Nadine Gordimer - The Conservationist

The black man’s hand, permanently curled to the grip of spade or hoe, the nails opaque, thick, split as worn horn, did not presume to touch, but wavered from one to the other. He stank like an old hide. Children waiting their turn to be served after him rested soft lips on the counter edge, putting out their tongues now and then to stem the snot sliding down from their noses.

— It’s all right to enjoy yourself while you’re young. But can you talk to them. They don’t realize. —

The small faces gluey with smeared mucus and dust stared at the old man sitting on his chair with ankles crossed, round white cap on his bearded head, hands clasped under his belly and first finger twitching to some beat of his being, and he stared back, not because he was seeing them but because that was the line and level of his daily gaze, as from a window, into the shop.

— Their minds are I don’t know… somewhere —

Bismillah put out a quick palm, fingers impatiently signalling advance; a small black claw thrust a two-cent coin and got four fish-shaped sweets from the glass jar bleary with powdered sugar. - I can’t discuss. You would think they would be concerned, but nobody shows any interest. An opinion, at least; they have got matric, they read the papers, don’t they. —

He understood a question or demur in his father’s silences. - Jalal, all right — but then with him it goes too far the other way, he would only get us all into trouble. I was drinking some tea at three o’clock this morning. She said to me what are you so restless for? Nothing, I said to her, nothing, go and make some tea. What am I so restless for. How can I just lay my head on the pillow at night. Do they realize? What good does it do to lie awake, she says to me. Easy to say. —

The old man began to wheeze and clear his throat in the sign that he was about to speak.

Bismillah flourished the till closed and turned the red-stoned ring on his finger, working it with his thumb, talking excitedly as if he already had been interrupted. — Bulbulia says it will be very difficult this time. He’s not at all sure what he can do. Don’t count on it. He’s a clever man, I trust him, never mind what Jalal says — but he can only do what he can do, we have to understand that. Where will it come from? Do the children realize? They only know how to spend. If I have to pay again, all right, I’ll pay. He knows. But he says there’s a new man in charge and he has to go carefully. Of course. He’s a lawyer after all. —

The old man’s voice came at last as a note sustained by the stiff and gasping bellows of an old organ. — We trust in God. —

— What? Yes, God. If God will help us. —

He and the old man watched each other; he had his back slumped to the counter and his maroon woollen waistcoat wrinkled under full pectorals.

— One who is not a Dutchman — the old man spoke again. - One from town. A businessman. —

Bismillah moved his head weavingly. After a moment he granted: — You’re still thinking about the one with the Mercedes. But why should a man like that be willing? He doesn’t need money. Why should he want to get mixed up. A wealthy white man like that comes out just, you know, for a Sunday. You can see it. To show his friends the country. He doesn’t want the money. He doesn’t want a general store in his name. With a Dutchman, that’s different. These people around here always need money; all these farms are mortgaged. If you could know just the one that happens to need it badly enough — three hundred rands? five hundreds — perhaps you can come to an arrangement… —

The old man’s finger shook faster in disbelief of the efficacy of the sum.

— A thousand. All right. They will get the last penny from us if you want something from them. There Jalal is right. But can he tell me what to do if we won’t pay a white to get the licence in his name? Does he tell us where to go and make a living then? —

The old man said — Not a Dutchman. Perhaps… You never know. He’s a businessman himself. He can only say no. —

— And go to hell, and who you bloody think you are- But Bismillah spoke to himself, in English, turned away already from his father and mumbling, out of the old man’s hearing, his menace towards another who would not understand, one of the noisy kind who had come into the shop full of the courage of beer. - Ufunani ? What’s he want — ay? If he want something all right. Otherwise he must get out, no shouting. No shouting in this shop, you see? —

William said — He come speak to you. -

— You give him what he wants. —

The man wore a worker’s uniform, overalls with gum-boots that had some sheen of red and rusty liquid dried on them.

— What’s he want with me? — Bismillah addressed William although the man had planted himself where the storekeeper had come out from behind his counter.

— I want Dorcas’ money. —

— What’s he talking. I don’t know what he’s talking. —

— This the husband of Dorcas, the girl there. — A jerk of William’s head to the back of the store, the house.

— I don’t know anything about any money. —

— Dorcas is the girl for your house, yes? You pull back two rand when you pay this month. Why you pull back two rand? —

— I don’t know who you are. I don’t hear anything about money from you — do you work for me? That girl works for me, isn’t it? —

— Why you pull back two rand? —

— This husband for Dorcas. He want talk you. —

— You tell Dorcas to talk to me. I don’t know this man. —

— Tell me, why you pull back two rand? —

— You get out of my shop, I don’t know what you want here. —

— He stay with Dorcas in the yard. —

— Now get out, I don’t want to see you here or in the yard, you understand? You get out. —

All around inside they stood back detachedly. A squabble between hens or a dog-fight might have broken out between their feet. William’s face became crooked with responsibility; in a seizure of self-control that took him more violently than any rage he low and urgently forced the man to back out, step by step before his hissing whispers. Their ranks closed again, waiting to buy; all owed money, were owed money, were in need of money, knew it was no good expecting to get anything from those other kinds of people, Indian or white, who always had money — there was nothing remarkable about what had just passed. Bismillah straightened his maroon woollen waistcoat as if he had been manhandled and went back calmly to put his counter between them and him.

But William went through his own people with the aura of something dangerous standing away from his body like the rising of hair to static electricity. His eyes plunged into the blindly while his hands exchanged goods for the coins warmed in their clutch. His presence was a sensation, as the argument had not been. — She bought things and can’t pay the shop, eh? — There was amazement at the risk this casual speaker was taking. William stood breathing so that they could all hear. His voice struck — You talk about your own business, woman. — They bought what they wanted and went away.

The husband of Dorcas had joined the Three Bells Christmas Club in March and the receipts for his payments, with the emblem of bells and a sprig of green with berries, tied together by a red ribbon, were folded small each month in his pass-book. No one else in the Indians’ yard belonged to a Christmas Club. Nobody else there worked in town and knew that such things existed. Nobody even knew what a Christmas Club was; he had spent the best part of a whole evening explaining, when he brought the membership card and first receipt home, and after that, other people had heard that he had joined something and come to hear about it, all over again. He also had the leaflet the club gave out at the abattoir, and this had been handed round. For the benefit of those who could not read English, he had translated: here was what you must pay every week — 30 cents for the Family Parcel No. 1, 35 cents for the Family Parcel No. 2, 45 cents for the Bumper Parcel. Then there was the list of what was in the parcel he would get, according to his weekly payments when Christmas came. He would be bringing home, on the 15th December, Family Parcel No. 1, which included in addition to flour, candles and matches, soap, jelly and custard powder, 1 Large Tin Peaches, 2 Tins Nestlé’s Cream, 1 Tin Sausages, 1 tin Corned Beef, 1 Tin Fancy Biscuits, 1 lb Coffee, 1 lb Cooking Fat, and a Grand Surprise Packet of Sweets for The Children. Everyone recognized the bells, because of school and church, but several people asked what was the green sprig with white berries? Even Dorcas’s husband had not been able to say from what bush it came.