Moxyland - Lauren Beukes [27]
'I'm going to take that as a good sign.'
Kendra
It's almost dusk by the time I reach Mr. Muller's apartment block in District Six. I feel a twinge of guilt – I should have called first. But the elevator recognises my SIM on the approved guest list straight away, slides open, and drops me to level minus-four, sending a notification to his home™ automatically, so that when the door swings open, he is already brewing the ultra-caffeine.
He's got his wall2wall set on Karoo; pale light over scrub hills complete with a windpump, metal blades turning idly in a breeze you could almost convince yourself you felt. It's an idealised version of the Rural, peaceful, as far removed from the real thing as you can get. At least Mr. Muller keeps the display reduced, so it only takes up half a wall, more painting than wraparound. He doesn't like to forget that it's not legit. He says it's just another kind of sedation. A lulling, he calls it. 'Watch out for the lulling,' he says sometimes, like it's something profound, especially if a commercial sets him off. Commercials really get to him. He says you used to be able to skip them, just prog them right out of your recording, but it's hard to imagine that now. Then he'll launch into a rant on how the world has evolved for the worst, although at least crime is down. But the truth of it is he likes to yell at the television, and I should just leave an old grouch and his foibles in peace.
He turns, two cups already in hand. 'Hello. I wasn't expecting you today. You're looking well. Got something new for me?'
I swap him a cup of ultra for two spools of film. He puts them on the counter as if they are holy artefacts. The counter is already looking frayed, the plastic peeling, even though the subterr is only a couple of years old. The whole thing makes me depressed, but Mr. Muller likes to joke that he's just in touch with his body. It's dragging down with age, so he's moved below ground to keep up with it. 'This way, they won't even have to bury me,' he says. 'Just lock the door and be done with it.'
Of course, he's joking. The property in this neighbourhood is far too valuable, even the swivels and the subterrs. There are a lot of oldsters living below ground, but the wall2wall scenics make it more bearable.
The major advantage, he says, is that there is no natural light to interfere with his darkroom. It's really his bathroom, the entrance hung with a tunnel of black recycling bags, because even the fake light from the projected vistas can mess with the process. The problem is getting the chemicals. He has to get them shipped in from a guy in Nairobi, which takes weeks with all the new security checks.
I had about thirty rolls already by the time I found Mr. Muller. Didn't have the slightest idea what to do with them, because there was only one lab I could find up in Jozi, and it would have been impossible for me to be involved in the process, or to fly up every time I wanted to develop a new spool. I'd gone completely overboard with the film. Partly it was the find, picking up the thirty spools for next to nothing at the market, and what else was I going to do with them but shoot? But it was also the mystery, a grand experiment. When I told him this, when I found him, Mr. Muller knew exactly what I was talking about. 'It's an alchemy,' he said. 'As much in your head as the camera.' Unfortunately, it's also horribly expensive, especially now I have to buy my film from a specialist supplier via the Net, and Mr. Muller doesn't cut me any slack.
His wife left him seven years ago. Although he doesn't go into the details, I get the idea that there was an affair involved, maybe even on his side. That's when he picked up on his old habit. There's not much call for film development these days, but he's taught me tons I didn't know from digital.
If I catch him in the right mood, he'll haul out his portfolio from back in the days when he was a photojournalist for the Cape Times, which, endearingly,