Illumination: A Novel

By Nthikeng Mohlele

Bantubonke is an accomplished and revered jazz trumpeter, composer and band leader in decline – an absent present and inadequate spouse. He lives for art at the expense of all else, an imbalance that derails his life and propels him to the brink of madness and despair. A story of direct and implied betrayals, Illumination is an unrelenting study of possession and loss, of the beauty and uncertainty of love, of the dangers and intrusions of fame.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Picador Africa
• Release date: Feb 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781770106260

Nthikeng Mohlele

Nthikeng Mohlele was partly raised in Limpopo and Tembisa Township, and attended the University of the Witwatertsrand, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Art, Publishing Studies and African Literature. He is the author of five critically acclaimed novels: The Scent of Bliss (2008), Small Things (2013), Rusty Bell (2014), Pleasure (2016) and Michael K (2018). Pleasure won the 2016 University of Johannesburg Main Prize for South African Writing in English as well as the 2017 K. Sello Duiker Memorial Prize at the South African Literary Awards. Illumination is Mohlele’s sixth novel.

Book preview

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First published in 2019 by Picador Africa

an imprint of Pan Macmillan South Africa

Private Bag X19, Northlands

Johannesburg, 2116

www.panmacmillan.co.za

ISBN 978-1-77010-625-3

e-ISBN 978-1-77010-6260-0

© 2019 Nthikeng Mohlele

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Editing by Sean Fraser

Proofreading by Kelly Norwood-Young

Design and typesetting by Triple M Design

Cover design by K4

Cover image by Ken Hurst (Shutterstock: ‘Two musicians’)

Author photograph by Oupa Nkosi

Also by Nthikeng Mohlele

Michael K (2018)

‘A work of reflective intensity, re-imagining a memorable character from J.M. Coetzee’s world of stark and sparse prose and transplanting him in Mohlele’s ornate and lyrical one.’ – ZAKES MDA

‘Nthikeng has given Michael K volume, humanity and a roundness we don’t get in Life and Times of Michael K. The musicality and poetry behind Mohlele’s latest offering show his uncanny ability to be both aesthetically beautiful in his writing but without being self-indulgent – a characteristic that has allowed him to take an interesting and iconic character and turn him into a well-rounded person.’ – EUSEBIUS MCKAISER

Pleasure (2016)

Winner of the 2016 University of Johannesburg Main Prize for South African Writing in English and of the 2017 South African Literary Awards K. Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award

‘Loaded with vivid but delicate passages and complex situations, Mohlele’s latest novel is an ambitious exploration of pleasure beyond its superficial interpretations.’ – KWANELE SOSIBO, Mail & Guardian

Rusty Bell (2014)

‘Rusty Bell is an intricate exploration of love, fate, lust, death and grief … illustrating that the light is not the place for answers, because sometimes they are visible only from the shadows.’ – LLOYD GEDYE, The Con

Small Things (2013)

‘Behind this story of love, music and the eternal quest lies an artistic sensibility as generous as it is complex. The prose is rich in texture, the final effect melancholy and comic in equal proportions.’ – J.M. COETZEE

The Scent of Bliss (2008)

‘An outstanding poetic piece of work … Mohlele’s voice is novel and

shows a concern … for beautiful language for its own sake.’

– PERCY ZVOMUYA, Mail & Guardian

For Sharon Mohlele:

beloved wife and dearest friend

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

Acknowledgements

ONE

Life is not as remarkable a thing as most people have concluded and believe. There are other things – there must be, countless things – that dictate liaisons between those struck by love or lust and everything else in between. Or maybe it is a combination of things (ice cream, rose gardens, supernovas, love bites?) in varying degrees that define the nature of entire lives. It is not a scientific problem, nor one of arithmetic, but an existential puzzle ripe for philosophical nibbling. But what philosophical inquiry would be worthy or complete without that modest but life-altering force: art? Most souls cannot tell the difference between the many things that make life life. I am impatient with such people. I understand them, of course; and I can go as far as to say a certain level of empathy is never far from me when listening to such people gloat about their pitiful escapades. When will they learn that desire is an infinite thing? That there will always be others with more arresting aesthetics: an impressively angled jawline, enviable legs, eyes that render one speechless, a seductive voice, beautiful toes. It is madness to try to gulp it all in, to possess it. Besides, people are inscrutable creatures – you never really know what inner beauties or horrors they hide; which, among multitudes or chosen ones, are panty sniffers and fornicators; which are spiritual lights.

I have no memory of inane pontifications over ice cream or rose bushes; my entire childhood, my whole being, was marked by an intoxicating allegiance not to eroticism or ice cream but to sound, to music. I reached carnal shores only much later – not by accident but by design, amid storms of musical tutelage; sudden and unexpected artistic enlightenment. I remember as a child, a teenager, even moments in my adult life, being fascinated by musicians on television music shows: how they closed their eyes and nodded and tapped their feet to rhythm, how they smiled knowingly at each other, contorted their faces in pained suffering that was at once intense and beautiful. My being continues to be drawn to sound to this very day: to marching bands, choristers rehearsing at a church nearby, a cherished old tune that suddenly blurts out of the car stereo in Johannesburg traffic.

There is, of course, another way of saying this without the protracted sermon: I was born into a musical family, musicians to whom I was bonded either by blood or by a musical brotherhood. I have been dazzled by lyrics that make hearts flutter, by piano solos that seem to hang in the air deep into the night, long after the performances were concluded. I repeat: I am a musical being, and very little else. But this is not only a tale of music; it cannot be – for music does not have a life of its own, cannot exist without other things, without beauty, abundance, longing, passion, rebellion, the spiritual, grief, euphoria, sacredness, loss and heartbreak.

I have thought about what would, if I were a woman, arouse my body and spark my cerebral curiosities. Intellectually, I would surrender to the pull of philosophy and ancient civilisations, to poetry spoken by clean-shaven men with sedative baritones, to astronomy and to great literatures of yore while, sexually, I would be drawn to accomplished university professors with some sartorial elegance, failing which I wouldn’t even consider actors and rock stars (some, if not most, rumoured to be whores), but rather explore life with famous architects, creators of buildings and walkways and fountains from pencil lines and strange rulers; and if that too fails, I would look past medical people and court distinguished but discreet detectives.

But I am not a woman.

There is something else I must disclose about myself. I am a fiery specimen, quite intense when I am able and decide to fall in love. I am one of those men whose buttock grabbing elicits a yelp and a little pain, whose thigh stroking is so involved and impassioned to the point of being almost flammable. I belong to the kind of sex voyeurs of the universe who are terrified of their own seductive abilities – those who have mastered the art of dangerous conversation, talk in hushed tones that leave innocent hearts fluttering mid-air, suspended in scandalised charm and awe. I am one of those over whom women have wept into pillows, who lovers and husbands have glanced at with suspicion and disdain. I am at my most dangerous when tipsy and giddy, when adventurous and flirtatious, abundantly resourceful with my trumpet and deadly solo on the piano at two in the morning. I am, when I put my mind to it, the high priest of passion – generous with my affections and accommodating of the terrifying desires of others. I have used art as a refuge against myself, to blunt my claws that could ground a dozen birds with one considered strike. How they moaned and yelped, my captured birdies: record executives, backing singers (but only four of them, and I haven’t touched a single band mate since) and carefully selected groupies. I had a reputation for being electrifying with my mating stare, so practised and refined that women knew what I wanted from them without me having to utter a single word. I remember Olivia: how I traced the frills and folds of her lingerie, black and hazy red bra and panties with an exploratory and curious thumb, not for erotic concerns but for the meditative effect, while listening to a slow-tempo version of ‘Human Nature’, a crude rendition of a Michael-Jackson-via-Miles-Davis tune I heard somewhere. My thumb and forefinger traced the minutest flow and changes of lacy fabric much like, without intending to be blasphemous, fingers of some believers have been tracing the beads of rosaries for centuries.

It was at music school that I developed my language of love, that I became quite an accomplished licker of navels and sniffer of garments and selected portions of body parts. I could tell, for instance, that not all scents on a body belonging to the same person smelled the same: the back of the earlobes was distinctly different from the inside of a navel, the tips of nipples nothing like the outer shores of armpits (to say nothing of the armpit itself), and the arresting scents of hair diametrically opposed to scents of toes or elbows.

That ability – to discover – is priceless to a trumpeter and even more so to a composer who can tell with pinpoint accuracy the miniscule flirtations between notes, their whoring when the music becomes particularly charged and intense. There is a marked poignancy to such a skill, the ability to tell when a note is ailing or misplaced, when it is rushed or pompous.

And yet, even when we – me and my selected conquests – were at our closest and most intimate, noses touching and limbs interlocked, some considered back rubbing and eyebrow kissing, there was always a strange detachment not consistent with lovers in what is supposed to be a vulnerable space. There was always a lingering feeling, distant but real, that we held back what we thought to be prized secrets and embarrassing histories, leaving a shell of love that was pretty but without the messy intricacies of lovers’ obtuse demands and calculated coercions. We made love in regimented ways, touched without the passion written about by poets and, on some nights, even withdrew into little islands of our being; she reading the Book of Genesis while I silently chuckled to In Praise of Older Women.

TWO

The beauty of Johannesburg is not immediate. Neither is it only visual. It is an aesthetic that resists being the beauty only of place, of the physical, buildings and bridges and skylines, tree-lined streets and crimson cloud-dotted horizons; it is a beauty that is heard as much as it is felt. There is a magnetic buzz about the place, an evocation of memories and a charged vigour of present-day living, a yearning for palpable prospects from its many migrants, residents and visitors and those in transit to own and sample, to be forever marked by the city’s abundant offers, its brutal coercions. In Johannesburg, lives are crafted, formed and distorted, happenings there reverberating to the furthest rural provinces, to KwaZulu-Natal or Mpumalanga, where amused or grieving next-of-kins whistle: Yoh, that’s Jozi for you! At once inspiring and scandalous, Johannesburg has a beautiful arrogance about it, a refusal to succumb to comparisons, an insistence on setting standards, breaking life rules. A place of everywhere and nowhere, of everyone and no one, its beauty creeps up on you, stalks you without any footsteps or lurking shadows, drives some to material frothiness, others to carnal madness. It is not a beauty you can own or explain, but layers upon layers of lives and half-lives pulled in thousands of directions and then exploding into the firmament, near-invisible traces of splendour and barbarism.

Driving from Rosebank to the CBD, along Jan Smuts Av­­e­n­ue past Zoo Lake, towards Parktown and through Braamfontein, you cross Nelson Mandela Bridge into the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg proper – not quite the epicentre, but a busy-enough zone to qualify as the innards of the city, or at least partial innards. Where Bree Street and its taxi rank are peopled by pedestrians and motorists and cyclists and loafers, where the ear samples world music in all its competition and dimensions: Tupac Shakur crossfading with Angélique Kidjo, a snip of The Manhattan Brothers kissing and saying goodbye from speakers in haberdasheries and hairdressers, and uBaba Phuzekhemisi strumming his strings and serenading the cityscape with maskandi classics from a fast-driven BMW, and Amy Winehouse belting wonderful sorrows from a Toyota Cressida manned by a hungover heavyweight. The music palette is wide and varied, the sudden intermingling of tunes an overwhelming avalanche of sound amid car hooters and roaring engines, police sirens, diesel-spewing buses and almost inaudible hymns sung by mobile vendors touting brooms and ice cream, by the devout en route to churches or the train station. There are also the voices of Koffi Olomide and Oliver Mtukudzi purifying the souls of clientele in Africa-themed hair salons and herb shops, where you can buy anything from owl claws to erectile dysfunction elixirs, salves and herbs to heal bones and aching ears.

There is an off-key beauty about this Johannesburg, one far removed from the discipline and order of New York or Dubai shopping malls, five-star and exclusive places dripping with money and snobbery. This Johannesburg, the one of owl claws and Ghanaian hair salons, is at once Gauteng and Accra, as much a province of South Africa as it is of Somalia and Pakistan, the Place of Gold and lights as much as it is Lagos and Harare, as much as it is China or the Democratic Republic of Congo: the faces, the food, the tongues. It is the world of Africans, sprinkled with other nations in between, of suited Africans in pursuit of love and commerce, of new Africans, some of whom have never set foot in a village. It is these Africans – some of Egyptian, Dutch and Portuguese origins – who laugh uproariously whenever they hear or read of some imbecile in Madrid or Mississippi or Toulouse thinking that Africa is one massive jungle from whose trees baboons and chimpanzees and natives swing, who think you can walk from Jozi to Accra and say Hello to Kwaku Akrofi, whom the imbecile would have met on a transit flight between Frankfurt and Manchester back when Idi Amin was still in power.

A red bicycle is secured by a chain to a steel rail outside the Melrose Pub & Grill. It is, surprisingly, a newish model, one you would typically find in European cities rather than as a prop in French or German period films. I, as I walked closer late Thursday afternoon, noticed a laminated card with angry, handwritten block lettering: This bicycle belongs to Rowena Adams, a nurse at Donald Gordon Academic. It was procured at great personal cost and sacrifice. Someone suffers or dies anytime I am late for my shift. So: to whoever is stealing my bicycles: kindly refrain from being a swine and save lives. The world will be the better for it. I muse, walk on past and into the pub, thoroughly tickled and entertained.

Today the red bicycle is still parked in the shade. That pretty but plump woman next to the fern tree is Rowena the Chainsmoker. She is smart, spiritual, sensual, and can be downright evil when provoked. There will be a coming together of friends tonight, with the hope of good food and intelligent conversation, of guarded and private drunkenness, away from the libellous eyes of society. Rowena will be there. As will Wyntton and Pamela; I am not sure about Oratile and Marcus and, our prayers are with Melanie and Sue, the coy lovebirds over whom men suffer carnal fits. The good-natured Wyntton is a struggling saxophonist; Pamela is an impatient trainee nurse who still dreams of a Hollywood acting life. Marcus was rich once, before bad debt buried him in the choking sewers of tombstone sales. He drives a hearse sometimes – though he is cagey and temperamental about that. Nothing maddens Marcus more than the disclosures that not only does he dabble in memorabilia for the dead, but that he is a trusted hand in long-distance corpse deliveries. But the truth is that he does, and he is a hearse driver for Seventh Heaven Undertakers, not for the prestige but for extra money. Oratile is almost well off, or is well off, depending on your interpretation of ‘well off’. Melanie and Sue are