Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

The only flag he hadn’t seen on that Ding-Dong, he told them, was the flag of the New South Africa, thank God. Then of course Pop wanted to know why, ’cause Pop’s a sucker for adverts. As long as it’s new. So he told Pop he hoped to heaven that he, Treppie, would be six feet under when the New South Africa started to see its arse, ’cause he’d been forced to watch the old South Africa go down the drain and he couldn’t bear to see the new one dying on a life-support system while it handed out golden handshakes left, right and centre. With the bugles of the last tattoo in its ears and a Y-front flag blowing at half-mast in the wind of its last breath. Thank you very much. Two nationalistic fuck-ups, he told Pop, would be too much for a finely tuned and constipated mortal like himself to handle.

All this time Pop just stood there, looking at him like he wanted to start crying. He mustn’t go and start blubbering now, he told Pop, ’cause he could see what was going on in his head. Pop must just understand, he said, a life-support machine was a lie against the truth of death. It didn’t save you from your unavoidable end. He was fed up with this whole show just for Lambert’s sake, he said, and that’s why he’d let the cat out of the bag this morning. Lambert must take the whole fucken lot now and get finished. If he was good enough to inherit all that they still had of any value, namely his fridge book and his fridge tools, then now was also the time for him to inherit the secrets of the fathers, so he could seek his own salvation with open eyes, like a man.

Then Mol echoed him, of course.

‘Yes, fathers,’ Mol said. ‘That’s right. Lambert actually had two fathers, the good father who tried to keep him on the straight and narrow all his life, and the bad father who fucked up every inch of that road, as far as he went.’

Well, what can a person say? Who does she think she is, anyway? So he asked her, in that case, what did she think of a house with no mother? But of course you have to say everything twice before Mol understands, and this time she was really looking for it. So he told her, maybe he was in fact the vital ingredient in their story, and Pop the saving grace, but she should just realise that she was the joy of their desire, in other words the queen bee, and if it hadn’t been for her, then Lambert, club-footed cretin that he was, would never have seen the light of day.

That shut them up. The sun was almost down and Pop said, well, maybe they should have the driving lesson now. In Flossie, he said, just in case. Why not in Molletjie? he asked. Then it would be Mol-on-Mol violence. But no one else thought his joke was funny.

To tell the truth, it wasn’t funny, but these days he can’t help himself any more. It’s his stomach that’s jammed so badly. No one believes him when he tells them it’s enough to make a person write a whole book full of cheap one-liners. And it’s been like this ever since he can remember. What goes in, must come out. And what won’t come out of the one end has to come out the other end. Top-dressing, that’s what he calls it.

Anyhow, then it was a whole palaver again to get Mol into Flossie, ’cause she’d seen in the past how the petrol pedal got stuck when Lambert played go-cart around the house, and how he bumped into things — so hard he sometimes fell right out. There weren’t any seat belts in that thing, either.

So Pop first had to take her for a ride, up and down the lawn next to the house, around Lambert’s rubbish dump at the far end and down to the postbox again, just to give her the feel of it. And when she eventually got into the driver’s seat, Toby went ‘whoof’ and jumped right over her on to the bricks at the back, which Lambert had packed there for weight. There was no more back seat after that fire he made for Guy Fawkes. Toby’s breath on her neck made Mol feel more relaxed, and now Pop could show her exactly how the gears worked. First, second, third, fourth, reverse. Over and fucken over again. Later, Pop even made a drawing to show her how the gears went, ’cause the gear stick no longer had its knob with that diagram on it.

And eventually, there she went. ‘Oo-eee! God help me!’ she shouted. Slowly, she lurched over the molehills in first gear. Pop was treading like mad with his feet, letting the clutch go and trying to find the brakes. It looked like he was in a paddle-boat or something.

The next exercise was to go from first to second and to work the pedals. It looked like a paddle-boat for two. Mol lost her bearings and almost went right through the gate. Then she just wanted out of that car, clutching on to Pop like she was about to drown or something. Well, he supposes the past few days must have been a bit too much for the old thing, ’cause she suddenly started blubbering, and he saw Pop’s hanky come out to wipe her tears. First her tears and then his own. And then he put his arm around Mol’s shoulder. She, again, put her hand on his leg. Not exactly driving off into the sunset, but there they sat, on the lawn in Flossie, with its bumper against the pole holding up the postbox. They sat there, staring at that backside-front postbox, and the postbox looked back at them through its receiving end, twisting its head.

What Pop told Mol to make her feel better, he doesn’t know. All he could see was Pop pointing his arm this way, that way, and then up into the air. Maybe he was pointing out all the places they were still going to visit. Heaven help them. And Toby too, he kept following Pop’s hand. This way, that way, up into the air. Man’s best friend.

It was then that he began to hear the sound of old pianos. At first all he heard in that bit of late-evening silence was the nervous traffic of cars beginning to drive faster and faster around Triomf as the election approached. But then, coming right out of his centre, he heard those old pianos, handfuls of old chords. It was so bad he felt like his heart wanted to combust. So he took a little turn past the fig tree at the back of the house. The autumn sun was shining so brightly through those leaves he could see every vein. And the light shone through the holes in the rust spots. The late figs looked as though they’d been preserved in golden syrup as they hung there, so sweet, so sweet. His gills contracted with tears.

Not enough sleep over the last few days. That must be his problem. So he came back to the front and drowned those terribly sad pianos with a few neat shots of Klipdrift. Then all that remained of the combustion were a few hissing and spitting coals in his insides, and a shoulder jerking like it wanted to shoot right off its socket, arm and all, so it could bugger off somewhere on five fingers. But he can’t fuck off from here, neither he nor any of his parts. He’s just going to have to see this one through to the bitter end.

He told Pop he should rather leave third and fourth for another day, ’cause he doesn’t have the time tonight to cure damaged Mol-skin. But all Pop wanted was to fuck off into the street with that Triomf-turbo of theirs after they’d finished their crying and comforting.

So now it’s dark and Flossie’s ready for the last round. Not for spare parts, but for geriatric training in parallel parking. The candles are burning on the Dogmor tins, one car’s length apart from each other. That’s how Pop set them out. Christ, if you didn’t know them, you wouldn’t believe your eyes tonight. It looks like a church. Half-holy, kind of beautiful, the dogs on the tins smiling with their mouths open through patches of rust in the candlelight.

He sees Pop flick on his lighter to show Mol where reverse is. She can’t find it. There goes her lighter too. The light from the little flames shine through their hair as they bend forward to look at the gear lever: through Pop’s white tufts and Mol’s loose strings next to her face. From her bun that’s been unravelling for the past two days. Woe is me!