In one of the guest-rooms a log was burning in an ornate fireplace and they stopped to warm their hands. Malgas gave the fender a smart kick. “White Sicilian marble,” he murmured, as if to himself, “and beige sandstone shot through with lilac.”
“Decorative mouldings in the traditional style, riddled with character,” Nieuwenhuizen assented in a whisper. “Fluted pilasters and hand-carved rosettes. Tuffaceous blocks?”
They drew closer together and went on, in a rosier light and a more companionable silence, which their muted conversation served only to enhance.
“Light fittings.”
“Rise and fall shades. .”
“. . with bobble fringes.”
Their words shuttled between them, binding them temple to temple in a soft shell of naming.
“Occasional chairs.”
“Diamond-padded backs. .”
“. . in ruby dralon.”
“Swags and festoons.”
“Alabaster plinths. .”
“. . and plastic dados.”
“Occasional tables.”
“Dappled sunlight. .”
“. . on melamine.”
Later, Nieuwenhuizen dozed off in the library with a dusty old volume on his lap, and Malgas tiptoed out onto the observation deck for a breath of fresh air.
It was a glorious night. The moonlight gleamed like lengths of chrome-plated beading on the balusters and telescopes. The moat was a mass of silvery brushmarks. Nieuwenhuizen’s camp, tucked away in a corner of the yard near the servants’ quarters, with all its quaint equipment scattered about, looked small and remote. Malgas had never seen a more beautiful sight; his heart overflowed with wonder and gratitude.
“We’ll have a garden too,” he said to himself, surveying the barren soil, “with patios and grottos, red-hot pokers and bottle-brushes, tennis-courts and hiking trails, an aviary and a fishpond with a wooden bridge going over. But we’ll keep the camp just as it is, for the generations who come after us. We’ll declare it a monument, an open-air museum. We’ll never forget where we came from.”
Then Malgas wished that he could gaze down upon his own house as well and make some comment about it, but it was nowhere to be seen.
He went inside. Nieuwenhuizen was still slumped in a wicker chair drawn up to the fire. The familiar cadence of his snoring moved Malgas anew. He touched the hem of Nieuwenhuizen’s safari suit, as if to assure himself that he was real, and said softly,“Father?”
Nieuwenhuizen woke up with a start, his book fell face-down on the carpet, he sneezed and said, “Please, you must call me Otto.”
“Bless you! Pardon?”
“Otto.”
“Ot-to?”
“Otto.”
“Ot-to.” The name snapped in Malgas’s mouth. He swallowed one piece gamely, tucked the other into his cheek with his tongue, and went on, “Do you mind if I make an observation at this point in time?”
“So long as it’s brief. Sometimes you’re like a bloody broken record.”
Malgas swallowed again. “I would just like to say that if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”
“Ditto. Do you play chess?”
“No… In the early days I played a little checkers. .”
“Rummy? Good. There’s a deck of cards in the rumpus room.”
Nieuwenhuizen led the way there. Malgas walked behind, looking at the back of Nieuwenhuizen’s scruffy head as if he was seeing it for the first time, and saying “Otto” to himself shyly.
After just one game, which he won, Nieuwenhuizen said, “It’s been a long day, I’m falling asleep on my feet.” Malgas thought that an invitation to stay over would follow, but Nieuwenhuizen added, “I’ll walk you to the door.”
On the doorstep they shook hands, although Malgas would have preferred a manly embrace.
“Beautiful place you’ve got here, Otto.” He managed to get it out in one piece. “Sleep well.”
“Cheerio.” The door clicked shut.
For a long time Malgas stood on the welcome mat, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together, and hearing again and again the key grating in the lock and the tumblers tumbling. This signalled some new phase of his life, of that he was sure, and finally it came to him: companionship.
He looked at the doorbell and the burnished knocker. He listened to Nieuwenhuizen banging around upstairs, closing windows and drawing curtains. He heard him going from room to room, he heard him coming downstairs. Surely he would sleep in the master bedroom? He felt him stooping into the room under the stairs.
“My room!”
Malgas was beside himself.
“He’s paying tribute to me again. No, it’s more than that: It’s an act of solidarity!”
This possibility was so distracting that the new house faded away in an instant. The plan was revealed, and so was Nieuwenhuizen, snuggling down in the ash-heap.“Otto?”
Mrs opened a drawer in her dressing-table and found that it was full of sand.
“It’s Him. It’s come to pass: He’s everywhere. It’s not healthy to be near Him, to breathe His emanations, but you can’t help it.”
The contagion settled thickly on armrests and working surfaces. No amount of dusting would drive it away. Mrs gave up. She lay on her bed with a scarf soaked in Dettol and almond essence tied over her face. She listened to her knick-knacks jumbling themselves up in the cabinets. When the din became unbearable she dragged herself to the lounge to watch television. It was cold comfort, but she persevered with a melancholic submissiveness.
The box brought nothing but unrest and disorder, faction fights and massacres, even blood-baths, high-pressure systems and cold fronts, situation comedies and real-life dramas, hijackings, coups, interviews with VIPs, royal weddings, exposés, scandals, scoops, conspicuous consumptions, white-collar crimes, blue-collar detergents, epidemics, economic indicators, peace talks, heart-warming instances of bravery and kindness to strangers, advertisements for dogfood and requests for donations. Each new atrocity struck Mrs like a blow, and she thrashed about in the La-Z-Boy like a political prisoner.
Malgas took two instant dinners in crimped aluminium containers from the deep-freeze and arranged them, with sprigs of parsley, on a plastic tray depicting the Last Supper in three dimensions. He carried the tray through to the library. Nieuwenhuizen was gazing into the flames, a dog-eared old volume open on his knees, forgotten. Malgas displayed the dinners and said, “What’s it to be tonight?”
“What’s the difference?” Nieuwenhuizen barely glanced at the offering.
“This is a trout,” Malgas said patiently, “and this is a cottage pie.” The names of the dishes were in fact printed in violet letters on the cardboard lids.
Nieuwenhuizen waved a dismissive hand.
“The trout has been deboned,” Malgas persisted, “and stuffed with shredded spinach and chopped walnuts, flavoured subtly with marjoram butter, freshly ground pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Essential mnrls and vtmns — are you with me? — 30 % of the RDA. The cottage pie is more basic.”