The Lion Seeker (45 page)

Isaac can feel the others catching wind now, drawing in, turning.

—You shit talk behind my back hey. Saying I'm a moffie.

—You know, says Oberholzer, now that you says it, I can see it. You always did look girly to me.

—You speak kuk man!

—Why you getting so worked up, Cohen? I'm only saying I never have seen a real queer before. And he laughs that high piglet snigger.

Isaac catches laughter from the sides too, some from behind. Bladey vultures. They're enjoying this. And Labuschagne has disappeared of course, so convenient.
Sort it out yourselves
. Well ja then, ukay, here it is.

Isaac says: —Maybe we should ask your wife about that hey.

Oberholzer jerks then: his head twists on the stump neck, cocking. —What say?

—Your wife, says Isaac loudly. Annabel. You go and ask Annabel your wife if I am a queer.

—Why? says Oberholzer. Does you borrow her makeup from her, ay, is that why?

Laughter, more of it than before. Oberholzer stands up slowly, a smooth unrushed movement like the swell of a great ocean wave. The size of the man, and the smirk: he lives for this, he's come here to the shop just to bait you till you break and he is not going anywhere.

Isaac says: —It's not makeup that I go to your Annabel to get.

—What is it, perfume?

The watchers laugh some more. Like a tennis match for them.

—Ask her, says Isaac. Ask her what I got from her last night. In the alley behind your house in Doornfontein there. Ja, go and ask
her
.

—Jewy boy, you mixed up. You were with your other queers in alleys last night.

—You wish, Isaac says. I was behind
your
house with
your
wife, number forty Buxton Street. I had her like a street whore.

—Ooh, someone behind says. Oo wah.

Otherwise it is silent.

Isaac glances to the sides, sees that some men are looking away, some at the floor. Their breathing has concentrated now, here is a new weight in the air and it is no longer the breezy feeling of a tennis match. When he looks back at Oberholzer's face he sees the lips under the moustache have curled in and gone white.

—Ja, Isaac says to the shop. His big wife Annabel. You check her big soft arse. I gave it to her twice bending over in the alley behind his house. I swearda God. Twice. That's the God's truth.

No one laughs or makes any sound. Then someone walks out. Someone else, sounds like Rustas, says: —Shouldn't say those things about a man's wife hey.

—It's true, Isaac says. He started. Calling me a queer and that's a lie. Stuffing up my tools and all bladey nonsense. But what I says about his wife is completely truth. His wife, she's a bladey slut. Not even. She fucks anyone like a animal for free.

People hiss.

—Hey hey, you better stop it, a voice says.

There's a soft woofing noise that men are making, a kind of muted bark that means to tamp Isaac's words down.

—That's not right, ay, says a voice that could be Christo the Italian, a panel beater.

Oberholzer takes a quick step toward Isaac, his face alive and bright, his lips curled in. Says,—Do you wanna fokken die? You dirty. You lying Jewboy piece a kuk.

—Is this lying? Isaac says. Is it?

He takes the panties from his pocket, holding them up, waving them. Someone whistles softly. Someone else says,—Ach no hey, no.

Isaac spreads the panties wide between his hands. —Look at the size of her, he says. Try and tell us you don't recognize these hey Magnus. They are prolly ones you bought a present for her hey. That alley slut that is your wife. That bitch in heat. You call me dirty—then she must love my dirty cock.

—Ooh wuh, someone behind breathes.

—Sal jy moor, jou poes! Oberholzer says. Flecks of spit shine in this fast shouted Afrikaans. I'll kill you, you cunt. —Sal jy dood slaan. Sal you derms uit jou gat uithal. I'll smash you dead. I'll rip your guts out through your arsehole.

And closes the space between them with three wide steps.

Isaac has wrapped the panties around his right fist. He sets and throws a long punch, from behind his shoulder, telegraphing it, throwing it a little slower than he can. Oberholzer's arm sweeps up. He smacks the punch down and away: that vast left hand, spread like open pincers, slugs into the side of Isaac's neck. The grip clamping there at once. Thumb into windpipe. Exactly as it happened on that other night long ago; night of piss and shame. A man can be relied on to always use a trick that works.

Isaac puts his hands over the other's hand as the power of it digs into the soft notch in his throat and twists into his neck. A second more and he'll be choking, paralyzed. He drives up his shoulder, feels the screws just under his overalls popping through the fabric, catching in the living flesh. Oberholzer jerks back; but Isaac's got the hand in tight. He grinds his shoulder, twisting hard. Oberholzer shouts. There's a flash of red as he gets the torn hand free. Isaac lets go, steps around lightly behind him as the giant sucks his hand to his belly, bending. Isaac aims his right foot, swung back like a soccer player shooting for goal. He drives from the hips. His leg, almost straight, comes up relaxed with the centrifugal drag of the taped shot pulling at the shin, sweeping up between Oberholzer's splayed thighs. The foot mostly disappears on the far side of him: it is the iron instep close to the ankle that slogs into the soft give of the scrotum. A lighter man would have been lifted. Oberholzer grunts, taking the full shock. Isaac steps back. Oberholzer turns, face drained. Still holding his bloodied hand to his belly. He takes a step, another. Isaac moves back, watching him. Oberholzer, showing teeth, lunges. Isaac dodges. Oberholzer goes to one knee. He holds himself, bloodying the crotch of his trousers. He bends slowly and vomits. One hand, the good one, against the shop floor. The other palm smears red on the groin, so bright. Dripping now.

Isaac steps around him again. Bends himself sideways and swings his weighted leg, a horizontal kick, wild and sweeping. The side of Oberholzer's mouth caves: teeth and tooth splinters in a pink spray squirt out of the far side. He does not fall over. He paws at his jaw with the torn hand. He rears up again but can't seem to get off the knee. Isaac toe-kicks him in the kidney. He grunts, folds low. The breath bubbling and whistling in the pink mess of his mouth. Isaac steps around and aims another kick. Arms grab him from behind and around the middle. —Is enough, Rustas keeps saying.

Someone else saying,—What did he do to him?

Isaac struggles. —Lee me, lee me go.

—Is finish, is over.

Others come across between them. Someone bends to Oberholzer. Blood and vomit on the concrete. Isaac unwraps the panties from his fist, throws them onto the mess. —Let him clean it! Let him clean it up!

—Okay, okay now, George Kazy says. Is finish, it finish now.

—Finish? I'll finish
him
! The redness swimming in Isaac's soul, obliterating. He breaks from the hands. —Ja! All a you! What happens if you bladey soek with me! Talk kuk around on me!

His voice so hoarse and startling it sounds even to him as though someone else is shrieking from inside the prison of his chest. Madman. Rabies Helger. He goes to the toilet, strips off his weapons. Throws away the used tape, pockets the shot and wedge. Scrubs the blood from his overalls with wet toilet paper. Then he lights a cigarette with hands shaking so much in the end he has to press his elbow against the wall to steady it. He smokes the whole cigarette quickly, then another. He finds he is very thirsty. He drinks from the tap till his belly is full. He goes back out. The shop is empty. He goes into the yard where the ruined scooter still stands. There are a few Blacks sitting against the wall with their eyes hooded against the hot sun.

One grins at him. Lifts his fist up and down in that graceful loose-jointed way they have. Each time he lifts the fist he whistles sharply once through his top teeth. Others grin. One sing-says in Zulu: You killed him today, the bull, the bull.

Another one chops the edge of one hand into the palm of the other, keeping time. Saying
chuh chuh chuh
with each blow. The first sings in Zulu: Esh what happened to the Boer bull today?

To the ground, to the ground, the others sing back.

Esh what happened to the Boer bull today?

Hospital, hospital.

What happened to the Boer bull today?

To doctors, doc-tuhs.

They laugh and whistle, stamp feet on the baked earth.

Isaac smiles at them, turns slowly. Goes back inside to wait for Labuschagne.

FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK
Oberholzer is absent and everyone seems to be suddenly intent on doing a good job and being extra friendly and polite to everyone else at Gold Reef Panel Beating, as if in compensation for the bad blood that was so savagely spilled. The fight is also conspicuously not spoken about, as if it never happened at all. Over the weekend Isaac reads in the papers how Great Britain has now signed a promise with Poland that if someone attacks Poland, Britain will backstop them. Mess with them and you mess with us. It's just like the okes at the shop: the only thing that really counts in this world is the fist. It gives him a bitter feeling, this realization, which is not what he expected. He thought he'd be high on his destruction of Oberholzer. He considers going out to Parktown and half goes to the bus stop; he has notions of going out to the Reformatory and half starts towards the train station. In the end the weekend dissipates in time frittered, in napping and walking, doing nothing but feeling itchy and restless inside.

 

There's a surprise waiting for him at work. His scooter's been repaired, body and engine better than it was, scrubbed and shining, set out for him in front of the shop. Inside he finds that Magnus Oberholzer is back, his face mutilated by black stitches and a great swelling, as if he's holding a golf ball on one side between teeth that are no longer there. Looking thinner too, maybe because he can't eat solid food but must take his lunch through a straw. He is very pale and seems to have lost something else, something nameless and more essential than blood and weight.

Again, Isaac fails to feel the triumph he should, even though now it is Oberholzer who goes home after work and Isaac who goes to the Great Britain Hotel; even though when Isaac tells a joke the men all boom where before they wouldn't so much as smile; even though he has his scooter and his honour back; even though Isaac is the man and Oberholzer the fading boy now. No, it is not a fine triumph to know in your bones that men are worse than dogs, rolling on their backs for the stronger one, licking the arse of the superior. Being the strong now does not cheer him. Simple respect should have been his before, but he can't forget how it was when Oberholzer was the strong and he, Isaac, was made shameful and piteous. Ja, there is nothing lower in this world than the ordinary man.

Thursday, payday, also happens to be the last day of the month and when Isaac claims his pay packet, installing a portion of the cash in Labuschagne's dented Quality Street tin, he finds it hard to believe he's been away from the Reformatory for that long. It's time to head back tomorrow—the first of September—after work. But on Friday not much real work gets done at the shop because the okes keep stopping to crowd around the wireless. Shock news keeps shooting in from Europe all day: starting at about five in the morning the German military has ripped into Poland in a full-scale invasion. Tanks, dive-bombers, battleships—over one and a half million German troops relentlessly drive the Polish forces back. The okes at Gold Reef send out boys to get the special editions and read them with their greasy fingers and pass around the information in half-amazed whispers as if they're repeating sinister curses. Even Labuschagne fails to shout at them to get back to work. Late in the day they read a statement from Chamberlain in London, saying the nation is going to have to grit its teeth and see the struggle through. So it's going to be war, finally. Isaac eyes the Afrikaners in the shop, Labuschagne and Oberholzer and Rustas and Pienaar and the others—Nats they are, they'll never fight the Nazis, they'll never fight for Britain. It makes for an unease that he carries home.

The house on Buxton Street has guests, neighbourhood folks, who have gathered to listen to the good wireless and to be close to each other. Even Tutte listens in, despite it being Shabbos eve. Nobody says much and Mame rubs the back of Mrs. Geverson who keeps crying. The Geversons, it turns out, have relatives in Warsaw. The next day Isaac lets himself be persuaded to go to shul for the first time in however many years. An extra prayer service has been called and the place is jammed and a crowd lingers outside after the service. At home Mame is still at the wireless with Rively and Yankel Bernstein. A special session of the South African Parliament has been assembled. Prime Minister Hertzog wants to keep out of this war, but good old Jannie Smuts, his deputy, is for backing Britain all the way. Thank God for Jannie Smuts, Isaac reckons. But the United Party is now splitting apart. It's just like he was taught by Mrs. Winterbourne at Athens Boys High School in Bez Valley: there's good Afrikaners and bad ones. Now this war is flushing out which is which. Hertzog's going back to his old Nationalist roots, his old cronies, teaming up with Dr. Malan and all the same gruesome bunch that's in bed with the Greyshirts; but Smuts is lining up with the English. One side likes Hitler and Germany, the other is for the British Empire. They listen to the debate on the wireless and the incoming war news and in the morning they hear that Great Britain has declared war on Germany. France does the same but meanwhile the Germans keep steamrolling into Poland with their tanks and their dive-bombers, chopping up Polish cavalry, devouring astonishing amounts of territory. The reports speak of bombers targeting civilians, hitting convoys of refugees and city centres.

Neighbours come and go and sit together in the front room and Mame serves them tea and honey cake. How different it is this time to how it was with the couchers; now Mame wants them here, now that all of them are falling into a nightmare together it's good to have company to share the horror. When he leaves the house that afternoon his head feels stuffed with the cotton wool of too much talk, too much worry. He rides his scooter out Brakpan way and beyond. It's later than he thought it was, the evening light glints off the distant shanties and shadows darken the scorched plain, the orange ball of the sun sliding towards the lift heads of the mines. The Reformatory makes a vast wedding cake with its tall walls and the box of the grey concrete building within. Up close, his mind feels a wrongness that his eyes cannot place at first. He pulls up before the high gate and lifts his riding goggles.