Nadine Gordimer - Burger's Daughter

— But here we’ve got exactly the person you need. Let Rosa see, Georges. Come quietly into my bedroom — get on the bed — let a qualified physiotherapist examine you… it’s free! — Madame Bagnelli presented her house-guest in another capacity, as much to be taken on trust, for the others, as the wild stories of the country she came from.

— You’re a nurse? — Manolis was strict.

— A doctor is the only one to touch it. — Bobby spoke confidentially to Madame Bagnelli, wrinkling her nose. Her voice was louder when she thought she was whispering.

— Not the bedroom — I won’t move now I’m here — Manoli, put the cushions on the floor—

Madame Bagnelli, curtseying easily up and down, weighty on her thin ankles, arranged it all swiftly.

— I’ll take off his shoes, no?—

The girl was in charge, smiling, her chin lifted. — Roll up your trouser-leg. That’s no good — right up. No — you wear your pants too tight around the thigh: take them off.—

— She’s not slow, êh? All right, if you say—

They laughed down at him as he pulled in his waist nattily, unfastened belt and flourished zipper. Manolis drew the pants off with the air of preparing a corpse, bringing more laughter. Georges’s chin pressed on his chest in a grimace showed teeth worn laterally to the bone that were more of a private vulnerability revealed than was the body he wore like an outfit he knew would make a good impression. Rosa Burger’s hair had grown enough to fall across her face; they saw only her mouth firm in professional concentration. Her hands moved with the grip and sensitivity they had not put to use for a long time. The doctor says there’s no crack in the patella? You were x-rayed? And there was no dislocation?

Manolis appealed to everyone — Nothing is wrong! But look how Georges is, he cannot even turn in the bed!—

— I might be able to ease it a bit. Give me half-an-hour.—

They deferred to her, Manolis going off to finish setting the table and Madame Bagnelli trailing Bobby into the kitchen where she added final touches to the sauce.

Several glasses of wine released the urbanely concealed concern over himself Georges had been keeping from his lover. The tone meant specifically for him reached Manolis as he swabbed vinaigrette with a piece of bread; at once his attention fixed in his great dark, mournful gaze (when Manolis laughed, those eyes shone as if he were crying) and his lips drew tensely against other chatter.

— It’s better. I said: I think it’s definitely better. It’ll be all right. I can move the knee — well, I won’t but I feel I could. —

— We were supposed to be going to the Algarve next week. A great day, to be able to go to Portugal. We’ve waited a long time for that.—

The two men lifted their glasses with ceremony.

Madame Bagnelli assured — Of course you’re going. Rosa will come and massage Georges every morning won’t you? Of course—

— I shouldn’t have thought it was such a wonderful thing — people I know’ve been having holidays there for years, it was so cheap, even cheaper than Spain.—

— We wouldn’t have gone ever while Salazar lived, even for nothing.—

Bobby was unaware of reproaches as she was of being ignored. — Of course they say it’s finished now — people have been chased out of their houses by the Communists — English people who’ve retired there, put every penny—

Georges took more sauce, miming a kiss to Madame Bagnelli in praise of its excellence. — If we couldn’t afford Chile under Allende, at least we can afford Portugal under Gomes. I wouldn’t miss it. People in this village! Did you hear what Grosbois said? If everything’s so fine in Portugal now, why haven’t all the Portuguese who’re digging the streets here with the Arabs gone home… There has to be prosperity overnight, êh, or that’s proof the Left is making a mess of things — One year, that’s all it is—

It was true that Madame Bagnelli could still take on, like an old challenge to all comers, something like the blazonry of attraction and sexuality; a kind of inward caper to match the boxer-like prance — hefty, light on her feet — she sometimes broke into about her terrace. — It was lovely, last year when we all danced on the place —Georges?—

Georges indicated her to Rosa. — You should have seen her, with a red carnation behind the ear.—

— And you? We all went crazy. Oh some people just thought they were at the battle of the flowers in Nice — never mind… — Manolis and Georges had brought a special white wine; she lifted the third bottle dripping high, from the bucket, and was going round with it. — And what about Arnys? Rosa — Amys didn’t know any Portuguese revolutionary songs so she sang one she remembered about La Pasionara, from the Left Bank in ’36—she cried to me afterwards, she says she once had a great love in the International Brigade. — Madame Bagnelli stood with her glass in her hand as if she were about to make a speech or sing a song herself. — Where this girl comes from, April meant the end of the whites in Moçambique, right next door… you realize what that must have been?—

Manolis regarded Rosa the way he did when she had taken charge of Georges professionally. — What an experience. To be down there in Africa—êh.—

The girl stood up, too, palms on the table. She could see the flood-lit castle behind the black paint-brushes of cypress; music and voices were the single insect-chorus of the summer night. She looked from one face to another at the table in expansive impulses, even affectionate, even appealing. — There were no red carnations. —

But Georges and Manolis prided themselves on being thoroughly informed. They stirred, reflective. Bobby politely, pettishly mouthed that she wanted another piece of bread.

— Black people were ecstatic — Frelimo fought for eleven years… But if you came out in the streets — that’s impossible there… You wouldn’t dare celebrate. There was one mass meeting, people went to prison—

— Not just overnight , waving banners, and headline interviews with the heroes in the papers next day, like it is here when there’s a political rumpus — Madame Bagnelli kept up a counterpoint of emphatic interruption.

Manolis waved her aside to exact acknowledgment; he had the experience of the Greek colonels in his blood although he had not been in his country during their rule. — And the white people? Of course they are afraid the same thing will happen down there, that’s it?—

— The refugees kept coming in, people looking like us, you know, people could look at themselves, and them — bringing their grandmothers and refrigerators, white people — Rosa’s light eyes were indiscreet, trusting. She was her own audience, ranged along with the faces.

— What can they expect! They’ve asked for it. They allowed themselves to be brain-washed into believing they’re a superior race. Running with refrigerators! It will come. Three hundred years, enough! You are outcast… they throw you in prison to die if you try to change them — Madame Bagnelli had the air of one carried away by whatever company she found herself in to profess preoccupations and opinions at one with theirs. With the Grosbois, she was as animated a participant in their decision to eat organically-grown vegetables or Gaby’s interest in the alterations Nice-Matin reported were being made to the villa of the Shah of Iran’s sister.

— This girl could make a good living here. She would do well. I mean it — Georges leant forward to draw everyone to the sudden idea of supporting their own local political refugee. — The yacht people, there are always pains and aches when you take too much exercise… they hurt themselves water-skiing and I don’t know what. Really, it’s amazing, how my leg feels, you know, relaxed — the muscles — The convinced shrewdness of his blue eyes canvassed.