Nadine Gordimer - A Guest of Honour

In the car he said, “What a mistake about the caddies. The golfers will take it as the knell of doom: now we are going to take away their caddies and educate them.”

“I would like very much to put them in school.” Malemba was dogged. “Those kids know nothing but to smoke cigarette ends and gamble with pennies.”

“Good God! The caddies will see their doom in us, as well. They’ll be at the barricades along with the members, defending the place with golf — clubs.”

There must have been an emergency meeting of the club executive. Within a week there was a letter in the mail brought up by messenger from the boma. Inside, the communication itself was addressed to The Regional Education Officer, Mr. Sampson Malemba, and marked “Copy to Colonel E. J. Bray, D.S.O.” The members of the Gala Club, while always willing to serve the community as the Club had done since its inception in 1928, felt that the club buildings and outhouses were inappropriate and unsuitable as a venue for adult education classes. The purpose of the Club was, and always had been, to provide recreational facilities, and not educational ones, whose rightful and proper place was surely in schools, church halls, and other centres devoted to and equipped for instruction. Therefore, it was with regret, etc.

He phoned Sampson Malemba, who had one of the few telephones in the African township, but there was only a very small child repeating into the mouthpiece the single inquiring syllable, “Ay? Ay? Ay?” With the mail was a note from Aleke, beginning dryly, “I hear you’re back.” He had not been to the boma, it was true; he had all his papers at home, and for the present Malemba was the only official it was necessary for him to see. Anyway, Aleke invited him to supper that evening; to look me over, to see how well I was managed, in the capital? He thought, I wish I knew, myself.

When he walked up the veranda steps of what had once for so long been his own house, the first thing he saw was the girl. Rebecca Edwards — she had her back to him. She was pouring orange squash for the cluster of barefoot children, black and white, whose hands and chins yearned over the table top, and she turned, jerking her hair away where it had fallen over her face, as the other people greeted him. She said gaily, naturally, “Welcome back — how was everybody?” not expecting an answer in the general chatter. It was all right; he realized how he stonily had not known how he would face the girl again, not seen since that twilight. Of course it was because of her that he had not gone to the boma, it was because of her that he had arranged for the mail to be sent to him every day. He had not wanted to be bothered with the awkward business of how to treat that girl. The days that had elapsed had restored the old level of acquaintanceship. Or the incident was as peripheral to her as it was to him; her friends in the capital hinted as much, in their concern about her.

Sampson Malemba was there (his shy wife hardly ever came to such European — style gatherings, even if they were held by Africans); Nongwaye Tlume, the agricultural officer, and his wife; Hugh and Sally Fraser, the young doctors from the mission hospital; and Lebaliso, dropped in an uncomfortable old deck — chair before the guests as if by a gesture of Aleke’s, saying, There, that’s all he is — a bit of a joke with his 1914–1918 moustache aping the white man he replaced, and his spit — and-polished shoes — brown and shiny as his cheeks — giving away long apprenticeship in the ranks. Malemba and Bray at once began to talk about the letter. Over beer, and with the comments of the company, it appeared much funnier than it was. In fact, the first sentence in particular, the one about the Club having “served the community” since 1928, with its still inevitable assumption that the “community” meant the whites only, made them laugh so much, with such an exchange of wild interjections, that one of the smallest children (a Tlume offspring) crept up the steps towards the noise in dribbling — mouthed fascination, and then rose swaying to its feet like a snake charmed before music. Rebecca Edwards picked it up and cuddled it before the trance could turn to fear.

“And where do you go from there?” Fraser asked; he looked like a stage pirate, black curly hair, and hairy tanned forearms, a touch of beer foam at his lips.

“What do you say, Sampson?” Bray challenged.

“We’ll have to consider.”

“There goes the schoolmaster!” Aleke’s remarks were amiable, critical, a hand rumpling his guests’ hair.

Hugh Fraser rolled his eyes. “Let us preserve for ever the venerable, ivy — covered walls of the Gala Club, steeped in the history of so many memorable Saturday night dances, and so many noble performances of Agatha Christie.”

“No, but really, James?” Aleke said lazily. He kept cocking an eyebrow at the Tlume infant, and slowly, it slid from Rebecca’s lap and crawled to his leg.

“It’ll have to be the Gandhi Hall, next. Don’t you think, eh, Sampson.”

“Simple enough. Get an order to commandeer whatever premises you need.” Everyone laughed again in acknowledgement of the context of Sally Fraser’s remark — the aura of Bray’s friendship with the President.

“Oh, I’m not an Aleke or a Lebaliso!”

The policeman took it as a compliment, chuckling round to the company, pleased with himself: “Now Colonel, now Colonel …” Aleke half — acknowledged the feint by pulling a face. At that moment his wife said that food was ready and he announced, “Aren’t I the cleverest damn P.O. there has ever been in Gala district? You know who cooked? My secretary, here. Yes”—she was smiling, shrugging it off, as he hooked an arm round her neck— “I get her to cook, too.” “Nonsense. I gave Agnes the recipe, that’s all.” “She’s been here the whole afternoon, making dinner for me,” Mrs. Aleke said calmly. “I gave you the afternoon off, didn’t I, Becky? I’m the best boss you’ve ever had, aren’t I, Becky?”

Bray had not bought anything for the Edwards children but the Bayleys had. He was able to say to the girl now, “Vivien sent some things for you — a parcel. I’m sorry I haven’t delivered it yet.”

“Oh it doesn’t matter. I can send one of the children.” She extricated herself gently from Aleke’s big forearm.

Next day he went to see Joosab. There could be something in the club secretary’s suggestion that one might “mention the scheme in the course of conversation”—if not with Gala Club members, then with a member of the Indian community. Joosab said nothing; his large black eyes in wrinkled skin the colour and texture of a scrotum kept their night — light steadiness through Bray’s outline of the scheme, the confidence about the white club’s refusal, and what he knew was coming: the suggestion that the Gandhi Hall and the private Indian school of which it was part could provide premises. Although the Indians of Gala were mainly Moslem, like many such communities in Africa, they claimed Gandhi for the prestige he had brought to India and the third world in general, and perhaps also had some vague notion — in the uncertainty of their own position among Africans — that the Mahatma’s condemnation of caste and race prejudice might somehow soften incipient African prejudice against themselves. Of course the hall and school were in what was known — according to colonial custom by which the whites had placed various races at different removes from themselves — as the “bazaar,” a small quarter, not more than a few streets, behind the Indian stores on the fringe of the white town. “But this will be a good thing, don’t you think, Joosab — to break down these worn old distinctions of who belongs where, which are taking so long to die …? Your people would be setting an example to the Europeans that should make them think again … and it certainly couldn’t seem less, to the Africans, than proof of your good faith as citizens of this country.… Don’t mistake me, either — we hope any Indians who are interested will take any course that may be useful, Joosab—”