‘Little Triumphs’

The imaginary backstory of a fascinating French-crepe seller I had the great fortune to chat with a few weeks ago

Everything seemed to be named after him these days. A Bay, a Boulevard, a Foundation (with that other guy, but still) and, Jean-Francois realized again, awaking to his usual dull quarter, a day too in the South African year, as princely as Martin’s in the States, as vapid as Jesus and Santa’s everywhere. No, he reprimanded himself, he was not a fogey quite yet. French moaning had never chimed with these faux-Mediterranean surrounds, and no matter that British seasiders seemed to make up the better part of his business, he had never quite submitted to their instinct for utter dissatisfaction. Even their Queen shared this, he’d once been delighted to discover. His friend and charge, whom he never referred to as anything but Nelson, had spent four years making nice after all those decades plotting murder. Jean-Francois had entertained this fantasy long enough to begin believing in it. The gleaming face that met the world that first February was but a happiness standing neck- deep in imaginings of bloodletting. A pity he couldn’t confirm this, that he could never capture his subject’s minds as easily as he could preserve their images. He thought this line almost every morning, and today, opening the curtains on Camps Bay once again so far below him, was no different.

His life since ’68 had functioned as little but a posing of spontaneity, a dive from this land here to that, many meetings with people who mattered and the inability to show anything too interesting about them. When old Mrs. Windsor had received a visit from this new ambassador of a troublesome corner of her ex-Empire, he had been there, almost inevitably; mummifying the time in a handshake, a smattering of extras, a smiling old couple. And Nelson had approved. It was a comeuppance of a kind. Jean-Francois, a good republican like any other true Frenchman, could at least feel a tinge of grandeur at the presence of Royalty, but it did not compare to the constant company of a political saint, a redeemed terrorist, a comrade.

Standing at the window, meditating like this, he remembered he was wasting time as usual. The beach, pale as papyrus, had let in the first spill of people early. A public holiday meant a general escape to and from thought. By now, he wondered, his crepes could surely make themselves. Retirement depended on how little petty cash you were willing to live on. It was difficult to stay in an island of relative wealth without needing some of it to come to you. He charged R15 per crepe, a steal. Melissa, three partners ago, had been the one to teach him the ease of their production. He didn’t know if he regretted that the day of that lesson was the only one he could recall distinctly from two years of living with her in Senegal. The rest was not a blur but a swirl, all the way until he’d spun out of her life and she out of his. Senegal must’ve been a better lover, he joked to himself. He wasn’t old enough yet, he thought, to be actively losing his past. As he’d wound his way through Afrique he had instead found himself becoming increasingly picky over what he preserved. When he’d taken photographs his favourite part of the process had always been the refining of his stock, the cleansing of history. Like in life, one took enough moments to choose from before rejecting what didn’t actually happen, what couldn’t tell you it deserved to stay. He didn’t smoke anymore but he called these his second-cigarette thoughts – the ruminations he had amidst the barest level of suicidal activity.

Now he had to pay attention. Opening up his stand by now took little effort, setting out his pans and ingredients no more than a humming focus, but no- one ever seemed to come up to him a propos of nothing. You had to look into the eyes of most Camps Bay tourists to convince them to even think of becoming customers. They were mostly white & deceptively wealthy and they would walk the beachside boulevard as if they were willing to humour everyone. He hadn’t befriended any of his neighbours, the souvenir-sellers, but he felt he knew them adequately just for studying the procedures of their own salesmanship: a desperation to make novelty meaningful to every passerby. This is what I have; this is what you require. In comparison his wares sold like hot cakes, but only if he presented them as such. The Riviera no longer exists, thus it is exportable. There must be at least a few thousand crepe vendors – of all ages, genders and colours – spread out across the world, in every country with a sweet tooth, but he could only imagine them in their distance. He felt the world didn’t necessarily have space for one more, but Cape Town was a city for leftover people and he didn’t mind admitting this life was now marginal and perhaps always had been.

A student now walked up to him, a propos of nothing: a girl with mismatched irises, Cameroonian, approaching like an old friend.
“Did you really know Madiba?”, she said, pointing to the autographed picture on the thin tin wall behind him.