Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

‘Hey, Lambert, you want to see some fireworks, my man? You can’t sleep now, life’s too short, too valuable!’

Treppie holds his two forefingers together, the one pointing and the other limp.

‘And so the Great Idler, sitting around during his Sunday rest, schemes up a little ploy to amuse himself. Suddenly he’s the Great Electrician in the sky. Bzzzt! He jump-starts little Adam right out of the earth!’

Open, closed, open, closed, the limp hand responds to the charging finger. Then suddenly he meshes the fingers of both hands so hard that the joints crack.

Hey! It looks sore.

Pop just shakes his head here next to her.

‘Founding the nation!’ says Treppie. ‘Refreshment station. Off you go, now you can paint him on your wall, your Adam. Fit for small talk till the end of his days, dust to dust, tall stories, world without end!’

No, hell, man, now she doesn’t understand so well here. Pop looks like he understands some of it but not everything. He tells Treppie God will punish him but he doesn’t say what for.

Treppie pretends he doesn’t hear a thing Pop says.

‘I wouldn’t like to guess what he’s feeling now,’ Treppie says.

Who’s feeling what now? Adam?

‘Never mind, Mol,’ says Treppie. ‘Feeling is feeling. Whether it’s the Creator or Adam’s sister’s wife or the painter or the poet’s distant hellbent family it cuts no ice, ’cause it all started at the same point and it all boils down to the same beginning in the end — the smoke that thunders!’

What’s Treppie on about now? Pop just sits and smokes here next to her. He’s dead-quiet.

‘Waterfall,’ says Pop.

‘That’s it! Ai, Pop, I’m so glad there’s at least one person who understands me here today. We are the waterfall, hey, and if a person looks carefully you’ll see it’s a never-ending story of evaporation and condensation. Liquids, gases and solids, an automatic cycle and a closed circuit. Perpetual motion!’

‘Well, I think I’m going now,’ says Pop. Yes, her too, if Treppie wants to sit here and tell stories to prolong the agony then he can do so on his own. Life must go on and you dare not slow down if you don’t want to be left on the shelf. That’s what Old Mol always used to say. Shame, Old Mol had such high hopes for her. She said men would be men and in the end it was the women who took most of the strain, no matter what the men said, and never mind if they did have the whiphand, pretending they were experts on everything. That’s what Old Mol always used to say when Old Pop started drinking and talking politics at night while she had to sit there and stitch the shirts, patch their clothes, cook the food and pack Old Pop’s lunch-tin, all at the same time. At nights, long after they went to bed, she would hear Old Mol say, from behind that sheet: ‘Oh hunted hart with trembling haunches who from the huntsman did escape.’

Shame, Old Mol would turn in her grave if she had to see how things were going with her now — not on the shelf but underneath it. And that’s where she’s remained, even though she kept on trying. As for the hunt, she’s never gotten away.

Just listen to Treppie now. No, he says, they mustn’t go, it’s still going to get jolly here in this den of iniquity today. Lambert’s going to tell them a story or two. They must just give him a chance. It will be a story, he says, to comfort and to edify them and to make them long for the days of their unprofaned youth.

Unprofaned.

Ai! God help us!

Look how Lambert’s sitting there and looking at them, his head moving left-right, left-right. He supports himself against the pillows, arms on either side. She can see he doesn’t know which way to go ’cause the whole lounge is inside his den now, chairs and all. Everyone’s got him in their sights. And she can see he hasn’t even got a plan, never mind a story. He can’t even focus properly. And now Treppie’s on to him like a swarm of mosquitoes. Bite here, sting there. Won’t let go until he’s finished, she can see that. Treppie’s smelt blood and, if you ask her, he smelt it back there on the koppie already. Now he’s followed it all the way here to the den. He looks like he knows the death blow is close, but whose death it is, she doesn’t know.

‘She was nice,’ says Lambert. ‘A nice piece.’

‘Aha!’ says Treppie. ‘At last. Pop, come, come sit up nice and straight now, here comes Lambert’s story, at last. Right, you old tomcat, you, everything from the beginning, hey!’

‘We talked. We talked a lot!’ Lambert doesn’t sound like he’s so sure of his case.

‘Ja-a-a-a,’ says Treppie.

‘That was just the beginning, the talking.’

Treppie’s waiting to hear if there’s any more. But there isn’t. Lambert slumps on to the cushions. He looks sick.

‘Shot!’ says Treppie. ‘Glad to hear it. You hear that, Pop? And remember we agreed that if we brought Lambert a girl she’d have to be a talker, a real companion, one made from the rib. A girl who can guess the word that’s on the tip of your tongue. Ja, someone who can pick up your broadcasting, wireless, or who you can wire into if you need to get totally enmeshed!’

Cochrane’s wire.

‘Pof!’ Treppie slaps Pop on the back. ‘Come on, Pop, don’t you want to know what the kids were talking about all night long?’

‘What were you talking about?’ Pop asks. She can see Pop’s only saying it ’cause Treppie’s pushing him. And Pop can’t push back.

‘What about what?’ Lambert doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. He looks at her, as if she should know, but how’s she supposed to know?

‘The topic, Lambert. What you talked about, you know, the subject of your discourse!’

‘Well, um,’ says Lambert. He tries to straighten himself against the wall. It looks funny. It looks like his head’s in the postbox and Van Riebeeck’s talking into his one ear with Klipdrift, while Harry’s talking into the other with Coke.

‘And, um, she asked what I thought would happen on the twenty-seventh.’

‘I say! And then?’

‘Then I asked her, why?’

Treppie nudges her. And he nudges Pop.

‘Hey, you two, bladdy good question that, don’t you think? Why indeed?’

Treppie leans forward on his crate. He wants to hear some more.

‘And then?’ he asks Lambert.

Lambert rubs his eyes as though he’s got dust in them. Must be those little white crumbs from the burnt-out beer.

‘Then she said how can I ask why, it’s a turning-point in our history!’ Lambert’s face looks funny. It looks like he first has to think who said what.

Treppie cups his hand behind his ear, as if to say, come again?

All you hear is ‘tiffa-tiffa-tiffa’ as Toby scratches his ribs. Lambert looks at Toby like Toby must please tell him what to say next. No, hell, let her light a cigarette here. This isn’t funny. And Lambert mustn’t start picking on her now, either. She’s not a dog. Why’s he looking at her like that? She hasn’t done anything.

‘Close your legs, Ma,’ he says. ‘And wipe that stupid grin off your face. Now!’

As she says, she never escapes.

‘Yes, Mol, wipe that grin off your face. There’s nothing to grin about.’ It’s Treppie.

What her legs and her grin have got to do with the price of eggs, she doesn’t know. She looks at Pop but Pop doesn’t look back. He just takes her hand and then lets go of it again. That means she must accept her lot. She knows this from the way he takes her hand. Sometimes it means ‘never mind, it’ll pass’, and other times it means ‘don’t worry, it’s not your fault’. But this time she must accept her lot. Heavens above!

‘Turning-point. How come?’ It’s Treppie. He’s trying to get Lambert back on track now, ’cause Lambert’s clearly lost it again.