Nadine Gordimer - Burger's Daughter

The laughter of Dick and Rosa attracted his daughter. — Those were the days, old man. We can’t even get into the Transkei with our thrilling kwashiorkor slides.—

— Wait until I’m put out to grass next year. I’mna fit you out a mobile unit in a caboose. You’ll see. Bappie’s promised to get a lot of the equipment through his father-in-law’s wholesale business.—

Ivy brought Rosa up-to-date. — Bapendra Govind’s home from the Island, you know. Since last month.—

— And how is he? I gather he hasn’t been banned again, so far. I haven’t seen anything in the paper, anyway.—

— Yes, his wife wants them to apply for exit permits and go to Canada before it comes. — Ivy gestured, letting the knitting sink in her lap. — Leela says she won’t go with her mother and father. But you know how clannish Muslims are.—

— What does Leela do?—

— Oh she’s been working with me for about six months now. She’s an efficient little thing, is Leela! She takes down the send-outs, over the phone, she gives a hand in the kitchen. Oh anything. She goes to the market for me and buys most of my supplies.—

— You have quite an organization, Ivy.—

Ivy looked round. — Ay…we all eat. That I can say. Beulah James is in with me, too…Alfred has another seven months to go. (They’ve transferred him to Klerksdorp which is a nuisance for her, Pretoria Central was handier.) We’re moving away from the sandwiches and rolls, concentrating more on soup and curry and so on. Hot things are very popular. And then we have salads, of course. I see quite a few of the people I used to work with… I may not be allowed to put my nose into factory premises but the whites still send out blacks to buy their lunch… Yes, it wouldn’t be too bad if we knew what Dick…he has to find something to do…—

— I wouldn’t mind taking Aletta’s Follies on a country-wide tour. — Dick grinned; the joke of a man confined to the magisterial district around the house they sat in.

Ivy tensed back her shoulders and stretched the grand folds of her neck, a challenging goose. — I don’t think I could face the Bantus-tans, thank you very much. Even if I could get in. Mantanzima, Mangope — any of that crowd — the sight of their ‘capitals’ with their House of Assembly and their hotel for whites. — A heave of disgust.

— Oh come on, Ivy. If Aletta gets someone in…there are still people there…old friends. There’s work to be done.—

— Where are they? You know where; the black Vorsters have got their detention laws, too.—

— There must be a few still around, contact’s been lost, yes—

— You were right not to try it, Rosa. Personally, for me to put my foot in those places… It’s a denial of Nelson and Walter — of the Island. Of Bram and Lionel.—

The pause settled round the presence of Lionel’s daughter. The black woman walked into it. — You having lunch with us, Rosa. I made nice roast potatoes. — But the guest had already risen, she could not stay, they went through the ritual of remonstrances and excuses, Rosa pretending to accept the childhood authority of Lily Letsile’s counterpart, the Terblanches’ servant taking upon herself the role of disappointed hostess. Ivy put her arms right round Rosa. — Don’t stay away. — The girl called out over the mother’s shoulder to the daughter. — Ring me if you want to do anything about a flat. — There was a wave of casual agreement between the two girls.

Dick’s tread accompanied Rosa to her car, taking a chance, through the man-high dead khakiweed of the lane, his arms crossed over his chest bundling up the pockets and flaps of his jacket. He stood beside her window and she put the key in the ignition and then did not turn it, looking at him. He was humming softly, stumbling and repeating notes.

— Trying to remember one of the songs…Katya… Something like this: ‘Lift your spade from the field, raise your pick from the ditch, lift your shi-eld, match your step wi-th your bro-ther’—His voice was deep, strangled and shaky, his Adam’s apple keeping time under coarse sunburned folds intricately seamed with bristles and blackheads. — Oh lord I haven’t thought about it for donkey’s years. I never had a memory for that sort of thing. A pampoen-head. When I was in solitary I used to try — even just to remember what I learnt at school, man — you know, poems and that. You read about people who can keep their minds active, saying over whole books to themselves. It’s a wonderful gift. But sometimes I — big hands rested on the bevelled edge of the window — I made things, in my mind; I carved a whole diningroom table and chairs, the one for the head of the table with arms, like the one my grandfather had…barley-sugar uprights with round knobs on top…man, it was craftsmanship… But the stoep at home, I planned it when I was inside, it was all worked out to the last inch of frame and pane of glass. And when I checked the measurements, they weren’t half-an-inch out, I could go along to the hardware shop, just like that. No problem. I scratched the plans on the floor of my cell with a pin. There was trouble — they were suspicious it was an escape route I was working on. Can you beat it? Anyone’d be stupid enough to draw that where every warder saw it? It was just after Goldreich and Wolpe got away; they were jumpy, I suppose they felt their whole security system had been made nonsense if two politicals could get out on their wits and come back in again without even being seen when arrangements went wrong, and repeat the whole business without a hitch the next night… Well chances like that won’t come again. They’re keeping politicals in maximum security these days.—

She was following a current between them on another level. — After next July, Dick.—

He was shyly flattered at what he took to be curiosity about an experience that was approaching him alone. — It’s Ivy’s worried. I’m not. I’ll find something. What d’you think about Flora? Any point? They say her husband wants her to keep clear. She goes for liberal committees and so forth, now. He’s warned her off anything else. I don’t know whether he’d want to give me a job.—

— There’s a kind of obstinacy, always, in Flora. — Rosa was looking at him, suggesting, questioning. — William doesn’t get past it, he only circumvents it, whatever he persuades her to do.—

— She’s proud of the connection with us. There’ve been people like that. I know the kind. And even now. She’s been useful. Ivy says it’s the English middle-class idea of personal loyalty, nothing more. Well, okay. Whatever…—

— She’ll be pleased if you ask.—

— Anything just to show I’m harmlessly occupied for the next year or two. — He looked away, out over the blackened weed with leonine patience, a restless inward gaze of one in whom will or belief is strength. Then he placed his forearms on the window and carried his face forward, chin held, there, near her. — Not long now, Rosa. Angola will go, and Moçambique; they won’t last another year. Someone’s just been in touch. There’s going to be a revolt in the Portuguese army, they’re going to refuse to fight. Gloria’s husband’s in Dar es Salaam and this — other one — came back from Moçambique — it’s true, this time. Someone with strong Frelimo family connections, he’s close to Dos Santos and Machel. It’s coming at last. Some of us will still be around when it happens. Too late for Lionel, but you’re here, Rosa.—

The girl could not speak; he saw it. Her face drew together, the wide mouth dented white into the flesh at its corners, she held a breath painfully and pressed the accelerator, turning the ignition so that the old car engine was startled. Dick Terblanche put a big hand, cuffed quickly and away again over the hair at the curve of her skull to her neck, afraid he had made her weep. And then he jumped back and began to direct the reversing of the car like a parking ground attendant, making feints with his arms, nodding and urging. Rosa saw in the rear mirror his old man’s legs slightly bent with effort at the back of the knees, the safari jacket lifted over the behind.