Nadine Gordimer - Jump and Other Stories

— Yes, you’re going to be my wife.—

— Because of this? — a baby?—

He was gazing at her intensely, wandering over the sight of her. — Because I’ve chosen you.—

Of course, being a foreigner, he didn’t come out with things the way an English speaker would express them.

And I love you, she said, I love you, I love you — babbling through vows and tears. He put a hand on one of hers, as he had done in the kitchen of her mother’s house; once, and never since.

She saw a couple in a mini-series standing hand-in-hand, telling them; ‘We’re getting married’—hugs and laughter.

But she told her parents alone, without him there. It was safer that way, she thought, for him. And she phrased it in proof of his good intentions as a triumphant answer to her mother’s warnings, spoken and unspoken. — Rad’s going to marry me.—

— He wants to marry you? — Her mother corrected. The burst of a high-pitched cry. The father twitched an angry look at his wife.

Now it was time for the scene to conform to the TV family announcement. — We’re going to get married.—

Her father’s head flew up and sank slowly, he turned away.

— You want to be married to him? — Her mother’s palm spread on her breast to cover the blow.

The girl was brimming feeling, reaching for them.

Her father was shaking his head like a sick dog.

— And I’m pregnant and he’s glad.—

Her mother turned to her father but there was no help coming from him. She spoke impatiently flatly. — So that’s it.—

— No, that’s not it. It’s not it at all. — She would not say to them ‘I love him’, she would not let them spoil that by trying to make her feel ashamed. — It’s what I want.—

— It’s what she wants. — Her mother was addressing her father.

He had to speak. He gestured towards his daughter’s body, where there was no sign yet to show life growing there. — Nothing to be done then.—

When the girl had left the room he glared at his wife. — Bloody bastard.—

— Hush. Hush. — There was a baby to be born, poor innocent.

And it was, indeed, the new life the father had gestured at in Vera’s belly that changed everything. The foreigner, the lodger — had to think of him now as the future son-in-law, Vera’s intended — told Vera and her parents he was sending her to his home for his parents to meet her. — To your country?—

He answered with the gravity with which, they realized, marriage was regarded where he came from. — The bride must meet the parents. They must know her as I know hers.—

If anyone had doubted the seriousness of his intentions — well, they could be ashamed of those doubts, now; he was sending her home, openly and proudly, his foreigner, to be accepted by his parents. — But have you told them about the baby, Rad? — She didn’t express this embarrassment in front of her mother and father. — What do you think? That is why you are going. — He slowed, then spoke again. — It’s a child of our family.—

So she was going to travel at last! In addition to every other joy! In a state of continual excitement between desire for Rad — now openly sharing her room with her — and the pride of telling her work-mates why she was taking her annual leave just then, she went out of her way to encounter former friends whom she had avoided. To say she was travelling to meet her fiance’s family; she was getting married in a few months, she was having a baby — yes — proof of this now in the rounding under the flowered jumpsuit she wore to show it off. For her mother, too, a son-in-law who was not one of their kind became a distinction rather than a shame. — Our Vera’s a girl who’s always known her own mind. It’s a changing world, she’s not one just to go on repeating the same life as we’ve had. — The only thing that hadn’t changed in the world was joy over a little one coming. Vera was thrilled, they were all thrilled at the idea of a baby, a first grandchild. Oh that one was going to be spoilt all right! The prospective grandmother was knitting, although Vera laughed and said babies weren’t dressed in that sort of thing any more, hers was going to wear those little unisex frog suits in bright colours. There was a deposit down on a pram fit for an infant prince or princess.

It was understood that if the intended could afford to send his girl all the way home just to meet his parents before the wedding, he had advanced himself in the restaurant business, despite the disadvantages young men like him had in an unwelcoming country. Upstairs was pleased with the news; Upstairs came down one evening and brought a bottle of champagne as a gift to toast Vera, whom they’d known since she was a child, and her boy — much pleasant laughter when the prospective husband filled everyone’s glass and then served himself with orange juice. Even the commissionaire felt confident enough to tell one of his gentlemen at the club that his daughter was getting married, but first about to go abroad to meet the young man’s parents. His gentlemen’s children were always travelling; in his ears every day were overheard snatches of destinations— ‘by bicycle in China, can you believe it’… ‘two months in Peru, rather nice…’… ‘snorkeling on the Barrier Reef, last I heard’. Visiting her future parents-in-law where there is desert and palm trees; not bad!

The parents wanted to have a little party, before she left, a combined engagement party and farewell. Vera had in mind a few of her old friends brought together with those friends of his she’d been introduced to and with whom she knew he still spent some time — she didn’t expect to go along with him, it wasn’t their custom for women, and she couldn’t understand their language, anyway. But he didn’t seem to think a party would work. She had her holiday bonus (to remember what she had drawn it for, originally, was something that, feeling the baby tapping its presence softly inside her, she couldn’t believe of herself) and she kept asking him what she could buy as presents for his family — his parents, his sisters and brothers, she had learnt all their names. He said he would buy things, he knew what to get. As the day for her departure approached, he still had not done so. — But I want to pack! I want to know how much room to leave, Rad! — He brought some men’s clothing she couldn’t judge and some dresses and scarves she didn’t like but didn’t dare say so — she supposed the clothes his sisters liked were quite different from what she enjoyed wearing — a good thing she hadn’t done the choosing.

She didn’t want her mother to come to the airport; they’d both be too emotional. Leaving Rad was strangely different; it was not leaving Rad but going, carrying his baby, to the mystery that was Rad, that was in Rad’s silences, his blind love-making, the way he watched her, thinking in his own language so that she could not follow anything in his eyes. It would all be revealed when she arrived where he came from.

He had to work, the day she left, until it was time to take her to the airport. Two of his friends, whom she could scarcely recognize from the others in the group she had met occasionally, came with him to fetch her in the taxi one of them drove. She held Rad’s hand, making a tight double fist on his thigh, while the men talked in their language. At the airport the others left him to go in alone with her. He gave her another, last-minute gift for home. — Oh Rad — where’m I going to put it? The ticket says one hand-baggage! — But she squeezed his arm in happy recognition of his thoughts for his family. — It can go in — easy, easy. — He unzipped her carryall as they stood in the queue at the check-in counter. She knelt with her knees spread to accommodate her belly, and helped him. — What is it, anyway — I hope not something that’s going to break? — He was making a bed for the package. — Just toys for my sister’s kid. Plastic. — I could have put them in the suitcase — oh Rad… what room’ll I have for duty-free! — In her excitement, she was addressing the queue for the American airline’s flight which would take her on the first leg of her journey. These fellow passengers were another kind of foreigner, Americans, but she felt she knew them all; they were going to be travelling in her happiness, she was taking them with her.