Norman Rush - Whites

The end of taking goods came about. Some women of one church saw too many prizes falling to another church, and grew jealous. Always if you ring up the police they can say you must come for us, for our transport is gone out. So then one woman went to them by foot to force them to return back with her. And so it was all ended.

Bastiaan was returned back with Rra Wren. He was shamed. He became cruel. Soon Mma Wren was taken off. They said she must stay at a house of rest at Bloemfontein. Bastiaan said we may not see her face, we are unworthy, we must be driven out from that place. All power was with Bastiaan, as Rra Wren must go to join Mma Wren on leave for a time. When he could return back, we could not know, we are too lowly, and culprits.

At last Bastiaan summoned me. I said What have I done that is wrong? But Bastiaan said that only because I was absent I was no better than the others. He said there was no more a place for me there. He said I was hired on to cater for Mma Wren, in fact, because she favored me. I saw my crime of thieving was unknown. He cursed all staff and even fell to naming tribes for shortcomings. I was crying. Those women begged mercy of Bastiaan, yet still lashed him with words in secret when he said they must depart. The officer from Labor came and said Clear off as this man tells you, and be glad of his Christian heart to prevent you from jail. Then those women were raging as to reference letter they must be provided. And Bastiaan said Go to your moruti , your thief-pastor, and let him write for you and all others in your thief-churches, but never come to me with this matter. They said it was revenge. Many said they would complain to heaven at the Labor Office and the Office of the President as well, but if they did this I am not sure. All were sacked.

It was at night. I was pushed out. Again I must carry my goods about, lost, like an ant searching. It was at Churchill Roundabout, where four roads go out and you see Holy Cross Cathedral of the Anglicans rising up before you.

I stood with burning eyes. Many people passed in there. Cars blocked up the verges nearby. Choirs sang hymns I knew already. I saw lights beaming on some bright things. The Anglicans are rich. You can see their priests in costly robes. Always their church is built up the highest. Over countless years these European churches saved their funds well, whilst Africans prayed in the bush, never scheming as to collections. Those Anglicans have strong-rooms.

At once I saw my onward path. I said what! I can get treasure from God’s many churches. They bid you to come inside. There is always money found there. I said I can be nice, I can sing, they shall help me, even, as an orphan. I can join in choirs, I said. I can be in their bosom and then rob them freely. I can rob from collections, I said, I can rob at fêtes. At pastors’ houses there is endless passing in or out of women bearing tales, and I could thus find chances there. I said I shall be God’s enemy and servant both in one, and nothing shall escape my hand. I said I can go farther, to great churches beyond Botswana, where you can find crosses made from gold, and shawls and clothing all with gold. I said I can pull out every thread of gold, until God shall at last cry out He wishes me to cease.

At once my heart was light.

SEDUCTION

The name she was unable to remember was torturing her. She kept coming up with Bechamel, which was ridiculously wrong yet somehow close. It was important to her that she remember: a thing in a book by this man lay at the heart of her secret career as a seducer of men, three hundred and twelve of them. She was a seducer, not a seductress. The male form of the term was active. A seductress was merely someone who was seductive and who might or might not be awarded a victory. But a seducer was a professional, a worker, and somehow a record of success was embedded in the term. “Seducer” sounded like a credential. Game was afoot tonight. Remembering the name was part of the preparation. She had always prepared before tests.

Male or female, you couldn’t be considered a seducer if you were below a certain age, had great natural beauty, or if you lacked a theory of what you were doing. Her body of theory began with a scene in the book she was feeling the impulse to reread. The book’s title was lost in the mists of time. As she remembered the scene, a doctor and perhaps the woman of the house are involved together in some emergency lifesaving operation. The woman has to assist. The setting is an apartment in Europe, in a city. The woman is not attractive. The doctor is. There has been shelling or an accident. The characters are disparate in every way and would never normally be appropriate for one another. The operation is described in upsetting detail. It’s touch and go. When it’s over, the doctor and the woman fall into one another’s arms — to their own surprise. Some fierce tropism compels them. Afterward they part, never to follow up. The book was from the French. She removed the Atmos clock from the living room mantel and took it to the pantry to get it out of sight.

The scene had been like a flashbulb going off. She had realized that, in her seductions up to that point, she had been crudely and intuitively using the principle that the scene made explicit. Putting it bluntly, a certain atmosphere of allusion to death, death-fear, death threats, mystery pointing to death was, in the right hands, erotic and could lead to a bingo. Of course, that was hardly all there was to it. The subject of what conditions conduce — that was her word for it — to achieving a bingo was immense. For example, should you strew your conversation with a few petals of French? The answer was not always yes, and depended on age and educational level. For some older types, France meant looseness and Pigalle. But for some it meant you were parading your education or your travel opportunities. One thing, it was never safe to roll your Rs. She thought, Everything counts: chiaroscuro, no giant clocks in evidence and no wristwatches either, music or its absence, what they can assume about privacy and le futur . That was critical. You had to help them intuit you were acting from appetite, like a man, and that when it was over you would be yourself and not transformed before their eyes into a love-leech, a limbless tube of longing. You had to convince them that what was to come was, no question about it, a transgression, but that for you it was about at the level of eating between meals.

She was almost fifty. For a woman, she was old to be a seducer. The truth was that she had been on the verge of closing up shop. The corner of Bergen County they had lived in was scorched earth, pretty much. Then Frank had been offered a contract to advise African governments on dental care systems. They had come to Africa for two years.

In Botswana, where they were based, everything was unbelievably conducive. Frank was off in the bush or advising as far away as Lusaka or Gwelo for days and sometimes weeks at a time. So there was space. She could select. Gaborone was comfortable enough. And it was full of transient men: consultants, contractors, travelers of all kinds, seekers. Embassy men were assigned for two-year tours and knew they were going to be rotated away from the scene of the crime sooner rather than later. Wives were often absent. Either they were slow to arrive or they were incessantly away on rest and recreation in the United States or the Republic of South Africa. For expatriate men, the local women were a question mark. Venereal disease was pandemic, and local attitudes toward birth control came close to being surreal. She had abstained from Batswana men. She knew why. The very attractive ones seemed hard to get at. There was a feeling of danger in the proposition, probably irrational. The surplus of more familiar white types was a simple fact. In any case, there was still time. This place had been designed with her in mind. The furniture the government provided even looked like it came from a bordello. And Botswana was unnerving in some overall way there was only one word for: conducive. The country depended on copper and diamonds. Copper prices were sinking. There were too many diamonds of the wrong kind. Development projects were going badly and making people look bad, which made them nervous and susceptible. What was there to do at night? There was only one movie house in town. The movies came via South Africa and were censored to a fare-thee-well — no nudity, no blue language. She suspected that for American men the kind of heavy-handed dummkopf censorship they sat through at the Capitol Cinema was in fact stimulating. Frank was getting United States Government money, which made them semiofficial. She had to admit there was fun in foiling the eyes and ears of the embassy network. She would hate to leave.