Even before Pop took them all to the hospital for injections, on Monday, he phoned the municipality. Since then, they’ve all just been sitting around in the house, looking at the bees outside.
It was a hellishly hot day, and Treppie spent too long working on the roof. That’s why it happened. Monday he decides today’s the day he’s going to fix everything Fort Knox broke on the roof. Just like Treppie to choose the hottest day for something like that. Then she had to run up and down fetching tools for him. And each time she walked to the den at the back, she saw the bees swarming around the vent, there near the foundation. But she didn’t say anything. She was too busy trying to keep her head straight so she could remember what Treppie was asking her to bring.
It took hours. First Treppie cut the broken overflow pipe straight with a hacksaw and then he fixed it on to another pipe with glue, taping the whole thing up as well. He splinted the TV-aerial with a piece of iron and knocked it back into the roof. And all this time she had to pass all kinds of things to him up there on the roof. She had to climb halfway up the ladder each time. Up and down, up and down. After a while it felt like she was going to pass out, she was so tired. Lambert didn’t even lift a finger. He just stood there on the stoep, screwing up his eyes. He felt dizzy, he said. But he wasn’t too dizzy to chip in all the time.
Those joints Treppie was making, he shouted from the stoep, wouldn’t stand the first strong wind. In that case, Treppie shouted back, Lambert would have to fix them, ’cause there was practically nothing those two hands of his couldn’t do, or was he imagining things again? And then he winked at Lambert.
Treppie drives Lambert mad just by the way he says things. All Monday morning, up there on the roof, Treppie peppered him. Lambert, he said, was standing there on the stoep just like a shift boss. So now, he said, what did the Inspector of Works think about this or that? And if Lambert wanted to peep at the people next door, he shouted, then he should get on to the roof right from the start. With his welding helmet on so he could look through the sparks, ’cause from where Treppie was standing he could see right into Fort Knox’s main bedroom. No one was there now, but he could see more than enough evidence of ‘burning passion’. That was when Treppie began to play the fool, hugging himself up there in the hot sun. He was grabbing and touching himself something terrible. All you saw were those claws of his, groping himself around the shoulders. He began to sing ‘Oh oh oh what a night!’ Loudly, up into the sky. For all the world to see.
At first, Lambert didn’t catch on it was Treppie who was working on his nerves so much. He thought the bees must be making him feel so mad. By then the bees had come out of their hole. They were flying round the house like bomber planes. Must’ve been worked up from all the commotion and the welding’s white light.
Fucken bee, Lambert kept saying. He picked up the steel Treppie was clearing off the roof, and then he chucked it down again. Lambert was still slapping at the bees when he suddenly dropped everything. He grabbed the yellow bucket she was using to clean scrap iron for Treppie, and then he took it with him to the tap. ‘Fucken bastards! Now I’m going to drown the whole fucken lot of you. Buzzing round my blarry head all the time!’
He limped off with his sore foot to go fill the bucket with water.
‘Ag, don’t be so spiteful, man,’ Treppie shouted. ‘They must think you’re God’s own double sunflower, with those crooked saucer-eyes of yours.’
But Lambert was already on the other side of the house. He was making for the air-vent in the foundation. The next thing she and Treppie saw him sprinting round the side of the house, with Gerty on his heels, his mouth opening and closing. The bees were clogged in a black swarm around his head. His face was white and he was running hell for leather with that big lumbering body of his, sore foot and all.
Treppie, meanwhile, was running in circles on the roof, trying to keep track of Lambert as he ran around the house. Then she also took off after him. As she ran, she pulled off her pink housecoat and dragged it under the tap, which Lambert had left running, so she could throw it over Lambert’s head. But Lambert was shouting and swinging his arms like a windmill. And each time she and Gerty passed a window on their way round the house, she saw Pop’s face trying to keep up with the goings-on outside.
‘Stay inside, Pop!’ she shouted. ‘Keep Toby in!’
‘Don’t come out, Pop!’ Treppie shouted, but he was laughing so much he could hardly talk. ‘It looks like Kyalami out here. Old Lambert’s doing laps! Bzzz! Bzzz!’
The more she shouted that Treppie must get off the roof to come and help her, the less he seemed to hear.
All she could see in front of her was Lambert’s back, twisting and turning as he ran with the bees, who were bunched in swarms around his shoulders. Every now and again he managed to get a sound out, a kind of low growl she’d never heard coming out of his mouth before.
‘Ow-whoo, ow-whoo!’ Gerty cried as the bees stung her.
‘Oo-ooo! Hee-hee-hee-hee,’ Treppie laughed from the roof. ‘Lambert, it’s not a merry-go-round, man, change direction. Other side! Hee-hee! I’m going to piss myself here!’
Treppie was still laughing like that when his foot slipped and he began to slide down the roof on his backside. He turned on to his stomach as he tried to find something to grab on to. He wanted to break the fall by wedging his foot in the gutter, but the gutter wasn’t there any more, and he fell, ‘boof!’ right on to the ground. He landed in the molehills, thumping red dust up into the air.
And there he sat, clutching his foot, unable to get up again. ‘My fucken foot’s broken!’ he said.
It was actually his ankle. Sprained.
At that moment, Lambert came running another lap around the corner. He knocked himself silly over Treppie, who was still sitting there. Then she came up behind Lambert and fell over the two of them. And there they lay in a heap. And the bees came straight for the heap.
She was wiping bunches of those bees off Lambert’s back with her bare hands. She took him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him up. Then she grabbed Treppie and pulled him closer too. And she dragged Gerty by her neck into the middle of the heap. She waved the wet housecoat around in the air to open it up, throwing it over the lot of them with one swoop. As they sat there, they could feel the bees walking over their heads on top of her housecoat. Every now and again a bee would sting right through the material. Lambert was moaning and groaning. Treppie kept saying: ‘My foot, my poor fucken foot!’
She told them they must sit very still now, ’cause she remembered what Lambert had read in Beeld about the mad bees in Pretoria. Nowadays Lambert also wants to read newspapers like Treppie, but he says he doesn’t read old news or Jew’s news. There in Pretoria, he read, the bees swarmed under the foundations at the Union Buildings. The only time they came out was to sting people. Lambert said those bees could kill you with their stings. After fifty stings, your throat began to close. After seventy your heart went lame. And if you got two hundred stings, you were brain-dead. Nothing to be done about it but be a vegetable for the rest of your life. The whole Union Buildings were apparently full of brain-dead people. On every floor. Ministers, deputy ministers, typists, tea boys, the lot. Treppie said Beeld was talking crap. Lambert liked reading Beeld but Treppie said Beeld was a fucken joke. Still, the next day Treppie read them the same story in the Star. Only this time the ministers didn’t go brain-dead when they were stung, they got like that the day they were sworn in. Yes, said Treppie, that wasn’t such a bad insight for a paper like the Star. Just look at how Pik Botha’s head was sunk into his shoulders. That’s ’cause his brain was dead. A dead brain, said Treppie, was heavy. Like a ball of lead. That’s why Pik Botha’s head looked the way it did. The same went for old Magnus Mauser. His lower jaw bulged out so much ’cause his brain had collapsed, pressing everything else down as well. No wonder he became minister of bushes. And now he was minister of nothing.
Pop told Treppie he had no respect for the government, no
matter whether they were dead or alive or brain-dead.
But now she realised they must make smoke under the bees. Lambert had read something about smoking out bees. They’d called the fire brigade to come make smoke at the Union Buildings. Smoke calms bees down.
She took Treppie’s John Rolfes and his matches out from under the little flap of his pocket, sticking three cigarettes into her mouth. Then she lit them with one match and handed them out.
And there they sat, smoking like crazy under her housecoat.
That’s why FW de Klerk smoked like a chimney, she said, trying to calm them down. Also John Rolfes. It kept the bees in the Union Buildings away from his bald head. Treppie and Lambert were sitting still, but they screamed like pigs every time a bee stung them. She was the only strong one. She must say, she really had the whip-hand that day. Thank God she remembered everything Lambert had read from the paper. About FW who smoked so much and his wife’s face-lift, to take away the frown between her eyes.
Marike was the one who said, at the garden tea-party after her operation, that no woman could be a campaigner for peace with a frown on her face. Lambert showed her the pictures of Marike. She couldn’t see any scars. There was a big water fountain in the middle of the garden with pink ice-cubes and watermelon slices. In trays that looked like shells.
The Jehovahs say it too. They say the end is near and we should approach it with the name of God sealed in our foreheads. Then there’s no space left for a frown.
Sitting still and smoking like that made the bees nice and calm again.
Then she said they must get up slowly with the housecoat still over their heads, walk carefully up to the front door, and shout to Pop that he must have the Doom ready.
But Pop opened the door even before they began to shout. He sprayed Doom straight at their heads, especially Gerty, who was crawling with bees.
Mol looks at Gerty on her lap. Shame, the poor thing. It’s a wonder the stings didn’t kill her. Can’t see a thing. And breathing so heavily. Mol can’t bear to look at her. She looks out of the window instead.
Two bakkies from the municipality and a white lorry stop outside the house. She points. Everyone comes to look. They watch as the pestremovers unload their equipment. They’ve got silver rods with funnels in front. It’s a smoke machine, says Pop. He says they should take their drinks and go see what the people are doing outside. But she says the rest of them should go, she’s not feeling so well. She’s had quite enough of bees, thank you. First go lie down a little. With Gerty.
Mol wakes up. There’s a knocking noise against the wall, right next to her head. She gets up with Gerty in her arms to look out the window. No wonder. They’re busy knocking a hole in the foundation. As soon as they finish knocking a little, they stand back, pick up the shiny thing with the funnel and stick it into the hole. The air’s full of foul smoke. She closes the window. No wait, she may as well go look outside. She sees Pop and them through the smoke. Pop’s looking tired. Treppie’s standing on one leg. He’s leaning on Pop’s shoulder. Lord, just look at that Lambert. His face is so swollen he can hardly see out of his eyes. But he’s talking and making big waving movements with his hands. Lambert loves gadgets and things, and he fancies the people who work with them too. He also likes drinking Klipdrift with everyone. The three of them stand there with glasses in their hands. She sees the half-tray with the bottle and the Coke on the grass. Not such a bad idea.
She walks towards the lounge. She’s almost at the end of the passage when the sound of people talking stops her in her tracks. Just in time, too. Who’s this inside their house now? She steals a look around the corner. One is sitting in her chair, and the other’s in Pop’s chair. They’re shuffling their papers. Piles of pamphlets lie on the floor in front of them. It’s the NPs.
‘How much longer must we sit and wait here like this, Jannie?’ It’s the girly. She’s wearing one of her dresses again, but this time there aren’t any straps. The dress is cut low in front. It looks like it’s about to fall off her shoulders. Why’re they sitting there now? And how’s she supposed to get past them? Those two make her feel funny.
The man looks at his watch. ‘They said they were coming just now. Give them ten minutes or so,’ he says.
‘The people in this house are scum. They make me sick in my stomach,’ she says.
Maybe she should go out through the kitchen. But what was that about sick in the stomach? She goes back. She knows you shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations. But she didn’t invite these two into her house. And what right do they have to sit in her and Pop’s chairs, saying things about them?
‘Where do you think the old bag is today, Jannie?’ the girl asks.
‘God only knows, Annemarie. Must be lying in the back here somewhere. Befucked. Bee-fucked!’ He laughs.
‘Sis, Jannie! You shouldn’t make fun of illness.’
She slaps him playfully on the knee. He catches her hand and pulls her towards him. They kiss. Can you believe it? The girl pulls away.
‘Hey, behave yourself, man! This place gives me the creeps.’ She pulls her dress straight, looking around her with a fed-up expression.
Mol leans back against the passage wall. She feels funny. She wishes she had something to throw. Sit and smooch here in their lounge! Let her just get out of here and tell Treppie what they’ve been saying. Scum! Hmph. He’ll fix them up. In no time at all. She can’t believe it, but the thought of Treppie gives her courage. She must listen carefully what these two buggers say about them. Nobody can insult people better than Treppie. And this time she’ll help him. ’Strue’s God. Old bag, hmph! Befucked! Their bladdy arses!
‘I don’t know why we still canvass this lot. They’re rotten, worse than …’
The man holds up his finger. ‘Hang on, Doll, count your words. These people are the voting public. Every NP vote is worth its weight in gold.’
‘Yes, but not the votes of backvelders like this lot. What are they good for, anyway?’
‘You must try to think strategically, my angel. We don’t have time for emotions or for whims and fancies. The main issue is to keep having a say in what happens, and if we can do that with the votes of this lot, then it’s a say no less. You heard what the chief whip said. The issue is language and culture. No more and no less.’
‘Ja, but what kind of culture will you find on this property? All I see here is brandy and Coke and crock cars.’
‘Ag no, come now, Doll, try to think less emotionally. Think laterally, as Prof. Joubert says. What will become of us if there’s no longer an Afrikaans-medium university in this country? You and I want to become academics one day, right? So we can fight for Afrikaans in the courts and everything. This is one of the few chances we still have left.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘No more buts, you must keep a sense of perspective here. These people are our foot-soldiers in the election. They’re right at the bottom of the ladder and they feel threatened. They’ll buy anything we tell them.’
‘Yes, but they’re the kind who’ll vote for the far right. That’s if they bother to vote at all. That idiot with the high backside, you want to tell me he can read and write?’
‘You’ll be surprised. Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ the chappy says. Mol smiles. They’ll be very surprised, both of them will be very, very surprised.
‘And the far right’s looking for militants. They can’t afford a bunch of inbred drunks. They want war. And we want peace, don’t we, peace and a say in how we’re governed?’
‘It doesn’t sound right to me, Jannie. It’s not honest, man. Let’s rather leave them alone. Let them work out their own destiny.’
‘Ag no, Annemarietjie, what’s wrong with you now? You heard what FW said. Election politics is not for sissies. Get a grip on yourself. There’s always a light at the end of the wagon-trek, remember.’
The man doesn’t really look like he’s ready for wagons. He looks like he wants to fuck. He pouts at the
girl. They start smooching again.
There’s a knock at the front door. Slowly, someone pushes open the door. The NPs are so busy kissing they don’t even see. Only she sees.
She sees an astronaut in a white costume with a high, white screen on his head. He’s wearing thick gloves and white rubber boots with thick soles. The astronaut comes towards her with wide-open legs. There’s too much stuffing in his pants. ‘Rickatick’ go the blocks under his feet.
‘Dear Lord!’ She almost drops Gerty.
The astronaut signals to her she mustn’t be afraid. He talks in a dull voice behind his helmet. He says his name is Van Zyl. He’s come to fetch the bees and he needs a bucket. Maybe there’s honey. He relocates bees, he says. He lives just around the corner, in Meyer Street. Works with Pest Control. But, he says, for him bees are not pests, they’re a source of extra income. He says he’s sorry if he’s inconveniencing her. He calls her madam. Does she have a plastic bucket or something like that for him? Then he says good evening to the NPs in the lounge. They’re standing around now, looking all embarrassed. ‘Good evening, madam,’ they say to her.
‘Good evening, yourself,’ she says. To the bee-catcher, she says, no, fine, she’ll go fetch a bucket. She addresses him as sir, but she looks down her nose at the NPs.
Mol fetches a bucket in the kitchen. She takes it round the back for Van Zyl. ‘Thank you very much,’ he says. There’s a big, white hive next to the hole in the wall. She puts Gerty down at her feet. Then she takes Pop’s glass out of his hand and swallows it in one gulp. He must fill the glass again, she says. Pop gives her a funny look. Fill up, she says. She’s on the warpath. The NPs have come round the front.
She looks hard at the NP chappy. She looks at him so hard he starts talking about the weather.
‘Not a cloud in the sky,’ he says, looking up. Little twat thinks he can act like an angel here in front of her. But Treppie’s there, in a flash. She doesn’t even have to say anything.
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