‘Amen, praise His precious name, Pastor!’ the thickset man called back in a heavy Afrikaans accent, respectfully removing his battered felt hat in the presence of the preacher.
Confronted by a born-again Christian who appeared deferential, Jellicoe Smellie relaxed and smiled for the first time, and I saw that he had large yellow teeth. Pink eyes, purple nose and yellow teeth in what was otherwise a bloodless paper-coloured face. ‘Give and thou shalt receive,’ he called out to the boer. ‘Praise the Lord, I am at your service, my precious brother in Christ.’
‘Ja, thank you, Brother . . . ?’
‘Jellicoe.’
‘Brother Jelly,’ the Afrikaner repeated. Smelly Jelly! The name just leapt into my head and seemed perfect, although I wasn’t conscious of any particular smell, it was just that some sort of smell must emanate from so strange a creature. Musty came to mind.
‘Now listen, man,’ the boer said, abandoning the religious cant, ‘we got a big problem, hey! This tract is a very nice one.’ He dug into his coat pocket and produced a rectangular piece of paper about eight inches long and two inches wide, and held it up. ‘Unfortunately it is in English and we from the Apostolic Faith Mission and where we come from English is not a big-time language, you hear?’ He pointed to the bottom of what I now knew was a tract. ‘It says here, printed by the Born-again Christian Missionary Society and —’
‘Praise the Lord, praise His precious name!’ Jellicoe Smellie interjected.
But the boer wasn’t to be put off. ‘Ja, okay, us too, but what we want to know is can you translate this tract into Afrikaans? We’ll take 1000, you see, we got a tent revival coming up in Bronkhorstspruit already next month.’
Jellicoe Smellie drew back in horror. ‘Definitely not, definitely not! Can’t, can’t!’ he exclaimed.
‘Ja, nee, met plesier, Meneer. Ons doen dit vir u met graagte. Certainly, Sir, it’s our pleasure to do it for you,’ I called out in Afrikaans.
The boer looked at Jellicoe Smellie and then back to me, obviously confused. ‘Here, man, what’s going on here, hey?’ he asked.
Speaking to him in Afrikaans I reassured him that while we were very busy with orders from all over the Christian world, I would personally see to it that his tracts would be translated and done in time for the revival.
Observing that I was only a boy and judging from my perfect Afrikaans accent, he took me for one of his own and decided it was no longer necessary to be polite to me. ‘How much?’ he demanded.
‘You’ll have to ask the Dominee,’ I replied, pointing to Jellicoe Smellie.
‘You ask him!’ he said in a peremptory manner, again in Afrikaans.
‘The gentleman wants to know how much?’ I asked Jellicoe Smellie.
‘It’s for the Apostolic Faith Mission, we all born-again, you hear?’ the boer said in English, addressing Jellicoe Smellie directly. He hesitated, clearing his throat. ‘We always get a discount for God’s work.’
‘We already rushing your job through, it’s costing us money, Meneer,’ I replied sharply. ‘This is also God’s work!’ The new Tom Fitzsaxby with the quick mouth was emerging in front of my very eyes.
Jellicoe Smellie looked anxiously from me to the boer and back again, obviously not understanding Afrikaans. He grabbed a small pad and began working out a price. ‘Fifteen shillings,’ he announced after a few moments, ‘and we’ll include the run-ons.’
‘Plus two and sixpence for the translation and 10 per cent tithe, that’s another one and sixpence. It goes to the missionaries in the Congo,’ I explained. The Dominee always said that members of the congregation should give 10 per cent of their income back for God’s work, and that it was a definite instruction from the Bible or else you’d go to hell.
Jellicoe Smellie looked at me in amazement, but only took a moment to recover. ‘That comes to nineteen shillings,’ he announced in an almost-happy voice.
‘Here, man, it’s a lot of money, Dominee,’ the boer said in English, clucking his tongue and shaking his head in dismay.
However, old Jellicoe knew an extra bob earned when he saw one and he jumped feet-first into action. ‘Hallelujah! Praise His precious name! Nineteen shillings is not much to pay to save a damned soul! To bring just one sinner to Jesus! To give just one poor wretch life everlasting! A thousand tracts may save a host of sinners. A revival tent overflowing with sinners down on their knees demanding to repent!’ He turned to me. ‘Tom, here, is the Poet of Salvation! The Poet of Salvation translated into Afrikaans! How can you count the cost of this blessed harvest of sinners for the Lord in sixpences and shillings?’
There was not a single twinned word in the entire diatribe and the boer, now totally bewildered, knew he was beaten. He turned to me and said truculently, ‘Okay, nineteen shillings, it’s a lot but we’ll pay it. But I don’t want the tithe to go to the kaffirs in the Congo, you hear?’ He was speaking in Afrikaans to prevent the Englishman from hearing.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said rather high-handedly. ‘What about the starving children in India?’
‘No Charras!’ he shot back, alarmed. ‘Definitely not, man! They heathen and they come here to get rich and go back to India to worship their gods, not one God like decent people, they got lots of them, some with ten arms and two heads and worshipping monkeys, they can’t be born-again, it’s a waste of money. When must I come back?’
‘Day after tomorrow, after four o’clock,’ I said, hoping this could be done. ‘How about Cape Coloureds?’
‘Ja, okay, as long as they born-again Christians, you hear?
Lots of Cape Coloureds they just hopeless drunks.’
I thought at once of Auntie and her good-for-nothing black-and-blue husband lying on the front stoep, while Dippie and Stoffie stepped over him as they moved her furniture into the army truck. ‘Isn’t that the sort of person who needs to be born-again?’ I asked, a trifle sarcastically.
‘Ja, it’s all God’s work, you hear? But we leave them, the Cape Coloureds, to the Assembly of God, they not so fussy who they save,’ he explained.
Jellicoe Smellie could barely contain his delight as he ushered the boer to the door, spouting a further half-dozen God-bothering imprecations. The boer shook his hand and after the sound of the last of his footsteps on the wonky stairs had faded, Smellie turned back to me. ‘Excellent! Excellent! Praise the Lord! Praise His precious name! The Lord has rewarded me with your second coming, Tom.’
I took my second coming to mean my return up the rickety stairs. In the meantime, he seemed to have completely forgotten all his previous ‘Definitely nots’ and ‘Can’t, can’ts’, and now extended his hand and shook mine vigorously. ‘Welcome to the “Come in and browse for Christ” bookshop, the Born-again Christian Missionary Society, the Evangelical Mechanical Printing Press, and my accounting arm, Heavenly Prophets. We will proceed henceforth to gain riches for the Lord while keeping a small portion for ourselves.’ I was to learn that the only time Jellicoe Smellie twinned words was when he was nervous or agitated.
‘Does that mean I have a job, Sir?’ I asked.
‘A job? Why, Tom, we are to form an entirely new arm of the business, you are to become the Poet of Salvation in Translation!’ he said gleefully, yellow teeth now dominating his purple nose and pink eyes. ‘Two pounds a week and free penning, that’s the very best I can do,’ he said, his pink eyes narrowing in case I should argue.
My time spent at The Boys Farm had taught me very little to use in life but one of the more important lessons I learned was to press home any advantage I might momentarily hold. ‘That ten extra shillings was for writing tracts, Sir. I am now the Poet of Salvation in Translation?’ I said, my eyes downcast so as not to sound too opportunistic. I must admit my new title had a certain ring to it, but on the other hand you couldn’t go around the place saying ‘Guess what? I am the Poet of Salvation in Translation in the Born-again Christian Missionary Society.’ So, practically speaking, it wasn’t going to do much for my eg
o or my future salary.
‘Ah, yes! But I am the Poet of Salvation! That is the senior position!’ Jellicoe Smellie said pointedly. ‘May I remind you it is I who write the tracts and you who merely translate them into that abominable gutter language.’
This was true enough, and I told myself I needed this job which now satisfied my saving requirements with even a little over. But I also knew that he who hesitates is lost, another sound lesson learned from Mevrou’s sjambok. For instance, Gawie’s exclusive job sitting on his arse, tearing up shit squares had come from grabbing a single rare opportunity and turning it into easy work, while the rest of us laboured in the vegetable garden, chopped wood and worked in the orchards.
‘How many tracts have you written, Sir?’
‘Oh, dozens and dozens, hundred and hundreds, some very, very good ones too.’ The twinning of words was back.
‘And how many have you sold?’
‘Ah, grains of sand on the seashore, thousands and thousands, grains of sand, grains of sand.’
‘At fifteen shillings a thousand?’
Jellicoe Smellie hesitated, then said, ‘Well, no, I cannot tell a lie, the normal charge is twelve and sixpence, but, after all, that dreadful man was the enemy and so I was forced to add a small surcharge.’
I ignored this racist remark. ‘Do people get tired of tracts, you know, want new ones?’
‘Ah, my dear fellow, I regret to say, fashion prevails in the business of Jesus Christ like any other.’ He was beginning to relax.
‘So you’re always having to write new ones?’
‘A burden I willingly bear for the Lord,’ he said sanctimoniously.
‘And you said you’ve written hundreds?’
‘Scattered far and wide.’
‘If I translate them and we charge fifteen shillings a thousand, you can use all the old ones you’ve written, can’t you?’
‘I say, what a grand idea!’ he exclaimed.
I wasn’t fool enough to think this thought hadn’t already occurred to him. ‘You make your original profit all over again plus one and sixpence, then the translation fee and tithe, that’s another four shillings!’
‘Splendid!’ he declared, clapping his hands.
‘You make your original profit and keep the one and six for the enemy factor and the 10 per cent tithe, and I keep the two and sixpence for each translation into Afrikaans.’
‘And you don’t get the extra ten shillings for writing tracts, writing tracts,’ he said, as quick as can be. He was twinning again, which was a sign that he was nervous.
‘Fair enough,’ I replied, ‘but only when my Afrikaans translation income becomes greater than the ten shillings extra in my weekly wages.’ I smiled ingenuously and shrugged my shoulders. ‘We taking a chance on each other, Sir, ’ I said cheekily.
He pointed a bony finger at me. ‘Not correct! I am the one taking the chance.’ A flash of yellow, purple and pink occurred and he extended his hand. ‘Welcome to the Born-again Christian Missionary Society, you seem to have an admirable grasp of the Heavenly Prophets aspect of the business, Tom,’ Jellicoe Smellie said, welcoming me for the second time.
I needed to clear up one final detail. ‘Sir, what did you mean about, you know, Fitz and er . . . royal bastard?’ I asked.
‘Astonished you don’t know, Tom,’ Jellicoe Smellie exclaimed. ‘Fitz? All Fitz’s are royal bastards! Fitzgibbon, Fitzpatrick, Fitzgerald, Fitzsimmons, your name, all derive from an illicit liaison occurring at some time in the past with a commoner and royalty. A promiscuous lot, your English royalty. Not at all born-again!’
So, that’s how the Government-owned and now right-royal bastard Tom Fitzsaxby came to be employed during his school holidays.
I’d like to say that once it got going and we’d printed samples of my translated tracts and sent them in envelopes, addressed in my copperplate handwriting, to all the Pentecostal and other faiths that preached in Afrikaans that business boomed. But it didn’t. I was receiving the extra ten shillings without being able to justify it. Instead of the avalanche we’d anticipated, orders for my translated tracts were merely trickling in and I could only think it must be me. I was a lousy translator and I expected to be fired at any moment.
But after the second holiday spent in Jellicoe Smellie’s employ, I came to realise that the Mechanical Evangelical Printing Press lay idle for most of the time. Dare I presume that Smelly Jelly’s tracts were simply not good enough? I’d had my original suspicions, many of the words he used in his tracts were composed of three syllables and, besides, when he could find a fancy word or turn a simple sentence into a convoluted one, he never hesitated to do so. Finding equally complicated words in Afrikaans proved difficult, and probably made my translations even more obscure. The need to confess one’s sins and become a born-again Christian required a reader of Jellicoe’s tracts to be highly literate, and my pedantic translations would have been well beyond the comprehension of your average Afrikaner sinner seeking redemption.
Then one day while he was out, I was searching for a pencil sharpener in the drawer in his desk and I came across a bunch of tracts tied together with an elastic band. They seemed well used and somehow different from our own and so I began to read them. After a few minutes I paused to see where they came from. They were all American, from various charismatic faiths, though the majority came from the Assembly of God. It became obvious that Smelly Jelly had helped himself liberally to the themes and ideas contained within them, but that he wished to stamp his work with his own imprimatur. In the process he had lost the simplicity and directness and the dire warning and consequences of remaining unrepentant that was the hallmark of the American tracts. He may have been bonkers, but as it transpired, he had an educated and complicated mind and he simply couldn’t think at the level of the repent-or-burn-in-hell vernacular of the American hot gospel tracts.
It was then that I had my big idea. I had practically teethed on the Dominee’s well-rounded sermons and dire imprecations. I’d listened to hundreds of Sunday sermons while the beetle munched the beard grass. So I wrote my first tract, always bearing in mind my own people, the good citizens of Duiwelskrans and the boere in the surrounding mountains. I would think about how I might go about bringing Mevrou’s six brothers, the Van Schalkwyk Six, now languishing in prison in Pretoria, to Jesus.
The result was almost impossible to believe. Orders started flowing in from all over the country and every new tract was snapped up. That is how I eventually became the Poet of Salvation in both English and Afrikaans. Most of the successful tracts translated back to English sold as well as their Afrikaans counterparts. The Mechanical Evangelical Printing Press was working overtime, and in two years it had been replaced with a bigger and better one made by Goose & Pratten, a UK engineering firm, which Smelly Jelly aptly named the ‘Gospel-gobbling Goose’.
I would pen a tract while at school and, because of my success, I now demanded and got a pound for every tract I wrote. I had gone from having no money to practically swimming in the stuff. But every extra penny earned had to be gouged from Smelly Jelly’s Heavenly Prophets department. Beneath the leaning bony body, ink-stained linen frame, nervous word-twinning, sanctimonious prattle and sudden panic was an educated mind as cunning as a shithouse rat. Nevertheless, I couldn’t complain, on that first day he’d seen in me an opportunity and I had, in turn, successfully exploited his greed.
However, on that first day of my employment I had an immediate problem. Another lesson learned at The Boys Farm was to never compromise your position, to appear to be vulnerable and to show yourself to be less than your opponent had assumed you to be. Humans crave status above most things, and dominance is the bully’s way of obtaining it. I had no place to sleep that night and no money, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask Jellicoe Smellie for the means to eat or sleep and by so doing diminish the equality of status that in my mind I believed we’d established.
I had all afternoon in which to find a safe place to
sleep, and I already had a half-formed idea in my mind. Remember when I first came to Johannesburg when the train pulled into Central Station, and how I’d been overwhelmed by the size of the crowd and the hubbub and general business? When Miss Phillips failed at first to arrive and I thought for a moment that I’d been abandoned I’d wondered at the time whether a person could sleep in a place like this? So that’s where I was headed, to seek out some nook or cranny in that giant building that might conceal me safely for the night. I carried a brown-paper shopping bag, one of those with two string handles. It contained a spare shirt and pair of grey shorts and a couple of pairs of underpants and spare socks, my toothbrush and a bar of soap I’d nicked from the school.
As I approached the station I noticed the same faceless hooded man I’d first seen when I was with Miss Phillips, seated on his box outside. More correctly, I saw his little dog first, so very like Tinker but with a brown patch on his chest. I had such a sudden and overwhelming desire to hold the little dog that my eyes filled with tears. I waited a few moments and knuckled the wet from my eyes. I felt that if I could just pat the little terrier once or twice, I’d be okay again.
The hooded man had his chin slumped on his chest, and may have been dozing. Anyway, he didn’t stir and I knelt beside the little dog who welcomed my pat and was immediately friendly, placing his front paws on my knee, his tiny pink tongue lolling. I felt he really liked me and he nuzzled his nose into the palm of my hand as I fingered his collar. It was then that I got the shock of my life. On the tiny leather collar hung a metal disc, and I turned it face-up to read the dog’s name. For a moment I thought I was hallucinating, because the inscription on the disc read ‘Tinker’. I started to weep silently, nuzzling the little dog’s head into my thigh, the tears rolling down my face. I became aware of a series of frantic grunts and guttural sounds to my right, and looking up I saw the hooded man holding out a piece of paper and acting in a very agitated way. I didn’t know whether I should depart in haste or accept the note he was proffering in his left hand and with increasing vehemence gesticulating with the stump of his right.
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