by Zeilig, Leo;
Terry grimaced and muttered to himself, ‘Like hell, like fucking hell there’ll be a strike.’ His lips lifted above his teeth in a snarl. ‘No, we’re fucking not.’ The distant voices on the radios became more frenetic.
Moreblessing believed she could draw in her foes, persuade the BCW workers who refused to join the union, even those who refused to talk to her. It was always white workers, she noticed; it was the British security guards who told her to be cautious, that this was not how it was done, who presented the management’s case, the argument that ‘in this day and age of cost-cutting and competition, the workers had to take a hit’. Sometimes their intransigence broke her and she became certain that these obedient whites were biologically predisposed to shun unions and strikes, accept orders, obey their superiors.
Moreblessing concluded, ‘But this action is necessary. We are proud to work at the university and don’t want its reputation damaged. We say: work with us to bring back equality and fairness to the workplace, and hope to this once-great university.’
Moreblessing smiled, satisfied that the audience had stayed until she finished. Wayne, with a T-shirt that clung to his torso, started to clap. The crowd joined him and a few people whistled and cheered – as if they had been watching a theatrical production.
The crowd of sixty stayed immobile. The security guards who were called to contain the rebellion vacillated as the team handed out the propaganda. The mood was jovial.
Viktor saw the police first. They barged into the lobby, their charge heavy, their movements crowded by equipment: the thickly padded vests, the belts weighted with truncheons, torches, pepper spray, the heavy, inflexible boots. Viktor reached for his phone and started to film.
*
Tendai put himself between the police and his comrade, and a security guard tried to push him away, his hand flat against Tendai’s chest. Not thinking, Moreblessing tried to intervene. The arresting officer took her hand, attempted to twist it behind her back and led her away.
In the mayhem Terry started to speak. ‘We disassociate ourselves from any strike action – the situation has not reached that point, nor do we expect it to. We are engaged in constructive discussions and negotiations in the Partnership Forum.’
Moreblessing pulled her arm away from the officer and shouted at the two officers now holding Wayne and Gary. ‘Why are you being so aggressive?’
‘Because he is under arrest,’ one of the officers answered. Other policemen came into the lobby. Some of the spectators stepped back, wondering if this was more agitprop. Moreblessing held on to Wayne. Copying her, Patience put her arm around Gary. The guards slowly prised them, limb by limb, from their comrades. A security guard continued to hold Tendai back.
Terry spoke. ‘These arrests are unnecessary, but the action was unprovoked. It was not sanctioned by the union branch.’ Tendai knocked the security guard’s hand out of his path. He recognised the guard, who had once told him that he didn’t speak to Africans like him. ‘Blacks should sort out their own countries before telling the UK how to run its affairs.’
His path cleared, Tendai rushed to Terry. ‘You bastard. You are our bloody regional organiser, you’re meant to be on our side, man!’ With each word Tendai prodded Terry hard in the chest.
Moreblessing screamed to the crowd. ‘A gang of men are assaulting your colleagues. Why are you standing there? This isn’t about fighting terrorism. Why don’t you fucking help?’ As soon as the word came out Moreblessing was silent. It was the first time she’d used a swear word, and it felt good. ‘Fucking get up and do something!’
The foyer started to empty after the men were dragged away. Two security guards closed and locked the tall double doors. Wayne and Gary were carried away unhindered. Moreblessing walked up to Terry, her face flushed, her nostrils flared. She raised her hand and smacked him hard across the face. ‘Shame on you, Terry.’
Chapter Fourteen
Initially it didn’t bother Anne-Marie that Viktor and his life seemed in disarray. For a period before his separation from Nina she couldn’t just call or text him, the necessity of secrecy forcing all the power into his hands, but she liked this sense of fantasy, of make-believe, that this gave their friendship. But when Viktor disappeared for weeks on end into his own life, his own problems, although she didn’t react, she was confused – and it bothered her that it bothered her. She reassured herself with the absurdity of their connection, even questioned her own sanity – laughing to herself at her feelings for a man she’d never met.
Viktor dreamed of Anne-Marie, and when he woke the memory of the dream clung to him, hung on him all day and became his new obsession. Before long every activity in his life was in some way motivated by her – the hours until their next call, the text messages punctuating his day, all things a countdown to her.
‘She’s fucking seduced me,’ Viktor said to himself in the morning, more worn and stiff than when he had fallen into bed. There was no dopey escape, no temporary reprieve as he woke; the night had been dense with dreams of her. A prison where they were locked up, forced every afternoon to come together and dance. Every day at the prison dance he would see her and she would smile innocently, nonchalantly, at him – and then dance, pressed tightly against someone else. The man she danced with was large and tall, his erection visible inside his trousers. These dreams were crude, worthy of no analysis. She seduced me. He knew also that it would not be enough to simply send messages. The obsession needed actualisation; he needed to reach beyond the screen and their calls to see her.
*
The offices were cleared and the staff ordered out. Tendai insisted they hide, camping out in Viktor’s office. The corridor was quiet, the carpeted thud of running, pounding feet gone. In the office Tendai stretched out on Viktor’s chair, sitting perfectly still. Viktor stood by the door, not moving, his hand to his lip, his head turned to his guests. Moreblessing and Patience both huddled under the desk, their heads resting on their bent knees. Only Viktor, with less to lose, was serious, his face tight with reprimand, ordering silence to the room of fugitives, who had seen worse. Viktor saw the wide, insolent smile on Tendai’s face, his arms folded behind his head, his legs out, and felt his pulse hammer. His back was wet with perspiration. He looked at Tendai, this humble, courageous, modest man, this African Gramsci, Sartre, Guevara – Viktor checked himself. No, this African-African, not a dead white man.
Afterwards Viktor was oblivious to the voices, the planning, Tendai’s arms flapping. Patience standing with a marker, writing on the whiteboard on the wall over the desks, Tendai working up their outrage with the police, the university, Terry, the union, the whole damn bureaucracy. Viktor plugged his phone into the computer and uploaded the video: almost twenty minutes of the stunt, then the arrests.
Moreblessing repeated, shaking her head, ‘Three months in the union and still nothing.’
When the women were gone, Tendai turned to Viktor and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Well, Vlad, what do you think of Patience and Moreblessing?’
‘It’s Viktor.’
‘Take Moreblessing.’
‘I don’t know them,’ Viktor spoke. ‘Brave, I suppose. Very brave. Two jobs, without papers. How does she survive?’
Tendai answered, ‘Like we all do, because we have no choice. She was one of the first in the union and she says what she thinks. A strong worker. What do you think about her?’
Viktor had watched her closely during the re-enactment, her head wrapped in a colourful strip of cloth, her soft nose, prominent cheekbones and pert, upturned lips. When they ran along the corridor Viktor had shouted directions from behind her – ‘Left, straight on, right, two floors up’ – and he’d noticed her long black skirt, how strangely out of place it was. She held it up on both sides so she could run, as though she was practising a curtsy. Viktor had seen her strong calves, the thin bones of her ankles, the material of her skirt drawn tight on her waist, around her buttocks, her breasts, which kept their shape, hardly moving
as she ran. Was this what Tendai meant?
‘Come on, Vlad, don’t be shy with me, man. I could see how you were trying to impress her.’ Tendai looked up at Viktor and winked. ‘I’ve noticed the extra attention you give when there are pretty women around.’ Viktor moved away from the door. He felt exposed. ‘Listen,’ Tendai continued, ‘if you like her, I can speak to her. We could do it here.’ He spread his arms out, indicating the room.
Viktor was confused. ‘Speak to her?’
‘Yes. I know her.’
‘No, I don’t want you to speak to her,’ Viktor stuttered, his face red. The perspiration started again.
‘There’s a thing she’ll do. Don’t pretend you’re not interested. You’ve separated from your wife, right? The mother of your daughter.’
Viktor was irritated with Tendai’s intrusion. He sat on the corner of the desk, lifted a pile of papers to his lap and pretended to sort through them.
‘Don’t play the coy smart man. The two of us and Moreblessing. The three of us with our clothes off.’
‘What are you saying?’ Viktor exclaimed. Was this a test? Maybe Tendai was trying to rattle him, to get him to show that he was like all white men, repressed, racist, terrified to be naked in front of a black man, to have sex with a Zimbabwean woman. Viktor decided he’d better play this carefully. ‘I don’t think this is appropriate.’
Tendai had already occupied the room with his socks and their odour, his feet resting on the desk in front of him, the books he’d absent-mindedly fingered and left open. ‘Okay, let me be clearer,’ he said. ‘We could use one of these desks. You lie on it, maybe we will need two desks, she’s on top and works on me. See?
‘Listen,’ Tendai continued, ‘you’re a cerebral, sensitive man. If you go for another one of your difficult women, it’ll kill you. If you like Moreblessing, I can fix it up for you. I don’t even need to be there.’
Viktor remained silent. He was disappointed with Tendai, with this conversation, with himself. What was happening to him? He reflected on his recent dreams about Anne-Marie. The drugs had chased sex into his unconscious.
Suddenly Tendai announced, ‘I’ve been evicted. I have nowhere to stay, man.’ Viktor tried to think of reasons why he couldn’t put him up: his small, impossible bedsit, Rosa’s visits, Tendai’s penis – there simply wouldn’t be room for all of these things in his single room. ‘I’ll stay here, Vik,’ Tendai said suddenly. ‘I can put the desks together and sleep under them so I don’t trip the lights. There are showers on the first floor, right? I’ll be fine.’
‘It’s not my office,’ Viktor said.
‘What time do the others come in in the morning?’
‘It’s free for two weeks. You can stay for two weeks.’
Tendai leant against the wall, a book open in his hands. ‘You know, Patience said to me yesterday, “Let’s make love like pigs, on the floor.”’
‘TENDAI!’ Viktor shouted, raising his hands from the computer. Tendai smiled, then winked at him.
*
Comrade!
No need to apologise. On the contrary – I’m sorry I’d failed to grasp the hell you’re going through. Certainly don’t worry about ‘having to’ reply. No pressure – none at all. Rather comradely sympathy and solidarity with your domestic inferno.
And we’re not alone, my friend. Everyone I know is going through some new degree of hell from the enemy class, some of it structured into the ‘cuts’. A best friend/comrade is suddenly a full-time carer as well as a parent and worker, after complications with his partner after a minor fall. Students, as well as workers, are cracking up with financial pressure and bullying. The now two years of wage freeze is savaging millions of families/workers. Pubs emptying. Imagine that, the English public house, the sodden, stinking, beer-stained shit-holes (we have similar places in Zimbabwe and in South Africa) are now empty. And the English are drunks, so imagine what this is going to do to the class. And the struggle.
So the point is this, comrade: each case can seem ‘individual’ or personal – but it’s not. It’s UNIVERSAL. Stress is pandemic now. Conditions are obviously different in Africa, but the enemy is the same.
As you’ll know, this is no coincidence/accident! The ruling class is on an all-out offensive right across Europe AND Africa. And the crisis is also the messy birthplace of Revolution too! Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain AND Burkina Faso, Uganda, Nigeria and more. It’s no wonder that Egypt just came to Spain. Africa is coming to Europe.
And in being so palpably ‘from below’, an unled mass, it is the reflection of our crisis, with all that is now corrupted on our side, the trade union bureaucracy, the very left itself a corrupt, rotten, fetid, out-of-touch leadership that urges full reliance upon the most corrupt, most incorporated trade union bureaucracy in the world. Trotsky once called them ‘the most counter-revolutionary force in Britain’.
Anyway, I am losing my way. I wanted to write that you, com, with the skills at your disposal, with your computers and in your crisis, you need to throw yourself into generalising the struggle against the deepest, most protracted crisis of capitalism for a generation. This struggle is taking place at the university – in our union, in our fights. Start at the university.
Comrade, can you hear me?
Tendai
*
Viktor and Nina’s communication was restricted to curt emails stripped of superfluous information, simple instructions almost barked. Tell me what time and confirm. Rosa is used to your unpredictability. Tell your mother to stop feeding Rosa sweets. Tell me, tell me, tell me ...
Still his whole body would shake, his heart race, and he would clench his jaw and tighten his muscles to hold still. No sooner had the weekend with Rosa begun than the end signalled its presence. Rosa waited with her case on the bottom step, staring impatiently for her father’s large head to appear in frosted glass and the garden gate to sound his arrival. Viktor folded himself down, received Rosa’s embrace and then made an effort, stood, his legs apart, one arm holding her, the other searching blindly for the case. Along the path towards the train he dropped down slowly to the ground, lowered Rosa onto the pavement and pushed his nose into her hair, kissed her and told her to walk as her clammy, excited hand found his. She fell back, unable to keep up with his long strides, then skipped back to his side, her pleasure turning their first walk together, after four months apart, into a dance.
Rosa’s feet in her new black boots, playing hopscotch on the pavement, marked out her feelings, telling him and anyone who cared to look at them that the tears, the separation, the nights of missing, the long, secret wishes and prayers they had both made to themselves, the dreams, had dissolved and were no more. All that mattered was that simple stretch of pavement, the short distance to their train, the cold sky, the sun beating down on the clouds, its glare almost too bright for them to see each other. Their bony, identical fingers were linked in a union that made Viktor fear their separation again in three days, the moment of parting which would throb for weeks afterwards. Rosa’s love-saturated heart would be broken once more. How many times can a child’s heart be broken? How many times would he break it? When would his own capacity for killing his daughter finally give out?
Viktor pulled Rosa into his arms again, her legs clasped around his waist. They boarded the train, found a seat, Rosa dragging her bag behind her. If our species has a limitless capacity for savagery, Viktor thought, then we also have an infinite ability to love again and again.
Knitted deep into the separation was the thought that his missing for her would fade, lose the bright, radiant sorrow. The relentless movement of life would drain even their love. Maybe, he thought, if they stayed on this train, both of them in the same stubborn, decisive grip, time would career past, ruffle their hair, try, but fail, to prise apart their heavily planted hands and let them move on. The slipstream of time would drag at their bodies, then fall away and leave them on the platform and their parting would be cheated.
; They dropped the small case in Viktor’s second-floor bedsit in Archway. He lived in a single miniature square room with a fold-down sofa, a small, shared shower cubicle in the corridor and a sink and two hotplates resting on a fridge in the corner of the room.
‘Can we make the bed, please? So that we won’t need to do it tonight. I want to see where we’re sleeping,’ Rosa asked, in her adamant, organised way.
They folded out the sofa. Viktor emptied the wicker basket of the duvet and pillows.
‘A sheet, Dad, we need a sheet.’
‘I don’t have one. I normally use a large towel.’
‘In that case,’ Rosa said, ‘we will buy one today. We can’t sleep without a sheet.’ She organised the cover, set the pillows under it and took out her clothes, removing the long white socks she wore to stop her boots from chafing her shins, two dresses, a book, a hairbrush and toiletries. She arranged each item in a corner of the room, lined up along the wall.
‘Daddy,’ she asked, looking at the room, ‘are we poor?’
Chapter Fifteen
It cost his mother a month’s wage and took her a year of saving to buy Biko the tweed jacket with the wide, plunging pockets, large enough to hold a book, two books, one on each side. He looked like a schoolteacher, her seventeen-year-old son, already with his matriculation certificate and owlish glasses and long, long words, lapsing into English in the middle of sentences. When he first put the jacket on, her head swelled, her face flushed and she squinted hard in the light to see him. Her large, bossy boy always led the children in their games but was attentive to her, unlike his sister.
Each week she spent more time in bed, the curtains drawn late into the morning.
The shame rose up again, drying Biko’s mouth. Gertrude was older than him. He walked back from school next to her, in his new jacket. Her eyes narrowed with her smile when she saw him waiting for her. ‘Mr America, you look like a white man. An American.’ She put her arm around his waist and let his hand rest on her lower back. The ripple of muscles, the rise of her buttocks chased away his breath. Her pale blue school shirt was buttoned tight against her breasts. Her breasts, that he had noticed, when she lay in the sun with her friends between classes chiding, teasing the boys. But instead of teasing him now she allowed him to walk her home, taking the long, circuitous route through the township, past the small brick government homes evenly spaced and painted white so that on the road they looked like the dots on a domino. On the paved road Biko pretended that Gertrude was his and that their confident, meandering steps were taking them to his city house next to the National University of Science and Technology, or to his home in Harare or Johannesburg.
