 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf. |
|
|
 |
Allan Kolski Horwitz
|
|
|
Appetites
Allan Kolski Horwitz
“November 7th is dedicated to the people who made the Russian revolution and pioneered the creation of socialism against enormous odds. Before telling the story of their achievements for the benefit of new generations of South African freedom fighters, we need to remind ourselves of the impact of the Revolution on our country and its people — both oppressors and oppressed — six thousand miles distant from the centre of the revolution and the rise of Progressive Power.”
“On this day we celebrate the fact that there has never been a time when people did not rebel against the difficulties and miseries of everyday life. In every age of which we have a record, whether from history, literature and song, or from legend, men and women have dreamt of a new and better world; the record is filled with accounts of their longings, and sometimes too of their actions to bring that better world about. The greater the brutalities and oppressions of the world in which they lived, the more people turned to dreaming, fantasising of a way of life which would redress their sufferings. Such dreams inspired religions, prophets and sects of many kinds who have visions of a new dawn, a new social order. Through the ages a common thread runs in those dreams and visions. In the new world — so the dream inevitably ran — there would be no more divisions, no more hostilities, between masters giving orders and servants carrying them out. There would be neither rich, powerful and privileged nor poor and weak. Instead there would be a community of equals.”
Extracts from “Seventy Years of Power” — A tribute to the Russian revolution by the South African Communist Party
About Bernard
The first anxiety attack had taken place exactly a year before. Late afternoon on the M1, driving past a golf course on his way to a meeting in Woodmead, the BMW almost steering itself, the tape of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Greatest Hits” pouring out from the speakers, he had caught sight of a white ball soaring over the highway. And suddenly he WAS that white golf ball, leaving a faint vapour trail over the six lanes of cars and trucks, then slamming down into a clump of bushes on the far side under which a rusting beer can and two soggy condoms were half-covered by a plastic OK bag. And as he tore through the air, more terrifying than the inexplicable transference and the bullet-like trajectory was his knowledge that, thereafter, he would lie lost to the world, suffering an endless attrition of rain, lightning, hail, mist and heat-stroke, until finally, cracked and peeled, all scabrous and smeared, he was reduced to a tiny blackened core.
The attack engulfed him in the space of a few seconds but he managed to pull over to the side of the highway and grope for his cell-phone and press the automatic dialling code for his office. But before he could tell the switchboard operator where he was, he was overwhelmed by paralysis, and blacked out. Half an hour later he woke up in the car drenched with sweat but reasonably coherent. Afterwards, back at home in Northcliff, he concealed his shock and distress and told no one.
A month later he had another attack. This time he was alone in his office working on a fast food ad. He accidentally knocked a burger off his desk and became the tomato-sauced meatcake as it revolved madly, then fell to the carpet. Once more the consuming fear was that he would remain grounded, immobile, forever unseen, rotting, suffocating in dust and cobwebs, to be gradually picked apart by cockroaches, ants and other minuscule scavengers.
So Bernard lived under his new shadow. The months went by, attacks recurred at odd intervals without warning, each one bringing the same sensation but triggered by a different situation. And in trying to understand what was happening, there was an added anxiety, for there was no obvious explanation. In all respects he had slowly filled the vacuum that once threatened to deaden him after his separation from Lucille. And the bitterness that choked his vitality when he was forced to leave politics had long since ebbed; a distant nightmare from another life. Now he was better known for other things. Contacts in advertising and his rights to stage outdated American musicals (rehashes of old Broadway shows and song repertoires) kept him busy, and made him richer than ever. And being in the entertainment industry guaranteed a relentless round of social activity, during which he lubricated the wheels of connection with glass after glass of tequila and mango juice. In short, though the attacks were serious, they were not fatal. Despite his mental exhaustion, the world did not lose its attractions — however precarious and expensive, however slight. And the creeping baldness that exposed the dome of his forehead actually made him look distinguished. And the paunch spilling against his soft leather belt, requiring the opening of a further notch each year, was merely seen as proof of good appetite and sensual enjoyment.
Bernard had always aspired to be neither selfish nor spineless. Now he still wanted to believe that he was one of the rare ones who is able to unleash and satisfy the needs and desires of the ego whilst at the same time obeying the imperative to rein them in.
BERNARD AND DUMA GO SHOPPING
They were in Pick ’n Pay, Duma pushing a trolley while Bernard loaded it with all the delicacies he knew others loved and appreciated. The wheels locked as the pile grew higher.
“Hey, easy. I’m going to get a hernia, man! In any case, it’s not worth it. This cocktail party you’ve planned is a bad joke and you know that as well as I do.”
Duma struggled to realign the trolley. Bernard winked and threw in another pate. It jammed between a bottle of gherkins and a tin of anchovies. Every Friday afternoon he arm-twisted someone into accompanying him on his weekly shopping.
Duma pushed back his dreadlocks.
“Keep pushing, jou bliksem!” They swept in view of the bakery.
Duma hated supermarkets with their fake light and piled shelves of duplicated things. Though he had never travelled north of Pietersburg, he would speak eloquently about the markets of Africa and the Middle East; the dustiness and the freshness, the sounds of traders calling out, barking dogs, children and chickens, the sheen of fabrics and fruit, the intermingling of too sweet perfumes and the gagging stench of shit. For Bernard, however, the one-stop Johannesburg shopping malls were the acme of modern freedom: hygienic, well-processed and packaged products stacked in impeccable order under bright neon, all offering immediate pleasure and gratification.
“We’ve already got rolls. Keep going. This has got to be it, I can’t see over the top.”
Duma bent down to push the trolley past the dairy section and swung it round to the pay points.
“Leave those cheeses! Hands off, you vark!”
The line was long. Bored, abstracted faces eyed the racks of chocolates and gossip magazines stacked at the pay points.
“And what’s the idea of inviting all these people who have nothing in common?”
They were at the car. The trolley was finally empty, pushed back to the side of the parking lot, the boot crammed with waves of plastic bags. Duma sat holding the wine bottles while Bernard drove them out of the spiral shaped complex. On the dashboard was the bent manuscript of a play. At a robot Bernard ignored a man selling Homeless Talk and launched into a diatribe. He described how frustrated he was by the play’s excessive twists and turns. He had been confused by the digressions, supposedly elaborating emotions and ideas about emotion; and the plot itself jarred, the action sparking up then dying entirely in accordance with the author’s caprice.
Bernard talked all the way to the house. While he locked the car in the garage and set the alarm, he identified further weaknesses in the script, noting the esoteric interchange of identities and relationships, the inadequate build-up of tension, the ending that meandered off into fantasy. But most of all, he was irritated by the obvious revelation that no one is clean, everyone tainted, compromised by a web of conflicting needs.
Duma walked into the kitchen carrying the grocery bags. He held three in each hand, the plastic handles looping, stretched to their limits. Duma asked Bernard what he intended doing. Bernard stopped next to the fridge.
“You know what? I’m going to stage it if certain changes are made.” Playing with his bunch of keys, he added, “Ja, despite all the problems, there are scenes of absolute brilliance.”
Bernard watched as Duma lifted the bags onto the stainless steel sideboard.
“Despite all those very real limitations, I’ve rarely come across a script that’s excited me so much with its extraordinarily varied yet unmistakable characterisation. Each of the characters is completely individual, yet it’s obvious they share the same overall culture.” He opened the fridge and began arranging milk cartons in the open spaces. “They’re unmistakably South Africans, but very different South Africans. They come from completely different ghettos yet each one speaks a common, underlying language.” He tickled the big grey Persian cat that arched against his leg. “Ah, it’s one thing for me to talk, but you know what? She won’t agree. She’s arrogant and never takes advice, no matter how constructive and well-intended … one of those people who can’t stand being corrected.”
Duma began shoving tins onto the shelf above the sink, smashing them against each other. Bernard pushed him in the ribs.
“Hey! I’m joking! I’m not going to put it on. It’s not as good as yours! You’re a stronger writer. You know how to immediately define. This woman can’t sustain things.” Bernard patted Duma on the back. “You’re in no danger, my friend, even though you’re a failed playwright and a drunken poet. In fact, I need you to do a rewrite before I speak to her.”
“Jesus, Bernard, stop your bloody games! It’s almost three years since you agreed to direct `The Flood’. Do you realise that? Three years listening to your promises! And every time there’s a chance to do it, something else takes its place. You always want to do something else as soon as my play is in line.”
Bernard began unpacking the fruit cans.
“You can’t put them there. I always keep fruit cans on the bottom shelf. If there’s an earthquake, this stuff can fall on your head.”
DUMA MAKES VARIOUS PLEAS AND IS REBUFFED
It was mid-afternoon. The house with its large windows overlooking the valley was cool with the shade of trees. They could hear the scurrying of birds across the lawns blend into the drone of cars.
Duma’s eyes softened. “When can you do a production?”
The fridge hummed.
“Duma, we’ve been through this so many times! You know as well as I do, to invest is to use money to make more money. Where does that leave your work? Who will take a chance with a love story that meanders on about meeting basic needs and the unemployment crisis? Money thinks before it splays itself across anyone’s palms — yours and mine included.” Bernard took down the last tin of guavas. “Esoteric visions of Love and Meaning in the middle of this Chaos.” He began stacking the tins in the cupboard next to the vegetable rack. “Your work is too tortured, overwhelmed by problems. Lighten up, my bra. We’re in a new world of equal opportunity.”
Duma crumpled the Pick ’n Pay bags in his fist and compressed them into a tight ball. Then he threw the ball against the dustbin. Bernard watched the crushed plastic uncoil.
“Why be angry? Don’t you recognise the objective forces? Who can believe your story line? Your obsession with revolution is crazy. How can there be radical change in this country? The ruling power bloc is too strong, their wealth, their technology and their ideological control are too powerful and sophisticated to be challenged. In any case, they buy off whoever stands in their way. For Christ’s sake, wake up! Everyone else has.” He placed an arm round Duma. “Come on, pour us something to drink. I’m thirsty after all that running down aisles. I’ll open the macadamia nuts. I got them specially for you. Just don’t sulk. For God’s sake, don’t sulk, that’s all.”
Bernard opened the fridge.
Duma shouted, “Face yourself! Face where we are! Don’t talk to me about fucking nuts!”
Bernard almost overturned a chair.
“I am facing myself! That’s exactly what I’m doing! It’s a pity you haven’t got round to that!” The veins in his forehead started to bulge. “You know how difficult it was. You know what a long process it was to leave the Party, how agonising a decision.” Then he began shouting, “Don’t come and tell me I’m a sell-out! I fought the Cabal! You know how they manipulate, how they play with people! Especially Nyati, your strategist, your organisational genius!”
Bernard glared and Duma folded his arms. When the telephone rang a few moments later, neither moved. The telephone positioned on the oak counter opposite the fridge was a Victorian piece that Bernard had brought back from Paris, an elegant fixture which had cost twice its original price to restore.
The phone rang and rang. Bernard stalked out of the kitchen to the bathroom. With a sudden lunge, Duma answered.
“Hi, I’m fine. He’s busy at the moment. Should I call him?” There was a pause. “Lost your invitation? Don’t worry, mfo. I’ll give you a new one at the door. There’s a whole pack coming. The usual sour faces and some English director who wants a co-production.” There was another longer pause. “No, just savouries. He says he’s too tired to make duck and dumplings. He’s been whining the whole day that cooking is spoiling his waistline. Make it by seven, before the speeches start. Of course, it’s a crass idea. Bad taste has no limits. I mean, defeat shouldn’t lead to ridicule.”
Bernard flushed the toilet.
Duma was still talking. “Good, see you in an hour. Sharp.”
BERNARD ENTERS ANOTHER ZONE
He opened the bathroom door. Ahead of him, the big mirror reflected the shower and its curtain, the taps of the washbasin, the medicine chest nailed to the side of the mirror. And there, sleek and gleaming, covered with bubbles, leaning against the bath rim, smiling with all the whiteness of her teeth, was Nondumiso.
Bernard stopped: Nondumiso’s smile made him so lustful and open with his desire.
“Oh, darling,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d arrived. If only I’d known.”
He kicked the door closed and taking her face in his hands, kissed her forehead, licking her lashes with his tongue.
“When did you come?”
“About an hour ago. I was feeling all grubby so I thought I’d freshen up for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes, for you, you silly man.” And she stroked his pants till he thought he would burst. “When’s Taylor coming?”
“At eight.”
“Have you given him my CV?”
“I faxed it last week.”
“I want that part, Bernie. I want it.”
“I know. I know, darling.”
“Is he definitely coming?”
“He confirmed about an hour ago.”
“I hope that little whore with the silver hair isn’t around.”
“He’s with some German woman. Another independent.”
“Oh, Bernie. Just imagine me going to London!”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, darling. But you know what a chance this will be for me ...”
At first, when he’d given Nondumiso a house key and the combinations to the alarm system, Duma had challenged this intimacy but nothing could stop Bernard.
She leaned back and he covered her with bubbles: the flat, firm, ebony expanse of waist, the high, slightly oblong breasts, the sharp, jutting shoulder blades.
“Why didn’t you come last night? I stayed up till two o’clock.”
“The rehearsals are coming together now. Things are getting really intense.”
“You could have phoned.”
“The public phone was broken.”
“What about the phone in the office?”
“No one had the key.”
“And Rick’s cell-phone?”
“He forgot to charge it.” Nondumiso fondled his hand. “Stop getting uptight. You’re the only one ... you know that, don’t be boring! Where could I find such a generous creature? Come closer. Let me give you some honey.”
Her mouth wrapped round him; her warmth was overpowering. Then he felt her broad, strong tongue stroke him as the slender hands caressed his buttocks.
“Oh, my darling!”
He was floating in a world of warm lappings, cooings, sliding in and out, straining to be deeper, always deeper, past the tender, moist lips that were sucking him into the spiralling, dark shelter of total release.
Now he was pressing her to his groin, naming her his loved one. In their absolute ability to please each other, they reached a simultaneous climax.
DUMA AND JAN DISCUSS A MUTUAL FRIEND
When the doorbell rang, Duma picked up the front gate keys and switched off the alarm system.
“Coming!” he called. “Shit, you’ve been quick.”
“Ja, I’ve got to learn over three hundred words tonight but I couldn’t resist your pitch. Hoe gaan dit, my skat?”
Duma opened the gate for Jan who stood next to the bougainvillaea hedge, helmet squeezed against his leather jacket, streaked blonde hair dangling over his face. The big Suzuki stood in the carport. They shook hands then embraced. Duma tickled his chin.
“By the way, you never mentioned what you wanted with our Great Director.”
“Want anything from him? Nee, wat!”
“Then why are you here? It isn’t just the chow, is it?”
They walked into the lounge past an unframed canvas of a naked, small-breasted woman resting on a rock at Clifton. In the background, a single cloud floated alongside Lion’s Head. The woman was painted in strong pink and brown flesh tones. Her face showed total sun rapture. Bernard had bought the painting on the Parade during the Cape Town run of one of his farces. He’d hung it in his bedroom, but after meeting Nondumiso decided to move it.
Duma threw himself into an easy chair splotched with giant purple flowers.
“This time I’m not joking. I’m not prepared to work with him any more. He’s abusing our friendship.” Jan placed his helmet on the carpet. “He’s making demands beyond our professional relationship but he won’t pay me extra. He expects weekend work for nothing. And tonight he wants me to rewrite a script. Some new play by a woman he’s never heard of. Suddenly it’s the most brilliant thing he’s read in years but I’ve got to redo ninety-nine percent of it. Can you believe it?” Duma spread his hands. “Can’t you speak to him? I’m really upset but I can’t afford to fight.”
Jan combed back his hair. “That’s wise. You know what the Chinese say: if you go to war, be prepared for war. Now make me some coffee — that Turkish stuff. Make it thick with two sugars.” Duma switched on the kettle. “What’s happening with your play? Is he going to do it now?”
Duma took out two mugs and a side plate.
“Are you crazy!”
“I thought he was casting.”
“Casting? Jesus, Jan! He hasn’t even read my rewrite of the second act, which is crucial. No, as usual, he’s stalling. Haven’t you heard about `objective forces’?” Duma measured out a heaped spoon of coffee. “This enough?”
“A bit more.”
“You can’t believe how reactionary he’s become. He’s concocted the most elaborate rationalisations, he’s commercialised all the issues. And the worst thing is how he lies to himself and then pretends no one’s the wiser. Then, on the other hand, he’s always worried what others think. He’s petrified of bad press. I mean, his leaving the Party and then going into business was noted by a lot of people.” Duma poured the hot water.
Jan nodded. “Ja, he’s still very pissed off about that leadership struggle. He hasn’t adjusted. He liked being a big shot in the bigger picture.”
The mugs were full. Duma placed them on a tray and carried them back into the living room.
“I’m sick of trying to justify his behaviour. First he’s rude, then he falls all over me. He changes his mind every two minutes. He can’t take a decision and stick to it.” Duma kicked Jan’s boot. “But I can’t afford to leave yet.” He paused. “I’ve got to feed my appetites.”
Then he picked up an exercise book that lay on a side table on which stood five wooden giraffes. Bernard had bought them from a young boy in a parking lot at one of the observation points overlooking the Blyde River canyon.
“Check what I wrote yesterday. I was alone here and the sky was split by lightning. It’s a prose poem.” Duma pushed the book into Jan’s hands. “Read it, man. Read it and tell me what you think.”
Jan held the book in his hands. “OK, I’ll read it. But if it’s kak I’m going to tell you.”
“Feedback, man. That’s all I want. Straight talk, nothing less.”
Jan read two pages then moved to the window and looked out at the distant towers of the city’s skyline. The room overlooked a lush green hive of expansive, walled, swimming-pooled houses and one of the flanks of the Melville Kopjes.
“Sorry, old chap, it’s kak.” He took out a pipe and lit a match. “Stick to drama, man. That’s your scene.”
Jan began sucking and the room filled with a sweet aroma. “Why bother about him if things are so bad? Don’t let him get away with it. He’s not the only director in Jo’burg. You can get other jobs. You’ve got credibility.”
“Credibility! Don’t talk shit! I wasn’t in jail and I wasn’t in exile. I stayed put, year after year, trying to write People’s Theatre. I wasn’t out there in Lusaka trying to liberate Swedish millions.” Duma kicked the tanned cowboy boot again. “Don’t you know there’s a purge going on? Those who want real change in this country are being marginalised.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
Duma removed his shoe and threw it. “Don’t give me your line about no change is real change.” He shook his head. “If I don’t have a job, how will I have time to write? I need a steady income. Otherwise I get so depressed hustling for bucks that all I do is drink.”
“Pass me the coffee, man. I can smell it from here. Are there any biscuits?”
“It’s depressing. I get fucking messed up.” Duma smiled. “Only rusks. You can’t soak rusks in Turkish coffee.”
“I’ll soak your head in it if I want to. Bring them.” Jan stood up. “But first, my little piccanin, let me soothe your brow. I can see those back muscles are all stiff. Let me relax them.”
NONDUMISO MEETS AN OLD FLAME AND IS REIGNITED
Bernard and Nondumiso walked into the lounge. Bernard opened his arms.
“What a wonderful surprise! I was worried you wouldn’t make it.”
“I thought I must show solidarity,” Jan answered. Then he blushed as Nondumiso ran up and kissed him on the cheek.
“I’m so glad you’ve come.” She looked at him with affection. “Still got your bike?” Jan nodded. “I loved those rides we took over the golf course.”
Bernard took her hand.
“It’s going to be an intimate little gathering, nothing pretentious, you know, in keeping with the occasion. Frankly, I need a little social variety. It becomes tedious to only engage with a certain incompetent dramatist.”
Jan sipped his coffee; a crumb of rusk dangling from his moustache. Duma had placed four rusks on a porcelain plate that Bernard once bought in East London. He had gone there to produce a West End drama about a man who is involved with both his personal assistants, one a man, the other a woman. The plate’s surface was ringed with lambs chasing each other’s tails round a spindly bush.
Duma looked at Nondumiso with distaste. “Sneaking in as usual.”
She stuck out her tongue.
Jan remembered the golf course. He had offered her a lift home on the night of the first rehearsal of a two-hander they had done for the Grahamstown Festival. The play was about a Hillbrow prostitute who befriends a Nigerian drug dealer. The twist was that the Nigerian was white.
“This coffee is excellent.”
“It is,” said Duma. “Bernard gets it from some Saudi businessman whose in with M-Net. Do you want to know how many camels have contributed their dung to flavour it?”
Bernard picked up a rusk and dropped it into Jan’s mug. “Go on, enjoy. I’ve always respected you. You play the rugged parts very well. Especially the heroes, the ones who leave women behind. You abandon them stylishly, not like me.”
He gestured to Nondumiso, and pulled her towards him, at first playfully, then with increasing force as she resisted and laughingly tried to twist free.
“Those soap commercials you did at Zoo Lake were a real highpoint, real Tarzan stuff, my darling.”
Jan flicked a strand of blonde hair from his eyes. Bernard pulled Nondumiso onto his lap and buried his face in her back. Then he brought his hands out from behind her and waved.
“Why should she kill the one she loves when she just needs to wait a little longer? He’s about to give her everything she needs.” She pushed his hands down even as he held her tight. “Isn’t that so, my love?”
Nondumiso smiled at Jan. “Has this old crock given you any work lately?”
“Of course he has!” Duma snapped, fishing out the remnants of the rusk in Jan’s mug. “There’s a special role earmarked for Jannie-boy in a musical. He’s going to play a Broederbond law professor who leaves the university to devote himself to governing Die Volk and all the other natives, and in the process sets up that marvel of the civilised world, Bantu Education. Ja, our Jannie is getting lots of work. He’s diligent because he’s a Calvinist. Even if he is a little short of hellfire.”
Nondumiso stroked Bernard’s knee. Jan sipped his mug.
“Can I have another one?”
“Of course, liefling,” said Duma. Wedging open Jan’s mouth, he shoved in a particularly large rusk. “There now, Onse Jan happy?”
“Are you going to give him the part, Bernard?”
Bernard pressed her hand.
“What’s the big deal, Bernie? Tell us! Is he going to play Retief? If you suggest it, Taylor will agree. And then I can play Dingaan’s queen, the first wife.”
Bernard smoothed her hand.
“Let’s get down to business,” Duma snarled as Jan cleaned the corners of his mouth.
BERNARD HAS ANOTHER ATTACK
He felt it start in his chest, a sharp thudding that made him feel he was being remorselessly sucked into the black void of LET ME DIE I’VE HAD ENOUGH. He was cold and liquid and tremulous: he had become the gob of spit that hovered on Duma’s lips and would soon cascade down in a spidery arc to the parquet floor. Then suddenly he lay spread-eagled, a splattered, bubbling pool of saliva at the mercy of even the most ragged kitchen cloth. And Duma hovered over him, frayed lappie in hand dripping dirty sink water onto his face; Duma exuded a cat-like hissing. Next to him, wide-eyed with shock, stood Nondumiso and Jan; her sinewy arm resting lightly on Jan’s leather jacket.
“Chickening out, Bernie? For Christ’s sake face the fucking music. I insisted Jan comes over so I’d have a witness. It’s time we sorted something out. I’ve been your assistant for almost five years. That’s right, five long years during which I’ve been getting a pittance, a few measly bucks for all my trouble. I’ve been sweating away down here on the ground while you’ve been climbing the ladder of success, darling of the festivals, here in our Beloved Country and there over the blue seas, all the way to New York and Dakar and Berlin, with different productions about the Struggle. Ja, Bernie, you’ve been getting all the pats on the back, and on the cheeks, and never on the arse, or just occasionally on the arse, while I’ve been sucking my pencils getting nowhere. And now you’re sitting pretty in this lekker little pondokkie on Northcliff ridge with zebras and flamingos, and I’m still stuck in Dobsonville without running water. Jesus.” Duma pulled at his dreadlocks. “I’m sick and tired of being fucked over.” He pulled out a piece of paper and pushed it into Bernard’s hand.
“Sign.” He turned to Jan. “Sign next to him.”
The document was a contract setting out a basic wage rate, an overtime rate, a Sunday work rate, a public holiday rate and conditions covering paid compassionate leave, sick leave, paternity leave, annual leave, study leave as well as provisions for a housing allowance and a transport allowance.
At the end of the contract, in large print, was a clause stipulating the following: “I, Bernard Halton Innes, resident at 99 Teak Drive, Northcliff, being of sound mind and body, enter into this undertaking of my own free will and volition. It is hereby recorded that the four- act play, `The Flood’ by Dumisani `The Spear’ Mofokeng, shall be performed at the Barney Simon Memorial Theatre at the Market Theatre, Newtown, Johannesburg, within six months of the date of the signing of this contract. However, should `The Flood’, for whatever reason, by design or by accident, not be staged within this six month period, a penalty of R10,000 shall be payable to the playwright on the second day following the expiry of the six month period. This amount to be paid out in South African currency and not with bullshit or cow shit or horse shit or donkey shit or wildebeest shit or any other variety of kakstorie.”
Bernard leaned back on the carpet and folded his arms behind his neck. The gob of spit had been wiped away; he was calm. How could Duma try to humiliate him? He had done so much for him, year after year, pulling him along, and now this.
“I’m not going to give anyone, and especially not you, whom I befriended and for whom I have created so many opportunities, the satisfaction of manufacturing a fight which can only end in your losing everything.” He caressed Nondumiso’s fingers. “But now that we’re talking, perhaps you’ll tell us how far you are with the script I gave you last January. Where is it? And where’s that documentary you were supposed to be working on? And the collection of short stories you had almost wrapped up? Where, where, where? Have you finished any of them yet? Poor boy! He’s all snowed under with projects.”
Bernard sat up and poked Duma in the stomach. “Listen, comrade, if you want more, you’ve got to do more. Productivity is the name of the game and you rank low in those stakes. As for ’The Flood’, if you really insist, let’s try and raise some money through Winnie.”
EVERYONE FINALLY GETS DOWN TO BUSINESS
The porcelain design with rusk crumbs lay bare to their eyes as sunset washed through the windows. In the garden, a jacaranda showered purple explosions, the alarm wire strung along the hedge became a black snake sliding to protect them. On the side table, carefully arranged on a white tablecloth, were salads and loaves of onion bread, platters filled with pate, pies and cold meats, bowls brimming with assorted dips and other delicacies.
“So you want me to lick your arse forever? Is that the idea, Mr Director?”
Bernard got to his feet, faced the side table and uncorked a bottle of white wine. “No, my boy, that’s not what I said or what I intended. I would simply like a little respect and acknowledgement of what I have done. And that is as much as anyone wants and has a right to. I have given you the breaks, now it’s up to you to use them. Put yourself in the right frame of mind and get on with the job.”
“I am getting on with the job, Bernard! ’The Flood’ is ready. It’s waiting to explode! Christ, when was the last time you looked at it? In fact, have you bothered to read the last act since I did that rewrite?”
Nondumiso massaged Bernard’s back as he began filling glasses. “Have you, darling? Come on, give him a break.”
“Sweetheart, there’s no market for that type of theatre anymore. You know that, I know that, we all know that. What drew crowds yesterday is not what’s packing them in today. Fact. End of story.”
“Just a small production, Bernie, nothing elaborate. Test the waters, just a one-week run at the ’Laboratory’. You know, a ...”
“Dammit, Jan — whose side are you on? I don’t want some small time experiment with half trained actors. I want the real thing!”
“Boyo, you’ve got to start somewhere. And the Laboratory is where they all start.”
“But those are kids! They’ve had two or three script writing classes and they crank out a play and think they’ve mastered the medium. Shit, I’ve got years in this game!”
“Duma, the fact is, times are hard, theatre is a dying art form, everyone’s talking screens — big ones, small ones.”
“But there’s a core who still want the real thing!”
“A small core? We all love Coca Cola, pal.”
“Shit, Bernard, where’s the last drop of your progressive consciousness?”
“Hey, Com, it’s right here in my hand.” He knocked back the last of his perfectly chilled white wine. “I don’t think we should wait for the others. Let’s start our little commemoration. It’s late already and I can see you’re all starving.”
The little party began. When the English director arrived almost an hour later, fresh bottles were opened, the platters with snacks were replenished, and the look of anger and pity on Duma’s face gradually gave way to a forgiving contentment as the wine made him flush. And Jan struck a deal with Bernard regarding the role of Retief, and Nondumiso was able to captivate the Englishman as his sidekick did not appear until nearly midnight when everyone raised their glasses to Bernard’s toast:
“To the future of the global village, to the trafficking of ideas and products, to the spirit of adventure that quickens the blood, to the joys of sensual pleasure that are the rewards for risk taking, to the trickling down of these good things to the masses.”
boontoe
|
