The Lion Seeker (19 page)

Isaac goes where he's been pointed, passing on his way a section of the workshop closed off with tin walls. From inside comes a buzz and hiss, the stark chemical stink of paint fumes strong as a gas. In the office he sits on a wonky chair before a cigarette-burned desk. In time the same man comes back, closing the door to shrink the clanging as if by the twist of a volume knob on a wireless.

—I'm Franzie Labuschagne. I run the shop.

Isaac stands to shake the man's hand. His arms are long and hairy and there's ropy simian power in the grip. Big hands like meat plates. Hair cut straight across as if trimmed from the lip of a bowl. Not very tall, his eye level only slightly higher than Isaac's own, or big (like most chutaysim in Isaac's experience), but Isaac reckons that he would not want to ever mess with this oke all the same.

—This other ou was supposed be here this week, he says, his chutus accent very thick. Some pork-and-cheeser, Da Silva or something.

—I don't know about that.

—You ever work on cars before?

—Ach, not for pay or nothing, but.

—What?

—Ach, nothing.

—No, what?

Isaac feels himself flushing. —No but just I love cars hey.

Labuschagne gives him an angled grin. —Fok love, he says. This a fokken business hey. He jerks his head and Isaac follows back out onto the shop floor, Labuschagne saying,—We got place from Industrial Council for one more apprentice. What we gots is a dozen journeymen panel beaters in this shop. One class A apprentice. One mechanic, which is me, and I's the shop boss also, which no one better bladey ever forget. Here we got Bliksy on parts and Rustas golden hands for glass, Eddie Tops on upholstery. Also, nother dozen or so Bleck staff for the kaffir work.

He turns, his voice loud and a little hoarse over the clanging now. —You got any clue how a panel beating operation works?

Isaac shakes his head. Hard not to stare at the working men all around them, to lose himself in drifting contemplation of these various cars being operated on in the grease and the smells and the noise and the dim light where the work lamps aren't shining.

— . . . show you in a back, Labuschagne's now saying. Where't all starts when they bring in a job uhkay . . . 

There are garage doors in the rear wall, one halfway open, and Labuschagne ducks under. In the back under the white open sky there are damaged cars in lines on raw stamped earth, a chainlink fence around them.

—Not one is the same, Labuschagne says. That's the thing about accidents hey. Factories make nice cars all exact. Real life makes accidents every one completely different. This why it's custom work, panel beating.

He rubs his own chest then his chin. —Like a art, he says. Ja, art. For real.

Isaac asks how the broken cars all get there. Labuschagne tells him there are two tow trucks that are out now on jobs.

—They come straight from accidents?

—Ja-no, sometimes. But mostly from the police yards. Or from where it's towed by the insurance first fore we get it. Sometimes another firm's truck brings it in. Uhkay, so how it works, the assessor he come from the insurance and we make a quote together, ja. Like this one here . . . 

He crosses to a Buick coupe with a crushed side.

— . . . Smacked by a Nels dairy truck on Rissik Street. See what we got here is front grille, let's say eight. Side panel, fifteen. Door, uhhh, seven. Uhkay . . . 

As he speaks he circles, mimes writing on a form with a finger on one of his platesize palms. Mimes signing off. — . . . so you rock up, all in, lez calls it forty-five. Now the assessor, he has to write what he wants to pay or not. If he say uhkay then we gets our job, if not they pay out their client cash and it goes to scrapyard . . . 

He laughs then, for Isaac has recoiled a little from peering in through the buckled door's empty window around which a few translucent fangs of broken glass still cling. There's blood dried in clumps on the steering wheel and pieces of scalp with bits of matter still attached lying on the seat, like chunks of cracked coconut, hair and dried tissue.

—Ja that's something you get use to't. One time this ou, his head was sliced right off, hey, and no one could find it. But right
off
. In the end it rocked up in the dickey seat! How could it got there? Hell, but you should have check our boy catch the skrik of his life when he check in there hey. He run away screaming like a girl. You know a kaffir, he will never touch a dead. Never ever, you know that?

Isaac shakes his head.

—Cos a kaffir does reckon if he touch a dead his spirit get dirty and he catch bad luck or summin off it. They scared of eating fish too hey, know that? No, genuine, fish is like snake to them and a snake is also serious bad luck for the spirit.

Isaac nods, thinking of fear in the eyes of Silas, thinking of Fisu, Morgan, Hosea. Those Zulu words and work songs, the sweat they shed under his gaze each day. Silas cost him that job, ja, but it's not rage he feels towards him anymore, no, it's a kind of nostalgia.

They've gone back inside. Labuschagne is again shouting to rise over the clang clanging. —Now you see once a job is got, it has to come in and gets its own bay. Uhkay. There's a job. There's a job. This is Jan Veld here. That's a job there see, Keith Chambers working. George Kazy got that Packard in the corner. See how every panel beater has his own bay? See?

Isaac sees cars set on trestles, but for that one in the air, and each vehicle beside a small bench covered with tools. The Whites wear bright tan overalls; their Black assistants, who pass tools or run to fetch, have dirty blue ones.

—A art hey, Labuschagne says. Like I told you, a art. Like what they make in museums and that. Don't smile. I'm for serious hey. In comes this smashed ugly dead thing and if a panel beater is good, when he is finish it you can't tell if it had one scratch ever. Think about that. You take three weeks, a month, on one job. Every day a full shift. One little tiny dent at a time. Straighten the frame. Everything has to line perfect. A door won't shut proper if the line isn't perfect, a window won't roll up. The new windshield won't fit. Has to be exact. A art. Lemme tell you, there's not so many good ones neither can do it well. Now Rustas golden hands who does our glass . . . Howzit! Rustas!

He waves to a man who lifts his cap.

— . . . Now him's an artist hey . . . and that there is Malcolmson . . . 

—The thing he's using, whatzit?

—That? Lemme show you . . . 

At the nearest bench tools are laid out cleanly as on a surgeon's table. —This one what you mean? He touches the steel lollipop thing.

—Ja.

—This a spoon dolly with a handle. This one here is just a dolly, same thing but no handle. This one here is a sack of ball bearings, feel. Also, it's another kind of dolly. You use a dolly all the same way, to flatten out, to finish. You put the dolly on one side to brace, ja, and then you tap the other side, flatten nice. Understand? This is called a toe dolly. This one is a heel dolly . . . 

He is handing knobs of bright clean steel to Isaac, some like the heads of golf clubs, some shaped like fat blunt knife blades or solid horseshoes. He demonstrates using a piece of tin in a vise, showing how a dolly is held at the back side of the dented panel, then he takes a slender hammer with its long handle and raps against the tin, drumming. Isaac sees how the dent can be flattened, eliminated. A glimpse of the intricate patience and control and sensitivity that the work will require. It's not just smashing, it's not all grob, all rough and clumsy. Labuschagne lets him try and suddenly, grasping the tools, he feels in himself a rush of agreeable feeling. As if he's gripping hands with a long-lost friend, someone somehow forgotten or missed all of his life.

Labuschagne touches him. Isaac looks up, startled. —Sorry?

Labuschagne is slit-eyed. —Ginzy sent you hey.

—Ja.

—What, from his shop?

—No, my da, he's a watchmaker. He asked for a job for me.

Labuschagne takes out a pack of Van Riebeecks. —And that's what you want hey, to work on cars?

There's no hesitation in Isaac: it rushes in him, spark to flame. —Ja, yes, absolutely I do.

Labuschagne lights his brown cigarillo. —What? You think I'll blow us all up in here or summin?

—I diden say nothing.

—Didn't have to, with your eyes going like mad. Check here.

Isaac follows him to a bucket, Labuschagne saying,—This isn't bioscope hey, some movie. He points with his chin into the bucket and Isaac peers over at the dark liquid within. Petrol. Labuschagne flicks in the lit cigarillo. Isaac flinches but it only goes out with a soft hiss mostly lost in the clanging. Labuschagne laughs. —Can never burn like that, he says. Never ever. Has to be a gas vapour to catch, that is why every engine has a carb in it hey, to spritz the petrol into the heads.

He straightens up: —But doesn't mean that
you
can smoke in here. That's
if
we takes you on. No one can smoke but me. I'm shop boss. I'm mechanic.

He looks away, sniffs, looks back. —So Ginzy sent you. Your folks is what knows him.

—Ja.

—And you wanna be apprentice.

—Yes I do.

—I can see.

—Yes, really.

His head wiggles one way then the other. —Ach, ja, oright.

—Ja?

—You look uhkay hey. Come to the office and I sort the papers and that, get you started.

—Really?

—Ja really.

—Jesus, Meneer Labuschagne. Thanks so much hey.

—Franzie. It's Franzie. He scratches the back of his head, puffs his top lip with his tongue. —Hey listen. You also, I spose . . . I mean, like Ginzy.

—Hey?

—What say your name was again?

—Isaac.

—No, last.

Isaac feels the familiar curdling, the sick feeling in the belly that hardens the spine.

—What I mean, says Labuschagne, is you also some kinda Jewboy or what hey?

— . . . Ja, Isaac says slowly. Ja, I'm a Jew. Summin wrong? He puts his hand on one of the hammer handles on the bench to his right. Slips it toward himself and holds it there against his thigh, casual. Labuschagne's eyes don't even flick down for a second.

—You not a Communis hey?

Isaac jerks. —A what?

—You bladey heard me. A Communis.

—Ach shit, Isaac says. I can't even spell that.

Labuschagne opens his mouth like a hungry ostrich and laughs hoarsely so that Isaac sees his pink tonsils wiggling and gets a wash of tobacco breath. Then he says,—Ah fok it, fok it. I likes you, little ou. You a bit of a spark plug hey. You got some guts, ja. Come.

He takes a step but then frowns, turns again. —But hey.

Isaac watches, tense.

—You not some kind of a kaffir boetie now, is you?

Isaac blinks, rocking back. The thought of him being a kaffir brother, a lover of Blacks, Jesus.

Labuschagne sees it in him, nods. —Uhkay, good ja. Oright.

He starts off then stops, turns back again. —One other thing.

—Ja?

His plate hand flashes, casual. Chops Isaac's arm just under the elbow. It's like being slogged by a lead bat. His forearm numbs; the hammer rings on the concrete. —Jus don't you ever do that again, kerel, or I kill you, uhkay. I kill you.

And he smiles his bentdown smile.

IN HIS THIRD MONTH
at Gold Reef Panel Beating, Isaac takes a bus to Parktown, a day of thin sun and palehazed sky. Over his tan overalls he is wearing a second-hand jacket with leather elbow patches, and he has done his best to wash the grease from his rawskinned hands and to comb down the rebel springiness in his wild orange hair.

On Gilder Lane, he watches from the park, pacing. He expects that the school bus won't come on time then is surprised by the tearing noise of its gears and the whine of the big Leyland diesel engine, almost ten minutes early. He settles behind the green curtain of willow fronds in the scent of grass and mildewed bark, a little tent to enclose his nervous shivering. He thinks, She won't be on that bus.

He watches the bus with its school colours painted on the sides. It stops at the base of the street; when it moves on there's a group of girls left behind, all of whom but one walk off downhill. The one climbs. Closer, he sees what he already knows, that it's her. Skirt and stockings. It makes him tremble. She's got the doctorish leather briefcase in one hand, the other pushed deep into the pocket of her green blazer. What the hell: a feeling of self-abandonment and lunacy as he steps out from behind his green cover and into the selfsame daylight that ignites the smooth skin of her cheeks, the swoop of yellow hair that gleams like golden oil.

He crosses the street and the sense with him is not good as he goes. It's like when he's shooting pool and the second he hits the shot, even before that second, he knows it's going wrong, it's off, just off. And now he has walked across to her, he is here, feeling hot in the face and cold in the chest.

—Yvonne.

She glances back, then jerks. —Christ!

He puts up one hand, one open palm, then the other. —It's oright, he says. I just want. Just wanna tell you sorry, oright?

Her face goes through some quick changes. It sets on a sour locked expression of real fear rimmed with . . . what? Outrage, anger?—Where'd
you
come from?

—I—

—What, you following me?

He hears himself saying the word no, his palms still up. —It's okay, he says. It's okay.

—It's
what?
She says this with a voice so high pitched it's almost a squawk. —Don't tell
me
okay.

—No. I mean. Yvonne. I just.

—Leave me alone. I don't even
know
you.

He is thinking now that she might start to cry. She hurries uphill, away from him. He doesn't follow. He lifts his voice: —I wanted just to tell you sorry. S'all, hey. For the. I mean. Is he oright, like? That oke. In the club. Your friend, whatsisname.