David Beresford
another country
Afew years ago a water charge of more than R300 000 mysteriously appeared on my municipal services account.
Living in a two-bedroom house with little more than a splash-pool by way of indulgence where water is concerned, I pointed out the obvious error to the municipal authority and forgot about it.
Shortly thereafter a couple of men arrived, demanded access to the electricity meter, cut off the supply, sealed it and departed in righteous triumph, ignoring my protests and appeals to reason. I managed to get the electricity reconnected later that night by frantic appeals through a city councillor whom I knew personally. The charge, however, remained on the account.
Ever since I have regarded the monthly services bill with the superstitious dread commanded by any seemingly inanimate object that has demonstrated a capacity to strike with such vicious effect, apparently at random and without reason. I have made numerous personal appeals to various functionaries by letter and by telephone to have the charge removed. But the letters have gone unanswered and the telephone promises to deal with the matter remain unfulfilled.
Somebody or something is attending to the matter, however. I know that because now and then mysterious adjustments attended by coded messages appear on the monthly bill. They have a ruminatory nature. It is as if some great beast out there is thinking deeply and its minions are sending these bits of paper in reassurance that the matter is being considered by a higher, no doubt silicon, authority grinding implacably on behind some broom-closet door in the back of city hall.
I wait for the final judgement in terror that it will be marked by the reappearance of the anonymously righteous men bearing their seals and clamps. So far the ruminations have reduced the sum to something around R30 000. But what happens if the impulse overtakes it to add another half million?
It reminds me of an occasion a little while ago when I tried to contact the United States editor of a book I had written. I did not have a name or direct number to call and had to go through the general switchboard. It would start by offering a range of digital options: “… press one for marketing, two for …” And then through a series of permutations until an answering machine announced happily that “Mrs So-and-So is not available”.
Doggedly redialling and trying a fresh permutation I would gallop through the maze until faced by yet another blank wall, this time “Mr So-and-So” is not at his “phone”. Eventually I gave up. I have never been able to identify “my” US editor, much less exchanged words with him or her.
A friend of mine living abroad fell victim to a similar phenomenon with her bank in the United Kingdom and became so alarmed she flew to London to investigate. She reported back with bewilderment that the bank was still there, as were the staff who tut-tutted sympathetically and pressed direct-dial and fax numbers on her with grovelling apologies and assurances of improved service.
But the moment she tried them on the telephone again they vanished behind a curtain of digital alternatives and happy answering machines, the faxed appeals and threats disappearing into the ever-empty dustbin of silence. She says she would close her account, but cannot contact anyone to tell them.
It all seems to be explained by the theory that the driving force in human life is insecurity that everything, from sex to religion, from fashion to greed to charity is born of a desperate fear of failure. The frenzied hunt for fame and riches merely reflects a longing to be plucked out of this race and put down on an island of privilege where, it is assumed (falsely, if anecdotal evidence is to be believed), reassurance is to be found that one is safe and sound as a winner.
Even the arrogant and the loudly extrovert can be seen as a pitiful expression of the hope that, given enough conviction, a winning reality can be conjured out of the fear attendant on shallow pretence. What is Pygmalion, breathing life into his beloved sculpture, but an advertisement for the power of positive thinking?
A winner or loser at what is never quite clear. But the existence of a competition is self-evident. It is in the pursuit of certainty and the flight from the insecurity as to its outcome that mankind has stampeded into what it believes to be a depersonalised haven called the digital age, where reality can be filtered and regulated by a switch.
But time will tell us that all we have discovered is a silicon version of Franz Kafka’s estrangement.
As anyone who has seen the men with their seals and clamps must know, there is no escape from the beast of unpredictability brooding behind the broom-closet door in the back of city hall.