This Side Jordan

by Margaret Laurence

  The afternoon was quiet, all the morning noise of the house hushed in the time of intense heat. No stewardboys sang mournful lovesongs as they worked; no brown women pounded fu-fu with the resounding mortar and pestle. Even the raucous blackbirds and the white egrets were still, wings folded in baobab or niim tree.

  Everyone seemed asleep except himself and this girl.

  Moved by some inner compulsion he dared not consciously consider, Johnnie stepped closer to her. She stiffened but did not move. Watchful as a jewel-eyed lizard, she held herself quiet.

  Johnnie reached out one of his hands, and touched her breast.

  There was a sense of unreality about it, as though it did not matter what happened because it was happening only in a lone mind and no one could look there or know at all. He knew the unreality was unreal, the girl actual, but he did not believe it.

  She averted her eyes from his. She was tense, but he was certain that she had been awakened by someone, sometime, before she came here to be the wife of a man old enough to be her grandfather.

  He knew the whole thing was impossible. But his body would not obey his mind’s frantic command to turn and go.

  Then she looked at him.

  Johnnie disentangled himself abruptly and jerked away. The girl’s eyes were filled with a quivering rabbitfear, the flutter of the frail furred thing caught, the bird that dances witless before the snake.

  Comprehension filtered slowly into his mind. She was a bush-girl, and he, a whiteman, was of a species so strange to her that she could not see him as a man at all.

  But the concept that had made her afraid to stay, also made her afraid to go. Doubtless she had been warned against displeasing him.

  He had not intended his half-instinctive action to lead anywhere. He had not really intended anything. But he had wanted her. He had wanted a bush-girl. And she had rejected him.

  Swiftly and without thought, Johnnie hit her hard across the face. He felt a quick flare of pleasure, then nothing. She crouched on the ground and her breath came jaggedly, soundlessly. He turned and walked back into the bungalow.

  A few minutes later he heard her screams. The blow must have made a betraying welt. Whiskey was beating her. Johnnie grasped the chair-arm and closed his eyes. But he did not go out to stop the beating. It was none of his business.

  He felt afraid, yet even in his fear he knew it would be passably all right. Whiskey would never speak of this day – not to Miranda, or anyone, for it gave the old man too good a trump card. Whiskey would be quick to realize that however poorly he worked from now on the master would never dare to sack him. Johnnie was quite safe.

  Monday mornings, always difficult for Bedford, seemed to be growing a little more grim each week. This morning he had passed Johnnie’s office without his usual greeting, and for several hours had maintained absolute silence. At mid-morning, however, Johnnie heard him shouting in the corridor.

  At first Johnnie paid no attention, but when his clerks began to giggle softly, he left his office and went out to see.

  Bedford’s face was suffused with a purple rage. Before him stood Kojo, the Stores Clerk. Kojo was young, but he was one of the better clerks. He was bright; he knew his job; and lately he had carried a heavier work-load than usual, since Bedford had taken to drifting around to Johnnie’s office so much, ostensibly to give reassurance but actually to receive it.

  ‘You damn idiot!’ Bedford’s bull-voice must have reached all the way out to the street. ‘What do you mean he didn’t have any in stock? How could he run out of typewriter ribbons? Probably had some in the back of the shop. Couldn’t be bothered to look, that’s all.’

  ‘He looked, sir.’

  ‘Well, you should’ve told Chebib he’s got to keep things in stock, if he wants our trade. Why didn’t you get ’em somewhere else?’

  ‘The chit was made out for Chebib, sir, and so I had to come back, first, and get it changed.’

  ‘Why didn’t you make him go and get them at another place, then?’

  ‘I did that with the carbon paper, the last time, sir, and you said I was not to do it.’

  ‘The hell I told you that!’ Bedford bellowed. ‘Never said any such thing! That’s the trouble with you people. You’re all alike. Never know what to do unless somebody tells you. Don’t think, that’s your trouble. You’re all the same. Not one of you uses his head.’

  Johnnie stopped listening. He had heard it all many times before. He looked at the African boy. Always, before, under such circumstances, the faces of African clerks had been defiant or filled with a sullen hatred. But this time it was different.

  Kojo looked patient, indifferent, almost bored.

  Johnnie knew, with sudden sick certainty, that Kojo could handle Bedford’s job quite easily, if he were given the chance.

  The old order was changing already. The African clerk did not any longer need to look defiant or sullen. Kojo knew he could afford to wait.

  For the first time, in the eyes of an African clerk, Johnnie saw that Africanization, like Independence, would go ahead whatever he or anyone else thought of it.

  Perhaps a similar concept had penetrated Bedford’s fury, for he broke off in mid-sentence, as though he had forgotten what he was going to say. He frowned, trying to recall, then he waved the boy away, wordlessly. His face was drawn and grey. He looked up and saw Johnnie.

  ‘Oh – you heard, then,’ Bedford mumbled. ‘Stupid – to lose one’s temper.’

  Miranda sat under the niim tree, half asleep in the bright air that at midday was becoming steamy once more. The season had kindled a flame tree into flower. Its blaze of red blossoms covered the top branches, spilling embers down onto the ground. A gold and ebony salamander lay sleek and still in its hunting blind, the bed of marigolds. A pair of mudwasps, trailing hair-thin legs like vines, came out of their dwelling, a tube of clay they had painstakingly built on the stoep wall. Their dance was slow and perfectly measured, the dance of hunting, their delicate poisonous bodies absorbed in the dream-like gyrations of their flight. A battalion of warrior ants threaded its persistent way across the garden. They left a path in the dust, and all the larger creatures, even the dragon-lizards, moved out of the way. On the bungalow walls the big spiders had come out to weave the gossamer of death.

  Johnnie told Miranda about Bedford. She was silent for a moment.

  ‘It’s a terrible shame,’ she said finally.

  ‘He’s a rank imperialist, you know,’ Johnnie said with a wry smile.

  ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ she said. ‘I guess it’s not so simple when you know the person.’

  ‘No. It’s never so simple then.’

  ‘Where does it leave you, Johnnie?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it means that your idea is the only practical one, after all. That would be a laugh, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Johnnie – if you could discover a few really promising clerks, why couldn’t you begin giving them extra training?’

  ‘Surreptitiously, you mean? Without James’ knowledge? My own Africanization project?’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Just whose jobs do you think these model blacks would take over, Manda?’

  ‘There are those four bachelors,’ she said without hesitation. ‘What are their names? Cooper’s one, I think. I scarcely know them.’

  ‘It’s all right to boot a man out, then, as long as you don’t know him personally?’

  ‘They’re awfully young,’ she protested. ‘It might be a disappointment to them, but I can’t think it would ruin their careers.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But don’t you see that any training scheme would entail the co-operation of all concerned? And James still believes he can defeat Africanization ostrich-fashion, by ignoring it.’

  ‘You think James won’t change – ever? Even if the London office –?’

  ‘It isn’t that he won’t change. He can’t. He’s too old and he feels too strongly on the subject.’

  ‘We
ll, even so, if you had some boys who seemed to be administrative material,’ Miranda said determinedly, ‘you could find some way of letting the Firm know –’

  Johnnie looked at her steadily. There was an inexorable logic in her idea. But it seemed strange, coming from Miranda. Then he saw that she had no idea of the implications in the scheme she presented so blithely.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose I could do that.’

  It was true. All he needed was a handful of promising candidates, boys of Kojo’s calibre. They need not be trained in any specialized way. They need only exist – gold-ore ready to be mined. He might contrive then to let Head-office know that, despite James’ inertia, Africanization could be achieved promptly if the right man handled it. Inquiries would be made, and with any luck, he would be allowed to go ahead. James would be replaced. The new manager would be more in tune with the times, and Johnnie would act as his lieutenant. Johnnie’s advice would be asked, and he would have to reveal the fact that Kojo could step into Bedford’s shoes. The old guard would all go.

  Johnnie felt a sudden disgust – at Miranda, for not seeing, and at himself, for being able to see, the whole treacherous scheme.

  The Club was the last sanctuary of whitemen, yet even here the present climate of change was apparent.

  Johnnie walked slowly back to the table beside the dancefloor. He dreaded the dreariness that awaited him. He’d had a fair amount to drink, but he was cold sober. The Club had that effect on him.

  It might have been all right in the old days, when everyone knew everyone else and the Club was a gathering place of the clan. The exiles of three generations had met here to drink and to mourn the lost island home for which they longed but to which they did not want to return until they were old. One could almost see them, those mythical men, sitting here on the stoep where hibiscus flowers drooped half-asleep and the niim branches shushed throughout the hot quiet night. One could almost hear their voices, talking of the Masai, Somali, Watusi, Matabele, Bantu, Ashanti, Hausa, Yoruba, as though they had been discussing the Jenkins of Paddington. The long-dead tamers of a continent seemed more real tonight than the living, who drifted spectre-like up the steps and along the corridors.

  From the tables came shreds of conversation.

  – if they let the blacks in, I’ll resign my membership –

  – every bush cocoa-farmer will be able to come in and raise hell –

  – they say the government’s got plans for a road through this exact spot, if we don’t allow Africans –

  – I’ve no objection to educated Africans, but –

  – they’re all the same, they’re all bush –

  – you should have seen it before the war –

  – everything’s different – everything’s changed –

  The band’s music seemed to swell the dirge. On their own ground, the local nightclubs, the African musicians played highlife lustily, but here they merely performed with listless stoicism the required cycle – waltz, slow foxtrot, quickstep.

  Primly, the dancers pirouetted, the long pastel skirts of pale girls swishing sedately over the parquet floors. On the stoep, where vined moonflowers burned their last faint incense, the drinkers’ glasses clashed cymbal-like and their laughter boomed loud and hollow as drums. And in the Gentlemen’s Bar, a few old Coasters communed with ghosts.

  ‘My round,’ James said. ‘What’ll yours be, Johnnie?’

  ‘Oh – gin and tonic, thanks.’

  Only James and Cora and himself were here, and they were all bored stiff, but no one would admit it, no one would give up and go home. Once a month James dutifully spent an evening at the Club in company with selected members of his staff. The Cunninghams had been unable to attend this evening, and Miranda had begged off. But this was the appointed staff night, so the gathering took place despite the depleted ranks. James never altered a longstanding custom under any circumstances.

  The Squire was giving the usual patter.

  ‘The province of Ashanti contains almost all the country’s wealth,’ he intoned. ‘Cocoa, gold, timber. No wonder they don’t want to be governed by a political party dominated by coast men. And of course the C.P.P.’s death on the chiefs and the old traditions, and that’s got the Ashantis raging, too. The N.L.M.’s getting stronger all the time. The two groups will never agree on a constitution. I think, myself, that there’ll be civil war – or tribal war, one should really call it. You mark my words, Johnnie, March sixth will come and go, and Independence will still be just a word. If we weren’t here to maintain order, they’d be at each others’ throats in five minutes.’

  A month ago, Johnnie would have believed him. He would have been impressed. Now he only nodded wearily.

  ‘Please, James –’ Cora said it like a prayer to a deity one knows to be deaf, ‘please let’s not talk about it.’

  James ignored her, as she had known he would. She beckoned to a passing steward-boy, and her drink was renewed, and James did not notice.

  The Squire hunched his leprechaun body halfway across the table.

  ‘The parallel between government and business is exact,’ he said. ‘Africanization will no more work in business than it will in government. Of course, you realize one thing, Johnnie. If Independence is delayed, the Firm won’t worry about Africanization. The whole thing will be conveniently dropped. That’s what I anticipate.’

  ‘That would be convenient,’ Johnnie said dryly.

  ‘We simply have to wait it out. I will say this, Johnnie – I think I know the African mentality pretty well. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ashanti secede, and of course if it does, there’ll be no Independence.’

  ‘Yes. I see.’

  James chuckled.

  ‘The Ashantis are great fighters when they really get started,’ he said. ‘We were at one of the gold mines in Ashanti for a time, you know. I opened a branch there. The shop was just outside the mine gates. The mine settlement was behind a high wall, and the European mine staff lived inside. The African miners lived outside, in the village, and of course they had to be carefully searched each evening before they were allowed out. They used to try to hide bits of high-grade gold-ore around themselves, in the most unlikely places sometimes.’

  James looked up expectantly, and Johnnie dutifully smiled.

  ‘I remember one time,’ James continued, ‘when an African, working inside, had been caught tossing a dead rat over the wall and the creature was found to have been stuffed full of ore. Well, of course, there was the devil of a row about it. The African swore he thought it was just an ordinary rat. He accused another man, a Northern Territories chap. No one believed him, naturally, and he was sacked. That night in the village there was a proper riot. The two men began fighting, and all the Africans joined in on one side or the other, the N.T.’s against the Ashantis. Cora and I lived above the shop, and we could see the whole thing from our balcony. Remember, Cora? It was a real sight. Machetes, knives, rocks, and everyone shouting like lunatics. The police couldn’t cope. I phoned the Mine Superintendent, and he wired to Kumasi for troops. Well, well, the Ashantis are certainly fighters, I can tell you –’

  Johnnie felt a gratifying anger. Who gave a curse how the Ashantis fought in a village brawl twenty years ago?

  Cora rose.

  ‘Johnnie – dance with me?’

  As they walked around the edge of the dancefloor, Cora turned to him.

  ‘James didn’t tell you one thing about that night of the riot. He finally sent me in through the mine gates, to a friend’s house. James wouldn’t leave the shop. In case they tried to burn it, you know. He – stood out on the balcony, all night, in plain view. He had his .303, but some of the Africans had spears. Towards morning, the mob shifted in the other direction.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘He really was quite brave, you know,’ she said.

  When they arrived back at the table, James did not even glance up or appear to notice them at all. After a moment, however, he roused h
imself and leaned towards Johnnie.

  ‘Did I mention Cameron Sheppard to you?’

  Johnnie shook his head.

  ‘The name rings a bell, but I can’t think where I’ve heard it.’

  ‘London,’ James said. ‘Sheppard’s one of the junior partners in the Firm. He’s coming out here in a week or so.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘In connection with the Africanization programme. Quite ridiculous. He’ll be here for several days.’

  James’ voice took on a note of petulance.

  ‘I shall have to put him up, I suppose. I expect he’ll be asking all sorts of stupid questions – probably want to hold sessions far into the night. I tell you quite frankly, Johnnie, I’m not looking forward to it. Seeing him at the office is one thing. One’s – prepared, you know. But to have the wretched fellow in one’s own home –’

  Johnnie drew a deep breath. It might just possibly be worth a try.

  ‘I’ll put him up, if you like,’ he said casually.

  James’ eyes lit up hopefully.

  ‘Oh – would you? Well, I must say that’s very decent of you. If you’re sure Miranda wouldn’t mind. It wouldn’t be too much trouble?’

  ‘No trouble at all,’ Johnnie said.

  NINE

  Nathaniel had not expected to meet Miranda Kestoe again, but he did. This time, of all unlikely places, it was at a party, a European cocktail party, the first that Nathaniel had ever attended. He was there almost by accident.

  Victor had introduced him to Eric Banning, an American who was studying the drum language. Nathaniel had forgotten most of the things the Kyerema his father had taught him as a boy, but some he remembered, and Banning was grateful. It never occurred to the American to doubt that Nathaniel would be at ease at one of his parties. Nathaniel felt flattered but in a vague way resentful as well.

  He and Aya stood by themselves. No one spoke to them. Nathaniel could feel his muscles tightening, like the leather thongs on a ‘dono’ drum.

  The Drummer would have done better. He would not have been ill at ease. He would have worn a Kente cloth and sauntered among these people, his eyes cold and amused. And they would have flocked to speak with him. But he, Nathaniel, wore a badly fitting suit and spectacles, and he was a schoolteacher. So he was not interesting to them, because they could see no further than to think he was trying to be like them and not succeeding.