before and established that it was on the outside of the net. It was a perfectly ordinary bug, of the sort one might encounter in a cartoon wearing a waistcoat and spats. Its feet seemed disproportionately large and were shaped like exclamation marks.

  The bug reached the apex of the tent, where the net was suspended from the tent-pole, and stopped. He willed it to keep going, over the top and down the other side, but it wouldn’t budge. He flicked at it with his forefinger, hoping that it would curl itself into a ball and tumble down the way it had come, but it merely put out its feelers and clung to its position.

  He held the flame close, to make out the expression on its face.

  Meanwhile, Malgas stood on the scale in his bathroom, gazing down over the curvature of his belly at the figures on the dial, and tried to recall the wording of his recent thank-you speech.

  He had started: “Ladies and gentlemen – I beg your pardon – Father. It gives me great pleasure to take this public opportunity of expressing my gratitude for …” But the rest of it was gone. He remembered some isolated words – “honour,” “neighbourly,” “vicinity,” “collaboration,” “endeavour.” And he remembered what he was saying when Nieuwenhuizen interrupted him: “When the time comes —”

  “Cheerio!”

  Mrs Malgas came into the bathroom to talk some sense into her husband.

  She found him wallowing in the muddy water, with his feet propped on the taps. He was preoccupied with his blisters, which had appeared in exactly the same spot on each hand: the web between thumb and forefinger. He prodded each blister in turn with the forefinger of the other hand, hoping that they would pop, but they held their shape tenaciously, like blobs of molten solder.

  Mrs turned her attention to his feet. She didn’t care much for them in this naked state, against a background of creamy ceramic tiles; she preferred them in shoes. They were childish feet, too soft and pink for the large brown body they were required to support. Their creased soles and shapeless toes made them look like underinflated bath toys.

  His whole anatomy was stubbornly indifferent to her evaluations. She left him to soak.

  But she was on hand, when he had dried himself, to rub some of her cold cream into the back of his neck, which was sunburnt after all.

  The Buccaneer Steakhouse in the Helpmekaar Centre was one of the finest establishments of its kind anywhere. Its corporate motto was on everyone’s lips: “Pleased to meet you, meat to please you.” The Manageress, a Mrs Dworkin, and Mr Malgas were on first-name terms, so she was happy to take his order over the phone: two racks of ribs, one with chips and one with a baked potato.

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” Mrs said peevishly. “We always make do with a snack on Saturdays and I’m not going to change the habits of a lifetime just because of Him.”

  The Buccaneer was famous too for its cut-throat prices and speedy service, and within half an hour Malgas and Nieuwenhuizen were sitting on their stones at the foot of the dead mountain, in the moth-beaten light of the hurricane-lamp, with the distinctive customized polystyrene containers open on their knees. Nieuwenhuizen had chosen the baked potato and it steamed enticingly as he sliced it open with his plastic knife. He unwrapped a little brick of butter and dropped it into the gash.

  “Baked in their jackets,” Malgas said under his breath, repeating a phrase that Nieuwenhuizen had just used: “I’ve always loved them baked in their jackets.” Malgas sighed and salted his chips. “It’s better to give than to receive,” he mused, “although receiving can also be good. Look, there’s even vinegar in a little plastic bag – they think of everything.” He bent his head over the ribs and breathed in a blend of BBQ Sauce and charbroiled lamb; by a happy coincidence, the Buccaneer’s spicy marinade combined exquisitely with the delicate herby aroma of the heap … tarragon … cinnamon … kakiebos … It was perfect.

  But what was that? Something medicinal had seeped into the mixture and threatened to spoil it entirely. Eucalyptus? No, lanolin? Camphor? Malgas sniffed again, and ascertained that the offensive smell was coming from the back of his neck! All at once he became acutely aware of how fresh and clean he was. There were creases in his shorts where creases had no business to be. There was a parting in his newly shampooed hair. The tops of his long socks were neatly folded – not once, but twice! “I’ve made an unforgivable booboo,” he thought angrily, and forgave himself immediately. “The thought of bathing wouldn’t have entered my head if she hadn’t turned up her nose and run the water.”

  “Ingenious contraption,” he said to cover his embarrassment.

  “Notice the built-in hinges here, and the little triangular compartment in the corner for Sauce. Brilliant.”

  Nieuwenhuizen peered into the container, grunted, wiped his fingers on his safari suit and tore another rib from the rack.

  When they had eaten their fill they moved their stones back in preparation for the bonfire.

  “Say a few words, Father,” Malgas suggested.

  “Why not? I’m in a talkative mood.” Nieuwenhuizen gathered his thoughts as he scoured the grease from his palms with a handful of sand, and then called for silence, cleared his throat, and began: “We have dined sumptuously, thanks to the generosity of our friend and colleague Malgas. Now let us enjoy a blazing fire and sit around it chatting amiably.”

  “Hear! Hear!” Malgas exclaimed. “Well spoken!”

  Nieuwenhuizen took a match from a waterproof container, struck it, and dabbed the base of the heap with the flame.

  It wouldn’t burn.

  “I
t so happens,” said Malgas, reaching into the darkness and producing, with a flourish, a king-size pack of Blitz Firelighters.

  Nieuwenhuizen shook his head resolutely.

  It was a crestfallen Mr who barged through his house a few minutes later, snatched a key from a hook and went to the garage. Mrs followed him silently to the back door and waited there until he returned carrying a petrol tin.

  “You be careful with that,” she said.

  Mr took two six-packs of beer from the fridge (Lions and Castles).

  “You be careful with that too,” she said, following in his footsteps to the front door and watching after him through the bars of the security gate. Then she went back to her stool in the darkened lounge.

  Nieuwenhuizen took the petrol tin and departed for the top of the heap. Malgas wanted to go with him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “You’ll get your boots dirty,” he crowed. Malgas was left behind at the camp, staring dejectedly at his Hush Puppies. Nieuwenhuizen went up the heap in leaps and bounds and in no time at all he was standing on the summit. Instead of emptying the petrol into the “core,” as Malgas had proposed, he raised the tin in an expansive toast and kicked his heels.

  Malgas took the opportunity to break the Firelighters into sticks and spike the lower slopes. When that was done, he saw that Nieuwenhuizen was still occupied, so he slipped off his garters and pushed his socks down to his ankles. He ruffled his hair. He began to feel much better. Nieuwenhuizen stopped dancing and started pouring libations, first to the cardinal points of the compass and then to the lesser-known points in between. NNW, SSE, NWS. Malgas stretched himself out on the ground, rolled over a few times, and then looked up at the stars. They were far away, no argument. Mrs liked to describe them as pinpricks in a velvet tarpaulin. They had names, which the fundis were familiar with, and they were said to be “wheeling.” Furthermore, your stars foretold. If you understood how to join them together, like puzzles, you could arrive at mythological beings and household names. “He probably knows just how to do it. He’s travelled. Why don’t I, when I know so much about the world? Over coffee I – blast! – the chocolate digestives!”

  When Nieuwenhuizen eventually returned he was greeted by enthusiastic cries of “Speech! Speech!” but he waved the request aside. His adventures on the heap had had a marvellously soothing effect on him, for he patted Malgas between the shoulder-blades and handed him the matches. “Do the honours – you’re the guest. I’ll get the lights.” He doused the hurricane-lamp.

  Afterwards, when he recalled his conduct in these unusual circumstances, Malgas allowed himself a flush of pride. It would have turned out badly for him had he followed Nieuwenhuizen’s lead and stooped to light the fire. In the heat of the moment, however, he was able to acquit himself with grace and composure. An image came into his mind – a match, like a tiny rocket, blazing an arc through space – and this godsend saved the day and impressed it on his memory as one of beauty and balance. His hand found exactly the gesture that was required to scrape the head of the match along the side of the box and propel it on its journey; the match, igniting as it entered the atmosphere and burning ever brighter as it flew, found precisely the triumphal trajectory that would bring it, when it was at its brightest, to the heap, which was by now embroiled in a miasma of volatile fumes; the heap sucked in its breath, soured with the smell of petrol, its tangled limbs shuddered, it gasped – and blurted out a tongue of flame so huge and incandescent that it turned night into day and extinguished the stars.

  Nieuwenhuizen could not have been more astounded if Malgas himself had burst into flames. He pointed weakly at the stone next to him. Malgas lowered his bulk onto it and the two of them gaped in speechless wonder at the burning mountain.

  At last the flames died down, the mountain began to collapse onto itself, squirting sparks into the insurgent darkness, and Nieuwenhuizen found his tongue.

  “Pull your stone a bit closer and I’ll tell you a story.”

  “Which reminds me,” said Malgas. He reached casually into the shadows and brought forth the beers. They were still icy. Nieuwenhuizen punched Malgas’s arm and chose a Castle, Malgas followed suit, and they popped them open.

  “Cheers!”

  They drank.

  Malgas wiped the froth from his lips lavishly with the back of his hand. “Tell me about the old place,” he prompted. “What made you tear up your roots and come all this way to start over? Do you have a dream? Tell me everything, don’t leave out a single detail, I’m an empty vessel waiting to be filled. Also, I need facts, to win over the doubting Mrs.”

  These lines struck Malgas as among the finest he had ever uttered; there was no question that they were the most inspired he had addressed to Nieuwenhuizen so far. Nieuwenhuizen appreciated the speech too, and there was a touch of admiration in his expression as he tilted back his head, creating an oblique play of shadows across his features, stared into the fire, where a mass of twisted tongues were wagging, and murmured, “The Mrs.”

  “My wife.”

  “I remember.” Pause. “Where to begin … Yes.” He scuffed a burnt rib from the ashy edge of the fire with the toe of his boot. “Take this rib here, Malgas.”

  Malgas spat on his fingers and picked up the bone.

  At that moment lights blazed in Malgas’s lounge, a window burst open explosively, and Mrs Malgas was heard to shout, “Put out that fire at once! This is a smokeless zone! Give Him hell, Cooks!”

  “She’s gone too far this time,” Malgas muttered, leapt to his feet and plunged into the darkness. As he fumed across the stubbled field, pressing his beer tin to his sunburnt neck, a broth of angry phrases seethed up in his throat, but the mere sight of his wife’s trembling silhouette was enough to make him swallow it down. All he could manage as he hurried up to the wall was, “Put out that light! You’re spoiling the fire.”

  “He’s getting soot all over everything,” she whined, and flustered like a paper cut-out against the window-pane. “The pool’s turned black as ink. Look at your clothes! What have you been doing?”

  “Haven’t you done enough damage for one day?”

  “This is a residential area.” But the hurt note in his voice had disarmed her, and she rustled away and put out the light.

  “He’s coming out of his shell,” Mr whispered urgently to the open window, “but one more insensitive intrusion could drive him back in again for good. Is that what you want? By the way – are there any biscuits in the house?”

  There was no answer.

  “Marshmallows?”

  Silence. She had deserted her post.

  For want of something better to do, he meandered back to the camp. In the distance the crooked figure of Nieuwenhuizen lay like a black branch beside a mound of flickering embers.

  Mrs turned the TV set on and sat down in Mr’s La-Z-Boy. The chair smelt of aftershave. It embraced her and made her feel small. The violet light from the screen, on which two men were swilling Richelieu brandy while they discussed money matters, lent the room the atmosphere of a butchery at night, glimpsed from a moving car. Pleased to meet you. She studied her thin forearms: her flesh looked bloodless and cold. “The pallor of death,” was the phrase that came to mind, and it occurred to her to shout it out of the window.

  “She sends her apologies, it won’t happen again,” said Malgas, seating himself on his stone and holding up the rib. “You were saying …”

  “I was saying —”

  “The pallor of death!”

  “Then He danced around on the top, as if He was trying to trample the juice out of it, and He doused it with petrol, as if it was a tipsy-tart.”

  “For crying in a bucket, will you please stop telling me what he did! I was there, you know.”

  “Of course you were. I just thought you’d like a fresh perspective on events.”

  “I wouldn’t. I’d like to forget the whole thing … I’ve never been so ashamed.”

  “You’re still cross with me.”

&nbs
p; “We were getting on famously. He was opening up!”

  Whether or not Mrs was to blame, Nieuwenhuizen lost his sense of purpose once again and went back to mooching on the plot.

  His indolence did not bother Mr at all. “He’s taking a well-earned break. He’s in training for Phase Two: the actual building of the new house.”

  Mrs scoffed. “Break my eye. He’s turned the environment into a wasteland, and now He’s beating it senseless, pacing up and down in His clodhoppers. You may think that nothing’s happening, but I tell you, He’s busy. Nothing will ever grow there again.”

  “Unless we want it to.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  Even so, her allegations came back to him the next evening when he saw the huge heap of ashes left over from the bonfire and the flat earth signposted everywhere with crosses and arrows by Nieuwenhuizen’s soles.

  Every night Malgas joined Nieuwenhuizen at his modest new fireplace on the edge of the ash-heap; he no longer found it necessary to manufacture excuses for his visits, but he sometimes brought a small gift – a bracket or a hinge, a packet of screws or a brass lug, a plastic grommet or a fibreglass flange – as a token of his desire for constructive effort. Nieuwenhuizen stowed each one away with a smile.

  Whenever Malgas inquired about the building operations, which was often, Nieuwenhuizen would chide him for his impatience. “All of this has been surveyed and subdued,” he said, flinging out his arms to encompass his territory. “That in itself is no small thing. I’m not as young as I used to be. I need time to regain my strength.”

  “For Phase Two?”

  “Of course.”

  It was after one of these routine exchanges that Nieuwenhuizen decided the time was ripe.