No Time Like the Present

by Nadine Gordimer

  Unaware of its significance between these two at the consultancy seminar on Thursday, a hotel one of whose five stars was a Thai sauna and karma massage centre neither had ever heard of. The conference room was not full of chancers, but men and women mainly in early middle age, from the look of them, and confidently prepared questions by them; young men and girls both with gold loops in their earlobes, Australia’s apparently known as not fuddy-duddy square, if you have the skills they need, and there was what must be somebody’s son whom BEE might have discriminated against because of his lack of pigment, who has with him an old woman, face defiantly made up. Jabu the only black. She was dressed in her African complexity, the high cloth around the pile of her hair more sober in colour than usual, and no locks escaped. People in the room noticed her covertly; few individuals want it witnessed that they too are giving up birthright. Defeated? Defecting; it’s known as taking the plane for Perth.

  Jabu surprises anyway (now they turn to look) by the precision of general questions she asks that they themselves are here to pursue, as if she’s doing it on their behalf, and better, in presentation of matters they don’t have the knowledge of jurisprudence to follow. The law is present, somehow, in their favour. It turns out she is a lawyer married to the white man beside her. He’s a university professor who’s in correspondence with some universities already interested in him; his questions don’t concern that advance alone, however, but whether appointments in any capacity of employment are restricted in terms of a valid period or are permanent immigration granted. And what is the position in regard to membership of professional associations, may immigrant workers in industry join trade unions? Not employed on the cheap—no benefits?

  Isn’t he putting his foot in it for everyone by dragging up politics! Is it because he’s got himself a genuine black wife (look at the Black-is-Beautiful power outfit) he’s unlikely to be discriminated against in jobs for professors here at home—so what’s the reason for the pair going to emigrate?

  But this conference room isn’t the place for exchanges across the floor among would-be immigrants, it’s not good form to address one another. He gets his information, she gets hers, and is told there is further available in the brochures.

  There has been the mutual experience, to break tacit non-communication, so now it’s all right to speak. Going down in one of the elevators the man with the old woman engages him. —You’ve already had some responses from over there? You’re lucky. ‘Explore hidden opportunities’, ‘all visa-types’, ‘in-depth accurate, honest assessment’, ‘spectacular success’, blah-blah. ‘Welcome’ they advertise, and the guys at these consultancies are gung-ho encouraging, but I’ve had no response to my applications, firms they’ve put me in touch with. I’m beginning to think about New Zealand, what’s your take on the country? Of course you’re a university man, I see, I suppose you have a better chance than I do with all the ‘conditions apply’—the small print. Every time I come to these meetings the consultant gives me a different story, whether they’re actually from Down Under or some hired local lawyer . . .—

  The old woman has the lowered blue-painted eyelids and tucked lip corners of one who has heard all this before, dinned many times over. To everyone pressed together in the confinement carrying them, she speaks. —I’m taking the final emigration.—

  It’s all too solemn; someone titters patronisingly kindly, —You’re doing the tourist trip to the moon?—At your age?—

  —No. Cremation. You go up in infinitesimal particles to infinity.—

  They are in Steve’s car bundled with presents and contributions of Christmas food, for once the complete family, Gary Elias off to his second home, Sindiswa acceptant after having exacted the assurance they’ll be back in her home by New Year’s Eve when she’s invited to a party with her Aristotle schoolfriends, Wethu humming some hymn she knows she’ll soon be singing in the Elder’s Methodist Church.

  Baba himself called to invite them all; when Jabu told this was uncertain—unlikely that there would be some obligation to the Reeds, but the comrades, the Suburb, the Dolphins and a new body round the pool, Marc’s defection, had some party plans. Yet it seemed to take for granted, between them, that if her Baba summoned, they would come to her home-place. The rape case was behind; and the corruption case set aside although appeal against that judgment being proceeded; Jacob Zuma remains, he is, the African National Congress’s nomination for the presidential election in the new year.

  There’s an ox slaughtered in the village, the meat butchered from it isn’t in plastic packets from the supermarket, it comes straight to the great iron vessels straddling the women’s cooking fires. For Sindiswa, who doesn’t often visit in KwaZulu this is not exotic; at the birthday party of a Greek schoolfriend there was a sheep on a spit he and his pals, directed by his father, were turning.

  Steve’s drawn into the football game with Gary Elias, the boy cousins, along with other fathers in Baba’s collateral clan. Many of the men who live away in the industrial towns, miners, construction workers, are Home-Boys back for Christmas. They form their own enclave drinking the supply of canned beer they’ve contributed as well as imbamba that has been generously brewed. They are amiably drunk and then there’s a discrete breakaway by a few who protectively surround a woman bowed and weeping among the laughter and chatter of a good time; her son has died in some city where he found work. Jabu goes with her mother and other women to console, when she finds herself nearby.

  He’s given himself half-time from the football match.

  —It was AIDS.— —Who?— —The one who didn’t come.— Her tilt of eyes to the city workers. He and she followed the toll of AIDS, she could quote straight off the latest infection count published but so far no one either knows has died. At the Justice Centre she meets men and some women—out of fear of disgrace they are even more cautious about letting it be known—who are HIV-positive, on antiretrovirals, and even some who have AIDS. They are people dismissed from their employment because they are infected with the virus: she’s involved in court actions against employers illegally ignoring workers’ Constitutional rights.

  Who knows which among his students is positive, aware or not; a lecturer in another faculty has made what’s called his ‘status’ public and addressed the students in every faculty, urging them boldly, like himself, to take the test, and if it is positive start treatment immediately; if it is negative, wake up, be sure in your love-making you take every means of protecting yourself and your partner of whatever sex from infection.

  There are two comrades—not of the Suburb but theirs from the wider association of the shared past—who are out of the closet and on treatment that will keep them alive maybe without developing AIDS. The Dolphins? Don’t fall into the wishful belief that it’s a homosexual curse passed on to heteros.

  Still flushed by a football game taken unseriously by everyone, fun—like the absurd contests there used to be sometimes in camp lulls between action, he goes to join the workers in their loss. But they come from dispersion in whatever jobs they’ve found all over the industrialised country, most will not have known the man as grown men, and if there were a few of the man’s comrades—fellow workers, they will have mourned him, away at the graveside; it’s the mother’s sorrow revived by the son this year missing among the Home-Boys returned for Christmas. These welcome the white man the church Elder’s, headmaster’s daughter married, exchanging happily, interrupting each other’s anecdotes that come from the kind of life the towns and cities offer them, hostels where you must survive violence, the cost of backyard rooms if you manage to find them—there’s the thigh-slapping story graphic in their mix of isiZulu and English, of one who’s got himself a share of a room on the skyscraper roof of what used to be rich whites’ apartments. Up there, the servants lived, now the new tenant class don’t have live-in servants, and the building’s owner rents sky rooms to anyone—there’s a shebeen run by some women at weekends, there are kids up there, men and their girls,
Izifebe Onondindwa.

  Sindi is speaking isiZulu she learnt from her mother since the first words heard as a baby in Glengrove Place to a cluster of girls who find they have the same jokes and complaints about boyfriends although her freedom at her kind of school is something unimaginable to them at the girls’ equivalent of Headmaster Elias Siphiwe Gumede’s school for boys.

  Instead of going home for Christmas, the Zimbabweans fleeing from home in tens of thousands, finding a way to that other Methodist Church, the beds of city pavements, the empty suburban lots. New Year a week ahead bringing the elections, another post-apartheid government; the hiving-off of ANC heroes to start a rival party—no one’s talking of this, these are the KwaZulu Home-Boys, back drinking home brew. It’s going down plentifully to the great promise—the promises of the idol, Zuma. Jacob Zuma will change all that hasn’t been changed to make better the better life for all. Msholozi, his praise-name: one of them, the workers; Zuma, their own.

  Her Baba has given her husband his share of the presence and attention he distributes among everyone in traditional hospitality both of the Christian in this holy season and amaZulu feasts of celebration. He has the easy male subject to introduce—having to buy a new car. —The garage man tells me my old model isn’t worth repairing any more, and the tyres—our roads you know—a new set would be a lot of money thrown out . . . they say you must buy a new car every six years.—

  —In that case, mine should be in the scrapyard! Nearly three years out of date.—

  —And you got here with Jabu all right? . . . of course . . . of course if I do have to replace, I must have my wheels, there’s a Japanese model or maybe I should stay with Ford.—

  Their expressions show each has other things occupying their minds, but this is friendly talk on safe ground in respect of whose this is beneath where they sit. No venture to mention a corruption trial lingering above the certain election of Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, as if allusion first would be an offence to the host, and second could be tactless in consideration of the politics whatever they might be, of the daughter’s husband. Her reactions when she paid that visit after Msholozi was found innocent in the rape trial: she will have influenced her man. Or his could have been the influence on her attitude. A daughter of mine.

  They passed a night in comfortable spirits at her parents’ house, sleep understandably delayed by the singing and rising scales of ululating joy, background static of the radio commentary until some uncounted hour. The children were distributed where they elected to be among collaterals their own age who were delighted to make place for them, Gary Elias of course sharing a bed he occupies on his regular visits.

  She didn’t have to ask if he would come with family led by the Elder to church for the service on Christmas Day.

  —Am I all right?— He wore a jacket despite the heat, and the tie he’d thrown into his duffle bag, remembering decencies observed in the Anglican church attended with his father.

  He would pass; she had brought her formal Pan-African outfit and although this elaborately distinguished her from the simple traditional dress of the other up-to-date women and the tight tailored skirts, flowered hats hung over from the colonial period of decorum worn by a few old women, her beauty as a tribute to worship of the Christ Child, coming from their continent of Africa, was admiringly received. Their headmaster. Their Elder, in the line of his family’s distinguished leadership in this, their church, had educated his daughter for the world but she had not forgotten to come back, bring something, symbol of her achievements, to them.

  Enjoyed himself. Really. He felt—at home. In her home. In place. Is it because the personal life can become, is—central over the faith—political faith? (That’s heresy . . .)

  He’s got over (unthinkingly there) his rejection of, no wasn’t that—his detachment from the Reeds, Jonathan. A reconciliation brought about by Jabu, by life with her? Yes, a comrade; but she has never given allegiance to their faith—Struggle—as a religion, substitute for religious faith. She’s free? What an easy way out. But she doesn’t take easy ways.

  It’s killingly difficult to accept a priority between choice of existences in the meanly allotted human span. Oh, stuff the philosophy. There is her heritage KwaZulu Africa as exemplified in her father with whom she is bonded although parted from by the poster she came upon on the fence.

  Tonight he sees her reading and making notes on the information supplied by the Australian consultancy on the jurisprudence and legal system Over There. He’s addressing her to himself by her full name: has Jabulile Gumede accepted, decided for Australia. They discuss the move practically, they’ve talked about schools, about whether it would be more to a lifestyle perhaps envisaged, to be in a city rather than well, some suburban outback, a suburb, not the Suburb?

  That’s not a decision, an acceptance within the self, herself.

  It is expected that some time after the return to the Suburb, as promised, in Sindi’s concern to be back for her schoolfriends’ New Year’s Eve party, there’ll be an afternoon or evening with his mother—perhaps the last before she moves to Cape Town—and whoever among the Reeds may be around her.

  Jabu has made the arrangement, it’s an evening. Jonathan and Brenda are there, the Jonathan-Brenda daughter Chantal who with her mother’s ebullience hugs cousin Sindiswa whom she has seen only a few times in the childhood almost outgrown. And Ryan the son who is studying engineering in England for a degree which will favour him to take up a post there or anywhere. He hasn’t waited to graduate, he’s married, his Welsh-English wife Fiona is with him, Sindi won’t be a bridesmaid after all. Ryan’s speaking confidently of life in London, acclimatised in every way—even his South African English has somehow naturally lost its old inflections which come from the way the language is used by the Babel of citizens, isiZulu, Setswana, Sepedi, isiXhosa, Afrikaans—all notes sounding up and down the linguistic tune.

  His wife works in an art gallery in Cork Street and her brother is first violinist in a chamber orchestra that performs all over the world. —Not just the stress and strain of engineering structures I’m wise to, we never miss an exhibition of developments in art, trends, the different conceptions, what art is, I mean, taking in new technology as means the way paint brushes used to be and then of course the music—Fiona’s brother the open door to concerts, everything new that’s happening in music, fantastic, post-Stockhausen to post-Jackson.— As if suddenly remembering the concerns of Steve and the beautiful—yes, she is—black wife. —And we don’t have to feel why am I having all this while people here are living in shacks still kicked around— Wrinkles his nose, and then tosses the situation, as it should be for the evening, away with jerk of his head.

  —What about the Muslims in England?— Jabu’s gentle witness-interrogation voice.

  —Well there are, there’ve been nasty incidents, of course you’ll always get thugs who’ll take out their own frustrations on people who don’t look like themselves.— He arches his eyebrows to make known he’s not among them.

  Australia wiped out its aboriginals. Almost. So you don’t have to feel guilty of privileges, there. The few who’re left, the descendants, are mostly specimens, they have no real part in national life?

  He isn’t hearing the exchange continuing between Ryan and Jabu.

  Neither is Jonathan, who’s telling him, —I’m looking for the way to finance buying a house for the young couple in London or wherever he gets a post, most likely one of the big construction companies—maybe even a municipality or what do you call them, county. My lawyer’s busy with control hassles, how to get permission to send the money from here, there’s the provision you can own one property abroad, you know . . . oh, conditions apply. Officials go nosing into every nook and cranny of your finances. However. I’ve got some friends who know their way around.—

  So the son’s not coming back. Home.

  As was clear when Jonathan came to ask for advice about the best university faculty of engineering for his son
. Home is transferable. It always has been. Long before tribes coming down from the equatorial North, the Dutch following the reconnaissance of the Dutch East India Company, the French and their viniculture, the English colonial governors, the indentured Indians for the whites’ sugar plantations, the Scottish mining engineers, the Jews from Czarist Russian racism and later Nazi Germany’s persecution, the Italians who took a liking to the country during their spell as prisoners of war here, the Greeks whose odyssey launched by poverty brought them—all these and others of distant origins made home, this South Africa. It hasn’t managed to wipe out completely the San and Khoi Africans whose homeland of origin was taken from them.

  You can make of somebody else’s your home anywhere. It’s human history. But it’s less complex if the indigenous population has been more or less disposed of.

  Has Jonathan heard of connections with the Australian consultancy maybe through a friend who has noted who else was there at a seminar; or has Jonathan beside him read his mind. —Ever think of England? You have such good connections haven’t you, that conference you went to? You could surely get a pretty good appointment in a university. But I suppose you have your ties here . . . no reason to . . . Brenda and I—the awful violence growing—we talk about it don’t we all, but when you come down to nitty-gritty I say . . . everywhere. God knows what country’s safe, and I just have the idea that once the world recession’s over, investment, business is going to boom here; well, stick it out. The metal industry, we’re not doing too badly even now, my outfit, we’ve managed to redeploy—not so many worker lay-offs in our show. But that doesn’t solve the question of getting money out for Ryan’s house.—

  They laugh together, Jonathan aware that in this matter his brother Steve is not the man to ask for useful advice.

  England. Other consultancies. Yes. Why never think of England if you have such great thoughts at all and are pursuing them. Connections. The influential academics at the conference where all arrangements were efficiently managed by the official with a man’s name in its female version. ‘Home’ to England where father Reed’s line came from. Life in England: a few days in an old mill converted to a private place.