‘Good weather for bees,’ says Treppie. ‘You must watch out, those are New South Africa bees in that hole.’
‘Foot-soldiers,’ says Mol. She sees the girly shoot a look at the man. Ja, a bit of their own medicine.
The man keeps a straight face. ‘Interesting,’ he says. ‘Do you know much about the, er, social habits of bees?’
Treppie laughs. ‘Well, they don’t have a president.’
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘they get quite dizzy from the smoke, the scum, then they relax completely and pull in their stings. Like aerials, bzzt, just from a little smoke.’
‘Hear, hear!’ says Treppie. He puts his arm around her. ‘My sister is the queen bee around here. She should know, she thinks FW smokes too much. Ask my nephew, and his mother, both of them are bee specialists.’
‘Befucked,’ she says, ‘but not brain-dead. We can still read and write and all.’
Lambert laughs.
‘Mol!’ says Pop. He takes back his glass. He signals her to go slowly now. She signals back he must leave her alone. She knows what she’s doing here. ‘Just the little dog, she’s suffering the most, but it’s from the Doom.’
‘Doom?’ The girly looks frightened.
Treppie rubs it in. ‘Yes, Miss. Doomsday blues. We’ve all got it, but the dog’s got it the worst. Coughs terribly all night.’
She holds Gerty up so everyone can see. ‘Yes, shame. Yes, this is my poor little dog, and I say to you, the great day of the Lord is near, and hasteth greatly. The mighty man shall cry there bitterly. Definitely not for sissies.’
‘Jeez, Ma. Are you drunk or something?’ Lambert can’t believe his ears. Pop looks the other way. Treppie wants to kill himself laughing. He’s playing along nicely now. He takes Pop’s glass and pours her another shot.
Ja, he says, he doesn’t know about the NP, but the Benades will enter the portals of heaven with the name of God written on their foreheads. Sorry, he means spray-painted, it’s more resistant to the thin air in heaven.
‘And without any frowns,’ she says, ‘just like FW’s wife, she’s the one who says you can’t fight for peace with a frown on your face.’
‘That’s it, Mol, give it to them. Give it to them!’
Right. Then she’ll let them have it.
‘Otherwise we won’t be suitable for the New South Africa, or for heaven. No culture on this property, just waste material.’
She draws deeply on her cigarette. She feels full of words. Full of mischief. ‘We just want peace, peace and quiet and a say in what happens in the country. And free smoke.’ She blows a mouthful of smoke right into the chappy’s face. He takes a step back. He looks at the girly.
Now Lambert also smells blood. Let him. These two want to go and say ugly things about him.
‘You two,’ Lambert says, ‘are you two also easy targets? For the bees, um, and the birds?’ He winks.
‘Lambert!’ says Pop.
‘Never mind, Pop,’ she says. ‘He means are they going to target the Union Buildings in a hurry, or the university. Those kind of people know lots about the birds and the bees, but after two hundred stings their brains sink like balls of lead. Then they think they can talk any old shit and people will buy anything they say.’
‘Come now, you lot!’ Pop nudges them. He says they must all go inside and pour another drink, so they can hear what the NPs have to say. The NPs also have a job to do, and it’s getting late now.
‘Why’s that Van Zyl lying there so quietly?’ She wants to know. She doesn’t want Van Zyl to get hurt here in their yard. He looks like a decent man to her.
‘Don’t worry, Mol, he’s talking to the bees. You have to negotiate with bees before they let you touch them.’ It’s Treppie. He slaps the NP chappy so hard on his blazer that he hiccups as they walk in through the front door.
‘Look,’ says Blazer once they’re back inside and the drinks have been poured and they’re all sitting down, ‘for us this election is about spiritual matters, about the higher things.’
‘Higher honey,’ says Treppie.
‘Higher than what?’ she asks. Tonight she’s not taking off her housecoat. Not for them. Not a damn. She puts Gerty on her lap. And she won’t close her legs for them, either. Their backsides.
‘Higher than the basics,’ says Treppie.
‘Exactly,’ says the chappy. ‘The higher things. Preserving the higher things, and having a say over them. Our language and our culture, for our children and for their children. It’s one of the most important minority rights.’
‘Why minor?’ she asks.
‘Minor as opposed to major, like in majority,’ says the girly.
‘Who’s the majority then?’ she asks.
‘Well, madam, er, our, er, other countrymen, who’re in the majority.’
‘Other? What do you mean other?’
Lambert steps in.
‘Ma, they’re talking about the bantus. The natives, the plurals, the kaffirs. The darkies. The munts.’
‘Like Nelson Mandela, Mol,’ says Treppie.
‘Ohh!’ Now she catches on. ‘That old tatta who wears such nice shirts and a cap? He looks quite jolly to me. And Tutu! Jaaa! Now that one’s really jolly.’
She throws her arms up into the air, the way Tutu did it once, from a pulpit on a soccer field. ‘We shall be free, all of us, together!’ she shouts.
‘Yes, madam, that might be what they say, but the blacks are fighting for basics. For food and houses and work and schools.’
‘Mol,’ says Treppie, ‘let’s rather put it this way.’ He puts on his preacher’s voice. ‘Us whites, we must vote for roses. We already have a house, and wheels, and bread.’
‘And polony.’
‘That’s right, madam,’ says the girly, ‘and polony, but we must insist on the right to have roses too.’
‘Constitutionally guaranteed under a new government,’ says Blazer.
‘Our right to the finer things in life,’ says Annemarie.
‘In other words, the right to our culture,’ says Jannie. He brings his fingertips together and rubs them softly against each other, as if he’s touching something soft.
‘Culture for the backvelders – Klipdrift and Coke and crock cars.’
‘Ja, that’s it, Mol,’ says Treppie. He laughs and winks at her. Now she’s really on a roll. ‘But you two are supposed to be educated, so tell us a little what culture really means.’
‘Well,’ Little Blazer says, looking at Girly, ‘how did Prof. van Rensburg put it, culture is the, er, complex product of a creative, er, socially determined grasp of nature, er, such as historically determined by a language and a religious community.’
‘Jeeesus!’ says Treppie. ‘Just watch how I determine this Coke by grasping the Klipdrift, old buddy!’ He pours from both bottles into Blazer’s glass at the same time.
‘What?’ says Mol, sitting upright.
Close your legs, Lambert signals to her.
‘Let me put it this way, ma’am,’ says Girly, looking at Jannie with big eyes. ‘All he means is this: culture is looking after your own garden, yourself.’
‘Your rose garden,’ says Treppie quickly, ‘your right to culture is the right to make your own rose garden. Yes, that’s it, to make your own corsage just the way you want to.’
‘You and your own cultural group.’ Blazer’s pointing his finger at Treppie. He’d better take that finger away, quickly. But it’s too late.
‘Puke!’ says Treppie.
‘Excuse me?’ says Girly.
‘I said puke-group, you and your own puke-group.’ Treppie’s eyes are glittering. He’s talking softly.
‘Treppie, I’m going to smack you,’ says Lambert.
‘Just you shuddup for now, old nephew!’ says Treppie, shaking a long finger in front of Lambert’s nose like he’s a naughty dog or something. Treppie turns back towards the two NPs.
‘It was about a month before we became a republic. Two little NP men came to visit here on
e day. Remember, Mol, you were visiting the school principal about Lambert’s bad schoolwork. We received a letter about the matter.’
Treppie pretends he’s taking a letter out of an envelope. He unfolds it.
She remembers. It was in terribly learned Afrikaans, and when they read it, Treppie had to explain almost every word. About how she must please come for an ‘audience’ with the principal, ’cause Lambert didn’t want to do his work. And how he smelt bad, and how he was ‘indecent’ with little schoolgirls. And how important every single child was, and how the principal felt he could make a diamond from even this piece of coal. Then Treppie said Triomf should have been named after that principal, ’cause anyone who thought a school was like a mine must also think bulldozing kaffir rubbish was some kind of great victory.
Treppie pretends he’s at the end of the letter. He signs the school principal’s name with large, frilly letters in the air. ‘Doctor Hans van den Berg,’ he says slowly, as he signs. ‘Bee-Ay-Em-Ed-Pee-Aitch-Dee,’ he reads.
Treppie indicates that he wants the NPs to clap hands for the principal’s letter. They must cheer, he signals. He waits. No one claps. The NP chappy just smiles, shaking his head.
Only Lambert gets up. He looks like he wants to start smashing people around. Treppie must block him, otherwise there’s going to be trouble here again.
‘But he turned out fine, old Lambert. Just look at him. All ship-shape.’ Treppie sniffs in Lambert’s direction. ‘Always clean-shaven. Hair always neatly combed. Poor but clean, as befits an Afrikaner. And he never swears. Terribly civil to his uncle and his father, and especially to his mother. When the need becomes too much to bear – Lambert here’s a bachelor, remember – then he does push-ups on the lawn. Push-ups! Forty at a time. Does he ever touch himself? Never. That Dr Hans fixed him up very nicely.’
Treppie slowly pushes Lambert back on to his crate. ‘Come, Lambert, sit down so I can finish my story. I take it you still want to hear the story?’ He looks at the visitors. Cutesy-Collarbones nods her head half-heartedly. She looks like she’s scared of Treppie. Blazer’s perched on the edge of Pop’s chair. Pop’s sitting on a crate with his head in his hands. Mol rubs Gerty between the ears. Let Treppie stir the pot here. He’s the best one to do it.
‘So, then those two snotnoses came here that afternoon. They were about as old as you two. Nice and wet behind the ears. Nats! Two little chappies in suits and waistcoats. The one had a little Hitler-moustache. They came round the back, where we were fixing fridges. And guess what they saw first? They saw the roses that Mol was going to sell that night. And guess what they said? They said how nice it was that the finer things in life were also getting some attention, here among the Afrikaans working classes.’
Treppie looks hard at the NPs.
‘Ja, they said, didn’t we want to make a contribution to Republic Day. Something like corsages, they thought. For wearing at the Republic Day festival at the Voortrekker Monument. That, they said, would be a cultural act of great distinction. I had to stop myself from kicking those two bullshitters right off the property. Those two schemers knew nothing about fucken anything.’
‘That’s it, Treppie, let them have it!’
‘They knew fuck-all about fuck-all, but they wanted to come and tell us about the finer things. Us with our hands full of rose thorns and fridge oil. With our grandfather who lost his land in the depression and our mother who coughed herself to death from TB. And our father who hanged himself by the neck in a Railways truck. They knew nothing at all about the meaning of misery.’
‘Hey, Treppie.’ Pop lifts his head. ‘Leave it now. Just leave it right there, man.’
‘Leave it? Just fucken leave it? Not a damn, Pop! When I do something, I do it properly.’
‘Chief whip!’
‘That’s it, Mol, tell them. If they can’t see it for themselves, tell them Treppie’s the chief whip here at the Benades’!’
The girly looks at the chappy. Then Treppie goes ‘ka-thack’ in the air as if he’s cracking a whip. The girly’s head jerks, she gets such a fright.
‘So, we learnt to know your sort very well.’ He points at the NPs. ‘We were still young then, but we remember.’
‘There’s always a light at the end of the wagon-trek!’
‘That’s it, Mol,’ says Treppie. ‘That’s it,’ he says, winking at her.
‘It was the same bladdy story in ’38, and again in ’48.’ He puts on his speech voice. ‘There’s always a light at the end of the wagon-trek. They never said there’s a gun or bread or a factory or a trading licence there at the front of the wagon. No, always a fucken light, a column of fire, a Spirit, a Higher Idea, an Ideal of fucken Unity or something. And that’s ’cause we’re all supposed to be from the same culture. What kind of a fucken thing is that, I ask you, with tears in my light blue, poor-white eyes?’
‘Wait, wait a minute now, Mister Benade!’ The girly looks like she wants to stop Treppie with her hands. But there’s no stopping Treppie.
‘Don’t come and Mister Benade me! If you think you can come here and sell us a wagonload of shit …’
‘Well, then, in that case we’ll be on our way …’ and the girly half gets up.
‘Oh no,’ says Treppie. He gets up quickly, closing the front door. ‘You’re here now. And you’ll stay to the very end. Here with us, with our roof above our heads and the bees under our backsides!’ He turns the key in the door’s lock. Then he puts the key in his pocket.
Dear God, now he’s going too far. Now there’s going to be trouble again. Let her rather go outside. Around the back.
Treppie’s eyes are shining. ‘No, Mol, wait now. Don’t be such poor company. Who wants another shot?’ He pours for everyone. For her too. Ja well, matters will just have to take their own course. The NPs shake their heads and cover their glasses with their hands. No thank you, they say. They’re actually not allowed to drink on the job. Treppie fills Lambert’s glass to the brim.
‘Come, Lambert. Why don’t you and your mother tell the story of how we became a republic. About how many hundreds of rand we made, in straight profit, just from an idea.’ Treppie dances a few steps. ‘Just look how jolly we are tonight! If Pop still had some breath left, we could have some music too. What you say, Pop? Where’s your mouth organ?’ Treppie slaps Pop hard on his back.
‘Leave Pop alone. Just leave him alone.’
‘It’s you who should have left him alone, Mol. Look what we’ve got now from not leaving him alone. One fucked-up Fuchs and one total write-off of a Tedelex. And a pot of burnt-out Benades!’
‘It’s from not having enough volts!’ says Mol. Yes, that’s what they want to hear, so let them.
The NPs laugh nervously. Lambert also laughs a half-laugh. Pop lifts his head and smiles a little smile. Did Mol really say something funny?
‘Hey!’ says Treppie to the NPs, pretending to be serious. ‘There’s nothing funny about it. You can’t help it if your lantern’s a bit weak. Then all you’re good for is to be a mascot. Come, Mol, tell them a bit about me and Lambert. How we walked around at the monument with white eyes, foaming at the mouth, like this!’
Treppie shows them exactly how, in the middle of the room.
‘Come, Lambert, come stand here next to me, then we’ll show our guests how we did it. They’ve fuckenwell seen nothing yet. Come, come, man,’ he says to Lambert, pulling him up. ‘Don’t be so upstairs. Show them!’
Lambert gets up slowly and stands next to Treppie. Treppie pulls at Lambert’s face until he looks mad enough.
‘The HF Verwoerd Institute for the Mentally Retarded.’ Mol says. She gets up. Right. Now she’s going to play along too.
Treppie writes the words on his chest, fast and wild, with his index finger.
She picks up the half-tray, pulling the plastic rose from the cat’s neck. Treppie and Lambert start shouting: ‘Corsages, corsages for the baby republic!’ They walk over to Pop’s side, pulling her after them.
&nbs
p; ‘Mister,’ says Treppie, with a thick tongue. He lets the spit run from the corners of his mouth. ‘Mister, check here quickly.’
‘National colours!’ Lambert shouts in Pop’s ear.
‘Mother, sister and brothers!’ Treppie shouts in Pop’s other ear, rolling his eyes to heaven.
Pop sits dead still with his head in his hands. He doesn’t look up. She wants to keep them away from Pop. Can’t they see he doesn’t want to play? ‘Hey, come here, you two. That customer’s deaf,’ she says, ‘come let’s try these two.’
‘Just check these larnies, I say.’ It’s Lambert. He lets his mouth slop open. Slaver runs down his chin. ‘They must have a lot of fucken money.’
‘No,’ says Treppie through the spit, ‘money doesn’t count here. Not if you’re a Nationalist to the quick, with your heart in the right place and your hand ready for the golden handshake, give or take.’
‘Now listen here,’ says Blazer, ‘we won’t allow ourselves to be pushed around.’
‘So fussy!’ she says, pulling her nose up.
Treppie pats her on the back. ‘Yes, spoilsports,’ he says with his mad face.
‘Come, Jannie. Come, let’s go now.’ The girly sounds like she’s choking.
‘First buy a rose, missie, it’s only plastic but it’ll last forever ’cause it stands for an Idea!’
‘Hey, Treppie.’ Lambert comes waggling up to him. ‘Where will she pin it up? She’s half-naked anyway.’ Then Lambert pretends he’s trying to find somewhere on her shoulder to pin the flower.
‘Don’t you dare lay a hand on her,’ says Jannie. They’re both standing now. Jannie puts his arm around Cutesy-Collarbones.
‘But she must first buy our rose,’ Mol says, shoving the plastic rose into Blazer’s face. ‘It’s a yellow rose, but it’s better than nothing. The new flag’s got at least one yellow stripe in it.’
‘No, dammit,’ says Jannie. ‘I’ve had enough now.’ He opens his leather wallet. He presses a fifty-rand note into her palm.
‘Gee, sorry, sir, but now I don’t have any change on me,’ she says, pretending to feel for change in her housecoat pocket.
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