Triomf

by Marlene van Niekerk

  Horries, that’s what she said, just horries.

  Circus, Treppie said, just circus. And he took Lambert further through his exam. What did it mean if there was too much ice in the ice-box and the pump had stopped and the on-off-on-off cycle got mixed up? It all meant the fridge was too warm, Lambert said. Full marks! And why did a fridge get too warm? He must please list the reasons. Then Lambert listed them on the tips of his fingers: blocked condenser pipe, broken seals, too little gas, old oil, broken thermostat. Full marks again! She and Pop clapped.

  Treppie asked him about materials, tools and troubles, a whole list of things a person must know when you service a fridge, and Lambert got through that list with flying colours. He even knew you had to insert a spring into soft copper tubing before bending it, otherwise the tubing would break or pinch closed. Treppie asked him how you work the valves on the manifold gauge to purge or to vacuum. Lambert knew it all, how you use a piercing valve to connect a service line to the system. If he was allowed to make a comment, Pop said, he just wished Lambert would learn the Afrikaans words for all these English terms, ’cause the English may have invented the fridge, but they didn’t have copyright on fridge language. Then Treppie said Pop shouldn’t get all puritan now, as long as a fridge worked he couldn’t be bothered with language. Lambert said he agreed. All that mattered was that a thing worked.

  Then Pop asked Treppie in what language he thought those sinners were telling their parables, the stories that exploded like fireworks behind their eyeballs in Treppie’s heavenly hell. Treppie laughed so much that his nose fell right off, and then he bent down with his back to Pop and pushed his hand through his legs, shaking Pop’s hand from upside down. Now that was a bladdy good point, he said. ’Cause as far as he knew, all you heard in hell was your mother tongue, and then he farted out aloud.

  Boy, they laughed themselves sick that night.

  And through it all, Lambert stuck to his guns. Most of the time he sounded like a real expert. Here and there he hit a blind spot, like what if a valve seat came loose in a pump and you didn’t have a new one with you? Or what was a scotch yoke piston arrangement? Pop told Treppie he mustn’t get too technical, those were the kind of things you learnt only in a workshop situation. She also said, yes, Treppie mustn’t get too technical, and then Treppie answered the questions himself, giving Lambert a whole lesson. Lambert took notes until he said he now understood, and then he closed his notes and repeated the answer from memory, until Treppie was satisfied.

  MULTIPLE CHOICE

  The fun really began when Treppie gave Lambert a series of multiplechoice questions, from the chapter on safety measures and accidents.

  Lambert had to choose the right answer. Like what should you do if you burn yourself with acid oil after a burn-out? Treppie gave a long list of multiple choices: smack the fridge, or your mother; swing the compressor by its oil line like a slingweight and let it fly when it’s going really fast; eat polony; put ice on your wounds. And then he got rude as well: pull your wire; or take a bath in Coke. Really! And the last one was, phone the Flying Squad.

  Lambert guessed the right answer straight away. Put ice on your wounds.

  But the next question, also a multiple choice, was a different matter altogether.

  For this one, Treppie pressed his nose more firmly on to his face, and then he went and stood in the lounge doorway like a clown who wanted to run a race. Just in case. Toby started barking ’cause he thought the game was for him, but she and Pop told Toby to shuddup. He went back to his spot under the TV and lay down with flat ears.

  The question was this: what was the single worst thing that could happen to Lambert Benade as a top fridge specialist? Treppie began talking high falutin’ language, like he was reading from a book, and he pulled his mouth this way and that.

  Lambert had to pick the correct answer out of ten really bad things. And then Treppie started getting difficult again. It was so bad she can still remember all ten of those evils, even now. From his uncle moving to better pastures, to his long-nosed pliers getting lost. Or burning his ‘fridge manual’ by accident. Together with his Watchtowers. The fourth one was getting ‘liquid cooling agent’ on to his you know what. And then there was having a fit while doing a ‘deep vacuum’, or, even worse, while ‘demonstrating a triple evacuation’. There were three more: forgetting to open the windows while the gas blew out, or forgetting to pull out the plug while welding the fridge’s body.

  What the next one had to do with the price of eggs she still doesn’t know, but for number nine Treppie began talking about the NP ‘unbundling’ and the AWB ‘mobilising’ before the election, so that violence began rising to ‘unacceptable levels’ long before anyone had the chance to vote. For crying out aloud!

  At that point, Lambert said Treppie must first stop, he wanted to write everything down. He couldn’t make up his mind in mid-air about so many mishaps. He’d already heard nine options and all of them were in terribly difficult language.

  Then Treppie repeated all nine in ordinary language, and after Lambert wrote them down, Treppie asked him if he was ready now, ’cause there was a last little thing in this multiple choice that could still complicate matters a bit. Lambert checked Treppie out and Treppie checked Lambert back. Then he straightened up out of his take-off position and said, no, he wasn’t so sure any more.

  But Pop wanted to know what he was supposed to be so unsure about.

  Ja, she said, how couldn’t he know any more? He was after all the one giving the exam.

  Sure thing, Treppie said, they were right, he was giving the exam, but they must remember he was also the court jester, and the best test for anyone in life was the test they gave themselves. That’s why he reckoned that Lambert himself should say what the last choice in his multiple choice should be. The one thing that would really complicate matters and which would be the worst thing that could hit a fridge specialist of his standing. The thing that would mean the end of this whole story. Choof! Off! One shot. And there he actually went and gave away the answer. The right answer was the last one, and now it was much easier. It was just right or wrong, no choice at all. ’Cause the end of the story was the end of the story, period.

  What end of what story? Lambert wanted to know.

  ‘Our whole story here together, between these walls full of plaster cracks, and our roof that leaks on to our heads, and our floor full of holes, and the moles who make molehills on the lawn, and …’ As Treppie listed the things, ‘and’, ‘and’, ‘and’, all the sides of their story, its beginning and its middle and its end, which was now approaching, he pointed with stretched-out arms that looked like they were being pulled by strings, up and down, up and down, as he turned around in a circle, pointing closer when he meant ‘now’, and further when he meant ‘then’, and still further in another direction when he meant ‘eventually’ and ‘at the very end’.

  At that he shuffled around in a circle on flat feet as if he was standing on a turntable.

  ‘You mean the kind of thing that means nothing will be left of us?’ Lambert asked. He had a clue what Treppie meant, but he wasn’t completely sure yet. His head couldn’t get a good grip on it, ’cause it was still so full of fridge things, lists and lists of things he’d swotted up.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Treppie, ‘the thing that means not even a single brick will be left standing in this place.’

  ‘The thing that means everything will be for nothing?’ Lambert was beginning to feel uncomfortable. She could see he knew more and more clearly what that thing was, but Treppie was putting him off with his straight, white face.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Treppie, ‘the thing that means no one will be left to remember what happened, and no one will remain to hear the story, ’cause a story without anyone to hear it is no story at all.’

  She quickly said that she knew the answer, just so something could be said, ’cause Treppie was standing there and tapping his foot on the floor as he waited for Lambert’s answer.


  Pop said he knew the answer too, just so Treppie would stop his tapping.

  They must shuddup, Treppie said. This wasn’t their exam.

  Well, said Pop, in actual fact they were all together in this story after all, so why couldn’t they also be together in the exam? And if the biggest test in anyone’s life was the one they gave themselves, then they were all together in this thing with old Lambert, in sickness and in death, and surely they were allowed to help him a little in life.

  Then she had an idea. Let them write down their answers, she said. People thought better when they wrote.

  ‘Write what?’ Lambert asked.

  ‘Written examination,’ she said.

  ‘The answer,’ said Pop.

  ‘Repeat the question,’ Lambert said, trying to win time. She could see things were going a bit too fast for him.

  ‘Lambert, it’s easy. The worst thing you can think of that could happen to you,’ Pop said. ‘You know very well what it is.’ Pop wanted to help Lambert, but Treppie gave him a real dirty look.

  ‘We know what it is,’ she said, just to keep Lambert at ease, ’cause now he’d gotten up and he was starting to get restless.

  ‘Yes, we know,’ said Pop. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  And what if the answer was wrong, Lambert wanted to know, but Pop said this wasn’t a question of right or wrong, what counted here was consensus. Pop looked long and hard at Treppie to make him understand he had to go easy now. But Treppie acted like he hadn’t seen.

  ‘Consensus can be wrong,’ he said, taking off his nose and paging through the fridge book. ‘In any case who’s to say if it’s consensus or not?’

  Go sit down, she told him then, ’cause it looked to her like he was finished with playing and now he was just looking for trouble.

  Yes, sit down, said Pop, they weren’t finished with the exam yet, but Treppie may as well close that book of his now. They didn’t need it any more.

  Lambert looked back and forth. He was confused, not about what he had to write, but what would happen when he handed in his answer.

  Pop told Lambert to tear a page for each of them out of his exercise book, for Treppie too, so they could all write down what they thought was the worst thing that could happen to him, and what would mean the end of the world for all of them. When they were all finished they had to paste the answers up on the wall. Then they’d see who thought differently from the rest.

  She said, yes, and that one was going to get a drubbing. Everyone stared at her ’cause she sounded so dead serious. And while everyone was looking at her like that, she took her chance and added, that person would plug the test!

  Lambert just said, hell, Ma, laughing and shaking his head as he tore out the pages. He couldn’t believe she would stand up for him like that. But she always stood up for him when she saw him taking strain. It was mostly Pop who took the pressure, but even more than Pop, it was her who took the strain in the end. Most of the time it was just the two of them, her and Pop, who stood up for each other against those two devils. But Lambert isn’t as much of a devil as Treppie.

  During the exam, she’d seen how Lambert’s spirit rose every time he got full marks and she clapped hands for him, and how Treppie was beginning to look silly. She could see it wasn’t just that red nose of his that looked silly. It was him too. He hadn’t realised Lambert could still study a book like that so well.

  Now Treppie was acting like he didn’t know what a written exam was. Like he was completely stupid, scratching his head through that clown’s hat of his.

  But she and Pop carried on. Pop asked Lambert for his pencil and she asked Treppie for the red ball-point clipped on to the front of his vest.

  ‘Clips!’ Treppie pulled out his pen, turned it around and passed it over to her carefully, the way he’d normally pass a sharp knife. She couldn’t see what it was he was thinking, but she could guess.

  Pop leant on the chair’s arm-rest to write.

  She went and wrote at the sideboard. After a while her tongue was sticking out with the effort. She hadn’t written anything in ages, let alone exams.

  ‘Now the two of you must write,’ Pop said when he was finished. She gave Treppie his pen back. Lambert took the pencil from Pop.

  Treppie pretended he was struggling with his answer. He wrote something and then he scratched it out again, and then he’d peep at them from under his hat. After a while he even asked for more paper.

  ‘Ja,’ she said, ‘not enough studying.’

  ‘Ja, he hasn’t learnt his lesson in life yet.’ Pop sounded like he was pointing a finger at Treppie.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Lambert, ‘and what if his answer’s just wallpaper?’

  ‘It better not be,’ she said, trying to sound like Pop.

  ‘No,’ said Pop, ‘not wallpaper, it’d better be consensus.’

  ‘And peace,’ she said.

  Ja, peace, said Pop. They really couldn’t afford anything else.

  They waited a long time for Treppie to finish.

  Pop stood up and took everyone’s papers. Treppie didn’t want to hand over his. He kept holding it in front of him and looking at it through narrowed eyes. He was still thinking, he said.

  He must think and get on with it, she said.

  She went and fetched the tape out of the sideboard drawer, where Treppie had put it after sticking the cat’s head back on.

  She and Pop pasted theirs and Lambert’s answers on to the wall, next to the picture of Jo’burg.

  But Treppie still didn’t want to hand in his paper. By then he’d been writing for longer than half an hour.

  ‘Last-minute changes,’ he said. He was still scratching things out.

  Pop went ahead and read out Lambert’s answer. She looked at the big, round letters as he read. Like the notices people put up at Shoprite, with big writing filling up the whole page.

  The biggest Balls Up of all Balls Ups that is the Worst and the End of our Story, it said on top of his answer. And then underneath: that certain people, and then in brackets, (with red noses), wouldn’t give him his birthday present that they promised him. To hell with them in advance. And, right at the bottom: that is my answer.

  Pop signalled that she must read out the next one, which was his. Pop’s writing was shaky, but his shakes were from something other than not writing for a long time.

  Pop had written on his paper that Treppie mustn’t raise Cain on Lambert’s birthday, and then there was just and, with a dash.

  ‘And what?’ Treppie asked. He looked at Pop. ‘So, and, and what?’

  ‘Too ghastly to contemplate,’ Pop said. He, Treppie, wouldn’t want to hear it. Then Pop read out her answer, in one breath.

  The End, she’d written on top. And then: that some people they know who they are break their promises that they know they made and they also know what the promise is. To Lambert. Then all hell will break loose and the graves will fall down into the holes holes holes.

  ‘You left out the commas and full-stops, Mol,’ Treppie said, but he sounded like he was actually telling her she’d lost her marbles.

  By then Lambert had lost his patience. She could see by the way he took one big step towards Treppie, holding out his hand.

  Treppie picked his moment. When Treppie holds up his hand for attention, you know he’s not about to miss a chance.

  Before he went on to matters of life and death, he said, he first wanted to finalise the formal part of the examination by announcing that this nephew of his, boffin that he was, had passed his Big Fridge Exam with distinction here today, and that he’d held the name of the Benades up high in the process. And hopefully in the future he’d continue holding their name up high. High! Upright! Firm! Strong! Treppie said.

  He made a rude, stiff-arm sign at the ceiling. She thought Treppie was going to ruin everything again, and Lambert thought so too, ’cause he grabbed Treppie from behind and lifted him right off the ground, so high that his toes only just touched the blocks. />
  ‘Read that answer!’ Lambert shouted into his face.

  She felt very sorry for Lambert. His voice stuck in his throat and he didn’t look as strong as he usually was. But she could see Treppie was playing along. He stood on his toes and pretended he weighed almost nothing. He fumbled with the paper and then he dropped it again.

  She thought, no, now she must lend a hand here, so she went and picked up that piece of paper herself. But she couldn’t make out a word of Treppie’s writing. Pure Greek. She gave it to Pop.

  Pop brought the paper close to his face and then drew it away again. He said not even a dog could read this, whatever it was. Maybe it was mirror-writing.

  In the end Treppie had to read it himself, ’cause Lambert also saw nothing but scribbles there. The reading was a whole new to-do. Treppie made them all stand against the wall, near the calendar. It felt just like posing for a family picture, with her and Pop in front and Lambert at the back, all of them with big smiles on their faces. Treppie was enjoying playing the fool, prodding them and moving them around until he felt satisfied. After a while she clicked, he was using her and Pop like sandbags. Sandbags that Lambert would first have to jump over before he could get to Treppie. But by then it was too late. Treppie was clearing his throat and starting to read his answer. It went like this. His answer had a name: ‘A Prophecy’, if you please:

  ‘When Lambert got his service at forty

  He thought he was so naughty

  But try as he might, he couldn’t drain his oil

  And to naught was all his great toil

  His pressure was low

  And his tubing had taken a blow

  Which is why at forty

  Lambert could no longer be naughty.’

  Lambert grabbed Treppie so he could kick him up the backside, just as she’d thought. What did he mean, what the hell did he think he meant with that clever-arse answer of his? Lambert shouted. And Treppie, of course, pointed to his paper and said he meant exactly what was written there.