Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

Treppie asked him about materials, tools and troubles, a whole list of things a person must know when you service a fridge, and Lambert got through that list with flying colours. He even knew you had to insert a spring into soft copper tubing before bending it, otherwise the tubing would break or pinch closed. Treppie asked him how you work the valves on the manifold gauge to purge or to vacuum. Lambert knew it all, how you use a piercing valve to connect a service line to the system. If he was allowed to make a comment, Pop said, he just wished Lambert would learn the Afrikaans words for all these English terms, ’cause the English may have invented the fridge, but they didn’t have copyright on fridge language. Then Treppie said Pop shouldn’t get all puritan now, as long as a fridge worked he couldn’t be bothered with language. Lambert said he agreed. All that mattered was that a thing worked.

Then Pop asked Treppie in what language he thought those sinners were telling their parables, the stories that exploded like fireworks behind their eyeballs in Treppie’s heavenly hell. Treppie laughed so much that his nose fell right off, and then he bent down with his back to Pop and pushed his hand through his legs, shaking Pop’s hand from upside down. Now that was a bladdy good point, he said. ’Cause as far as he knew, all you heard in hell was your mother tongue, and then he farted out aloud.

Boy, they laughed themselves sick that night.

And through it all, Lambert stuck to his guns. Most of the time he sounded like a real expert. Here and there he hit a blind spot, like what if a valve seat came loose in a pump and you didn’t have a new one with you? Or what was a scotch yoke piston arrangement? Pop told Treppie he mustn’t get too technical, those were the kind of things you learnt only in a workshop situation. She also said, yes, Treppie mustn’t get too technical, and then Treppie answered the questions himself, giving Lambert a whole lesson. Lambert took notes until he said he now understood, and then he closed his notes and repeated the answer from memory, until Treppie was satisfied.

MULTIPLE CHOICE

The fun really began when Treppie gave Lambert a series of multiplechoice questions, from the chapter on safety measures and accidents.

Lambert had to choose the right answer. Like what should you do if you burn yourself with acid oil after a burn-out? Treppie gave a long list of multiple choices: smack the fridge, or your mother; swing the compressor by its oil line like a slingweight and let it fly when it’s going really fast; eat polony; put ice on your wounds. And then he got rude as well: pull your wire; or take a bath in Coke. Really! And the last one was, phone the Flying Squad.

Lambert guessed the right answer straight away. Put ice on your wounds.

But the next question, also a multiple choice, was a different matter altogether.

For this one, Treppie pressed his nose more firmly on to his face, and then he went and stood in the lounge doorway like a clown who wanted to run a race. Just in case. Toby started barking ’cause he thought the game was for him, but she and Pop told Toby to shuddup. He went back to his spot under the TV and lay down with flat ears.

The question was this: what was the single worst thing that could happen to Lambert Benade as a top fridge specialist? Treppie began talking high falutin’ language, like he was reading from a book, and he pulled his mouth this way and that.

Lambert had to pick the correct answer out of ten really bad things. And then Treppie started getting difficult again. It was so bad she can still remember all ten of those evils, even now. From his uncle moving to better pastures, to his long-nosed pliers getting lost. Or burning his ‘fridge manual’ by accident. Together with his Watchtower s. The fourth one was getting ‘liquid cooling agent’ on to his you know what. And then there was having a fit while doing a ‘deep vacuum’, or, even worse, while ‘demonstrating a triple evacuation’. There were three more: forgetting to open the windows while the gas blew out, or forgetting to pull out the plug while welding the fridge’s body.

What the next one had to do with the price of eggs she still doesn’t know, but for number nine Treppie began talking about the NP ‘unbundling’ and the AWB ‘mobilising’ before the election, so that violence began rising to ‘unacceptable levels’ long before anyone had the chance to vote. For crying out aloud!

At that point, Lambert said Treppie must first stop, he wanted to write everything down. He couldn’t make up his mind in mid-air about so many mishaps. He’d already heard nine options and all of them were in terribly difficult language.

Then Treppie repeated all nine in ordinary language, and after Lambert wrote them down, Treppie asked him if he was ready now, ’cause there was a last little thing in this multiple choice that could still complicate matters a bit. Lambert checked Treppie out and Treppie checked Lambert back. Then he straightened up out of his take-off position and said, no, he wasn’t so sure any more.

But Pop wanted to know what he was supposed to be so unsure about.

Ja, she said, how couldn’t he know any more? He was after all the one giving the exam.

Sure thing, Treppie said, they were right, he was giving the exam, but they must remember he was also the court jester, and the best test for anyone in life was the test they gave themselves. That’s why he reckoned that Lambert himself should say what the last choice in his multiple choice should be. The one thing that would really complicate matters and which would be the worst thing that could hit a fridge specialist of his standing. The thing that would mean the end of this whole story. Choof! Off! One shot. And there he actually went and gave away the answer. The right answer was the last one, and now it was much easier. It was just right or wrong, no choice at all. ’Cause the end of the story was the end of the story, period.

What end of what story? Lambert wanted to know.

‘Our whole story here together, between these walls full of plaster cracks, and our roof that leaks on to our heads, and our floor full of holes, and the moles who make molehills on the lawn, and …’ As Treppie listed the things, ‘and’, ‘and’, ‘and’, all the sides of their story, its beginning and its middle and its end, which was now approaching, he pointed with stretched-out arms that looked like they were being pulled by strings, up and down, up and down, as he turned around in a circle, pointing closer when he meant ‘now’, and further when he meant ‘then’, and still further in another direction when he meant ‘eventually’ and ‘at the very end’.

At that he shuffled around in a circle on flat feet as if he was standing on a turntable.

‘You mean the kind of thing that means nothing will be left of us?’ Lambert asked. He had a clue what Treppie meant, but he wasn’t completely sure yet. His head couldn’t get a good grip on it, ’cause it was still so full of fridge things, lists and lists of things he’d swotted up.

‘Exactly,’ said Treppie, ‘the thing that means not even a single brick will be left standing in this place.’

‘The thing that means everything will be for nothing?’ Lambert was beginning to feel uncomfortable. She could see he knew more and more clearly what that thing was, but Treppie was putting him off with his straight, white face.

‘Precisely,’ said Treppie, ‘the thing that means no one will be left to remember what happened, and no one will remain to hear the story, ’cause a story without anyone to hear it is no story at all.’

She quickly said that she knew the answer, just so something could be said, ’cause Treppie was standing there and tapping his foot on the floor as he waited for Lambert’s answer.