kagablog

From The Life of Henry Fuckit, 1950-2015
by Ian Martin

The sun was down and Birkin switched on his headlights as they pulled out into the road. The onset of dusk seemed rapid, more so than in Cape Town. They were traversing a plain. Open and flat, its boundaries dwindling into the murky middle distance, without feature except in the west, where the last pallor in the sky provided a backdrop to the occasional silhouette - a weirdly shaped hillock, a low jagged ridge like some rough beast slouching towards… Within half an hour all light was gone save from the corridor ahead of them, into which they rushed, with reckless disregard for the harsh land outside. The broken white line was sucked in towards them and it seemed to Henry that they were being drawn into some unknown and hostile place where the road would betray their confidence, leading them to calamity in an ambush of fateful circumstance. Neurotic delusions!

Just before eight a signboard showed up. Grunau to the right.

“We can stop here for something to eat. I know this hotel. Strange place - just a hotel and the railway. Really in the gammadoelas. Nice people though. The owner’s a bit of a pisscat but his wife’s a tasty piece. Last time she was giving me the eye and… Here’s the turning.”

They took the turnoff and drove a kilometre or two. “Their power must be off, or something.” Then there was a faint glimmer to the left and he swung off the tar. Across an expanse of smooth bare earth the squat building was revealed in the headlamps. A puff of air lifted fine dust into the beam and then dropped it. For a moment they sat looking at the entrance in the bright light from the car. Birkin switched off and the hotel disappeared into blackness until they began to make out the dim glow from somewhere further to the back.

“Yiss, but it’s only dark out here.” He put the parks on and they got out into the cool air that felt cold after the warmth of the car. He tried the hotel door but it was locked and he banged loudly and called “Dolf, Dolf! Hey open up man! You call this a hotel?” He rattled the door impatiently. “Van Schalkwyk! Wat maak jy daar? Is jy alreeds besig met jou vrou?” A key turned and the door was opened half way by a man in the black trousers and red jacket of a waiter.

“Hotel it is closed. No power. Niks krag.” The door began to close but Birkin pushed forward.

“Don’t talk shit to me, boy. Waar’s jou baas? Roep hom. Maak gou.”

“Die baas, he not here. He gone Upington.”

“What? Upington? Alright call the miesies.”

“Miesies also gone Upington.”

“Fuck it! Ons is dors, ons is honger.” He turned to Henry. “Well, too bad, but I’m bloody hungry. This bimbo can bring us a drink and they can knock us up something in the kitchen.” He led the way through towards the light. It came from the dining room where a Cadac lamp stood on one of the tables, shedding its white incandescence over a narrow circle of white tablecloths. The rest of the room was in semi-darkness. They sat down, one table away from the lamp.

“Now listen, waiter. You bring us two big Windhoeks, cold, cold, cold. Also you bring one double rum and Coke and one double brandy and Coke. You got that?” The black face was surly, the eyes averted. “Then when you come back you get us food - hamba tata nyama. Okay, tshetsha, tshetsha.”

The room was warm and airless. They could hear African voices rising and falling in conversation somewhere beyond the swing-doors to the kitchen and a rhythmic thud came faintly to their ears, possibly from music playing on a radio, the higher notes lost on the way.

When the waiter returned Birkin continued in his nagging way. “What took you so long, Philemon? You go to Windhoek to fetch the beer? And I said COLD. You call this cold? This shushu, not makaza.”

“I tell you no power. All day no power. No power, no fridge, no fokall.”

“Yissis, this is a taste of things to come. Probably Swapo’s work. Hey, Alfred, why Nujoma make trouble? Why Nujoma skelm muntu?” For an instant the eyes flickered, a naked flame burnt up and then subsided. Sullenly he stood waiting.

“Alright, now what’s on the menu, my black brother? Let’s see, I’ll start with tomato soup with a spoonful of cream and a nice crisp French roll with butter. Then I’ll have kingklip with a small portion Greek salad, hot chips and plenty tartar sauce. And of course to drink I will have a bottle of Nederburg Paarl Riesling, nicely chilled and served from an ice bucket, if you please. After that you can bring me, if you will be so good, Comrade, the speciality of the house - kudu cutlets, with smash potato well creamed and hot, not cold, you understand, and green peas in sweet mint sauce, pumpkin and cauliflower. With the meat I will have English mustard. And remember this, Joseph, I like the kudu rare and it must fall off the bone. I don’t want to have to tear at it like a hyena. I shall drink a six year old Baksberg Cabernet Sauvignon with the main course. And you?” He turned to Henry, who had finished his beer and was starting on the brandy and Coke.

“Ag, er, same as you. Make it two, waiter.” For a few seconds the man stood holding his tray, napkin over arm, looking from one to the other. He leant forward, flicked some salt off the tablecloth, turned and disappeared into the darkness beyond the swing-doors.

“No other guests, I see.” Henry was making conversation. “An out-of-the-way place. The ‘gammadoelas’ you called it. That’s an interesting term. I presume it’s of Nguni origin and something to do with hills. An approximately similar expression might be ‘back of beyond’ or, in Australian parlance, ‘never-never country.’ ” As he spoke he looked at Mike Birkin and saw him for the first time. The past six or seven hours had put flesh on the skeleton and he was relaxed and alert enough in this setting to look with clear eyes at his fellow traveller. The nervous strain about the eyes, the slack mouth that betrayed weakness and debauchery, the pathetic rough bravado of the bully and the bombast. Beneath this surface there must be… The swing-doors clapped and swung, clapped and swung.

The waiter placed in the centre of the table a plate containing half a loaf of sliced bread and a dish of butter balls. Before them each he laid a plate of cold sausage, several rashers of processed ham and sliced tomato. In addition there was a bottle of mayonnaise.

“Wragtig, is this the best you can do?”

“The chef, he say…” The waiter hesitated, embarrassed yet with a sly smirk playing on his lips. “Angus, he say, ‘dronk boer, hy honger, hy vreet sy eie kak.’”

The implications of the insult vibrated about the room, shaking the walls, rocking the foundations. Birkin’s eyes became rounder and rounder and his mouth worked noiselessly. Henry began to splutter and laugh.

“Jesus, this is good. This is only good. You say the chef’s name is Angus? And Angus says if we’re hungry enough we’ll eat our own shit? That’s real humour for you. Oh my God! Tell Angus thank you for the very nice meal. Mooshy stellek. Much better than kak. And can you bring some red wine and more brandy and rum? And coke?” The waiter went off, somewhat disappointed. Henry buttered two slices of bread and made a ham, sausage and tomato burger, with lashings of mayonnaise, and began to wolf down the food. “This Angus ou is right. If you’re hungry enough you’ll eat anything.” He began to laugh again and nearly choked. “Angus is a real philosopher. Take it or leave it, white trash.”

Birkin came out of his state of shock, finished his drink to raise blood sugar level and began buttering bread.

“But you realise this fuckin’ coon has insulted us?”

“Of course. I’ve never been so insulted by a kaffir in all my life. It feels great. Oh, thank you waiter. So good of you. Sorry to put you to the trouble.” Birkin examined the label on the wine bottle and looked coldly at the waiter.

“This is not what I ordered. This is Tassenberg dry red. It doesn’t even have a cork. You expect me to drink this rubbish screw top wine? Don’t you understand English? Afrikaans? Must I speak to you in your own language? Wena makulu mampara. Mina hayikona puza lo pis. Hamba tata lo Nederburg Cabernet.”

“Hey, not so fast. What’s wrong with Tass? I’ve drunk gallons and gallons of this stuff. Nothing wrong with it.” Henry unscrewed the cap and poured a glass, sniffed it appreciatively and sipped. “Ahh! Lovely stuff. Goes well with the meal. Allow me.” And he filled Birkin’s glass.” Let’s not antagonise the population.”

The waiter withdrew to the edge of the pool of light and hovered in the shadows. The food and wine were resuscitating Birkin’s spirits and the light of battle was kindling in his eye.

“You know, there’s something bloody funny going on here. How can the Van Schalkwyks just sommer leave the hotel in the hands of this monkey and the cookboy. In these times? It doesn’t make sense.” Just then the voices in the kitchen were raised and there was a burst of loud laughter. He called to the waiter.

“Wena. Sandela, Sandela!” The waiter slowly advanced, wary of the drunken white men. “Biza lo cookboy. Tell that cheeky bastard to come here, I want to talk to him.” The waiter stood where he was, impassive and mute. “Hamba. Tshetsha!’

“Chef, he busy.”

“Busy? Busy, jou moer! You go tell that mampara to come here or I come and thrash him right there in the kitchen.” He was working himself up, pounding the table with his fist and making the drinks slop. The waiter disappeared and they waited. Henry had finished his meal and was feeling decidedly cheerful, if a little unsteady.

“So you’re going to sort this fellow out? I must just warn you that I wish to have no part in the violent suppression of the subject races, regardless of their impudent recalcitrance. I appeal to you to treat the miscreant with restraint and compassion. A verbal lashing must suffice. Physical abuse is…”

Henry’s back was to the kitchen and Birkin was looking past him and his face had drained of colour. Henry turned as the largest black man he had ever seen strode up to the table. He was at least six foot six and built like Cassius Marcellus Clay in peak form. He was all in white, tee shirt about to burst at the seams, short sleeves stretched tight above biceps. Slim hips encased in cotton that remained puckered atop thighs of racehorse flesh. Large head on bull neck, skull recently shaven, high sweep of forehead above direct, alert gaze, cut of cheekbones, nose, mouth, chin all finer and more sensitive than expected on such a hulk.

“Yebo, oh great white chiefs? I stand before you.”

“Ah, right. You must be the chef with the Scottish connection. Most interesting combination. Right, now we’ve been led to believe that you delivered a message, via your plenipotentiary here, indicating the parlous state of the pantry and couched in phrases so direct as to be construed as down right insulting. This being the case my travelling companion here would like to remonstrate with you, probably in order to extract an apology form your own fleshy lips. I must warn you that his pride has been pricked and his sense of what is decent and correct has been affronted, and the accepted servility of the broad racial grouping known as Kaffirs, munts and coons has been overstepped. Over to you, Mike.”

Standing with legs apart and hands on hips in what seemed a very un-African stance the giant turned his gaze from Henry to Birkin, who cleared his throat nervously and tried to sit up straight and sound commanding. When he did speak his voice came out hoarse and slurred. The bully had run into his victim’s older brother.

“If you think… If you reckon you can just… You know if I was to repeat your behaviour to your master I’m sure Mr Van Schalkwyk would give you the sjambok and fire you. You can’t talk to a white man like that, as if he’s, he’s…”

“As if he’s a Kaffir,” Henry helped out, savouring the situation with relish.

“I mean, I could even report you to the police. That fuckin’ surly waiter says they’ve gone to Upington. I don’t believe it. I’m going to phone the police right away and…” He pushed his chair back and the waiter stepped forward, grinning all over his face.

“No phone. No power, no phone, no fokall.”

“Tula, jou fokken mampara! Wena hayikona manga! Satanyoka! Ipi lo telefono?” He was on his feet and shouting. The waiter stepped back but showed no fear. Only derision. The chef spoke.

“He tells the truth. Swapo have been working hard. But satisfy yourself. There is an oil lamp burning in Ladies Bar. Phone is on the counter.” Birkin reeled out of the room, striking his shoulder against the doorjamb and cursing.

Ian Martin’s controversial novel Pop-splat is now available from http://www.pop-splat.co.za.