The Restless Supermarket Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mrs Manashewitz? That’s all I needed, to get half of Lenmar Mansions talking. So I left it in the care of Gideon, the nightwatchman, and he put it in the coal room in the parking garage overnight. Now that the thing had nearly cost me my life, I had more reason than ever to barter it for some useful information at the Jumbo Liquor Market.
    *
    Lenmar Mansions was built just after the war. It’s a six-storey block, square and solid, made of bricks and mortar, as a building should be. I took a one-bedroomed flat on the top floor (the bachelors didn’t suit me, despite my marital status). The minute I set foot in the place, I felt at ease. Spacious rooms, separated by proper walls and doors, parquet throughout, black and white tiles in the kitchen and bathroom. The south-facing lounge had large windows – there was no need for burglar-proofing so high up – and a small balcony.
    In my researches, I discovered that the block had been built by the property tycoon Ronnie Lazerow, and named for his children Leonard and Marilyn. Portmanteau names of this kind have always been popular in Johannesburg. At one time, supposing the phenomenon might bear closer scrutiny, I started a list in my notebook.
    Portmanteaus, residential: Lenmar Mansions … Milrita Heights … Norbeth East … Villa Ethelinda … Alanora Maisonettes …
    But the sheer banality of the coinages exhausted my curiosity.
    *
    In the shiny glass doors of the Jumbo Liquor Market, with my black polythene rubbish bag over my shoulder, I appeared to myself for an instant as a sinister Santa Claus bearing gifts for the black Christmas everyone was threatening to visit upon us if they didn’t get their own way at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, and this perception sent a malicious rush of sangfroid to my head. I deposited the bag on the cash desk. The cashier was the same young woman who had called out to Mr Ferreira, the manager, as the ritual ravishing of Jumbo/Dumbo reached its climax. I expected to be recognized – after all, I had played a prominent if unassuming part in that sordid drama – but the girl was clearly none too observant. Mrs Da Silva, as the badge on her lapel denoted her, seemed improbably young to be married, if you asked me, and inelegantly hirsute in the oxter.
    ‘Ken I yelp yew, Sir?’
    (I hope I’ve captured the accent. A phonetic transliteration – – would be better by far, but not everyone knows the language.)
    ‘You may summon Mr Ferreira for me.’ I glanced meaningfully at the elephant with its one ear cocked. ‘You may say it is in connection with the corporate image.’ If needs be, I can bandy the jargon about as well as the next man.
    ‘Sorry, Sir, bud Meesta Ferreira yeece howt.’
    Oh. ‘Da Silva has absolutely nothing to do with the metallic element,’ I said, conversationally, ‘whose symbol in the periodic table is Ag, from the Latin argentum ;whose properties are lustrous, malleable, ductile. What else? Precious. Well, that first and foremost.’
    ‘Doughling, I yaven’t god oll dye. Yew god empties in da beg?’
    I unbagged the ear, liberating a gust of the anti-canine scent with which the plastic was impregnated. She still didn’t seem to recognize me, but she was delighted to see the ear. She patted it with the convex ends of her manicured left hand. The nails on the other hand, I noticed, the one she used to punch the keys of the till, were half as long. In all likelihood the musculature on that arm would be more developed too.
    ‘Where dod yew fine deece yeah?’ she demanded.
    I explained.
    She spoke so fervently into the microphone sticking out of the till that it trembled like an antenna. ‘Joaquim! Joaquim! Pleece comb tew da frount!’
    Da Silva. As in sylvan. Forests and so on. Boscage. Woods. Five o’clock shadow on the upper lip, and not even teatime. Lipstick: cherry tomato.
    Joaquim appeared from behind a ziggurat of boxed wine. Beaujolais in boxes. Whatever next. Whisky in tins?