Literary Translation

Two excerpts from a translation into English of Die Benederyk by Ingrid Winterbach

 

 
1. From Chapter 7

At eight o’clock, Aaron picks Bubbles and Violet up. He still feels a little befuddled from the tranquilliser the doctor gave him. There’re so many cars at the Red Dolphin tonight he almost can’t find a parking spot. He doesn’t know what to expect in this place. A nice get-together. Probably a pretext for an all-out piss-up.

It’s only the second time he’s been inside the Red Dolphin. The first time he didn’t register much about the decor. To the left of the doorway, a bar with high stools. Round little tables and chairs take up the rest of the place. Against three of the walls, more chairs. A longish table has been set up against the right-hand wall. As people enter, they fall into a queue, which slowly moves towards this table.

On the table stands a large photo of the deceased. Also on display are his hat, pipe and a pile of soft-cover A5 exercise books. The photo is hazy, slightly out of focus, in gray and pink tints. It shows an uncertain smile, as if the dead man isn’t entirely sure he really does want to shake off the mortal coil, go into the heavenly sphere right this minute. A little notice has been made to stand on the table. It reads: THE LEGEND. In Loving remembrance of Gerhardus (Dee) van Deventer, along with a long message that Aaron can’t read because Bubbles keeps prodding him in the ribs from behind, whispering into his ear: You didn’t actually think they were going to lay old Dee out here, in this heat, did you, she says. Next to the table, at the top end, a woman sits on a chair. Must be the widow. She’s receiving expressions of sympathy from the guests. When Aaron reaches her, she shakes his hand, mumbles something. Raises her head and smiles sweetly. She looks strangely familiar. Then she squeezes his hand, says she is so happy he was able to come along. He moves on, pushed forward by the closeness of Bubbles and the swaying row of people behind them.

Look how quickly the place’s filling up, they must find a nice place to sit, says Bubbles. They take the first open table they can find. Immediately, Bubbles jumps up and makes for the bar, where people – guests, clients, mourners? – are already standing in a thick pack. She comes back with drinks – a brandy and Coke each. “Cheers,” she says, making herself comfortable in her chair. “The worm keeps watch over everything,” she says, clinking her glass against Aaron’s and Violet’s. Yes, especially over tonight’s proceedings, thinks Aaron. Two more people come and sit at their table. Bubbles introduces the two. They also look oddly familiar to Aaron.

It’s half past eight. The evening’s only just begun. The premises is chock-a-block. A nice get-together indeed, thinks Aaron, who is now, after one brandy, even more befuddled than when they arrived. The first person to bear testimony to Dee’s wonderful character stands up to speak. So unfair that he should go so soon; it leaves one with an empty feeling. So sudden. So final. Old Dee was basically the kind of man who could have a conversation with just about anyone, on just about any topic; his general knowledge was so vast! He’d give anything just to look into Dee’s radiant blue eyes one more time. Those heavenly blue eyes. He was the kind of man whose feet were planted firmly on the ground. Always happy to make do with the bare minimum, always grateful to receive even the smallest thing. And a heart of gold. The kind of person who could sleep under a tree with only a rock for a cushion and the moonlight for company, and still be happy. He was, in addition, a man of nature. Lived every day to its fullest. Old Dee, a pillar of strength. Not a lazy bone in his entire body, a man who just gave and gave and gave. (What exactly did he give, Aaron wonders.)

The widow starts doing her rounds. She comes to sit at each table for a brief conversation. Against the back wall, just right of the doorway, Aaron notices a red chaise lounge. A man lies stretched out on it, his head propped up on an elbow. He is exceptionally obese. To his right, on one of the stools against the wall, at the top end of the sofa, sits a woman. She is just as fat.

Not a good idea to be drinking, Aaron knows, before God he knows; and especially not in combination with a tranquilliser, but he welcomes the flattening out of consciousness he’s feeling. Nine o’clock. Half-past nine. People stand up in quick succession to testify – old Dee, a truly exceptional man. With a big heart. And such generosity. A soft heart, really. A man with multiple talents. And a sense of humour. Such a way with black people. Such unshakeable faith. Suddenly, Aaron recognises the woman at their table as the parking guard who works the front end of the shopping centre. Wind and weather has ruined her skin, although she’s quite dollied up tonight, with some help courtesy of hairspray and lipstick. When she sees the direction he’s looking in (he can’t keep his eyes off the unbelievable sight on the red sofa – eat your heart out, Lucian Freud, he thinks), she comments that the man on the other side of the room (gesturing with a movement of her head) suffers from a terrible disease. The rest of the table now also stare in the man’s direction. She moves her head closer to them and whispers: Aitkins Disease. A disease of the blood. He picked it up while at a gathering of pipe-blowers, somewhere overseas. By the time he got back, he’d acquired the illness. A musical pipe, like a flute? Aaron asks. Yes, man, says the woman, the kind of pipe you blow. Her face is burnt red and her skin prematurely aged. That’s his wife sitting next to him, she says. Treats her so well. She breeds dogs. Someone I know bought a poodle from her. She’s in a terrible state about her husband’s condition getting so bad. What can she do? There’s nothing anyone one can do for him. He swells up like a bullfrog and then he deflates again. All four of them steal glances at the Aitkins sufferer on the velvety red couch. Waiting for him to swell up like a bullfrog, and then croak. Aaron can feel the alcohol mixed with the tranquilliser going to his head. Bubbles gets up to fetch more drinks.

Ten o’clock. Quarter past ten. Half-past. It’s getting hot and boisterous inside the Red Dolphin. People stand up to bear witness, with increasingly intense, fiery confessions – almost like a Pentacostal prayer meeting, Aaron thinks. Dee’s outstanding character, the influence he had on everyone’s lives. Before long, Aaron expects, people will start talking in tongues. The witnessing is getting ever more uproarious as the evening wears on. Old Dee this and old Dee that. How grateful aren’t they all to God for the terribly special years during which He vouchsafed them the pleasure of Dee, says the last speaker, swaying ever so slightly on his feet.

After a while, the parking guard suddenly turns around again and says to Aaron: No, wait, I remember now, it’s not Aitkins disease. It’s something else. Something with an A. Adolph’s, maybe? She’s not so sure any more. They steal one more glance at the prostrate figure on the couch. Adcock’s? Bubbles asks. Ja! Ja! Adcock’s. No, wait, maybe not, she’s not so sure any more. Something with a B, perhaps, suggests Aaron. You know, now that you mention it, ja, maybe – Bond’s, maybe? Bond’s disease. It sounds right. Beard’s disease, suggests Bubbles. She’s heard of Beard’s disease. It starts with the feet. Bland’s! says Violet. Bland’s disease also starts at the feet, she remembers, now. Brick’s! says the parking guard. Bound’s, Brick’s, no, gôts, says Bubbles, how can it be Brick’s disease, there’s no such thing! Go ask the woman herself what’s the matter with her husband, she says. The poor widow, says Violet. Are you off your rocker, says Bubbles. The man’s still alive. How about something with a C, says Violet, she’s heard of Crow’s Disease; an uncle of hers died of it. Did he blow up like this, Bubbles asks. She can’t remember now, Violet replies. He was actually quite thin, she thinks. Then you’re telling us a fib, says Bubbles. Crow’s Disease! Says the parking guard. My God, how could I have forgotten! Crow’s bladdy foot man, says Bubbles. Crown’s Disease is more likely. What about Carr’s Disease, says Aaron. That also rings a bell, ’strue’s God, says the parking woman. I’m so confused now I don’t know whether I’m Arthur or Martha.
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From Chapter 21

Sometimes Stefaans remains quiet for a few days on end, but then a fusillade of SMSs will come flying in, one after another. Bernjamin’s season in hell didn’t leave him untouched, says Stefaans. He’s increasingly beginning to realise that he’s not nearly as bulletproof as he used to think he was. When it comes to family, an injury to one is an injury to all.

He’s at a loose end in a way that’s rare for him. But this is how we break through, he says. The Blavatsky gang plotted to cast Mr K [Krishnamurti] in a drama of the second coming, but Mr K anticipated their plotting with a fine sense of intuition. When the clouds start massing overhead, says Stefaans, he tries to stay solid, in sync. He’s given his heart to a woman – a woman whose ancestors’ bones lie in dungeons under the city. Is your heart pure, stranger? He describes her as shy but open-minded. No oracle would be able to bear witness against her. Just to be in a state of love, he says, is already a kind of recovery.

Simply walking down the street she lives in makes his legs go gooey. He consulted the I-Ching. Answer: modesty in movement. Walked high up the mountain, all along Kloof Road, he lets Aaron understand. Managed it well. The woman is a tall sherpa. It’s raining, and he must find consolation in the ultra-sober Tao. She’s a lot less extroverted than Tabitha, he says. And his chances with her are not good. But that’s OK. She checks him out warily, as if he’s a wolverine or something. Any further resemblance with Tabitha is coincidental, but whence the recognisable symmetry? Is the woman afraid of him for the same reasons Tabitha was scared of him, then? She’s a sherpa, says Stefaans – her face shows signs of exposure to extreme emotional and psychic climates. There are tiny scars under her beautiful brown skin.

He drifts through the streets of her habitat, he says, a sufi in disguise, all sunburnt. A monk who accepts alms. Dissolving the self. No remorse. In bereavement he gives preponderance to grief. He used to be like a man with a tiger lurking just outside his gate. Not only could he not relax, he also couldn’t relate. Then he met the sherpa. Mr K is not as good as he suspected, Stefaans says. He’s better. When the learner’s ready, the teacher disappears. His dug-out heart’s running away with him, he says. One day she wasn’t at the meeting. Where was she? Has she ended up in some shebeen, somewhere? Those pretty brown eyes, now all black and red. Claimed by other demands, other loyalties?

The dark night of the soul is at me again, today, selling me dummies and aggravating me, here in the Cape of internal storms, he messages. What, in this time, does white mean, or halaal, kosher? Should he dig himself in alongside a mole or a badger? Would their Oupa Jesse really have undergone the Masonic rites of initiation, he asks. He suddenly remembers the feeble-spirited Stevie with his searching, outstretched hands, who, according to their mother, once drank a bottle of glue. Is he familiar with the position taken by Gao Xingjian, he wants to know from Aaron.

His brain gets so overheated, writes Stefaans. He so badly needs to vent! Just two hours ago, he tells Aaron the next day, he realised why the angel had wrestled with Jacob at the brook. It had something to do with Jacob’s feelings of ambivalence about the blessing. He had so much on his mind, says Stefaans. And hell, he says, he used to talk the hind leg off a donkey!

Most of the time, Aaron receives his brother’s messages without reacting to them, or without reacting at any length. Which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t take them seriously. And that he doesn’t fear for Stefaans. He sometimes feels burdened with empathy and care for his brother. But there’s just no way he can keep up with the tempo of Stefaans’s SMS fusillades. In Aaron, things come up in a different way, at a different tempo. Stefaans, not him, is the one who received the genetic gift. It’s in Stefaans that the genealogical line has been passed on – passionate talkers with too much on their minds. He has less to say, or is less able to articulate the torments and upsurges of his heart. They’re different, he and his brother. (In this regard he is perhaps closer to his sibling Benjamin.) Through the imagination, he and Stefaans reach out to the world in different ways. In addition, unlike his brother, Aaron is not burdened with the curse of total recall. His own memory is resistant, unreliable.

Just as little as he took to the weed, so little did Aaron feel that his Oupa Jesse Holstein had passed the Free Masonry on to him, as he did to Stefaans – or that his maternal grandfather had passed anything at all on to him. They’re brothers, but each of them reconstructs their own story, and the story of their parents, differently. Such divergence in the way each of them reaches out to make sense of the world. Their hearts, too – poles apart. Stefaans has a heavy heart, full to the brim (like their mother); more dense than water, and hard to steer. Aaron has a light, dry heart (more like their father); it bobs around like a cork on the surface of a dark body of water (or that’s the way it feels to him, anyway). Benjamin’s heart is a besieged city.

Aaron knows he finds comfort in ways that are different from Stefaans. He finds comfort, for example, in Masaccio’s depiction, for the first time, of shadow. In Piero, who paints the world as if it’s only just been created: still wet, as if covered with a caul. Trembling, hesitant. In depictions of heaven and hell from the Middle Ages. (And he mustn’t forget his brother Benjamin, who finds depictions of the devil and hellfire beautiful, and then feels guilty about it.)


Agtuur laai Aaron vir Bubbles en Violet op.Hy is effens benewel van die ontspanningsmiddel wat die dokter vir hom voorgeskryf het. By die Red Dolphin is daar vanaand soveel motors dat hy byna nie parkeerplek kry nie. Hy weet nie wat om hier te verwag nie. ’n Lekker kuier-event is waarskynlik ’n voorwendsel vir ’n uitgebreide suipery.

Dit is pas die tweede keer wat hy in die Red Dolphin kom en die vorige keer het hy nie veel van die dekor geregistreer nie. Links van die deuringang is die kroeg met toonbank en hoë stoeltjies. Die res van die vertrek word in beslag geneem deur ronde tafeltjies en stoele, met nog stoele teen drie mure van die vertrek. Teen die regterkantste muur is ’n langerige tafel, en soos wat die mense inkom, val hulle in die ry wat stadig hierheen beweeg.

Op die tafel is ’n groot foto van die ontslapene; sy hoed, sy pyp en ’n stapel klein A5-sagtebandoefeningboekies word ook daarop uitgestal. Die foto is wasig, effens uit fokus, oorwegend in pienk en grys tinte, met ’n onseker glimlaggie asof die oorledene nie heeltemal daarvan oortuig is dat hy die aardse las wil aflê en die hemelse sfeer wil betree nie. Op ’n staangemaakte kennisgewingbordjie is geskryf: DIE LEGENDE. In liefdevolle herinnering aan Gerhardus (Dee) van Deventer. Met ’n lang boodskap wat Aaron nie gelees kry nie want Bubbles du hom van agter in sy ribbes en fluister by sy oor: Jy het tog nie gedink hulle gaan ou Dee self hier laat lê nie, het jy, nie in hierdie hitte nie. Langs die tafel, aan die bopunt daarvan, sit ’n vrou op ’n stoel, vermoedelik die weduwee. Sy ontvang die betuigings van meegevoel van die gaste. Toe Aaron by haar kom, skud hy haar hand en mompel iets. Sy glimlag soetig op na hom en lyk vreemd bekend. Sy druk sy hand en sê sy is só bly hy het gekom. Hy beweeg aan, voortgedu deur Bubbles se nabyheid en die slingerende ry mense agter hulle.

Nou moet hulle ’n lekker sitplek kry, sê Bubbles, want die vertrek is vinnig besig om op te vul. Hulle gaan by die eerste die beste oop tafeltjie sit. Bubbles spring dadelik op om iets te kry om te drink by die kroeg, waar die mense – gaste, kliënte, roubeklaers? – reeds bankvas staan. Sy kom terug met die drankies – ’n glas brandewyn en Coke vir elkeen van hulle. “Cheers,” sê sy, en maak haar gemaklik in haar stoel tuis. “Oor alles hou die wurm wag,” sê sy, en klink glase met Aaron en Violet. Vermoedelik veral oor die verrigtinge vanaand, dink Aaron. Nog twee mense kom sit by hulle tafeltjie. Bubbles stel hulle voor en ook dié twee lyk vir Aaron bekend.

Dit is halfnege. Die aand het pas begin. Die vertrek is stampvol. Inderdaad ’n lekker kuier-event, dink Aaron, nog effens meer benewel selfs as toe hulle aangekom het nou, na sy eerste brandewyn. ’n Eerste persoon staan op om te getuig watter gawe kêrel ou Dee was. So onregverdig dat hy so gou moes gaan, dit laat ons met so ’n leë gevoel, dis so skielik en finaal, sê die man. Ou Dee kon basies ’n gesprek oor enige onderwerp hou want hy het so ’n massiewe algemene kennis gehad. Om net een keer weer in sy pragtige blou oë te kan kyk. Sy hemelsblou oë. Hy was plat op die aarde en altyd tevrede met die minste en bly om die kleinste ou dingetjie te ontvang. Hy het ’n hart van goud gehad en sou op ’n klip onder ’n boom in die maanlig onder sterre kon slaap. Hy was so ’n natuurmens. Hy het elke dag tot die volste geleef. Ou Dee was ’n pilaar van sterkte, fiks en vol energie, nie ’n lui beentjie in sy liggaam nie, hy het net gegee en gegee en gegee. (Wat het hy gegee? wonder Aaron.)

Die weduwee begin haar rondtes doen. Sy kom om die beurt by elke tafeltjie sit om ’n geselsie aan te knoop. Teen die agterste muur, net regs van die deuringang, merk Aaron nou vir die eerste keer ’n rooi chaise longue, met ’n man wat daarop uitgestrek lê, sy kop gestut deur sy elmboog. Die man is uitsonderlik obees. Regs van hom, op een van die stoele teen die muur, aan die bopunt van die sofa, sit ’n ewe oorgewig vrou.

Nie ’n goeie idee dat hy drink nie, weet Aaron voor sy siel, en veral nie in kombinasie met die kalmeerpil nie, maar hy verwelkom vanaand die afplatting van bewussyn. Negeuur. Halftien. Mense staan reëlmatig op om te getuig van ou Dee se voortreflikheid. Sy groothartigheid. Sy vrygewigheid. Sy sagte hart. Sy menige talente. Sy humorsin. Sy slag met swartes. Sy onwrikbare geloof. Aaron herken eensklaps die vrou aan hulle tafel as een van die parkeerwagte wat voor die klein sentrum diens doen, haar vel deur wind en weer verrinneweer, maar vanaand aansienlik opgedollie met haarsproei en lipstiek. Toe sy sien in watter rigting hy kyk (hy kan sy oë nie van die ongelooflike gesig op die rooi sofa afhou nie – eet jou hart uit, Lucian Freud, dink hy), sê sy die man daar oorkant, en sy beduie met haar kop, ly aan ’n verskriklike siekte. Die ander kyk nou ook in die man se rigting. Sy bring haar kop nader aan hulle en fluister: Aitkins disease. ’n Siekte van bloed. Hy het dit opgedoen toe hy by ’n gathering van lugpypblasers oorsee was. Toe hy terugkom, toe het hy dit. Lugpypblasers? vra Aaron. Ja, man, sê die vrou, ’n soort pypblaser. Haar gesig is rooi verbrand en haar vel voortydig verweer. Dis sy vrou wat langs hom sit, sê sy. Hy is baie goed vir haar. Sy teel honde. Iemand wat ek ken het ’n poedel by haar gekoop. Sy treur haar dood oor haar man so agteruitgaan. Wat kan sy doen? Niemand kan vir hom iets doen nie. Hy swel so groot soos ’n brulpadda en dan blaas hy weer af. Hulle loer al vier in die rigting van die lyer aan Aitkins disease op die fluwelige rooi bank. Wag dat hy soos ’n padda moet opswel en begin kwaak. Aaron voel die drank, in kombinasie met die kalmeerpil na sy kop begin gaan. Bubbles staan op om nog drankies te gaan haal.

Tienuur. Kwart oor tien. Halfelf. Dit is warm in die vertrek en rumoerig. Steeds staan mense op om met toenemend intense belydenis en gepaardgaande vurigheid – soos by ’n Pinksterbiduur, dink Aaron – te getuig van ou Dee se voortreflike karakter en die invloed wat hy op hulle lewens gehad het. Aaron verwag dat daar mettertyd in talespraak uitgebars sal word, want die getuienis raak toenemend driftig soos die aand vorder. Ou Dee sus en ou Dee so. Hoe dankbaar is hulle God nie vir die vreeslik spesiale jare wat hy ou Dee aan hulle geleen het nie, sê die laaste spreker, effens swaaiend op sy voete.

Die parkeerwag draai na ’n ruk ineens weer om na Aaron en sê: Nee, nou onthou ek, dit is nie Aitkins disease nie. Dis iets anders. Iets met ’n A. Adolphs dalk? Sy weet nou nie meer nie. Hulle loer weer in die rigting van die prostrate op die bank. Adcocks dalk? vra Bubbles. Ja! Ja! Adcocks, sê die vrou. Nee, dalk tog nie. Iets met ’n B dalk? stel Aaron voor. Ja, weet jy, noudat jy dit sê, sê die vrou. Bonds dalk? Bonds disease? Dit klink vir haar reg. Beards disease, sê Bubbles. Sy het al gehoor van Beards disease, wat by die voete begin. Blands! sê Violet. Blands disease begin by die voete, sy onthou nou. Bricks! sê die parkeerwag. Bounds, Bricks, nee gots man, sê Bubbles, hoe kan dit nou Bricks disease wees, daar bestaan nie so ’n siekte nie. Loop vra die vrou self wat haar man makeer, sê sy. Die arme weduwee, sê Violet. Is jy van jou kop af? sê Bubbles, die man lewe nog. Wat van iets met C, sê Violet, sy het al gehoor van Crows disease, ’n oom van haar is daaraan dood. Was hy so opgeblaas? vra Bubbles. Sy kan nie meer onthou nie, sê Violet. Sy dink eintlik hy was baie maer. Dan lieg jy mos nou, sê Bubbles. Crows disease! sê die parkeerwag. My here hoe kon ek vergeet het. Crows se voet man, sê Bubbles. Crowns disease is meer likely. Wat van Carrs disease, sê Aaron. Dit lui nou wragtie ook ’n klok, sê die parkeerwag. Nou’s ek so deurmekaar jy kan met my toor.

Die parkeerwag draai na ’n ruk ineens weer om na Aaron en sê: Nee, nou onthou ek, dit is nie Aitkins disease nie. Dis iets anders. Iets met ’n A. Adolphs dalk? Sy weet nou nie meer nie. Hulle loer weer in die rigting van die prostrate op die bank. Adcocks dalk? vra Bubbles. Ja! Ja! Adcocks, sê die vrou. Nee, dalk tog nie. Iets met ’n B dalk? stel Aaron voor. Ja, weet jy, noudat jy dit sê, sê die vrou. Bonds dalk? Bonds disease? Dit klink vir haar reg. Beards disease, sê Bubbles. Sy het al gehoor van Beards disease, wat by die voete begin. Blands! sê Violet. Blands disease begin by die voete, sy onthou nou. Bricks! sê die parkeerwag. Bounds, Bricks, nee gots man, sê Bubbles, hoe kan dit nou Bricks disease wees, daar bestaan nie so ’n siekte nie. Loop vra die vrou self wat haar man makeer, sê sy. Die arme weduwee, sê Violet. Is jy van jou kop af? sê Bubbles, die man lewe nog. Wat van iets met C, sê Violet, sy het al gehoor van Crows disease, ’n oom van haar is daaraan dood. Was hy so opgeblaas? vra Bubbles. Sy kan nie meer onthou nie, sê Violet. Sy dink eintlik hy was baie maer. Dan lieg jy mos nou, sê Bubbles. Crows disease! sê die parkeerwag. My here hoe kon ek vergeet het. Crows se voet man, sê Bubbles. Crowns disease is meer likely. Wat van Carrs disease, sê Aaron. Dit lui nou wragtie ook ’n klok, sê die parkeerwag. Nou’s ek so deurmekaar jy kan met my toor.
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Stefaans bly soms ’n paar dae stil, en dan volg daar weer ’n sarsie sms-boodskappe kort opmekaar. Benjamin se seisoen in die hel het hom nie onaangeraak gelaat nie, sê hy. Hy (Stefaans) besef al hoe meer dat hy nie so bulletproof is as wat hy altyd gedink het nie. An injury to one is an injury to all, in ’n familie.

Hy is so opgeskeep met homself soos selde vantevore, sms hy. Onvergenoegd. Maar so breek ons deur, sê hy. Die Blavatsky-bende het geplot om Krishnamurti te cast in ’n second coming-drama, maar meneer K het hulle plottings met fyn aanvoeling geantisipeer. In die tydperk van drywende wolke probeer hy ewewigtig en solied bly, sê Stefaans. Die beendere van die voorouers van die vrou aan wie hy sy hart opgehang het, is in kerkers onder die stad. Is jou hart opreg, vreemdeling? Skugter, dog onbevange, beskryf hy haar. Geen orakel kan teen haar getuig nie. Net om te bemin, sê hy, is alreeds om te herstel.

As hy in haar straat loop, word sy bene jellie. Hy het die I Ching vir ’n antwoord gevra. Antwoord: Modesty in movement. Ver bergop met Kloofnek gestap, laat hy weet. Goed gehou. Die vrou is ’n lang sjerpa. Dit reën, en hy moet in die nugtere Tao berusting vind. Sy is veel minder ekstrovert as Tabitha, sê hy. Sy kanse by haar is gering. Maar so is dit ook goed. Sy check hom skuins uit, asof hy ’n veelvraat is – ’n wolweryn. Enige verdere ooreenkoms met Tabitha is toevallig, maar vanwaar die herkenbare simmetrie? Is die vrou bang vir hom om dieselfde redes as Tabitha destyds? Sy is ’n sjerpa, sê Stefaans, want haar gesig toon tekens van blootstelling aan ’n ekstreme emosionele en psigiese klimaat. Minuskule letsels onder die mooi bruin vel.

Hy slenter deur die strate van haar habitat, sê hy, ’n vermomde sufi, sonverbruin. ’n Bedelmonnink. He dissolves his self. No remorse. In bereavement he gives preponderance to grief. Hy was soos ’n man met ’n tier buite sy hek, sê Stefaans, nie slegs kon hy nie ontspan nie, hy kon ook nie relate nie. Toe ontmoet hy die sjerpa. Meneer K is nie so goed as wat hy vermoed het nie, sê hy, hy is béter. As die leerling gereed is, verdwyn die leermeester. Sy uitgeholde hart hol met hom weg, sê hy. Sy was die dag nie by die vergadering nie. Waar is sy? Bevind sy haar in ’n smokkelhuis? Die mooi bruin oë nou swart en rooi. Teruggeclaim deur ander aansprake en lojaliteite?

Aaron ontvang sy broer se boodskappe meesal sonder om op hulle te reageer, of uitvoerig te reageer. Wat nie beteken dat hy hulle nie deeglik ter harte neem nie. Wat nie beteken dat hy sy hart nie vashou om Stefaans se onthalwe nie, en dat hy nie soms beswaard is weens sorgsaamheid en meelewing nie. Maar daar is nie ’n manier waarop hy kan byhou by die tempo waarteen Stefaans boodskappe afvuur nie. Dinge kom op ander maniere, teen ’n ander tempo by hom op. Stefaans het die genetiese gawe ontvang, nie hy nie. In Stefaans word die genealogiese lyn van hartstogtelike sprekers met veel op die hart voortgesit, nie in hóm nie. Hy het minder op die hart, of is minder in staat om die kwellings en opborrelings van die hart te artikuleer. Hulle is ánders, hy en sy broer. (In hierdie opsig is hy miskien nader aan hulle broer Benjamin.) Deur die verbeelding reik hy en Stefaans op ander maniere na die wêreld uit. Daarbenewens is hy nie belas met total recall soos sy broer nie. Sy geheue is steeks en onbetroubaar.

Ewe min as wat die kruid ooit by hom gevat het, het Aaron ooit gevoel dat sy oupa Jesse Holstein die vrymesselaarsraamwerk na hom, soos na Stefaans, deurgegee het – dat hulle oupa aan moederskant trouens énigiets na hom deurgegee het. Broers, en elkeen van hulle rekonstrueer sy eie verhaal, en die verhaal van hulle ouers, anders. So verskillend die manier waarop elkeen van hulle na die wêreld uitreik en sin maak daarvan. So verskillend ook hulle harte. Stefaans het ’n swaar hart, tot oorlopens toe vol (soos hulle moeder); digter as water, te swaar om te dryf. Aaron het ’n ligte, droë hart (meer soos hulle vader), wat soos ’n kurk op ’n donker wateroppervlak dobber (voel dit vir hom). Benjamin se hart is soos ’n beleërde stad.

Ewe min as wat die kruid ooit by hom gevat het, het Aaron ooit gevoel dat sy oupa Jesse Holstein die vrymesselaarsraamwerk na hom, soos na Stefaans, deurgegee het – dat hulle oupa aan moederskant trouens énigiets na hom deurgegee het. Broers, en elkeen van hulle rekonstrueer sy eie verhaal, en die verhaal van hulle ouers, anders. So verskillend die manier waarop elkeen van hulle na die wêreld uitreik en sin maak daarvan. So verskillend ook hulle harte. Stefaans het ’n swaar hart, tot oorlopens toe vol (soos hulle moeder); digter as water, te swaar om te dryf. Aaron het ’n ligte, droë hart (meer soos hulle vader), wat soos ’n kurk op ’n donker wateroppervlak dobber (voel dit vir hom). Benjamin se hart is soos ’n beleërde stad.

Aaron weet hy vind sy vertroosting op ander maniere as Stefaans. Vertroosting vind hy onder meer in Masaccio se uitbeelding van die eerste skaduwee, in Piero wat die wêreld skilder asof dit pás geskep is: nog nat, asof bedek met ’n geboortevlies; trillend, huiwerend. In Middeleeuse uitbeeldings van die hemel en die hel. (En hy moet dink aan sy broer Benjamin, wat alle uitbeeldings van duiwel en hellevuur so mooi vind, en dan skuldig voel daaroor.) 
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Translation by Leon de Kock

Comments

I like this says:

Cool:) I would say it exploded my brain..!

Jan Alleman says:

That’s great to hear. It’s a fantastic book, well worth taking your time over. The Open Press picked up To Hell With Cronje here in the States and did a pretty decent job getting it some traction; I hope Die Benederyk eventually makes the trip across the Atlantic too.

Leon de Kock says:

Thank you, Jan. Yes, the translation is under contract with NB Publishers, but I’m still polishing and re-polishing it. It’s not done till it’s done!

Jan Alleman says:

Nice! Has this found a publisher in English?