Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

After the first shot, Mol had started screaming. She wanted to go to the back to stop Lambert. But he sat her down on her chair and explained to her nicely that she’d just have to leave it now. History had to take its course and none of them could do anything more about it. By the thirteenth shot, when Mol began shivering and shaking, he told her it sounded like Lambert was shooting at a tin in preparation for tomorrow’s election. No need to worry, he said. But he didn’t tell her about the visions he’d been having of the whole of Fort Knox lying in a bloody heap in the backyard.

So, he and Mol were both relieved when Pop came back and said everything was okay. Lambert was still sleeping. He said he couldn’t figure it out, but Lambert’s paintings were full of holes and there were chunks of plaster all over the floor.

The bastard should fuckenwell have shot himself in the head, and the rest of them too, one after the other. Then all of their problems would’ve been solved for good. And then this whole blasted story could have ended in blood and guts and a smoking barrel. The perfect South African family murder. Then everyone would’ve been happy — common rubbish living their common lives, making the rest of the fucken scum feel good about themselves. He can just see the headlines: BLOODBATH IN TRIOMF, THE LAST OF THE POOR WHITES IN OLD SOPHIATOWN, MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. Take your pick. Better than any Western. Then, after their death, they’d maybe even become the flavour of the month with all the fools who think they’re bigger and better than everyone else. Well, no one’s going to get rid of them quite so easily. In any case, he’s far from ready. And what’s more, he won’t just lie down for any old trick. He has his pride, for fuck’s sake. And just let anyone — let alone that wretched Lambert — try to run them down like they’re the Big Five (the fifth being the Klipdrift bottle). For that arsehole he’ll set a booby trap in which the bastard will get stuck for the rest of his goddamn life, right here among them. Under their roof. Then the sod can run up against the walls, trying to escape, north-south-east-west, until kingdom come. Like an ant in a saucer.

And as a consolation prize he’ll see one hell of a performance every now and again. Like Pop in front here, for example. He’s busy putting up candles on a row of Dogmor tins, all along the prefab wall. He told Pop it looked more like a landing strip for a Dogmor-angel than a parking lot for Mol.

This is now going to be a lesson in the dark. ’Cause this afternoon it was party-time in the street again. He’d half hoped they’d forget about the driving lesson. It felt to him like they’d all been in a long nightmare for weeks now, with Lambert’s birthday and everything. Like they can’t wake up, no matter how hard they try, and it’s just night all the time. And now, on top of everything, there’s one bomb after another.

First, this afternoon, he felt the ground rumble under his feet and he thought, this had to be the bomb for Jo’burg-West. Then Mol called him from his room. He must please come, there was a roof-removing machine outside in the street. Poor Mol, all she can worry about is whether they’ll still have a roof over their heads. The fact that it’s been leaking like a fucken sieve for years doesn’t seem to worry her at all. She spent half the past summer walking up and down with pots and pans and things. When they get full, she empties them. Then she puts them down again, over and over, like she’s scared the house will sink if she doesn’t. As if the threat’s coming from below. Anyhow, the thing outside had nothing to do with the roof, it was a helluva show the NP was putting on here in Triomf for the election. That’s what he calls a last-ditch attempt — in a fucken crane, can you believe it! He feels like declaring tomorrow his own personal holiday and fuck the rest. He’s already told them, if only he had the money, he’d fuck off to the Lost City and spend a few days there, they’ve got bed and breakfast on election special over there. Then he could have settled himself comfortably in those artificial little waves and forgotten about everything else. The whole business is working badly on his tits. He has to drink himself almost paralytic every night just to get some sleep.

He rubs his jerking shoulder. He sees Toby looking at the candles on the tins, inspecting them one by one as Pop puts them up. Must think it’s Christmas all over again, the poor dog, like he’s in a time-warp or something. He’s been completely mad recently, barking at fuck-all half the time. Must be the bombs going off all over the place, and the shooting in the middle of the night. More and more bombs going off by the day. And now it’s guns with hand-pump action, he reads in the papers. When Toby hears those things going off at night he runs round the house like he’s got a Guy Fawkes movie in his head. Not to mention all the cars that race and crash and the sirens and things on Ontdekkers, a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. The dogs feel it the worst. This afternoon again, when that thing came wheeling down the street, the dogs thought it was coming for them. A monster of a yellow crane with a small head and a long arm. You just saw dogs barking and teeth snapping at those tyres. The wheels were half a house high. So he decided to let Toby out so he could also blow off some steam.

And guess who was sitting up in the cab, along with the kaffir who was driving? None other than those two little lapdogs from RAU. Waving their little white hands from a dizzy height behind a tinted windscreen, as if they were fucken royalty or something. Colour-combined too, like Christmas trees — margarine suns on her ears, and him with a fig-leaf tie in NP colours. Underneath the tie, his stomach was sticking out like a plump white pumpkin.

They all went down to the oak tree at the bottom of the street. The crane stuck out its arm a little further, ‘bzzzt!’, with Jannie White-Pumpkin strapped into a little chair at its tip. He stretched a big banner right around that tree’s crown. It looked like a bad joke, like an ancient creature with a sore head. The banner said, in big, fat letters: THE TIME HAS COME TO CHOOSE BETWEEN THE BUILDERS AND THE BREAKERS! Underneath, someone had written in, just for the occasion, in slanted writing: F.W. LOVES TRIOMF. FORWARD WITH OUR MINORITY! KEEP OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD CLEAN! Pop asked him what he thought it all meant, but all he said was, no comment. He was listening out for his stomach.

So, that was diversion number one. And, he must say, they needed a little break after the shock this morning when they got home and found the house looking like a ghostbuster had ripped through it. Not that he was surprised after all that build up. He’d promised Lambert he’d bring the girl, and there was no way he could go back on his word. He was too deeply dug into the whole story. That’s how it goes in this place. You plug one hole with a story and then the story blows up in your face. Then you’re left with an even bigger hole. Now even the lounge window’s got a fucken hole in it. Well, it keeps him busy, that’s all he can say. Deeper than a hole you can’t go.

Then it was time for diversion number two. Mol again. They must come see, she says, here comes Miss South Africa. But it wasn’t her, it was soft-serve with a difference, ’cause that ice-cream kaffir was covering his backside — the Ding-Dong was decorated with every flag under the sun. From the NP’s flag right through to the DP, the ANC, the PAC and the AWB. And, just for luck, he chucked in a zebra flag from Trek Petroleum, as well as a Vierkleur, a Red Cross, a flag with the Malawian rooster on it, and a Toyota horse. The works. On the aerial, of course, he had a blue peace-flag with little doves on it. Yes, he said, that was the only way. A kaffir couldn’t take chances with ice cream on a day like this, especially in Triomf. That man had a very good nose for business, not to mention a grand sense of occasion.