Part 36 (1/2)

In Voorstand she was, among other things, a facilitator. This was not a job she would ever have imagined taking, but it would have to do until she found a position as a Verteller in the Sirkus.*

A few facilitators liked to frighten the meat. Others were the soothing ones, talking in big deep voices and just being calm in the middle of all that confusion. Some achieved good results just by being good-looking Kreigtown Jimmy, Marvin Tromp, little Oloff all these guys had to do was stand there being gorgeous and work would come to them. Others, like those Vargas girls, focused on price, cutting their margins to the bone, trying to get the signature on that little bit of paper.

Once you had it signed, that meant you could relax: the meat was yours. Next: you got them into Saarlim, got them registered as pre-dated POWs with whoever was your contact in the military. You got their little pink and blue registration card. You shook their hand. You maybe introduced them to some housing, got yourself a little extra folding for the trouble. Some facilitators, allegedly allegedly, got a percentage of the rent money for the first year, but facilitators were such bullschtool. They would say anything.

There was a gate at the tunnel entrance. It must have worked, some long time ago, but it sure as h.e.l.l did not work any more. It lay on the ground, rusting into the red dust. This was the gate that my wheelchair bounced across on the night I arrived in Voorstand.

No messenger arrived before me.

When the first set of spotlights illuminated the tunnel entrance, my reception committee readied itself car doors opened, radios were turned off. Then, no one moved.

There was only Leona she alone spotlit like an actor on a stage, walking towards me, holding a clipboard. She ambled towards the runnel entrance where the earth was ground so fine and dry, like the earth in a cattle kraal. She was short, broad, rough-looking, in a battered brown leather jacket and baggy combat trousers with neck-ties knotted round the ankles to keep out the night chill.

I had just been robbed. My frippes were split. I saw her full lips, her sleepy eyes, her round coffee-coloured face, her orange-blonde hair cut close, in a fringe; I could not tell if it meant harm or safety for me.

She looked at me.

I saw her s.h.i.+ver. It ran in a ripple from her face down to her knees. 'I's OK, hunning,' she said. 'You're not the only one is frighted.'

I thought she meant that she was feared of me, but she was referring to the other facilitators who, now they had seen me clearly, were placing their clipboards back on the dash and slamming their truck doors closed. These facilitators did not want to touch anything sick. Anything just the tiniest bit viral, they would not touch it. They stayed with their windows shut, the air-kool on, their hunters' halogens s.h.i.+ning on us.

Leona, for reasons I will tell you later, had to take this job. Even when she saw our remaining 39 Guilders, she had no choice. She pushed the crumpled notes quickly down into her pockets and signed us up, all three of us.

'My name is Leona,' the facilitator said to Jacques and Wally.

I signed my big and fancy signature Tristan Smith Tristan Smith with special loops like on a bank note. When she saw my name she smiled. with special loops like on a bank note. When she saw my name she smiled.

'Welcome,' she said to me. 'My name is Leona.'

And there and then, in the middle of the desert, in a sea of white light, she began what seemed to me, with my history, like an audition piece. She declaimed to us, in a rich round voice. She had no rhyti or bhalam to accompany her. She did not sing as she might have as a Verteiler, but she chanted thus: 'What you are looking at here is a Pow-pow.

Lots of people don't like that term.

They tell you, it demeaning.

They tell you, don't insult me.

I tell you, Be pleased.

I am going to make you a Pow pow, I going to get you that little medal, the one with the pink and blue writing on it, the one with POW in big grey letters right across your face.

I tell you be happy. I am a Pow-pow.

It is the Pow-pows make this country great.

Not the Dutchies, they're history.

Not the Anglos they lost the war.

It is the Pow-wows who dance on the high wire with Bruder Skat.

Be pleased.

It is us Pow-pows who tell the story for Oncle Dog, who dive through the air with Meneer Mouse.

We are the ones who keep the Hairy Man laughing.

Not the Dutchies they're too fat.

Not the Anglos they lost the war.

Alice de Stihl, Boddy Gross-Silva, James Featherfleur.

Laser-Art, Spray-effect, Symphonic Clowns.

Pow-pow Music, Tap, Joy-dancing, Sirkus Stomp.

Pow! Pow!'

We stood in the glare of the spotlights, like cambruces, hayseeds called up into the centre ring. Leona blew the smoke off the end of the barrel of her imaginary guns, twirled them, slipped them in her holster.

'Welcome to Voorstand,' she said. 'Arts and Leisure capital of the world.'

I pulled my big white canvas hat down over my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, but my trousers were slit and my bone-thin legs were naked to the light.

Jacques put his shoulders back, and poked his sunburnt nose at the heat as if he did not give a d.a.m.n who looked at him or what they did to him.

As for Wally, I do not exaggerate when I say that the dear old turtle transformed himself. He uncurled like a paper flower in water. He lifted his face towards the light. He raised his freckled liver-spotted arm and waved waved at the unseen Voorstanders. He turned his ruined face towards me, his thirst-white mouth loose, but smiling. at the unseen Voorstanders. He turned his ruined face towards me, his thirst-white mouth loose, but smiling.

'How about us!' he said, so pleased that he made me laugh. We were broke, penniless, without a cash parole. 'Hey,' my dab said, blood running down his forehead, 'how about us!'

*The Voorstand reader will be aware of how unlikely this was, for although all Sirkuses originally had a Verteiler whose epic songs formed the narrative backbone of the Sirkus at the time Tristan Smith arrived in Saarlim only three Sirkuses still used Verteilers.

15.

This was my maman's country. This was her land, and in that sense it was my land too. It was most unfortunate that I should be forced to stand here as a pauper and an alien.

It was four a.m., but the clay-pan at the tunnel mouth was like a fairground all the facilitators' cars and trucks with their different lights: headlights, quartz halogens, fairy lights flas.h.i.+ng around their contours, the air smelling of diesel fuel, woodsmoke, ketchup, fatty food, sugar burning in the night.

The Big Dipper, my maman's stars, was overhead. There was liquor in the air, ganja stick. Life crackled around me like small-arms fire. We followed Leona as she hustled across the bare earth towards the headlights.

As we went, the facilitators called to her, 'Wear your mask, Leona.' 'Wear your mask, Leona.' They made voices of disgust. Baark. Baarf. Urrrrk. That is how you greeted me, Madam, Meneer. They made voices of disgust. Baark. Baarf. Urrrrk. That is how you greeted me, Madam, Meneer. 'Hold your breath, Leona-honey.' 'Hold your breath, Leona-honey.'

'Don't mind them,' Leona said. 'They just ignorant. Here my Blikk.'