Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

Shock the Intruder

Low-Cost Aggressive Asset Protection

It’s still two and a bit hours to wait for the Queen of England. First it’s Agenda . Tonight’s Agenda is about peace: they show the part where Chris Hani asks for peace and then it’s the dove who fell down next to Hani’s coffin. Must have been dizzy from all the people and the flowers and the shots into the sky and everything. Poor little dove.

But she saw this before, at Easter. They said they took the dove out before closing up that grave, although she saw people throwing handfuls of dirt and petals on to the dove. It kept blinking its little eyes all the time.

Now they’re showing the faces of people they’re scared will also get shot, just like Hani.

The first one is Terre’Blanche of the AWB. Treppie says that man will shoot himself in the foot before anyone gets a chance to shoot him anywhere else. And then, when someone does eventually kill him, he’ll get a hero’s funeral. That, says Treppie, is what happens when you shoot a cripple Boer.

Now they’re showing how Terre’Blanche keeps falling off his horse. Three different horses, in three different places. Always under some flag or another. Treppie says they would do better to pull him around in a rickshaw.

The AWB boss is talking. He asks whether people want the plots being hatched in the cold cancer chambers of Communism to come to fruition in our beautiful country. No, they mustn’t, she thinks, but then Terre’Blanche must also learn to ride a horse properly.

Now they’re showing Winnie. They’re scared people will shoot her from several different angles. Now that’s a dizzy palooka for you, Treppie says. He says it’s from that headgear she wears. Anyone who wears a ball of green satin bigger than her own head, with points on top, is bound to start talking a lot of crap. ‘We shall liberate this country with our matchboxes,’ she says. Not enough blood to the brain, says Treppie.

Then they show Peter Mokaba. He’s got no hat on his head. Yes and no, he says. No, they mustn’t shoot the Boere, he says, but yes, they must. Treppie says Mokaba’s going to become the Minister of Tourism in the new government, but he’ll cool down quickly once he has to look after a herd of zebras.

Then they show Hernus Kriel’s face. He looks like someone’s just told him he’s an arsehole. And Kobie Coetzee, with his pop-out eyes. Treppie says you see eyes like that on people who’re about to get golden handshakes. Like the one Kobie’s lined up for himself. And then it’s Buthelezi. He’s in skins and he’s got his sticks with him. And the mayor of Jo’burg, with a grey dove on his head. Everyone wants to shoot him over the rates.

But if you ask her, not a single one of them jogs. Hani used to jog every day in his tracksuit. Jogging’s good for you. The president of America jogs around the White House every morning with his bodyguards. But Buthelezi doesn’t jog. And he’s not wearing anything underneath those animal skins, either. That’s what Treppie says. He says the skins are just for show, and someone who’s on show must sit still with his legs together and his hands folded neatly in his lap. Roelf Meyer jogs. She saw one day on the cover of Your Family and You in the café. He runs in his jogging shorts with his dog, one of those bull terriers with piggy eyes and a tail like an aerial. But no one’s worried about Roelf getting shot. He’s for peace. Treppie says he’s a poofter and a kaffirlover, but he looks quite okay to her. It’s just that he’s getting thinner by the day. His collars hang loose and his Adam’s apple jumps up and down like an oil-pump every time he talks. It’s from negotiating, Treppie says, from throwing all his weight into the negotiations. Then it’s Pik Botha. Pik’s talking so much the spit flies in all directions. He says they can try shooting him if they want, he’ll just shoot back. Pik’s a jolly bloke, even when everything’s falling to pieces all around him. That’s what she says. She hasn’t once seen Pik really get rattled. He always has something to say for himself, or he’s got a plan for other people. Pik reminds her a lot of Treppie. If he wants something, he just takes it. And when he’s finished, he gives it back again. He starts a fight, and then when he’s finished he makes peace again, right there and then. Without batting an eyelid, says Treppie.

Pik’s nose is also red, just like Treppie’s. Hee-hee, she must remember to mention that to him.

There’s Constand now. He’s the leader of the Freedom Front. His neck’s stiff and when he pulls away his bottom lip, his teeth show. He gives talks to women with perms. He stands on a stage with a flag behind him and a flag in front of him. The women look grim.

Treppie says the general’s a brilliant strategist. He means business. He says he read somewhere that the general’s got a twin brother who looks just like him, but his brother’s as meek as a lamb. Hell, if you ask her, to be attached to a brother like Constand must be the same as getting stuck inside Mister Cochrane’s security fencing. It’s just as well they’re not Siamese twins. Treppie’s nickname for the general is Salamiboy. He says he’s got a picture of the general somewhere when he was still chief of the defence force. In the picture, he and his top brass hold up the biggest salami ever made in Africa. Salami and smiles for the boys on the border. Treppie says those boys on the border didn’t get to see much meat at all, never mind salami.

Treppie’s got a whole pile of newspaper clippings where important people hold funny things in their hands — pumpkins, sheep, sucking-pigs, sculptures of presidents’ heads, mielies, the works. He says it’s incredible what people in this country are prepared to pose with. The Benades have never posed for any newspaper and maybe they’re a bunch of poor white has-beens, but as sure as God’s in heaven, he doesn’t see the slightest difference between them and the top brass.

Now they’re showing FW. He’s standing on a red carpet at an airport with his hand on his heart. It’s in Chile. The Chileans march past with guns and helmets. Next to FW stands his wife, Marike. She’s wearing a little hat with netting on, and she holds her handbag in both hands in front of her. They saw this piece on the news when it happened. She remembers feeling so sorry for that poor Marike. She looked so miserable standing there, with her eyebrows all screwed up and a deep furrow in the middle of her forehead. She looked like she wanted to cry, standing there on a mat at that windy airport in Chile, with the aeroplanes far away in the distance and her floppy blue dress flapping round her legs. If she went on like this, Mol said at the time, then that face-lift of hers would come right down again, within a year. That’s ’cause a frown is something you have to unlearn. It doesn’t help to cut it out, it’ll just frown itself back on again. But how do you unlearn something like that, in times like these?

Then, to top it all, Treppie began mocking Marike. He went and stood in front of the TV with two little knocked-together ladies’ knees, and he held his hands in front of his crotch, putting on a smile just like the one Gerty used to wear when she did a number two. To tell the truth, that was the closest thing she’s ever seen to the expression on Marike’s face that day in Chile.

Then Treppie sang in a high little voice:

‘I wonder what’s bothering mee-ee

There’s trouble in my heart

A tim’rous little butterflee-ee

Forever from the garden barred.’

Pop says Treppie missed his calling in life. He should’ve been an actor. He says it bothers him terribly that such a talent should be wasted, without anyone even lifting a finger to do anything about it. He’ll go so far, he says, as to say Treppie deserves a subsidy.