Norman Rush - Mating

I got to the octagon to find smoke rising from the donkey boiler and Dorcas and her followers converged around the bathing tent. I thought it was odd of Nelson to be going to the trouble of firing up the bathing engine, especially since I obviously wasn’t being included, but also because it was a lot of work in cold weather and the tub cooled off almost before you got soaped up. It was a shock to me that evidently the women had gone into our house to look for him.

The mob, which is what this was becoming, was shouting into the tent for Nelson to come out, stalking around it, some women ululating right into the canvas.

I tried to manifest calm. I must have succeeded. They let me through and into the tent, not happily. I probably projected absolute determination to get in there and got a response to that. There was a thing about Denoon, undoubtedly rooted in his living in the periphery and alone for such long periods of time. He went around naked more than average. I was used to it. I’m averagely casual about going around naked in front of established boyfriends, but around Denoon I eventually took to being more modest. He was unusually responsive to female nudity. He claimed it was generational. Men his age had spent their first twenty or so years waiting to see a naked female in the flesh, undsoweiter. Anyway, I had generated a wardrobe of kimono-like garments which I had distributed around, one in the privy, one in the bathing tent, my prize yakuta in the house itself. I got into the tent and there was my Nelson, naked, moist to the waist, having hauled himself out of the tub when the commotion began. He was forcing himself into my garment, in his dislocation. He wanted to talk, urgently, naturally. He had looked for me during the night, and so on, and he wanted to know what all this was about, what was happening. He was between bemused and alarmed. I told him to stay put until I could bring him his bush shorts and a shirt and sandals, not to move an inch, I would manage it. I tore my garment off him, somewhat wrecking it. He was not going to be seen in this floral thing if my life depended on it. Later he denied that when I’d burst in he thought at first I was one of the furies besieging him, but in fact there had been such a moment, just a flicker, but real, which hurt me to see.

I put my head out to announce that everything should wait until I came back with proper clothes for Nelson. As I did, someone pushed in, Dorcas, out of control again. I had routinely pulled the plug on the bath, assuming that there was clearly not going to be one now. Dorcas screamed, pointing at the water running out, saying He must not wash and we must examine him for blood. People began copying, shouting Blood, blood. Nelson stood there in the corner, his back to her.

I was trilled at when I came out of the tent. I went into the house and grabbed up clothes and came back with them. There were more women in the tent. I stood in front of him while he got properly dressed. No one left. I was enraged.

I said in English to Nelson Do you understand that they claim you did something to Raboupi, as in killing him? He nodded. He was aghast. But he did understand.

Dorcas said to me You are not allowed to speak, as from this moment.

These were bullies. I said to Nelson Don’t let them touch you.

Let us see your hands, they said to him, as to marks.

Nelson looked directly at Dorcas and asked if he had ever harmed her in any way, then ruined it by saying he was speaking as a brother. This was insane of him, or course, and just what she wanted.

Rra, my brother is just lying murdered, which she shrieked, pronouncing it the South African way, murder as murdeh. That was very odd, but so was everything, my whole world. A lot of progressive Batswana in Gabs like to sound South African, prefer to be taken as South African because they think it makes them seem more sophisticated, but here in Tsau it made no sense.

Nelson was completely appeasing. I said to him — against people telling Dorcas that I was talking, in disobedience to her dictum — you have to clean up more, your hair is insane, you look like a fou, you have to insist. But no, all he wanted in life was that whatever this was going to be it would be nonviolent. This was right, undoubtedly, except that sometimes bullies vanish at the first sight of counterforce, but we were white, so he wasn’t wrong in the circumstances. As I was backing out of the tent, not through the door vent, because that was blocked, but through the side, some bitch stepped on the hem of the side wall to try to make me get down on all fours. I heaved the thing up like Atlas. This was new, unthinkable.

There were more men around, I noticed, but it was interesting to me how tightly they were being kept to being spear carriers. Women were actively waving them back from any involvement with the tent. Here I was wanting to fight just a little. I embrace the physical. I think in my hysteria I wanted to be the one-woman whiff of grapeshot. When I was an adolescent I was always the one who wanted to organize my girlfriends to go into the heart of the crowd in St. Paul on New Year’s Eve, granted the men collecting there would be reliable North Europeans more into puking than into grabbing and kissing, à la San Francisco. But still. I told them I would guarantee no one would touch us. I don’t know what I meant, but I believed it. We would be safe, somehow. Three and then four of my friends came with me, finally, and no one touched us, in the heart of the worst St. Paul had to offer. Four came with me in my senior year. No one touched us. I think all this came to me, and then: You can control men, but what can you do now? Think! You are lost.

There was one further interesting mêlée before the cavalry, the loyalists, arrived in force and we could consurge back down to the plaza. Dineo had dismissed school. Many children arrived with the loyalists, potential witnesses, I realized, a moderating presence, brilliant.

Timing is all. The actual tannery manager was Moffat Dabutha, who was also a top pawn of Hector’s: he made as if to restrain Nelson, tie his hands with some thongs. He was exceeding his authority. Dorcas ignited. She ripped the thongs out of Moffat’s grasp and wound them around her wrist, repeating that only women may touch their hands to Rra Puleng. Some were, in fact, prodding him toward the sandpath down to the plaza. There were new currents here. Dorcas was operating nakedly, commanding men and women alike. I think this had something to do with the amazed inertness of our side when they were faced with the dynamism Dorcas was orchestrating and sustaining. Nelson’s utter passivity was also undermining for us. He was starting to go with his tormentors, numbly, and with only one sandal on. I fixed that. I brought him his other sandal and made everything wait until he had it securely on.

I was feeling less regressed by then. I wanted to communicate to Nelson that he was wrong to take what was going on as any kind of legitimate frenzy. There was foisting and theater in it. All of this would dissolve when Raboupi turned up. He had to be somewhere around. At that point I was incapable of taking seriously that foul play had anything to do with his absence, if he really was absent at all.

The pushing stopped and we all went down to the plaza at a stroll.

Groups and committees were already mobilizing. The main snake women were meeting. I was not being included, not surprisingly. The justice committee was being called together, which was going to be pointless since they were used to dealing with matters like cattle gates being left unlatched, at the most earthshaking. Also the justice committee consisted of three very old women, our oldest, and their deliberations were extremely slow.

The alarm bell was banging.

Nelson went voluntarily to sit and wait in a room in Sekopololo. He must stay in one spot, he must be under guard, Dorcas was shouting. He must not roam about at this time. And pointing at me, she announced that I must not be allowed to stay with him or speak to him. Some of the loyalists said Gosiame, meaning they were going along with this, while others said no, I should be with him. I paid no attention. I went inside and sat myself in a chair outside the door of the room Nelson was in. Dorcas was now certain that the voice she’d heard summoning Hector was Nelson’s. Word kept coming in that Hector was not in this venue, nor in this, nor in this. I was going to suggest a sabbatical once this was over. Dineo went in to talk to Nelson. I couldn’t make it out. Nelson was speaking in Setswana. Other people went in and out. Nobody would look at me.