Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

Suddenly Treppie told them they must switch on the inside light. He plucked up his shirt and pushed his pants down over his hips so they could see his scar-tissue.

‘Krrrt-krrrt!’ she heard as Treppie scratched around here above her head to get the little light on, but it didn’t want to work.

So they had to use their lighters to look. Toby jumped right over the back seat — he also wanted to look — but Treppie let fly and smacked him so hard he didn’t even make a sound. His head just went ‘doof’ against the door. Shame, the poor dog.

‘Hold closer!’ Treppie yelled, and she and Pop turned around completely in their seats, lighting up his stomach.

Then she saw how terribly those blows had set into Treppie’s skin. She hadn’t known. She’d thought people outgrew things like that. Treppie’s stomach and hips were covered with nicks and grooves, as if he’d been tied up with ropes and beaten over and over again.

Treppie must have seen on her face she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. So he said she mustn’t come and act holier-than-thou all of a sudden. Didn’t she remember what he looked like that night when they dragged him out of the train? ‘Marked for life!’ he said, prodding his finger into the nicks and scars on his skin.

What could she say? So she lit up a cigarette — her lighter was burning anyway — and said: ‘Shame.’

That was also not the right thing to say.

Fuck shame, Treppie said. That’s all that she and her mother could ever say, shame this, shame that, and shame everything else. But they never stood up for him, not once, when Old Pop screamed at him so terribly and hit him for no reason at all. Not once did they take his side.

It was then that Pop said he could explain to Treppie why Old Pop used to beat him up so badly. It was something she and Pop had known when they were still small.

Treppie was a chip off the old block, Pop said. Of all of them, it was Treppie who took after Old Pop the most. Yes, he said, it was ’cause he had the same light blue eyes as Pop and the same stuff-you look in his eyes, too.

Then she felt Pop take her hand and let it go again and she knew they were both thinking of Old Pop. There they sat, looking at Treppie in the glow of their lighters, and it looked almost like Old Pop sitting there in front of them, just smaller.

The same short fuse, the same moods, the same delicate constitution, Pop said.

And then she remembered how Old Pop also used to struggle to shit, but she decided not to mention that ’cause Pop had already mentioned more than enough similarities. ‘Chip or no chip off the old block,’ Treppie shouted, ‘it’s no excuse for smashing up your own flesh and blood.’

He was one to talk, she thought, but she kept quiet. Treppie knew what she was thinking. He thumped her seat from behind.

‘Tsk-tsk-tsk!’ Pop said.

Then Treppie suddenly wanted out of the car. So bad that he didn’t even wait for her to get out. He just shoved her forward in her seat, almost climbing right over her.

She and Pop also got out, and she suddenly felt a chill, not from the cold air but from the height. That tower reaches up very high into the sky and its little head on top looks like it wants to bend down and fall over. Toby also wanted out, but they made him stay in the car. They could hear him going ‘ee-ee’ from behind the window. Then it was quiet again for a long time. They just stood there, looking at the lights and passing around the Klipdrift.

And then Pop started again. She’d thought he was finished, but he actually went and started all over again. About the forgiveness that Treppie had to find in his heart and that he’d thought Treppie had already softened when he gave Lambert all his stuff and helped him so nicely with the fridges. That, Pop said, had looked to him like a kind of forgiveness, and forgiveness was infectious. If you forgave the small things the big ones followed. Or the other way around, forgive the big ones and then the little things would begin to look like small fry.

Pop tried so nicely to get through to Treppie there on the koppie. She took his hand again and said, yes, if Treppie could make a circus and play the fool like that, then he couldn’t really still be so angry with Old Pop, then deep down everything was surely okay.

Treppie didn’t have to chastise himself so, Pop said. She didn’t have much time to wonder what chastise meant ’cause Treppie suddenly exploded. His eyes went white with anger, lighting up from the inside. He was so angry he got the shakes. Up and down he paced, poking the air with those little bird claws of his, as if he wanted to grab on to something and pull himself up into the air, right out of his skin.

Fucken shit, he said, they were talking the biggest lot of shit under the sun. What did they know, anyway, fuck forgiveness, fuck it right into its glory. Phew! Her ears are still burning.

Then she thought, no, God, now she must get away in a hurry before he goes and murders her and Pop right there on the koppie. She looked around and saw she could run this way or that way, but no matter which way she went there weren’t any people, so what would it help, anyway. She looked in front of her and all she could see was the tower. It looked like it was growing out of the back of Treppie’s head. Up, above her, and all around, she could see nothing but dull lightning going off inside the clouds, big black bunches of clouds that were blowing towards them. She looked down to the bottom of the koppie and there she saw ambulances racing past, going ‘pee-poh-peeh-poh’ with their red lights flashing. A horrible accident somewhere.

Even though it was so dreadful and scary up there on the koppie, the thought crossed her mind that it was just like being on a stage. And that Treppie would probably even want to breathe his last on a stage one day, with lights and curtain calls and people shouting, ‘Encore!’

There he stood beating his breast like Charlton Heston in a Bible movie. He shouted, forgiveness be damned, no one was going to get forgiveness out of him. He was angry and he’d stay angry until his last breath and he was going to shove their noses in it so they would be forced to partake of his legacy of anger. And why, he shouted, should he be the only one who felt haunted? From now on he was going to do the haunting.

Pop still tried to stop him, but Treppie just went on and on. Forgiveness, he shouted, was just wallpaper. Like a drizzle after thirty years of drought. Who needed that? Then everyone posed for the Farmer’s Weekly but the ground water was still rock-bottom. All this time Treppie was drinking non-stop from the bottle, but he was spitting out more than he swallowed. He said if Morkels could they’d sell forgiveness together with their five-piece bedroom suites. That was why the Day Spring Church was so full of policemen every Sunday. It was a branch of Morkels — forgiveness at a special price. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. One down payment with the collection every week.

Then she said amen, from pure panic. It was all she could think of saying. Pop moved closer to her and said she should not say anything now, but Treppie had already heard. Yes, she must shuddup, he said, ’cause if anyone should know all about suffering, it was her, but for some reason she refused to understand it. She thought to herself, yes, he was right, suffering existed. That was all there was to it. Why should you also tire yourself out by understanding it — it was there, deep in your bones. But she didn’t even finish her thought before Treppie started shouting again. If he had to suffer in his heart and his head, he shouted, then they had to suffer too. That was his hand, he said. That was his trump card!

She heard Pop say softly, ‘Joker,’ and she didn’t understand at all, ’cause the next thing Pop was standing up straight and grinning right into Treppie’s face. Pop normally sits with his head in his hands when things go mad like this. Maybe these were the very dregs. Maybe Pop thought he had to take it like a man.