None to Accompany Me

by Nadine Gordimer

  Mpho flung herself on her mother and started to cry. Sibongile struggled to lift her face and chide her lovingly, don’t be silly, nothing’s happened, I’m all right. —But he said they’re going to kill you— Didymus took over, his arm round her. —You’ve got it all wrong, he said her name is on a list, a whole list of other people, some names jotted down, that’s all. Your mother’s not a real target, she’s not one of the top leaders, is she.—

  —But she’s up there, isn’t she, she’s sitting there, she’s part of the discussions those awful people want to stop. They hate us! They hate her!—

  Mpho had not been told about the note under the door; but they could not fob her off again by telling her, don’t be silly, it’s nothing. She sat with her head on her father’s shoulder; Sibongile repeated exactly what the police officer had told her. She had at least resisted her disbelief sufficiently to ask where the list had come from: it was not in the interest of certain investigations to reveal. That’s all. They calmed the girl, Sibongile taking her hands, turning the silver and elephant-hair rings on her fingers, Didymus stroking her hair, while they talked, as of commonplaces in their lives, of the possibilities: which group might be responsible for the list and how the police found it. In someone’s house, office—where? But Didymus was experienced in these matters. —It’s come from the cells. They’ve got someone to sing.—

  Under her fear, Mpha was taking the opportunity for regression, becoming a little girl again. —Daddy, you must get the police to guard us, you must.—

  —My darling, you couldn’t be sure that’d be the best thing … But we’ll be careful.—

  —But how can you be careful! You can’t stay inside all the time. Look what’s happened, if you go to the corner shop just to buy a newspaper, just down the road, they can drive past and shoot you as you come home, right at the gate. I’ll be like the other girl at her father’s funeral—I saw her on TV—seeing my mother put in the grave—

  The phone rang again and she jumped up in reflex to answer it while Didymus called after her. —Don’t tell anything to your friend, whoever it is.—

  There were no gods for them to turn to, either. No new state, not yet; no Security that was not at the same time part of the threat. The feel of the house, that was home at last, changed. The dimension of rooms stood back, fragile. The painted burglar bars that had come along with the house were toys to keep out petty thieves. The locks on the doors—nothing, to a force that had the keys to everything in everyone’s life, that had sent them into exile and let them in again. They carried on with routine lives during the day and at night sat on the furniture Sibongile had bought, as in a waiting-room.

  Chapter 23

  Adam’s and Vera’s approach to one another came about through faulty objects. She did not know how to make real contact with him, nor he with her (if he bothered to think about it at all); and it happened of itself. Fixing things. As if some side of him he wouldn’t have wished to admit to, hidden under the boldness of getting drunk and losing a licence, there was the guilty pleasure of tinkering, of making objects other than souped-up motorbikes work. It started with the washing machine, from which water wouldn’t drain after the rinsing cycle, and now it was the computer in Vera’s stoep-study. They were before it together, she on her swivel chair and he crouched beside her. She showed him how the machine either did not respond to or disagreed with her instructions, he watched and tried it for himself. It seemed as if the two of them, beginning to laugh at their own frustration, ganged up in argument with a third person of stubborn obduracy. —Let it cool off a bit. I think I’m getting the idea.—

  —But what makes you think you can put it right!—

  —Well I’m coming to something … we’ll start over again in a minute.— He went to the kitchen and fetched two cartons of the guava juice he had become addicted to in his father’s country. They sucked at it through straws.

  If machines were the train of thought in which they best met it was easy for her to maintain it. —Wha’d’you think makes my car suddenly begin to stall instead of idling? It’s really annoying, yesterday every time I came to a traffic light: engine dead. I suppose I’ll have to go to the garage and they’ll expect me to leave it there for half a day, a whole palaver, I’ll have to arrange to borrow someone else’s at the Foundation … what a bore.—

  —Sounds like something to do with the feed.— She saw how he liked to be consulted. —If you give me the keys I’ll take it out this afternoon and see what’s what. Could be just a small adjustment, you don’t need the garage charging you through the neck.—

  Give him the keys; he was devious, this boy, taking advantage of the ease between them at this moment to suggest he should be allowed to drive again. She smiled on closed lips, in doubt: we understand each other:—And if you bump into someone? Insurance won’t pay and you’ll be charged with a criminal offence.—

  —Oh how could anyone know about the licence business, back in Britain!—

  —Because you’d have to produce it. Wasn’t it confiscated? Or if you have it, isn’t there an endorsement?—

  —I’ve got an international one they didn’t ask about. I’ve got that right here with me!—

  Vera did not want to lose touch, be punitive, the lawyer too correct to be amused in recognition of shady initiative. —Compounding your culpability, man!—

  —I wouldn’t fail the Breathalyzer, would I? You and Ben never offer me a drink, do you? I’m going to turn into a guava.—

  Vera was still laughing. —No, Adam, no, whatever contingency plans you have … it’s not a good idea.—

  He was looking at her openly, so young, beguiling, set aside as a nuisance by those other adults—his parents, her son; knowing how to make himself irresistible. —Vera, I want to take somebody you know and like very much to a jazz festival out of town, what’s the place called, Brotherstroom—

  —Broederstroom?—

  —Well whatever. I need a car to take Mpho there on Saturday, you don’t go to your office that day, Ben’s home and you could use his car?—

  He was amazed at the change in her face and the disposition of her body in the chair.

  —Where have you seen her?—

  He laughed in deliberate misunderstanding, as if at her lapse of memory. —In your house. When she came with her parents.—

  —I mean since then.—

  —She came into the shop a couple of weeks ago. Turns out she’s keen on the same groups I like.— Adam had found a job for himself and left Promotional Luggage. The knowledge of all the variations of pop music he showed as a customer led to his being offered a place at the CeeDee Den. He believed, quite correctly, that Vera privately approved the move towards some sort of independence, a freeing from the authoritative chain father-grandfather, while Ben’s acceptance was an unexpressed sense of desertion.

  Vera appeared to be struggling with some formulation, whatever it was she wanted to say. He watched with impatience. Who could understand people as they leave youth further and further out of sight. He and she were getting on so well, and now she had disappeared before his eyes into some domain he might reach in fifty years or so.

  —You should keep away from her—Mpho.— After all that preparation what came out was blunt.

  —But why? She’s a damn nice kid. We have a good time together, what’s wrong with that? Why keep away, all of a sudden?—

  —Because I ask you.—

  The lame reason lay between them.

  There must be something more to it: his look interrogated her, without response. Suddenly, he was again amazed: —Because she’s black. Because she’s black!—

  She lowered her head and looked up at him from under her brows.

  Then what was it, what was it, Vera knew as well as he that she would not and he would not accept ‘Because I ask’.

  —Because she’s trouble. Yes I’m very fond of her and she’s a particularly attractive girl, a charmer, but it’s better not to get mixed up—not t
o be involved there.—

  —Better for her, for me? Who?—

  —I don’t know how well you know her, how much she may have told you about herself—

  —We’ve been out a few times, a disco and club, we don’t have any heavy sessions explaining things.— He had had enough of his own family problems; couldn’t older people understand there were other interests in life if you were young.

  —Her parents have been my friends for a long time and I was drawn into some trouble they had with her. Over a man.— No point in treating him like a child; he’s also a man. —It was a painful business for everyone. The young man was a close friend of mine, too. He’s dead.—

  Dead.

  A death, the idea, so distant from any sense of it at seventeen, drew him level with Vera’s interpretation of the significance of his going about with Mpho, even if he did not understand this. —She hasn’t said anything. I mean she’s such a great girl, happy and all that.—

  —It’s just that her parents had a bad time as much as she did, and they’re people with all sorts of special responsibilities, any more personal trouble is something they shouldn’t have on top of everything else. You know that her mother’s on the hitlist. There are people who want to kill her.—

  —Is that really true? My God, I can’t imagine knowing anyone at home in London who was being shadowed by hit-men. It’s something out of a movie.—

  —It’s not a movie, here.—

  —I see.— A confusion of dissatisfaction came over his face; perhaps he was wondering what he was doing there. Why he was sent by the collusion of adults.

  —If you were to start something with her, Adam. If you were to sleep with her. I have to tell you, Sibongile and Didymus would hold me responsible—for having put her at risk again, emotionally—and in every way. I know you’re grown up, you have to live … but this would be a drama you shouldn’t get into. And if you have—if you’re sleeping with her—

  The frankness drew some sort of clandestine confidence between them. To him she was not so old, after all; to her, he was not so young.

  —Not yet, but I can see she’ll go along with it, I mean she’s ready for anything. She rather likes me … of course I’m keen on her. Who wouldn’t be.—

  He began touching the keys of the computer again as one might run a hand over a piano.

  His apparent submission affected her, she began further explanations. —You know I’d never have done this if it had been any other girl you want to sleep with. It’s not that I’d be blamed, it’s not that which matters. It’s the Maqomas.—

  —What complicated lives you people lead.— The curiosity and superiority of distance, youth.

  Vera was watching the screen with him. —And in London?—

  —Oh in London there’s only my mother and the Hungarian to worry about—for Dad.—

  —Look, it’s doing that same thing again …!—

  Their eyes moved in duet across acid-green signals glowing and disappearing on the screen. Meanwhile he began to chat. —D’you know, I’ve been meaning to ask and I always forget, did Dad ever remember to tell you? He bumped into the man you were married to before. He was in Sydney at one of those business conferences where everyone wears dog-tags with their name, a man came up in the bar and said, you’re Vera’s son, aren’t you. It was crazy—he said like he was introducing himself, I’m her husband.—

  Vera’s eyes did not leave the screen but he felt her attention there cut out, a current suddenly switched off.

  —Well he was.—

  And then the boy began to see with fascination something he didn’t think could still oecur in—ever be needed by—older people, real adults, who had no need to fear the power of authority: an instant alert wariness quickly dissembled into indifference. Without that recognition of a route of escape he knew too well, he never would have had the nerve to press her. —Must be ancient history.—

  Her shoulders lifted and fell.

  —How old were you when you married him?—

  —Your age.—

  —God, how awful.—

  —Well, it was the war. It’s a hothouse for that sort of thing. Falling in love or rather thinking that’s what it is. People are getting killed so nature advances the mating age to replace the dead with children—something like that. Same sort of thing among young blacks in the violence of the townships now; life’s cheap, sex tricks you into breeding.—

  —When you were young sex meant getting married.—

  —Generally, yes. Certainly for girls. If you wanted the sex you thought you wanted the marriage.—

  They contemplated, a comfortable pause between them.

  —I can’t imagine it. We’ve got the sex, now. And we’ve got AIDS … so?—

  —Looks like there’s no such thing as sexual freedom. Well, perhaps one generation, at least, had it—Ivan and Annie. Between the end of the necessity to marry and the arrival of the disease.—

  —Doesn’t seem to have helped much. Dad got divorced, same as you. When I’m with him, and when I’m with my mother, I wonder why on earth either of them married the other. And what about Annie?—

  —How d’you mean?— So Ivan must have related as a disaster Annie’s choice of alliance.

  —You know what I mean.—

  —That Annie’s a lesbian.—

  There was a slight waver of embarrassment on his face before he pursued. —So that’s part of freedom.—

  —I suppose so, Adam. Yes.—

  —But when d’you think it happened? When she was my age? What about boys?—

  —Of course—she’s beautiful. Like Ben; people fall for that kind of beauty. There were boys, men, but they somehow couldn’t strike the right response in her.—

  —But another woman could. Why d’you think it was—that she went that way?—

  Their attention met and turned aside like the flick of a page, several times. For his part, he was giving her space to reflect, to offer him something he could learn from. She almost said it, shed on this unlikely confidant, Fear of men because her mother was ‘taken away’, the nest of home broken into by a man. But she answered with an assumption of careless self-deprecation. —Sometimes I think I know, but of course it’s nonsense. Maybe the ‘cause’—can you call it that, gays themselves are furious if you suggest it’s an abnormality—maybe it’s physical. Maybe psychological. There are many theories. But Annie would say: choice. Free choice.—

  Then he said what Ben had once said, perhaps the question all heterosexual men ask of a woman when considering the rejection of their gender. —Could you sleep with a woman? I don’t mean now (she smiled as he respectfully absolved her of any survival of sexuality, as if it would have been a disgrace), when you were young.—

  And she turned Annie’s accusation to advantage. —I’ve loved only men.—

  —Some people say to try it … I don’t know. Doing it— or something like it—with my own sex, the idea turns me off. I mean, once you’ve done it with a girl, how can you think of any better way. I love girls.—

  —You don’t have to apologize for that!—

  —The idea of the war, your getting married to that chap. But you didn’t have any children, did you?—

  —No.—

  —Before Ivan.—

  —Before Ivan, no.—

  —Did Dad really not mention that he’s met him?—

  —You know how his letters have been preoccupied with you.—

  The gentle reproach had him deflected, smiling in a different direction. But he fingered along his jaw a small lump where a shaven hair had burrowed into the skin. —Not just the meeting at the conference. The man took him snorkeling with him, he flew him to the Barrier Reef.—

  There was the waiting silence that comes between two people when one is confronting thoughts the other does not know of, but an instinctive inkling, a kind of prickling of the nerves, is being conveyed.

  —They seem to have had a great time together.— His curiosity gre
w; it secluded Vera and him closely.

  —I’ve heard the Barrier Reef’s wonderful.—

  —Oh he says it was the time of his life. Dad as a pick-up! It’s sure out of character.—

  —What do you think of as Ivan’s character?—

  —Well he’s not—spontaneous (pleased at finding the right word), like you must have been. He weighs things up. Look how long it took him to make up his mind between my mother and the Hungarian. But maybe it was because of the man knowing you. Not just any stranger in a bar.—

  —Maybe. We never know what a son or daughter understands about us; what we think of as ourselves.—

  —Well old people are so cagey! … d’you ever tell Ivan what you’ve just said, about the war and sex and everything?— He slowly moved his head in certainty of her joining him in the denial, and she did, the two of them smiling at her compliance.

  They returned to the computer. —It’s really bombed out. I’ll see if I can recover the data, try the back-ups.—

  She said she’d leave him to it. He sensed that he had gained some advantage over her: she was at once Vera, to him, and his grandmother. He turned. —I’ll take some other girl—you’ll lend me your car for Saturday?—

  Consequences.

  Father and son.

  Vera sees them. They swim towards each other through ruined palaces of coral, flippered feet undulating, ribbons of current and light passing, and, magnified by water: recognize. Ivan’s face is the face of the young woman on the bedroom floor, the wriggling sperm magnified by time out of sight and mind into the man picked up, tagged, in a bar. Without the tag, he might have been taken for one of those coincidental likenesses that share no blood: at one side of the ocean and another two beings happen to have been born with the same conformation of features. Vera, that wilful sexy bitch Vera, had to transform fertilization into parthenogenesis, the proof of her deceit being that she reproduced herself, only herself, in male form, for her new lover. And Ivan is drawn to the man never seen, never talked of, who once was married to a girl who became his mother; such attraction is a kind of recognition. The time of his life, together.