Nadine Gordimer - Burger's Daughter

Awoman carrying fruit boxes and flowers stood among a group at the prison doors.

She had pressed the bell with more force and a few seconds longer than would seem necessary. The few people outside could hear it ringing thinly in there. Nevertheless there was a wait for any response; she chatted with them — a black prostitute holding bail-money in a gold plastic purse and moving a tumour of chewing-gum from one side of her jaw to the other, two women arguing in whispered Zulu expletives, a youth accompanying an old relative smoking a pipe with a little chain attaching its cover. They were patient. The youth danced, as one hums inaudibly, on heel and toe of blue, red and black track shoes. The woman was white, she knew her rights, she was used to regarding officialdom as petty and ridiculous, not powerful. — Are they asleep? — The high, penetrating voice of a rich madam. — How long’ve you been here? You shouldn’t just stand — they’re supposed to answer, you know. — The blacks were used to being ignored and bypassed by whites and were wary of any assumption of common cause, except for the young prostitute, who knew white men too intimately to be impressed by the women they were born of. She pulled a face. — They did come, but they say we must wait.—

— Wait! Well we’ve waited long enough. — The white woman put her thumb on the bell and made a play of leaning all her weight against it, smiling back at everyone jauntily. Her hair was dyed and like the dark windows of her sunglasses, contrasted with her lined white forehead; she was a woman in her mid-fifties with the energetic openness of a charming girl. The hand that pressed the bell wore jade and ivory. The prostitute giggled encouragement — Ouuu, that’s beautiful, I’d like to have a ring like that. For me.—

— Which one? — No, this little one’s my favourite — you see how it’s made? Isn’t that clever—

The speak-easy slot in the doors opened and a mime’s face appeared in the frame, two taut thin bows of eyebrows, eyes outlined in black, cheeks chalked pink.

— I’ve got some things for detainees. — The woman was brisk; the painted-on face said nothing. The slot shut and the woman had just turned her head in exasperated comment to her companions when there were oiled sounds of bolts and keys moving and a door within one of the great doors opened to let her in. It closed at once, behind her alone; the wardress who owned the face said — Wait.—

The woman’s cream pleated skirt and yellow silk shirt reflected light in the dark well of brick and concrete, so that some creature with rags tied to protect the knees, washing the floor, gazed up. An after-image appeared before the eyes that returned to mop and floor. The scents of fine soap, creams, leather, clothes kept in cupboards where sachets hung, a lily-based distilled perfume, and even a faint natural fruit-perfume of plums and mangoes was an aura that set the woman apart in the trapped air impregnated with dull smells of bad cooking and the lye of institution hygiene, the odour under broken nails leached to the quick. The visitor had been here before; nothing was changed: except the outfit of the wardresses, black and white — they were got up in what seemed to her to be the remaindered uniforms worn five years ago by air hostesses — she travelled a good deal. Under the stairs on the left were suitcases and cardboard boxes tied with rope and labelled, even a few coats; possessions taken from detainees on their reception, awaiting the day or night of their release. She saw the bright sunlight enclosed in the jail yard. The fat ornamental palms, the purplish shiny skin of the granolithic. She skilfully glided a few steps forward to take a quick look, but there was no one out for exercise — supposing they were to be allowed anywhere near the entrance, anyway.

Tiny skirt winking on a round high bottom, the tilted body on high heels led her to the Chief Matron’s office.

Like — like…to describe Chief Matron to people afterwards it was necessary to find some comparison with an image in a setting that was part of their experience, because she was a feature of one in which they had never been and an element in a scale of aesthetic values established by it alone. Like the patron ’s wife in a bar or dance-hall in a nineteenth-century French painting — Toulouse-Lautrec, yes — but more like those of a second-rater, say, Felicien Rops. Her desk was wedged under barathea-covered breasts. She wore service-ribbons, and gold earrings pressed into fleshy lobes. The little wardress’s eyebrows were a fair imitation of her red-brown ones, drawn high from close to either side of the nose-bridge. Her little plump hand with nails painted a thick, refined rose-pink tapped a ballpoint and moved among papers she looked at through harlequin glasses with gilt-scrolled sidepieces. There were gladioluses in a vase on the floor. A wilting spray of white carnations with a tinsel bow stood in a glass on the desk — perhaps she had been to a police ball.

The visitor carried two wooden fruit-trays and a big untidy bunch of daisies and roses from her own garden. — Rosa Burger and Marisa Kgosana. Their names are on labels. Plums, mangoes, oranges and some boiled sweets — loose. In open packets. I can’t bring a cake, I understand?—

— No, no cake. — The tone of someone exchanging remarks on the oddities of the menu in a cafeteria.

— Not even if I were to cut it right open, in front of you? — The visitor was smiling, head inclined, flirtatious, corner of her mouth drawn in contemptuously.

The Chief Matron shared a little joke, that was all. — Not even then, no, it’s not allowed, you know. Just put the boxes on the floor there, thank you so much, we’ll see they get it just now. Right away. — No one was going to equal her in ladylike correctness. — Sign in the book, your name please.—

— And the flowers are in two bunches…could you perhaps put them in a bucket of water? It was so hot in the car. — A couple of Pomeranians were sniffing at the visitor’s shoes. The Chief Matron reproached them in Afrikaans — Down Dinkie, down boy. You’ll tear the lady’s stockings — Flowers are not allowed any more. I don’t know what…it’s a new order just came through yesterday, no more flowers to be accepted. I’m very sorry, ay?—

— Why?—

— I really can’t say, I don’t know, you know…—

— My name’s on the boxes.—

— But just put it down here please — the wardress jumped to offer a large register almost before the signal — Let me see, yes… that’s right, and the address — thank you very much — The manner was that of getting amiably over with a mere matter of form: the necessity for well-intentioned sympathetic ladies to commit themselves in their own hand to acquaintance, to association with political suspects. The Chief Matron moved her lips over the syllables of the name as though to test whether it was false or genuine: Flora Donaldson.

People detained under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act are not allowed visitors, even next of kin. But when later Rosa Burger became an awaiting-trial prisoner she was entitled to the privileges of that status, and in the absence of any blood relative, Flora Donaldson sought and was given permission to see her. Other applicants were refused, with the single exception of Brandt Vermeulen who, no doubt through influence in high places, was suddenly there, when Rosa was taken to the visitors’ room one day. These were not contact visits; Rosa received her visitors from behind a wire grille. It is not known what Brandt Vermeulen talked about in the category of ‘domestic matters’ to which the subject of prison conversations is confined, under surveillance of attendant warders. He is a fluent, amusing talker and a broadminded man of many interests, anyway, not likely to be at a loss. Flora reported that Rosa ‘hadn’t changed much’. She remarked on this to her husband, William. — She’s all right. In good shape. She looked like a little girl, I gather Leela Govind or somebody’s cut her hair again for her, just to here, in her neck… About fourteen… except she’s somehow livelier than she used to be. In a way. Less reserved. We joke a lot — that’s something the bloody warders find hard to follow. After all, why shouldn’t family matters be funny? They’re boring enough. You only realize quite how boring when you have to try to make them metaphors for something else…Theo tells me Defence’s going to give the State witnesses hell. He thinks she’s got a good chance of getting away with it this time — the State may have to drop charges after the preliminary examination. In which case she’ll probably be house-arrested as soon as she’s released…well all right , anything rather than jail? — there’re a lot of things you can do while house-arrested, after all, Rosa’ll get out to go to work every day—