Rumours of Rain Page 29

  Before much more could be said, he opened the meeting with a prayer which lasted, according to Ma, more than half an hour. Then one of the men fetched another Bible from a bedroom in the house and somebody began to read from Romans or Corinthians or something, going on for four or five chapters. Followed by earnest discussion. After the first hour the sergeants were beginning to shift uneasily on their seats, but the brethren became so absorbed in the discussion that the visitors were not allowed to say a word. After two full hours, when the end was still not in sight, Sergeant Grobler rose with an expression of desperation on his face:

  “Mr Chairman,” he said, “you must please excuse us, but —”

  Whereupon Dad promptly asked him: “Sergeant, have you been born again?”

  “Have I been what?”

  “Born again. Redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  “Well – I – yes, I suppose so, I —”

  “Brethren,” said Dad, “I propose we pray for the soul of our friend.”

  And before the sergeant could protest any further, they proceeded with passionate and seemingly interminable prayers again.

  It was growing dark outside when Dad finally said: “Sergeant, if you give us your addresses, we’d like to visit you at home to pursue the business of the Lord.”

  According to Dad’s subsequent report to Ma, the policemen paled at the mere thought and never gave the group any trouble again.

  “But of course,” said Ma, “from the time we moved to the farm, he lost all interest. But I tried to make things easier for him, that I can swear to God.”

  “I know very well, Ma.”

  “And when he finally came to rest, down there —”

  I sat stroking the carved wood of the chair.

  “We’re all beginners, all the time,” she went on, impetuously. “One never learns. That’s why we’ve got to start from scratch again, every time.”

  I didn’t want to look at her.

  “The day he went to lie down in his grave, sonny, it was as if for the first time in many years I could feel solid earth under my feet again. As if we’d finally settled down. As if we’d taken root at last.”

  A dog was barking in the yard. At the far side of the house an engine began to sputter, stopped, then droned on. Louis must have got the generator started.

  The sound immediately brought her back to the practical present.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you here,” she said. “I just wanted to have a little chat.”

  “Thanks, Ma.”

  “I must be going.”

  “Please stay if you want to.”

  “No, I’ve got work to do. And I suppose you’ve got a lot to think about. Please put Dad’s file away when you’ve done with it, will you?”

  It seemed so easy to follow Ma’s advice and go back to Johannesburg and cancel the contract. I could always excuse myself by referring Calitz to the stipulation in the testament about Ma’s written consent. I would have the peace of knowing she was free to enjoy her old age on the farm. And, even more important perhaps, the farm would remain in the family for the future. Even if it had no practical value, the mere fact of its existence would be reassuring, like a wholesome conscience, a form of emotional security, a guarantee of perspective.

  But of course it was more complicated than that. The Minister and I were both checkmate. He had to conclude his transaction with Bantu Administration or his whole manoeuvre would be exposed. And I was forced to sell, otherwise he would make quite sure that I was destroyed.

  It was, really, too late for argument: the decision had been made, and I had come to the farm merely to confirm it.

  Even if a choice had still existed, the situation was impossible. For it was not a matter of balancing two comparable elements, but two essentially different contents, two different value systems. The farm was an ideal, a dream, a sentimental quantity: involving, let us say, our history, our pastoral past, our tribal tradition, perhaps our freedom. In other words, everything I’d grown unaccustomed to handling. For in practice my life comprised the opposite, the calculable: compromises and studied risks, profit, achievement. Simply in order to survive I had to stay on top. There was no alternative. It was either that, or go under. The same choice which had confronted my ancestors in one generation after another, but in a totally different dimension. And I refused to consider the prospect of going under.

  The question was: how much of the sentimental, or the ideal, how much of my atavistic romanticism, could I allow myself without relinquishing my hold on survival? How far could I indulge myself? Because it had indeed become a luxury. In my context luxury did not mean the house Theo had designed for us, or the Mercedes, the yellowwood, the red wine, the cycads on the lawn: all that was part and parcel of my existence itself. True luxury was: the freedom to dream; the freedom to be unpractical. And freedom as such had become a romantic notion.

  There was no need for me to believe in the sort of life I led. I only had to live it.

  In order to survive I had to regard all the components of my life as relative and adaptable. Without cynicism one had no hope of retaining one’s hold on reality.

  I was tired. Why shouldn’t I admit it? I had chosen an exhausting and demanding way of life. For that very reason it was so tempting to accept what Ma had offered me: the peace and quiet of an illusion. But having recognised the illusion as such, I had no right to yield to the temptation.

  Oh, I would have loved to believe in freedom and hope and faith and charity. But above all I wanted to survive. And in order to survive I had to stay on the winning side, one better than my opponent. In me was the hunger to succeed, the instinct to kill. Dad had never had it. (Neither had Bernard.)

  I looked up when Louis appeared on the doorstep.

  “Hello!”

  “Have you been here all afternoon?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking through Grandpa’s things. To make sure it’s all in order.”

  I saw his quizzical, ironic glance as he looked at the solitary closed file on the desk, but I made no attempt to explain.

  “Isn’t there anything I can help you with?”

  “Are you bored?”

  “Of course.”

  “I heard the engine a little while ago,” I said. “So you got it going?”

  He smiled, looking like a boy again, briefly. “Yes, it’s working all right.” After a moment: “Mandisi helped a lot, though. Nothing wrong with his hands.”

  “You don’t feel like taking up that engineering course again?”

  For a moment his eyes lit up with enthusiasm, but he quickly closed up again, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Why do you want to sell the farm?” he asked without warning.

  “It’s just not a viable proposition any more.” I decided to be as frank and reasonable with him as I could. “You can work it out for yourself. Let’s say the market value is – what? – forty thousand. That means a return of R4,000 per year at the normal rate of ten per cent on your investment. But what happens instead? Not only does it fall far short of four thousand, but in actual fact it costs me several thousand a year just to keep it going. All right, I admit I can deduct it from my income tax. But it remains a very bad investment. And I’m a businessman.”

  “Is that all you are, Dad? Just a businessman?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Surely you should consider Grandma too. It’s her life.”

  “I am thinking about her!” I protested. “Haven’t you noticed how she’s aged in the last year? And all her neighbours are selling out. It’s dangerous for her to stay here all on her own on the border of a Black homeland.”

  “So the old Eastern frontier is becoming a frontier again, isn’t it?” he asked. I couldn’t make out whether he was joking. “We’re creating more and more frontiers all the time.”

  “Don’t tell me you have any interest in the farm,” I said, interrupting his nonsense. �
��We haven’t been here for a full day yet and already you’re bored.”

  He came past the desk to look out through the window on the valley side. Outside, the lowing of cattle was coming closer.

  “Strange when it’s getting dark,” he said without turning round to me. “At home, somehow, one doesn’t notice it so much. But here on the farm it’s as if one suddenly feels all alone in the world.”

  I’d been just as sentimental when I’d had his years. In the gathering twilight I sensed a fleeting new closeness between us.

  “We just don’t belong here any more,” I said.

  He turned round abruptly, as if upset by something he’d seen outside: the returning cows, the increasing darkness in the valley down below, the hadehahs coming over the hills, something.

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said, with a readiness that caught me unawares. “It may be better to sell the place after all. But Gran is holding on, isn’t she?”

  “Stubborn as a mule.”

  “I’ll talk to her if you want me to.”

  “It’s all right, I know how to handle her.”

  “But she discussed it with me. I think she feels —”

  “What did she tell you?” Suspicion added an edge to my voice. I didn’t want Ma to draw Louis into this.

  “Nothing much,” he said evasively. “Still, I think I may be able to talk her into it.”

  “You’re asking for trouble if you try to push her.”

  He lingered for another minute before he went out again, leaving the door open behind him. I considered calling him back to close it. But in the end I got up quietly: it was getting late anyway. Pushing the exquisite old chair back into position I rested my hands on the backrest for a moment. We should take the chair home with us, it would look good in my own study.

  The file I put away in one of the dusty drawers of the desk before drawing the curtains. Outside, the dusk was deepening. From the stables came a pungent smell of manure. Just as I was leaving I remembered something and returned to the bookshelves on the far wall to remove the cane from behind the Gibbons. It would be better to dispose of it somewhere in the farmyard: I didn’t want Ma to discover it when she started packing to clear out.

  9

  THIS TIME I found Mandisi alone with the calves. I didn’t like the idea of interfering with their way of life, but as I was in the position of authority I felt obliged to talk to him.

  “Mandisi,” I said, “what’s this thing I hear about your wife?”

  “Nkosi?” he asked sullenly.

  “A man shouldn’t beat his wife.”

  He poured a pail of skimmed milk into the trough, not bothering to reply.

  “Your child was desperately ill, you know. It needed proper medicine.”

  “Ewe.”

  “Then why did you beat her like that?”

  He said nothing.

  “Mandisi, I don’t want to hear this sort of thing about you again, you understand?”

  He picked up the pail and turned to look at me, still refusing to say a word. He stood a head taller than myself, with the muscles of a gladiator: I could see them rippling through the tears and holes of his shirt.

  “If ever you hurt your wife again, you must get off the farm. Did you hear me?”

  He began to walk in the direction of the dairy.

  “Answer me when I speak to you!”

  Half turning his head, he grinned before he went on. Arrogant; but not impertinent. The suggestion of superiority in his bearing, as if I had to be forgiven for not knowing what I was talking about. Perhaps he hadn’t understood me properly.

  Disgruntled, I went away. His ways, his superstitions and his primitiveness were no concern of mine. But surely I couldn’t turn a blind eye where a child’s life was involved. And if he’d made up his mind to come and work for Whites, he had to learn to adapt. In the final analysis it was for his own benefit.

  It was so much easier to get along with a person like Charlie. Our frames of reference were similar. He’d said so himself. (Ironically, I had been the one to protest at the suggestion.) It had been a strange and disconcerting day, about a month before.

  That morning, on behalf of the South Africa Foundation, I’d had to show a couple of Canadian businessmen around – two highly intelligent and pleasant gentlemen who’d revealed a reassuring insight into our national problems – and, as usual, I’d arranged to take them to the Ndebele village near Pretoria.

  As I was still taking it easy after my coronary, Charlie was driving; on the way we had a relaxed and informative discussion in which he also took part.

  The visit was, predictably, a success. There was nobody to accept our visitors’ forms, so we strolled about on our own, admiring the neat houses painted in fascinating geometrical designs. A picturesque scene which never failed to impress our foreign visitors: the bunch of old women stringing beads under a tree; two or three men pushing a car down the “main street” to get it going; children prancing around us wherever we went; a group of young girls kicking a soccer ball. As soon as they noticed us, they ran behind the nearest houses to remove their clothing, returning with beaming smiles: “Photo, Baas, photo, Baas!” The Canadians eagerly photographed their bare breasts and paid the requested fee without a murmur – whereupon the girls put on their clothes again and resumed their soccer game in the balmy May morning.

  Charlie waited for us in the car; and when we returned I could see he was in a bad mood. On the way back he hardly said a word. He didn’t feel like joining us for lunch at the Carlton either, but I persuaded him that it would be in the firm’s best interest: it always made a good impression on foreigners. But after we’d taken our leave of the two Canadians, as we drove back through the heavy afternoon traffic, he looked very glum indeed.

  “What’s the matter with you, Charlie?” I enquired after some time, when it became clear he wasn’t going to volunteer anything on his own.

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t be childish.”

  “I’m not childish, Baas Martin.” He knew very well how it piqued me to be addressed like that.

  “So your guests enjoyed their bit of local colour, did they?” he finally asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Nice slide shows they can arrange for their families and friends when they get back home. All these uninhibited children of nature. I suppose you’ll be taking them to the mine dances on Sunday?”

  “What have you got against ‘uninhibited children of nature’? Nobody forced the girls to undress.”

  “I’m not even referring to that.”

  “I wish you would say what you mean.”

  “It’s bad enough fooling a bunch of foreigners,” he said angrily. “But how the hell do you manage to go on fooling yourself?”

  “In what way am I fooling myself?”

  “Why don’t you show them what the land really looks like for a change? See South Africa and die.”

  “Where do you want me to take them?”

  “Have you ever set foot in Soweto?”

  “Of course not. Why should I?”

  He accelerated suddenly, driving through a yellow light, and went straight on instead of turning right where he should.

  “Where are you going now?”

  “Today you’re going to Soweto,” he said with a grim smile.

  “What’s got into you?”

  “Regard it as an initiation. How the other half lives. The other eight per cent.”

  It took me a few moments to regain my composure. “Fair enough, Charlie,” I said. “But I can’t go there without a permit.”

  “Oh fuck it,” he replied, turning his broad smile to me. “How many of us are going about without passes every day?”

  “I still don’t understand what you really want me to see.”

  “Let’s call it a bit of history.”

  “That’s not history. That’s today.”

  Charlie laughed, his eyes almost closing behind his thick lense
s. “That’s our way of making history, Martin boy. In this country you and your people think you’ve got the monopoly over history. I’ve got to make my own from day to day.”

  “I’ve never denied your right to your own past.”

  “Sure. As long as it could be read between the lines. Nothing official.” Swerving to pass a loaded truck he said: “Did you know my great-grandfather was a counsellor of King Moshesh – a moeletsi?”

  “Really?”

  “That’s right, man. I don’t know anything about further back: we must have come out of the difagane somewhere. But he was a moeletsi all right, in the time of President Brand – if you want to approach it from your White side. Gave the Free State farmers hell.”

  “And then, what happened?”

  “Downhill all the way. His son, my grandfather, became a soldier – a molaodi in fact, a commander – but he got wounded in a battle near Ficksburg. The missionaries got hold of him and healed him. That was the end for us. In later years he went to work as a labourer on a Free State farm. There my father was born. And I myself.”

  “But you broke away.”

  “Yes, I broke away, man. Just like you.” He looked at me, light flickering on his glasses. “Have you ever thought about how similar you and I really are?”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “You think so? We come from the same sort of place. Then we both went overseas.” More subdued, he added: “And then we both came back. What the hell for? What did we really hope to find? We don’t belong any more, man. You’re just as bloody detribalised as I am.”

  “I’m still an Afrikaner.”

  “That’s where the similarity ends and the difference begins.” He nearly doubled up in a sudden spasm of laughter.

  “Surely you have no desire to go back to what you once were?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So why are you complaining?’

  “You think I’m complaining?” He shifted into a more comfortable position behind the wheel. “I just made a statement of fact. And today I’m going to show you something.”