Nadine Gordimer - Jump and Other Stories

She stood on the short path, he stood beside the old rattan chair; then sat down again so that she could walk off without giving offence — she left to her friends, he left to his reading.

She said — I won’t tell.—

And so it was out, what was between them alone, in the family house. And they laughed, smiled, both of them. She walked over to where he sat. — Got the day off? You work in some restaurant, don’t you, what’s it like?—

— I’m on the evening shift today. — He stayed himself a moment, head on one side, with aloof boredom. — It’s something. Just a job. What you can get.—

— I know. But I suppose working in a restaurant at least the food’s thrown in, as well.—

He looked out over the railings a moment, away from her. — I don’t eat that food.—

She began to be overcome by a strong reluctance to go through the gate, round the corner, down the road to The Mitre and the whistles and appreciative pinches which would greet her in her new flowered Bermudas, his black eyes following her all the way, although he’d be reading his papers with her forgotten. To gain time she looked at the papers. The one in his hand was English. On the others, lying there, she was confronted with a flowing script of tails and gliding flourishes, the secret of somebody else’s language. She could not go to the pub; she could not let him know that was where she was going. The deceptions that did for parents were not for him. But the fact was there was no deception: she wasn’t going to the pub, she suddenly wasn’t going.

She sat down on the motoring section of the English newspaper he’d discarded and crossed her legs in an X from the bare round knees. — Good news from home?—

He gestured with his foot towards the papers in his secret language; his naked foot was an intimate object, another secret.

— From my home, no good news.—

She understood this must be some business about politics, over there — she was in awe and ignorance of politics, nothing to do with her. — So that’s why you went away.—

He didn’t need to answer.

— You know, I can’t imagine going away.—

— You don’t want to leave your friends.—

She caught the allusion, pulled a childish face, dismissing them. — Mum and Dad… everything.—

He nodded, as if in sympathy for her imagined loss, but made no admission of what must be his own.

— Though I’m mad keen to travel. I mean, that’s my idea, taking this job. Seeing other places — just visiting, you know. If I make myself capable and that, I might get the chance. There’s one secretary in our offices who goes everywhere with her boss, she brings us all back souvenirs, she’s very generous.—

— You want to see the world. But now your friends are waiting for you—

She shook off the insistence with a laugh. — And you want to go home!—

— No. — He looked at her with the distant expression of an adult before the innocence of a child. — Not yet.—

The authority of his mood over hers, that had been established in the kitchen that time, was there. She was hesitant and humble rather than flirtatious when she changed the subject. — Shall we have — will you have some tea if I make it? Is it all right? — He’d never eaten in the house; perhaps the family’s food and drink were taboo for him in his religion, like the stuff he could have eaten free in the restaurant.

He smiled. — Yes it’s all right. — And he got up and padded along behind her on his slim feet to the kitchen. As with a wipe over the clean surfaces of her mother’s sink and table, the other time in the kitchen was cleared by ordinary business about brewing tea, putting out cups. She set him to cut the gingerbread — Go on, try it, it’s my mother’s homemade. — She watched with an anxious smile, curiosity, while his beautiful teeth broke into its crumbling softness. He nodded, granting grave approval with a full mouth. She mimicked him, nodding and smiling; and, like a doe approaching a leaf, she took from his hand the fragrant slice with the semicircle marked by his teeth, and took a bite out of it.

Vera didn’t go to the pub any more. At first they came to look for her — her chums, her mates — and nobody believed her excuses when she wouldn’t come along with them. She hung about the house on Sundays, helping her mother. — Have you had a tiff or something?—

As she always told her bosom friends, she was lucky with her kind of mother, not strict and suspicious like some. — No, Ma. They’re okay, but it’s always the same thing, same things to say, every weekend.—

— Well… shows you’re growing up, moving on — it’s natural. You’ll find new friends, more interesting, more your type.—

Vera listened to hear if he was in his room or had had to go to work — his shifts at the restaurant, she had learnt from timing his presence and absences, were irregular. He was very quiet, didn’t play a radio or cassettes but she always could feel if he was there, in his room. That summer was a real summer for once; if he was off shift he would bring the old rattan chair into the garden and read, or stretch out his legs and lie back with his face lifted to the humid sun. He must be thinking of where he came from; very hot, she imagined it, desert and thickly-white cubes of houses with palm trees. She went out with a rug — nothing unusual about wanting to sunbathe in your own area garden — and chatted to him as if just because he happened to be there. She watched his eyes travelling from right to left along the scrolling print of his newspapers, and when he paused, yawned, rested his head and closed his lids against the light, could ask him about home — his home. He described streets and cities and cafés and bazaars — it wasn’t at all like her idea of desert and oases. — But there are palm trees?—

— Yes, nightclubs, rich people’s palaces to show tourists, but there are also factories and prison camps and poor people living on a handful of beans a day.—

She picked at the grass: I see. — Were you — were your family — do you like beans?—

He was not to be drawn; he was never to be drawn.

— If you know how to make them, they are good.—

— If we get some, will you tell us how they’re cooked?—

— I’ll make them for you.—

So one Sunday Vera told her mother Rad, the lodger, wanted to prepare a meal for the family. Her parents were rather touched; nice, here was a delicate mark of gratitude, such a glum character, he’d never shown any sign before. Her father was prepared to put up with something that probably wouldn’t agree with him. — Different people, different ways. Maybe it’s a custom with them, when they’re taken in, like bringing a bunch of flowers. — The meal went off well. The dish was delicious and not too spicy; after all, gingerbread was spiced, too. When her father opened a bottle of beer and put it down at Rad’s place, Vera quickly lifted it away. — He doesn’t drink, Dad.—

Graciousness called forth graciousness; Vera’s mother issued a reciprocal invitation. — You must come and have our Sunday dinner one day — my chicken with apple pie to follow.—

But the invitation was in the same code as ‘See you later’. It was not mentioned again. One Sunday Vera shook the grass from her rug. — I’m going for a walk. — And the lodger slowly got up from his chair, put his newspaper aside, and they went through the gate. The neighbours must have seen her with him. The pair went where she led, although they were side by side, loosely, the way she’d seen young men of his kind together. They went on walking a long way, down streets and then into a park. She loved to watch people flying kites; now he was the one who watched her as she watched. It seemed to be his way of getting to know her; to know anything. It wasn’t the way of other boys — her kind — but then he was a foreigner here, there must be so much he needed to find out. Another weekend she had the idea to take a picnic. That meant an outing for the whole day. She packed apples and bread and cheese — remembering no ham — under the eyes of her mother. There was a silence between them. In it was her mother’s recognition of the accusation she, Vera, knew she ought to bring against herself: Vera was ‘chasing’ a man; this man. All her mother said was — Are you joining other friends? — She didn’t he. — No. He’s never been up the river. I thought we’d take a boat trip.—