Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

‘It’s okay, go,’ Pop tells him.

But Treppie keeps looking around him, at the den’s walls. He throws his arms up into the air. Like the Witnesses do at the end of their sessions, when they pray. But Treppie’s not praying. He’s looking. ‘Look. Just look how mad the fucker is.’

They look where Treppie’s looking. He’s looking up at the wall, just below the ceiling. Where Lambert’s calendars used to be.

‘Creepies,’ says Mol.

The animals in the depths. Pop doesn’t know why he thinks this, it’s not animals, it’s creepies and pests. And they’re not roaring in the depths, they’re painted on the walls. The strangest things he’s ever seen. All of them with too many wings and too many legs and heads. Snakes and mice and things, but they don’t look right. They look deformed. You can tell what they are only from what Lambert wrote underneath. Some are still just names. Others have a bit of outline, or a piece of wing. It looks like Lambert wanted to paint everything at the same time.

TERMITE, EARWIG, COCKROACH, SNAIL, ANT, SUPERBEE, MOUSE, MOTH, RAT, WORM, BAT, SPIDER, WASP, MOLE II.

‘Mole the Second,’ says Pop.

‘Second what?’ asks Mol.

Pop shows her where on the wall.

‘I only see one,’ says Mol. ‘Where’s the second?’

‘It’s like the kings and queens of England,’ says Treppie. ‘Henry the Eighth, Elizabeth the Second.’

‘I don’t see any queen,’ says Mol.

‘Just shows you how mad he is. He thinks a mole is a member of the royal family. He must figure he’s a prince or something himself. Prince Lambert the Executioner, known for his fires, his fucking with the neighbours and his painting on walls. The only son and heir of Queen Mother Mol. He’ll be remembered for that.’ Treppie’s grinning. After everything that happened here this morning, he’s getting his bearings back again.

Pop grins back. Just to feel if he still can. It’s not that he thinks Treppie’s funny. There’s nothing funny going on here. He feels shaky. He’s over-exerted himself. He needs to sit down. He finds a crate. ‘What happened?’ he asks.

‘You were sleeping,’ says Mol.

‘I dreamt everything was white, meanwhile it was smoke all the time.’

‘We left you to sleep,’ says Mol.

‘I must go now,’ says Treppie.

‘First tell us what happened,’ says Pop. ‘I’ll take you to the bus stop in Melville.’

‘He started last night. First he tried to get the Tedelex going, but it didn’t want to work. Then he began fucking around with Flossie, but not a single part of Flossie wanted to co-operate. He said everything had to get fixed for his, er, birthday. Then, later, the noise woke me up. It sounded like a fucken canning factory in the back here. So I went out to look. I told him he shouldn’t expect miracles, times were bad. He said to hell with bad times, he was only going to be forty once and he wanted to face the New South Africa like a decent man, with a good woman on his arm. Then he showed me his list.’

Treppie shows them the spot on the wall where the list is. They read it. Treppie picks up a pen from the floor and scratches out (time will tell) . He also draws a line through the words everything must work , as well as change mattress .

‘How do you know?’ Pop asks, pointing at number 18, the fridges.

‘I know,’ says Treppie, ‘they’ve been standing here all seized up since before the fire, before the previous big fire.’

Treppie turns slowly from the wall. Then he smiles a disbelieving little smile. ‘Come to think of it …’ he says.

‘What,’ asks Mol.

‘What’s the date today?’ Treppie asks.

‘November,’ says Mol.

‘November the what?’

‘Fourth. No, it’s the fifth,’ says Pop.

Treppie claps his hands. ‘That’s it!’ he shouts.

‘That’s what?’ asks Mol.

‘Method in the madness! It was Guy Fawkes the last time too, remember. When he made that fire. Fifth of November. He wanted to have a party in the back here.’

‘To advertise,’ Mol says.

‘Then his spanner fell in the grass, and then there was that big fuckup.’

‘So we fuck along, so we fuck along,’ Treppie sings to the tune of ‘Sow the seed, oh sow the seed’.

‘Just look what’s been ticked off here,’ says Pop.

They read:

25. gun

26. binoculars

27. umbiera (Kaffir-harp)

‘Which he gets where?’ Mol asks.

‘He’s lying, man! Prince Lambert, the Prince of Lists, says he’s got a gun!’

Treppie writes 28. list underneath Lambert’s list. And under that he writes: 29. fit (the prince is dead, long live the prince. Guy Fawkes 1993) .

‘He’s not dead,’ says Mol. ‘Leave his list alone.’

‘And then?’ asks Pop.

‘And then what?’

‘When Flossie didn’t want to work, what happened then?’

‘Then he started raising hell, all through the night. He didn’t sleep a wink. Me neither. Then I thought, let me just watch, ’cause here comes big shit again.’

‘It was you , Treppie,’ Mol says. ‘You went and stirred him up again! I know you. You torment him, just for the hell of it!’

‘He doesn’t need tormenting, Mol. He fucks out all on his own. Like a thread stripping on a jack. Strip! Slip! Kabam! If only he’d take his fucken pills.’ Treppie shakes a plastic bottle full of pills that he finds in the Tedelex’s door.

‘“Epanutin. L. Benade. One tablet three times a day. With meals”,’ he reads.

‘Meals,’ says Mol.

‘Yes, Mol, meals, like the food you cook in this house. Fit for a king, isn’t it? Bacon and eggs for breakfast. Pill. Rice, meat and potatoes for lunch. Pill. Wors and baked beans for supper. Pill.’ With each would-be meal Treppie throws his head back like he’s swallowing a pill. He smiles a silly smile at Mol, knocking his knuckles against his head, as if the pills are making him feel better.

‘Leave them alone!’ says Pop.

‘He says those pills make him feel dull,’ says Mol.

‘He can do with being a bit dull. The bright spark of the family,’ says Treppie, laughing through the side of his mouth.

‘Stop it,’ says Pop. ‘And then what?’

‘Then he started smashing up everything and dragging things outside. By seven o’clock this morning he was ready for fireworks. He threw petrol over everything. You were still sleeping. And from then on, we’ve been feeding the fire. Shoes, mats, Watchtower s, you name it! Blow high the flame! Hoist the flag! Trumpets away! Brothers and sisters, now there goes a man. His name is Lambertus Benade!’

Suddenly Treppie’s mouth is full of spit. He spits, ‘plop!’, and a mouthful of gob lands next to Lambert on the cement floor.

‘Sis!’ says Mol.

‘I’m going now,’ says Treppie. ‘Otherwise tomorrow we won’t eat again. Coke and bread and polony, polony and bread and Coke, bread and Coke and polony. For what we are about to receive, may we be thankful, Lord, praised be thy name, amen,’ Treppie sings.

‘Okay.’ Pop’s feeling sick. He looks at Lambert lying there without pants, and with arms that look like they’ve been turned inside out. With a flat box sticking out from between his teeth. He can feel Mol looking at him. He knows that she knows he’s feeling sick. He feels white. Treppie’s also looking at him. Treppie’s talking so much ’cause he knows Pop saw him crying when he was upside down.

‘Go fetch the cushions from the chairs in the lounge,’ Mol tells them.

‘Let’s first straighten his arms out,’ says Pop.

WATERMELON