Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream

Mr Phiri stood looking at the breakfast table. ‘You have breakfast late. I had mine it seems many hours ago. '

Edna said in the same accusing voice, ' Cedric was out in the fields just after five. It wasn't properly light. Perhaps you would like to sit down and have some tea – or perhaps some more breakfast?'

Mr Phiri sat, good humour restored. ‘And perhaps I will. But I am surprised to hear that you are at work so early,' he said to Cedric. 'I was under the impression that you white farmers take it easy.'

‘I think you are under a good many false impressions,’ said

Cedric. 'But now I must ask you to excuse me. I have to get back to the dam.'

'Dam? Dam? There is no dam marked on the map.'

Edna and Cedric exchanged glances. They now suspected this official of having faked a breakdown for the purpose of having a look at their farm. He had as good as admitted it, when mentioning the map.

‘Shall I have fresh tea made?'

‘No, this tea in the pot will do me well. And perhaps those eggs you have left over? A pity to waste them, I think. '

' They wouldn't be wasted. The cook will have them for his breakfast.'

‘And now that surprises me. I don't believe in spoiling staff. My boys get sadza, certainly not farm eggs.'

Mr Phiri was apparently unaware of his incorrectness and sat smiling as Edna filled his plate with fried eggs, bacon, sausages. As he began eating he said, ' Perhaps I could accompany you to see the dam? Since clearly I am not destined to get to the school this morning?'

‘Why not?’ said Edna. ‘I’ll run you there in my car. And when you are finished someone at the Mission will take you to the Growth Point. '

‘And what about my car sitting helplessly on the road? It will be stolen. '

' That seems to me more than likely,’ said Cedric, in the same dry disliking tone he had used from the start, such a contrast to the rawly emotional voice of his wife.

' Then, perhaps you could order one of your workers to guard my car?'

Again husband and wife exchanged looks. Edna, returned to her responsible self by her husband's rage, which Mr Phiri was unaware of, was silently urging compliance. Cedric got up, went out to the kitchen, returned, said, ‘I have asked the cook to ask the garden boy to guard your car. But perhaps we should be taking steps to get it restarted?'

'What a fine idea,' said Mr Phiri, who had finished his eggs and was eating lumps of sugary sweets, which he clearly approved of.'And how shall we do that?'

Edna knew that Cedric was suppressing something like, 'And why should I care?' – and said quickly, 'Cedric, you could try the radio. '

‘Ah, so you have a radio?'

' The batteries are low. There are none available in the shops just now, as I expect you have found yourself. '

' That is true, but you could try?'

Cedric had not wanted to confess to the radio because he didn't want to waste what power there was on Mr Phiri. ‘I’ll try, but I won't promise anything. ' He disappeared again.

‘What is this delightful stuffI am eating?’ said Mr Phiri, tucking

in.

' Crystallised paw paw. '

‘You must give me the recipe. I'll tell my wife to make me some.'

' She must have it already. I got it from the radio programme, Making the Best of Our Produce.'

‘I am surprised you listen to a programme for poor black women.'

' This poor white woman listens to women's programmes. And if your wife is too good for it then she is missing a lot. '

' Poor...’ Mr Phiri laughed, heartily, genuinely, and then realising there had been a remark which he was sure had been meant as a rudeness, said sourly, ‘Now that is a good joke. '

‘I am glad you like it. '

'Okay.' Meaning, enough of that.

But Edna went on. ' It is a very good programme. I have learned a lot from it. Everything you see on this table is made on the farm. '

Mr Phiri took his time surveying the spread, but did not want to confess some of it was unfamiliar to him – fish pâté, liver pâté, curried fish ...’The jams, of course, and may I taste this one?'

He reached for a pot, 'Rosella... rosella – but this grows wild everywhere?'

'So what, if it makes good jam.' Mr Phiri pushed the pot away without tasting it. ‘I was told the nuns at the Mission won't eat the marvellous peaches growing in the garden, they'll only eat tinned peaches, because they don't want to be thought primitive people. ' She laughed, spitefully.

‘I hear your husband has bought the farm next to this one?'

' It was for sale. You people didn't want it. It was offered to you. It was much against my will, I assure you. '

Here they looked at each other, but really, as had not happened till now; their eyes had been doing anything but expressing a willingness to try and like each other.

Mr Phiri did not like this woman. First, on principle: she was a white farmer's wife, whom he thought of first of all as one of the females who had taken up guns in the Liberation War and defended homesteads, roads, ammunition points: this district was an area where the war had been fierce. Yes, he could just see her in battledress with a gun, aimed perhaps at him. Yet he had been a boy in the war, safe in Senga: the war had not touched him at all.

She disliked this class of black official, called them little Hitlers, and delighted in repeating every bad thing she heard about them. They treated their black servants like dirt, worse than any white person had ever done, the blacks didn't want to work for other blacks, tried to work for whites. They abused their power, they took bribes, they were – and this was the real sin – incompetent. And this particular man she had disliked from the first glance.

The two people, the over-tense dried-out white woman, the large and confident black man, sat looking at each other, letting their faces speak for them.

' Okay,’ said Mr Phiri at last.

Luckily, in came Cedric. ‘I got a message through just before the bloody thing faded. Mandizi will be along. But he says he's not well today.'

'Mr Mandizi I am sure will be as quick as he can, but we shall have time to see your new dam.'

The two men went out to the lorry, parked under a tree, and neither even looked at the woman. She smiled to herself, the practised bitter twist of the lips of one who feeds on bitterness.

Cedric drove fast, over the rough farm roads, through fields, kopjes, patches of bush. Mr Phiri had scarcely in his life been out of Senga, and like Rose did not know how to interpret what he saw.

‘And what is this growing here?'

'Tobacco. It is what is keeping your economy going.'

‘Ah, so that is the famous tobacco?'

‘You mean you've never seen tobacco growing?'

‘When I go out of Senga inspecting schools I am always in such a hurry, I am a busy man. That is why I am so pleased to have this chance of seeing a real farm, with a white farmer. '

' Some ofyour black farmers are growing good tobacco, didn't you know that?'

Mr Phiri was silent, because they were driving along the base of a tumbling hill and there, in front of them, was a waste land of raw yellow soil in heaps and piles and ridges, and an excavator was labouring away, balancing on improbable slopes and declivities. ' Here we are,’ said Cedric, leaping out, and he went forward without looking to see if the Inspector was following. A black man, the excavator driver's mate, came forward to the farmer and the two stood close together, conferring over a map ofsome kind, on the edge of a hole in the dense yellow soil. Mr Phiri went cautiously forward among the yellow heaps, trying to keep his shoes clean. Dust blew off the tops of the heaps. His good suit was already dusty.

‘Well, that's it. ' Cedric returned.

‘But where is the dam?'