The following evening’s shift held no surprises. But the day after was a Saturday, and he was obliged to spend the whole afternoon tending the plan. Towards sunset he was sweeping with a grass broom when a ghostly balustrade floated into view some five metres above the ground and dependent upon nothing at all.
A less steadfast man might have taken to his heels, but Malgas stood firm. He even had the presence of mind not to confront the apparition directly. He sensed danger: he saw himself turned to stone. So he maintained the steady rhythm of his sweeping and watched the floating balustrade out of the corner of his eye. It shimmered, and shimmied, and emitted a halo of brilliant light. It faded, and was on the point of vanishing altogether, but, as Malgas’s heart skipped a beat, it glowed again with new intensity and appeared to stabilize and solidify somewhat. It grew a landing, it excreted a film of crimson linoleum, it oozed wax. Then it gave birth to a flight of stairs, each riser condensing in the incandescent vapour and toppling in slow motion from the edge of the tread above it, shuffling languidly into place. The handrails of the grand staircase curved gracefully, uncoiling like stems, and progressed slowly but surely down to the ground. A pool of yellow light seeped out, gathered itself, and extruded from its syrupy depths five strips of Oregon pine, which hovered just above the surface. They came closer, he smelt wax and sawdust, they eased in below the speeding bristles of his broom. The bristles chased over the floorboards and scared clouds of lemon-scented dust out of the cracks. These particles spun gaily in the rosy air, phosphoresced into pointy golden stars and sifted gently down, enveloping him.
Malgas let out his breath with a whoosh. He cast aside his broom, dispersing the staircase into a haze of ordinary dust-motes, and launched himself across the plan in an ecstasy, whooping with joy and bellowing to wake the dead, “I can see! I can see!”
Nieuwenhuizen slept through the ruckus, but Mrs came running to the lounge window and looked on aghast.
Round and round went Mr, leaping into the air and waving his fists, drumming on his thighs, tearing his hair, laughing and crying, smearing his tears into mud on his cheeks, frothing at the mouth, rolling head over heels, swallowing his tongue, collapsing, steaming. Yes.
“I’ve tried to be happy for you,” Mrs said, “but I really don’t get this. Are you imagining things? Is it a case of play-play? Are you hallucinating? What the hell’s going on out there?”
“None of the above,” Mr replied firmly. “The new house … materializes. It’s a manifestation.”
“He’s having visions.”
“Of course, one has to be receptive.”
“Goes without saying.”
“Then it’s like this – although words don’t do it justice: a paintbrush with a tousled head swooshes across a blank screen, and swooshes back again, scattering gold-dust and glitter, and 1-2-3, a multi-storey mansion appears, in full colour.”
“As if by magic?”
“Hey presto! Clinker brick and corrugated iron.”
She thought: He’s flipped his lid, he’s seeing things. But I suppose we should count our blessings. At least it’s all in his mind; the real thing would be intolerable.
Now that he had something concrete to go on, Malgas tried to engage Nieuwenhuizen in conversation, on the reasonable assumption that a familiar voice and a well-loved topic would coax him back into the land of the living, and so he introduced a daily report-back into his programme. During these sessions he sat on a stone at the end of the tent where he imagined Nieuwenhuizen’s head to be and spoke matter of factly about his new powers of insight. “I must say: Bakelite, yes,” he would say, “balusters, bay windows, breastsummers, bricks of course, and, I almost forgot, braai-spots. Please insert, I do declare.”
Then he tended the plan, and block by block, wall by wall, with an unpredictable oozing of mortar and PVA, with innumerable proliferations and ramifications, with digressions, diversions and divagations, with false starts, blind spots and dead ends, with set-backs and quantum leaps, two steps forward and one step back, the new house made an appearance, until one day he found himself enclosed in it, surrounded on all sides and sealed off from the outside world. And still the house continued to grow: here a room, there a room, here a passage in between. Here a wall, there a wall, here a screen. And storey by storey, here a floor, there a floor, now a mezzanine, the house continued to grow.
It was a magnificent place, every bit as grand as Malgas had thought it would be, but it had its shortcomings, which he was quick to perceive too. It had no depth. It had the deceptive solidity of a stage-set. The colours were unnaturally intense, yet at the slightest lapse of concentration on his part the whole edifice would blanch and sway as if it was about to fall to pieces.
“It has to be said,” he said, feeling insecure.
Interestingly, although he had learned to see the new house, and understood that this accomplishment was somehow connected with his love for the plan, the exact relationship between the two continued to elude him. He was puzzling over this one day when he recalled the secret nail, which had lain forgotten under the compacted remains of the ash-heap. No sooner had he called the nail to mind, than the entire house spurted out of the ground.
Until this moment he had never dared to venture from his post in the entrance hall at the foot of the grand staircase, but now he was carried aloft on a wave of optimism and found himself in a reception room on the second floor with the whole house humming around him, alive to his senses, ablaze with light and colour. As he gazed upon his luscious surroundings, his mouth began to water. The place was good enough to eat. He would start on the wall next to the fireplace – layers of flaky stone sandwiching globs of caramelized mortar, studded with cherries and nuts. He had never seen so much light gathered together in one place! It poured from crystal chandeliers and twisty candelabra. It dripped from lozenges of coloured glass. It seeped like honey from the brick and gleamed like a sugared glaze on slabs of creamy marble and chocolaty wood.
It was so sweet to be alive inside the new house that Malgas swooned.
Everything fell into place.
The secret nail, pulsing like a beacon, drew Malgas to a room under the stairs which had been set aside especially for him. It was musty and narrow, and the ceiling sloped awkwardly and made him stoop, but a bright rug and a swinging lantern made it cosy as a casket. There was a hammock, and an armchair with a soft cushion for the small of the back, a side-table with a reading-lamp, and a toolbox that doubled as a footstool.
When Mr told Mrs about his room she sniffed and said, “I always knew you’d want to go off without me some day.”
Practice makes perfect, and Malgas was something of a perfectionist. He practised seeing the new house until it came out of his ears. He popped open its rooms as if they were Chinese lanterns and stretched out entire wings like concertinas. He telescoped columns and slotted them into moist sockets on balconies. He unrolled floors and stacked up stairs. He rollercoastered reams of tiles over the rafters.
Then, in the wink of an eye, he did all of these things again in reverse.
He also practised being in the new house. He practised strolling around in the rooms and leaning in the interleading doorways. He went into every room at least once, not excepting the tiniest antechamber or alcove. When he knew where everything was, he practiced the everyday tasks that would transform the house, in time, into a home: ringing the bell, locking the security gate, listening to messages on the answering-machine, filling the kettle, turning on the telly, sitting on the couch, eating the TV dinner, answering the telephone, Hello?, straightening the pictures, leafing through the magazines, sighing, putting out the cat, filling the hot-water bottle, switching on the bedside lamp, turning back the corner of the carpet, picking up the paper-knife. When he had finished practising for the day, he rested in his room under the stairs.
It was during one of these rest periods that Nieuwenhuizen reappeared on the scene.
“There you are,” he said from the doorway,
into which he had slotted himself without making the slightest sound, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Malgas was astonished at the sight of him. His cheeks were like crumpled wrapping-paper. A child had coloured his features in with thick wax-crayons – purple for the lips, bottle-green for the nose, blood-red for the eyes. The hair on his head was scribbled Indian ink. Under lids like wads of damp blotting-paper his irises spluttered fitfully. Malgas was filled with pity and compassion for the owner of this vandalized face; but he knew that restraint was called for, so he kept his emotions in check, continued to dandle himself in his hammock, and said simply, “Here I am.”
“You’ve made yourself at home.”
“I’ve been seeing to things in your absence. Everything’s here, in perfect shape.”
“My faithful Malgas. I’m proud of you.”
This tribute moved Malgas deeply. It seemed to him that the time had now come to express his feelings. “I think we’ve both been marvellous,” he said, lumbering to his feet and embracing Nieuwenhuizen. His confinement had left him thinner and drier than ever: he felt like a bundle of reeds. When Malgas released him he staggered back and blinked his droopy eyes. “It’s bright in here.”
Malgas averted the reading-lamp, suddenly ashamed of his own tears, and said bluffly, “Can I get you something? Juice? Lager?”
“It’s cold for beer. But a whisky would hit the spot.”
“Let’s make our way then to the built-in bar.”
Malgas bustled Nieuwenhuizen out of the doorway, pulled the door shut and took him by his sharp elbow. They walked. When Malgas heard the tentative squee? squee? of Nieuwenhuizen’s rubber soles and the affirmative patter of his own velskoene, the turmoil in his heart subsided and he began to recover his composure. They went upstairs and passed down a long, gleaming gallery. At the end they turned right and elbowed through batwing doors into the bar. Nieuwenhuizen sat on a tall stool, which had brass trimmings and was bolted to the floor, while Malgas mixed the drinks.
Then side by side, with glasses in hand, Nieuwenhuizen, on the left, and Malgas, on the right, walked through the new house.
At the end of every sparkling corridor they saw their own reflections in full-length mirrors and polished stone, in smoked-glass partitions and lacquered panels, and all these silent witnesses to their containment conspired to give Malgas the courage of his convictions.
In one of the guest-rooms a log was burning in an ornate fireplace and they stopped to warm their hands. Malgas gave the fender a smart kick. “White Sicilian marble,” he murmured, as if to himself, “and beige sandstone shot through with lilac.”
“Decorative mouldings in the traditional style, riddled with character,” Nieuwenhuizen assented in a whisper. “Fluted pilasters and hand-carved rosettes. Tuffaceous blocks?”
They drew closer together and went on, in a rosier light and a more companionable silence, which their muted conversation served only to enhance.
“Light fittings.”
“Rise and fall shades …”
“… with bobble fringes.”
Their words shuttled between them, binding them temple to temple in a soft shell of naming.
“Occasional chairs.”
“Diamond-padded backs …”
“… in ruby dralon.”
“Swags and festoons.”
“Alabaster plinths …”
“… and plastic dados.”
“Occasional tables.”
“Dappled sunlight …”
“… on melamine.”
Later, Nieuwenhuizen dozed off in the library with a dusty old volume on his lap, and Malgas tiptoed out onto the observation deck for a breath of fresh air.
It was a glorious night. The moonlight gleamed like lengths of chrome-plated beading on the balusters and telescopes. The moat was a mass of silvery brushmarks. Nieuwenhuizen’s camp, tucked away in a corner of the yard near the servants’ quarters, with all its quaint equipment scattered about, looked small and remote. Malgas had never seen a more beautiful sight; his heart overflowed with wonder and gratitude.
“We’ll have a garden too,” he said to himself, surveying the barren soil, “with patios and grottos, red-hot pokers and bottle-brushes, tennis-courts and hiking trails, an aviary and a fishpond with a wooden bridge going over. But we’ll keep the camp just as it is, for the generations who come after us. We’ll declare it a monument, an open-air museum. We’ll never forget where we came from.”
Then Malgas wished that he could gaze down upon his own house as well and make some comment about it, but it was nowhere to be seen.
He went inside. Nieuwenhuizen was still slumped in a wicker chair drawn up to the fire. The familiar cadence of his snoring moved Malgas anew. He touched the hem of Nieuwenhuizen’s safari suit, as if to assure himself that he was real, and said softly, “Father?”
Nieuwenhuizen woke up with a start, his book fell face-down on the carpet, he sneezed and said, “Please, you must call me Otto.”
“Bless you! Pardon?”
“Otto.”
“Ot-to?”
“Otto.”
“Ot-to.” The name snapped in Malgas’s mouth. He swallowed one piece gamely, tucked the other into his cheek with his tongue, and went on, “Do you mind if I make an observation at this point in time?”
“So long as it’s brief. Sometimes you’re like a bloody broken record.”
Malgas swallowed again. “I would just like to say that if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”
“Ditto. Do you play chess?”
“No … In the early days I played a little checkers …”
“Rummy? Good. There’s a deck of cards in the rumpus room.”
Nieuwenhuizen led the way there. Malgas walked behind, looking at the back of Nieuwenhuizen’s scruffy head as if he was seeing it for the first time, and saying “Otto” to himself shyly.
After just one game, which he won, Nieuwenhuizen said, “It’s been a long day, I’m falling asleep on my feet.” Malgas thought that an invitation to stay over would follow, but Nieuwenhuizen added, “I’ll walk you to the door.”
On the doorstep they shook hands, although Malgas would have preferred a manly embrace.
“Beautiful place you’ve got here, Otto.” He managed to get it out in one piece. “Sleep well.”
“Cheerio.” The door clicked shut.
For a long time Malgas stood on the welcome mat, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together, and hearing again and again the key grating in the lock and the tumblers tumbling. This signalled some new phase of his life, of that he was sure, and finally it came to him: companionship.
He looked at the doorbell and the burnished knocker. He listened to Nieuwenhuizen banging around upstairs, closing windows and drawing curtains. He heard him going from room to room, he heard him coming downstairs. Surely he would sleep in the master bedroom? He felt him stooping into the room under the stairs.
“My room!”
Malgas was beside himself.
“He’s paying tribute to me again. No, it’s more than that: It’s an act of solidarity!”
This possibility was so distracting that the new house faded away in an instant. The plan was revealed, and so was Nieuwenhuizen, snuggling down in the ash-heap.
“Otto?”
Mrs opened a drawer in her dressing-table and found that it was full of sand.
“It’s Him. It’s come to pass: He’s everywhere. It’s not healthy to be near Him, to breathe His emanations, but you can’t help it.”
The contagion settled thickly on armrests and working surfaces. No amount of dusting would drive it away. Mrs gave up. She lay on her bed with a scarf soaked in Dettol and almond essence tied over her face. She listened to her knick-knacks jumbling themselves up in the cabinets. When the din became unbearable she dragged herself to the lounge to watch television. It was cold comfort, but she persevered with a melancholic submissiveness.
The box brought nothing but unrest and disorder, faction fights and massacres, even blood-baths, high-pressure systems and cold fronts, situation comedies and real-life dramas, hijackings, coups, interviews with VIPs, royal weddings, exposés, scandals, scoops, conspicuous consumptions, white-collar crimes, blue-collar detergents, epidemics, economic indicators, peace talks, heart-warming instances of bravery and kindness to strangers, advertisements for dogfood and requests for donations. Each new atrocity struck Mrs like a blow, and she thrashed about in the La-Z-Boy like a political prisoner.
Malgas took two instant dinners in crimped aluminium containers from the deep-freeze and arranged them, with sprigs of parsley, on a plastic tray depicting the Last Supper in three dimensions. He carried the tray through to the library. Nieuwenhuizen was gazing into the flames, a dog-eared old volume open on his knees, forgotten. Malgas displayed the dinners and said, “What’s it to be tonight?”
“What’s the difference?” Nieuwenhuizen barely glanced at the offering.
“This is a trout,” Malgas said patiently, “and this is a cottage pie.” The names of the dishes were in fact printed in violet letters on the cardboard lids.
Nieuwenhuizen waved a dismissive hand.
“The trout has been deboned,” Malgas persisted, “and stuffed with shredded spinach and chopped walnuts, flavoured subtly with marjoram butter, freshly ground pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Essential mnrls and vtmns – are you with me? – 30% of the RDA. The cottage pie is more basic.”
“You choose.”
“The cottage pie is also known as a shepherd’s pie, for some reason now lost to us. It consists of minced meat baked under a shroud of mashed potatoes. Or it will when I’ve put it in the microwave.”
“I don’t care. Just do it.”
“I know! It was made with mutton, once upon a time, sheep would die of exposure, bad shepherds, and potatoes are cheap and freely available.”
Nieuwenhuizen burst from his chair like a jack-in-the-box and writhed out of the room. The old volume, launched carelessly from his lap, flapped through the air and crash-landed in the fire. Malgas leapt to the rescue with the tongs, then thought better of it and left it to burn.
The Folly Page 11
