‘Why’s that Van Zyl lying there so quietly?’ She wants to know. She doesn’t want Van Zyl to get hurt here in their yard. He looks like a decent man to her.
‘Don’t worry, Mol, he’s talking to the bees. You have to negotiate with bees before they let you touch them.’ It’s Treppie. He slaps the NP chappy so hard on his blazer that he hiccups as they walk in through the front door.
‘Look,’ says Blazer once they’re back inside and the drinks have been poured and they’re all sitting down, ‘for us this election is about spiritual matters, about the higher things.’
‘Higher honey,’ says Treppie.
‘Higher than what?’ she asks. Tonight she’s not taking off her housecoat. Not for them. Not a damn. She puts Gerty on her lap. And she won’t close her legs for them, either. Their backsides.
‘Higher than the basics,’ says Treppie.
‘Exactly,’ says the chappy. ‘The higher things. Preserving the higher things, and having a say over them. Our language and our culture, for our children and for their children. It’s one of the most important minority rights.’
‘Why minor?’ she asks.
‘Minor as opposed to major, like in majority,’ says the girly.
‘Who’s the majority then?’ she asks.
‘Well, madam, er, our, er, other countrymen, who’re in the majority.’
‘Other? What do you mean other?’
Lambert steps in.
‘Ma, they’re talking about the bantus. The natives, the plurals, the kaffirs. The darkies. The munts.’
‘Like Nelson Mandela, Mol,’ says Treppie.
‘Ohh!’ Now she catches on. ‘That old tatta who wears such nice shirts and a cap? He looks quite jolly to me. And Tutu! Jaaa! Now that one’s really jolly.’
She throws her arms up into the air, the way Tutu did it once, from a pulpit on a soccer field. ‘We shall be free, all of us, together!’ she shouts.
‘Yes, madam, that might be what they say, but the blacks are fighting for basics. For food and houses and work and schools.’
‘Mol,’ says Treppie, ‘let’s rather put it this way.’ He puts on his preacher’s voice. ‘Us whites, we must vote for roses. We already have a house, and wheels, and bread.’
‘And polony.’
‘That’s right, madam,’ says the girly, ‘and polony, but we must insist on the right to have roses too.’
‘Constitutionally guaranteed under a new government,’ says Blazer.
‘Our right to the finer things in life,’ says Annemarie.
‘In other words, the right to our culture,’ says Jannie. He brings his fingertips together and rubs them softly against each other, as if he’s touching something soft.
‘Culture for the backvelders — Klipdrift and Coke and crock cars.’
‘Ja, that’s it, Mol,’ says Treppie. He laughs and winks at her. Now she’s really on a roll. ‘But you two are supposed to be educated, so tell us a little what culture really means.’
‘Well,’ Little Blazer says, looking at Girly, ‘how did Prof. van Rensburg put it, culture is the, er, complex product of a creative, er, socially determined grasp of nature, er, such as historically determined by a language and a religious community.’
‘Jeeesus!’ says Treppie. ‘Just watch how I determine this Coke by grasping the Klipdrift, old buddy!’ He pours from both bottles into Blazer’s glass at the same time.
‘What?’ says Mol, sitting upright.
Close your legs, Lambert signals to her.
‘Let me put it this way, ma’am,’ says Girly, looking at Jannie with big eyes. ‘All he means is this: culture is looking after your own garden, yourself.’
‘Your rose garden,’ says Treppie quickly, ‘your right to culture is the right to make your own rose garden. Yes, that’s it, to make your own corsage just the way you want to.’
‘You and your own cultural group.’ Blazer’s pointing his finger at Treppie. He’d better take that finger away, quickly. But it’s too late.
‘Puke!’ says Treppie.
‘Excuse me?’ says Girly.
‘I said puke-group, you and your own puke-group.’ Treppie’s eyes are glittering. He’s talking softly.
‘Treppie, I’m going to smack you,’ says Lambert.
‘Just you shuddup for now, old nephew!’ says Treppie, shaking a long finger in front of Lambert’s nose like he’s a naughty dog or something. Treppie turns back towards the two NPs.
‘It was about a month before we became a republic. Two little NP men came to visit here one day. Remember, Mol, you were visiting the school principal about Lambert’s bad schoolwork. We received a letter about the matter.’
Treppie pretends he’s taking a letter out of an envelope. He unfolds it.
She remembers. It was in terribly learned Afrikaans, and when they read it, Treppie had to explain almost every word. About how she must please come for an ‘audience’ with the principal, ’cause Lambert didn’t want to do his work. And how he smelt bad, and how he was ‘indecent’ with little schoolgirls. And how important every single child was, and how the principal felt he could make a diamond from even this piece of coal. Then Treppie said Triomf should have been named after that principal, ’cause anyone who thought a school was like a mine must also think bulldozing kaffir rubbish was some kind of great victory.
Treppie pretends he’s at the end of the letter. He signs the school principal’s name with large, frilly letters in the air. ‘Doctor Hans van den Berg,’ he says slowly, as he signs. ‘Bee-Ay-Em-Ed-Pee-Aitch-Dee,’ he reads.
Treppie indicates that he wants the NPs to clap hands for the principal’s letter. They must cheer, he signals. He waits. No one claps. The NP chappy just smiles, shaking his head.
Only Lambert gets up. He looks like he wants to start smashing people around. Treppie must block him, otherwise there’s going to be trouble here again.
‘But he turned out fine, old Lambert. Just look at him. All ship-shape.’ Treppie sniffs in Lambert’s direction. ‘Always clean-shaven. Hair always neatly combed. Poor but clean, as befits an Afrikaner. And he never swears. Terribly civil to his uncle and his father, and especially to his mother. When the need becomes too much to bear — Lambert here’s a bachelor, remember — then he does push-ups on the lawn. Push-ups! Forty at a time. Does he ever touch himself? Never. That Dr Hans fixed him up very nicely.’
Treppie slowly pushes Lambert back on to his crate. ‘Come, Lambert, sit down so I can finish my story. I take it you still want to hear the story?’ He looks at the visitors. Cutesy-Collarbones nods her head half-heartedly. She looks like she’s scared of Treppie. Blazer’s perched on the edge of Pop’s chair. Pop’s sitting on a crate with his head in his hands. Mol rubs Gerty between the ears. Let Treppie stir the pot here. He’s the best one to do it.
‘So, then those two snotnoses came here that afternoon. They were about as old as you two. Nice and wet behind the ears. Nats! Two little chappies in suits and waistcoats. The one had a little Hitler-moustache. They came round the back, where we were fixing fridges. And guess what they saw first? They saw the roses that Mol was going to sell that night. And guess what they said? They said how nice it was that the finer things in life were also getting some attention, here among the Afrikaans working classes.’
Treppie looks hard at the NPs.
‘Ja, they said, didn’t we want to make a contribution to Republic Day. Something like corsages, they thought. For wearing at the Republic Day festival at the Voortrekker Monument. That, they said, would be a cultural act of great distinction. I had to stop myself from kicking those two bullshitters right off the property. Those two schemers knew nothing about fucken anything.’