Nadine Gordimer - The Conservationist

The farmer and Jacobus and young Izak, who is good only for holding things steady, are repairing the pump. Jacobus said over the telephone, yes, the police had come — but now something was wrong with the pump and the Japanese radishes that were being grown for winter cattle-feed were drying up. Jacobus is pretty conscientious, really; he was even able with some difficulty to spell out the name and number of the new part needed for the repair.

It is dark and dank in the pump-house near the eucalyptus trees and they work in the intimacy of light from a gas-lamp, exchanging nothing more than instructions and occasional grunts of effort as a bolt refuses to yield. They emerge holding filthy hands away from their bodies, the afternoon sun touches their faces, and the rock pigeons that the farmer sometimes amuses himself by shooting are beginning to fly.

— So there was no trouble? On Monday? —

— Yes, was no trouble. They say to me I know who is this man. I say — me, I don’t know who is, the master tell you nobody here can know. The master tell you already. Then they ask me, who is find him? And I bring Solomon and they ask him, same, same, you know who is this man? Solomon he say, no, I can’t know. I give them that things in the kitchen, I tell them if you want you can phone master — (Mehring nods in approval towards his boots) — you can phone master in town. -

— Nobody phoned. —

— No, I know. Then the white policeman he go down there with the van. -

— Good. So they took everything away. And they didn’t say you must come to the police station — he makes the gesture of signing a statement — that’s fine. —

Jacobus stops, with the effect of making the farmer turn to him. Jacobus is frowning, he stands a moment forgetting to walk on.

— He’s there, there . The white one send the native policeman to find me in my house, he’s ask for spade. They dig and they put him in, down there where we was, Sunday. Then they go away. They don’t see me, they don’t tell me nothing. —

As so often in dealing with petty officialdom, again the first reaction is derisive. Good God, should one laugh, or get angry? Does one want to bang their thick heads together or hand it to them — a shining example of the splendid pragmatism of laziness, the cunning of stupidity, cutting through red tape with the dirty penknife idly used to take the black line from beneath fingernails? The supremacy of ignorance, confusing audacity with authority, the policeman in khaki gaberdine with the blindfold lady? Who do they think they are? As a story (already, at once, it has become a story to be told over drinks and at the dinner-table) really it is in the same class as the chestnut about the dead horse dragged from Commissioner Street to Market Street because the policeman couldn’t spell Commissioner.

Who the hell do they think they are? He is angry; his farm isn’t a public cemetery. If they don’t want to be bothered to find out who killed the man, let them at least dispose of him themselves. But no. Just dig a hole and shovel him in, out of the way. On someone else’s property. It’s no good phoning that idiot. Better go to police headquarters at John Vorster Square and see someone responsible.

The days are getting shorter. Giant shadows of the eucalyptus lie felled across the road. Now that the sun is down a cellar-chill comes up from the river, there is no stored warmth from the day to hold it back. He opens the gate of the third pasture (the children do not usually appear for people on foot) and goes down under the yellowed willows. He pictures the place as very near, to be picked out from the banks of the picnic spot, almost. But light is going and he doesn’t find it. The cows trample everywhere; there are so many places flattened among reeds and bulrushes leaning this way and that. The strong, shrill, sleepy chattering of the weaver-birds surrounds him. He hears his own crashing footfalls as if he were being followed. A pair of partridge hear them, too, and stop, necks lifted, far up in the field where they have been pecking their way slowly on their way to roost. Up at the kraal, Jacobus and Phineas are surrounded by the young calves in their paddock, and he stands leaning on the wooden crossbars a while, stared at by small stupid creatures with their legs planted defensively and wide-spaced eyes glinting backwards. One of them has cut itself on barbed wire and Jacobus is anointing the place with salve. He swings his legs over the palings and helps hold the little beast down. The white faces and other varicoloured red markings of the calves make a new pattern of blotches of light and dark in place of the fading outlines of their bodies. He takes the opportunity to speak to Jacobus about guinea fowl eggs, emphasizing that he has seen very few of the birds on the farm recently. Jacobus stands up, hands on his hips, done with the calf, and laughs, assuring expansively — Plenty, plenty guinea fowls here on the farm, early in the morning I’m see them where we plough those mealies, every morning… —

But he isn’t there early in the morning. Or rarely.

Of course — no investigation means no time wasted for Jacobus and Solomon at the police station, no policemen sticking their noses into the kraal bothering people and asking questions. There is always some poor devil whose pass is non-existent or irregular whose illegal status would come to light if the police started kicking over stones. And if there were to be a court case, the next thing, he’d find himself dragged in to give evidence, since this is his property — a day or even days wasted hanging about the bloody magistrates’ courts waiting to say he knows nothing. The poor devil — that other poor devil — is dead anyway. In that enormous location these things happen every day, or rather every weekend, everyone knows it, they are murdered for their Friday pay-packets or they stab each other after drinking. A hundred and fifty thousand of them living there. He opens a can of beer up at the house before going back to town and while he drinks it telephones the sergeant at the local police station again, after all.

— What’s the idea? Is my farm a dumping-ground or cemetery or what? — It is no good talking to them on any other level.

— No man — it was just a — you know, for health and that — it’s not healthy to leave a body lying there, and the van from the mortuary couldn’t come. We’ll fetch him properly, maybe even tomorrow. —

— Before the weekend? —

— Oh yes, don’t worry, it’s just the mortuary van couldn’t… —

He does not want to hear the whole explanation over again. He has to get back to the city and change before going to one of the dinner parties for which, as a man in the age group of married friends but restored to bachelor status for some years now, he is much in demand.

— So close by! You must be pretty vulnerable to stock-theft? —

— Oh yes. There’s a high fence all round to keep them from getting in and out except through the location gates, but there’re great big gaps where they cut the wire and come out at night. I haven’t lost anything yet but an old chap, De Beer, reckons to lose a couple of head a year. In spite of his dogs. And his reputation for shooting on sight. —

— Ughhh — fancy digging someone up again. -

— It’s too beautiful — haven’t you ever been out there? — She was a good-looking woman whom he had known for fifteen years. She always seated him on her right at her dinner-table. Now she asserted long friendship through making clear to others her family’s familiarity with his possessions and way of life.

— Ah well — there are possible advantages, whatever happens. There’s a rumour they’re going to establish a township for Coloureds, adjacent to the location, out towards the Katbosrand side. —