‘Mr Benade,’ says Van der Walt, ‘can you shoot?’ He taps with a flat hand on the gun in his hip-holster.
Du Pisanie looks up from his papers. ‘Mr Benade, the real question is, do you want to shoot?’ He pulls his gun out of the holster and puts it down, ‘ka-thwack’, on top of the papers.
Lambert shuffles in his lace-ups. Now they’re asking him a question. What’s he supposed to say now?
‘Shoot,’ he says. He feels just as stupid as his mother.
‘A glass of Oros for you?’ Van der Walt asks.
‘Yes, please,’ he says. ‘Nice and hot today.’
‘Yes, hot,’ says Du Pisanie.
Van der Walt pours three glasses of Oros with water. They drink.
‘Aaah,’ says Du Pisanie, putting down his glass.
‘Aaah,’ says Van der Walt, putting down his glass.
‘Was nice,’ he says, putting down his glass.
Now what? First shoot, then Oros. What’s their case? He looks at them. But they’re looking at each other. They look a bit funny, if you ask him. He thinks he should rather get away from here now.
‘Well, then, gentlemen, I’ll be on my way. Goodbye, then,’ he says.
‘No, wait,’ says Du Pisanie.
‘We’re recruiting,’ says Van der Walt. ‘For the AWB’s task force on the Rand.’
Du Pisanie pats his sleeve. Only now does Lambert see the AWB badge. Red and white, with things that look like little black hooks.
‘Soldiers, chefs, cleaners, anything … medical, technical, telecommunications. Were you in the army, Lambert?’
Suddenly Du Pisanie sounds soft and friendly.
Now suddenly he’s ‘you’ and ‘Lambert’. These people want to use him, not for shooting, but for ‘anything’. No thanks, he’s no one’s skivvy. And he wasn’t in the army, either, ’cause of the fits. But that’s none of their business.
‘Sorry, gentlemen, I’m NP.’
‘Oh, my God,’ says Van der Walt, smacking himself on the forehead with a flat hand.
‘What you think the NP’s going to do for your kind, Lambert? Tell me, what?’ asks Du Pisanie.
‘They’re going to protect me, ’cause I’m a minority,’ he says.
Why do they say ‘for your kind’? What’s wrong with him? He is who he is, full-stop.
‘Some more Oros?’ offers Van der Walt.
‘No thank you.’
They’re not laughing any more.
Du Pisanie shakes his head. ‘It just goes to show,’ he says to Van der Walt. Then he turns back to Lambert. ‘We want to help you to protect yourself, Lambert. We want our people to be independent. And to look after themselves. We want our people to stand on their own two feet, in peace as much as in war.’
Now Van der Walt’s very serious. He taps the table as he stands there next to Du Pisanie. ‘Independent’, tap, ‘look after themselves’, tap, ‘stand on their own two feet’, tap.
‘Listen nicely now, Lambert,’ says Du Pisanie, ‘can you peel potatoes?’ He sounds like he means even if Lambert can do nothing but peel potatoes, he’s made for life.
‘Or wash dishes, or scrub floors?’ says Van der Walt. Van der Walt sounds like he means if Lambert can do nothing but wash dishes or scrub floors, the world is his oyster.
‘Listen to me,’ he says to Du Pisanie, ‘I’m not your kaffirgirl.’ He takes a step back. ‘I’m not your kaffir that you can order around. Peel here, scrub there!’
‘It’s for the task force, man!’ says Van der Walt. ‘Not everyone can do the shooting.’
‘Says who?’ he asks.
‘Lambert, listen to us now, man.’ It’s Du Pisanie. Now he sounds like he’s begging. He winks at Van der Walt. Van der Walt must play along nicely now. ‘Can you fix things, things that are broken, machines and things?’
‘Volkswagens,’ he answers.
‘And what else?’ asks Van der Walt.
‘Lawn-mowers, fridges, washing machines, video machines, fans, you name it,’ he says.
‘Excellent!’ says Du Pisanie.
‘There’s nothing that these two hands can’t do,’ he says. He shows them his hands. Van der Walt and Du Pisanie look at them — Lambert’s big hands with their funny, bent fingers, some of them too short, with knobs on the wrong places. Then they look at each other.
‘But we can certainly use you, old friend!’ says Van der Walt. Du Pisanie looks quickly at Van der Walt, shaking his head hard, just once.
‘He means you’ll be an asset to the AWB’s task force, sir,’ says Du Pisanie.
But no one’s going to ‘old friend’ him and then ‘sir’ him in the same breath — he heard what he heard.
‘No one uses me. I’m my own blarry boss. I don’t do kaffirwork. Take your fucken AWB and stick it up your backsides, man!’ He takes a few steps back.
‘Hey!’ says Van der Walt, taking a step closer. ‘What did you say there, hey? Come again, let’s hear you say that again, hey …’
‘Leave the rubbish alone, man,’ says Du Pisanie. ‘We’re wasting our time with him, he’s just a piece of rubbish, man.’
‘He’s worse than a kaffir, the fucker. Just look at him!’ says Van der Walt.
‘Jesus,’ he hears one of them say behind his back as he walks away, ‘I really didn’t know you still got people like that around here.’
Lambert walks away, fast. He’s limping. His ankle got sore from standing so long there under that big umbrella. He’s so spitting mad he could scream. He could chew up a car he’s so pissed off. Give him a car and he’ll bite right through the bumper! Fuck! His throat burns. Their fucken arses! Their fucken mothers’ arses too! Them with their fucken Oros! To hell with their fucken task force! They can peel their own fucken potatoes. They can go down on their own fucken knees and scrub their own fucken floors. What fucken floors, in any case? They’re the kind of people who piss on carpets. That’s what Treppie read in the papers. The AWBs pissed on the carpets at the negotiations. Just like Toby. If he sees a carpet, he pisses on it. That’s why they chucked all the carpets out at home. They stank too much from Toby’s piss. Fucken dogs! As if he’s going to wipe up their stink piss. He’s not their blarry servant-girl! And he’s not rubbish either, he’s no one’s rubbish. Just fuck them, man. Fuck them to hell and back.
And so Lambert talks to himself as he walks in the hot sun, towards the dumps. He talks out aloud. As he walks, he drags one hand along the prefab wagon-wheels on the prefab walls. He keeps his head down and looks at his feet. People mustn’t waste his fucken time like that. He’s got his own plans. He’s got a whole fucken list of things to do. And not enough time to do them in. Today it’s first things first. To the dumps. Get wine boxes. Take out the bags, so he can put petrol in when the shit hits the fan.
Treppie says petrol’s always the first thing that dries up when the shit starts flying.
He wonders what’s all this shit that’s going to fly so much.
When he asks Treppie what kind of shit he means, Treppie says shit is shit. You don’t specify shit, you duck for shit. And even when you’ve looked for it yourself, you still duck. You don’t just stand there. You’ve got a pair of eyes in your head, after all.
Treppie says that’s why there’s so much shit in the country. It’s ’cause everyone who looks for shit, stands for shit too. They think if they keep standing for shit, they’ll be heroes. But actually they’re just shits. After a while they’re so full of shit they can’t duck any more, even if they wanted to. And so everything becomes an even bigger load of shit. That’s why he thinks the Benades should just fuck off, ’cause he’s not going to stand for the shit that other people look for, and keep looking for. And it’s coming, he says, the shit’s coming, for absolutely sure it’s coming. It’s coming like lava from two sides.