Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

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.

‘But what’s written there is fuck-all!’ Lambert roared.

‘Well, exactly,’ Treppie said, ‘that’s exactly what I mean. Fuck-all!’

It was Pop who saved Treppie from getting a drubbing that day. He told Lambert it wouldn’t be worth his trouble, ’cause Treppie’s answer didn’t qualify. It was a spoilt answer, Pop said. You could say it was like an illiterate person handing in a ballot paper with scratch-marks in all the squares.

A vote like that got counted as a spoilt paper, and all it showed, Pop said, was that there were lots of people who couldn’t make up their minds, people who actually belonged in a circus.

Lambert was still angry. Hadn’t Pop just said it was a good thing when people couldn’t make up their minds? Hadn’t he said it was a talent?

It was a wonder that Pop kept his head that day, every time, and that he said, yes, but if Lambert recalled correctly, he’d said people shouldn’t just make up their minds about bugger-all. And it was as clear as night from day that this here wasn’t bugger-all, this was something definite. Something important. And that Lambert shouldn’t confuse clowning around in a circus with the real thing, with life as it was. After all, Treppie was allowed to say what he liked, if what he said was actually fuck-all, if all he was doing was playing Tickey. It was all a game and games were fuck-all.

Lambert stood there with a cock-eyed look from all Pop’s talking. Treppie was laughing so much he was on the floor. After a while he rolled his ‘answer’ into a little ball and began chewing it like gum until it was small enough to swallow. He blew up his cheeks and used his finger to make a popping noise like a champagne cork. He went on like that for five minutes, popping champagne corks into Pop’s face, to show him his mouth was empty and everything that happened that day was fuck-all, completely fuck-all.

She could see the whole business was making Treppie upset. He didn’t have a good grip on himself. If you ask her, Treppie chewed and swallowed that silly answer of his ’cause he felt bad. He felt bad about poor old Lambert, with all his sores, studying so hard for his exam. Lambert was pale and sickly from trying so hard, from trying like that all his life long. And he felt bad about her and Pop, who praised Lambert so nicely and stood up for him when things got out of hand, ’cause most of the time they just tried to stay out of his way. She knows. Treppie’s not the kind of person who can show he’s sorry the way other people can. He’s scared of feeling sorry. She remembers, at Old Mol’s funeral, he didn’t shed a single tear. And he didn’t even try comforting her and Pop when they cried. But when the minister asked if anyone wanted to say a few words on behalf of the family, Treppie was quick to present himself. That was the first time he really put a few sentences together after Old Pop’s death.

But actually they weren’t just feeling bad and sorry for each other, that day of the exam. They were also scared. Scared about allowing Lambert to be the hero, and about the fridge book passing into his hands. That book that was now his, alone. It had been a family trophy and where the trophy used to be there was now just a big hole, a hole she knew none of them would ever be able to fill again. They were scared ’cause they knew this — and she could see Treppie and Pop knew it too — and ’cause they knew there were still lots of other things in that hole, and the whole caboodle was now making its way straight to Lambert. They wouldn’t have a leg to stand on any more, never mind a perspective to live from.

Treppie was looking a bit shot after he washed his face and came back into the lounge in his old clothes. No more red nose. He poured himself a stiff drink and threw it back just like that, clean, standing there next to the sideboard. She and Pop gave each other one look, as if to say: Treppie took a big knock today.

And he knew that they knew, ’cause when he turned around again with his second tot in both his hands, as if he was looking for something to hold on to, he gave them a wink, not a devil’s wink, but a half-mast wink, like he was half-sad. He cleared his throat and he put on a face and he said: ‘Well now, people, fasten your seatbelts, the playing fields have been levelled for a miracle, whether you believe it or not.’

Early the next morning, just after she and Pop woke up, Treppie came in and hurried them up. They must come now, he said, this thing began with witnesses and it had to end with witnesses. They couldn’t sleep at a time like this. When they got to the lounge, Lambert was already there, sitting and waiting in Pop’s chair. Excuse me, he said, but Treppie had told him to stay put. Pop pulled Lambert’s crate to the other side. Treppie sat in front of him.

Now, said Treppie, if Lambert thought the family Bible was something, then he had news for him, ’cause that was nothing. There were still the family jewels.

Treppie went into his room. He huffed and he puffed and then he brought out a great big trunk, dragging it right up to Lambert’s feet in the middle of the lounge.

He went and dug around some more in his room and he came out with a long army bag that rattled with long-necked things.

He even brought out his black sling-bag, the one he took with him to the Chinese every day.

Treppie laid his long fingers on the lid of the trunk. His hands trembled and his shoulder twitched.