In the ranks of the entourage at mass rallies the cheers and chants fell pleasingly on him among other veterans as a category to whom this sort of valediction was due; it didn’t matter who they were individually. The press mixed up the attribution of names and that didn’t matter either. In a democratic movement the personality cult must be kept to a minimum, except in the case of dead heroes, who are an example to the people without any possibility of leading a tendency or faction that might be divisive. The time of welcoming posters was over; there were many new faces, or the unexpected appearance of known ones in positions they had not held previously. But these positions were interim ones—more or less on the level of his own adaptation to a variety of impermanent roles.
When the date was announced of the congress at which the Movement’s elections for office would take place, lobbying began, of course. Among the strong group to which he belonged, those returned from prison and from experience as a government in exile, the concern—not to be admitted outside their own ranks—was how to concede positions to those who had earned them by keeping the Movement alive within the country, while retaining key positions for those who had surely earned them by conducting the Movement from exile or prison. Women’s groups, youth groups, trade union groups were busy gathering support for this or that candidate; the old guard welcomed the influx as affirming a new kind of mass base after so many years of clandestinity. They had no need to fear they would not be returned to office—loyalty to the most militant is a dominant emotion in the masses; deserved; to be counted on. Meanwhile Didymus made it quietly but firmly known that on the new National Executive he would not expect to continue doing whatever came up. He would get the legal department, or at least something on that level; it was tacitly assured by his comrades on the outgoing Executive that this went without saying.
Among the possible newcomers Sibongile was nominated by a combination of returnees and a women’s organization, neither very prominent as yet. He didn’t think she had much chance but was proud of the recognition nomination, at least, brought her.
—They’ve put me up only because I’m a woman—I’m wise to that and I don’t think it’s a good enough reason. The women just want to see one of us there among you men.—
—Of course the women have. But not your returnees. They know what you’re capable of, they know what you can do.—
—For them? Well, then they know more than I do.— Her theatrical, comic stare. —All I know is how we allowed the government to get away with giving us amnesties and passports and nothing else. All I know is we didn’t hold out for training centres, housing—your executive didn’t insist, it was up to you. In my office, with three raw youngsters and a pittance, I’m trying to deal with the results—and believe me, I’m not making miracles.—
Didymus had always appreciated her vehemence. He acknowledged the reproach, smiling. —I promise you I’ll take it up in the new executive.—
What has been forbidden for so long—a gathering, any gathering—becomes a kind of fairground of released emotion, with its buskers, its symbolic taking, together, of food and drink, its garrulous decibels rising after long silence, its own insigniabanded marshals mingling as if already the unattainable evolution of humankind has arrived, where men and women discipline themselves. No more police, no more dogs, no more tear-gas, no more beatings on the way to the Black Maria. Even if it never comes, it is enacted here and now. And as always in the mix of human affairs the tension in the sense that the future of the country is being decided is combined with dissatisfaction with the catering and discomfort occasioned by a hopeless provision of too few toilets.
Didymus moved among old acquaintances, old comrades who had to introduce themselves with reminiscence of campaigns they had shared with him. He had the politician’s flattering tactic of the hand on the shoulder, the grin of recognition even without knowing whom he was greeting. Every now and then he would excuse himself from his progression, called to confer with an other of the outgoing Executive members—questions of protocol coming up, complaints from the press, requests from the groups that should have been settled in advance; in a country where it had been a criminal offence for people like those gathered in the hall to meet for any kind of political purpose, what are routine procedures anywhere else here were arcane secrets of power and privilege. While his conclave drew aside, their eyes glancing into and away from the throng as they sheltered within their half-turned backs, in the air thick with voices and the friction of movement, the sussuration of clothing, the echo of coughs, laughter, a slithering stamping of feet, the tremolo of ululating cries broke again and again into song. People sing on marches, they sing at funerals, they sing on the way to jail; it was their secret, all that time of the forbidden.
You can’t toyi-toyi your way to freedom, Sibongile often tartly remarked in exile. He saw her, caught up in a sway and shuffle of women and young men. Her shoulders shrugged rhythmically and her head was thrown back; Sibongile was enjoying herself, or learning how to be a politician. He was amused.
The old guard sat on the podium through the announcement of nominations and process of voting, facing the people they had gone to prison for, gone into exile for—and died for: in their faces were those who were absent, who would never come back. Didymus, looking out at his people, had a strange realization, in his body, in his hands resting on his thighs, of his survival. He had moved among them as if dead; had he died under treatment in Moscow, the fiction, and walked among them those months as a phantom? Disguised, unrecognized, do you exist? And now they see him; back to life. It was a conviction of pure existence. He sat there; he was.
In this state he heard the results of the election announced. His name was not among those voted to the new Executive. The applause continued, the shouts flung about like streamers, the songs lifted, the list of names was somewhere beneath. Sibongile Maqoma. She was hidden in a scrum of triumphant supporters. He was congratulating his successful comrades, the clasp round the shoulders, the dip of the cheek to each cheek, ridiculous, as if he were a prize-fighter coming forward in defeat to embrace the victor. Nobody said anything, with the single exception of a comrade who had always felt enmity towards him: —It’s crazy. That they dump you, man.—
He made his way to the chanting, dancing press around Sibongile, pushing to get to her until someone saw who he was and nudged to have him let through. His embrace was again a public one, the hug and hard kiss on the mouth from the comrade-husband; his presence before her bounced off the excited glare of her face like the flash of a piece of glass in the sun. But what could she say right then—he was eddied about with some sort of respect among those celebrating her, the husband congratulated by eager hands.
When the surface of the crowd began to be broken up like foam in a current she appeared drifting to him with Vera Stark linked by the arm. He was back at the podium gathering briefcase and papers to leave his seat vacant for a successor. Vera was one of the team of independent observers—lawyers were regarded as having the most credibility for the task—brought in to monitor the votes. Clasped chummily by Sibongile as if they were schoolgirls after a victorious match, Vera stood waiting for him to speak; knowing he wouldn’t. —You’ll be co-opted. So it doesn’t mean anything.—
He patted her on the arm, smiling at the lie between them. —Let’s go and look for a drink—we must toast Sally, man!—
—Oh there’s a party! We’re all going to a party! Vera’ll come in our car—who’s got the keys, did I keep them or have you— Sibongile used this abstracted jollying tone when Mpho was little and had to be hustled off for an inoculation or an exam. After Vera had entered the back of the car Sibongile stood with her hand on her door, turned her head, close to him. —You’re all right …?—
—Of course I’m all right! What do you think! Now come on.—
At the party he took part in the noisy discussions that assessed the composition of the new Executive which (’on balance’ was the phrase) had kept the key positi
ons intact while pushing a few of the leadership upstairs under honorary titles, and bringing in new people with better contacts within the country. One would have thought him quite detached from the event; he succeeded in this: no one dared commiserate with him. Towards the end of the evening, when he and everyone else who took alcohol heightened the atmosphere of achievement (the younger comrades tended to find this a weakness of the old guard and drank fruit juice), he himself was in a mood to believe he felt that all that mattered was that the congress had established conventional political legitimacy for the long-outlawed Movement. You had your role, your missions, you took the risks of your life, you disappeared and reappeared, went into prison or exile, and there was no presenting of the bill for those years to anyone, the benefit did not belong to you and your achievement was that you wanted it that way.
The marital tradition of the post-mortem between husband and wife who were also comrades: one o’clock in the morning in the bedroom, the silence of weariness, stripping off shoes that have become constraints, opening waistbands that leave the weal of a long day—Sibongile burst into anger.
—Those sly bastards! They planned it! They wanted you out, I know that cabal, I’ve seen their slimy smiles. They’ve never forgiven you the time when you opposed them over the business of landings on the coast—
—Oh nonsense. It was a crazy idea, I wasn’t the only one.—
—How can you say that? You were the one. You were the one who had gone inside and reconnoitred, you were the one who knew whether it was possible to carry it out or not. What you said had to be what High Command would listen to. And those others couldn’t stomach to see themselves made fools of.—
He sat down on the bed. This seemed to make her angrier.
He did not look into her anger. —All so long ago.—
—They slapped you on the back, they whispered with you in corners, I saw them, even tonight, right there! And all the time they had it all set up to get you out. It isn’t long ago, for them. They don’t forget they didn’t come out of that business too well.—
She was pulling clothes over her head and flinging them across the room. Her straightened hair broke loose from its combs and stood up blowsily, her mouth was squared open, anger made her ugly.
—For God’s sake, Sibo— He changed from English to their language, or rather hers, which was the tongue of their intimacy. —It’s done. It’s happened. I don’t want to deal with it now. It’s political life, we held everything together in exile better than any other movement did, now’s not the time to start stirring up trouble. There may be a purpose, I don’t know, something else planned for me.—
—Hai you! What purpose! You going to grow a beard and all that stuff and infiltrate—where? What for? Where can’t we just get off a plane at an airport and walk in, now? We’re not living in the past!—
—That’s exactly what you’re saying—we are—there was a plot against me because of something that happened outside, done with. For God’s sake, let’s sleep.—
She lay beside him stiffly, breathing fast. —I don’t sleep. I can’t turn over and forget about it.—
—Listen, woman.— He sat up with effort. —You are going to be there, now. In there. Here at home in the country. Keep your mind on what you have to do, you have to work with everyone on the Executive, don’t make enemies for private reasons.—
She came back to English. —On principle. Ever heard of it, Didymus. On principle.—
—You’ve got a lot to learn. Let me look after my own affairs.—
—Your affairs are my affairs. Have I lived like any other woman, hubby coming home regularly from work every day? Have I known, months on end, whether you were dead or alive? Tell me. And could I ask anybody? Did I ever expect an answer? Could I tell our child why her father left her? Our affairs.—
—Not now. Not in politics, where you are now.—
Deep breaths snagged on a few sobs. She had always wept when she was angry. But was she also giving vent to the emotions of excitement and pride she had repressed out of consideration for him, when in the hall filled with delegates she heard that she was one of their chosen?
Chapter 8
We don’t seem to have much success with them. All he said.
—What d’you mean? Banking may not be exactly what you or I would have chosen for him, but he’s good at it, and Annie always wanted to be a doctor, she’s doing good work isn’t she, her heart’s in it— But she knew what he meant. Annick, inheritor of his beautiful face, had brought many boys home when she was a teenager but since she had qualified and taken a post in community medicine in the Cape she appeared to have no man and in her thirties gave no sign of marrying; Ivan was getting divorced without showing enthusiasm for a new woman who evidently was as much business associate as lover. Arid lives, by Ben’s hidden standards of high emotion.
—Well I don’t suppose we were such a good example—at least to Ivan.—
—I’ve never been divorced.—
The forgotten heat of blush, called up by Ben in her cheeks: Bennet, who thought he had seduced someone’s wife but had been seduced by her, and never since made love to another woman. That she was sure of, the certainty was there in the image bent alone over a meal in a restaurant that came back to her with blood in her face. I love you. That was in the blood, too, but she could not say it, what reason would he find for such a—declaration, at this moment? What reason was there? —Anyway, it’s not whether or not we make a success of their lives. Nothing to do with us.—
His palms smoothed along his jaw-line, a familiar gesture in the language of their marriage, not, as it might seem, a physical response to the shadow of his dark beard that by evening always had appeared again, but a sign of disagreement. —Maybe we should take the boy if they’re squabbling over him. Give him a stable home for a year or two.—
He went away to write a letter to Ivan, turning from what he knew was her alarmed silence.
Ben didn’t show her the letter and she did not ask to read it. Perhaps he had not made the offer to Ivan. It was not mentioned when Ivan telephoned, as he did now and then, or they called him because there had not been time or thought to write to him. The idea that there could be space in their life for something more was mislaid like a document lost in the bottom of the files where the struggle for another kind of space grew up every day around her. On the western border people from a tribe that had been moved with the concession that they could come back to their land to tend the graves of their ancestors for one day a year did not leave at nightfall but began to build huts. The sullen silence of reclaim met the arrival of authorities to evict them; they were left there—temporarily, the Foundation was warned, when it took up the issue on the appeal of the tribe. Vera and Lazar Feldman, a young colleague, found themselves proceeding from instructions of two kinds: one, from their own training in secular law, that the owners of the land had been displaced illegally in the first instance; the other, from the people who were thatching huts and surrounding them with fences of thorned branches and hacked-off prickly pear plants, that the instruction to return and take possession came from the ancestors.
It was easy to see this use of ancestor worship as a political tactic shrewd peasants had thought of beyond the rational ingenuity of lawyers; but there were moments when, listening to the people’s spokesmen, she felt confusion and uncertainty— not about them, but in herself; whether the only validity of their claim lay outside the political struggle, outside the challenging of laws made by governments that rise and fall, in the continuation of life itself from below and above the very ground that sustained it. What other claim is there that holds? The wars fought over land, the boundary proclamations, the paper deeds of sale—each cancels the other. What was she—the Foundation—working for, if not for that claim? But it didn’t look good enough in legal plea—peasant mysticism can’t be codified as a legal right—it was too good, for that. With a shift in a chair or a half-smile she and Lazar passed over the instructi
on from the ancestors and took that which came from their own strategical experience in opposing the law through its interstices, which consisted mainly in delaying tactics. The action of re-evicting the people would be held off—maybe so long that the present policies of land ownership would be torn up. Who knows? Such things are not discussed with Lazar; he is young, and would not understand that doubts do not mean that belief in the necessity of the work she does is abandoned. And even while this case was occupying her, Oupa came with a favoured opening: they’ve got a problem, we’ve got a problem, he’s got a problem. The owner of that apartment building where he was living was seeking the eviction of some tenants.
—The problem is, rooms on the roof. There are many people living up there.—
—But who pays rent for the rooms?—
—Well, that’s it. The tenants of the flats let them out to, say, one person or two. Then those people take in more. People who work in the day let the bed to people who work at night and sleep in the day. It’s like that.—
Yes, it was like that; when the apartments were built for white people, for their occupancy, their way of life, for the white millennium, when they lived in the apartments, each had the right to one of the rooms to accommodate a servant.
—I didn’t know about it. So I haven’t got anyone up there.—
They laughed together at the missed opportunity.
But the ‘problem’ remained, between them on Mrs Stark’s desk. Oupa had received an eviction order along with the other black tenants. The Foundation would have to look into it, take it up on behalf of them all. Oupa had been so proud, so happy to move in. Yet he was cheerful; she noticed he was wearing a new lumber-jacket, brown suede, and he asked his old adviser and friend something he’d never done before—she didn’t know he went to the theatre—whether a current play was to be recommended? He had about him the confidence of a young man elated to find himself attractive to a chosen girl; well, circumstance kept his wife away in another part of the country, absence makes room for other attachments, and perhaps they were parted, emotionally, by reasons only absence makes clear. She filed at court an intention to defend against the eviction order; she had to find time to interview the other tenants. Along the corridors of Delville Wood the old, faint signals from One-Twenty-One were jammed by the static of complaint, voluble indignation that buzzed about her in flats she had never before entered, and by the sight of the cubicles on the windswept roof, water dribbling from the communal washrooms, spirit stoves beside makeshift beds that in her clandestine occupancy of the white millennium had existed above her head while she was making love.
None to Accompany Me Page 9
