Nadine Gordimer - The Conservationist

Yebo, my baas. -

There’s Thomas, the nightwatchman, at the gate, although he must be off duty by this time in the morning. Perhaps he heard the car from afar (as usual; at last) and has come running with his dog to show he’s been on the job, flood or no flood. He has his balaclava cap and is wearing his single little gilt ear-ring: — Yêbo baas, yêbo baas — An all-hail rather than an ordinary greeting; the ridge along the dog’s skinny spine rises and the beast capers round the old man in response to the ring of his voice. — Yêbo, my baas. —

Jacobus is standing near the house in the pathway of the approaching Mercedes. His hands, at his sides, are palms forward, open. His mouth is open, his face wide, but not with a grin. He will have his tale to tell, all right.

The horn is sounded playfully, the car will pretend to run him down as if to say, yes, it’s true, the road’s restored, here I am… But Jacobus isn’t going to move; this is no time for levity, apparently: one must respect their sense of ceremony.

He is bringing the car to a stop in the usual place, next to the shed where the farm implements are kept and sees now that Phineas and Solomon and Witbooi — the whole bang shoot, or nearly — are lined up, too. Poor devils, they must have had a scare, quite a tough time; anyway, there are rations in the boot, mealie meal and beans, that’ll be welcome. He is conscious of the movements involved in getting out of the car because all are watching him. Jacobus has his hands suppliant in front of his body now, loosely linked and lifted.

He says — We think something is happen. —

— Well, Jacobus, how is everything! How are you! -

— Everything it’s all right, yes. Ye-es. Everything coming all right. —

— Everybody safe on the farm? Eh? Phineas — Solomon? —

There is an outbreak of murmurs of assent, grins, movement — they come alive, bashful and eagerly responsive.

— We wait every day — Jacobus is saying — Every day. We think perhaps something is happen. I’m trying phone-

— It still doesn’t work, mmh? I tried to get you this morning. And then I thought no, the road must be open by now —

— Try, try phone. No one is come, nothing. Some days I’m say to Phineas, it’s better you try go to Baas De Beer-

— I know, I phoned him. But that was dangerous, he shouldn’t have gone, you know that a woman was drowned, over there? —

— The water! — Phineas says. — That water was too much. I’m swimming, and it take me. I go in there by our trees, but I’m come out other side right down there, far far from De Beer —

Everyone is animated, now. Jacobus is suddenly gasping, laughing, as if he has just come through some such experience successfully. -We was worry too much. That woman was gone — gone. Nothing. Can’t find nothing. And only one cow, that small one, the calf from Sheba-

— What happened to it? Dead? —

Solomon is talking: — When I’m see she not there, we looking there there, not find. —

Jacobus gives his head a quick, vigorous scratch that expresses overburdened confusion. - And the rain is coming too much. Ye-es. All the time, all the time. We looking everywhere but tomorrow we see she’s get in mud, the feet is stick, and then lie down in that furrow there just behind the pump-house —

— Never mind. Only one. Not too bad Jacobus, in that flood. —

All give their crooning, groaning note of sympathy and agreement.

— And was nice, fat, that one. —

— Can’t be helped, Jacobus. —

They sound regret and accord, deep from the chest again.

— You should see what the water did to the road. I tried already a week ago to get through. Impossible. Half the road fell in. Some people were drowned. The car was washed away, they were inside. Nobody could find it; the police were looking, everyone was… —

— We think perhaps something is happen — Jacobus says. He has punctuated the account he has listened to by nods that show he knows all about it. - We don’t know who is car that is going. We don’t hear nothing. No one is come to us. —

— Couldn’t come, you understand that? Even the other road, from Katbosrand, you couldn’t get through on it. I couldn’t come. -

— No phone, nothing. We think perhaps… —

There will have to be some kind of bonus for them. All of them. They really seem to have coped rather well. There’s a cow making a good recovery from what old Jacobus had the sense to recognize as mastitis, and, what’s more, to treat with the right injection. — How did you know how to put it in, Jacobus, eh? You’re a clever doctor now, eh? —

He doesn’t need much encouragement to mime, step by step, exactly how he filled the syringe, etc. — Always I’m look nicely when the doctor he’s here for the cows. —

— I’ll save plenty money, now, eh, Jacobus, we won’t need the doctor any more. —

He’s grinning almost shyly with pleasure, very bucked with himself.

There’ll have to be some bonus, yes; in the meantime — a full pack of cigarettes is a nice gesture. Even though he cups his hands to receive, as is customary, it passes almost from man-to-man in the atmosphere of a crisis successfully overcome.

— How long since I was here, Jacobus? Must be nearly two weeks. —

— Is more two weeks we are alone here. — He’s determined to make a drama out of it. He drops his head on his breast and moves it mournfully from side to side.

— Well, you looked after everything very nice . I’m very pleased with you. All the boys. D’you hear? —

Jacobus and he have moved on together past the farm buildings — the others have drifted off out of a kind of delicacy they have, primitive as they are. Jacobus represents them: — Thank you master, ye-es, thanks very much, master. —

Of course some measures sensibly taken in the emergency will be allowed to remain for ever, now that it’s over, unless it’s made clear that things can’t just be left like that, normal procedure must be returned to. The bales of feed on the verandah of the house: they ought to have been back in the barn by now. Unless it’s seen to, the stuff’ll never be put back and indeed when there’s another load of teff it’ll be dumped there, too. That’s how they are, the best of them. The house will simply be taken over as another outhouse. There’s nobody living there to complain. Next thing, there’ll be parts for the tractor nicely stored in the kitchen: all the veterinary medicines he must have taken out of the cupboard when he was rummaging for penicillin for that cow are still laid out on the dining table. He’s cleared some of the irrigation furrows, though; they’re hardly that — all little overflowing rivers, now. One of the women is doing her washing conveniently in one of them, a heap of bedraggled grey blankets. Everything probably got quite a soaking, up at the compound; but the rooms are cement blocks, they should have been fairly weatherproof. The picannins are enjoying themselves. The game is to float plastic beer containers — some sort of race.

— They know they mustn’t leave those things lying about when they’ve finished playing, eh, Jacobus. —

He’s shown the place where the calf got stuck in the mud and died. The more it pulled, the faster it was held. He makes a note to bring new bearings for the pump; a good time to repair it, while it’s not in use. Jacobus has said that all the pasture on the vlei side of the farm is useless at present, the cattle will get foot-rot if they are allowed to graze down there — but probably that’s all nonsense. what’s needed is to drain the land. — That’s all right: you can get the boys to dig more irrigation canals — you make some more furrows, then the water runs away. —