Nadine Gordimer - The Pickup

She passed an empty pedestal flower-urn painted blue, a burglar grille ajar at the door.

Struck from the sunlight outside, centred in blinding dimness was the still darker shape of a solid figure seated on a sofa; the presence of this house.

She was produced before his mother by her husband. The welcome was formal; as her eyes grew accustomed to the change from the sun’s intensity, the hushed room emerged, other women there. The presence — this woman with a beautiful face (she knew it was his mother he would look like) asserted beneath a palimpsest of dark fatigue and grooves of unimaginable experience, addressed her majestically, at length and in their language, but her gaze was on her son and tears ran, ignored by her, down the calm of her cheeks. He translated abruptly, probably omitting elaboration, and then his mother engulfed him, the flight of sisters set upon him, upon the woman he had brought as his wife. And at once her impression of his parents’ house, his home, into which she had now truly been received was broken up by activities that spilled through doorways where people pushed past one another, balancing dishes of food wreathed in steam and sharp-sweet scents. The women were a swirl of their enveloping garments, polyester chiffon and braid, bobbing and dodging; the men were conducting, giving orders. People sat round small tables on the carpet and cushions and ate — the way Ibrahim had given up, in the company of The Table — agilely with their fingers. Not all the dishes could be found room for on the flowered cloths among glass plates and brightly-coloured glasses. There were bowls of fruit and sweetmeats on the television set; small children ate with concentration between the adults’ feet and older ones raced in and out the front door helping themselves on the run. Ibrahim the bridegroom was at his father’s side, Julie the bride was facing him across others, with his mother. She touched now and then at the pin that held her skimpy garment closed at her throat; the breathing of the powerful presence at her side stirred robes rising and falling, ample. The food was delicious; when she had had her fill of couscous and vegetable stew the women brought in mutton chops, salad, and handed round the honeyed sweetmeats; she at least knew enough to observe the etiquette that here it was impolite to refuse anything offered; the strength of the coffee helped, long part of therapy after other kinds of indulgence, left behind. Sweet synthetic drinks took the place of wine; to signal her closeness she had lifted her glass to him, down there among the men, calling for his rare and beautiful smile — but it did not come, his glance met her a moment but he was apparently answering questions from his father and brothers. It was the Uncle who made him smile, booming laughter through a full mouth as he told what must have been a joke or made a salacious remark — this was, after all, a kind of wedding feast as well as a son’s home-coming. One of the sisters shyly spoke English when urged by the women, in their own language, to come up to Ibrahim’s bride. There was a phrase-book exchange so that the foreign newcomer to the family might not feel left out — the men were confidently animated among themselves, round the returned son, the women preoccupied with the replenishment of food, chattering softly as they moved swiftly about.

— How was the journey.—

— The journey was fine, but you know it is very far — where Ibrahim and I came from.—

— We know. He sent us a letter. Some day it came. I hope you will like it here. It is a village only.—

— I hope you will show me your village.—

— Ibrahim will show.—

The two young women looked at one another in deep incomprehensibility, each unable to imagine the life of the other; smiling. It was perhaps right then that she made the decision: I have to learn the language.

One of the doors led from the party directly into the room that obviously had been vacated for Ibrahim and his chosen wife. The elegant suitcase and the canvas bag stood as they had, way back in her cottage. He closed the door on the company clearing up the feast in the communal room.

There was the huge old, high bed with its carved head-and footboards. An array of coloured covers under a crocheted white spread. She was admiring: how splendid. Ibrahim, what a bed.

He saw it; it is his mother’s and father’s bed, the only splendour of their marriage, the absurd pretension of the start of driven poverty, the retreat into which each has collapsed exhausted every night for all their years. It is the bed in which each will die.

It’s the bed in which he was conceived.

Julie began to unpack gifts they had brought.

No. Not now. Tomorrow we’ll give them. It’s enough for today.

He tugged back the lace curtains at the window. Tomorrow. He would insist that his parents move back into this room, he and she must find somewhere else to sleep.

A little later she went over to him. What I need now is a long, hot bath. Where’s the bathroom?

There was no bathroom. Had she thought of that, when she decided to come with him. This place is buried in desert. Water’s like gold is in her country, it’s got to be brought up from deep, far down, pumped to this village — what there is of it. Had she any idea of what a burden she would be. So there it is. Madness. Madness to think she could stick it out, here. He was angry — with this house, this village, these his people — to have to tell her other unacceptable things, tell her once and for all what her ignorant obstinacy of coming with him to this place means, when she failed, with all her privilege, at getting him accepted in hers. Tomorrow. The other days ahead.

And it was as he knew it was going to be.

She wants to see ‘everything’. They haven’t been in his parents’ house more than two days when she says, if he doesn’t feel like coming along, if there are people he needs to consult, things he needs to do, she’s quite happy to explore the village, hop on a bus and see the capital, on her own.

Of course. Of course. Independent. This is the way she’s accustomed to living, pleasing herself. Again. But that’s impossible, here. He has to be with her, some member of the family, if there could be one who could be understood, has to accompany her everywhere beyond a few neighbourhood streets, that’s how it is in the place he thought he had left behind him. It’s not usual for women to sit down to eat with the men, today was a special exception for the occasion — does she understand. It’s enough, for these people, that she goes about with an uncovered head — that they can tolerate with a white face, maybe. He has sharply resisted his mother’s taking him aside to insist that his wife put a scarf over her head when leaving the house or in the company of men who were not family; resisted with pain, because this is his mother, whom he wanted to bring away to a better life. And she, the one he has brought back with him, all that he has brought back with him, is the cause of this pain.

It’s not an alarm clock you fumble a hand out to stifle. The rising wail lingers and fades, comes again as if a dream has been given a voice, or — there’s the grey, lifted eyelid prelude of dawn in the room — some animal out in the desert sounds its cry. There are jackals, they say.

It’s the call to prayer.

The first adjustment to any change must be to the timeframe imposed within it; this begins with the small child’s first day at school: the containment of life in a society commences. The other demarcations of the day set by that particular society follow, commuter time, clock-in time, canteen break time, workout time or cocktail time, and so on to the last divide of the living of a day, depending on your circumstances. Five times each day the voice of the muezzin set the time-frame she had entered, as once, in her tourist travels, she would set her watch to and live a local hour different from the one in the country left behind.