The World in Winter

by John Christopher

  ‘We’ve learned that much already,’ Andrew said.

  ‘That’s good. You’re better off knowing where you stand. This is a slum you’re going to live in; Johannesburg has the only place in Africa that comes near it. The shack that’s offered for rent is ramshackle and dirty and it stinks. There’ll be open drains nearby. I’m told it has one advantage over Johannesburg: no flies. The flies can’t take it.’

  Andrew said: ‘You paint a powerful picture of the property.’

  ‘I like to get things clear from the start: it saves disappointments. You’re going to have to live in a nigger slum, and I want you to get used to the idea. There are quite a number of whites living there now, and some of them have cleaned their areas up a bit. Nothing to stop you doing the same with yours, but you won’t get any rent reduction if you do. In fact, you may get it put up.’ Bates shook his head. ‘No, I’m not the owner. I just collect the rents.’

  ‘Is this the only place you have?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘No. It’s not even the only place at the price you can afford. It’s the best. It’s closed at both ends. Some of them people use as passageways to go from street to street.’

  ‘How do we get there?’ Madeleine asked.

  ‘I’ll draw you a map. If you decide to take it, just move right in. It’s supposed to be rent in advance, but I’ll trust you till the end of the week.’ He looked at them genially. ‘In fact, I can lend you a couple of quid if you’re strapped.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Andrew said. ‘We’ll manage, though. There are a few things we can sell.’

  Bates nodded. ‘Come back and see me if it gets too rough. Not that there’s much I can do.’

  They walked through the jostling streets, under the blue oppressive sky. Madeleine said:

  ‘We can make do for a time. Something will turn up.’

  ‘Yes,’ Andrew said.

  They were passing a dilapidated white building, its windows covered with heavy iron grilles. He halted by the steps leading to the entrance, and she followed his glance upwards. A billboard had been placed above the door, and it was covered with posters. One, showing an idealized Negro soldier with rifle and bayonet at the ready, was headed: PROTECT OUR BELOVED COUNTRY. Another had, overprinted across a tank rolling through scrub country: THE CRUSADE FOR AFRICA IS ON! Large red capitals at the top of the board said:

  NIGERIAN ARMY RECRUITING CENTRE

  ‘It’s not that desperate,’ Madeleine said.

  ‘I think it is.’

  ‘We’re white,’ she said. ‘One has some loyalties.’

  ‘I’m just beginning to realize how narrow mine are.’ He pressed her arm. ‘Wait for me here. I’ll try not to be long.’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t they give you a bounty for joining?’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll sleep in a decent bed tonight.’

  A Negro Sergeant behind an Inquiries sign directed him upstairs. Room 17 had a sign saying: Recruiting Office: Whites Only. There was another Sergeant behind a desk, a fat placid-looking man who chewed something while he talked. His lips were fleshy and unnaturally red.

  He said: ‘Anything I can do for you, boss?’

  ‘I was thinking of volunteering for the Nigerian Army. I’ve had experience in Tanks.’

  The Sergeant chewed silently for a moment, before saying:

  ‘How old are you, boss?’

  ‘Thirty-seven.’

  ‘You look all of that. And we aren’t accepting men over thirty. Except as training officers.’

  ‘That’s what I had in mind.’

  ‘You’d better go and see Captain Lashidu, boss. Room 22 – right along the corridor.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘O.K., boss.’

  Captain Lashidu, by contrast, was a slim alert man, with thin straight eyebrows and a high forehead. He looked more Indian than Negro; there was probably, Andrew thought, a white branch or two in his family tree. He said, in a brisk, pleasant, only lightly accented voice:

  ‘Your name, please.’

  ‘Andrew Leedon.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Thirty-seven.’

  ‘Place of origin?’

  ‘I’ve come from London. I was born in Kent.’

  ‘Military experience?’

  ‘I held a National Service commission in the Royal Tank Regiment.’

  Lashidu nodded. He had been writing the answers on a pad; now he put down the pencil. It was an ordinary red pencil, with a badly chewed end. There had to be stress, Andrew thought, beneath that kind of calmness.

  ‘You wish to join the Crusade, Mr Leedon?’ Lashidu said.

  ‘If that’s what it’s called. I want to join the Nigerian Army as a training officer.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There aren’t many careers here which offer any scope for a white man.’

  ‘That is true. You are not distressed by the thought that you will be training an army to fight white people in South Africa?’

  ‘Has war been declared?’

  ‘Not yet. You are not distressed by the possibility, shall we say? By the probability, rather?’

  ‘I am distressed by the thought of having no job,’ Andrew said, ‘of having to live in a slum, of not being able to look after – a person I’m responsible for. Those are the things that distress me.’

  ‘One has to ask this question,’ Lashidu said. ‘Your attitude is the correct one, I think, Mr Leedon. Egocentricity is the natural state of man, but insupportable by reason of its loneliness. I can accept the Trinity more easily than the strictly monotheistic conceptions of deity. One extends oneself, to a wife, children, friends, and relatives. It is a mistake, I believe, to continue this process, which goes on, if unchecked, through villages, provinces, countries. And races, of course.’

  ‘You may be right,’ Andrew said. ‘I wouldn’t argue against it.’

  ‘Your military experience,’ Lashidu said, ‘– you have no means of establishing that, I suppose?’

  ‘Only through the Army Records Office in England.’

  Lashidu smiled. ‘I gather it is snow, not dust, that gathers on those files now. It would scarcely be practicable to refer to them.’

  ‘I don’t know – I suppose there’s a chance you might already have recruited someone from my old Regiment … that’s slim, I imagine.’

  ‘Most slim. But I think we can get over that difficulty. You will be required to swear to your past military background. Should the facts subsequently be found to be incorrect, you become liable for court-martial. You understand this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then there is no real obstacle. All we need now is one hundred and twenty-five pounds.’ Lashidu smiled. ‘Cash, naturally.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘As dash.’

  ‘Dash for volunteering for the Army?’

  ‘For accepting you as a recruit in a profitable and promising career.’ He picked up the pencil. ‘Dash is a part of our way of life. If you have not already learnt this, you must do so, Mr Leedon. In accepting the protection of a new country, you accept its way of life. There is no alternative.’

  ‘Dash is one thing. I should have thought buying Army commissions was quite different.’

  ‘As to that, we have good precedents. In your English Army, not only were commissions bought at one time, but regiments also. For many thousands of pounds.’

  ‘That was quite a long time ago.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lashidu agreed. ‘In the days of old England’s glory. Perhaps the world has taken a step backwards; or even several steps. Is that a bad thing, do you think? I am told that the Americans and the Russians still have scientists working in remote places, trying to devise ways of using nuclear power to warm their chilly continents. At any rate, they are too busy to think of throwing hydrogen bombs through space at each other.’

  Andrew said: ‘Spare me the philosophical rigmarole. In an Army, one can always go to a superior officer.’

  ‘To report me for
seeking dash?’ Lashidu smiled. ‘Do you think he doesn’t get his share? Look, Mr Leedon, I am willing to leave my own share in abeyance. But he is not. You will still have to pay seventy-five pounds before your application can be passed. There are no exceptions to this.’

  ‘And if I take this story to the opposition press?’

  ‘The crime of libelling the Armed Forces is quite severely punished. You may try, with pleasure.’ He paused. ‘Come, Mr Leedon, you are a man of sense, not emotion. The dash is not excessive. It is worth something for a white man to be an officer and a gentleman in Africa.’

  ‘I’d worked that out already.’

  ‘Had you? Then why quibble, in Heaven’s name?’

  ‘Because I haven’t the money.’

  Lashidu raised his thin eyebrows. ‘How much do you have?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  It was a moment before Lashidu replied. He said:

  ‘The moratorium, I suppose? I should have checked on that point earlier. I regret that I have been wasting your time, Mr Leedon.’

  Andrew stood up. ‘And I yours.’

  ‘Of less importance. The Government pays for it. I am sorry to hear of your misfortune. This is not an easy country in which to live as a poor man.’

  Andrew nodded. ‘So I understand.’

  ‘I have never felt inferior to the English,’ Lashidu said, ‘and so I have nothing against them. Their present situation here is an interesting one. I am most curious as to how it will develop.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Andrew said. ‘One appreciates the interest. I’ll drop you a postcard.’

  ‘They have a sense of humour.’ Lashidu smiled. ‘No doubt that will help.’

  Despite Bates’s frankness in preparing them for it, the sight of the shack they were renting came as a shock. An old Yoruba mammy, wearing a patched blue robe and a new red silk scarf round her head, yielded the place up to them; she had been acting as caretaker. She gave them a torn sheet of paper, headed Inventory. A badly typed list indicated the items of furniture. ‘Bed’ appeared on it, but had been scratched out. They were too stunned by the picture the interior presented to query this point.

  There was only one room; the boards at the end apparently divided this shack from the next, because a mélange of jazz music and human voices in heated conversation came through with little or no diminution. The room had one window, a small square to the left of the door, and unglassed. The board walls had been painted yellow at some time, but the paint was stained and chipped; further decoration was offered by pinned-up pages torn from an old Swiss calendar – there was a rare incongruity in looking at the familiar scenes of glaciers and snowy mountains and Alpine meadows in this setting. An old chest-of-drawers, with one drawer missing, stood against one wall. There was a broken-down cane easy chair, and two wooden upright chairs painted blue. The floor was of rough boards, engrained with dirt. To one side a piece of matting, six feet by about four, apparently filled in for the missing bed; at any rate, it had four or five old Army blankets stacked in a heap on it. In the far corner stood a wooden table, carrying some pots and pans, a few bits of crockery, a paraffin lantern, and a primus stove. There was a large metal jug underneath the table and a red plastic bowl, the rim frizzled and distorted by some chance application of heat, beside it. To one side, a round can presumably containing paraffin – the pungent smell defeated all the other smells, though without disposing of them.

  The mammy saw him look at it.

  ‘I filled it up for you, boss,’ she said. ‘You got that right full of blue paraffin. Twelve shillings.’

  They had managed to sell a few items of their personal belongings, at ridiculous prices. Andrew counted the money out to her. He was fairly sure she was charging at least double what it had cost, but he felt there was no point in arguing. The main thing was to get her out and face the thing on their own.

  But she was less eager to leave.

  ‘You got a fine house there,’ she said. ‘Good neighbours. Next door, that’s my cousin and his family. You want anything, just give them a knock. They look after you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Andrew said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘They’ll maybe even rent you the radio, you being lonely and just the two. Only five shillings a week, I should think. Six, maybe. You want me to ask them?’

  Andrew shook his head. ‘We can’t afford that.’

  ‘Maybe four shillings. Three even. They put a new battery in right last week.’

  It was almost tempting, if only to stop the din that clearly was likely to go on as long as there was a radio transmission available: except that they would obviously use the money to rent or buy another, and probably even noisier, set for themselves. He said:

  ‘We have no money to spare for radio at all.’

  Her fat black face split into a smile. ‘I guess you can listen to their radio, can’t you, boss? Maybe you’ll want to help pay when they get the next new battery. But I’ll leave my cousin and you to talk about that.’

  Madeleine spoke for the first time since they had come into the shack. She said:

  ‘Where does one get water?’

  ‘Why, child, there’s a tap right at the end of the street. You don’t have to walk more than fifty yards – seventy-five, maybe.’

  She nodded. ‘I see.’

  ‘You got a fine house,’ the nanny repeated. ‘Come on over here.’

  They followed her to a position close by the table which served for a kitchen. Squatting down, she pulled up a loose board and pointed to the space beneath it.

  ‘You don’t have to carry no slops outside,’ the mammy said. ‘Times, that’s a real help.’

  Andrew looked where she had pointed. It was possible to see, despite the darkness, that an open drain ran under this corner of the room. He thought he saw a rat scramble away. As he bent down the smell, concentrating in nose and throat, made him want to retch. He took the end of the board from the mammy’s hand, and pushed it back into place. She watched this complacently.

  ‘See what I mean,’ she said. ‘Just no trouble at all.’

  Madeleine had gone to the other side of the room, and was staring out through the window.

  ‘All right,’ Andrew said. ‘Thank you for showing us everything. We can manage ourselves now.’

  ‘The lady will want to know which shops to go to. Some of those shopkeepers are rogues, but I’ve got a nephew who’s …’

  ‘Another time,’ Andrew said. ‘Not just now.’

  She grinned. ‘O.K., boss. Then you just give me the dash and I’ll leave you two folks in peace.’

  ‘Dash? For what?’

  ‘For looking after the house, boss. Only one pound, that’s all. You just give me that, maybe twenty-five shillings if you’re feeling kind-hearted, and off I go.’

  ‘The landlord pays you for that. It’s his property you’re supposed to be looking after.’

  ‘As God’s my judge, boss …’

  In the end, he gave her five shillings, as the only means of getting rid of her. She went, with a final threat of returning to take Madeleine to her nephew’s shop, and they were alone. Jazz thumped relentlessly at them and voices – quarrelling, laughing, singing – but they were alone. Andrew went and stood behind her. He touched her neck with his lips.

  ‘We’ll get out of this,’ he said. ‘Can you stick it for a little while?’

  She turned and faced him. ‘You’re a comfort, Andy,’ she said.

  Her voice was dry, strained, and at first he thought she was mocking him, mocking his failure in bringing her to this. But her face, damp with sweat in this close evil-smelling heat, was also wet with tears. It was her moment of desolation, he recognized, as his own had been at night on the beach. He kissed her, and found her body stiff, withdrawn, yet desperate for comforting. He put his arm on her waist, and led her towards the mat. He spread out one of the blankets over it; they did not look clean, but they at least were not stained and greasy as the matting was. He thought she might pro
test, revolted by the sordidness of their surroundings, but she lay down obediently. She stared at the ceiling as he lay beside her. It was a piece of corrugated iron, supported on two shaky joists; rust stains covered it and at one point a hole provided a glimpse of the sky’s hot blue.

  His hand holding the thin bones of her wrist, he said:

  ‘I’m going to write to Carol. There are limits to pride, you know.’

  There was a pause, before she said: ‘Yes, there are limits.’

  ‘She’ll be able to do something for us – or get Sir Adekema to do it.’

  ‘I’m sure she will.’

  ‘And it’s only what’s due, after all. The money from the house, from our bank account …’

  Madeleine said fiercely: ‘Stop it! What’s the point in justification? We’ll beg her, if necessary. Can’t you see? A few weeks of this and I’ll be pleading with Bates to fix me up in one of those places on the other side of the lagoon.’

  They were silent, the din of their neighbours continuing all round them. A woman passed along the street, laughing uncontrollably. Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra sang the party duet from ‘High Society’. A dog began howling monotonously. There was heat and the smell of decay and corruption.

  Her gaze had turned from the roof to the nearest wall, and his own followed it. She was looking at one of the plates torn from the Swiss calendar. It was a colour photograph of the Jungfrau, taken from just above Kleine Scheidegg. The bright Alpine flowers bloomed in the foreground; beyond lay the white slopes of the mountain, cradled in the cool blue silk of air.

  She said: ‘We stayed there once.’

  His hand slackened on hers. It was Madeleine then who turned to him. Her eyes searched his face slowly. Then she brought her mouth close to him, whispering.

  ‘I’m glad I’ve got you, Andy. So glad.’ He kissed her and she responded fiercely. ‘The door,’ she said, ‘– does it have any kind of lock or bolt?’

  Andrew got up and went to see. There was no key to the lock. The bolt socket had a nail missing and would scarcely have kept out a vigorous child. He shot the bolt anyway, and turned back to look at Madeleine. Seeing her there, lying on the grey torn blanket, her dress crumpled, blonde hair disarrayed, face clammy with sweat, he knew all the bright impossible conviction of love.