We look forward to hearing from you in the near future. [And who knows how long ago hence we may eat beefsteaks and drink vodkas – our patriotic highball – in V.I. Lenin Bar & Grill of Atteridgeville! – Tr. Tr. is for “Translator,” being me, Pavel Grekov, same as below.]
Yours faithfully,
A. Christov
Tr: P. Grekov
* * *
—
Postscript: Please correspond to me personally at 63-20 Tischenko Str., Apt #93, MOSCOW 109172. No doubt it will suffice. Conclusively, do you question why the monuments, large and small, have no hats? The head of Lenin in history was fond of hats, precisely caps.
V
Khumalo
Boniface Khumalo put the letter in the cubby-hole along with the tub of Wet Ones. On second thoughts he took it out again and slipped it under the rubber mat on the passenger side. Then he caught his own furtive eye in the rearview mirror, and asked himself why he was playing postman’s knock. There was nothing compromising about the letter. The Total Onslaught was over, even if a stale scent of danger still wafted from the exotic landscapes of postage stamps and the unexpected angles of mirror-script print. He retrieved the envelope again and put it in the pocket of his jacket, which hung from a hook on the door-pillar behind his seat.
That everyday action dispelled the threat and left nothing in the air but the caramel tang of new imitation leather and the cloying lavender of the Wet Ones with which he had just wiped his hands. He checked that his fly was buttoned. He checked that his door was locked. Then he looked out of the window at the drab veld of the valley dipping away from the road, straddled by electricity pylons with their stubby arms akimbo, and dotted with huge, floppy-leaved aloes like extravagant bows of green ribbon. On the far slope of the valley was a sub-economic housing complex, a Monopoly-board arrangement of small, plastered houses with corrugated-iron roofs, all of them built to exactly the same design. The planners of Van Riebeecksvlei had sought to introduce some variety into the suburb by rotating the plan of each successive house through ninety degrees, with the result that there were now four basic elevations which repeated themselves in an unvarying sequence down the long, straight streets.
Khumalo had driven past Van Riebeecksvlei on his way to Pretoria a thousand times. But he was struck now, for the first time, by the fact that he could tell at a glance it was a white suburb, even though there wasn’t a white face in sight. Was it because the walls of the houses were pastel plaster rather than raw face-brick? Or precisely because there was no one to be seen? Even at this distance it looked like a ghost town. Where was everybody? He thought of the stream of people that flowed up 5th Street from the taxi rank and cast his regulars up on his doorstep.
Khumalo buckled his safety-belt. He tweaked the ignition key and the engine sprang to life. He goaded all six cylinders with petrol, and then let them idle. The advertising was getting to him: he could almost hear the engine panting.
He gentled the car over the ruts at the edge of the tar and accelerated, watching the rev-counter. It was a Sunday afternoon and there was not much traffic. He flew past a bakkie laden with crates of vegetables and a mini-bus called “Many Rivers to Cross,” one of Mazibuko’s. The car practically drove itself, as he liked to tell his envious friends, just the way the tavern ran itself and the taxi paid for itself. One of these days I’ll retire, he said, because there won’t be anything left for me to do. Made redundant by progress.
The Boniface Tavern was Khumalo’s pride and joy. He had started the shebeen ten years earlier in his garage, adding on a room here and a room there until it was larger than the house itself. The “Tavern” of the title had been prompted by the medieval ring of his own first name – his late mother had named him for St. Boniface, English missionary among the Germans, martyred in 755 at the ripe old age of eighty.
The Boniface Tavern had certainly been unusual in its day, but lately all licensed shebeens were being called taverns. “I was ten years ahead of my time,” he would boast to his patrons, “I was a taverner long before the Taverners’ Association came along.” Secretly, the change made him unhappy. Now that every Tom, Dick and Harry had a tavern, the Boniface Tavern lost its special flavour. He began casting around for an alternative.
A new decade dawned. On the day Nelson Mandela walked from the shadows into the glare of daily news, Khumalo decided that his establishment needed more than a change of name to face the future in; it needed a change of clothes. It happened that the taxi he’d acquired a few months before was proving to be lucrative, and he was confident that he would soon be in a position to finance the new wardrobe.
The style he settled on had a touch of the “taverna” about it: he wanted red plush, wrought iron, vine leaves, lashings of white plaster and crowds of venerable statuary. He saw the very thing in Nero’s Palace, a coffee shop in the Union Hotel, and that became the model. He made a few enquiries about Nero’s decor, and one Saturday afternoon went out to Hyperplant in Benoni, a nursery that specialized in garden statues. It was expensive – a common or garden gnome would set you back R44 – but he came away with two disarmed goddesses, several cement amphorae with cherubim and seraphim in relief upon them, sufficient numbers of caryatids and atlantes to prop up a canvas awning over the courtyard, and a bench with mermaid armrests. He stockpiled his purchases in the backyard, where the elements could age them while his funds recuperated.
So far so good, except that the new name continued to elude him. He thought of exploiting the obvious political angle by honouring a popular leader. But in this capricious epoch how could you tell who would be popular in the new year? In any case, the old guard was getting on. The way of all flesh was fleeting, whereas decor had to last. He looked further afield: The Richelieu? Never mind The Napoleon! He was still undecided when a new possibility bobbed up unexpectedly in the pages of the Pretoria News.
One evening he read on page two that the Moscow City Council, in concrete expression of their commitment to the reforms sweeping through the Soviet Union, had decided to take down 62 of the 68 statues and other memorial structures in the capital devoted to V. I. Lenin. “All Lenin memorials in schools and other institutions for children also will be removed,” the report concluded. What other institutions for children are there? he wondered. Orphanages? Hospitals? Reformatories? And then he thought further: What will become of all those statues? I could make good use of a couple myself, to string some coloured lights from.
That’s probably as far as the fancy would have gone, had there not been a comment on the statues in the editorial column of that same newspaper. Although the tone was mocking – the simple act of giving “Vladimir Illyich” in full was a sure sign of satirical intent – the idea struck a chord with Khumalo.
SURPLUS STATUES
Calling all enterprising businessmen! The import opportunity of a lifetime presents itself. The Moscow City Council has decided to dismantle the hundreds of monuments to Vladimir Illyich Lenin which grace its crowded public buildings and empty marketplaces. Cities throughout the crumbling Soviet Union will follow suit. We ask you: Where else in the world is there a ready market for statues of Lenin but in South Africa? Jump right in before the local comrades snap them up for nothing.
Khumalo parked his car next to a building site in Prinsloo Street. An entire city block was being demolished, and all that remained of the high-rise buildings that had occupied the spot was one ruined single-storey facade with an incongruously shiny plate-glass window in it. It had once been Salon Chantelle, according to the sign. The departed proprietor had written a farewell message to her clients on the glass in shoe-white: We apologize to all our ladies for the inconvenience caused by demolition. Please phone 646-4224 for our new location. Thank you for your continued support. XXXXX. C.
Khumalo got out of the car. The building site looked as if it had been bombed, and the impression of a city under siege was borne out by
the empty streets. He suddenly felt concerned for the welfare of his car. It only had twelve thousand k’s on the clock. Then he heard a metallic clang, and traced it to an old man with a wheelbarrow scrounging among the collapsed walls. Perfect. He could keep an eye on the car. Khumalo called out to him, in several languages, but was ignored. In the end he had to go closer himself, through the gaping doorway of Salon Chantelle, stepping carefully over the broken masonry in his brown loafers.
The old man was salvaging unbroken bricks and tiles from the rubble.
“Greetings, Father,” Khumalo said.
The man glared at him suspiciously.
“What are you collecting there?”
It was obvious. The old man spat with surprising vehemence and accuracy in the dust at Khumalo’s feet, picked up a brick with three round holes through it, knocked a scab of cement off it against the side of the barrow and dropped it on the pile.
“Are you building your own place?”
Another brick fell.
“Do you sell these things? I may have need of some building materials myself one of these days. Are you a builder?”
“This rubbish belongs to no one,” the old man finally said in a broken voice. “It is just lying here. You can see it yourself.”
Khumalo gave him a one-rand coin and asked him to watch the car. He pocketed the money noncommittally, spat again with conviction, and went back to work. Feeling as if he had been dismissed, Khumalo walked up Prinsloo Street towards the State Theatre.
At the Church Street intersection he waited for the robot to change even though there was no traffic. He looked right, and left, and right again towards Strijdom Square, and caught a glimpse of the dome like a swollen canvas sail over the head of J.G. Strijdom.
When the Strijdom monument was first unveiled a story had gone around that its unconventional dome defied the laws of architecture, and therefore of nature. A group of city architects – the rivals whose tender had been rejected? – were so intrigued by it that they built a scale model in perfect detail out of chicken-wire and plaster of Paris. The model fell over. No matter how much they tinkered with it, it fell over.
The lights changed, and Khumalo crossed the street with the same jaunty stride as the little green man.
J.G. Strijdom had been leader of the National Party in the 1950s and Prime Minister of the Union from 1954 to 1958. He was one of the great builders of apartheid. The details were on the pedestal. But though he had passed the monument often, Khumalo had never bothered to read what was written there. All he knew about Strijdom he had gleaned from the words of a popular political song. “Sutha sutha wena Strijdom!” the song said. “Give way, Strijdom! If you don’t, this car, this car which has no wheels, will ride over you!” In Khumalo’s mind Strijdom’s face had never borne the serene, farsighted expression he saw on it now, as the bronze head came into view over islands of greenery. Rather, it had a look of stupefied terror. It was the face of a slow-footed pedestrian, a moment away from impact and extinction, gaping at the juggernaut of history bearing down on him. This Strijdom is that Strijdom, Khumalo thought with a smile. As secure on his pedestal as a head on its shoulders.
In front of the monument, where one corner of the billowing dome was tacked to the ground, was a fountain: a thick white column rose from the middle of a pond and on top of it were four galloping horses, their hooves striking sparks from the air, their manes and tails flying. Usually jets of water spurted up from the pond and played against the column, but today they were still. Some crooked scaffolding leaned against the yellowed stone, and the stench of stagnant water rose from the slimy moat at the column’s base. Khumalo sat on the dry lip of the fountain and looked at the limp agapanthuses and the grey river-stones embedded in cement on the bottom of the pond.
Then he looked at the head. His heart sank. According to his calculations, the head of V.I. Lenin promised to him in the letter from Grekov was at least three times larger than the head of J.G. Strijdom! The pedestal would hardly fit in his yard. Perhaps if he knocked down the outside toilet and the Zozo…but surely it would cost a fortune just to build a pedestal that size. And who would pay for the installation? What if he approached the SACP, or the Civic, or a consortium of local businessmen? Atteridgeville needs a tourist attraction, after all, something with historical value. I’ll donate it to the community, he thought, they can put it up on that empty plot by the police station. My name can go on the plaque, I’ll unveil the bloody thing myself!
Still, it would be a pity to give it away, when I’ve gone to the effort to get hold of it. Has he promised it to me? I think he has…But who is this Grekov anyway? Can he be trusted? On whose behalf is he speaking? He doesn’t sound like a very important person. Although he seems to know more than Christov, at any rate.
Khumalo shrugged off his jacket and took out Grekov’s letter. He didn’t think of it as Christov’s letter, it had been so ruthlessly invaded and occupied by the translator. The fingerprint in ink from the typewriter ribbon, which was clearly visible in the top left-hand corner of the page, may have settled the question of authorship once and for all, had Khumalo been able to check it against flesh and blood.
He read the letter again. It had been typed on an old typewriter and all the loops of the letters were closed, like winking eyes. There were things he didn’t understand. Colossal? Please correspond? He put the letter back in the envelope. The Cyrillic postmark read: Mockba.
For a reason he couldn’t put his finger on, Khumalo felt better. He jumped up and paced out the dimensions of the pedestal. He multiplied them by three in his head, and had to chuckle: the pedestal alone would be the size of a double garage! He studied the poetic verse inscribed on the salt-and-pepper stone but could not make head or tail of it. His Afrikaans had always been weak. He walked around the pedestal and at the back discovered two more inscriptions, twins, one in English and one in Afrikaans. He read the English version out loud in a cracked impersonation of the old scavenger.
The monument had been unveiled by Mrs Susan Strijdom on Republic Day, 31 May 1972. The Honourable B.J. Vorster, then Prime Minister, had made a speech at the unveiling ceremony. The sculptor of the Head of Strijdom was Coert Steynberg. The sculptor of the Freedom Symbol (the bolted horses) was Danie de Jager. With an admirable concern for fair play, the inscription went on to record the names of the architects of the unnatural dome (Hans Botha and Roelf Botha), the quantity surveyors (Grothaus and Du Plessis), the engineers (W.J.S. van Heerden and Partners, viz. Bruinette, Kruger, Stoffberg and Hugo), the electrical engineers (A. du Toit and Partners) and, with disappointing anonymity, the building contractors (Nasionale Groepsbou Korp.).
The sun was shining through the finely veined bronze ears of Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom.
Khumalo went and stood at a distance, upwind of the stinking Freedom Symbol, with his eyes half-closed, squinting. And after a while he began to see how, but not necessarily why, the impossible came to pass.
Autopsy
Um.
Basically, I was seated at the Potato Kitchen in Hillbrow partaking (excuse me) of a potato. Nothing very exciting had happened to me as yet: I was therefore dissatisfied and alert. Then the King Himself came out of Estoril Books, shrugged His scapular girdle, and turned left. It was the King, no doubt about it, I would know His sinuous gait anywhere. Even in a mob.
It was suppertime, Friday, 15 May 1992. Scored upon my memory like a groove in wax. I lift the stylus, meaning to plunge it precisely into the vein, but the mechanism does not have nerves of steel: the device hums and haws before it begins to speak. (The speakers, the vocal cords, the voice box, the woofers, the tweeters, the loud speakers.) So much for memory, swaddled in the velvety folds of the brain and secured in the cabinet of the skull.
My potato was large and carved into quarters, like a colony or a thief. It had been microwaved and bathed in letcho with sausage and bac
on. Also embrocated with garlic butter (R0.88 extra) and poulticed with grated cheddar as yellow as straw (R1.80 extra). Moreover, encapsulated in white polystyrene.
I was holding a white plastic fork in my left hand. I was stirring, with the white plastic teaspoon in my right hand, the black coffee in a white polystyrene cup.
The slip from the cash register lay on the table folded into a fan. It documented this moment in time, choice of menu item and price including VAT (15.05.92/letch R9.57/chee R1.80/coff R1.90/garl butt R0.88).
Although it was chilly, I had chosen a table on the pavement so that I could be part of the vibrant street life of Johannesburg’s most cosmopolitan suburb. A cold front deep-frozen in the south Atlantic was at that very moment crossing the mudbanks of the Vaal. The street-children squatting at the kerb looked preternaturally cold and hungry with their gluey noses and methylated lips.
One of the little beggars was an Indian. Apartheid is dead.
I found myself in the new improved South Africa, seated upon an orange plastic chair, stackable, but not stacked at this juncture. It was one of four chairs – two orange, two umber – drawn up to a round white plastic table with a hole through its middle, specially engineered to admit the shaft of the beach umbrella, which shaft was also white, while the umbrella itself was composed of alternating segments of that colour and Coca-Cola red. My legs were crossed, right over left. The toe of my right shoe was tapping out against a leg of the table the homesickening heartbeat of “O Mein Papa” throbbing from the gills of a passing Ford Laser.
The King chose that very moment to exit Estoril Books with a rolled magazine under His arm. He paused before the buffet of cut-price paperbacks on two trestle-tables. He examined cracked spines and dog-ears. He scanned the promotional literature.
Flashback Hotel Page 14
