The Lion Seeker (46 page)

—I don't believe this.

The sign is gone. The gate is damaged and listing, with stanchions bulged out or twisted half free. He walks up and cups hands at both temples, scanning. Faint chinking sounds of labour from behind; the wrecks in front are unchanged from the last time he was here, only the chains and the iron hoisting stand are gone. He rattles the gate, shouts. The chinking lapses then goes on. He rattles some more, shouts louder. This time the chinking goes on without pause. There are some new padlocks through the gate lock's eye; his key can make no opening here. Breathing curses, he tracks around the wall, finds an old mattress humped in the weeds down by the stream. He drags it back, puffing filth and lice. Stands on the scooter to drape it over the barbed wire atop the gate and some of the jagged glass cemented to the wall beside it. He climbs up and over. At the top he sees how the spotlights have been smashed. He tears his trousers climbing down, almost falls badly.

On his way to the noise he pauses to pick up a chunk of bumper with a sharp point. He edges around the building between the stone and the high stacks of wrecked automobiles. Rainwater has puddled in the broken steel, turned the colour of rust, on which mosquitoes shimmer; milky pools of battery acid have also cratered. Around the corner he sees a man bent over an old engine, pulling with one hand and hammering with the other. He has on overalls but the top has been turned down so that it hangs like a skirt from his waist and his skin is the colour of crude oil, taut and supple over the shifting of the muscles of the back, the veins in the working arms. With every pull and stroke his stretched earlobes dance. Isaac puts down the chunk of bumper. As he crosses to the worker he sees other parts spread out on canvas, an open can of paint beside them with a brush, the parts fresh-marked with the yard symbols for make, year and model, some also marked left or right. Gearboxes, starters, generators, rear doors, fenders, mudguards.

—Silas.

He turns, nods. His face is drawn like a skull save for the purple mass over one eye that is mostly shut, save for cuts on his chest over which some rags are held with masking tape.

—Bladey hell.

—Hello baas.

—Man, what's going on?

Silas says nothing, his right hand holding the hammer and his left greased to the elbow.

—What you doing all yourself here? Where the others?

—I'm work myself now. I'm trying.

—What you mean trying?

—Have to try, says Silas. His mouth is dried white and cracked around the lips which keep on moving, he's talking softly to himself. He looks away from Isaac and seems to be staring at the wall and goes on talking softly for half a minute. Then he slowly looks back, slowly blinks. —Trying, he says.

—Where is Hugo?

Silas lifts his chin. The movement seems to make him sway back a little, then he turns, whispering to himself, and bends over the engine again. The chinking starts up as Isaac walks into the building through the hole in the back wall, the room full of used steel and rust, then up the stairs to the sales floor but there is no selling here. The floor is empty. Hugo's desk is there but bare, no calendar on the wall, no chairs, no adding machine or files or invoices. There seems to be some kind of a couch down at the far end. He crosses to the window to shout down to Silas when he hears a sound above, a whipping noise like the stroke of a cane, then a pock of impact. Chinks of green shine down where the tarpaulins patching the many ceiling holes are lit by daylight, between the rusted steel beams where the pigeons huddle in their nests of dried white dung. At the far end he finds not a couch but a bed made of rear car seats covered in wadded blankets, a smell of sourbody and old food, empty bottles on the concrete dust.

A stepladder rises under a daylight gap, the tarp above thrown back. He climbs into the sky. Across the open roof there is an upright oil drum and close to it, at the roof edge, is a car seat on which a man is rocking, his head tilted back. When Isaac gets closer he sees it's Hugo with his shirt unbuttoned and his legs apart, the fat of his loins packing his trousered groin like imminent childbirth. His eyes are closed against the waning sun and there is a bucket full of ice and beer bottles to his left. To his right rests a cricket bat. The eyes open when Isaac's long shadow falls over them.

—Howzit, Tiger. Heard your scooter. Matter of time. Keen young mind.

He reaches for a beer and leans forward, knocking the cap off in one motion against the edge of the low brick parapet before easing back. —I been drinking these then whacking the bottles for a six but I haven't got one yet. Lotta fun. You should try one.

—And how long you been doing this for?

—A while. Long enough. Not long enough.

Isaac has a look in the drum. There are charred papers and wood, a smell of burnt petrol. Over top, a grille with ossified black droplets of charred fat clinging to the wires like ticks. —Been having a braai up here, Hugo?

—Man's gotta eat.

Isaac walks around in front of him and sits on the ledge. Not easy for him to keep the trembling out of his voice. —What's the story?

—What do you reckon, keen young mind?

—Fuck you, Hugo. I mean
fuck you
.

He watches Hugo inverting the bottle of Lion Lager; the liquid goes down as if into a drain. Hugo grepses back up the spout, wipes his mouth, picks up the cricket bat, a Gray-Nicolls with a pigskin sheath, and flips up the bottle. Evening sun spangles in the brown glass, lots of wrist in the stroke that cuts the bat forward, making that whipping sound. The glass arcs in a high lob over the yard of wrecks. Breaks with a faint and pleasant tinkle somewhere in the right quadrant, but well short of the wall.

—Shit, says Hugo. Close, but I just never get there.

—Hey Hugo, says Isaac. You better look at me. I am telling you man. You better talk to me.

Hugo shakes his head loosely. —What's to say, Tiger? It's the twist. The bladey twist. Got me by the balls again.

 

Cash flow from the parts sales: into the races. Bank overdraft funds into the races. The races. The little-bit-of-ponies, so nothing and harmless. Creditors out of patience, lease payments past due. So does Hugo try to explain what Isaac keeps seeing but not truly believing.

—What about the staff? he says.

—There was no boodle for them, Tiger. They left.

—But you paid them last time I's here.

—Last payroll I made. When it started happening again they effed right off.

—Except for Silas.

—Ja well, his choice.

—His
what?

—Calm down. It's life, man. Heads zu win, tails Zulus.

—Ja, I've heard that one. You a real jokester. I'm falling down on my back laughing.

—Well, says Hugo. Tops crying duzzen it?

He goes on. Capital assets, i.e. the trucks, have been repossessed. Nothing much complicated to his story. Hugo had played the races and often won; when he lost he needed to go back to make up for it. It fell to a decisive day. Simba Dawn was the sure thing that turned out not to be.

—So
close, says Hugo. Sounding as if he's the one who's been grievously cheated. —I diden ever think a little bit of ponies could lead to the twist. Not the
ponies
.

Isaac has stood up and is pacing in front of the parapet, now and then kicking it hard. There's a bang from below and he peers over the edge, down onto Silas. —He's grafting his noble Zulu heart out, Hugo says. Trying to get parts together for one more sale. Believe me I told him a hundred times, Silas it's over, nothing we can do. The sales wouldn't be enough, never mind one with only a few dozen parts instead of a whole floor full. But he doesn't want to hear. He just been working for nothing like this since we hit the end. I think maybe he's one shy of a full load now. Cuckuroo-coo.

—What happened to the parts we had stored?

—Sold, all sold.

—Christ Hugo but you've stuck us up shtoch street but good hey. Really stuffed us up good and proper.

Hugo wheezes, leaning over, digs up two beers and flicks one to Isaac.

—End of the road, Tiger.

—Can't be.

—Blank wall. Ninety miles an hour.

Isaac looks below again—Poor bastard, he says. It's my fault he's here.

—Nobody's fault, says Hugo. It's the twist. He should get a medal, though. Lately we been getting visits from them human jackals in shitburg central over there. They can smell we going down like blood in the water. Guess who's been holding the fort, alone. I think they waiting for him to peg of exhaustion. Last night, I mean this morning, he's up on that gate throwing bricks for glory till they stabbed him off with some kind of long spear, I don't even know what. I was up here kipping. I went down and got a megaphone going and that seemed to chase em. But they'll be back hey. Jackals.

—How?
How'd this happen man? All that capitalizing you kept saying. Kept telling me everything's so fine and fluent or whatever.

—I meant it. But it's the twist, boy. This is the twist. Always gets me.

—Why do you have to play with money, man? We were going so well. Why'd you have to take our money and play?

He feels a heat in his face that melts and runs, coming out through the eyes, the nose. He slumps down, puts the beer on the ground, fits his hot face into the curve of his palms.

—Boyki, boyki. Don't take it so bad. And don't blame the ponies. That playing saved our arses you don't know how many times. A couple of my streaks got us through the last two months alone. That's where that last bundle came from that you told me give the boys when you were here last.

For a long while Isaac rocks, his breath catching, making his shoulders jump. Then he wipes his eyes on his sleeve, says, —Whole fucken world is collapsing.

—Hey?

—War declared today, know that?

—Ja, I heard. What'd I always tell you? And we almost came so close. Lookat this yard full of parts, man, of good scrap. It might as well be gold but there's eff all we can do to hold on to it. Not by end of month.

Isaac looks up. —Why not?

Hugo is looking down at the beer bottle wedged against his cushioning navel and his face in the evening sun is holding its fixed grin, but the eyes close and the grin makes Isaac think of dead rodents, how their front teeth show in the slack jaws. —Ja, he says in a straining voice that is not his own. Old Blezzy really stuffed it this time hey. Didn't he? He really bladey did. He starts to breathe heavily, his chest lifting up and down and a high wheezing sound oozes through the dead grin. At the corners of his closed eyes liquid starts to glint.

Isaac looks away. The wheezing sounds get higher and stronger then slacken off.

—What's happening at the end of the month, Hugo?

—Bailiff will be here and take possession. All of it. Auctioneer's already been to list. All our gold.

—Shit. Kuk. Shit.

—Can say that again.

—I thought the rent was bupkas here.

—Bupkas is still something. It adds up if you miss enough months. Everything adds. We past being in arrears. Now it's coming a court order and the tank is dry, Tiger. No bucks, no luck. Lose all our stock.

—Nothing?

—Nu-thing.

—Nothing?

—Well, plenny of creditors, ha. We filing bankruptcy for them, they can koosh us in tochus. But the stock has to stay here and the stock will not belong to us.

Big ants on the gritty roof are clustering at spots of spilled beer. Isaac studies them.

—Funny hey, says Hugo, how bad things come in September. Ever notice? September's evil. September's got it in for us.

Isaac rubs his face. —It's not the month, Hugo, it's you. What the hell man. What the hell are we ganna do?

—There's nothing, boyki. There's miracles.

—I got two pounds in my pocket I can give. How much you reckon we need?

—Nice one. Put a trip of noughts on that and we maybe talk.

—Bladey
hell
. You charfing me.

—No, I'm not. It's over, boyki.

Isaac thinks hard. —I could sell off the ring you gave me.

Hugo huffs laughter for a while. —Good one. You keep that. Might as well have a souvenir. Coupla few quid won't make any diff to anything. Shame about that though hey, the female. But you young. You'll find another. They come round like buses, remember. Keep it for the next. You may's well have something out of all your graft.

—No, says Isaac. It's still ours. I had it engraved and all. Still ours.

They sit in a long silence broken only by the faint and steady chinking of the mad labour below.

—I'm sorry, boyki, says Hugo. I am so so sorry.

His voice sounding strange again, strained and wheezing.

—Is it really over?

—Ja. Ja.

—So what you doing sitting here?

—Got nowhere else. Captain goes down with ship. Has to.

—Hugo, Hugo. You such a bladey shmock you know that.

—I know it, Tiger.

—I hate you.

—I know you do, boyki. I know you do.

THE DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT GOES ON
, Isaac following snatches of it on the wireless in the workshop and in the bar talk after work at the Great Britain Hotel. It comes down to a vote to stay neutral or not, Smuts versus Hertzog. It's a close thing. Smuts wins by just thirteen votes. There's talk Parliament might dissolve for another election: that's bad, could stir up a bladey civil war, who knows? But Hertzog moves aside, lets Smuts become the new Prime Minister, members crossing the floor to give his old party its power again, while Hertzog joins with Malan and the rest of the Nats and the Greyshirt lovers in opposition.

First thing Smuts does is declare war on Germany.

Outside Cohen's Café, the young okes start talking about this new recruitment centre that just opened on Small Street in town and how already lots of neighbourhood okes have gone in and signed up. There's not ganna be any conscription cos the Afrikaners might rebel. So they're ganna need volunteers big time for this war, and the boys of Doornfontein are all more than willing. On the way to the tram, Big Benny Dulut stops Isaac, tells him to come with him right then and there to sign up. That's what he's doing. To get a gun and learn to shoot it into fascist scumsuckers.