Nadine Gordimer - A Guest of Honour

“Never mind, this’s fine—”

“Well, if you’re in no hurry to get back, I’m certainly not. Waitlet’s see if I can find a boat—”

She kept protesting, but she couldn’t disguise her hope. There were two pirogues, much patched with tin, dragged up among the reeds. A fisherman was picking over a net. There was a short exchange of cheerful greetings in Gala and then they were given the choice of craft. They took the one that seemed to ship the least water, and they had two paddles this time. Their progress was erratic but she was determined to do her part, flushed and self — forgetful in a way that was unusual in an attractive woman. Once they were past fourteen they were never free of a nervous awareness of how they must be appearing; he had seen it in his daughters.

She was right. The island, the beach, were worth the trouble. She was proprietorial with pleasure. “Have you ever seen such perfect sand? And look — a back — rest, and you can face the water—” They had a swim first, undressing and dressing again without false modesty, each not looking the other’s way. Then Kalimo’s lunch was unpacked. “Have one of the eggs with little fishes in it, come on.” They ate greedily, and drank the warm red wine. She really was too fat — thighed for those old trousers, now that she had eaten they were drum — tight over the belly, as well. What did one mean by an “attractive” girl, then? Was her face pretty? It was a square, ruddy brown — skinned face, he did not like such broad jaws, when she became middle — aged she would be handsome and jowly. She had a good forehead, in profile, under the straight black hair — her hair was very black. And, of course, lovely eyes, those yellowy, lioness eyes. No, “attractive” meant just that — a drawing power that had nothing to do with the beauties and the blemishes, the disproportions and symmetries existing together in the one woman. She used no perfume but the warm look of the tiny cup formed by the bones at the base of her full neck made you want to bury your face there where the body seemed to breathe out, to smoke faintly with life.

They lay down on the sand, side by side; she had taken one of his cigars and was enjoying it. Every now and then, to ask a question or make a point, she raised herself sideways on one elbow, a hand thrust up into her untidy hair, the other hand half beneath her body, covering the falling together of her breasts in the neck of her shirt. Whatever she was, she was not a coquette.

“How long is your contract — with Aleke?”

“Eighteen months.”

“And after that — you’ll go back?”

“Where?” she said. He was thinking of the capital, it was a habit of mind for him to think in terms of some base. “I don’t know what it’ll be. Maybe we’ll go to South Africa. Because of Cabora Bassa.”

“It’s in Mozambique, miles from anywhere.”

“But he’ll be working for South Africans. He’ll be paid in South African currency. But perhaps I’ll just renew — another eighteen months here. We’ll see. Anyway I want to put Alan and Suzi into a boarding school.”

“But not in South Africa.”

“Well, yes. I don’t fancy the idea of Rhodesia. And they can’t stay here much longer—” She was anxious not to hurt his feelings — she saw all occupations in personal terms — by suggesting that his great plans for education in the country were not good enough. “It’s just that, with the schools newly integrated, the standard has dropped like hell, and, you know, one can’t let one’s children come out of school half — baked.”

“Of course. For the time being only the African children benefit, while the white ones are at a bit of a disadvantage. But you wouldn’t really consider sending them to South Africa?”

She said again, “Oh I don’t know, they say the schools are good.”

He saw that she was thinking of the money; there was a chance that there would be money in South Africa, to pay for them. Under the surface, her life was laid on bedrock necessities like this, that made luxuries out of scruples as well as emotions. But he said, gently, “Here you are all living happily with the Tlumes. And you’ll send them there, to be brought up in the antiquated colonial way, to consider that their white skin sets them above other people.”

She smiled, slightly embarrassed and defiant. “Well, what about me? It was like that in Kenya. It’s only while they’re at school; they’ll grow out of it again.”

“Not everyone can be as natural as you,” he said.

She turned on her elbow again. “I don’t quite understand how you mean that.”

“You cling to reality,” he said. “They couldn’t condition you into the good old colonial abstractions — a nigger’s a nigger and a white man’s an English gentleman. You obstinately stick to other criteria — I don’t know what they are, but they certainly aren’t based on colour.”

“It’s a big fuss about nothing. If that was all you had to worry about …” She dropped her head, rolled back. Perhaps she was thinking about her “other criteria”—what they were. Perhaps she was dissatisfied with them — with herself. It was easy to decide for her that necessity ruled her life with beautiful simplicity, even where it was makeshift and compromised. What criterion was there for this invisible man to whom she was married but with whom she never seemed to live? And the obliging reputation she had among husbands of the little group left behind in the capital? He felt again as he had the first time they had been on the island beach, only this time she, this young woman, was present as he was in the state of immediate existence, curiously quiet and vivid, unmediated by what they both were in relation to other people and other times.

The fish eagles hunched indifferently on a dead tree out in the lake. If he tried to follow their gaze over the water, his own faltered out, dropped in distance; theirs was beyond the capacity of the human eye as certain sounds go beyond the register of the ear. She said, “Not as if they were ever going to be South Africans.”

“It’s a contradiction of your realism, you know. You can’t be realistic without principles — that’s just the convenient interpretation, that the realist accepts things as they are, even if those things express an unreal situation, a false one. You’re the one who should see over the head of that situation, and instinctively reject it even as a temporary one, for your children. That’s the practical application of principle.”

She mumbled into her crossed forearms, “I’ll remember that.”—He saw from the movement of her half — concealed cheek that she was smiling.

Ah yes, how nice to set oneself up as the mentor of a rather lonely young woman, to explain her to herself. “We’d better move, soon.”

She said, preoccupied, “And how long have you still got?”

“That’s up to me.”

“Your contract’s with yourself.” She was generously envious.

“Very convenient. And only I know what the terms are. Or I ought to.”

“Then you probably do.”

“Do I?”

“Oh yes. People do. We know all about ourselves. Al — ll about it.” She was scratching her scalp and paring the collected road — dust from beneath her nails, concentratedly, as if she were alone. He thought defensively, how very natural she was; he had always liked so much Olivia’s fastidiousness, her almost awesome lack of little disgusting personal habits. Olivia could never have gone to bed with someone who picked his nose….

They lingered on the island, and on the shore when they returned and paid for the use of the leaky pirogue, chaffing with the bandylegged fisherman in his athletic vest and torn pants. He seemed surprised at being paid at all; so far as he was concerned, he was busy with his net and they were welcome to his boat in the meantime.