Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

When he walks past Triomf’s shopping centre on the way home, the AWBs and their red caravan are gone. He’s almost glad, ’cause he knows he would’ve been tempted to shove his new gun under their noses. Just to prove a point. But that would have caused big trouble again and now he’s in a hurry to get home.

At the house, he climbs softly over the fence so no one will hear the gate and come and ask where he’s been all day. He hasn’t worked out a story yet. He sneaks round the back to his den and puts on the light. Then he takes all the stuff out of his bag and arranges it on his bed. Before he sits down, he locks the inside door. Then he sits for a long time and looks at his lucky finds. Eventually, he leans backwards against his cushion, propped up against the wall. ‘Ping, ping, ping,’ he plays on the stiff teeth of his umbiera.

In front of him, he sees his list from this morning.

He smiles at his list and gets up. Underneath the last number he writes another three numbers: 25, 26 and 27 . And next to them he writes: gun, binoculars, umbiera (Kaffir-harp) . He makes little ticks next to each one. With a red ball-point.

FROM DREAM TO DREAM

Pop half wakes up. He smells fire. He can’t work out if he’s awake or asleep. In his dream everything was also full of white smoke. Now he keeps his eyes closed. He stays where he is. He’s trying to work out what’s burning and where. His skin feels dry and there’s a rustling noise in his ears. It feels like he’s lying inside a dry pod. He feels light, as if he’s tumbling about inside a shell as dry as the wind, a great big droning wind full of white smoke. He can’t tell what’s above and what’s below. His head spins. It’s as if many different hands are swinging him by his feet, letting him go and grabbing him again. As if each hand doesn’t know what the others are doing.

Pop struggles to get out of the dream, but just as he begins to get out, he lands up in another dream. His eyes burn when he tries to open them, and there’s a noise in his ears like the sound of crashing. He can hear voices shouting, louder and then softer, in a rush of sounds that blow over him in waves.

BLOW HIGH THE FLAME

Pop sits up on the mattress. The room’s full of smoke. He turns towards the window and pulls the curtains away so he can see outside. But he sees nothing outside, no grass and no wall. Just thick, white smoke. He hears big things falling, doors slamming, and the walls shaking.

It’s Lambert. Screaming. A terrible bellowing. The other voices are those of Mol and Treppie. Mol’s voice is low. It sounds like something simmering, like Jungle Oats cooking on a stove. Treppie’s voice is high. Pop also wants to scream, but he can’t get a sound out of his mouth. His throat has closed up from all the smoke.

Have they really forgotten about him here in the room as the world consumes itself outside? Did they think he should rather just fall asleep, finally, without his even realising he was crossing over? Maybe they thought it would be more merciful like this. And maybe they were right, too. But now he’s awake and he must get out of here, ’cause he can’t breathe. Pop gets up, still in his shirt. He feels for his pants, but his eyes burn when he opens them. He can’t find his pants. He’s looking for the door. He walks into the dressing table, catching sight of his face in the cracked, middle mirror. All he sees there are dark holes where his eyes should be, and the white point of his nose. His mouth and chin and cheeks are blotted out in the semi-dark of the room. He rubs his hand over the bottom half of his face. The stubble makes a scraping noise. So, at least his face is still there.

It feels to him like time’s dying, like the end of time itself is approaching. The last judgement, the judgement of fire, when the clock-faces melt in the towers and the seconds burn into the wrists one by one.

Pop turns away from the mirror. If the mirror’s here, then the door must be there. He takes a few steps across the floor. Behind him the window slips off its catch and blows open. He turns around. The curtain flaps up high and a wave of warm smoke-wind catches him full in the face. He loses his breath, stumbling backwards into a doorframe. Now he’s in the passage. There, far away in front of him, he sees a light. It must be the front door. But the back door’s closer. He hears sounds like shots. Things are exploding out there in the backyard. He feels hot and cold in his shirt. The smoke swirls more and more densely round his head.

Pop feels like he’s in the belly of something that’s been set on fire and stoked up, something you can’t stop until it all burns up. Like a furnace. Or an oven where bricks are being fired.

He stands in the back door. Through the waves of smoke he sees Lambert swinging a big metal plate over the fire. Flames shoot up from under the plate. Lambert roars. It looks like his feet are in the coals. He’s taking high steps and his legs look like they’re burnt black, all the way up to his knees.

Slowly, Pop registers what he’s seeing. Flossie’s not on her blocks any more. She’s not even on her chassis. She’s right off her undercarriage, like something fleeing its own skin. What’s more, it looks like someone’s taken a sledgehammer and smashed the dislocated Flossie even further into her glory. Bits of her lie scattered all over the place. All that remains on her chassis are the seats, the engine and the steering wheel. It’s almost like a king-sized dog with jaws of iron decided to tear her to bits. And her shell, standing to one side with its doors thrown open, looks like something that wants to fly, a thing with broken wings and no face, ’cause the front window’s been smashed in as well. The doors have been pushed almost right out of their hinges, and the nose of the bonnet’s been twisted upwards, out of shape. The engine cover too. God in heaven, how could he have slept through all this? Maybe he’s still sleeping. Maybe he’ll wake up in a minute or two and find it’s just an ordinary day.

Slowly, Pop moves his sore hip down the kitchen steps. Still in his shirt and socks, he takes a few steps through the wreckage. A blowtorch lies in the grass. He sees the big monkey-wrench and the electric saw for cutting iron. Pieces of iron piping and bricks lie scattered everywhere. He wants to get to Lambert, over there, standing in the flames. He must stop Lambert. He must try to stop him before he goes too far. He must say something, before Lambert takes to the streets and breaks down the whole of Triomf. But the smoke and the heat stop Pop in his tracks. He can’t go any further, the wind’s blowing everything into his face. There’s soot in his eyes and he can smell rubber.

Suddenly he sees Treppie and Mol running towards him, through the smoke. Mol’s coughing. Her hair stands up wildly. Treppie’s waving his arms.

‘Back! Back!’ he shouts.

‘Around the front!’ Mol shouts.

‘Here!’ Treppie rips the steering wheel out of its rod and pushes it into Pop’s hands.

‘Take this!’ he shouts at Mol. He rips something loose. It’s a piece of the back seat.

Treppie grabs one more time. He tears off one of Flossie’s loose mudguards at the back. ‘Come!’ he shouts.

Pop finds himself in the middle of a procession. Back through the kitchen door, down the passage, up towards the front door. With Treppie in the lead.

‘He’s gone berserk!’ shouts Mol.

‘He’s flipped,’ shouts Treppie.