Эндрю Миллер (ЮАР) - Dub Steps

Matron stopped. Suddenly she looked terribly, terribly young. The skin around her eyes was stretched to a confused kind of smooth. A twitching, chemical smooth. I wanted to reach out and touch it. The cheek. ‘Is that so crazy?’ I asked.

‘Crazy? No!’ She snapped back into focus. ‘Nay. Clever mebbe…’ Now she drifted again, thinking ulterior thoughts. ‘Ay, askies, tata, I’m kinda everywhere. I been tinking so many things. Den when you talk like that – bout effort being good and such – ut just make me tink dem more.’

‘What kind of things, dear?’

‘Ag, nuttin. You shouldna even have to bother.’ She consulted her clipboard.

‘Try me, you’d be surprised.’

Matron stared through my eyes, still young, still flickering. Calculating. Then she pulled her glasses from her afro and held them between us. ‘I been strugglin wif dese. Wif the big guy.’

‘What about them?’

‘Fixed hours. Everyone. Every day. Compulsory. You ken mos. Four-hour minimum. Normally is not my jol. I don come close to decisions. I jus do. But last night dey argue while I walk past and he call me in, like some kinda experiment. Start hittin me with all dese personal questions bout wot I want and wot I believe and how many kids I’m plannin for next two years. I got real bad uncomfortable.

‘I know we not supposed to ask this shit but I start tinking bout wot if de were options. Udda kinds of options, ken. Wot if rules not the only ting. And then I kinda sensed he sensed, ’cause he stop with questions and jus stare at me for a long, long time, in front of all da others, so dey all starin me, an now, I dunno, I jus feel different. Nervous. You know, proppa nerves. Like I done summin wrong. Only I don tink I have. Unless tinking is wrong. And den I tink mebbe it is. So I guess… I guess I jus feelin nervous. And den I tink bout havin to wear these’ – she waggled the glasses and then returned them to her fro, checking their position for balance and solidity before carrying on – ‘and I resent as well. Like a bit angry.’ Matron shrugged, about to cry. She breathed deep and rumbled on. ‘An also da beat. Da beat an pills. Is hard to keep going all the time. Dis I know you know, nè?’ She chuckled, too nervous to look at me. ‘He so hectic bout the beat. Bout the dub thing. He won even let the kids mix de own trance. Even if ut fast and hard like Schulz. Only wot he say. An def no other beat. Neva. Neva neva neva anudda beat but we all know dere’s more. Much more. Everybody know but is scary to say. To risk, yes? Like jazz – we got lotta jazz in your house, tata. Udder tings too. Everybody know. But the beat he won’t stop. Neva. Any time anyone even tink of it, he blitz mad with English and the Zambians and the dub. Scared. Fridays most of all I feel scared. Shaky. Even when dey slow it. The down stuff, also the same. Just slower. Same beat. Shaky. He control it all. Always.’

‘Who do you love?’ I asked without thinking.

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, where do you go when your heart is hurting, or worried, or fearful? Is there anyone who makes you feel safe – emotionally safe?’

Her eyes twitched, flicked. She peered at me as if for the first time. ‘Love? Like in books? Movies?’

‘As in the twins. Andile and Javas. For example. They loved each other.’

‘Nay. Neva. They say it’s myth. Like democracy. Mebbe ut work, by accident, but not really true. Summint that explain sex and fucking, which we don need to know now.’

‘Well, it might be something to explore. Love. As far as I ever knew it was quite distinct from sex. Involved in sex, maybe, but by no means definitely. When faced with real confusion, it can help to speak to someone who knows your heart.’

‘Who you love?’

‘Me? Well I struggled a bit in that way. Later, like now, now that I am where I am, I look back and I can see who I loved. At the time I wasn’t able, though. I just lived with it. The confusion. It became part of me. Not necessarily a great thing.’

‘An now? When you look back?’

‘I loved them all, of course. It’s easy to say that now. When you’re old you love easily. But now… well, Babalwa, of course. But Beatrice too. English. And Sthembiso. Always Sthembiso…’

‘Really? Sthembiso?’ Her eyes were widening, alert, worried. ‘But he keep you here. Locked—’

‘Locked up? No, my child. I mean, yes. Of course. He keeps me here. He has his reasons; he needs certain things from me. Fears other things, maybe. But the locking up? That was me. I put myself right here, long before he had any power or ideas or anything of the sort. I am my own jailer. Always have been.’

Matron cried. The clipboard fell half out of her hand before she caught it and then put it back against her hip. Then she faced me again, tears running. I reached out, took the clipboard and put it on the bed. Then I pulled her into my old musty chest and hugged the girl.

She sobbed into me – sobs of the young. Sobs of the innocent. I rubbed her back and cooed and clucked into her sweet-smelling afro. After a long time she pushed me away, slowly, and looked up into my craggy old lines. ‘An you, tata? Wot bout you?’

‘Of course, dear,’ I replied. ‘Me, I am full of love. For you most of all. Sadly, though, I don’t think I’m a long-term option.’

‘No, Roy!’ Matron grabbed her clipboard off the bed and pulled it to her chest. ‘You don say that. You not allowed.’

‘Yes, ma’am!’ I laughed, took her hand and tried one last time. ‘Seriously, though, you need to think about it. Your heart. Don’t let it overflow. If you’re feeling things, you need to share those feelings, discuss them, express them. Don’t make my mistake. Don’t think you don’t need love.’

‘Ag tata, I tink I just need a good fuck.’ She said it without a trace of humour, or irony, or anything. The words struck like iron.

Then she led me to the bathroom, where we discussed the slipperiness of the tiles.

Heaven Sent (Instrumental Mix).

Like all Markus Schulz tracks, it builds very slowly and you always know exactly where it’s going. There will be no surprises.

Steady percussion layers on the intro, then the thwump thwump thwump of the drum, then the bass lines and symbols and hand claps and the train has left the station. The lilting melody layers drift in and out, dream-like, of course. This is when those Finnish girls and boys, those Nordic ravers, those German party people, would have pushed their shiny white fingers to the sky. Then the drum and the bass line drop out suddenly and it’s all spacey, we are quiet now, empty, almost. The melody slips back in, centre stage, supported by a flutter or a whistle or some such happy beeping, up to the stars, resting now on aural cushions and clouds. The kids stand, shuffling, grinning insanely, inanely, hugging, waiting, waiting, waiting…

And bang.

They’re off.

I am amazed, shocked, that this is the soundtrack to the end of my days. That these sounds, the back track to my father’s last pathetic years, to my teenage angst and annoyance, are now the sound of authority. Of power and meaning. Of life as it will go on without me.

Trance.

And I started it.

Sthembiso’s love affair with my music collection, which was really my father’s, never ended. It was always Markus Schulz who captured him. Even as he left his teenage years behind, as he dropped all the childlike things of his past, he never let go of the candy floss, of the lure of the flock of beeps.

It is, ultimately, a blessed sound, I tell myself. A sound I should welcome. It is sometimes, in fact, the sound of life itself. Of creativity. Of music. No matter how hard it is to sleep, I must – I repeat like a Buddhist mantra – remember what it was like when there was nothing. When there were only the chirps of my brothers in the trees, only the jagged barking of insects crossing and uncrossing their legs.