Nadine Gordimer - The Pickup

At my place then.

In quiet authority, he had no need to enthuse accord.

Even though it passed muster with the whites among the friends that her ‘place’ was sufficiently removed from The Suburbs’ ostentation to meet their standards of leaving home behind, and was accepted by the blacks among them as the kind of place they themselves moved to from the old segregation, her outhouse renovated as a cottage was comfortable enough, its under-furnishings nevertheless giving away a certain ease inherent in, conditioned by, luxuries taken for granted as necessities: there was a bathroom that dwarfed the living-cum-bedroom by comparison, and the cramped kitchen was equipped with freezer and gadgets. It was untidy; the quarters of someone not used to looking after herself; to seat himself he removed the stained cup and plate and a spatter of envelopes, sheets of opened letters, withered apple-peel, old Sunday paper, from a chair. She was making the usual apologies about the mess, as she did to whoever dropped in. She opened wine, found a packet of biscuits, sniffed at cheese taken from the fridge and rejected it in favour of another piece. He watched this domesticity without offering help, as her friends would, nobody lets anyone wait on anyone else. But he ate her cheese and biscuits, he drank her wine, with her that first time. They talked until late; about him, his life; hers was here, where they were, in her city, open in its nature for him to see in the streets, the faces, the activities — but he, his, was concealed among these. No record of him on any pay-roll, no address but c/o a garage, and under a name that was not his. Another name? She was bewildered: but there he was, a live presence in her room, an atmosphere of skin, systole and diastole of breath blending with that which pervaded from her habits of living, the food, the clothes lying about, the cushions at their backs. Not his? No — because they had let him in on a permit that had expired more than a year ago, and they would be looking for him under his name.

And then?

He gestured: Out.

Where would he go? She looked as if she were about to make suggestions; there are always solutions in the resources she comes from.

He leant to pour himself some more wine, as he had reached across for the sugar-bowl. He looked at her and slowly smiled.

But surely …?

Still smiling, moving his head gently from side to side. There was a litany of the countries he had tried that would not let him in. I’m a drug dealer, a white-slave trader coming to take girls, I’ll be a burden on the state, that’s what they say, I’ll steal someone’s job, I’ll take smaller pay than the local man.

And at this last, they could laugh a moment because that was exactly what he was doing.

It’s terrible. Inhuman. Disgraceful.

No. Don’t you see them round all the places you like to go, the café. Down there, crack you can buy like a box of matches, the street corner gangs who take your wallet, the women any man can buy — who do they work for? The ones from outside who’ve been let in. Do you think that’s a good thing for your country.

But you … you’re not one of them.

The law’s the same for me. Like for them. Only they are more clever, they have more money — to pay. His long hand opened, the fingers unfolding before her, joint by joint.

There are gestures that decide people’s lives: the hand-grasp, the kiss; this was the one, at the border, at immigration, that had no power over her life.

Surely something can be done. For him.

He folded the fingers back into a fist, dropped it to his knee. His attention retreated from the confidence between them and escaped absently to the pile of CDs near him. They found they did share something: an enthusiasm for Salif Keita, Youssou N’Dour and Rhythm & Blues, and listened to her recordings on her system, of which he highly approved. You like to drive a second-hand car but you have first-class equipment for music.

It seemed both sensed at the same moment that it was time for him to leave. She took it for granted she would drive him home but he refused, he’d catch a combi ride.

Is that all right? Is it far? Where are you living?

He told her: there was a room behind the garage the owner let him have.

She looked in — didn’t allow herself to ask herself why.

Looked in on the garage, to tell him that the car was going well. And it was about the time of his lunch break. Where else to go but, naturally, the EL-AY Café, join the friends. And soon this became almost every day: if she appeared without him, they asked, where’s Abdu? They liked to have him among them, they knew one another too well, perhaps, and he was an element like a change in climate coming out of season, the waft of an unfamiliar temperature. He did not take much part in their unceasing talk but he listened, sometimes too attentively for their comfort.

— What happened to Brotherhood, I’d like to ask? Fat cats in the government. Company chairmen. In the bush they were ready to die for each other — no, no, that’s true, grant it — now they’re ready to drive their official Mercedes right past the Brother homeless here out on the street.—

— Did you see on the box last night — the one who was a battle commander at Cuito, a hero, he’s joined an exclusive club for cigar connoisseurs … it’s oysters and champagne instead of pap and goat meat.—

The elderly poet had closed his eyes and was quoting something nobody recognized as not his own work: —’Too long a sacrifice makes a stone of the heart.’—

No-one paid him attention.

— Doesn’t make sense … why should people abandon what they’ve believed and fought for, what’s got into them between then and now?—

What was he thinking, this intelligence dressed up as a grease-monkey — when he did have something to say it would puncture one of their opinions or trim one of their vociferous convictions. If he did speak, they listened:

— No chance to choose then. Nothing else. That porridge and for each one, the other. Now there is everything else. Here. To choose.—

— Hah! So Brotherhood is only the condition of suffering? Doesn’t apply when you have choice, and the choice is the big cheque and the company car, the nice perks of Minister.—

— That is how it is. You have no choose — choice — or you have choice. Only two kinds. Of people.—

And they choose to laugh. — Abdu, what a cynic.—

— So come on David, what kind are you, in his categories—

— Well at the moment my choice is pitta with haloumi.—

— There’s no free will in a capitalist economy. It’s the bosses’ will. That’s what the man’s really saying. — The political theorist among them is dismissive.

— You say that because you’re black, it’s old trade unionist stuff, my Bra, and meanwhile you’re yearning to cop out and be the boss somewhere.—

The two grasp each other by the shoulder in mock conflict.

They all know one another’s attitudes and views only too well. Attention turns to him, among them, again.

— You agree about the capitalist economy?—

— Where I come from — no capitalist economy, no socialist economy. Nothing. I learn about them at the university …—

And he’s made them laugh, he laughs along with them, that’s the way of the table, once you’re accepted there.

— So what would you call it — what d’you mean ‘nothing’?—

He seems to search for something they’ll think they understand, to satisfy them.

— Feudal. — He raises and lowers elbows on the table, looks to her, his sponsor here, to see if the word is the right one; to see if, by this glance, she will be ready to leave. — But they call themselves ministers, presidents, this and that.—