Nadine Gordimer - No Time Like the Present

He brings home a translation and interpretation of Epicurus from the philosophy department for Sunday leisure reading after the newspapers. The cast of ministers, government officials, members of parliament in the arms sales corruption serial is relegated to the inner pages as old news, that week, this week back on the front page. She has no inside information to keep up with her intention of relating what justice was being done to deal with the hostel students in that other university, where black cleaners were gleefully abused; there was none. What happened seems to have been willed away, on hold. The hostel meanwhile simply closed.

Here it is. Epicurus believed in an uncreated universe unguided by a creator, his moral teachings affirm human freedom to pursue aspirations, live better, increase pleasure, a condition that can be created only by self-constraint in dealing with others, respecting the principles of justice which ensure that condition’s very existence. The right to happiness.

That’s a normal life After the Struggle.

You’re never alone in a room, always some other form of life is there with you. She moves to close the window against the rain in the air and she’s signalled to by the slither of a silverfish moth out of one of the books in the shelves she is passing.

She tries to stamp on it with the bony edge of her thumb joint but of course its form is made for escape — gone. She clatters out books from the stack of four or five into which it’s vanished and several more of the creatures fall from the pages. It’s more difficult than swatting flies. If they live on paper it is easier to get at in the loose form than between the covers of books. There is an adjoining tier of shelves she and Steve bought from a made-to-measure carpentry store in a mall partly owned by an Indian comrade who has become a successful businessman — Steve’s academic documents and papers are haphazardly piled there. What a feast. She begins to stir among them, taking out a bundle, and a few sheets, some newspaper cuttings, escape scattered on the floor. No silverfish to be seen; but the whole paper collection ought to be tidied up, she straightens at least the shelf she has disturbed, and gathers to replace what has fallen. The newspaper cuttings are flimsy and falter out again. They are in the familiar format of advertisements; all have in heavy black type their product: AUSTRALIA. The dates on which they appear, some almost a year back, some recent, are in his handwriting. AUSTRALIA CALLING AUSTRALIAN MIGRATION AUSTRALIA. Australia needs your skills today! SERIOUS ABOUT AUSTRALIA? She begins to pick up snatches from one to another — she must slow down, read the texts while her mind in another mode of attention, intrigued, tries to answer why he should cut and keep these. ARE YOU INTERESTED IN LIVING IN AUSTRALIA ON A TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT BASIS? LOOK NO FURTHER. Explore hidden opportunities. Trustworthy, spectacular success rate. For ONLINE ASSESSMENT AND INFO…IMMIGRATION AUSTRALIA. Consultancy will be holding a free seminar. The seminar will cover recent immigration announcements and what Australia has to offer. We are specially interested in those people with degrees. Immigration lawyer will be available for one-on-one consultations…cost applies…AUSTRALIA. Hosting a seminar. Space is limited so please call to reserve your seat. Available for appointments to inquire about our upcoming Australia migration event covering various migration pathways. Click on Immigration Seminars. Please join us for a free seminar on…

If he is thinking of writing something about the phenomenon, skilled people leaving the country (an issue for the university) how is it he hasn’t mentioned this, said anything, as we do, to each other. I would be interested, he knows. Show me this stuff.

Hidden away as if they were love letters from some woman.

Because she would not allow herself the explanation that she couldn’t believe, consider, she found herself at the door of the Andersons, as she might have dropped in from a walk. Unthinking, it was not likely anyone would be home at this time in the afternoon: at work and the boys still in school. She herself wouldn’t have been back in the Suburb if the property dispute case she was engaged in as attorney to one of the advocates in the firm she had joined, hadn’t been remanded and he’d postponed the discussion until the next day. But Jake opened the door, after a wait. He was rumpled, hair and clothes, must have been resting, back early, he often suffered headaches since the hijack attack. Barefoot, he led her in. — Isa’s not home yet. — But if without realising it she had wanted anyone it was him, the comrade who was Steve’s fellow male. The small talk. Asking Jake if he was all right, how was he feeling. He waved hands down himself in apology for dishevelment. She held out the cuttings. — Do you know these? — He moved them between thumb and first finger, as with cards in a game. — Of course, they’re in the papers regularly. Why?—

— I found them today, fell out of some journals and things Steve keeps.—

He’s scanning; while taking time to read what she’s telling him. — So? I suppose he keeps lots of cuttings, many things happen to us, you find you’ve forgotten…get dates mixed up — then you need to—

— If he’s writing something for the Umkhonto veterans (just come to her) he hasn’t said anything about it to me. — As if it were a question. — Not to me. We haven’t taken much notice of guys taking the plane for Perth, whoever they are.—

Why has Jabu presented these cuttings. What does she want him to say. Steve’s pissed off. We’re all pissed off with what’s becoming of the country.

Jake lifts eyebrows in avoidance and rubs a hand across his face to rid himself — weariness or refusal. — How do I know.—

He knows. Puts the wad of cuttings — evidence she’s seen — from one hand to another. And gives them back to her.

There’s nothing more for them to say to each other.

His lawyer woman produced the evidence to him that night when Gary Elias had been persuaded to go to bed, Sindi was already in her room listening to Michael Jackson, and Wethu in her chicken coop cottage with the TV Steve had bought for her in compensation for loss of the company of collaterals in KwaZulu. The place, the room where the momentous is about to be raised, to happen , comes out of ignored familiarity, to a new focus that will be stored when paper cuttings have been eaten by silverfish moth and the change of existence they propose has either been effected — or never existed. The much-lived-in room of the house in the Suburb occupied since Glengrove Place, the chairs bought to provide missing comfort, the pictures painted by artists in the common kind of experience, one in Brazil, the others in Africa, shared with the house occupants, the school blazer left lying, face-down books, cracked tray with sunglasses among coffee cups and half-empty bottle of wine, a ballpoint pen with Mickey Mouse head: witness. She looked round in inventory as she took from somewhere in the cotton dashiki she liked to exchange for her court clothes, some of the cuttings AUSTRALIA.

— They fell out when I was cleaning up this afternoon. From your papers.—

— Yes.—

Now she is waiting for his recollection: commonplace curiosity, something for chatter round the Dolphin pool.

He had picked up the tray; he lifted from it Gary Elias’s Mickey Mouse pen, balancing the burden with the other hand. He placed the pen on the table.

— I wasn’t getting into your things. — Comrades respect privacy however intimate and long-tested a relationship. He stood with the tray; at once it had become her responsibility to speak, say whatever there was to say.

But — urgent between them this is not an argument. — You’ve never said, I mean, you were keeping this — about Australia. What for.—