Triomf

by Marlene van Niekerk

  Knows what? she asked. Then he said he’d learnt it was all in the mind, the ins and outs of things. It just depended on what names you gave them.

  No, said Lambert, he was talking science now, about the proper names for clouds. They came in classes, like people. High clouds and low clouds and middle clouds. The high ones made haloes around the sun and the low ones were thunderclouds, with heads like anvils.

  Yes, said Treppie, and what was the academic term for that low kind of thundercloud?

  Then Lambert said, um-um-er.

  Treppie said it was okay if Lambert couldn’t remember the right name, he should just think up a name that wasn’t too academic. That would be better than nothing and he, Treppie, would certainly not hold it against Lambert.

  So Lambert said in that case, the low clouds with heads like anvils were Columbus Pilatus. The right name sounded something like that, but next time he’d copy it down from the Britannica, if Treppie really wanted to know.

  Treppie said, no, thanks, Lambert could save himself the trouble, that was enough for him. ’Cause if the low classes could discover new worlds and then wash their hands in innocence, he was quite satisfied. And he reckoned it was more than the high classes could say for themselves, sitting in universities and churches with haloes round their heads like the sun shone out of their backsides, just ’cause they’d given ordinary stuff grand names, like ‘anus’ for ‘arsehole’ and ‘culture’ for ‘fuck-all’ and ‘a man of sorrows’ for … for …

  Treppie couldn’t get any further, so she thought she’d help him along a bit. His face was looking funnier and funnier. Then, without knowing how she got on to it, she mentioned Frieda Personal Tragedy who had to sell her outsize wedding dress in the classifieds.

  ‘That’s a woman, Ma, not a man,’ said Lambert.

  But Treppie said Lambert should listen to his mother, ’cause for a change she was right. ’Strue’s God, that’s what he said. She, Mol, was right. Women could also have sorrows. Naturally.

  She said, yes, Lambert should catch up. Sorrows were sorrows, whether it was man, woman or child, and in her opinion, everyone – the mortuary assistant in Yugoslavia, not to mention that poor stuffed corpse, and those women who struggled so with the tyres, the one who got burnt and the one who made the fire – all of them were made out of sorrows. The one no less than the other.

  Now there’s a life-jacket for you, said Treppie.

  ‘What life-jacket you talking about now?’ she asked, and Treppie said it was one that would keep her on the go all the way to the North Pole, without food or clothes.

  She told him she didn’t want to go to the North Pole, it was too cold there. She was very happy where she was, thank you, right here in Triomf. And then of course Treppie almost killed himself laughing.

  FRUIT SALAD

  They hear the front gate creak outside. Here comes Lambert. Treppie looks at his watch.

  ‘Half past ten,’ he says. ‘Fasten your seatbelts.’

  Mol shakes Pop by the shoulder. He must wake up now, so he’s awake when Lambert comes in, otherwise he gets such a fright. Lambert usually comes home earlier on Mondays, after leaving early in the evening to look for rubbish.

  The door opens. He stands there with a big smile on his face.

  ‘Christ,’ says Treppie, ‘are you the cat who got the cream or the dog with a bone?’

  ‘Cream,’ says Lambert. ‘Cream and sex and strawberries, I say.’

  ‘Come again?’ says Treppie.

  ‘I say, take your pick, Uncle, it’s all in the mind.’

  ‘Where’re your silver bags?’ she says. ‘I thought you went to look for wine boxes.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘but you don’t always find what you look for, right?’

  ‘OK,’ says Treppie. ‘Obviously you found something else. Tell us now and get it over with so we can see the movie. It’s late.’

  ‘That movie,’ says Lambert, ‘is fuck-all. It’s fuck-all compared to what I just saw. Truly fuck-all, I say.’

  ‘On the big screen between your ears, you mean,’ says Treppie.

  ‘No, in a bedroom, through the gaps in the blinds.’

  ‘Must’ve been wallpaper,’ says Treppie.

  ‘Lambert, you mustn’t peep at people,’ says Pop.

  ‘Yes,’ says Mol, ‘just now there’s trouble again. Just now you fall on to someone’s carport or their car or something, and then they break our whole roof down in front of us.’

  ‘Were they braaiing?’ asks Treppie, winking at Lambert.

  ‘No, they must be vegetarians. They were eating fancy cheese from a little box and biscuits. On a breadboard. And lots of nice fruit salad in black bowl, with a leaf in the middle.’ Lambert laughs a naughty laugh.

  ‘Who you talking about?’ asks Pop.

  ‘Across the road,’ Lambert shows, pointing his thumb behind his back. He sits down, smiling his smile.

  ‘Yes?’ says Pop. She can see Pop doesn’t believe him. Neither does she. There’s nothing but flowers to peep at across the road. Every winter the little round one sows pretty flowers in front of the wooden fence. Sweetpeas, says Treppie. And then she sows dark, pink ones, for summer. Treppie says it’s cosmos. He says he’s never seen such healthy sweetpeas or such colourful cosmos anywhere in Triomf. Those two look like the type with money to spend on fertiliser. He wonders what they think they’re doing here in Triomf, and why they’ve got so much time for gardening. If you ask him, they don’t exactly look unfit for employment.

  She and Pop have told Lambert to leave them alone, there across the road. They’re not his class of people. But every time trouble breaks out he goes there and phones. Until the last time, when they told him their lives were private and they didn’t want him to use their phone any more. There was a pay-phone at the Westhoven Post Office, they said.

  Lambert says the one’s Afrikaans and the other’s English. The Afrikaans one plants the sweetpeas. The English one drives the blue Cortina with those flat shocks. The one that never wants to start. Lambert always wants to go and help them, but Pop says no. A Ford isn’t a Volkswagen, and a Volkswagen mechanic like Lambert must stick to his own line. He mustn’t mess with other cars. That’s how Pop tries to console Lambert so they can keep the peace, at least with the people across the road, ’cause with the people next door, on both sides, it’s just one big crisis after the other.

  But now the problem is the Afrikaans one drives a Volksie and Lambert’s dying to grind her points. Even she, Mol, can hear the Volksie across the road sounds rough. When Lambert goes and offers his help they always say no thanks, they’ve got their own mechanic. Can’t be a very good one, he says, but what can you do?

  He always comes back with some story or another. He says they give their garden-kaffir a knife and fork to eat his bread and wors with. Then they all sit together on chairs around a plastic table in the back garden. He says after a while that poor kaffir doesn’t know where to look any more, what to stick his fork into, or what to cut with his knife. Yes, Treppie says, it comes from not being properly connected with the world. They think they can make their own connections, but all they’ve got is a silly mixed-up business. He says he thinks they must be Communists or something. Then she gets a fright, and she tells Lambert he mustn’t get mixed up with Communists. They’ve got enough trouble as it is. She bumps Pop. He must tell him.

  ‘Lambert,’ says Pop, ‘you must leave them alone there across the road. They’re Communists.’

  ‘Well, maybe they’re Communists, but that’s not all they are.’

  ‘Hey, Lambert,’ says Treppie, ‘have you got a story or haven’t you got a story? If you have, let’s hear it, ’cause you’re extremely boring with that knowing smile on your face.’

  Ja, well, she’s tired now. She wants to go bath. She takes a clean lid from her pocket. It’s from the dog food.

  ‘No, wait, Ma, this one’s for you,’ says Lambert.

  ‘Well, then, tell and get it over with!’


  ‘Those two across the road. They fuck each other!’ Lambert says.

  ‘So what’s new?’ says Treppie.

  Pop shakes his head at her. God knows what Lambert will come up with next.

  ‘How?’ asks Treppie.

  ‘With candles and things!’

  ‘And what if they see you,’ says Pop.

  ‘I was hiding behind the bushes. Those two have planted bushes all over the place, Pop.’

  ‘Ja,’ says Pop, ‘bushes and sweetpeas!’

  ‘They play classics and then they fuck each other. Check this tune, Pop!’ Lambert puts on his classical music face and then he whistles the Trust Bank tune. ‘And it’s just candles, candles, all over the place!’

  ‘Can you believe it,’ says Pop.

  Treppie smiles. ‘And then?’

  ‘Squirrel.’ It’s her, Mol, who says that.

  ‘Mol,’ says Treppie, ‘that’s just the point. They don’t have one of those, neither of them. That’s why I want to know. How?’

  ‘How what?’ She presses her thumbs into the tin plate. It’s not completely flat. When they get like that, they don’t keep the water in.

  ‘How do they do it, Ma. That’s what Treppie wants to know. Well, let me tell you something here tonight. They do it with fruit salad!’ He sits down. ‘Ice cream and fruit salad!’ he shouts, slapping his hands on his legs as he laughs.

  Now she also wants to know how.

  ‘They stick it in, Ma. Don’t act like you don’t understand.’

  ‘Stick what in, where?’ She looks at Pop to see if he knows, but he just sits there with a silly smile on his face.

  ‘Christ, Mol, you weren’t born yesterday,’ says Treppie. ‘They stick it in the sweet spot, of course!’

  ‘Front or back?’

  Lambert laughs. ‘Well, Ma, let me tell you, those two stuff it with fruit salad wherever they can find a hole. Nose, mouth, ears, backside and frontside. And wherever they can find a split, they stick it in. In the bum, between the fingers, the toes. Behind the ears, you name it. After a while there’s so much juice on them they both look like tropical forests. Then they put the music louder.’

  Lambert whistles the Trust Bank tune again, harder and quicker. Pop shakes his head.

  Treppie pants with mock excitement. ‘The Amazons in Triumph, Part Two: The Revenge of the Fruit Salad!’ He rubs his palms together so hard they make sucking noises. No decency. Never in his life has he had any manners. ‘And then … and then … oh, what happens then?’ he asks.

  ‘Well, then they work each other up with their hands and they say Ooh! and Ahh! and they take all the fruit salad out again – banana, paw-paw, strawberries, the lot. They kiss each other with ice cream in their mouths. And then they lie down next to each other, with their eyes closed, and they sigh.’

  ‘Shit, Lambert,’ says Treppie, ‘now you’re lying. How could you have seen all that? Didn’t they maybe invite you inside, the Benade with the golden banana!’

  ‘What do they say to each other?’ she wants to know. If you ask her, fruit salad should come with stories.

  No, he couldn’t hear so nicely. The music was playing too loud. And when the music stopped, they were already finished. Then they put new sheets on the bed ’cause the old ones were full of fruit salad, and he heard the one say to the other she thinks she’ll be able to fall asleep now.

  ‘“Are you sure?” the other one asked. And then the little round one moaned about the city grinding her points or something.’

  ‘Fuck, no, Lambert!’ says Treppie. ‘You must’ve been lying under the bed to hear all that. Which one did you want to do first, the little melon or the English rose? I must say, I admire your restraint, old boy.’

  ‘Treppie, I’ll smack you! I swear, man, the window was open. I was standing right in front of the window, in the bushes. I heard everything. You could almost say I heard it in stereo.’

  ‘What else did they say?’ She wants to know.

  ‘Well, then the one said something about being grateful, at least they still had a secret garden. And the other one said, yes, thanks a lot, the whole world’s a secret. Then the other one said or a bubble or something. We’ll never know.’

  ‘So much for the voice-overs,’ says Treppie. ‘What about the lighting? I thought you said they did it with candles.’

  ‘Oooh! Ouch!’ Don’t they burn themselves? she wonders.

  ‘Now that’s what I call burning desire!’ says Treppie.

  ‘No, man, Treppie,’ says Lambert. ‘They blow the candles out. It’s one of those affairs with seven candles on a holder.’

  ‘Seven?’ It sounds rather a lot to her.

  ‘Ag, come now, Mol,’ Treppie says. ‘There’s nothing that can still surprise you.’

  ‘Lambert means candlelight, Mol,’ Pop explains. ‘They do their thing by the light of seven candles. Then they blow them out. Then they go to sleep.’

  ‘Now how’s that for you, I say,’ says Lambert, lighting up.

  ‘Soft focus,’ says Treppie. ‘What do they know, anyway?’

  Then everyone’s quiet for a long time. But she thinks what she thinks.

  ‘Well, it sounds nice and soft to me.’ The words come out before she can stop herself.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ says Treppie. ‘Now Mol wants to become a lesbian as well. What do you say to that, old Gerty?’

  ‘Leave Mol alone,’ says Pop.

  She wants to make her point here tonight. She doesn’t always get the chance.

  ‘No, I was just thinking,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t mind if it was only strawberries that got stuck into me. With ice cream in my mouth. Then you must feel like an ice-cream float, with strawberry juice.’

  ‘But strawberry juice doesn’t have any fizz, Mol,’ says Treppie. ‘For a real float you need fizz.’ He laughs.

  ‘Red Hubbly Bubbly, then.’

  But Treppie’s not listening to her. He just shakes his head. ‘A bubble,’

  he says. ‘A fucken bubble.’

  ‘Well,’ says Pop, switching off the TV, ‘it’s bedtime now. Too late now for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Tomorrow’s another day.

  ‘Mol,’ he says as he walks down the passage, with his back to them, ‘you can bath tomorrow. Otherwise the overflow drips all night. Lambert, go get some rest now,’ he says as he enters into the bedroom.

  She puts the lid from the dog food tin back into her housecoat pocket. She looks at her thumb where the lid cut her. Try as she might in this house, no one listens to her. She’s a woman alone here, that’s for sure. She’ll just have to accept it. Stuffing it with fruit salad. She smiles.

  Treppie locks the Klipdrift in the sideboard. He takes the glasses into the kitchen.

  ‘Stuffing it with salad, oh stuffing it with salad,’ she hears him sing, to the tune of ‘Sow the seed, oh sow the seed’.

  Lambert’s gone out the front door again. He’s got a big grin on his face. She watches him through the window. He stands in front, at the fence, looking across the road. She looks where he looks. It’s pitch dark over there. Just night and bushes, she sees, and lots of small, white flowers. The secret garden. Ja, well, secrets remain secrets, with or without sweetpeas.

  12

  DOG’S HEAVEN

  Mol stirs in her bed, half awake. She can hear the big lorries taking to the roads outside. It’s pitch dark and something’s not right. She tries to prick her ears, but she’s still too groggy. And she can’t move her limbs, either. This is her usual waking up time – about two hours before dawn, when the big lorries set out for the day, with their large, flat snouts, their swivelling heads, and their thick, double wheels. Some mornings she tries to count them on both sides of Ontdekkers. The first stretch to Roodepoort is downhill. Then they change gears, roaring and snorting. She lies in bed and thinks about all the drivers who have to get up so early, each one in the dark in his big lorry, alone.

  Inbetween, she hears the softer noises of the first cars. The cars get more
and more. They zoom. After a while she can’t pick out the lorries any more. It’s just one big noise. The noise fills up the whole city as far as she can hear. It fills the air above and it runs into the hollows below.

  When the noise is loudest, the sun comes up. Then it feels like her whole body starts droning softly, along with the city. That’s her sign to get up, otherwise she begins to feel sick in her stomach. She likes getting up first, so she can wake up alone and get herself ready. In this house you have to be ready for when the others wake up. Otherwise you see your arse. Especially her.

  But it’s much too early to get up now, and something’s not right. It feels like something she won’t be able to do anything about, a wrong thing that wants to do something to her.

  She listens as the hollows under the city begin to rumble. She feels it before she hears it, in the pit of her stomach. Like the earth tremors. She feels them in her stomach too, long before the windows start rattling.

  Jo’burg’s like that. It’s hollow on the inside. Not just one big hollow like a shell, but lots of dead mines with empty passageways and old tunnels. Treppie says that’s why it’s become so expensive to get buried in Jo’burg. There just isn’t enough solid ground left for graves. And even if you do get a grave, he says, you still can’t be so sure, ’cause most of the corpses fall through after a while. Coffins and all. And the headstones sink at a funny angle into the ground. Or they fall right through, on to the coffins. Getting buried in Jo’burg is a waste of time and money, Treppie says. After you’ve lived in this place there’s not much left of you in any case.

  Sometimes whole houses fall into the ground. Roads too. Those are sinkholes.

  No wonder she feels so sick in her stomach. Whenever the tremors begin she sees a coffin fall through its hole. Further and further down it falls, head first. Then the stone falls on to the coffin and everything breaks, the wood and the stone. And then she sees that poor corpse, with its rigid eyes and broken bones, falling down the tunnels.

  Or she sees a house with everything still inside and the people hanging upside down from the windows as it falls. And then the house smashes into the bottom of the earth.