Nadine Gordimer - None to Accompany Me

There’s another who sits back with the care of one who has drunk too much, but a rush of words upsets the balance: —I think I’m a damn fool to be negotiating labour deals with the black unions. I ought to be learning how to get my hand in the till and get out. First thing they’re going to do when they get into power, you can own only one property. So bang goes my trout farm, no more invitations for you boys to come down and fish …—

How she sees them laugh it off, their confidence in themselves makes a joke of their fears, they will always find a way to dine on board the Drommedaris no matter what government comes, the power of being white has been extrasensory so long, they feel it within them like a secret ability to bend metal by looking at it. If they ‘get out’ they will come back; we shall ask them to. She is the only woman who has accepted a cognac (the public relations director made the approved female choice of a sweet liqueur) and she’s joined the party on the ship of fools but (too much wine, as well) for her it’s a listing oil tanker she’s on that will spill its cargo to slick territorial waters round the new state.

Why do I drink on these occasions? Why does duty make me drink? She sat in the car beside Ben, going home. What have I done, to put him in such company, what have I done to him.

But why me? What has he done to himself?

In the morning, they were in the mood to laugh over the evening. ‘Hand in the till’ became itself a password between them for ironic judgments in their private language.

The pulsations of perception throb, and die down. Throb again. How, in the end, between the swirling newspaper and slimy drains of the roof-top hidden from the streets and One-Twenty-One, evidenced as testimony bared to the sky; the probabilities in London of fulfilment or unhappiness in attachment to a redhead whose photograph was not sent; the claim of the ancestors and its codification in a land policy paper that may deprive business associates of river frontage for weekend trout-fishing, Better I see nothing, Don’t come back on Wednesday— how, between all these, will you know, will you recognize the beat: this is my self.

What happens, happens early in the morning, when the hand with the blue vein raised from outer wrist-bone to the base between first and second finger feels for the switch on the radio. Sometimes as he draws the hand back she takes it for the return to life, and closes her eyes again, waiting for the news; his hand and hers, the warm pulse palm-to-palm of a single creature who exists only while bodies are still numb in half-consciousness. The news is brought to you by this bank or that with its computer services and thirty-two-day deposit convenience at maximum interest. There are wars and famines too far away to stir response: there are coups and drought drawing nearer, there are the killings of the night, still closer. Some mornings, attacks on farms; a white farmer shot, the wife raped or killed, money and car missing. Taken. ‘Taken’ to mean the motive is robbery; as if robbery has a single meaning in every country at every period. Take cars, take money, take life. These mornings robbery means taking everything you haven’t got from those who appear to have everything: money, a car to sell for money, a way of life with house and land and cattle. Otherwise, why kill as well as rob? Why rape some farmer’s ugly old wife? No violence is more frightening than the violence of revenge, because it is something that what the victim stands for brings upon him. It is seldom retribution for a personal deed, of which innocence can be claimed. The rape has nothing to do with desire; the penis is a gun like the gun held to a head, its discharge is a discharge of bullets.

She lies in a body-warmed bed, the first refuge after birth and the last, for those fortunate enough to die a natural death.

What happened one morning was the sudden startle of the word ‘Odensville’ in the newsreader’s bland recital. ‘Nine people were killed and fourteen injured in violence at the Odensville squatter camp last night. The clash occurred when a local farmer, leading a group of armed supporters, tried to evict the squatters. Police report that it is unclear whether the bullet wounds sustained were the result of the group’s action or of cross-fire from the squatters. An AK—47 and three Makarov pistols were recovered at the scene. The farmer, Mr Tertius Odendaal, said that he had called by radio the local farmers’ defence commando when the squatters were spotted approaching his house under cover of darkness, carrying stones and weapons.’

The Foundation had been unsuccessful in keeping any contact with the farmer Odendaal. The day he shut his door in the face of its lawyer, her driver, and the squatters’ spokesman, Zeph Rapulana, was the end of negotiation with him. Communication was with his lawyer. Rapulana came to the city a number of times to confer with Vera on the squatters’ options in a course of action. It had become clear to her that it was best for the Foundation to be guided by this man, rather than the other way about. He read, enquired, informed himself of all the intricacies of legislation, so that her task was simply to formulate procedure; there was a zest in working together with a plaintiff rather than taking over decisions for the helpless, which was her function most of the time. He sat quietly watching her, in her office, while she walked about going over exasperatedly her attempts to talk to Odendaal. His alert patience had the effect of taking the place of her own customary manner in that office; he was the one listening to her without showing reaction, as she listened to others. It was a curious kind of release, almost a pleasure, that created ease between them. He had ready what he was going to say, but a natural respect for the views of others made him hear out what might modify his own. There were homely colloquialisms in his command of English, a little out-of-date, with its careful grammatical construction, in comparison with the spliced improvisations — TV jargon, Afrikaans and tsotsi slang, mother-tongue syntax, mixed with English — of city people like Oupa or the Foundation’s black lawyers. — Odendaal won’t budge. We can abandon any idea of that nature. Our only possibility is to sup with the devil. Take a long spoon. Yes … The agents of the Government who put us in our position are the ones we must shame into getting us out of it.—

— Count on the Provincial Administration? Well … —

— Odendaal has threatened to bring the AWB 1with their guns to evict us. It doesn’t look very nice, does it? In the present political climate, the Government surely doesn’t want too many press reports of blacks being forced out of their homes. That still going on.—

— Their hands would look clean. It would be the work of the right-wing rebels.—

— Even so. They’d be asked why they didn’t do something about it. That’s where we step in. Take the bull by the horns. He applied to the TPA 2to build a black township on his land, we apply now to the TPA to appropriate the farm and declare it a transit settlement, for a start.—

— Worth a try. Our case would be that it’s an initiative to avoid violence in an area of dangerous contention. I suppose we could lead with this.—

Making light of their ‘conspiracy’, they grasped hands that day; sat down together over the formulation.

That other clasp, two hands joined to make one creature, broke apart. Out of bed she stumbled to find the sling bag with the address and telephone book she kept handy when away from the office. She summoned the well-trained orderliness of her working mode in order not to think — anything— not to ask of herself the name of one of the nine dead until she reached the telephone and heard it answered. Zeph Rapulana was a squatter but he had given her the number of a relative in a nearby township who had a store and lived behind it; there was a telephone, whether in the house or the store she didn’t know. It must have been in the store, and so early in the morning the store was not yet open. The telephone rang and rang. It seemed to her an answer: Rapulana would never reply again, anywhere. She called through the bathroom door to Ben in the shower, something terrible has happened, she has to go at once — he came to the doorway streaming. — What? What is it all about? What happened? — He naked, she dressed, it was an encounter between strangers. He called out after her, Don’t go there alone! Vera, do you hear me!