Nadine Gordimer - A World of Strangers

‘You find a good American car,’ said Steven to me, over his head.

We all began to talk at once: ‘Listen to me. . look here. . so long as it goes, I don’t. . ’

Steven burst through. ‘I’ve got a friend who works in the biggest garage in town. You know the Ford people? You know the Chev people? He’s worked with their crack mechanics for years. He can buy and sell them, ten times over. You get your second-hand car and don’t you worry. I’ll get him to do over the whole engine for you. It’ll cost you half. Maybe even nothing. You leave it to me.’

They had come in to see Anna on their way home from work. We all walked out to Sam’s little car to see them off, and I said to Steven, ‘What happened to you that Saturday, anyway?’ He smiled charmingly, utterly culpable and self-reproachful: ‘I’m awfully sorry about that, Mr Hood, really I’m sorry. I suddenly had to go off to Klerksdorp. I asked some chap to let you know, but you know what these people are. . I want you to come to my place to a party tomorrow night. Yes, there’s a big party on tomorrow and I want you to come. You’ll both come. We’ll fix it tomorrow.’

They went off, waving and talking. I had the feeling there was no party; or there was not going to be one until a few minutes ago.

‘Silly ass,’ said Anna, as we entered the house again. She picked up a couple of official-looking letters from the table where the lamp was. ‘He bought a woman’s watch and a camera from some place in town, and he hasn’t paid for them. Now he’s being sued. Don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. It’s hardly a thing for legal aid.’

I smiled. ‘Hardly.’

‘Of course, Sam always thinks I can fix everything.’ She sighed and sat down, gazing accusingly at the lamp.

‘I should think he’s pretty well right.’ This confirmation of the confidence she inspired seemed to distress her; as if, for a moment, she saw a diminution of herself in the habit of capable response which was expected of her.

‘What’s Steven’s excuse?’ I asked, curious.

‘The girl ran away with the watch, and the camera had a faulty lens, anyway — so he felt it was justice all round if he didn’t finish his payments.’

We both laughed, but there was an edge of irritation to her amusement.

‘It’s part of the Robin Hood code that a lot of them like to think they live by, just now. It’s an elastic code that can be stretched to cover even gangsters with a moral justification of some kind. And, of course, it’s romantic. There’s terribly little that’s romantic in location life. That part of it I understand very well. In the Karroo dorp where I grew up there was nothing romantic, either.’

‘I don’t know whether I understand what “romantic” means to you,’ I said.

‘Well, what does it usually mean? — Something foreign, something outside your familiar life? That’s what I mean, anyway. Even if it’s only an unfamiliar way of looking at your own life, another interpretation of it. Then you’re not just a black man doing down a white man, you’re robbing the rich to give to the poor.’

In the kitchen she did everything unhurriedly but practisedly. When she lifted the lid of a pot, there was the comforting vegetable scent of a home-made soup, and there were two thick pats of fillet lying on a board, ready for grilling. I hung about, talking to her, getting in the way rather than helping, as you do in a kitchen when you don’t know where things are kept.’ I’m glad to hear that you’re not too down on Steven’s romantic view of life — although I’m not sure, yet, that I agree about it being romantic.’

‘It’s romantic, all right,’ said Anna, sending tomatoes seething into a hot pan,’ and I am down on it. I understand the need to be romantic in some way, but I’m down on this way. It’s a waste of energy. You won’t catch Steven working with Congress or any other African movement, for that matter. He never defied, either — I’m talking about the defiance campaign, the passive resistance movement of a year or two back. The only defiance he’s interested in is not paying his bills, or buying drink. He’s got this picture of himself as the embittered, devil-may-care African, and believe me, he’s making a career of it. He doesn’t care a damn about his people; he’s only concerned with his own misfortune in being born one of them.’ The sizzling of the tomatoes in butter spat angrily around her.

‘Why should Steven have to be involved in these movements and congresses and what-not?’ I said. ‘I must admit, the whole idea would fill me with distaste. I’d run a mile at the thought.’

Over the tomatoes, she smiled the private smile of the old hand: the stoker when the ship’s passenger marvels at the fact that anyone can work in such heat, the foundryman when someone says, ‘How do you stand the noise?’ ‘Somebody’s got to do it. Why should you expect somebody else to do it for you? Nobody really wants to.’

‘Ah now, that’s not so. I’ve always thought that there are two kinds of people, people with public lives, and people with private lives. The people with public lives are concerned with a collective fate, the private livers with an individual one. But — roughly, since the Kaiser’s war, I suppose — the private livers have become hunted people. Hunted and defamed. You must join. You must be Communist or Anti-Communist, Nationalist or Kaffirboetie’ — she smiled at my pronunciation — ‘you must protest, defy, non-co-operate. And all these things you must do; you can’t leave it all in the infinitely more capable hands of the public livers.’

She turned from the stove with her answer all ready, but then paused a moment, filling in the pause by gesturing for me to pass her the soup bowls, and said, as if she had suddenly discarded her argument, ‘Yes, there’s less and less chance to live your own life. That’s true. The pressure’s too strong.’

‘From outside, as well as within, that’s my point,’ I said, obstinately, not wishing to claim common ground where I did not think there was any. ‘The public life people have always responded to pressure from within — their own conscience, sense of responsibility toward others, ambition, and so on; but the private livers, in whom these things are latent, weak, or differently directed, could go on simply going their own ways, unless the pressure from outside became too strong. Well, now it’s just bloody irresistible. It isn’t enough that a chap like Steven has all the bother of being a black man in this country, on top of it he’s expected to give up to political action whatever small part of his life he can call his own.’

I followed Anna into the living-room, where she carried the soup. ‘He wants the results of that political action, doesn’t he?’ she called, over her shoulder. ‘He wants to be free of the pass laws and the colour bar and the whole caboodle? — Well, let him fight for it.’ She laughed, indignant in spite of herself.

All the old, wild reluctant boredom with which I had borne with this sort of talk all my life was charged, this time, with something more personal; a nervous excitement, a touchiness. I felt the necessity to get the better of her; to punish her, almost, ‘My dear Anna, you’re so wrong, too. The private liver, the selfish man, the shirker, as you think him — he’s a rebel. He’s a rebel against rebellion. On the side, he’s got a private revolution of his own; it’s waged for himself, but quite a lot of other people may benefit. I think that about Steven. He won’t troop along with your Congress, or get himself arrested in the public library, but, in spite of everything the white man does to knock the spirit out of him, he remains very much alive — getting drunk, getting in debt, running his insurance racket. Learning all the shady tricks, so that, in the end, he can beat dear old white civilization at its own games. He’s muscling in; who’s to say he won’t get there first? While the Congress chaps are pounding fiercely on the front door, he’s slipped in through a back window. But, most important of all, he’s alive, isn’t he? He’s alive, in defiance of everything that would attempt to make him half-alive. I don’t suppose he’s been well fed, but he looks wiry, his schooling hasn’t been anything much, but it seems to me he’s got himself an education that works, all the same, well-paid jobs are closed to him, so he’s invented one for himself. And when the Congress chaps get in at last, perhaps they’ll find him there, waiting.’ I laughed.