Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

He rattled those loose slabs on their walls till all the dogs in Triomf were barking. Till they were going strong. And he started crying, and after a while the dogs were also howling much better.

Then he thought, wait, let him get into his dream car. He started her up, ’cause he wanted to drive off somewhere, to get lost good and proper, God alone knows where, with all those dogs running after him. Like he was in a circus or something.

But now it’s raining. Thunder and flashes of lightning crash into his ears. And now he just sits.

He looks up into the sky. He’s sopping wet. Hot and cold on his face. Blood and tears and rain. Where’s Mary motherfucker’s curls, let him wipe his face.

He rubs his dick. For what, anyway? For fuck-all. It feels like it’s getting smaller and smaller. But he rubs, anyway, harder and harder. It’s all he can think of doing.

REPORTBACK

It’s almost one o’clock in the afternoon, 26 April.

Mol stands in the passage, behind Treppie. They’re in front of Lambert’s inside door. She’s holding on to Pop’s sleeve, here behind her. At first she and Pop didn’t want to come, but Treppie said no, this was their baby too, they couldn’t start ducking out now. It was time for Lambert’s reportback.

You wouldn’t guess Treppie was given a talking to just a few hours ago. He’s so full of the devil it looks like he’s ready to start hopping. When they got home this morning he just smashed his way through the hole in the lounge window. Glass breaking everywhere. No, he said, now he was entering a war zone. Doors and thresholds were for civilians, and if they wanted to play doorsy-doorsy under such circumstances they were free to do so, they must just remember FW said war wasn’t for sissies. Then she said as far as she could remember FW said nothing about doors and thresholds, he said elections weren’t for sissies. Treppie said, no, now she was really falling behind, hadn’t she realised they were holding their own fucken election here in this house and they were allowed as much foul play as they liked, ’cause the playing fields under their feet were never, ever going to get level.

Then she gave Pop one look and they both knew they were just going to have to shuddup, ’cause Treppie’s head was like a merry-go-round. Even after three mugs of coffee.

So, here she stands behind him now. His one shoulder’s twitching again, like a broken jack-in-the-box. He signals to them they must get ready, he’s about to start knocking on the door. Not with his knuckles, she sees, but with a shoe that hasn’t got a heel. He found the shoe near the front gate. A small, black shoe made of patent leather. When he saw that shoe he said it looked like someone had popped Mary Poppins right out of her shoes, and he just hoped, for their sake and for the whole of Triomf’s sake, that the rest of her was unscathed. And intact.

Intact.

‘Rat-a-tat-tat-tat’, Treppie knocks. No answer. There’s a funny smell coming from the den. Treppie raises his eyebrows. What should he do now? Lambert’s coffee’s getting cold here in his other hand. How’s she supposed to know? He won’t listen to her in any case. Pop pulls at her from behind. He doesn’t want to go any further. He wants to go sleep, she knows. Where he got the strength from, she doesn’t know, but this morning he still wanted to patch up the front window with the plastic cover Lambert uses to cover Flossie when it rains.

‘Leave a shooting-hole,’ Treppie said, but it wasn’t necessary ’cause that plastic was no longer covering Flossie. It was under Flossie. And it was rotten with holes. Flossie was sopping wet. She stood there like a little bulldozer, her bumper pushed up against the prefab wall. She looked properly pooped.

Now Treppie pushes open the door. He has to shove with his shoulder, there’s so much stuff in front of the door. He makes high-stepping motions like the kaffirs when they march. The coffee goes ‘plops-plops’ over his hand. Come help, he signals to her with the shoe.

‘Viva Lambert, viva !’ he shouts as the door gives way.

‘Whoof!’ says Toby, pushing past everyone’s legs to get through.

Not her, God no, she’s staying right here where she is. All she can see now is Treppie and Toby and how they’re staring at Lambert. She can’t see Lambert. He must be sleeping.

Earlier, Treppie picked up a whole bag of beer tins and a Klipdrift bottle outside the den. Judging by the damage, he says now, it looks like more than just a hangover that Lambert’s sleeping off here. It looks like Lambert’s sleeping from pure despair, the kind of despair that comes from one thing and one thing only: not enough blood to the balls.

Couldn’t get it up.

Well, then, maybe that Mary was very lucky here last night, and, if you ask her, that kind of luck is worth the price of a shoe.

It’s them who’ll have to pay the price. The first thing they found was the postbox on the lounge floor. Shame, and Pop fixed it up so nicely for Lambert, painting it and everything. The paint must’ve still been wet ’cause there’s a blue smudge right in the middle of Jo’burg. What’s more, the whole house had been turned upside down.

That pelmet was so bent and twisted, Treppie said even the devil in hell wouldn’t be able to panelbeat it again. And her mirror, the one Pop specially put up in the bathroom yesterday afternoon, was in a thousand pieces all over the bath. And there were loose blocks everywhere, from the passage. It looked like they’d been dug out in big patches with a spade.

Pop pushes her from behind. They must either go in or go out, he motions, but he’s not planning to spend the whole day standing here in the doorway. Let them see what’s what and be done with it. He’s tired.

Just one step, so Pop can also see. Glass wherever you put your foot down. And a thick line of vomit on the floor. ‘Sis!’ Toby sniffs it. ‘Yuk!’

Pop must go fetch some newspapers in his room, Treppie says. Then they can use dry vomit to cover up the wet vomit.

‘God help us,’ Pop says. She watches him as he walks down the passage. It’ll be a miracle if Pop survives this day. Well, she’s stronger, let her take the lead here instead.

Treppie spins the little shoe on his finger like he’s doing a circus trick, spinning a plate on a stick. Just look what they found on the front lawn, he says. If they look long enough for her other parts they might even be able to reassemble the Creole Queen before the end of the day — is that what Lambert understands by value for money.

Lambert doesn’t hear a thing. He’s lying on his stomach in his shirt and his red underpants. The underpants reach only halfway up his backside.

Come, sing along, Treppie says.

‘Wake up, wake up, it’s a lovely day!’ Treppie sings. ‘Oh please, get up and come and play!’ Let him sing if he wants, she’ll just pick up the broken glass. Before there’s another accident.

What’s this flying through the air now? A shoe. Treppie’s thrown the shoe at Lambert.

‘Huh-uh,’ is all Lambert says. He rolls on to his other side. His shirt is full of vomit.

‘Time for reportback!’

How does Pop always put it? Treppie will drill into a dead hole until he finds a spark somewhere. Well, he can try, but this time she’s not so sure. Lambert looks like he’s lost to the world. His mouth hangs open.

Treppie mustn’t come and shove things in front of her nose now, it’s not her who has to do the reportback.

‘Hey, old Mol, check, he even stole your rose for the occasion!’

A rose is a rose is a rose, he always tells her, but she better not throw it back at him now, ’cause today she’s sure a rose will be something different.