Next he got to work on the string, massaging the lengths with raw linseed oil and treating the knots with dubbin and beeswax. While he worked many little tasks suggested themselves, and each new one took its place in the scheme of things to constitute a routine. Some, like sweeping between the lines, he attended to daily; others, like squashing the life out of unwanted seedlings between thumb and forefinger, only when the need arose.
For three days, morning and evening, he brought food for Nieuwenhuizen and left it at the tent-flap, but it remained untouched.
“He’s given up,” said Mrs, “and it’s the only decent thing He’s done since He arrived. Why should you worry?”
“It’s the least I can do. He’s neglecting himself and the new house, and all because of me. If only I’d been able to see it — he wasn’t asking much when you think about it — we’d have started the actual construction ages ago. We may even have been finished by now. It’s all my fault. I’m a spanner in the works. It shows you how considerate he is, that he won’t start without me.”
“He’s waiting for you because He knows you can be relied on to do the dirty work.”
“What’s gotten into you? Instead of carping all the time, you could help. Come over and look at the plan. You’ll pick it up in no time, with your artistic streak.”
“Never! What if He’s creeping around and I bump into Him?”
No matter what Mrs said, Mr Malgas refused to give up. If anything, her dismissive attitude made him more determined than ever to care for the plan until Nieuwenhuizen needed it again. As the days grew longer and queued up in weeks, he refined his daily duties into a satisfying and efficient programme. As soon as he came in from work he would change into his overalls and go next door. In the unlikely event that Nieuwenhuizen had regained consciousness, he would hail him cheerfully as he approached the camp. When there was no answer, and there never was, he would cock an ear to confirm that Nieuwenhuizen was still inside the tent and breathing. This superstitious little rite never failed to lift his spirits. And only then did he bring out his maintenance kit, which he kept in a cardboard box under the hedge, and begin whatever tasks were scheduled for the day. He would be home in time to eat supper with Mrs while they watched the eight o’clock news, with special reference to the unrest report.
Initially, Mr Malgas found Nieuwenhuizen’s invisible presence inhibiting. His stertorous breathing was a constant reminder of the one’s confinement and the other’s liberty, and insinuated a lamentable causality between the two. But he discovered ways of weaving this raucous conscience into his activities and before long he felt free to savour whole-heartedly the pleasures of caretaking. The work was absorbing. New techniques had to be devised to meet the unprecedented needs of the plan, new rhythms evolved to minimize effort and maximize effect. Concerns like these were dear to Mr Malgas. In his nurturing hands the lines became supple and beautiful again, and the nails regained their lustre. Moreover, he found that maintenance renewed his faith in the whole sphere of materials, and he began to enjoy his work in the hardware shop for the first time in months.
Mrs noticed the change in him, and cheered up as well.
In this way a semblance of normality returned to the Malgas household. It did not last.···
After several weeks Mr Malgas’s single-minded dedication to maintenance produced an unexpected result. One evening he was kneading a scoop of wintergreen into a fibrous knot near the heart of the plan when he noticed a breeze-block lying on the ground nearby. He looked at it in surprise, naturally, whereupon it vanished without trace.
How often in his thankless quest for the new house — at first under Nieuwenhuizen’s tutelage, latterly on his own — had Malgas yearned for just such a keystone; how often had its absence weighed heavily on his mind. Yet now, when the key finally appeared, he could not grasp it! It must be a practical joke, he thought, someone’s pulling my leg. But this was not borne out by the evidence. There were no mirrors to be seen, no give-away wires, no burning cigarette-ends. Nowhere on the carefully swept plot was there a single mark that Malgas could not account for, no footprint, no tell-tale gouge or scrape. Finding his way cautiously to the scene of the appearance, or rather the disappearance, as he thought of it, he went down on his hands and knees and examined the surface closely, but the breeze-block itself had left no impression. He was forced to dismiss it as a figment of his imagination, a side-effect of stress and overwork. Wasn’t he holding down two jobs? He didn’t breathe a word to Mrs.
The following evening’s shift held no surprises. But the day after was a Saturday, and he was obliged to spend the whole afternoon tending the plan. Towards sunset he was sweeping with a grass broom when a ghostly balustrade floated into view some five metres above the ground and dependent upon nothing at all.
A less steadfast man might have taken to his heels, but Malgas stood firm. He even had the presence of mind not to confront the apparition directly. He sensed danger: he saw himself turned to stone. So he maintained the steady rhythm of his sweeping and watched the floating balustrade out of the corner of his eye. It shimmered, and shimmied, and emitted a halo of brilliant light. It faded, and was on the point of vanishing altogether, but, as Malgas’s heart skipped a beat, it glowed again with new intensity and appeared to stabilize and solidify somewhat. It grew a landing, it excreted a film of crimson linoleum, it oozed wax. Then it gave birth to a flight of stairs, each riser condensing in the incandescent vapour and toppling in slow motion from the edge of the tread above it, shuffling languidly into place. The handrails of the grand staircase curved gracefully, uncoiling like stems, and progressed slowly but surely down to the ground. A pool of yellow light seeped out, gathered itself, and extruded from its syrupy depths five strips of Oregon pine, which hovered just above the surface. They came closer, he smelt wax and sawdust, they eased in below the speeding bristles of his broom. The bristles chased over the floorboards and scared clouds of lemon-scented dust out of the cracks. These particles spun gaily in the rosy air, phosphoresced into pointy golden stars and sifted gently down, enveloping him.
Malgas let out his breath with a whoosh. He cast aside his broom, dispersing the staircase into a haze of ordinary dust-motes, and launched himself across the plan in an ecstasy, whooping with joy and bellowing to wake the dead, “I can see! I can see!”
Nieuwenhuizen slept through the ruckus, but Mrs came running to the lounge window and looked on aghast.
Round and round went Mr, leaping into the air and waving his fists, drumming on his thighs, tearing his hair, laughing and crying, smearing his tears into mud on his cheeks, frothing at the mouth, rolling head over heels, swallowing his tongue, collapsing, steaming. Yes.
”I’ve tried to be happy for you,” Mrs said, “but I really don’t get this. Are you imagining things? Is it a case of play-play? Are you hallucinating? What the hell’s going on out there?”
”None of the above,” Mr replied firmly. “The new house. . materializes. It’s a manifestation.”
“He’s having visions.”
“Of course, one has to be receptive.”
“Goes without saying.”
“Then it’s like this — although words don’t do it justice: a paintbrush with a tousled head swooshes across a blank screen, and swooshes back again, scattering gold-dust and glitter, and 1-2-3, a multi-storey mansion appears, in full colour.”