The Eternal Audience of One

by Rémy Ngamije

  Far away from the Here, past the Now, in the Not Hereness of space and time, something stirred, grand and terrible. It was the boom-boom from a past time which uproots, the bang-bang machine gun fire which defines and also does not, the quick-quick-hurry-hurry which removes and displaces. It stirred and rustled and then shot out towards the third rock from the sun, bringing with it general and specific doom.

  XXVIII

  Andrew William Kent was not good at many things. In primary school he tended to wet himself when he was excited or afraid. In high school he was terrible at all the essentials needed to survive the teenage years. He was terrible at sports, at storytelling, at wooing girls. He was called Kent-Get-None because he was once caught masturbating in his boarding school’s bathroom. The derision drove him to depression. He attempted to commit suicide by swallowing pills he found in the school’s infirmary. Pity for him they turned out to be laxatives and, to be fair, as he would later say in retellings, it would have been a shitty way to go. He secured his admission to Remms via his family’s legacy and even after doing so he struggled, changing his degree programme three times. First business science, then law, then politics and economics. He managed to stick to his last degree long enough to graduate and enrol in the postgraduate stream. Andrew was not the lead singer of his band. At best he played the tambourine. His friends called the car he drove, never offering them a lift, purchased for him by his parents, of course, the Half-A-Romeo Giulietta. It never seemed to have enough juice for a Juliet. That he managed to make it as far as skin with Silmary was beyond the comprehension of fiction, but that he failed to rise to the occasion seemed to indicate a return to reality. But because the universe did not care enough about him to completely screw him over, it did allow him to be good at some things. One of these things was coming up with farfetched theories of life. He had two good ones. The first one attempted to explain the dichotomy of boob and ass men.

  “It all comes down to when you’re kicked off the nipple,” he said. “If you’re cut off early, you’re going to be chasing boobs your entire life. If you’re weaned off at the right time, you’re going to love booty forever.”

  Besides his Nobel Prize-winning research in the sexual attraction of males as determined by breastfeeding duration, Andrew’s other monumental work was his theory of general and specific doom.

  His magnum opus came to light, as most things did with him, when he was surrounded by his friends, his personality forcing some obscure witticism to bubble up to the top and pop into conversation like a new island in the sea, hot and undiscovered, catching everyone by surprise.

  At yet another one of the social gatherings littered with the kind of diversity only found in Remms’ prospectus and campus guides, Andrew outlined the theory. The High Lords had been invited to a braai, one of those South African pastimes which always starts too late and ends too early. True to form, the roasting ran behind schedule. Invitees waltzed in an hour or so late carrying wine, gin, whisky, and tequila bottles, crackers and dips, sachets of handmade chips, and marinated pork, lamb, and chicken pieces as both apologies and tribute. By the time everyone arrived the kitchen counter was a showpiece of the excess to come. The mood was light, it was fostered by the late autumn chill in the air, palpable but not unbearable. Snacks were passed around. The celery and carrot sticks with their Mediterranean dip were skirted by all but the people who had brought them. Godwin passed the tray of vegan eats to Séraphin who quickly handed it to Bianca who then shuffled it off to another person.

  “The chlorophyll isn’t for me,” said Godwin. “I came for the meat.” He looked around at the crowd in a way which drove home his subtext.

  By the time the food was sizzling and spitting over the fire, too much wine and beer had been consumed. The High Lords had commandeered the conversation. Their jokes were funny, their stories were ribald. The chances of amorous connection on a night like this, when everyone was feeling happy, were substantially high and, slowly but without any subtlety, everyone tried to mingle in such a way that they would wind up seated next to their fancies.

  “Man,” said Godwin, “this cigarette butt’s the closest I’ve gotten to ass in a while.” He flicked it towards a bin and missed. Someone picked it up and threw it away for him.

  Bianca nodded in sad agreement. “Things are getting intense down there. I wish there was some way to know when a drought was on the way.”

  A laugh as melodic as wind chimes filled the air. It was Aqeelah’s. She was biracial, with hair tied in thick braids which fell to the middle of her back, light brown eyes, which jumped and danced in the warm evening light, and inviting lips which had the majority of the present company hoping they had made their guest list. She was light skinned, and because she was light skinned she was a highly sought after commodity. When Bianca saw her she whispered to Séraphin that she would incite so much cock-blocking anyone who made it to her end zone would be the next running back for the New England Patriots. Bianca and Séraphin watched as one, two, three, and then four suitors stepped up to pitch their best game. Aqeelah swung for the crowd.

  Back to the conversation at hand. Aqeelah said, “When it gets that bad you start debating what you could be doing with the money from cancelled wax appointments. Instead, you keep going. Then you start feeling like you should lower your admission standards.”

  “That’s when you shouldn’t, though,” said Bianca. “You just need to pray to whatever God you believe in to get you through the long nights of the soul. And keep Duracell batteries nearby.”

  Godwin had had one too many beers, as usual. This usually resulted in two things. He would talk longer and louder and he would become political. The ears of his inner bravado pricked up when he heard Aqeelah’s statement.

  “You just need to tell me where to apply, Aqeelah,” he said. “Motivation letter, report cards, transcripts, where I see us in five years’ time. Got it all ready. Just flash me the bat signal!”

  “Sorry,” Aqeelah said, “mine’s a home, not a homeless shelter. And we all know the bat signal is the best way to pull jokers.”

  “Fok!”

  “Wow!”

  “Jissis.”

  “Sjoe!”

  “Hayibo!”

  “Eish!”

  “Shem!”

  “Moer!”

  “Well damn!”

  “Someone’s windscreen will have a hole in it because Godwin, my guy, you just got swung into the parking lot,” Séraphin said.

  “I see you, Aqeelah,” Godwin said, “I see you.”

  Andrew spoke up after the hooting died down. “What you’re all experiencing is what I like to call the GSD: general and specific doom. Things go well until they don’t. But nobody ever really knows when the good times are going to end, do they? Look, you have to think of the universe like a poorly trained puppy, except the puppy’s huge, and it can slobber and pee on whole solar systems. So, here we all were on a winning streak, killing it at school, having wonderful sex lives, or whatever. What did we do? We asked for more of the same. Big mistake. That was too specific for the puppy. It didn’t understand. It only heard, ‘more’. So what did it do? It got us more. A whole lot of more, too much more, so much more that in the middle of all the more-ness we didn’t even realise that everything else was slowly unravelling. What started it? It’s always the small stuff that sets everything else off. Never the big stuff. You forget the pen you used in that first test at the start of the winning streak at home, you borrow another one. Boom! Downward spiral. You’re on a roll with the ladies. It’s all fun and games. Then someone catches feelings, you don’t handle it properly. Bang! It’s all downhill from there. Suddenly shit’s real at school, your love life moves out, it’s just one shit sandwich after another.” Andrew looked pensive for a moment. “The more general the fortune,” he said, “the more specific the doom; the more specific the gift, the more general the curse.”

  Silence followed Andrew’s karmic lecture. Then someone said, “That was some
Oracle meets Architect Matrix kind of shit, Drew.”

  Andrew said there was only one way to avoid the GSD. “Just chill. Don’t do anything. Especially when life isn’t handing you Ls. If you believe things are too good to be true, then they won’t be good or true for long. That’s when the GSD hits.”

  General and specific doom, the thing which turns tides and fortunes glides over the azure sea of the Southwest Atlantic Ocean, undetected by the weather bureau. It is as high as a harmattan and as invisible as the threads of fate, and when it arrives on Cape Town’s doorstep it is noted only as a passing huff of wind, skin tingling on the underside of arms, four sneezes in a row, an itch on the back of a neck, and the stumble in a strut over uneven paving. No “Ride of The Valkyries” announces its arrival with rising and falling crescendoes, tickling the ear; no ominous drumbeats in the deep. It stops and sniffs the air. Spring-summer, somewhere between the two seasons. The bluest sky above, and the greenest green below in the Company’s Garden. Table Mountain’s wispy veil as fragile as virtue, and Kirstenbosch blooming beyond description. The colours of Bo-Kaap rioting in the sun, the rays glinting off roofs on the Cape Flats.

  It can smell things that are too good to be true. It flies off.

  The spinach and feta quiche in a Kloof Street deli turns sour. The blonde customer on the other side of the counter raises her voice, threatening to give the placating owner a bad review on Facebook. The place was recommended to her by a friend. She was told the food was divine and not pricey. Now one quiche is off, in her lunch hour. This is terrible. She knew it was too good to be true.

  So be it.

  On the Foreshore, at the crowded Department of Home Affairs, with its dingy corridors and unmanned desks, a Somalian woman, dark, with an arresting oval face, and hair of obsidian blackness tucked into a black head cloth, is seated across a refugee status determination officer who outlines that her application for refugee status has a high chance of success. Her English is not so good, but she understands enough to know what she is being told is good news. Bad news has a universal tone regardless of language. “I get permit soon then?” she asks. The man across her, paunchy, bald, eyes and fingers always busy on a cellphone screen nods. She is happy. He says he can help her speed up the process. There is a small fee and a favour. She looks away. She was expecting it. She asks how much. He quotes a price. She can get the money in about two weeks. The favour is not new to her. The long journey from her home has involved a few hitched rides and more hitched skirts. This one at least takes her closer to the goal. She knew it was too good to be true when this man handled her paperwork with such attentiveness.

  Sigh.

  The train from Muizenberg freezes on the tracks between Observatory and Salt River because someone makes the mistake of saying it is a miracle the train came on time. Water skips the wine stage straight into the whine and why.

  General doom.

  On Remms’ stately campus, built on a forgotten and stolen paradise – long ago some poor unfortunate native soul looked at the land below the mountain and said, aloud, to his friend, that it really was too good to be true, unaware that general doom, also known as Jan Van Riebeeck, was sailing their way. Bianca and Yasseen receive emails from two separate law firms. Their fortunes have changed. Bianca is Johannesburg-bound, a small law firm will take her on. It will not pay much, but, heck, it is time to get out of Cape Town. Yasseen finds out he will remain in Cape Town. His law firm cannot take on so many candidates, the letter says, and as such, they had to narrow down their selections to the ones best suited for the firm’s needs. Poor Yasseen. He believed Jozi was too far, too high, and so it remained too high, and too far.

  Godwin has a thesis to finish and despite his drinking he is on track to complete it by the end of year. Richard too. But Zimbabwe has been hammered by the GSD for a long time so it lets these two be. There is enough doom at home.

  Adewale is much too comfortable with his postgraduate funding. His latest grant is fantastical beyond his wildest dreams and before he can plan his next outing to the fashion houses the Remms Postgraduate Funding Office writes him a letter outlining he has reached his financial aid cap. He knew it was too good to be true. Which is why his supervisor is going to start giving him stricter deadlines to meet with his research. The faculty is under political pressure to have more South African candidates on its doctoral roster.

  James is passed over. His door is splattered with humility.

  In Andrew, it recognises a familiar face. This is the one who tried to kill himself with the laxatives. Just a few weeks ago, though, he had foolishly got it into his head that he was not good enough for a certain girl. He softened at the most unlucky hour because the GSD had hardened his doubts. Shame. What a poor stroke of luck. The GSD leaves him alone.

  Here is another familiar face: Séraphin.

  Where on earth is he going when he is not with the High Lords, not telling them where he spends his nights and some of his days?

  Follow and see.

  This house in Camps Bay seems familiar.

  Yes, it is familiar. The GSD’s been here before; it has actually been in this lounge and in this kitchen and in this bedroom too.

  Séraphin, you are a bad, bad man, it thinks. This has obviously been going on for a while. The comfort is not forced, the laughter is too easy, the kissing too liberal, not as rationed as it is when the sensation is still new. But at least the sheets are crumpled like it is the first time every time. Impeccable form. He has come a long way from that room in Windhoek-West when he could not believe his luck. Another unfortunate cruelty on the GSD’s part. Now he has got the Power. Now, then, here is the moment when they are supposed to pull apart; instead they cling to each other. They drift in the remains of desire, part asleep for fifteen minutes. Then they get up, dress, and she drives him back to campus.

  “So we’re doing Tara’s thing tomorrow?” she asks as they near Remms.

  “Yep.”

  “What if we’re on the same team?”

  “That’ll be the winning team then.”

  “You’re really full of yourself, you know.”

  “You were too a few minutes ago.” She laughs.

  On her drive back home she smiles as the she thinks of their time together. She turns on the radio to fill the car with sound to make up for Séraphin’s absence. The song on the airwaves makes her smile even more. It is one of her favourites. She turns the knob to make it louder and sings along. The GSD sits in the backseat and waits for the second verse of The Four Seasons’ “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” to start.

  Utazi nyakatsi…

  XXIX

  The United States of America is the free world where nothing is free, where facts and black men are scary. Every second and minute is bought and paid for, every milestone has a sponsor. Spring is brought to you by this brand, summer by that. Everything is for sale over there. “Billboards on every building, neon everywhere else, and the Star-Spangled Banner on lawns and doorways,” said Bjorn. “Advertising and American exceptionalism hold the country together.”

  “That sounds about right,” said Byron. “I remember thinking the same thing when I was there.”

  The Bjorn-Byron double team of cultural observation and confirmation went on for a while and it grated Séraphin something terrible. According to Bjorn, India had a smell, and Byron’s follow-up comment confirmed it: “As soon as you land in India you just know you’ll never get the stink out of your nostrils.” Cubans complained too much about everything. Mexico was generally okay, but the cuisine needed to go easy on the beans and cheese. Kuala Lumpur was too humid. Shanghai was too sprawling. Sweden and Norway were terribly expensive, and the United Kingdom was bland. Each of their trips abroad seemed as miserable as a Stygian crossing. Their statements were close to drawing blood.

  Séraphin listened to their globetrotting tales with a familiar sense of envy, stifling it with effort. Bjorn said Thailand was disappointingly like everything in the travel commercials
—“White beaches, blue water, super lux resorts, that kind of boring thing!”—and Byron followed it up with his own addendum about not really having a real experience there. He said it was clichéd. “You can’t know what’s authentic and what’s not. Everything just feels like it’s put on. Anyone else get that feeling?” Bjorn-Byron looked around at the assembled faces for support. Only Tara knew the feeling. She said it was what Brazil felt like. Like it was extra cultural when it really was not.

  Séraphin and Bianca passed an evil look between them.

  Brazil, the land of the carnival festivals and the Copacabana beach where there was beach soccer and beach volleyball, and the lush jungle as experienced in Willard Price’s Amazon Adventure when Séraphin, at thirteen, could finally borrow five books from the senior section of Windhoek’s public library.

  Brazil, which gave the world Ronaldo and Ronaldinho.

  Brazil where the Lord Jizzos Christs the Redeemer looked out at Rio de Janeiro, welcoming and pardoning all the sinners who came to its shores.

  That Brazil was being extra cultural when it really was not.

  Séraphin came to a conclusion: travelling was not the great education many professed it to be. Maybe, sometimes, all the frequent flyer miles in the world just made you a well-travelled asshole.

  He told Bianca so.

  Sans_Seraph—BeeEffGee: These people fly around the world to feel disappointed by everything. Why do the 1% spend 99% of the time complaining?

  “I think,” Byron said as Séraphin looked up from his phone, “I had a better time in some of the lodges here than I had in the United States.”

  “Yeah?” Séraphin had had enough. “Those African-themed lodges with catering pulled from all corners of the continent but the cuisine is not indigenous in the least bit? Where the kitchen and serving staff perform a song after supper to give you the whole African experience?”