Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

The point was, Pop said, if Treppie hadn’t been stuck with the rest of them, who were nobodies, and if he hadn’t had their never-ending bullshit around him all the time, the pointless bullshit, the insignificant bullshit, if he, Treppie, hadn’t had that, then he’d also have been nothing, ’cause that’s what kept him going. It was he who stomped and kicked and lied and went wild in that bottomless pit, Pop said, until he began to see some sparks inside there. If Treppie didn’t understand him, then he’d explain it to him in his own language. They were like a system with a dead earth. And if he got some spark out of them, then they got charged up like a turbine. Pumped up like a power plant. You could say, Pop said, that if you managed to connect them up properly you had power for Africa.

Pop isn’t the only one who understands Treppie’s language, so she slipped in her own word: ‘Generator.’ That’s what Treppie was, she said. He was their generator.

Now she’d really hit the nail on the head, Pop said. Through thick and thin, in sunshine and in rain, until death do them part, high current, dead earth, hand-in-glove, the one couldn’t do without the other.

Pop took a deep breath and she also took a few. The car was blue from all the smoke and they both turned around to take a good look at Treppie in the back seat. But he just sat there with his head down.

Now Pop came to his second point. If Old Pop hadn’t beaten Treppie to a pulp, he said, then Treppie wouldn’t have been the man he was today. Then he’d have been just like anyone else and he would have been at peace, not giving a damn. So, in fact, Treppie should be grateful to Old Pop, ’cause without him Treppie would have been nothing.

Treppie just sat there and mumbled, with his head hanging down like that, so you didn’t know if he was saying yes or no. Pop lifted his finger again, and this time she left it, ’cause she saw this was his third point, and it wasn’t just any old point. The only true peace Treppie would ever find, Pop said, was the peace he made with himself, ’cause peace wasn’t something you just got for nothing. Pop said if Treppie made peace in his heart with Old Pop, he might stop shorting out all the time. If they didn’t mind, Pop said, he wanted to use the language of electricity again. His theory was that Treppie was scared of making peace with himself ’cause if he did he might unplug himself and lose his spark completely.

Then Treppie mumbled something that she couldn’t make out, and Pop said, excuse me, what was he saying, but she could see he wasn’t finished yet.

Well, said Pop, he didn’t care if Treppie thought he was talking Boereelectricity or Boere-psychology. It was worth the trouble to try making that peace. Just look at you, Pop said. Ja, just look, she said. Nothing but skin and bone, said Pop. Ja, skin and bone, she said. At this rate, Pop said, Treppie was going to fall down and die like a dog. Like a dog, she said. And dead is dead, and Klipdrift is Klipdrift, whether or not Old Pop ruined him and beat him to a pulp. What did he have to say to that? Was it maybe Treppie’s way of paying them all back? Must they now feel bad for the rest of their lives, and must they feel even worse one day when Treppie died from the horries? If you asked him, Pop said, that was what the English called retribution from the grave, and that was indeed one way of doing things. But it was a very unfair and selfish way of dishing out punishment, to say the least of it. It was a terrible way to make sure people didn’t ever forget you.

Stop now, or you’ll make him cry, she said to Pop when she saw Treppie’s head stay down. She couldn’t stand the thought of anyone crying, especially Treppie. As far as she knew he’d never once cried properly in his entire life and she didn’t want to be in his company when he did.

But by this time Pop was so into his sermon that he was ready for anything. No, he said, everyone needs to cry a little, from time to time, and the next thing he was wiping his own eyes with his Christmas hanky.

Then there was a long silence in the car again. All you heard was ‘tiffa-tiffa’ as Toby scratched for fleas and kicked the seat. Pop held out his hanky so Treppie could take it.

But Treppie didn’t take it. He didn’t even sniff. He just let out a little sigh, and when he opened his mouth again, his voice came out straight and cool, like Klipdrift on the rocks.

Thanks for the sermon, old boy, he said, but Pop should understand, it was too late.

‘Too late for tears,’ he said. ‘But never too late for a laugh.’

Then he almost sounded like he was sad in an old-fashioned way, and when they turned around, he surprised them again. There he sat with a smile on his face. Such a mixed-up little smile, half-shy, half-soft, with a little gleam in his eye. Like he was saying to them, here’s a smile for your trouble. Take it! Now what could they say after that?

So she said it was nice of him to smile for a change.

Ja, said Pop, he could go ahead and smile, it wouldn’t kill him.

But then she looked at Pop and saw that he was looking straight ahead of him. He wasn’t smiling at all. Suddenly he looked like the whole world was pressing down on his shoulders.

She had to nudge him three times and tell him it wouldn’t kill him to smile either. And only then did he smile for her. He opened his eyes wide and gave her a look that said, everything’s okay, she mustn’t worry.

Well, by then they’d outstayed their welcome on that koppie. They’d had enough looking at lights and listening to sermons and drinking Klipdrift. And they were hungry. So they drove to the all-night café in Brixton and bought some take-aways. Nice sloppy hamburgers. Between the bites Treppie said he reckoned Lambert was doing an epileptic striptease for that floozy in his den right now. But neither she nor Pop thought it was funny and Treppie didn’t say anything more on the subject.

Then they went for a joy-ride, all over the place. She thought now she was finally going to see the end of Jo’burg, but the lights just carried on and on, forever.

Where did they stop? she kept asking. Treppie said she should understand, a city like Jo’burg was like a human heart. It was boundless. There were as many lights in a city, he said, as there were hopes and plans in the human heart. Then Pop said, ai, that was now really nice and philosophical, Treppie should write it down sometime.

And then they were allowed to switch on the radio again. First it was speeches by that Eugene-man, explaining how Paardekraal was a beacon in the nation’s history, and how the Waterberg was the place where the soldiers of Jesus were being trained to defend God’s chosen people on earth against the black heathen hordes. It turned out to be Radio Pretoria, broadcasting from Blackangle. Another city.

Treppie said that lot were sitting in more dark corners than they realised. Then he started singing ‘Jesus bids us shine with a pure, pure light’ before switching to another station. Highveld Stereo. Just love songs, one after another. But Treppie was on form again, and he made them laugh by changing the words of all those love songs. Like the words for ‘Distant Drums’. Treppie made up his own ballad to that tune, about Eugene Terre’Blanche and all the different colours of his underpants, with bits of speeches inbetween about how the mummies and the daddies and the grandmas and the grandpas and the dogs and the cats and everyone must learn to shoot with stolen guns, ‘boom! boom! boom!’ It was very funny.

And they even stopped to buy soft-serves before going to Zoo Lake. To rest a bit, Pop said, but they all fell asleep very quickly.

Mol turns around and makes big eyes at Toby. ‘Whoof!’ says Toby. Oh God, she didn’t mean to make him bark now. Toby jumps out of the dicky, over Treppie and into the front. He’s tired of sitting in a car. He wants out. Mol opens for Toby so he can go for a walk. Her too, she also wants to stretch her legs a bit. She walks around the back of the car. Raindrops glisten on the car’s roof. She looks out, first to one side, then to the other. Her neck is stiff from sitting. She sees the sky’s getting paler on the one side.