by Andre Brink
“Surely he has a say in it too.”
“Theo has nothing to do with it, Ma. You know very well he’s interested in nothing but demolitions and new skyscrapers and stuff.”
“He’s your brother.”
“But Dad left the farm to me. It’s something between you and me only.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
I knew I had to keep calm and not lose my temper as with Louis. The weekend was beginning to turn sour and if Ma got angry, all would be lost. In silence I finished my tea, aware of a slight trembling in my hand.
Come on, I told myself. You’re used to dealing with delicate matters. You’ve learned all the rules of the game and know how to improvise and improve on them. You’ve been specially mentioned in the Financial Mail for your qualities as a negotiator. It’s a matter of knowing when to hold back and when to give the impression of putting all your cards on the table while keeping a trump up your sleeve.
The problem was it didn’t work so well within the family context. With others I could remain imperturbable; with Ma I tended to get emotionally involved. It wasn’t only because she knew me so well she could predict all my reactions, but also because the nature of our relationship required of me to respect her however much I resented her opposition. And since the coronary I’d been more excitable than before anyway.
“It’s all in your hands now,” I told her when I put down my empty cup. “By acting now, we can retain the initiative and score a deal at the same time. Or we can let it pass, to face a loss if we’re forced to sell at a later stage.”
“I must go back to the clinic,” she said calmly. “My patients are waiting.”
I didn’t answer.
At the door she asked: “Oh Martin, won’t you drive up to old Lawrence’s store for me? Otherwise I won’t get any mail today. And take the eggs with you. Kristina will give them to you.”
I wasn’t sure that it really was all that urgent. She was probably just trying either to prove her goodwill or to remind me of her maternal authority.
“All right, Ma. I’ll go when I’m finished.” It was my turn to establish my independence by pouring another cup of tea.
“Take the van,” she said. “The key’s in it.” She disappeared into the passage.
When I came outside with my basket of eggs Louis was just emerging from the garage where he’d put away the Mercedes. He stopped, as if expecting me to say something.
“I’m going up to the store,” I said, doing my best to sound affable. “Want to go with me?”
“But I’ve just cleaned the car.”
“We’re going in Grandma’s van.”
“You can’t go without glasses. Shall I drive?”
“I’m not an invalid yet.” Why did he always manage to say the one thing he knew would make me flare up?
He hesitated, then decided against it. “I’d rather have a look at the generator.” He gestured towards the small shed housing the electrical plant.
I didn’t answer. The mere fact that he’d offered to do anything on his own came as a surprise. Perhaps our brief sparring had done him some good after all.
The van was cold and took some time to warm up. Driving up the hill from the row of flamboyants, the engine sputtered and died twice. I glanced in the rear-view mirror, but couldn’t make out whether Louis was watching me. With a roar the van shot forward the second time, the rear wheels skidding on the loose gravel. The road was narrow and scarred, winding upward between boulders and grey euphorbias and the bright smears of red aloes. I had to hold the steering wheel with both hands to keep the vehicle on the road. Perhaps it would have been better to bring Louis along, but it was too late to turn back now.
Once I’d reached the top of the narrow plateau above the deep valley of the farm, it became easier to drive. As I approached the top gate a group of piccanins came running on to open it for me. One was covered by what must have been his father’s jacket, the sleeves dragging on the ground; the pants were missing entirely. Two others were wearing tattered sweaters which revealed rather than concealed their bodies, and baggy pants down to their knees. The last one was completely naked, ashen-grey with cold. While the others were tugging and wrenching at the gate, he stood on one side, casually sucking two worms of snot from his upper lip into his mouth, his hands cupped in my direction.
“Cent, Baas. Cent, Baas,” he whined, without much conviction.
It wasn’t from any lack of sympathy that I shooed him off. But what sense was there in giving him money? He would either buy sweets, which in his state was the last thing he needed, or hand it over to his father to buy liquor.
Above all – I do find it important to make my point quite clear – my main consideration was that one couldn’t base an economically independent nation on begging and charity. It would only strengthen the Black’s suspicion that all he had to do to obtain something was to ask for it, without any effort on his part. It robbed him of the motive to achieve something in order to be rewarded. There should be no doubt about this: man is inherently a competitive animal. Reward without effort is as negative as effort without reward. (Here I’m off again! But it’s important.)
Let me state unequivocally that I have no objection against promoting Blacks to more responsible positions – provided it doesn’t happen only because they’re black, but because their achievement warrants it. At this stage of their development “responsible positions” would involve, for example, the supervision of more expensive equipment. But one cannot proceed too fast. (In the mining industry I see it every day: it is useless to expect mathematical thinking from a man incapable as yet of distinguishing a straight angle.) I refuse to write off an expensive bulldozer just because in a crisis its driver panicked and lost his head. One has got to start with basic skills and basic responsibilities. And in their own areas, among their own kind.
As far as my own labourers are concerned, I pay them proper wages in exchange for proper work. They are mine and I assume responsibility for them. But the sentimentality inherent in charity is nothing but economic short-sightedness. I hope I have made it quite clear now.
The winter sun was warming up a bit, but the thin white grasses were still shivering in the wind. As I drove on, I thought of Ma again. She would just have to yield and accept the inevitable. One of her objections, it occurred to me, might be her reluctance to live either with Theo’s family or with mine. On the other hand we couldn’t let her go to an old-age home. One had obligations towards one’s family. And anyway, it would provide Elise with much more freedom to come and go if she knew Ma was at home to keep an eye on the dogs and the house and the servants.
If only Ma and Elise had been on better terms. From the very beginning there had been tension between them: nothing unhealthy, just the sort of electricity to be expected when two women with strong personalities believed they had to compete for the love of the man between them. Especially if one of them had had him all to herself for more than twenty years and was reluctant to see a young and inexperienced girl take over.
When I’d brought Elise home the first time, in the July vacation after our encounter on Bernard’s farm, Ma had been her warm, hospitable and generous self. Elise was the prettiest and the nicest and the best girl I’d ever introduced to her. But from the moment the word “marriage” was first uttered, the tension began to build up. Nothing overt. Ma had always prided herself on her “intuition” and her “tact”, even though it was the sort of peasant tact a blind man could feel with a stick. Ma was quite happy with the prospect as long as it was relegated to a vague and distant future. But as soon as a date had been mentioned, she launched her fierce – but “tactful” – campaign:
“You know, Elise, what I like most about you is that you’re so sensible. Other girls can’t think of anything but getting married, but I know you’ll never enter into anything head over heels. I’ve noticed that you respect Martin’s need to find his feet in life first. It’s obvious you love him and you won’t try to bind him
too soon.” And much more in the same vein.
A few months after I’d gone to London I asked Elise to come over too. Not that I’d struck it badly with girls in England (on the contrary!), but I’d become agitated at the thought that in my absence Bernard might change his mind about her. I knew she would marry him the moment he asked her. And in spite of the intentions I’d voiced so confidently that Easter, in spite of the nights she’d spent with me, in spite of all our fervent promises for the future, I knew I still hadn’t “tamed” her. Something wild and passionate in her had remained beyond my reach. One landscape inside her had been kept intact. For Bernard. I knew it. And I wanted to possess that too. How could one hold a woman in one’s arms knowing that far behind her eyes she carried the image of another face? And so I urged her to come over for a holiday. Once she was with me it was easy to pursue the campaign and not to allow her to go back without marrying me.
Her parents felt reluctant because she was still so young, barely twenty-one; but in the end they were persuaded. They even came over so that her father could marry us in the Embassy. The only real problem was Ma. Not with me (after her first cautious letters she’d admitted, with her customary generosity, that “it’s your decision, sonny, and you should know what’s best for you”); but as far as Elise was concerned Ma used an approach which shattered me when I first learned about it three years later, when Elise showed me the letters. Nothing as blatant as reprimanding her or quarrelling with her, just an endless series of “tactful” reminders about how easy it was to spoil a young man’s whole future by tying him down too soon, etc. (“I know Martin, my child. I know he loves you dearly and I’m sure you love him. But I know he’s the sort of man who can easily be blinded by love” – sic! – “and you are the one who must keep your head and help him do what’s best for both of you —”)
Of course, when she saw we were serious about getting married, Ma resigned herself to it. But after our return from overseas there was a constant undercurrent of conflicting interests. Mere trifles would upset Elise, especially when she was pregnant. For example, Ma would come to watch her while she was preparing a meal: “Oh, is that how you make your bobotie? Looks good. Of course, I always add raisins too, Martin adores them —” Or Ma would look on as she sat weaving, or making pots on the wheel, or doing batik or whatever: “You’re so clever with your hands. I can see why you prefer to do this rather than waste your time cooking or looking after a home —”
Louis’s birth brought on an early crisis. We had arranged for Elise’s mother to be with us for the occasion, but a month before the time she’d fallen ill and I asked Ma to take her place. Just as well, in view of all the complications after the birth. And I don’t know what we would have done without Ma’s help with the baby (I already had to work late quite regularly, or go off on option deals etc.). But Ma had a way of taking over completely, and she changed the whole routine of our household. Elise accepted it without a murmur, being much too ill to care. But then Ma also tried to take over the baby. In order to allow Elise some rest at night, Ma moved the child into her own room. Feeding was restricted to the strict schedule she herself had followed when we’d been babies: “You can’t feed a child every time he starts crying, Elise. It upsets his stomach. Even worse, it spoils him. He must get used to a four-hour routine from the beginning.”
In her weakened condition Elise, I suppose, was much more sensitive than normally. Whatever it was, one day when Ma again insisted on leaving the baby to cry in its cradle until its “proper” feeding time, Elise got out of bed, dragged herself to a cupboard and started bundling clothes into a suitcase. I can well imagine the scene:
“What are you doing, Elise?”
“Packing. I’m going away.”
“But what has come over you?”
“You know everything about everything, don’t you? All right, so now you can take my child and do with him what you like. I’m going. I’ve had enough. I’m not wanted here any more.”
I had to rush home from the office to resolve the matter. To preserve the peace – although I couldn’t but feel a grudge against Elise for forcing me to do so – I had to send Ma back to the farm the next day and replace her with a trained nurse. It was then that Elise, in a sort of emotional clearance sale, showed me all Ma’s letters of long ago and gave vent to everything she’d suppressed for so long. I did my best to make her realise that Ma had acted with the best of intentions, but she was in no state for logical argument.
As time went by the quarrel was forgiven, the emotions subsided, Elise grew more mature, and they learned to tolerate one another – although there always remained a certain deliberate correctness in their relationship, in which the territory of each was very carefully defined and respected. That was why, that weekend on the farm, I had enough confidence, in spite of what had happened in the past, to expect them to get along if Ma were to come and live with us.
With Dad, on the other hand, Elise had had a remarkable rapport from the very first day. That was something else which might have contributed to Ma’s attitude towards her. Although she was too proud ever to say a word about it, I suspect that Ma felt a tinge of jealousy because Elise obviously understood Dad so much better than she ever had. When we’d first arrived on the farm, he’d kept his distance as always, withdrawing into his study at the earliest opportunity. In the afternoon, while I was helping Ma on the farm, I noticed Elise walking in the direction of the dairy, but when I went to look for her an hour later, there was no sign of her. One of the labourers remembered that he’d seen her go into Dad’s study. My heart sank, as I knew it was the one sacrosanct place where he was not to be disturbed by any means. He would never react aggressively, of course, but any person who had disturbed him once, would be written off for ever. He had a way of quietly turning away and stalking off if anyone arrived he didn’t like.
But when I cautiously looked through the window, I was dumbfounded by what I saw inside. Elise was sitting on the desk among his litter of open books and scattered papers – with the same nonchalance she’d shown that warm Sunday afternoon, perched naked on the wall and swinging her legs – and Dad was talking. It was never easy to get him started, but once he was under way it was almost impossible to stop him. The rest of the family had learned, rather painfully, to occupy our thoughts with other things once he’d drifted into one of his rambling discussions, but Elise had the same faculty so characteristic of Bernard: to listen to one in enthusiastic attention, making you feel that whatever you were saying was the most important thing in the world to her. And it was no mere pretence. She really was enthralled by what Dad told her.
For the rest of the holiday I often had trouble tearing her away from the study. Often, when one passed outside, one could hear them laughing together. And when he finally got so far as to start putting up new shelves – a project he’d been postponing for years – Elise was the one to encourage and actively assist him. She could saw a straighter line than he could; and in her slender hands a plane worked miracles. The first shelves he’d made when he’d moved into the study were nothing to look at and one always expected them to come tumbling down at any moment. But she made sure the new ones were properly joined and glued and screwed together; and between the two of them they did a most respectable job. I’d never seen him as relaxed and happy as when Elise was on the farm.
I remember how surprised I was when, shortly after that first visit, she spontaneously confided in me: “You know, your Dad is a real gem.”
I grinned good-humouredly, like any other member of the family when Dad was discussed, and said: “Oh he’s a lovable old plodder. One gets quite fond of him.”
She looked at me attentively for a long time, almost as if she felt amazed and hurt by my reply; and then she said: “I don’t think you realise what you’ve got in him. He’s a very remarkable person.”
After our children had been born, she succeeded in bringing to light another concealed dimension in Dad – because I’m sure it was m
ainly for her sake that he gave so much attention to the kids. He would spend hours with them, telling them stories, carrying them on his back, helping them to make things. In spite of the fact that he’d never in his life been able to drive two nails through a board without hitting his thumb, he made them little cars from fish-tins, and minuscule tractors from cotton-spools and candlewax, and furniture from match-boxes; as well as exquisite clay cattle, which Elise baked for them in her kiln. He was just as interested in all her successive ventures and hobbies. In her weaving period he supplied her with mohair – during the brief spell he tried to farm with angora goats, before they were all killed off by the cold one winter. When the pottery bug bit her, he brought her loads of clay from the farm on his little van, and helped her to sieve and clean and knead it. Sometimes he would stay awake all night to feed and watch her kiln, or spend days burning wood to collect ash for the glazes. In his shy, retiring way he would try to devise new tools for her: a sifting screen one could tread like a sewing-machine, a clay-mixer, and so on. More often than not the implements were so clumsy or cumbrous as to be practically useless. But she would always show the greatest enthusiasm for what he’d done, and together they would laugh about it and try to improve on it.
Small wonder his death was such a blow to her and that she was in such a state when I came back too late to be in time to say goodbye. I think something in our own relationship died with Dad: as if, through him, she’d been able to touch something indefinable in me which couldn’t be grasped in any other way. That something was changed irredeemably. And it seems to me now it was one of the last things which we’d still had left to lose.
The store was an unattractive little building just off the dirt road after one had passed the turn-off to the neighbouring farm of Mr Lawrence; but if I shut my eyes in this splendid hotel room, I can recall every detail of it. Against the side wall, the two petrol pumps and the phone box with all its windows smashed. On the roof covering the stoep, the big advertisement for Joko Tea. Years ago the stoep itself, invariably swarming with idle Blacks, was used as a stacking-place for bags of flour and mealie meal, and paraffin tins, and boxes of soap, but later, on account of theft, everything had to be kept inside. Which wasn’t easy by any means, since the place was cramped to start with, and crammed to capacity by wares illuminated by a single bare 25-watt bulb suspended from the ceiling. Rolls of German chintz, bags of dried beans, samp, rolled tobacco, bicycles, transistor radios, coffee, Sunlight soap, velskoene, dip and dubbin and leather thongs, tea, bottled sweets, snuff and cigarettes, medicine (Vicks and Aspro and all the thin bottles familiar from Ma’s dispensary: red and white dulcis and Haarlem drops, chlorodyne, wonder essence, Jamaica ginger, chest drops, cascara); a special section of ladies’ clothing, with some old-fashioned pink XOS bloomers suspended from nails, a pile of old Viyella patterns, knitting wool and needles – disappearing into the deeper recesses of the fragrant dusk. In that same darkness, behind bags of coffee beans and piles of blue soap, I’d petted in my boyhood days with the eager little Lawrence girl while her father, oblivious of it all, stood reading his Dispatch at the far end of the counter; and one day things became so hectic that afterwards we weren’t able to find her panties again among all the tumbled goods; and self-consciously keeping her thighs close together under the gay floral print of her crumpled dress, she shuffled out while I stayed behind for a while to get my fiercely fondled hard-on down. The urgent caresses in the half-dark, the scuttling of mice behind shelves, the smell of groceries and shoe-polish and hides, dust, her warm breath as she whispered wetly in my ear, the scent of her sweat and more secret secretions: all that returns to me now, over years and continents. Sweet, sweet Cathy!
