Read The Lion Seeker Online

Authors: Kenneth Bonert

Tags: #Historical

The Lion Seeker (38 page)

When he gets back to work there is dried blood on his trousers and he's an hour late for the first time ever. He has to humiliate himself by making up some bullshit story for Franzie Labuschagne that Franzie can see right through, Franzie cutting him off with a crimp of the mouth and the disgusted words: —Ach, whatever, Isaac, just get to bladey work awready. It's even worse with Jack Miller: Jack just gives him that professional silence of his, the shaming ray of his disappointment.

30

COMES THE WEEKEND
.
Thee
weekend, and Isaac has planned out the route in The Wilds, made a list of everything that will go in the bag he will carry, decided what he will wear. He wanted to have big flowers like proteas but they'd get squashed in the bag and he worried about that till he thought of using some wild vygies that can be wrapped in a cloth. The bottle of champagne will be kept fresh with just a damp cloth and not ice cos the ice could melt and soak everything. To eat, he'll pack them a nice roast chicken with potatoes, apple strudel for dessert.

And don't in the name of God forget the ring. And what will the weather be like that day? What if it rains? So bring an umbrella—big umbrellas are romantic to share in the rain. Extra blanket if it's too cold. What if there's someone else sitting already on the rock he's got mapped out, or if there's idyats running round, noisy kids or such? So have a plan B just in case, a second location, and a third. Ready for anything . . . 

But he's not ready for the Mad Queen telling him Yvonne will be attending a family function all day Saturday and on into the night, and that she's out just now.

—Oh, says Isaac, blinking. Oright. But I thought-Queen's not interested in his thought or thoughts. Some family thing's come up. He doesn't push it, his plans can keep till next week. He hangs up the tickey box receiver and goes to work at the Reformatory and works savagely into the night, crashing there around midnight, his body numb, his mind empty. He wakes up and goes on working for all of Sunday.

When he goes to his day job he finds that for the first time his mind wanders and his hands fail him. He damages three separate panels with his hammer and slapstick, making Jack Miller squint at him. Once, he catches Labuschagne watching from across the shop; when he looks at him, Labuschagne moves his eyes quickly away.

On Wednesday he goes out on his lunch break to wait for Yvonne and finds that the school bus does not deliver her as usual. Seeing this, he feels nauseous with disappointment. Wednesdays are their days! On Wednesdays she always comes straight home early, she doesn't have a last period or anything after school. But not this week. She could have told him she wasn't coming. He kicks a willow tree till the bark shreds. Then he wonders if she's ill. He makes a call from a tickey box but the maid tells him, Yvonne, she go for school. He can't understand it. What the hell has happened to the Linhursts? Did someone die?

At Lion Motors on the first payday of the new month, Hugo lets him know he'll be taking care of wages this week as well, not to worry himself since he's sent Silas on the road again with the trucks. Isaac can't seem to get particularly irritated by this information. He just nods, goes back to work. Working on smashed vehicles, wrecked machines, until he feels like a machine being wrecked himself, a biological structure with steel for bones and wire for nerves, being overused, over-revved. But the weekend sales have continued to be strong and the yard is almost completely stacked with wrecks now and Hugo says they'll have their crusher soon, they'll be able to hoard up even more of the scrap metal that will one day soon be more valuable than gold itself.

 

When he's home early like always for Shabbos dinner on Friday night, he waits till after to use the telephone at the front of the shop. Rively has gone out with Yankel Bernstein, Mame is doing dishes, Tutte has gone to bed. The workshop is dark and he doesn't put on a light. Earlier he was in the sewing room where he uncovered his hiding place, in the corner behind the mirrors, the immigration forms in there, and the engagement ring, which he lifted and held to his lips. Now he feels nervous, his mouth dry, his hand trembling the receiver. It's because he's calling to invite her on the big day—ja? It's because he wants everything perfect—right? Not because he hasn't spoken to her for what seems like too long.

In the dark at the desk when he closes his eyes, for some reason unknown to him his mind keeps showing him flashes of Mama Kelo, that thick arm sticking out at him, those eyes swelling whitely from the clenched muscles of the face like a carved mask. Something bad's happened, he thinks. Then says to himself harshly: Oh shut up, shut up your Stupid head. You are fine. You are the same. You are good at your work and you will be a great panel beater, an artist, and you are one-third owner of a business that will make you into a millionaire. You're on your way, boy. You'll buy Mame a house so beautiful it will make her cry. And the call will come from Papendropolous and her sisters and their families will be brought to the house that you have built, a house so big they'll have enough room for them all and no more rent for any Greenburgs, no bond over our heads.

And most of all you have The Princess. You have Yvonne. Yvonne.

Now he is thinking of her totally. The feel of her hair on his face, the column of her warm neck with the good breasts and the good hips and the good manners and the sweet soft musical voice. Just the sound of her voice, that will be enough. Because he is tired and he doesn't want to take the train out to the Reformatory to work all those long hours again, which he knows he has to; but if he can just hear her, just a little trace of her lip music, just a little burble of her good laughter in his ear, just that, it will be all right . . . 

He has dialed the last number, the rotor spins back. He waits, swallowing. The mother answers. He can hear the ugliness in her voice, see her in the lounge with its glass cabinets full of vases and urns and cut crystal sugar bowls, see that she's wearing a folded cloth on her head with a peacock feather and a diamond in the middle of the forehead. In one breath he's asking please-can-I-speak-to-Yvonne-Mrs.-Linhurst.

—You mean
may
you speak, says Mad Queen. We presume you have the capability. But, devastating to report, Yvonne is not available. Yvonne—

There's a sound behind, muffled, then the swooshing of a hand rubbing the receiver.

—Mrs. Linhurst?

She comes back on: —Hold the line.

The tone of her voice means to shame him, to make him lesser, he can feel it. Trying to act as if he's never been to the house to fetch her daughter. Trying to make him into a crafty little Doornfontein schemer who has gone from carrying her boxes to stealing her Yvonne away. Well, choke on it you old bitch, you crinkled-up meshugena, cos I got her, I
have
her and there is nothing you can do about it, I've had my bare fingers deep inside of her and me and her are as close as two people can be, we love each other. Choke on that, you old klafte.
Love
.

When Yvonne picks up, he exhales without knowing he was holding his breath and it's like a slump of relief. —Hey hey, he says. She nearly told me you were out. It's our lucky night hey. And he laughs, a wild sound. She does not. Instead she says to him, in a voice flat and even formal: —Why would she do that?

—You know, he says. Your momsy.

—No, she says, slow and deliberate. No, I don't know.

— . . . Yvesy?

But his Yvesy isn't there; this is another Yvonne.

—Why do you keep ringing me?

—Yvesy, man . . . summin wrong? What's wrong?

Silence.

He tries to laugh again, a dying sound. —What's a matter hey? You oright?

A long nasal inhalation. —Isaac. It's just not a good idea.

His heart squeezes hard, sending tiny thumping noises up his neck and into the ear he is pressing so hard against the telephone. —What isn't? says his voice.

—This.

And the way she gives him the word
this
, so deadly seriously, so blunt and all-encompassing and unmistakable, it makes him feel like a trap door has opened under his chair and he is gone, gone, he's plunging, leaving his guts behind. He has the mad urge to giggle. —Why? he says instead. What?

—The whole thing, she says. It's very. It's too . . . It's gone too far. All right. All right Isaac?

—Whole thing? What? Is this from. Did your ma . . . 

—
Christ
, she says, so that he knows he has used exactly the wrong words.

—No, no, ukay, not your mother, no, ukay.

—Don't grovel at me. I know what you said.

—I'm not
grovelling
, Jesus. I don't get this. Why are you. I mean, what did I do?

She sighs, huffs. —Look, Isaac, it's not one thing. It's only.

—Ja?

—It's not a game anymore. Pretend.

—A game?

—Oh God, you see, you can't even—

—Wait a second, wait a sec. I mean, Christ, who ever said a
game
 . . . 

— . . . Isaac, he is most likely going to die. If he hasn't already. If he isn't already dead!

It's good he's fallen into total silence. He might have blurted the word
who
aloud. She would have hung up.

—Ja, he says, putting on a long sigh. I know hey. Poor old Moses.

—Poor old
 . . . 

Quickly: —I know, it's so sad hey. What happened. I mean I keep thinking of it hey.

—It's
our
fault.

That one stops him like a slap. The twistedness of it. Ours?

—It wouldn't have happened if it weren't, if we hadn't . . . we were . . . 

He remembers it then, how close she was to coming like that. She had forgotten about Moses too. It's her guilt and it's mixed up with her other guilt about letting him, Isaac, do things, about wanting him to—maybe about wanting him altogether. See it: the boy with the clumpy orange hair and the freckles and the wide ears, sitting back there on the ledge in the sun in his work clothes and this Princess with her doll's face riding on his leg like some—

—It's
us
, she says.

—Us.

—This
, yes!

—Ukay, I understand. In a way he's relaxed now, he has the reason. Nightmares, they always disperse if you wait long enough. He waits now.

—I have to go, she says.

—Oright fine, he says. But can you just hang on like another sec?

—No, Isaac. This is all. I want it to be finished now.

—Do you? Are you sure?

—Isaac, what was it? Our own little pretend world in the garden. Meanwhile you didn't even notice, I mean look what we caused, and you don't care, you don't, really, inside you
don't
.

—Do you know what happened to him?

—Like it matters to you.

—Hey, he says. Come off it. Be fair hey.

—No Isaac, I've had enough pretend. It's bad enough my parents, the nonsense they say about it. When he's already been replaced. And it never would've happened if you—

—If I wasn't even there.

—Exactly.

—So, it's my fault, only mine.

—You don't understand.

—That's true, I don't.

—Isaac, it's the fault of
pretending
. Being false. It's false of you right now, the same thing, acting like you care when I know, I
know
, what you really think, what you thought of him . . . 

—Hey, Yvonne. Yvonne.

— . . . 

—It's me, it's your Ize. I'm here, oright. I'm not perfect but I'm changing. Right? Is it right of you to treat someone—to just cut them like this? Is that right?

— . . . 

—Hey?

—I don't know.

—Ja, he says. Let's just see each other, I mean talk proper.

—No, Isaac.

—Why not?

—I don't think so.

—Come on Yvesy.

—I'm going to go now, Isaac. I don't want you to telephone anymore.

—Yvonne.

—Leave me, Isaac. Goodbye.

He sits for a long time with the dead circle of the receiver pressed to his ear. Becomes aware in his hollow shock of the tiny parts of him that are still going on: the eyelids blinking, the heart drumming, the breath against his teeth. But something massive has torn. He doesn't want to move because then he'll feel the damage.

He's been in an accident.

31

FOR THE FIRST TIME
since the start of Lion Motors Isaac doesn't go into work at the Reformatory. On the telephone he tells Hugo he's ill. Hugo says not to worry, he has it all under the control. He advises Isaac to shine up. Isaac walks the route in The Wilds that he would have walked with her, drinking brandy, brooding, the ring in his pocket. He watches the sunset alone. On his cot there's no solace, only turning and twitching and the inability to do anything to stop the thoughts and images that dig at him like sharp claws. What she has told him is unreal, impossible; the engagement ring—that is a real thing. All that's happened is she's mistaken, she's just made a mistake. He has to correct her, that's all, bring her back into sanity. He gets up, paces. The whole of Sunday oozes by like a slow wound. When darkness comes he drinks brandy in the backyard the way he used to, sitting on the wall, staring dully at the Greyshirt's DeSoto Airflow. This is another night without sleep. Closer to morning he makes strong tea and drinks cup after cup. He goes to lie down when it gets light, so his parents won't ask questions. Then he dresses in work clothes and, haggard, telephones the shop. Gets Labuschagne on the line and tells him in a whisper of faked hoarseness that he is sick (yet how true!) and won't be coming in.

—Ja hey, Labuschagne says. What is it wrong with you now?

—I dunno. Just sick, something.

Other books

The Rose of York by Sandra Worth
My Dog Tulip by J.R. Ackerley
Three Shirt Deal (2008) by Cannell, Stephen - Scully 07
Tales From My Closet by Jennifer Anne Moses
Stay by Deb Caletti
Air and Darkness by David Drake
Ten by Lauren Myracle


readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024