Nadine Gordimer - A Guest of Honour

“Joy says he’s never in bed before three, anyway.”

Neil began to scratch his neck restlessly. “Shall we phone Jenny — penny and Curtis and get them to join the vigil?” Vivien said mildly, since nothing would stop Neil if he felt the need of company, “We haven’t seen James for months, I want to talk to James. Rebecca writes she’s got a house quite near you? — thank heaven she’s out of the hotel. I do think your Aleke should have seen there was somewhere for her to live before getting her up there. What sort of man is he? You know, with Rebecca, people just exploit her.” She looked for reassurance.

Bray was saying, “Half a house. She’s sharing with some people—” while Neil gave his short laugh and said fondly, “Poor old backwoods Becky, we must write to her.”

“But Aleke — you think he’s all right?”

“Darling, of course he’ll make a pass at her, if that’s what you mean.” Neil cut across. “What else do you expect? She has that effect, our Becky.”

Defending her against Aleke, Vivien said, “It’s not right that this idea should’ve somehow … she’s quite the opposite, if you really know her — she doesn’t try for men at all. But it’s just a kind of awful compassion …”

Neil said aggressively, “Oh really, is that what you females call it.”

“Oh I know you don’t like the idea. That there could be anything about you.” She was talking to her husband, now; slowly they were beginning to pick up words like stones.

Bray felt unimportantly ashamed of his casualness. But all he said was, in the same tone, “Aleke’s a good chap to work for, I should think. Her children have got in to the local school.”

At midnight Mweta’s voice filled the room. They sat dreamily still, not looking at each other. Vivien’s right hand was pressed against the side of her belly to quiet the only movement in the room, stirring there. Mweta announced the immediate introduction of a Preventive Detention Bill.

It was all there, set out again in the morning paper. As he read he heard Mweta’s voice, as if it were addressed to him. Emergency regulations had been invoked to bring the Bill into force immediately without the usual parliamentary procedure. The step had been “taken with the greatest reluctance” but “without any doubt of the necessity.” “I would be betraying the people, the sacred trust of their future, if I did not act swiftly and without hesitation. … Certain individuals have begun to gnaw secretly at the foundations of the state which the people have laid down so firmly through their work and dedication. Certain individuals are incapable of understanding the transformation of personal ambitions, petty aims, into the higher cause of securing the peace and progress of the nation — a cause that even the humblest people of our nation have shown themselves equal to in the short time since we have had our country in our own hands. Certain individuals are ready to destroy the general good for the sake of petty ambitions. They are weak and few, and so long as you trust and support your leaders, you need not fear them. They are small as ants. But they are also greedy as ants; if we say, oh, it’s only a few ants, we may wake up one day and find the floorboards collapsing beneath all we are building. We must take the powers to stop the rot before it starts, to act while there is still time to turn these people from the mistakes they have fallen into, and to show them where their true interest, like yours and mine, really lies—”

The paper reproduced across five columns the picture of Mweta smiling from the doorway of the plane as he arrived back in the country a few days before, and the leading article, suppressing the question mark, pointed out that there was no cause for confusion and alarm; the President would not have left the country if he had not felt fully in control of the situation.

The waiters shouted to each other as they went about the rondavels at the Silver Rhino, banging on the doors to deliver early morning tea and newspapers. (Between finger and thumb, Bray pinched off a couple of ants that had quickly found the sugar.) A boiler was being stoked up. The off — key musical gong that was played up and down corridors and garden to announce meals drew close and faded, as the girl’s recorder had done the day before. Footsteps clipped over the concrete paths with the purpose of morning. The taps on the washbasin began to creak and fart as the plumbing was taxed. Bray was taken by the flow of these things — bathroom ritual, clothes put on, breakfast eaten — and brought to the point where, five minutes before eleven — fifteen, he had the door opened to him under the portico with the white pillars to which he had come a number of times in his life: to pay respects as a D.C. newly appointed; to plead for Mweta’s release from confinement; to answer the complaints made against himself by the white residents of Gala province.

Out of the trance of commonplace that had brought him here, Bray in the waiting room of the Presidential Residence became intensely alert. He could feel the rapid beat of his heart in the throb of the hand, on the chair — arm, that held the cigarette burning away. He distinguished the quality of the room’s silence, and the displacement of his own presence there, like the rise in the volume of water when some object is lowered into it. At the same time he was going over rapidly and fluently, in words instead of those surges of imagery and emotion with which a meeting is usually rehearsed, what was to be said. He was possessed with the calm, absolute tension of excitement. It was the first time for a very long time. He opened the windows above the window — seat and the park out there — thin trees standing quietly in the heat, a pair of hoopoes picking on the grass — existed within a different pace, like a landscape seen through the windows of an express train.

The secretary, Asoni, came in quickly. “You understand, Colonel, if it had been anybody else it would have been out of the question today, as I said to Mr. Small. There is really no time for private interviews.… We are only just back, and now this other—” The sides of his mouth pulled down, proprietorial, brisk, impulsive. “If it had been anybody else I couldn’t … but I have just managed to fit you in …” It was the manner of the waiter, exacting dependence on his goodwill for a decent table. Small looked round the door: “I’m fascinated by the splendid work you’re doing in the North.” It had all the conviction of a stock phrase; simply substitute “in the South” or “the swamps” or wherever the individual had happened to have been since Small saw him last. “I know the Big Man’s longing to see you, nothing would induce him to miss that, though he’s up to his ears. Unfortunately, it’ll just have to be rather brief, alas, I’m afraid.”

Bray was not forthcoming with any assurance that he would not prolong the visit. Chatting, the two of them escorted him out into the corridor, where they were held up by the passage of a giant copper urn or boiler being shuffled along on the heads and arms of workmen. Wilfrid Asoni turned, with a theatrical gesture to Small.

“What in God’s name d’you think you’re doing?” Small stood his ground before the procession. The men lost coordination under the burden, and their gleaming missile swayed forward. “Why wasn’t that thing brought through the service entrance? The kitchens — why don’t you use the kitchen door, eh? Who allowed these men to come this way?” Servants and explanations appeared. The kitchen doors were too small. “You can’t just bring men through the Residence, you know that. You know that perfectly well, Nimrod. Good God, anybody just walking through the place, anybody who says he’s a workman?” He and Asoni looked to each other. “That’s security for you, eh? — Well, get the thing out of the way, get it in here, come on, come on …” The men backed off through the double doors of a reception room in a bewildered posse, to let Bray and Asoni and Small pass. The two had lost interest in Bray. “Fantastic!” “You’re certainly right, Clive.” “But seriously, eh?” “That’s Colonel Onabu’s security, yes.” “Well, I know who’s going to hear about that.” “I hope so. I certainly hope so.” “I’ll be on that telephone in five minutes. Unless you’d rather do it?” Wilfrid Asoni slipped into the President’s study and closed the door on his own voice switched to the official calm of the doctor entering the ward of an important private patient. He appeared again at once and opened the door for Bray absently. Bray caught a brushing glimpse of his plump sculptured face, the eyes set in the black skin smoothly as the enamelled eyes of ancient Greek figures, already turned to the piece of importance he shared with Small.