Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

Let him just leave her to sleep, even though he really wanted her to tell him a story, to get him right and ready. ’Cause he doesn’t feel ready.

Maybe it’s just as well. Now he can go pick the yellow bud on her rose bush without her seeing. It’s the first bud. He’s been eyeing it all week. That rose bush is still sitting there in its plastic bag.

It’s for the little bottle next to his bed. ’Cause if you ask him, a real flower’s the only thing he’s short of.

SERMONS ON THE MOUNT

Mol wakes up. She’s not altogether sure where she is. ‘Tip-tip-tip’, she hears. It’s raining. Where’s it raining now? She sits up. Here’s Pop, next to her. There’s Treppie, on the back seat. Pop and Treppie are both sleeping. Toby’s awake. He looks at her with big shiny eyes from where he’s sitting in the dicky at the back. All she can see through her window are drops of water. She winds down the window. It’s the Zoo Lake parking lot. That’s where they are.

First they were on the koppie. That’s right, now she remembers. With sermons. And Klipdrift. She touches her head. It hurts. Too much Klipdrift today. The stuff just makes her feel sleepy, but what could she do, with all the nerves in the house about the girl who was supposed to be coming, and everything. So when they finished looking at Lambert’s den, she helped herself to another shot. And then she went and lay down, ’cause Pop and Treppie just couldn’t get themselves going. Before she knew it she was fast asleep. The next thing, Pop was shaking her. All she could see were little stars.

‘Get up! Quick!’ Pop said. He was standing in the door, looking down the passage towards the den and then back into the room. In and out, in and out he kept looking, completely white with nerves.

‘She’s here!’ Pop said. ‘Quick! We must go!’

So she dragged herself to the front, even though she wasn’t properly awake yet. She only really came to when they got to the koppie. And not by herself. The sermons did it.

Pop stirs in his seat next to her. He looks all broken-jointed. His head lolls over the back-rest and his knees are jammed at an angle against the gear lever. Shame, he must also be tired after all the fuss. He was wiped out even before they left the house.

They had to stand on the pavement next to the car, waiting for Treppie. He’d taken the girl through to the back. Pop was pacing up and down, blowing out clouds of smoke. They told her later they’d looked high and low to find a girl, and in the end they decided to pick one up off the street. With a touch of the tar-brush, Pop said. Shame, a little touched. And Lambert himself is also a bit touched in the head. She wonders when they’ll be able to go home again. What’s the time? Probably early morning already. Lambert should surely be finished by now? Finished! God help her!

Pop said the girl cost a packet. He said Treppie tried to bargain with her, asking if they couldn’t first pay her a deposit. Then that girl told Treppie she may be a rent-piece, but she wasn’t yet a lay-by. Not slow on the uptake, Pop said. A real livewire. Well, so far, so good: that’s what Lambert said he wanted. Now he’ll see how things really work. Not everyone’s just going to do what he says. She hopes the whole thing doesn’t turn into a big fuck-up again. Pop said Treppie told the girl a lot of stuff and nonsense that she had to spin Lambert. That she was a high-class whore, a Cleopatra or something. And that she should keep a close watch, ’cause Lambert sometimes got wild. And if Lambert did get a bit wild she should pull his pants down over his feet and get the hell out of there. Pop said Treppie almost ruined the whole business with his horror stories. In the end they had to pay all the money in a lump sum, more than a hundred rand, just for an hour. Mol has her doubts. This woman is a stranger to Lambert. She’ll have to know her stuff, ’cause sometimes Lambert takes a while to get going. It’s a good thing they got out of the house. She told Pop, she really didn’t want to be there if the whole thing blew up, ’cause then she’d be the one to fix what that whore went and stuffed up. She could just see it coming.

She’s never before seen Pop in such a hurry. Treppie had hardly gotten into the car when Pop took off so fast that her head nearly jerked off her neck. They were thrown sideways, this way and that, as Pop wheeled around the corners. And when he skidded to a stop outside Ponta do Sol, she almost bumped her head in front. Pop was in a state all right. They bought Cokes and things and rushed back to the car. Then she asked him where was he taking them, but he just leant forward and stepped on the accelerator.

Treppie sang: ‘Up, up and away-y-y in my beautiful balloon!’

By this time, he was in high spirits. Mission completed, he said, now they could relax with a drink and a wide-angle view. So that’s where they were going — to the Brixton koppie.

Why did they have to go there again? she asked, but Treppie was running off at the mouth. He told her she should see it as a visit to the Mount of Olives. They would pour Klipdrift into their cans of Coke and drink them down to the very dregs! Yes, that’s what he said!

Pop was dead serious. He said this wasn’t the time and place for profanities. Didn’t Treppie realise how much depended on tonight? They should all hope and pray that everything went off well.

In for a penny, in for a prayer, Treppie said. They didn’t need to push him hard, ’cause when he had the city at his feet like this, he could pray a bird right out of a bush.

When they eventually settled down under the tower, she saw Pop would far rather drink than pray. ‘Ka-pssshhhtt!’ He ripped open the tab on his Coke tin, taking a big gulp — she saw his Adam’s apple jump and fall — to make space for a decent shot from Treppie’s bottle.

So there they sat, looking out at the view, the city’s lights shivering as far as the eye could see. More like candles than electricity. Far out to one side, they could see the Florida Lake water-organ and its lit-up fountain. Must be a lovely organ, that. She’s already told them she wants to go there and see it close-up, but they never get that far. Too many other things.

Then Treppie started up again.

‘All people that on earth do dwell

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice’

he sang, just from seeing an organ in the distance. He’s got a head like a see-saw, that’s all she can say.

The next thing, Pop also started up, out of the blue: ‘What if you know you’re dying?’ he said.

She got such a fright she almost fainted. Pop wiped his mouth with an angry swipe and passed her his chocolate.

No, God, she said, there, eat your own chocolate, Pop. But he took the chocolate, ripped off the paper and flipped it right over his shoulder for Toby at the back. A whole half a Snickers. And Pop so loves his chocolate.

She thinks Treppie got a fright, ’cause he started talking about Toby being so spoilt and how he must think he’s part of a travelling church bazaar — if it wasn’t Snickers, it was Smarties. Treppie didn’t really want to change the subject. He made that speech of his about bazaars and things just to play for time. She could hear from his voice he was brimming with that topic of Pop’s. Meanwhile, Pop sat and looked straight ahead of him. She could see he was gritting his teeth. It was a long while before he started talking again.

No, what he meant was this: say you were dead certain you were busy dying, quite fast. So fast you could more or less count the days still granted to you. Pop’s voice was slow and dead even, like it always gets when he’s telling you what he’s saying isn’t small-talk.