Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

He wants to go in at the gate, but first he has to wait for two container lorries to pass. One’s coming in and the other’s going out. They’re making a hell of a racket. It looks like they’re too high on their wheels. Pitch-black smoke pours out from the exhausts under their bellies. The smoke blows full into his face. He turns away his face and puts his hand in front of his mouth. The lorries are loaded to the brim with red-brick rubble and bits of plaster. The containers bump and grate against their frames. The lorries roar and blow. They brake and scrape their gears — the one to make its turn down the hill, and the other to get up the hill so it can turn into the road. The municipal kaffirs on top of the lorries shout and whistle and scream here above his head. The drivers sweat and swear. Their muscles flex as they turn the big steering wheels. Yellow-red sand sifts through the rims as the lorries turn, and the big wheels spin on all the loose gravel. Stones shoot from under the tyres.

Christ almighty! Suddenly it looks like the lorries want to open up their jaws here in front, at the grids. Like they want to bite him with teeth of yellow, dusty iron. He feels pain shoot into his tail-end. No, not that! God in heaven, please, help! Not here. Just keep a hold, now. Fucken lorries. They’re all over him in his fucken head. He can feel himself going white in the face. Foamy spit bubbles up inside his cheeks. And now his mother’s not here with her washing pegs, either. He wipes sweat off his upper lip. Down, down, he wants to fall down, to the ground.

‘Hold on, Benade! Hold on!’ he says to himself.

Then everything feels like it’s on top of him. He goes down on one knee. The lorries roar, now this way, now that way, like demons straight from hell. They look like they’re floating on air, with flames under their wheels. Then he feels someone grab him by his arm. He looks up but he can’t see properly. Sparks blow up in front of his eyes. The man pulls him up and away, across the road. Away.

‘Sit, sit down, man!’ says the man. He sits. He can’t see where he’s sitting.

‘Here, my man, drink some Coke, man!’

He gropes for the bottle in front of him. He swallows, but his throat feels tight. He takes another sip. Open up, throat, open, please! His eyes feel stiff. He rolls them around. His tongue is lame. He licks his lips. Jesus, fuck, that was close. That was close, fucken close! Thank you, God, Jesus thanks!

He opens his eyes. In front of him, sitting on his heels, he sees a kaffir. The kaffir’s got a faded, sloppy hat on his head. And he’s wearing reflector shades. There’s a cut on his cheek. His face is sharp and yellow. He looks rough, like he’s a rough, loose kaffir or something. But Lambert’s not sure. The kaffir’s wearing a faded denim shirt with holes where the sleeves used to be. Dirty threads of denim hang down on to his arms. There’s a green band around his wrist and a copper bangle around the other arm, high up, just above the elbow. Long, thin arms hang like sticks from his shirt. His pants are too short and the skin sticking out underneath is rough. As far as Lambert can make out, the man’s legs are like broomsticks, with a string of beads round one ankle. Red and green and yellow. Almost ANC, he thinks. Almost Inkatha. But not quite. He wonders what this yellow kaffir’s case is. He’s a different kind, this one. He looks clever, and it looks like something’s tickling him. God knows what’s tickling him so much. He looks at the kaffir’s takkies. No socks, no laces. This is not even a loose kaffir.

This, he thinks, is a tsotsi-kaffir. As thin as a wild dog. What does he want with me?

Lambert wants to get up, but his back feels lame. He can’t get up nicely. The kaffir presses him softly against his chest, back down again.

‘It’s okay, my bra. I’m just checking for you here. Wait, sit, it’s okay. Are you feeling better now? You faint or what? Those lorries nearly got you, man. You were nearly squeezed flat, my man, flat like a pancake. But I watch out for you, my man. I pick you up, I bring you here. I give you Coke. I’m your friend, man. Don’t panic.’

‘I’m not your friend,’ he says. ‘I want to go home now.’ But he can’t get up.

The kaffir stands up. He takes a big step backwards. He motions with his hands. This kaffir’s full of sights.

‘Okay! Okay! Okay! You’re not my friend, hey, you are my boss, right? Big boss, ja baas . I’m just a kaffir at the dumps, boss, okay? I catch whiteys who faint here. That’s my job, yes? Here a whitey, there a whitey, faint. Faint left, faint right, faint centre, all day long. I’m the fainting boy, right?’

The kaffir turns his back to him. From behind it looks like he’s laughing. Then he turns around again.

‘Okay? Relax, my bra, just relax. Boss, king, president, chief, caesar. Whatever. God in heaven, anything you want, I say. Any way you want it. At you service. Excuse me boss, please boss, thank you boss, ja baas, no baas , sorry boss that I live boss!’ The kaffir turns away again. His hands are at his sides. He drops his head and makes little shaking movements.

‘I did not mean that so, man. Thanks for your help, man, many thanks. I just must go home now, that’s all. I’m not feeling right, you see.’

But he sags back against the rock. He sees now he’s going to have to wait. He can still feel the little stabs in his tail-end. Better to let it pass, otherwise it might come back again. Otherwise maybe it’ll happen in front of Shoprite, next to the stewing-meat sign. That’ll be fucken bad, even worse than here in front of the gates at the rubbish dumps. He sees the kaffirs sitting and looking at him across the road. But they’re sitting with their fingers up in the air. They want a job, that’s all they want. They couldn’t give a shit about him lying here on the other side of the road with a back that feels lame. Why should they? Well, he figures, he’s had some luck with this tsotsi-kaffir. If the kaffir hadn’t helped him, he’d be lying there right now having a fit in the dust. Pissing in his pants, with all the lorries and cars full of people waiting in a queue for him to get finished.

‘Hey,’ he calls out to the kaffir, who’s still standing with his back turned. ‘I mean it, you! You saved my life there, man! Thank you, man. Thanks again very much.’ And then as an afterthought: ‘I owe you one.’

The kaffir turns around.

‘Okay, okay, that’s enough,’ he says. Now he looks the hell in. He sits down next to Lambert. He takes a packet of tobacco out of his back pocket and rolls a cigarette. Then he shakes a few green crumbs from a matchbox into the tobacco.

Dagga, Lambert thinks. This kaffir actually thinks he can sit here and smoke a joint in front of him, a white man!

The kaffir makes the joint with his long, thin fingers. He licks the paper. He’s concentrating hard. You can see he’s been rolling joints for a long time. He folds the paper into a cigarette shape, twisting one end closed. Then he smooths the joint nicely with his fingers, pressing them together like a nozzle. He’s got two long nails on one hand. The kaffir lights up and takes a deep pull. He offers Lambert the joint. Lambert shakes his head. No thanks. The kaffir shrugs and looks the other way.

He stares at the kaffir who’s looking the other way. This is one cheeky fucken kaffir, he thinks. How does he know Lambert won’t go and report him to the police? How does he know he isn’t a policeman himself? He thinks about this. No, he reckons he doesn’t look like a policeman. He checks out the kaffir again. The kaffir looks like he’s forgotten about him. He’s looking into the street, now this way, now that way. He’s looking at what’s coming. He smokes his joint so hard the smoke floats around his head in clouds. He wishes the kaffir would take off those sunglasses, ’cause he doesn’t know where to look when he looks at him. All he sees there is his own reflection. He feels the kaffir can see him better than he can see the kaffir. This is not a scared kaffir, he decides. This kaffir isn’t afraid of anything. He’s an okay kaffir, this.