Treppie and Pop and Lambert all stood there and smiled at her. She still doesn’t know whose idea it was, but it was a good one.
The best present of the night, by far, was Lambert’s passion meter. She wished she could’ve taken a picture of him as he stood there, reading what it said on the box. Something to do with demonstrating the ‘principle’ of being hot and how it relieved stress and boredom in just three seconds. ‘The perfect gift’.
Lambert hardly had that glass ball with the red stuff in his hands before it began boiling all the way up the little neck, and of course Treppie couldn’t keep his mouth shut again. He said, no, instead of messing around with his paintings all day, Lambert should spend his time sitting quietly in the Tedelex so he could cool down a bit before his girl came. Otherwise he was going to crack her radiator, for sure.
But Lambert was so happy about his temperature that he just laughed and forgot about Treppie.
The practice fire also worked out well in the end, and the next day’s T-bones were almost okay — they had to be cooked one at a time on a loose piece of bathroom burglar-bar. When Lambert looked for the old Austin’s grid to use for the braai, he remembered it was one of the things he’d burnt up in his Guy Fawkes fire.
They had some potatoes and baked beans to go with the meat. Treppie bought a two-litre box of wine for the occasion. Drostdy Hof Stein. They polished it off in two ticks. It made them all so mellow that in the end they didn’t cut the watermelon. They went and lay down in the shadow of the fig tree instead, with those five silver balls glittering and twirling among the dark green leaves.
Now Mol finds herself standing in the kitchen. She can’t remember why she went there. Oh yes, to throw away the Christmas cards. Ja-nee, things are on the move here in Triomf. She reads on the back of Aribal Catalao’s season’s greetings:
It’s true! A new force has erupted in the West. For an instant market evaluation or free advice on the sale of your property, phone 477-3029 (home) 837-9669 (bus).
The FOR SALE signs are going up all around them. But the sellers are struggling. The only people who’ve sold are those two across the road. Their sweetpeas are so pretty. Fort Knox’s been on sale for months now. They painted their black iron gates and their other stuff light blue, with everything else in white. Treppie says they look like Triomf’s Peace Secretariat now. But blue or not, they’re not triumphing, not a damn, he says.
Treppie says if the prices go up after the election they can maybe think of selling, but they must first paint. Then she asked him: sell and go where? He said he felt like going to Ten-Elephants-in-a-Row-Ville. Where was that? she asked, and he said it was in the heart of the country, but she mustn’t come and ask him exactly where, ’cause he didn’t think he could find a place where elephants were so well behaved.
She said she’d rather stay right here where she was. The rest of them could go if they wanted.
But wait, she’d better go back now. It must be time for the Queen of England.
ALSO JUST HUMAN 
It’s a grey day and the Queen has to pose for a portrait. She’s dressed up in tassels and fur and she’s wearing her crown. She sits dead still. At first, the artist paints only her head. The Queen’s favourite little doggy sits at her feet, his eyes shining and his ears pricked. He’s looking to see what his lady’s doing.
The camera shows the lobes of her ear, the pearls and the soft flesh on her neck, and then, one by one, the precious gems in her crown.
Mol sees her cheeks and her nose and the wrinkles under her eyes. The Queen is powdered and painted for her sitting, but Mol is not fooled by her tight little smile.
Now they’re showing how much of her the artist has already painted. Her face and a trimming of white fur around her neck. The likeness is good and the fur also looks genuine.
But the Queen keeps turning the tassels around and around in her lap. And she’s rubbing her thumb over the thick, bushy ends. They say she’s sad about Windsor burning down. The damage was huge and now the treasures are fewer. They show a picture of the fire.
The Queen looks out of the window. It’s raining outside. Further down, far away, the Royal Guard marches around the fountains. The soldiers are small and red, like ants, with stripes down their trousers. They stamp their feet and then they put down their guns. Each one’s got a cord on his sleeve and a high, black cap, as if he’s in mourning.
‘It looks like a rainy day,’ says the Queen, and: ‘How did this session go?’
But the camera shows she’s thinking about something else. About how she went and looked at Windsor, walking in the rain through the rubble. In a yellow plastic hat, black rubber boots and a thin old overcoat. A fireman with a helmet helped her step over the beams. Shame, she’s also just human.
‘Oh, what a shame. My, what a pity. Alas, history reduced to mere ashes.’
‘And now, Molletjie, why you crying?’
It’s Pop. He’s just woken up.
‘I’m crying about the Queen of England and her palace that burnt down.’
‘Never mind,’ says Pop, ‘she’s only a queen, and she’s got many more.’
17. PEACE ON EARTH
To shit is a fine skill, that’s for fucken sure. And, if anything, a turd is a work of art. So help him God. Some are water paintings of Sahara sunsets, and others are statues in the park. But a masterpiece of a crap is one that works its way down from your guts in one piece like a tapestry, evenly textured and solidly braided, not too light but also not too dark. With all the colours blending but not so much that it gets boring. Delicate, bright flowers shining against the grass and the white horse resting his horn meekly on the Madonna’s lap.
Treppie sits and pages through an old calendar he found among the dykes’ newspapers yesterday. There’s a broken guitar painted by one Braque, and a rough-looking oke with a bandage around his head. It’s a Van Gogh, by Van Gogh, who cut off his own ear, it says at the bottom.
Well bric-à-braque and all a-gogh. The stranger the name the stranger the dog.
He’ll take the holy virgin, any time, with her poor old horse and its single horn. All of it in invisible stitching. At least it looks like something. And he doesn’t mind the fact that they don’t know so nicely any more exactly who made it. If you asked him, a whole swarm of nuns must’ve sat working on those little flowers till their tongues started hanging out from tiredness and they got completely cross-eyed from concentrating on all the tiny stitches. So that after a while they began to see visions, and that was when they started stitching in the Mother of God in her blue dress, and her weird little horse, on top of the flowery lawn. Mystics can’t be choosers. And neither can the constipated. It’s a cross and it’s a calling. To look at what doesn’t exist, and to sit without results — both are ways of escaping the fine-grinder.
And it gives rise to shithouses full of art. God be his witness.
And the world is evidence thereof.
That’s why he buggered off from the lounge to come sit here with his newspapers. He doesn’t feel he’s got the slightest chance of producing a turd today, never mind art, but what the hell. To sit quietly on the toilet is a million times better than listening to those horny Jehovahs preaching to that fucked-up family of his, who sit there like obedient little dogs.
It’s not even March and the Jehovahs are into Exodus again. Every year they make the same mistake. They try to get through the whole Bible, piece by piece. But their timing’s way out. They start too quickly, and then at the end of the year they have to read Revelation twice in a row, verse for verse, ’cause they hit the end too soon. Many’s the time he’s told them, spare us the Revelation, dears, we’ve heard it all before. But before you can say Jack Robinson, the sun’s become black as sackcloth of hair and the moon’s become as blood, for the umpteenth time.