Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

HAPPY GUY FAWKES

‘Happy Guy Fawkes,’ Treppie says loudly as he walks in through the front door. Mol indicates he must shush, Pop’s sleeping.

‘Happy fuck-up,’ says Treppie, even louder. He pulls a handful of Tom Thumb crackers out of his trouser pocket. ‘Here, Mol, I got these from the Chinese. I thought maybe you’d want to salute the day. Twenty-one shots into the sky. For the heroes who died. And for the one who had a fit.’

She takes the crackers from Treppie and puts them into her housecoat pocket.

‘Has that fucker come to yet?’

She shakes her head.

‘Maybe you should put the crackers into a golden syrup tin and throw some matches in as well. Right next to his head. Shock treatment. Maybe then he’ll wake up. Off with a bang, on with a bang. Bang! Bang!’ says Treppie, pretending to shoot a pistol into the sky.

‘They say there’s no harm in trying your best shot,’ he says, ‘or do you really want a little melon in the house? Sorry, kaffir-watermelon!’ Treppie sits down on a crate. He takes out his pocket-knife and slaps it, ‘ka-thwack’, on to the palm of his hand. He looks at the knife. Then he looks at Mol. Slowly, he pulls out the smallest blade.

‘Frog-killer,’ he says softly, ‘a man’s best friend. Frog-skins, mole-skins, mole-necks, mole-tails!’

He looks at Mol again.

Mol’s looking hard at Pop. She wants him to wake up now. She leans forward, out of her chair, towards him. ‘Pop, Pop, wake up. Treppie’s here.’

‘Here I am again, with a pocket-knife to your brain.’ Treppie kicks Pop’s feet.

Pop wakes up. ‘Treppie.’ He swallows hard.

‘What you think, Pop? I was saying to Mol, she must stuff that, er, buster of yours full of crackers and bang him awake. Then she can get even with him for that time when he locked her into the fridge with the Peking Ducks. Then they’ll be quits, after all these years. Then they can start with a clean slate, all over again.’

Treppie gets up quickly. He pulls Mol out of her chair, holding the knife against her throat. ‘March!’ he shouts into her face, turning her towards the passage.

‘Come, Pop, it’s time for fireworks!’ Treppie laughs. Mol can’t work out if he’s serious or not. She tries to wriggle herself loose.

‘Let her go!’ Pop says.

But Treppie won’t let go. He pushes her down the passage, holding the knife to her throat. She hears Pop coming after them. Is there no end to this day’s evil?

Once in the den, Treppie pushes her backwards, against Pop. She and Pop almost fall over. But Pop holds steady. Mol pulls Pop so he’s standing next to her. Treppie looks at Lambert. First look, then kick. One, two, three kicks. There goes the blanket. Lambert doesn’t come to, he just groans. He looks like a sea-creature, floating belly-up. A white belly.

Treppie shifts the Tedelex. They must look, he says, he’s going to show them MOLE II’S younger sister. And then he shows them, piece by piece, what those scratches on the wall are. Terrible. Pop looks the other way. Treppie sings:

‘Head in the ice-box

Cracker in the twat

Belly all pink

Mole I can smell the rot …’

Sis.

‘Enough!’ says Pop. He pushes her towards the door. He wants her out of here. He looks like he wants to talk to Treppie, alone. But she stays right there, in the doorway. She watches Pop as he tries to get his sentences lined up, but his mouth just opens and closes. Treppie’s one up on him again.

‘Shut your mouth, Pop, or you’ll start catching flies,’ says Treppie.

Pop shuts his mouth.

‘There’s nothing you can say to me, brother,’ Treppie shouts, ‘’cause I’m fully educated in suffering, so to speak. Let me tell you my latest insight. The worst two feelings you can have at the same time are to be hopping mad and to be bored out of your skull.’ Treppie’s shouting so hard into Pop’s face that Pop takes a step backwards. He stumbles over the rubbish on the floor and almost falls over again. Mol pushes him up, from behind.

Has Pop heard of the word implode? Treppie asks. That’s the way big buildings explode, from the inside, when they’ve got dynamite in their seams. And has Pop seen how those buildings collapse neatly in a heap. In a heap, ready for taking away. Without even disturbing the traffic.

Pop shakes his head. He can’t say he’s seen that.

No, he doesn’t expect Pop will understand. So, instead he’ll talk a language they both understand. As for her, she must stop hiding away there, behind Pop. She must come out from behind that door and open her eyes. It’s meant for her too, this insight of his. ’Cause it’s connected to a wish, and after all she’s an expert in wishful thinking.

Pop holds her hand. Treppie’s shoulders are twitching. ‘I wish I could cut my own fucken neck off, but for that a person needs a chainsaw. One that cuts on its own. Then all you have to do is get the angle right. Hold it nice and tight until it gets a good grip on the meat of your throat.’

Treppie shows them how. He pretends he’s got the saw in his hands. His whole body shudders, and when the shuddering stops, his shoulders twitch.

‘Aaaah!’ he screams. It’s too terrible. Suddenly he stops. First he lifts up his head, then he lowers it again. He looks at them.

‘But of course if you do that you leave a big mess for other people to clean up. And you might disturb more than just the traffic.’

They say nothing.

Treppie makes as though he’s brushing away dust and ashes from his face. He pushes past them, going for the door. Pop follows him. They leave her standing there.

She pulls Lambert’s blanket straight where Treppie kicked it off. Let her also go to the front, then. She’s too tired tonight to get worked up over Treppie’s horries. She walks back up the passage, with a new idea in her head.

She stops at the kitchen door. She can’t remember why she came here. Maybe if she opens the door she’ll remember. There’s so much stuff lying around on the floor, the door won’t open properly. She puts her hand round the doorframe and switches on the light. Then she steps over all the stuff, into the kitchen. Now she remembers. She goes to the dresser and fishes out a full box of matches from the top drawer. Very softly, she closes the door behind her, leaving the light on. That rubbish looks like it wants to multiply there in the dark. Mol rubs her eyes. Treppie switches his horries on and off like a TV set. But the horries that she sometimes gets are different, they buzz in her head like horseflies on a windowpane. A window with no handle so you can’t open and close it. All she can do is hush the buzzing in her head. Knitting helps. But she hasn’t got wool. And she also hasn’t got a dog any more.

Now Treppie’s door is shut tight. She puts her ear to the door and listens. ‘Grrrt-grrrt,’ she hears. She knows that sound. Treppie’s tearing things out of the paper. He finds other horries in there, so he can cover up his own.

Pop’s sitting in his chair in front. His eyes are glued to the TV. It’s on so loud he doesn’t even hear when she comes in. She looks to see what Pop’s watching.

It’s a game with a big wheel full of colourful lights around the edges. The wheel turns, then stops, then turns, then stops again. Screaming people try to guess the numbers. A man with rolled-up jacket sleeves tells everyone who’s right and who’s wrong, who wins fridges and washing machines, who gets nothing and who loses everything they’ve already won. There’s a wild monster’s head in the middle of the wheel. Some of the numbers make its mouth open up, and then a big, flat, red tongue comes out. Then the audience screams like it’s going mad. And the man in the jacket pushes up his sleeves again and takes the microphone in the other hand and flicks back his hair.