Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

‘Everything must burn!’ shouts Mol.

‘We must go round the front!’ shouts Treppie. ‘The wind’s too strong, we must throw the stuff into the fire from the front.’ The wind blows the warm smoke full into their faces. From the back, they can’t even get close to the fire.

‘He wants to see fire,’ shouts Mol.

‘Quick,’ shouts Treppie.

Pop wants to say ‘police’, he wants to say ‘fire brigade’, he wants to say ‘neighbours’, he wants to say ‘Lord God, please help’, but he can’t get a word out. He slips on the floor as he shuffles down the passage with the procession, steering wheel in hand. Then they’re out through the front door. Ahead of him, Pop sees Treppie starting to run. Flossie’s mudguard scrapes a long, white mark against the front door. From behind, Mol pushes Flossie’s seat into his back. ‘Hurry, Pop. Run!’

Toby squeezes past their legs. He barks in a high voice and tries to jump up against them. They’re out in front now, running around the corner. Vaguely, Pop sees a bunch of people watching them from the street, but he can’t make out who it is. Mol’s hurrying him up all the time.

‘Fetch!’ Lambert shouts from behind the fire. Pop can’t make Lambert out. All he hears is Lambert’s voice, which sounds different. Like it’s coming through a loudspeaker, or the mouth of a bugle.

‘Hurry up, you fucken dung-beetles … rotten bastards! I haven’t got the whole fucken day!’

Then they’re at the fire.

‘Throw it in! Throw it in! In the middle, so it burns. I want nothing to do with rubbish. Rubbish must burn! Time is short!’

Lambert stands behind the fire. With his long arms he throws boxes, papers and rags into the fire. The smoke’s so thick, all you can see is his outline. The old Kneff’s also in the fire, Pop sees. It looks like a big, burning white ship. How the hell did Lambert get that heavy thing outside?

Treppie takes Flossie’s seat from Mol and throws it on to the heap. It gives off a cloud of thick, black smoke. It stinks. Then the insides of the seat catch fire.

‘Hooooo-haaa!’ Lambert shouts.

The fire shoots up high.

‘Hooooo-haaa!’ he shouts. ‘More! More! Come, come, come! What you all standing there for? Never seen a fire before, hey? Never seen how rubbish burns? Fucken rubbish must fucken burn. It must burn!’

They scuttle back round the corner of the house. Treppie gets to the remains of Flossie first. He rips and pulls at her shell.

Treppie gives Pop a door. Pop looks through the broken window and sees heads from next door looking over the prefab wall. Mol gets the wipers and a piece of floor mat and some plastic from Flossie’s insides. Treppie rips a chunk out of the back seat. Fluffy stuff, brown woolly bits and coir bulge out of it. They go back in through the kitchen door. Toby barks. All the way along the passage he pulls things out of Mol’s hands. She tries to pick the stuff up, but when she does, Toby bites her.

‘ Voetsek! ’ Mol shouts, but she’s almost lost her voice. Pop’s behind her. He tries to kick Toby with his socked foot, but all he manages to do is kick Toby’s tail as it waves around in the air. Toby’s wild. He thinks it’s a party. He runs round them in circles with his ears flat against his head. He dances on his hind legs and the blocks on the floor dance up and down with him. Then they’re out again, through the front door. They go round the corner, towards the back, until they get to the fire. They throw their things on the fire. Then back through the smoke to Flossie and back in through the kitchen with more pieces. Round and round they go. Pop’s short of breath. He can’t any more. He falls over his own two feet. He stays down, lying there with Flossie’s dashboard in his hands, still quite a way short of the fire. He’s looking at the world from underneath, from an angle. Toby’s face is in front of him. His tongue hangs out. Pop pushes Toby away. Here come Treppie’s shoes. The heels have been worn down at one side at the back. Now he sees Mol’s legs. She’s full of bruises and grazes and her brown socks have sagged down to her ankles. Pop looks up Mol’s legs. The hollows of her knees are full of knobbly, purple veins. Above the hollows, the skin puffs up in bulges and, further up, it hangs in folds. Pop’s looking up into Mol’s depths. He lets his head drop again.

‘Up! Up!’ he hears Lambert screaming. ‘Don’t go lie down now, there’s still lots more that must burn!’

Toby gets hold of Pop’s shirt-sleeve. He pulls at it. Pop gets halfway up. He’s on his knees, looking round him on all fours. Toby stands next to him, at the same height, looking into his face with pricked ears. Toby’s waiting to see Pop’s next move. But Pop doesn’t move. He watches as Lambert drags Flossie’s entire shell on to the fire, swinging and plucking wildly. Isn’t Lambert also burning? The flames shoot up all around him. Now Lambert’s doing funny things with his head. It’s pulled down deeply into his shoulders. He looks like he’s biting at something in the air. Pop crawls nearer on his hands and knees, alongside Toby, who still thinks it’s a game. Then he kneels on his shirt; a piece rips loose from the collar.

As Pop and Toby reach Treppie’s and Mol’s legs, they stop to look at Lambert. It looks like the warm, smoky wind is about to blow Lambert away. Mol’s legs give way slightly, as if she wants to sit down, but she stays up. Treppie bends over and puts his hands on his knees. He hangs his head. It looks like Treppie’s crying. His face is all screwed up. Treppie turns his upside-down face towards Pop and Toby. Upside down, it looks even more like he’s crying.

Are you crying? Pop wants to ask. It’s a long time since he last saw Treppie cry. It was that time when there was a similar fire in the yard, when all the fridges burnt up.

Are you crying? Pop wants to ask, but all he does is open and close his mouth a few times. Are you crying, are you crying, are you crying? But he’s got no moisture or sound to talk with.

Treppie’s upside-down mouth makes a strange shape. He’s saying something. Toby barks at Treppie. Pop can’t hear what Treppie’s saying, and he can’t read Treppie’s lips, ’cause they’re upside down. All he sees is a row of teeth wedged against Treppie’s lip. Then Treppie’s face is gone. From his position on all fours, Pop looks to Mol’s side. Toby also looks up. They see Treppie’s hand go down into Mol’s housecoat and come out again with nothing in it. Now Pop looks up, higher. Mol’s hand goes up and feels for her bun that’s come loose. Then Pop and Toby look in front of them again.

Where’s Lambert now? They can’t see Lambert any more.

Pop tries to get up. He steps on his shirt again and it tears further. Mol puts her hand under his arm to help him up. Pop’s back on his feet. He looks at Treppie. Now he can read Treppie’s lips. Treppie’s upper teeth are set tightly against his lower lip as he says: ‘Fit’.

‘Fit, he’s having a fucken fit, that’s what it is, another fit, from making fires,’ Treppie says. ‘Come!’

Through the smoke, around the back corner, they struggle. The smoke blows into their faces. Pop coughs. Treppie’s the first one to get to Lambert.

Lambert’s lying with his feet almost in the fire. They’re black and grey from the ash and his skin looks like it’s burnt all the way up to his knees.

His back is hollow and his head’s thrown back. His arms look stiff, with the elbows twisted strangely outwards. His hands are open and his fingers look like they’re clutching something, but there’s nothing there to clutch on to.

Toby pulls at Lambert’s T-shirt sleeve. Mol takes one of Lambert’s arms and Treppie the other. It looks like the arms have turned inside out in their sockets. They pull him away from the fire, but he’s heavy, and they struggle to drag him to a safe distance.