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 Watchtowers. 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.
Pop said he knew the answer too, just so Treppie would stop his tapping.
They must shuddup, Treppie said. This wasn’t their exam.
Well, said Pop, in actual fact they were all together in this story after all, so why couldn’t they also be together in the exam? And if the biggest test in anyone’s life was the one they gave themselves, then they were all together in this thing with old Lambert, in sickness and in death, and surely they were allowed to help him a little in life.
Then she had an idea. Let them write down their answers, she said. People thought better when they wrote.
‘Write what?’ Lambert asked.
‘Written examination,’ she said.
‘The answer,’ said Pop.
‘Repeat the question,’ Lambert said, trying to win time. She could see things were going a bit too fast for him.
‘Lambert, it’s easy. The worst thing you can think of that could happen to you,’ Pop said. ‘You know very well what it is.’ Pop wanted to help Lambert, but Treppie gave him a real dirty look.
‘We know what it is,’ she said, just to keep Lambert at ease, ’cause now he’d gotten up and he was starting to get restless.
‘Yes, we know,’ said Pop. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
And what if the answer was wrong, Lambert wanted to know, but Pop said this wasn’t a question of right or wrong, what counted here was consensus. Pop looked long and hard at Treppie to make him understand he had to go easy now. But Treppie acted like he hadn’t seen.
‘Consensus can be wrong,’ he said, taking off his nose and paging through the fridge book. ‘In any case who’s to say if it’s consensus or not?’
Go sit down, she told him then, ’cause it looked to her like he was finished with playing and now he was just looking for trouble.
Yes, sit down, said Pop, they weren’t finished with the exam yet, but Treppie may as well close that book of his now. They didn’t need it any more.
Lambert looked back and forth. He was confused, not about what he had to write, but what would happen when he handed in his answer.
Pop told Lambert to tear a page for each of them out of his exercise book, for Treppie too, so they could all write down what they thought was the worst thing that could happen to him, and what would mean the end of the world for all of them. When they were all finished they had to paste the answers up on the wall. Then they’d see who thought differently from the rest.
She said, yes, and that one was going to get a drubbing. Everyone stared at her ’cause she sounded so dead serious. And while everyone was looking at her like that, she took her chance and added, that person would plug the test!
Lambert just said, hell, Ma, laughing and shaking his head as he tore out the pages. He couldn’t believe she would stand up for him like that. But she always stood up for him when she saw him taking strain. It was mostly Pop who took the pressure, but even more than Pop, it was her who took the strain in the end. Most of the time it was just the two of them, her and Pop, who stood up for each other against those two devils. But Lambert isn’t as much of a devil as Treppie.
During the exam, she’d seen how Lambert’s spirit rose every time he got full marks and she clapped hands for him, and how Treppie was beginning to look silly. She could see it wasn’t just that red nose of his that looked silly. It was him too. He hadn’t realised Lambert could still study a book like that so well.
Now Treppie was acting like he didn’t know what a written exam was. Like he was completely stupid, scratching his head through that clown’s hat of his.