The Lion Seeker (42 page)

—What are you hukking?

—You told me you'd give the pay to Silas.

—You know, Hugo says, I reckon you been grafting too hard, boyki. Go and get some sleep. Your brain's gone soft like porridge.

—I'm fine.

—You're not fine. You are drunk. You should see your eyes man. Wait. Wait. It's the female isn't it?

Isaac stands there, breathing hard.

—Ja, what happened? She said no. Is that what happened? It is.

—She's just deciding, that's all. She'll be fine.

—I'm sure she will be, boyki, I'm absolutely sure. But you're upset.

—Did you give Silas the dosh, yay or nay?

—You upset. I understand now.

—Hugo, you know I told you give Silas the wages.

—You
told
me? Scuse me, junior, but why don't you go back outside in the yard and leave the financials to one who knows what the hell's potting.

Isaac gives a guttural sound off his palate. —Ja, the great financialist.

—I think it's better you go. Cos you got your heart broken, you gone all mad.

He feels the truth of what Hugo's said inside his chest. Broken. If he opens his mouth a sob might come out. He bites his lip to get back control, says: —Never mind me. You don't pay people, they don't work. How's that for financials?

—They been paid, don't you hassle.

—You gave Silas the cash?

—He got it, he got it.

—Look at me, Hugo. You telling me you put the actual cash in Silas's hand?

— . . . You smell like a brewery, man. Get off me.

—Hugo.

—He got the pay, it's organized.

—Then why didn't they?

—I dunno, maybe you better ask your Silas.

—Silas is absolute. If he got it, he paid them.

—Oh now you believe the kaffir over your partner.

—You didn't give him nothing.

Hugo walks a large circle around and picks up the chair, sits in it and leans back, his hands meshed behind his neck. —Don't get so aggro about these moonts, ukay? They been treated more than oright. If they wanna eff off, they can chuck. The yard's nicely packed already and when prices turn around there'll be cash flow enough for a hundred new grease monkeys. Your Silases.

Isaac shakes his head. —Oright. Why don't you come down and do some graft with me in the yard hey, if you reckon's so easy. Just you and me. Like to see you do what they do.

—Isaac, just relax yourself. You got this bee stuck in your bonnet about Silas, I dunno why. Maybe it is that whoever I organized to give it to Silas stuffed it up, it's possible, I been running around like a blue-arse fly so much—tryna make
you
rich, apparently which is a big crime of the century. While you worried more about your female, and look now what that's caused.

—Hugo.

—We'll ask Silas when he gets back. Anyway, take a chair, man, like a civilized. I got something for you I was ganna give it if you hadn't tried to murder me dead just now.

—Wasn't ganna
kill
you.

—Ha ha. Doesn't matter, honestly, it's nothing. Nothing. Makes me feel how you wanna take care of those boys, that's good man, you're a loyalty. You're a solid egg and I am sorry things haven't worked out with your chickie there. You know that ring—

—I don't wanna talk about that.

—I just mean if you not—

—I said shut up on that. It's ganna be fine.

—Course it is, ja, sorry. Look. I can see you at the end of your rope. You been working like ten kaffirs on fire. So even if Silas got the money, what's the difference, if it's that important to you, you my partner, boyki, then here. I want you to be happy. Here.

While saying this he leans to the side as if breaking wind, one hand squirming in a trouser pocket. It brings out a fat roll of notes looped by a rubber band. Isaac catches the lob.

—Go ahead and give them, says Hugo. Give em double pay if you want, if that's what you think's right. There's plenty.

Isaac examines the money.

—You don't have to worry yourself on the financials, says Hugo. We are capitalizing bloody fantastic. I promise you that's chicken peck.

—Ukay, says Isaac. He pockets the roll.

—That's it, take it. But I'm telling you boyki, you look fermuttered, man, you worn out. You look in shock. I understand what it's like when a thing like that happens. Broken-hearted. But you shouldn't be drinking hey, you in this kind of state. What the female can do to a man.

Isaac says nothing.

—Always the bladey female, says Hugo. Sit down here a sec, boyki, I wanted to give you something. Sit man.

Isaac sits on the desk edge, bent forward, slumped and tired. Hears the jingle of keys and Hugo hands a key ring across, a key on it with a moulded base and a logo he doesn't recognize.

—It's a Cushman, boy.

—Hey?

—A Cushman!

—One a those scooter things.

—Ja man. I feel bad I had to take back that Citroën, so I thought here's a wild little toy old Isaac can fly on. He'll have a ball with it.

—I don't have a licence for one.

—Don't need a
licence!
Christ sake, you sound like a pensioner. Go and have a ball man.

Isaac turns the key over in his tough hands. So tired. He feels Hugo's warm palm cupping the back of his neck, rubbing there. —Listen boyki. You've taken too much strain with this female business, I understand, plus with all this graft, it's been too much, I can see. Why don't you have yourself a little holiday, take the break from Lion Motors altogether. You need a break. Leave it all to your partner Hugo to organize for a while. Let me have the full weight on my shoulders and you worry about other things, get yourself sorted, come back when you feeling better ukay? What is a partner for otherwise?

Isaac finds himself nodding. They go downstairs together, out the back through the hole in the wall, Hugo with his arm around his shoulders, talking all the way, saying how he always knew this part-time job on the side was going to start to fray at Isaac, it's a wonder it didn't happen already, man he's only human, if he goes on non-stop this way he'll die.

In the back stands a battered silver scooter that starts up at the eighth kick (Isaac staggering a little with the brandy in his balance), the motor sounding like four or five sewing machines tumbling down stairs, squirting foul blue smoke. They have to shout over this while Isaac buckles on a helmet that Hugo hands him, pulls the goggles down over his eyes.

—Always did want to ride one a these.

—Easier than a tricycle, shouts Hugo. Then he holds out his hand. —Let me have those few bucks hey, so I can take care of the boys.

Isaac hesitates.

—You go on. Leave it to me, I'll sort them right now tonight.

—You will hey.

—Come on. Are we partners or are we partners? Lookit me. I'm Hugo. It's no worries, my mate. You jol on home on this, start yourself a good holiday. Rest up. Feel better in a while, you'll see.

Isaac revs the little engine; the smoke stinks of burnt oil. He's tired and his eyes feel gritty with weariness behind the goggles. Let him have the load. Break away from the burden of this place. Almost in a movement of exhaustion he lifts and drops the roll of notes back into the plump palm. When he rides through to the front, one of the men by the fire stands up. By the cap, he knows it's Nangi. A wind picks up. Smoke slants off the fire against the squatting men who turn their faces aside. Isaac stops and Nangi comes up. Isaac takes a breath to speak then looks back and swears.

—What is? says Nangi.

Isaac shakes his head.

—What is?

—Not you, says Isaac. What's wrong with me? He U-turns and rides back, catches Hugo just going back inside.

—What's'matter?

—Nothing. Hop on the back here.

—Ha ha.

—Just hop on a sec.

—What for?

—I just wanna show you something.

Hugo makes a bitter face. —I dun understand.

—Come on. We partners. Take a sec.

Isaac turns the scooter around and walks it back to Hugo's feet. Revs it. —Come on awready, you wasting time standing here.

Hugo coughs against the exhaust, sticking his tongue out and pretend-choking himself. Then his mass settles on the back, the scooter dipping its tail so steeply it clangs. —Just slow now hey.

Isaac takes them back to Nangi in front where he draws up as Nangi rises. Hugo dismounts and Isaac tells him to go ahead.

—Go ahead what?

—You know what. Give the man his due.

Hugo stares at him. —But this isn't Silas, man!

—Nangi's okay.

Hugo looks at Nangi, looks away to the building, stirs some dust with his shoe.

Isaac grins and leans across, pokes him twice in his soft belly. —Inside all that, there's a good oke somewhere. Let him out, Hugo. Do the right thing and give em their bladey wages.

Hugo looks down, shakes his big head, starts to chuckle. —Oright, sure, here. If it's so important to you right here and now. He pulls out the cash, counts off the notes. —And you can keep the ring too, he mutters.

—Thanks, I will.

—My stuffing pleasure.

THE UNMANLY CUSHMAN
draws a few laughs from the okes at Gold Reef when Isaac pulls up on it. He expects that the work will go badly but right away he finds that his hands are good in the job: the concentration on the labour fills up the bad hollow feeling and this becomes a day when he and Jack Miller make smooth progress. They finish the whole side panel section of a smashed Chevrolet Phaeton and when Labuschagne comes over to check the cracked manifold and the engine block, Miller puts in a good word about Isaac that makes Labuschagne nod.

It goes on that way deeper into the month of August, Isaac working better and better, keeping away from the Reformatory as per Hugo's advice. His full return to the craft of panel beating is like an addict to his drug: unworried blissful days when he concentrates so absolutely on his careful work that he seems to dissolve right into it and there feels to be no difference between his tools and the steel and his own self, it's all just one floating bubble of creation. He starts early and ends late and is fresh and sharp at his labours so that the quality of his work takes an immediate jump that nobody can fail to notice, even Labuschagne. They decide to give him his first solo job: small damage to a 500cc Norton motorcyle with a sidecar.

He detaches the panels, sands the steel, custom-machining his own dolly to suit the unusual angle in the sidecar. He uses wooden mallets on the inside to do the rough work then goes on to Miller's trick of a bent file as a slapstick, tapping the panel with the tip of it to get the right sound from the dolly on the other side then beating with the flat. A file stamps a nice mark into the steel that an ordinary slapstick would not, showing him exactly where his blows are landing. As he works he presses the whole of his hand to the steel, feeling the map of it with the palm and all the fingers, gently, as if treasuring the face of a beautiful woman. But don't think of a woman, not that, never that.

 

A Thursday. The hammers clash on the panels in the shop, mostly drowning the big band sounds of the Glenn Miller Orchestra from the battered old wireless with its exposed valves. Isaac is kneeling on a greasy work mat beside the Norton, unbolting a mudguard, when he senses movement and turns to face four legs. He wipes his hands on his overalls as he stands. There is a man beside Labuschagne. The sight of him is like being shot in the chest. All his blood drops to his feet. The vast shape of the man so much wider and higher than Labuschagne and he can't bring himself to look straight at him, he's just a human mass at the edge of his vision. How could it be? Why here? Why now?
How?

Labuschagne saying: —Hierdie is die nuwe werktuigkundige.

This is the new mechanic. Magnus Oberholzer. Magnus, this is Isaac.

—Ach nee, Oberholzer's voice says. Ons ken mos mekaar.

We know each other. Then in English: —How is you, Cohen?

—It's Helger, Isaac hears himself croak, finally looking, but not at the eyes, at the neck as thick around as a telephone pole. His heart in its thudding hurts as if a cruel fist is squeezing it.

Oberholzer brings up his hand to shake. —Well, he says. So luvely to see you here, my neighbour. He laughs. It should be a deep rumble, man of his vast size, but it comes out gaseous and high, almost a little like a pig's squeal.

Labuschagne says: —Neighbour!

—Oh ja, says Oberholzer. I'm from Doornfontein also.

—Is it a fact?

—Oh ja.

Slowly, Isaac is taking the hand, Oberholzer's enfolding his like crocodile jaws, huge. Someone calls Labuschagne and he steps away. Oberholzer smiles. —Ganna have good times working together hey Jewboy. I can't wait, can you?

He squeezes. Isaac's hand is strong, toughened by the heavy work, but Oberholzer is freakish: that impossible natural might that comes from wide bones and heavy meat, tidal power that bears down on Isaac like an ocean swell, crimping the knuckles.

Oberholzer angles his head and sucks up snot from the back of his throat and spits hard. —Ja, he tells Isaac. I really kahn wait to start here. Ganna be so good. I cannot wait.

Then Labuschagne comes back and Oberholzer lets go. Isaac keeps his face neutral. His hand throbs as if scalded. He restrains himself from rubbing it till they move away. Deep red marks he knows will bruise up like ink bands. Remembering what that steel grip once did to him before. He looks down at his laces, the oily blob of mucus there.

The end of the shift brings them their pay packets and they hand some of the notes to Labuschagne for his Quality Street tin then go wait outside, smoking, while he locks up. Isaac decides to skip the comradely drinks at the Great Britain Hotel. He's gone by the time Labuschagne comes out.