Cuttings from the writer’stestament, April 1994 | The

typewriter | Jacob creates anillusion | Saturday, 31 October 1998

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Cuttings from the writer’s testament, April 1994

This piece should evolve like a living organism; it shouldalmost have a life of its own – I just need to feed it with ideasand the necessary vocabulary. It should be like life: Sometimesit must have order, and sometimes it must be like a ravinganimal trapped inside a cage.

There won’t be much of a story or even structure, exceptfor a beginning and a point where everything starts to fizzleout, and something in between, and a place at the end in adusty bookcase.

I will stay close to this piece for an indefinite period oftime. It is something to which I can be connected – a livingorganism that depends on me to develop and to grow.

* * * * * * * * * * *

To tell the truth, I don’t really like people. I just feel sorry forthem very easily.

The reason why I do not like people is simple: you alwayshave to be more or less the way they think you are. If, forexample, someone knocks on my door right now (which rarelyhappens), I’d have to open the door. But before I do that Imust first open the curtains to allow some sunlight in, open thewindows for fresh air, turn the volume down on my music andexplain why the room is so full of cigarette smoke. Because Idon’t want to offend people, or be rude to them, I do all thesethings.

* * * * * * * * * * *

What is the purpose of this so-called testament I am writing?I am attempting to reduce my reality to a level where it can

more easily be controlled. The fact is this paper cannot let medown. The paper is mute. The paper cannot judge. The paperdoes not think anything I say is stupid or absurd. The paperdoes not know of conventions I must observe, or of

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conventions I ignore. The paper does not expect certainbehaviour or remarks from me that will necessarily elicit apositive response.

The paper is my friend. Words and ideas form in my mind,and by the time I am finished moving my hand back and forthacross the paper – like a magician waving his wand, the ideasand words that had only moments before been mere electricalcurrent in my brain, had become symbols I can look at onpaper. Then it is no longer a one-directional monologue. Thepaper reacts with recognizable symbols that correspond to thethoughts I had just conjured up! And I can hold the paperwithout it expecting more from me! I can hold the paper, andit does not try to figure out in terms of complex relationshipconventions whether or not it was acceptable behaviour. Thepaper is a true friend.

* * * * * * * * * * *

“My room is part of me,” I explained to Maria one afternoon.We were having chicken and mayonnaise rolls at our usualplace. “You see,” I continued, “my room is more than mereliving space. It’s an extension of my personality.”

I currently live in a building that once served as livingquarters for Catholic nuns. Shortly after the building wasabandoned by the church, it became a refuge for junkies, dopeheads and all sorts of creative types. According to legend, thewriter/musician André Letoit once stayed here for a fewmonths.

I share my room with about a thousand ants, and at leasttwo spiders. I listen to Juluka (loud enough for the neighboursto enjoy it as well) while I type along on an old typewriter Ipicked up in the building’s oil-stained and dusty kitchen. Theprobability is always high that I am drinking coffee at anyspecific moment. And morning, noon and night a small pot ofImpala mealie pap is simmering on my little hotplate – fillingthe air with the aroma of breakfast, lunch or dinner, and fairlyhappy childhood memories.

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My first proper literary efforts on the typewriter – notcounting one or two suicide notes earlier – providedextraordinary discoveries. One example is that I should drawmargins on the typing paper. Another discovery has to do withsections and chapters. The reader usually decides to read to theend of a particular section or chapter, and then do somethingelse, which tends to happen when the text starts failing in oneof its primary purposes – to entertain the reader.

The problem, as I must already have mentioned, is that thisis not a short story or a novel. Does a testament havesubdivisions?

A better question: am I wasting my time? Should Iimmediately bring on a shocking turn of events or a major plotchange? Is it already time for a mentally unstable character likethe False Prophet? Has this already become a piece of fiction?!

Has the inspiration for my noble effort already started tofade?

Who undermines me but the enemies of the sincereeffort?! Who lays stones in my path but the devious agents ofthe State of Short Story Writers and Novelists?! I will disturbtheir order! Their ideas are dated! Their ideas are obsolete! Theworld consists not only of short stories and novels! What aboutofficial documents? What about the Xerox printed researchpapers of an obscure scholar? What about cookbooks andhymnals and dictionaries? What about last wills andtestaments? What about the words of the living who are yet todie? Is there no mercy for a testament with an identity crisis?

Okay then, in its current form, this piece is still a testament– a sincere effort to leave behind something of value; needlessto add, without any profit motive.

(Am I writing a novel under the guise of writing a last will andtestament? The possibility alone gives me the chills! Atestament is an honest attempt at immortality; to leavesomething to others so that they can take what used to be partof your life and carry it onwards in their own lives. Since Idon’t have many material possessions to pass on to my close

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friends and relatives, I leave something less tangible, yet mostprecious to me. But a novel?!)

Next Chapter

“What to write at the beginning of the next chapter?” Thewriter stares at the paper in front of him. He frowns. “Am Ideveloping an obsession about this piece?” The testamentdoesn’t respond immediately. “I only sleep three, four hours anight because I dream of you. Why don’t you talk to me?”

“Last wills and testaments don’t speak,” the paper answers."That’s a shameful lie!” the writer exclaims excitedly.

“What do you think a testament does with friends andimmediate family after the funeral?”

“The testament expresses the last will of the deceased,” thepaper starts explaining. “The testament is just a medium. It’s atranscript read by someone else – the speaker – so that thewords of the person whose last will and testament it is can beheard.” A few moments of silence follow. “Why do I get theidea you’re feeling something you can’t quite articulate?” thepaper asks.

“Paul and Agatha aren’t speaking to me.”“Why? What did you do?”“Well, Paul has been crashing in my room for the last few

weeks, and now Agatha has also started sleeping over.”“And?”“I was writing … until about four o’ clock this morning.”“So what?”“I bought a new light bulb. It’s bright orange. It was on the

whole time. They were tossing around all night mumblingstuff.” The writer turns away, stares at something outside thewindow.

“Aren’t they church people?” the testament dares anopinion. “Are they not supposed to tolerate your selfishbehaviour?”

“That’s unfair,” the writer retorts. He stares at the paperlike a mother would stare at a child. “Christians have as much a

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right to a decent night’s rest as followers of any other religion,you know? Plus … no one appreciates a friend that shines abright light in their eyes all night! Not that I would do …”

“Your problem is you can’t create characters,” thetestament interrupts.

“What does that have to do with it?” the writer snaps back.“You want to write something to feel better, but because

you can’t create characters, you sit here and talk all sorts ofnonsense with me.” The paper pauses for a second. Then itcontinues. “Stop abusing me and start creating propercharacters for yourself. I am not your friend. I’m just a mutewitness.”

What are friends other than strangers you just happened tomeet, and whose compassion for you is just a normal reactionthat you develop the longer you know a person? If it weren’tyou, it would have been someone else. And is anyonegenuinely interested in someone else’s introspections?

Now that I think of it, Paul and Agatha are rude when theystay over at my place. They never listen to the lyrics of the PinkFloyd songs I play for them. Maybe I should turn the music upso loud that they can’t hear each other. Another thing, whenPaul tickles Agatha she says she would do anything if he wouldonly stop. Then she suddenly remembers how much she’salready doing for him. She says I’m a bad influence …especially on Paul. She mentioned it again right after huggingme on the street the other day. We laughed about it because,you see, it was just a joke.

I figured out Gertrude’s plan. She wants men to wait for her.Her favourite thing is to know a man is patiently standing atthe end of a hallway, and then she comes around the corner, orshe steps out of her room; slowly, seductively she would movecloser, with her hips moving from side to side as if she’sdancing. She relishes the relief on the face of the waiting manwhen he sees she’s approaching. The relief – and the joy to seeher again.

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Now, I wait no more. Three times the sun has risen since Iwalked into the night.

firing squad: there, he stood / brave, resolute / until the bulletshit.

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The typewriter

How to write a story.The writer sits back, takes a sip of his coffee. “I’m

definitely ready,” he says out loud. “I don’t think I’ve ever feltso ready.” He stands up, walks over to the radio, and puts acassette in. Inxs. Welcome to wherever you are.

This morning on the way to the Pick & Pay he decided thathe simply had to try harder to write some fiction. He recentlysalvaged a typewriter from the basement of the boarding housewhere he rents a room, so, shortly after getting home from thesupermarket, he put a sheet of paper in the typewriter andtyped out the first paragraphs of a story. After the thirdparagraph, he stopped typing. Annoyed, he covered thetypewriter and paper with a stained rag.

The writer waits until the first exotic notes of Inxs’“Questions” start flowing from the speakers. Then he walksback to the table and takes another sip of his coffee. “Ergh …this stuff isn’t what it used to be,” he mutters. He walks to thecorner with all his kitchen stuff and empties the mug into thesink.

For a moment, he stares at his reflection in the A4-sizemirror fixed to the cabinet above the sink. He sees the mess onhis head bordering between punk and disaster, and the firstgrowth of a beard and a moustache on his pink cheeks, hischin and his upper lip. He also notices the cracks in the mirror,the green stains, and a chip or two.

“A story … now!” he barks at himself, and hits the wallwith the palm of his hand. Then he walks back to the table andmoves in again behind the typewriter. He throws the rag to theside then positions his fingers a centimetre above the keys,ready for any inkling of inspiration that might strike.

He thinks back of the very first story he wrote – in primaryschool, grade three or four. The story – actually a play of sorts– was typed on four sheets of yellow paper, and it was about aman who wanted to steal a chicken. The birds kicked up a fuss,

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and when the thief heard the farmer approaching with hisdogs, he decided to hide somewhere in the coop.

He remembers he came up with the story in the shower.“Maybe I should take more showers,” he ponders aloud

and smiles. He nevertheless smells half-heartedly in the vicinityof his armpit. Then, as if he is suddenly afflicted with a spasmin his fingers, he begins typing.

Ten minutes later he looks in the direction of the alarmclock. His lower lip pulls playfully over his upper lip. He standsup again, scratches around between his cassettes, and finallypulls his only blues tape from the box. He stops Inxs in themiddle of “Not Enough Time,” takes the cassette out andinserts B. B. King. Then he sits down again. Elbow on thetable, forehead resting against his thumb and forefinger, hestarts reading the freshly typed words. Midway through thefirst paragraph his head nods. He slides his forehead onto hispalm, moves a little to the side, and closes his eyelids.

B. B. King finishes the last notes of “The Thrill Is Gone,”starts with “Paying The Cost To Be The Boss” after a briefinterlude. The writer’s breathing gets heavier, as if he is sighing.Then, slowly, the keys start moving, one after the other,rhythmically.

His number one fear became a reality yesterday. Frank sits alone at one ofthe wooden tables and takes slow, unenthusiastic sips of his black coffee.He’s a milk-and-three-teaspoons-of-sugar guy, but this morning he decidedhis mind should be reflected in everything he does.

“That’s just how I am,” he thinks. “I communicate my feelings in… different ways. If some people just want to see it for what it is. If onlyshe could see how I feel about her!”

Since he first noticed her three months ago at the bookstore, Frankknew he had to talk to her; he simply had to tell her what a vision she is,how no writer could ever, in one lifetime, conjure up a character that comeseven close to looking the way she does. And her scent! How can anywoman smell like that and not be surrounded by men the moment sheappears in public?! And her smile … the way she greets a man when he

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enters the store … the way she walks straight to the right shelf after youhad asked her for a book about Mongolia, or the Middle Ages, or anyother topic you could think of that sounds vaguely intriguing, that couldperhaps make you appear more attractive to her. If he only knew how totell her how he feels …

Meanwhile, the writer dreams, his forehead still resting in hispalm. He dreams of a monument: a large stone statue of an oldtypewriter, somewhere on a square in a small town in southernEurope, or South America. He dreams that all the pedestriansrespectfully nod their heads as they walk past. He dreams thateven the pigeons swoop down gently on the typewriter’scorners before fluttering off moments later to poop on anotherstatue – most likely that of some mythological leader on ahorse.

Shuffling around the typewriter are a half dozen men andtwo or three women. In his dream, the writer recognizes thesepeople as fellow writers: all of them are wearing old, well-wornjeans with old T-shirts or second-hand sweaters or jackets.Those with caps remove them from their heads and hold themwith both hands close to their chests. Words – that the writercannot make out – are muttered in the direction of the statue.Every now and then someone sits down after the muttering,pulls out a damp notebook from a jacket or trouser pocket,retrieves a pencil from a sock or behind an ear, and after a lastglance in the direction of the Great Typewriter, franticallystarts making notes.

A car horn in the street immediately followed by a heatedexchange startles the writer. For a moment, he could swear hehears someone typing. He slowly pushes the chair away fromthe table, leans back, and then stands up. “Coffee,” heannounces, as if someone asked him a question. He turns thekettle on and rinses his mug in the sink. After drying it with aclean rag, he drops a heaped teaspoon of light brown powderinto the mug. Then he looks around for the sugar jar.

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“Oh … come on,” he wants to swear in the direction ofthe jar after seeing it on the edge of the sink, half full of water.He turns off the kettle.

“I hate bitter coffee,” he thinks as he positions himselfbehind the typewriter. He reads his story again from thebeginning. When he comes to the part where the guy is sittingat the table drinking black coffee, he stops. He pulls his headback slightly.

“Frank?” he tries to refresh his memory. “What woman …when … when did I type this?” he stutters, and strokes warilyover the keys. He tries to remember how it felt to type thewords. A headache starts to take shape along his forehead.

“I have to go look for food,” he voices a realization.“Maybe the hunger is doing things with my mind.” He climbsinto the pants he left on the floor, takes the T-shirt of thechair’s backrest, and pulls it over his head.

Only when the writer shuts the door behind him, thetyping resumes.

It was the Monday right after Easter when he saw them in thesupermarket …

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Jacob creates an illusion

I will now attempt to write a story to improve my mood …

Jacob has now been at his sister’s apartment in Pretoria forthree weeks, waiting for something to happen so that he can go– away, to a foreign land. (His sister is the financial manager ata local construction company. She lives in a studio apartment –one bedroom, living room, kitchen – in Arcadia, aneighbourhood of apartment complexes near the businessdistrict. As the oldest, she’s learned to be patient with her twoyounger siblings, especially since they don’t seem to have a clueabout what to do with their adult lives. It’s the second time inthree months she’s had to offer her spare mattress, beddingand space on her living room floor to one of them.)

Standing back from the whole situation, Jacob can see itfor what it is: him waiting for something bigger in life,something that may just provide him, too, with a place in thesun. He also knows the current situation is simply the nextchapter in his story, a continuation of a phase in his life thatbegan the day he wrote his last paper at university. The timehad come for him to decide what direction his life will take,since his varsity girlfriend, Jane, convinced him to postpone hisideal of becoming a hermit – to let his hair and beard grow,and to only now and then open the curtains to see what seasonit is. (Of course, even hermits need an income these days.)

A few months before graduation he had decided to shiftthe inevitable lifelong struggle for money, house and childreninto the background – until further consideration. He wouldfirst go travelling for a few months. He knew that would notnecessarily give him a place in the sun, but as he explained tosomeone over a beer one evening, the landscape of a foreigncountry would hopefully give him a shot of courage formainstream life and perhaps some inspiration.

So, he would go to Europe, work a few monthssomewhere, travel to a few countries, and then on a brightspring afternoon return to surprise his younger sister in

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Stellenbosch. He would await her at Bakoven on her way backfrom school. Then he would spend the afternoon telling her ofall the things he had seen, and all the fascinating people he hadmet. She would listen like one whose world would widen withevery word, right in front of her eyes.

He would come back with shoulder-length hair and abeard, and people wouldn’t even recognize him. He would be apilgrim who had suddenly returned home.

Five weeks after he had left for Europe – not long enough tomake much of a difference to the hair or the beard, he wasback. To the few people who asked, somewhat bewildered,“Already?” he replied with the same illusion with which hetried to overcome his own disappointment: He only returnedto “get his things in order.” He was planning to leave again“within the next month or three.”

Months of hardship and increasingly fading hope followed.When people asked him why he was still in Stellenbosch,

he replied with another half-truth: He had decided to help hissister through her final high school year since their parentswere by now living in a different part of the country.

By Christmas, he was broke. His sister had already left forKwaZulu-Natal. He stayed behind in the municipal flat withmonths of unpaid electricity bills, and rent that was steadilyheading in the same direction. To stay alive, he sold thefurniture, until he was left with only and a few blankets andpillows, and a borrowed black-and-white TV set. The power –as he had expected – was cut off early in January. He spent theevenings in darkness on his bedding on the otherwise emptyliving room floor.

“My life has started to stagnate,” he thought to himselfmore than one night. That he had to come up with a plan toget out of the mess he was in, was clearly not in doubt.

A month after Christmas he packed up his personalbelongings, stored a few boxes with a friend, and offered forsale in the local newspaper his 1967 Wolseley that had been

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accumulating leaves and bird droppings for almost a year. Afew days after he had sold the car, he took the train north. Thisyear would be different, he told himself. He was ready; indeed,he was hungry for new things.

Not long after arriving in Pongola, in Kwazulu-Natal, hegot a call from a South African teacher living and working inSeoul, South Korea. He immediately recalled the day inDecember when he saw the advertisement for English teachersin the Cape Times (“Teach in Korea,” the headline said, with aname and a number). He also remembered how enthusiasticallyhe rushed back to the apartment to respond to the ad. Theperson asked him if he were still interested. “It will take aboutfive weeks to finalize all the arrangements,” the voicepromised. Jacob was assured he was first on the list of newteachers.

His place in the sun, the answer to all his problems, hadfinally arrived!

Five weeks are now fast becoming three months. In themeantime, he waits, mostly on the couch in his sister’sapartment. He sleeps on the living room floor, smokes thecheapest cigarettes on the market, drinks coffee and eatssandwiches. He reads about fashion and relationships in hissister’s magazines, tries to follow what’s happening in theworld on a TV that shows more lines and dots than anythingelse, and walks to the OK Bazaars every morning – forexercise, but also because sometimes it’s better to go anywherethan to go nowhere.

Jacob has come a long way since graduating fromuniversity. Perhaps, he believes, it would do him good to gofor a walk through the familiar landscape of the town of hisbirth …

Okay, so it’s not a masterpiece … and it’s not entirely fictitious. Maybe Ishould go and have coffee somewhere to create the illusion that I am notspending the entire day in my sister’s living room.

(Thursday, 18 April 1996)

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Saturday, 31 October 1998

One moment I was still happily slamming my two middlefingers down on the keyboard, and the next moment a dialogbox appears out of the blue with some warning about an error!Then in my panic, I pressed the wrong button, and there goesthe text! And then I dropped my cigarette in a fresh cup ofcoffee …

The now missing text came down more or less to thefollowing: It’s claustrophobic in Johannesburg at the moment,to say the least. But just when I thought this was reality for thenext 38 years minus a few months, I heard from a pal inTaiwan who says he’s living a good life on that piece of landbetween China and Japan. He says if I can make my way overthere and stay a month or so he may be able to arrange a jobfor me. He even offered to lend me a few thousand for a planeticket. Johannesburg is actually quite an okay place. Myproblem is I don’t have wheels, and you can only walk so farand still look decent when you arrive at wherever you wereheading.

I wish I could pay my older sister in London a visit. We’llhave loads of fun. I can sleep on her living room floor like theold days, and she can drag me along to her office in theevenings. We’ll pick up Kentucky chicken on the way, and I’llwrite her poetry, which she can store in her trash can. And ifher smokes run out, I can roll her one of mine. I smoke Foxtobacco these days – it’s cheaper, and it makes me feel a lotstronger than usual. I do cough like a sick baboon after thefirst few drags, but what can you do if you can’t afford a packof smokes like an ordinary man?

Now that we’re on this subject, I wonder how it’s goingwith that half-English Republican of a boyfriend of hers. Hewas going to meet up with me at some time, but he’s clearlycome to the conclusion that it’s not the brilliant idea he oncethought it was. He must have realized if he blurts out somenonsensical conservative drivel, I might just accidentally slaphis jaw clean off. Then I’ll have no other choice than to catch

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the midnight flight to England that very day! Then we canthrow some meat on the barbecue in my sister’s backyard,drink beer and sling witty comments to and fro in a fakeaccent.

An extremely disturbing piece of news reached me recentlyabout the very sister in London: Someone, believe it or not,had the nerve to step on her toe! When I’m done looseningthat other guy’s jaw, I should do a little detective work. ThisFox makes me feel strong enough to crush anyone’s face.Imagine that! I wonder if my sister told him who she is. And ifthat did not impress him, she could always have told him whoI was! That would have made him run! He would have beenscreaming and yelling all the way down the street … but thenhe would have exaggerated the story again and then Interpolwould have been on my case and all that. So maybe it wasbetter that she said nothing.

Anyway, I must be off to the library. I’m currently workingon a book about the history of the universe. And on the sideI’m also working on a biography of the sun queen. One tinyproblem is that the local library only holds children’s books, soI’m left with little alternative other than to improvise everynow and then. Once I’m done with these little projects, I’llstart work on a book about the true queen of London –naturally she is none other than my own older sibling. She justneeds to keep her royal status to herself, for heaven’s sake!Next thing I know MI5 or 6 are also on my trail. I’m fairlycertain I already saw the CIA standing right here on the cornerjust the other day. Maybe her “friend” informed them of myliberal tendencies, and perhaps also because he started feelinganxious about me playing piano on his lower jaw.

This reminds me of my other project, but this is highlysensitive information: I plan to re-establish the KGB. I thoughtmaybe I can initially run it from my little garden cottage, andthen after about a month or so move into an office in Sandton.Maybe I can even hire an Eastern European hitman torearrange the guy’s fingers who stepped on my sister’s toe. But

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all these plans are highly confidential. It’s all still in aconceptual phase.

Now that I think about it, when did my sister say is her teaappointment with Elizabeth Two? She just has to refrain fromtelling the old lady that we plan to make her, my sister, theabsolute monarch of London. She must be very nonchalant,and when the queen asks her about it, she should just say shehasn’t heard from me in quite a while. She can tell her, lastwhen she got word from this side, I was apparently in atraining camp in Libya, or something like that. As long as sheassures her it’s nothing serious. We’re not plotting to deposeher or anything sinister like that. There is one thing, of course,that can ruin the whole story: My sister tends to raise onecorner of her upper lip ever so slightly when she tells aharmless lie. The queen and any other more or less intelligentperson in the room will immediately be suspicious! They mayjust lock her up in the Tower and then my Eastern Europeanfriends and I have to destroy the entire city of London just tosave her. Low profile is what I’ve always said, low profile.

About two weeks ago, I appeared as a member of the audienceon Felicia Mabuza-Suttle’s talk show. I was going to crash theproceedings and launch a new political party, but then anattractive young woman appeared out of nowhere and totallydistracted me, so I just sat there in the stands and perspired likea dog for two hours under the bright lights. But everyone localand foreign apparently noticed me and said I definitely have afuture in the public light. This sudden display of public interestin me does reek of a CIA conspiracy, though. They probablyhope to build up my confidence at first, and then to use theirrunning puppets in the media to point out how much Isweated on the show, meaning to make a laughing stock out ofme in the eyes of the masses. In theory, I should thendisappear into the oblivion. Fortunately I know the EasternEuropean guy who wrote the manual for psychologicalwarfare. I gave him a call a few days after my appearance, andhe explained that he deliberately worked strategic mistakes into

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the whole thing to protect promising characters like myselffrom the US government.

That reminds me, I must urgently instruct my sister to takea look at her toe to see if that guy planted a microchip when hestepped on it. It’s possible that they know everything we sodiscreetly discuss on the phone! Just last night I trampled acockroach to death that seemed highly suspicious – even for anAuckland Park roach it had unusually long antennas.

Oh yes, one woman who works in my office mentionedthe other day that her uncle works at the same outfit as mysister in London. But, she informed me from some supposedsuperior vantage point, he’s very high up. When I asked her theguy’s name she told me, but I have forgotten it now. She alsosaid his handwriting is uncommonly pretty, and his childrendress very nicely. Then I told her my sister happens to be veryhigh up as well, and she also writes beautifully, and althoughshe has no children yet, her children will certainly dress morefashionably than my colleague’s cousins one day. I was aboutto share with her my sister’s impending royal crowning, but Ibit my tongue. You just don’t know who to trust these days.

Anyway, the sun’s hanging low, and I have to go work on myprojects.

One last thing: I have to make some inquiries about howone can manipulate computer text so that it looks like it wastyped in Libya. The last thing I want at this late stage is thatanyone should suspect something sinister brewing in my neckof the woods.

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ASSORTEDNOTES.COM

Thirteen minutes: notes, half-truths and afew incidents

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