Portrait with Keys

by Ivan Vladislavic

  While I’m deciding what to do, a head pops up between the parked cars ahead of me, closer to the library building, and then another. Half a dozen people step gingerly into the open. Innocent bystanders, my kind of people, a pensioner, a middle-aged woman, a couple of schoolchildren. The adults shepherd the youngsters across the plaza and up the stairs. The policemen at the pond glance back idly but do nothing to stop them. A quick knock on the door, which opens to admit them, and they’re gone.

  I scoot over to the same gap between the cars. From here I have a better view of the plaza and the gardens. Apart from the group at the pond, and a thin cordon of armed men along the periphery, the place is nearly empty. The action has surged away across Simmonds Street and on into the city, leaving behind a trail of litter and placards, jerseys and shoes. I cross the pavement and go up the stairs, hurrying but not running, feeling more and more like a play actor. The stairs are low and wide and it is a long way to the top. I push at the first door but it’s locked. Immediately panicky, I hammer on the second one and it opens a crack. Two faces appear, one above the other, a grey-haired librarian and a shaven-headed security guard. Satisfied that I pose no threat, they roll aside a book-laden trolley and let me in.

  If I was looking for sanctuary, an oasis of calm and quiet, I’ve knocked at the wrong door. The lobby looks and sounds like a marketplace. A hubbub as if every unread book had begun to speak at once. Children laughing and talking, acting out their narrow escapes for one another, librarians hurrying upstairs with armfuls of precious papers or manning the barricades, grimly amused or stoical.

  ‘You can’t go in there, sir, we’ve closed the reference section for the safety of the books. But the reading room is open.’

  Basil is on duty in the reading room as usual and he fetches the bound issues I’m after. When I tell him what I’m researching, he bursts out laughing, and it suits the unaccustomed uproar. Some men are talking at the windows, watching the drama on the pavement in President Street where the police have their command centre. The air seeping in from outside is still soured with conflict. I find a space at a desk and settle down to work. Later, I’ll go upstairs to a window with a view of the gardens and see whether it’s safe to leave. If necessary, I’ll take the back way out, although I’d rather not. What’s the hurry anyway? I can read until it quietens down.

  When I lick my finger to turn the page it tastes of orange juice.

  Notes and Sources

  The main epigraph is from Lionel Abrahams, ‘The Fall of van Eck House’, an occasional poem about the implosion of this 21-storey skyscraper in 1983. It appeared in Journal of a New Man (Ad Donker, Johannesburg, 1984), pp. 70–72. Escom House, as it was originally known, was built in the mid-thirties for the Electricity Supply Commission and was among the highest reinforced concrete structures of its time. The design was by P. Rogers Cooke and G.E. Pearse & John Fassler. See Clive Chipkin, Johannesburg Style: Architecture & Society, 1880s–1960s (David Philip, Cape Town, 1993).

  Point A

  The epigraph is from Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988), p. 108.

  2 The Dickens quote is from A Christmas Carol (Collins, London, 1932 (1843)), pp. 4–5.

  3 M. de Paravicini writes about the closing of the Marymount Nursing Home in ‘Toll the last bell’, Sunday Times Metro, 28 June 1998 (Johannesburg), p. 4. The auction was on 9 July 1998.

  5 The avenues were named for Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts of Kandahar; and Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum.

  9 N.I.S.S. stands for National Investigations and Security Systems. The company was bought out by Standby Security in September 2003.

  11 Useful facts about the construction of the Carlton Centre, including the details about floor space, are given on public information boards at Level 200. Today the bulk of the city’s office and retail space is in Sandton.

  For tips on salesmanship, see F. Bettger, How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling (The World’s Work, Kingswood, 1913).

  12 The smell of food in the parking garage presumably had to do with the ventilation system, a crucial part of a complex with 50 000 square metres of shopping space entirely underground. Ventilation was a major challenge during the underground construction, and 18 tons of air a minute had to be drawn into the basement for the workers. Strangely enough for a project that made such a strong vertical statement, the early construction must have seemed more like mining than building (public information boards, Level 200).

  13 The Sophie Calle exhibition was first shown at the Galerie Arndt, Berlin. And see S. Calle, The Detachment/Die Entfernung: A Berlin Travel Guide (Amsterdam, Gordon & Breach, 1999).

  15 The sculpture in Pieter Roos Park may be Eduardo Villa’s Reclining figure (1970) in painted steel. See E. Berman, Art and Artists of South Africa (A.A. Balkema, 1983), opposite p. 494.

  16 This text draws on reports in various newspapers following the incident on 18 July 1997 and on the remarkable photographs taken by Naashon Zalk. The quote is from the Star, 19 July 1997, p. 1. One report (Star, 22 July 1997) says that a zoo official rather than a policeman shot the suspect. Max the Gorilla died in May 2004.

  19 John Matshikiza also draws the hunter-gatherer analogy in one of his Johannesburg pieces in the Mail & Guardian.

  21 Towards the end of 2003, the new owner of Eddie’s house heightened the garden wall and painted over the mural.

  23 The quotes are from the Star, 18 November 1999, p. 7.

  26 See B. Sachs, Herman Charles Bosman as I Knew Him (Golden Era, Johannesburg, 1974). Bosman was a great walker. For an amusing account of the night streets of Johannesburg in the forties, and the difficulties of writing about anything that happens after midnight, see ‘Talk of the Town’ in A Cask of Jerepigo (Dassie Books, Johannesburg, 1957).

  32 This took place in the spring of 1991. See R. Bradbury, Dandelion Wine (Corgi, London, 1969), pp. 16–18.

  33 The eviction occurred in August 1998.

  34 The ‘long poem of walking’ is a phrase used by De Certeau in The Practice of Everyday Life, p. 101. The quote about London on a murky winter’s night is from Sketches by Boz (London, Caxton, 1910 (1836)), p. 244. The quote about the desert region of the night is from The Uncommercial Traveller (Everyman, London, 1969 (1860)), p. 135.

  37 The universal spanner known as a ‘monkey wrench’ in English is called a ‘Frenchman’ in Germany and an ‘Englishman’ in some other parts of the world. My thanks to Thomas Brückner for this information.

  38 The theft occurred towards the end of May 1998.

  52 The Canetti quote is from The Torch in My Ear (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 1982), p. 280.

  54 The statistics about hijackings are from the Sunday Times, 23 May 1999, p. 5; the figures on average earnings of factory workers compared to company directors are from the Saturday Star, 11 April 1998, p. 5; the statistics on the number of people employed in the private security industry are from the Star, 29 November 1999, p. 8; and the price of the Maranello is from Car Magazine, August 1999, pp. 169, 172.

  59 The Springbok Boarding House in Van der Walt Street was demolished in the seventies. The Berea Park clubhouse survives as the Graduate Academy of South Africa.

  60 Sue Williamson’s Mementoes of District Six was shown at the Venice Biennale in 1993. See Sue Williamson, Selected Work (Double Storey, Cape Town, 2003), pp. 82–3.

  61 The comment about the gorilla mask imposed on a woman’s face is from the Sunday Times, 16 January 2000, p. 14; and the article about the difference between a chimpanzee and a gorilla is in the Star, 18 January 2000, p. 1.

  62 The comments and quote about laughter are from Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (Victor Gollancz, London, 1962), p. 223.

  64 Nigel Henderson, a member of the Independent Group who photographed Bethnal Green between 1949 and 1952, is quoted in Sandra Alvarez de Toledo, ‘Street, Wall, Delirium’, in Politics-Poetics documenta X–the book
(Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 1997), p. 122.

  66 The Hellman quote is from the Quartet edition (London, 1980), p. 3.

  67 Canetti’s comments are in The Torch in My Ear, pp. 354–7.

  68 Simon Majola and Themba Nkosi murdered eight men between April 2000 and February 2001, and dumped the bodies in Bruma Lake. In May 2002, Majola was given eight life sentences and Nkosi five.

  The man-made lake at the Randburg Waterfront was filled in during 2003. Brightwater Commons, the redesigned centre, features no more than a little brook. Cheryl Adamson, spokesperson for the centre, said, ‘Man-made lakes haven’t been a raving success in Johannesburg. Although people love being near water, they are not that keen on artificial large expanses of still water.’ Property consultant Patrick Flanagan agrees: ‘It’s very difficult to create an artificial water-cum-leisure environment.’ (Nick Wilson, ‘Developers are rethinking waterfront projects’, Business Day, 11 June 2003.)

  Yeoville/Hillbrow ridge is a continental watershed: rain that falls to the north of the ridge flows into the Jukskei River and thence to the Indian Ocean, whereas rain that falls to the south flows into the Klip and thence to the Atlantic.

  74 Henion Han, A letter to my cousin in China (Spookasem, 1999).

  78 The De Certeau reference is to the opening of the chapter titled ‘Walking in the City’, in The Practice of Everyday Life, pp. 90–93. The phrases from Abrahams are in his poem ‘Views and Sites’, in The Writer in Sand (Ad Donker, Johannesburg, 1988), p. 28.

  Point B

  The epigraph is from Jorge Luis Borges, ‘The South’, in A Personal Anthology (Grove Press, New York, 1967), p. 18.

  80 The facts of the Greeff case are drawn from various reports in the Star between 1999 and 2000, and from Independent Online, September 2000. Greeff was murdered on Monday 8 November and her body was found on the following Sunday. Justice Jordaan passed sentence on 4 September 2000.

  85 End Bits of Lead was shown on ‘Facts of Life: Contemporary Japanese Art’ at the Hayward Gallery in London (October–December 2001). Autobiography has not been exhibited.

  90 This text draws on various newspaper reports in July 1997. Sandra Laurence describes Fanie Booysen’s visit in the Star, 22 July 1997, p. 14. The quote about the adoption of Max is from Maxidor’s official site: www.maxidor.co.za/max.

  92 The quotes are from Elias Canetti, The Human Province (Seabury Press, New York, 1978), pp. 98, 26, 197, 185.

  93 Leaping Impala was subsequently restored at the Renzo Vignali Artistic Foundry and reinstalled outside Anglo American’s Main Street headquarters in May 2002.

  The AbdouMaliq Simone quote is from his essay ‘Globalization and the identity of African urban practices’, in Hilton Judin and Ivan Vladislavić (eds), blank_Architecture, apartheid and after (NAi Publishers, Rotterdam, 1998), D8, p. 186.

  97 The comment on Dickens and the noisy rhythms of London is from Walter Benjamin’s Passagenwerk.

  99 N.I.S.S.: National Investigations and Security Systems.

  103 Isaac Mofokeng died in the Weskoppies psychiatric hospital in November 2005.

  107 This text draws on reports in the Star on 13 and 14 September 2000.

  111 The Takis Xenopoulos story is from the Star Tonight, 31 July 2001, p. 8.

  114 The garden-gate telephone service proliferated during 2000 (the one attached to the row houses in Nourse Street appeared in November).

  115 The back door has since become a permanent arrangement and is formally signposted.

  116 For a description of Martin Kippenberger’s Metro-Net see Roberto Ohrt et al, The Last Stop West (MAK Center, Los Angeles, 1998); or Politics-Poetics documenta X–the book (Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 1997).

  120 The Woody Guthrie quote about painting is from Bound for Glory (E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1943), p. 316.

  121 See Eric Itzkin, Gandhi’s Johannesburg (Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2000).

  123 I have not found a definitive account of where Akasegawa got the name, but the story goes that he borrowed it from an American baseball player. This legendary player, the most expensive purchase ever in the Japanese league, caused a huge stir when he arrived in the country, but suffered a preseason injury and never started a game. He is sometimes given as Gary Leah Thomasson, who was signed by the Yomiuri Giants in the early eighties, although the identification seems doubtful as this player had a good batting average (according to the baseball sites).

  124 Henion Han, A letter to my cousin in China (Spookasem, 1999).

  125 The gate extension is at 20 Albemarle Street.

  126 A semi in Eleanor Street (22/22a) has the same gable rash as the house at 3 Broadway.

  127 The quoted phrase is from William Kentridge.

  128 The HIV/AIDS sign in Troyeville was part of a collaborative project between artist Sue Williamson and people living with Aids. This particular sign was made by John Masuku in 2002. The message was photographed and paired with a portrait of Masuku in Williamson’s From the Inside series. ‘The willingness to be named is important in a society where shame and silence over the illness prevail.’ Sue Williamson, Selected Work (Double Storey, Cape Town, 2003), Artist’s notes, p. 28.

  132 This mural was designed by Ilse Pahl. In another account of Webster’s murder he has just come back from walking the dogs, and in yet another he has been to the bakery and has a loaf of fresh bread under his arm.

  133 There are memorable accounts of Johannesburg life everywhere in Bosman’s work. This text specifically acknowledges ‘Talk of the Town’, ‘Street Processions’ and ‘The Recognizing Blues’. One of Bosman’s most interesting pieces on the city, simply titled ‘Johannesburg’, was republished in A Cask of Jerepigo. The quotation from Abrahams is in ‘Mr Bosman: A Protégé’s Memoir of Herman Charles Bosman’ (typescript). When Abrahams visited Bosman at his office in High Court Buildings in the mid-forties, he was charmed by the fact that the doormat was embossed with ‘HCB’–Bosman’s initials.

  Today, High Court Buildings faces onto Gandhi Square (rededicated in 2003). Close by there is a statue of Gandhi dressed for court, the hem of his robe lifted by the wind. If you wish to see how well a statue of Bosman would suit the balcony of his old office, the statue of Gandhi looking down from his pedestal has exactly the right attitude and can be transposed to the second-floor nook at a glance.

  Lionel Abrahams’s poem ‘Place’ carries the note ‘A party of white Johannesburgers reads Zbigniew Herbert, Holub and other poets near a mine dump, Summer 1969’. See Journal of a New Man (Ad Donker, Johannesburg, 1984).

  Hillary Hamburger describes her first view of Abrahams at a Roberts Avenue tram stop in the introduction to ‘Reality is the Richest Source: An Interview with a Friend’, in Graeme Friedman and Roy Blumenthal (eds), A Writer in Stone: South African Writers Celebrate the 70th Birthday of Lionel Abrahams (David Philip, Cape Town, 1998).

  Also see Louise Masreliez, ‘Representing the Subjective: Private Niche and Home–A Subjective Approach to Architecture’, Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 1–2: 83–91 (1998). Thanks to Stefan Helgesson for drawing my attention to this.

  136 The story about the emperor Yang-Ti is told in Victor Segalen, Paintings, translated and introduced by Andrew Harvey and Iain Watson, Quartet Encounters series (Quartet, London, 1991), pp. 138–41. The quote is from p. 141.

  137 See Business Report, 11 November 2002, p. 11.

  138 SADF: South African Defence Force. Ernest Ullman’s monumental sculptures have made him a favourite of Johannesburg’s scavengers, who value their art by the kilogram. His Family Group was stolen from outside the public library in September 2003.

  Itineraries

  This index traces the order of the previously published cycles and suggests some other thematic pathways through the book.

  The routes are classified as follows:

  L = Long

  M = Moderate

  S = Short

  An accidental island (L)

  4, 5, 10, 17, 20, 2
1, 22, 27, 31, 39, 40, 43, 45, 48, 51, 57, 66, 67, 69, 76

  This cycle was first published in fifty-one years: David Goldblatt, edited by David Goldblatt with Corinne Diserens and Okwui Enwezor (Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona & Actar, Barcelona, 2001). An abbreviated version appeared in French translation in meet no. 9, São Paulo/Le Cap (La Maison des Écrivains Étrangers et des Traducteurs de Saint-Nazaire, 2005).