Every time Treppie pokes his head out of his room and sees more bodies under blankets, he says he’ll bet his bottom dollar those are Operation Snowball’s blankets. Charity’s not what it used to be, he says.
Nothing to be done about it. She’ll just have to wait for the Queen of England. At least it’s something to look forward to.
The house is peaceful tonight. Pop’s sleeping next to her, in his chair, and Toby’s lying with his head on Pop’s shoe. Treppie’s reading newspapers in his room. Lambert’s in his den. He says he’s painting. When he’s not painting, he’s digging his hole: his storage cellar, he calls it. He says it’s still not deep enough. Every day he picks something from his list to work on. Then, when he’s finished, he comes and stands here in the middle of the lounge with his hands on his hips, and he says: three down, twenty-six to go, or, five down, thirty-two to go.
Treppie says they must get ready, ’cause they’re well into the countdown now. Not to be launched, he says, but to implode.
As far as she can see, Lambert adds things to the bottom of his list faster than he ticks them off at the top. So, this is no count-down, it’s a count-up. And she wouldn’t be able to say what that means as far as blowing up or conking in or imploding’s concerned. They’ll just have to wait and see.
To top it all, Treppie’s gone and talked a new fencing story into Lambert’s head. Mister Cochrane’s Security Fencing, with spikes. ‘Neat and nasty security spikes from Stiletto’s.’ She has to listen to it almost every day now.
She’s seen a lot of houses with those spikes, but they always put them on top of high walls. Their house hasn’t got a high wall. But Treppie says it’s not a problem. All they need to do is hammer a few spikes into the roof – around the overflow pipe, where the corrugated iron is coming loose. And then they can put Mister Cochrane’s electrified razor-wire on top of their own wire fence in front, and on top of the prefab wall, too. That will make them the neatest and nastiest of them all, Treppie says. Then they’ll be ready.
Ready for what? she asks. And he says, ready for any eventuality.
Treppie says Mister Cochrane is a man after his own heart. He’s an oke who takes a gap when he sees it. And he doesn’t just take the gap, he looks for it too, all over the world. If he doesn’t find it, Treppie says, then he wouldn’t be surprised if Mister Cochrane goes and makes his gap with the help of the state.
When she asks him what gap, Treppie says: Oh, it’s like something that still hasn’t been given its right name. Mister Cochrane trekked right through Africa following the gap, until he arrived here at the southern tip. Things only began to go well for him in Nyassaland, which is now Kenya. It was there that Mister Cochrane saw the Mau-Mau, and that was one of the gap’s first names. So he made his fencing to close up the gap.
Mau-Mau.
Treppie says there’s just one thing about this kind of gap: once you’ve closed it up with security fencing, it starts getting bigger and bigger again and you can never keep up. You think you’re closing it but actually you’re opening it. He says that’s what you call a paradox, but security is full of paradoxes like that.
All she needs to do is use her own two eyes, he says, and then she’ll see all of Jo’burg sparkling with Mister Cochrane’s security fencing. Around the golf courses, the Vroue-Landbou-Unie’s home for unmarried mothers in Brixton, around schools and factories and the JG Strydom Hospital, Shoprite’s loading zone at the back, Triomf’s NG church, the coolie-church in Bosmont, everywhere. It’s been put up once around the botanical gardens and three times around John Vorster Square. Even the Chinese in Commissioner Street have fenced in their yards, except now they can’t chase the rats out any more. So they add them to the sweet and sour, for bulk.
Bulk.
You can even see the fencing on the walls of the Rand Afrikaans University, as if that wall isn’t bad enough as it is. Seven million rands’ worth of wall, says Treppie. You’d swear RAU was a raptor or something, trying to break loose.
Raptor.
He says it won’t be long before they surround the whole of Jo’burg with that fence. But Mister Cochrane still won’t be finished, ’cause then he can make fences inbetween and more fences around and inbetween and around and inbetween until he’s gone right around the world.
Security fencing has become South Africa’s biggest single export product, Treppie says. Everyone wants it, all the way from the Sudan to the Kruger National Park and to Chile. Treppie says Mister Cochrane has been invited by the United Nations to go to Bosnia and Hertzego-whatsitsname to come make his fences, so the Moslems and Christians will stop wiping each other out over there. And during the Gulf War, just a few years ago, there was lots of interest in Iran and Iraq for Mister Cochrane’s fencing. Which doesn’t surprise him at all, says Treppie, ’cause South Africa sold cannons to Iraq for that war, and war of any kind always opens up gaps that have to be fenced in again. When those two countries were at war, the government exported security fencing to both of them. The more fighting, the more fencing. The more fencing, the more fighting. That was like killing two birds with one stone. Boom! Snap! says Treppie. Boom! Snap! Boom! Snap! Very profitable.
Nowadays, he says, it’s not guns and roses any more. Now it’s guns, gaps and fences. And the one hand doesn’t wash the other, they’re both equally dirty now. Both know what the other’s doing. And they’re both in it right up to the elbows.
It sounds mixed up to her, but Lambert keeps nodding his head as if he understands exactly what Treppie’s saying. And now, on top of everything, Lambert says he wants to buy second-hand fencing from Mister Cochrane, so he can close up the gaps around their house. But the only second-hand security fencing you ever see is the kind that lies around in rusted heaps and spiked balls that can’t ever be undone again. Those terrible blades hook into each other, and then they catch bits of grass and plastic and stray cats and things. She’s seen those balls of wire, next to the roads and in the scrapyards.
Treppie says Lambert doesn’t understand the first thing about security fencing. He just pretends he does. Second-hand security fencing, he says, is a contradiction in terms. Mister Cochrane sells only new fencing.
That might be, but new or old, she doesn’t want to be the cat, not to mention the kaffir, who lands up inside that wire.
Treppie says ‘put up’ is the wrong way to describe what you do with a fence like that. What you actually do is roll it off and turn it out, ’cause it comes rolled up tightly on a big spool. Then you turn the spool with a handle so the wire can roll off, in stiff, stabbing circles. Treppie says it’s South Africa’s Olympic emblem. Never mind our flames.
If you try to cut that wire with pliers, then the two loose pieces shoot out around your hands and bite deep holes into your flesh. And the more you try to pull yourself out, the deeper it digs in.
They once saw a cat inside one of those balls of wire. It was second-hand fencing, which made it worse. The cat looked like someone had tried to make muti out of it. It was hacked into little squares, making it look twice its size, shame. Nowadays, apart from the blades that hook, the fence comes in a double layer, too, one outside and one inside. The inside layer shocks you. That’s after you’ve already been cut into chunks and you’re still trying to get in to wherever it is you want to get into. Then it shocks you as well.
Treppie cut out Mister Cochrane’s advert and pasted it up underneath the old calendar with the aerial photo of Jo’burg. He says it’s so we make no mistake about where it is we come from. He underlined the important words with a red ball-point:
Detect the Intruder
Stop the Intruder
Shock the Intruder
Low-Cost Aggressive Asset Protection
It’s still two and a bit hours to wait for the Queen of England. First it’s Agenda. Tonight’s Agenda is about peace: they show the part where Chris Hani asks for peace and then it’s the dove who fell down next to Hani’s coffin. Must have been dizzy from all the people and the
flowers and the shots into the sky and everything. Poor little dove.
But she saw this before, at Easter. They said they took the dove out before closing up that grave, although she saw people throwing handfuls of dirt and petals on to the dove. It kept blinking its little eyes all the time.
Now they’re showing the faces of people they’re scared will also get shot, just like Hani.
The first one is Terre’Blanche of the AWB. Treppie says that man will shoot himself in the foot before anyone gets a chance to shoot him anywhere else. And then, when someone does eventually kill him, he’ll get a hero’s funeral. That, says Treppie, is what happens when you shoot a cripple Boer.
Now they’re showing how Terre’Blanche keeps falling off his horse. Three different horses, in three different places. Always under some flag or another. Treppie says they would do better to pull him around in a rickshaw.
The AWB boss is talking. He asks whether people want the plots being hatched in the cold cancer chambers of Communism to come to fruition in our beautiful country. No, they mustn’t, she thinks, but then Terre’Blanche must also learn to ride a horse properly.
Now they’re showing Winnie. They’re scared people will shoot her from several different angles. Now that’s a dizzy palooka for you, Treppie says. He says it’s from that headgear she wears. Anyone who wears a ball of green satin bigger than her own head, with points on top, is bound to start talking a lot of crap. ‘We shall liberate this country with our matchboxes,’ she says. Not enough blood to the brain, says Treppie.
Then they show Peter Mokaba. He’s got no hat on his head. Yes and no, he says. No, they mustn’t shoot the Boere, he says, but yes, they must. Treppie says Mokaba’s going to become the Minister of Tourism in the new government, but he’ll cool down quickly once he has to look after a herd of zebras.
Then they show Hernus Kriel’s face. He looks like someone’s just told him he’s an arsehole. And Kobie Coetzee, with his pop-out eyes. Treppie says you see eyes like that on people who’re about to get golden handshakes. Like the one Kobie’s lined up for himself. And then it’s Buthelezi. He’s in skins and he’s got his sticks with him. And the mayor of Jo’burg, with a grey dove on his head. Everyone wants to shoot him over the rates.
But if you ask her, not a single one of them jogs. Hani used to jog every day in his tracksuit. Jogging’s good for you. The president of America jogs around the White House every morning with his bodyguards. But Buthelezi doesn’t jog. And he’s not wearing anything underneath those animal skins, either. That’s what Treppie says. He says the skins are just for show, and someone who’s on show must sit still with his legs together and his hands folded neatly in his lap. Roelf Meyer jogs. She saw one day on the cover of Your Family and You in the café. He runs in his jogging shorts with his dog, one of those bull terriers with piggy eyes and a tail like an aerial. But no one’s worried about Roelf getting shot. He’s for peace. Treppie says he’s a poofter and a kaffirlover, but he looks quite okay to her. It’s just that he’s getting thinner by the day. His collars hang loose and his Adam’s apple jumps up and down like an oil-pump every time he talks. It’s from negotiating, Treppie says, from throwing all his weight into the negotiations. Then it’s Pik Botha. Pik’s talking so much the spit flies in all directions. He says they can try shooting him if they want, he’ll just shoot back. Pik’s a jolly bloke, even when everything’s falling to pieces all around him. That’s what she says. She hasn’t once seen Pik really get rattled. He always has something to say for himself, or he’s got a plan for other people. Pik reminds her a lot of Treppie. If he wants something, he just takes it. And when he’s finished, he gives it back again. He starts a fight, and then when he’s finished he makes peace again, right there and then. Without batting an eyelid, says Treppie.
Pik’s nose is also red, just like Treppie’s. Hee-hee, she must remember to mention that to him.
There’s Constand now. He’s the leader of the Freedom Front. His neck’s stiff and when he pulls away his bottom lip, his teeth show. He gives talks to women with perms. He stands on a stage with a flag behind him and a flag in front of him. The women look grim.
Treppie says the general’s a brilliant strategist. He means business. He says he read somewhere that the general’s got a twin brother who looks just like him, but his brother’s as meek as a lamb. Hell, if you ask her, to be attached to a brother like Constand must be the same as getting stuck inside Mister Cochrane’s security fencing. It’s just as well they’re not Siamese twins. Treppie’s nickname for the general is Salamiboy. He says he’s got a picture of the general somewhere when he was still chief of the defence force. In the picture, he and his top brass hold up the biggest salami ever made in Africa. Salami and smiles for the boys on the border. Treppie says those boys on the border didn’t get to see much meat at all, never mind salami.
Treppie’s got a whole pile of newspaper clippings where important people hold funny things in their hands – pumpkins, sheep, sucking-pigs, sculptures of presidents’ heads, mielies, the works. He says it’s incredible what people in this country are prepared to pose with. The Benades have never posed for any newspaper and maybe they’re a bunch of poor white has-beens, but as sure as God’s in heaven, he doesn’t see the slightest difference between them and the top brass.
Now they’re showing FW. He’s standing on a red carpet at an airport with his hand on his heart. It’s in Chile. The Chileans march past with guns and helmets. Next to FW stands his wife, Marike. She’s wearing a little hat with netting on, and she holds her handbag in both hands in front of her. They saw this piece on the news when it happened. She remembers feeling so sorry for that poor Marike. She looked so miserable standing there, with her eyebrows all screwed up and a deep furrow in the middle of her forehead. She looked like she wanted to cry, standing there on a mat at that windy airport in Chile, with the aeroplanes far away in the distance and her floppy blue dress flapping round her legs. If she went on like this, Mol said at the time, then that face-lift of hers would come right down again, within a year. That’s ’cause a frown is something you have to unlearn. It doesn’t help to cut it out, it’ll just frown itself back on again. But how do you unlearn something like that, in times like these?
Then, to top it all, Treppie began mocking Marike. He went and stood in front of the TV with two little knocked-together ladies’ knees, and he held his hands in front of his crotch, putting on a smile just like the one Gerty used to wear when she did a number two. To tell the truth, that was the closest thing she’s ever seen to the expression on Marike’s face that day in Chile.
Then Treppie sang in a high little voice:
‘I wonder what’s bothering mee-ee
There’s trouble in my heart
A tim’rous little butterflee-ee
Forever from the garden barred.’
Pop says Treppie missed his calling in life. He should’ve been an actor. He says it bothers him terribly that such a talent should be wasted, without anyone even lifting a finger to do anything about it. He’ll go so far, he says, as to say Treppie deserves a subsidy.
SECOND OF SEPTEMBER
She must say, the Benades have their moments. Like the other day, just a few months ago. It was still spring, and then they walked smack-bang into peace.
Treppie saw an advert in the smalls for an office furniture sale in Braamfontein, so they decided to go. Treppie said you sometimes found a handy piece of plank or something at the most unlikely places, for next to nothing. The trip was actually for Lambert. He was struggling to get his work bench nice and smooth for his girl, and he was starting to look dangerous again. He said he wanted to mix the cocktails on his work bench. And he needed it to put out the peanuts and the dips and the chips. The bench had to be nice and neat and smooth. That rough old railway sleeper standing on prefab slabs wasn’t good enough, he said.
Well, in the end they didn’t get anywhere near that furniture sale, ’cause when they turned into Jorissen Street it was sud
denly just kaffirs wherever you looked. White people too, but mostly kaffirs. They filled the whole street, holding hands and singing and dancing, and they pushed Molletjie all over the place, until she jammed against the kerb. And there they sat. All the other cars also sat like that, stuck in the crowds of people with their lights on.
‘Here comes big shit!’ said Treppie. They couldn’t see what was going on. At first they thought Mandela was there, or Mandela was dead, or maybe FW. Another huge bladdy funeral party.
The kaffirs kept pointing to Molletjie’s front and back number-plates. They slammed their hands on the roof, looking at their watches and telling the Benades that they must get out of the car now.
‘MDM!’ they shouted.
‘MDM!’ they carried on shouting, pointing and shouting with open mouths.
‘Right, people,’ Treppie said, ‘what’s happening here is what I predicted a long time ago with these number-plates of ours. It was a big mistake. Now all of you better just act like you’re the Mass Democratic Movement!’
She remembers, they waited a terribly long time to get those numberplates after Pop lost the papers. And when they went to fetch them, Treppie said it was a chance in a million. Of all the cars in Jo’burg, theirs had to be the one with MDM on its number-plate. Treppie said he foresaw a problem of mistaken identity, ’cause MDM stood for Maximum Democratic Merrymakers. That was a nice little mistake, she said. She wouldn’t complain about an identity like that. Treppie thought it was very funny, but he told her she shouldn’t push her luck too far. Well, she didn’t have to push anything, ’cause in the end that day turned out very nicely, even if it did feel like touch and go at the time.
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