Before I Forget

by Andre Brink

  I was lucky: I could demonstrate my defiant virility in any way I wished. There was nothing to stop or inhibit me. But in Father’s generation there was little occasion for an outlet (unless one had perfected the routine, as he had); so poor Mam had to bear the brunt of it, as I realized only much later from the occasional hint she would drop in her hindsight years. Which was all the more reason why that particular turning point came as such a devastating revelation.

  At twenty-seven, I certainly had no idea of what he was having to deal with, otherwise I might have been more understanding. But we had never been close: if anything, I was inhibited by his unreasonable and selfish expectations of me. The only thing we shared was chess. From my early childhood it was an activity he imposed on me—but for once it was something I really liked. It was not just a matter of ‘achieving’ anything or ‘proving’ something to him. And he, too, enjoyed it. Make no mistake: he always wanted to win! I can still remember him saying, ‘If you ever manage to beat me three times in a row, I’ll quit.’ The curious thing is that by the time I discovered I could do it, I refrained, resorting to the most intricate moves to avoid a win without allowing him to catch on. Or perhaps he did? In later years I started wondering whether this was not the most touching thing about it: that we both knew, but pretended not to. For if we did, there would have been nothing left for us to share.

  But in that blessed year of 1952 all this was very deep below the surface. I was just becoming more and more resentful of the way in which he tried to plan my life for me. I was fast approaching the point where so many years of rancor just had to explode. Looking back now, I can see that the van Riebeeck Festival sounded an early warning; but at that stage it was still possible to contain it. The catalyst was Bonnie Pieterse. She was not the only colored person in the office, but she was the only one held in sufficient regard to have her surname acknowledged; Gerald and Solly, the messengers, were known only by their Christian names.

  Bonnie had been working in Father’s office for at least five years then. Fresh out of school, she had been hired as a ‘tea girl,’ but because it was soon evident that she had considerable skills as a typist and a stenographer, and in due course as a secretary, she was rapidly promoted. It was also, of course, cheaper than hiring a white woman. Father liked showing her off (it was a time when rather few young colored women were employed in that kind of position in a white firm): she reflected well on his generosity as a good Christian and an enlightened businessman. Some of the party faithful might have frowned on it, especially in those years, if Bonnie had been a mousey or frumpy little ‘Hotnot girl’; but the key to her story was that she was beautiful. Quite unbelievably beautiful. Even though she ‘knew her place,’ as Father would put it, she had a quiet, radiant self-assurance which most of the men coming into the office found almost irresistible. All the more so as she personified the forbidden fruit. Remember that the party had been in power for only four years, and there was all the zeal and sweeping powers of the new broom in the process of adding the insult of numerous new laws to the injury of the old in order to write the country’s longstanding sense of racial divisions into the formidably formalized legal system it was now in the process of becoming.

  So there was a constant influx of portly white gentlemen in suits and ties and blunt-nosed black shoes who suddenly found it necessary to come and discuss ‘business’ with Father, and stopping to say a little patronizing word or two to Bonnie at the reception desk. I have no doubt that most were tempted to add a fleeting caress to arm or shoulder in passing, but they did not quite have the courage to sink so low. Certainly, the firm flourished, and Father’s bow ties grew ever more audacious.

  On the day the festival reached its climax with a series of historical presentations and tableaux, Father took the bold step of giving the whole office staff, including Bonnie and the two ever-smiling messengers, the day off so that they could also watch the pretentious spectacle—from well-separated vantage points of course—and ‘pick up some edifying lessons from history’, as he put it. (They had been duly warned that he would question them about the event the next day, so there was no chance of staying away.) As it happened, when our family wended our way towards the good seats Father had arranged for us in advance, we came past the enclosure where Bonnie, Gerald and Solly stood in their Sunday best with the rest of ‘their people.’ Father strode straight ahead, Mam smiled vaguely left and right without recognizing anyone; I saw the three of them and mumbled an awkward greeting. And as the long pageant unfolded, I couldn’t help wondering what they made of the blatant display of how the chosen people of God had, by divine providence, come to rule this land. What I found most offensive was the re-enactment of van Riebeeck’s arrival at the Cape of Good Hope and the first encounter between his handful of colonizers in their resplendent finery straight from Rembrandt’s Night Watch and the sorry band of cringing, beaming Hottentots, soon to be lured into abject submission by the fumes of arrack and tobacco.

  I couldn’t bear it any longer. I got up and walked away, aware of the consternation with which Father and Mam were looking at me.

  It was easy enough, afterwards, to feign a nosebleed. But Father was not to be fooled. And I had seen him in action often enough in magistrates’ courts, mercilessly pursuing a point in cross-examination, to know that he wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Show me your handkerchief, Chris.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Show me your handkerchief.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just show me.’

  I took it out of my pocket.

  ‘I don’t see any sign of blood.’

  ‘This is not the one I had with me at the performance.’

  ‘Then will you please bring me the one you took there.’

  ‘I don’t have it any more.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I think I threw it away. It was filthy.’

  A pause.

  ‘Your nose didn’t bleed, did it, Chris?’

  ‘No.’ I lost my temper. ‘There’s no need to interrogate me like this, Father. I’m twenty-seven years old, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Do not take the Lord’s name in vain, my son. Why did you walk out?’

  ‘I was bored, if you really want to know.’

  ‘I found it a riveting spectacle.’

  ‘Then I’m glad for you, Father. But I was getting fed up.’

  ‘With the history of your own people?’

  I took a deep breath. Seeing the hue of his face deepen from scarlet to purple, I tried to tone it down a bit. ‘Not the history. The performance.’

  ‘Is that the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?’

  I tried to control myself, but frankly, I’d had enough. Why should I continue to humor him? ‘No, it isn’t,’ I said, livid but still controlled.

  ‘Then what is the truth?’

  ‘I’ll tell you. I was ashamed.’

  He clearly hadn’t expected this. For a moment all he could do was open his mouth and shut it again. At last he asked in a strangled voice, ‘Ashamed of what, if I may ask?’

  ‘On our way to our seats,’ I told him, ‘we came past Bonnie and Gerald and Solly. There with the other colored people.’

  ‘I didn’t see them. What about them?’

  ‘I’m sure you saw them. But that makes no difference. The point is, when van Riebeeck’s landing was staged, I suddenly thought of how it must look to them to see their ancestors portrayed like that. Like mangy dogs crawling on their stomachs, begging for a crust of bread or a chicken bone.’

  ‘What that lazy, wretched lot wanted was brandy and tobacco.’

  I could only shake my head. ‘You don’t understand anything, do you?’ I asked.

  ‘Not when you’re talking nonsense like this. Now it is my turn to be ashamed. That a son of mine should say such things. And on a day like this. A day of ce
lebration. A day of thanking God for having brought us through three hundred years of strife and turmoil to such a glorious conclusion.’

  ‘I think we are very far from a conclusion.’

  ‘I won’t be spoken to like this!’

  ‘Am I going to get a hiding for this?’ I snarled. ‘Shall I take off my pants?’

  ‘Chris, I warn you…!’

  I glowered at him for another moment, then turned and walked out; my car was outside at the gate. I got in and drove to the cottage I had been renting for the past few years. (The mere fact that I’d decided to live on my own had nearly given him an apoplexy. But I had completed my studies, I was old enough to fend for myself, and I had to ensure that in matters amorous my space would be left uncluttered. Above all, I wanted to escape from the increasingly stifling atmosphere at home.) For a couple of days I did not go back to the office; I was seriously considering resigning. On the second evening Mam came to see me. She didn’t talk about the confrontation at all, just chatted about the ordinary little things of her day. And brought me a bowl of my favorite malva pudding, with an excessively generous helping of custard.

  When I went back, Father didn’t say another word about what had happened. And I was too much of a coward to bring it up. So in due course everything slowly subsided into normality again. On the surface at least.

  But down below all the unresolved anger was still seething. And every time I saw Bonnie the original rage returned like a cramp in the guts. For a while I couldn’t bear to talk to her at all, but slowly that, too, simmered down. And I became aware of something new in my reaction to her. I had always found her beautiful; I knew, consciously, that if she were white I would have fallen in love with her. But as this was totally out of the question—the new Immorality Act was being enforced with such rigor and enthusiasm that the very idea of consorting with a colored girl was dangerous—I tried to sublimate what I must have felt just by showing an interest in her work. I knew she was studying in the evenings, a secretarial course, and I did my best to encourage her, to assure her how I admired what she was doing. Intolerably patronizing, I realized afterwards; but at the time there really was nothing else I could think of doing. I wanted to talk to her, I wanted her to know I cared. Whatever that might mean. (I really didn’t dare to probe it.) Which presumably only exasperated her, made her despise me. She probably felt more respect for Father, I sometimes thought bitterly, because however kindly he might treat her, he certainly always kept her ‘in her place.’ And perhaps, ironically, even perversely, she responded to something fatherly in his attitude. Her own father, who had been a carpenter, had died when she was seven. One Friday, in an alcoholic stupor, he had staggered in front of a car; so who knows…?

  And then it all blew up. In a way I’m sure not one of us could ever have expected.

  I had begun to notice, over the first few months following the festival, that Bonnie was becoming more temperamental, more unstable in her emotions. She had always been withdrawn and introverted, preferring to keep her own company, but she’d been even-tempered, reliable, pleasant, efficient. Now she was often moody, ready to snap when she felt affronted; and more than once I’d noticed her crying quietly, or hurrying off to the toilet Father had reserved for colored staff (male and female). There was no set pattern to it, so it didn’t seem to have anything to do with menstruation. ‘Perhaps she has a boyfriend who donners her. You know what these coloreds are like,’ suggested a colleague from another firm who used to look in regularly, when I mentioned it to him. The comment made me unreasonably angry; I cut him short with such vehemence that he could only stare at me uncomprehendingly before he stomped off. As it happened, it was later the same day that Bonnie emerged from my father’s office, crying. I was coming from my own office as she rushed past. For once, she wasn’t just quietly trying to brush away tears; she was sobbing. I could only presume that he’d berated her for something; her work had not been up to standard either, lately. I was so upset that I immediately headed towards Father’s door, prepared to confront him.

  ‘No!’ It was Bonnie’s voice behind me. She tried to stop me. ‘Please don’t go in there. He’s—he’s…’

  ‘What has he done to you?’ I demanded.

  ‘Please, Chris.’

  We both froze. She had never called me by my name before; even though it had been perfectly natural for me to call her ‘Bonnie.’ To her, I’d always been ‘Mr. Minnaar.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, oh please…’ she stammered.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘Tell me, please.’

  Without any warning she was in my arms, sobbing against my shoulder. All I could do was hold her, making small, meaningless sounds of soothing and comforting, while I really felt quite overwhelmed, not knowing what to do with my arms.

  Across her shoulder I could see my father’s office door opening. He came out, and stopped dead in the passage. I shall never forget the expression on his face, which went ghostly white. I saw him mouthing a word, but couldn’t make out what it was. To him it must have been a scene worse than his own death. And I later thought: Yes, perhaps that was what it was: not just his own death, but the death of his whole tribe, of everything he’d lived for and believed in.

  How little did I know.

  He never said a word to me about it. Even our chess dried up. It was all beyond speech. For days, indeed, he never spoke to me at all, not even when I went home for dinner on Sunday. And I know he didn’t mention it to Mam either, because one evening she drove to my cottage to ask me what had happened to him, whether I had any idea. She was in a state, and there was nothing I could do or say to help her.

  It was very soon after that morning that things came to a head. And the direct cause was the National Party’s attempts to remove colored people from the common voters’ roll. Ever since 1948, when the party had scraped to victory with a majority of five seats but a minority of votes, the Nats had been obsessed with the mission to ‘get rid of the Hotnots’ (who had tended to vote almost en masse for the United Party of General Smuts). In 1951 they had actually passed the Separate Registration of Voters Act in parliament. But as it violated an entrenched clause in the constitution, which required a two-thirds majority to be amended, a veritable crusade was launched to reach that majority, even if in the end it meant enlarging the senate and instituting a ‘High Court of Parliament’ to oversee the change and block any legal challenge.

  In 1952 the Appeal Court turned down the legislation because it was unconstitutional. For a moment it seemed as if justice would prevail—but of course it was only the red rag to the Nationalist bull. In the late afternoon of the day of the verdict the news was plastered all over the Cape Argus. (We would have to wait until the next morning to read what Father regarded as ‘the proper version’ in Afrikaans, in Die Burger.) After the morning’s court session I had been out to lunch and bought the paper on the way back to the office. Father had gone home, as he’d started making a habit of working mornings only. And it must have been a Friday, for both Gerald and Solly, who were Muslims, were missing. (Knowing that Father would not come back, they had quietly begun to take the afternoon off after mosque.) In fact, only Bonnie and I were in the office when I came back with the paper.

  I was trembling with excitement when I threw it down on her small desk. The whole sordid business about the colored vote had been unsettling me more than anything else the government had been doing lately. (And that is saying something: in the recent past, following the ’48 elections, the whole redoubtable foundation for apartheid had been laid, with the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act; the Immorality Act, which outlawed sexual relations between people of different races; the Group Areas Act, which forced us all into separate neighborhoods; the Population Registration Act, which enabled authorities to determine the race of a person by checking fingernails or crinkly hair rolled over a pencil or drawn through a comb; the Reservation of Separ
ate Amenities Act; legislation to control the influx of blacks into white areas, and God knows what else: the list seemed endless.) I can only guess that the difficult feelings I had been battling with lately, about Bonnie, and her position in the office, and the impossibility of her position in my world, must have helped to complicate it all. Even more so as I couldn’t even try to confront them or do anything about them. This sudden reversal, as it briefly seemed to me, came as an emotional train-smash to me, plucking me from the very edge of despair to a state of uncontrollable ecstasy.

  And so, yes, it happened.

  One moment we were standing on either side of the silly little desk, both trembling, looking down at the blaring headline. The next we were embracing. And then we were on the floor, in a frenzy of lovemaking. It was ecstasy, yes, but also rage, naked rage. There was a whole world of evil we wanted to get at, but each of us had only the other to vent it on. How much she, especially, had to avenge!—a lifetime of disregard and second-handedness, the humiliation of being patronized in the office, our revolting white festival, our laws, our superiority, Father, everything.

  And at the same time it was the very essence of passion too, a ferocious attempt to say I love you in the most annihilating way we could find.

  We fought like felines; and yes, yes, yes, we loved. Every single sense was involved, touch and smell and taste and sight and hearing. It was unbearable, and it was wonderful. Above all, it was impossible. And when at long last, slowly, wordlessly, we gathered our clothes that lay scattered over the desk and chair and shelves and floor, and put them on in a slow-motion ritual of almost religious intensity, we must both have known that in that beginning was also our ending.

  It was, however, not the end of our story; or of that day. The twist that followed could not have been contrived by anyone, not even by a skewed mind. My father made his appearance. He had forgotten some files and came to collect them. No, he didn’t catch us in flagrante delicto. Not at all. We were fully clothed, we had tidied up everything, there was no sign in the office that anything untoward had happened. We were not even close together but, once again, on either side of the desk, as if we’d been discussing business.