Illumination

Nthikeng Mohlele

Description

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.

Sujets

• Republic of South Africa
• MUSIC
• 21st century
• South Africa
• Multiple signal classification
• General officer
• Modernism
• General
• Afrique du Sud

Informations

• Publié par: Pan Macmillan South Africa
• Date de parution: 01 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781770106260
• Langue: English

Extrait

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
L ife 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