This Was the Old Chief's Country

by Doris Lessing

  Charlie did not move. He held the mirror sideways on his knees, where he could see Theresa, and pretended to be hard at work on his parting. For a few seconds they remained thus, Charlie staring into the mirror, Theresa watching him reproachfully. Then he put the mirror back into his pocket, stretched his arms back in a magnificent slow yawn, and remained there, rocking back and forth on his log.

  Theresa looked at him thoughtfully: and – since now he could not see her – darted over to the hedge, plucked a scarlet hibiscus flower, and returned to the washing-line, where she continued to hang the washing, the flower held lightly between her lips.

  Charlie got up, his arms still locked behind his head, and began a sort of shuffle dance in the sunny dust, among the fallen leaves and chips of wood. It was a crisp, bright morning, the sky was as blue and fresh as the sea: this idyllic scene moved Marina deeply, it must be confessed.

  Still dancing, Charlie let his arms fall, turned himself round, and his hands began to move in time with his feet. Jerking, lolling, posing, he slowly approached the centre of the yard, apparently oblivious of Theresa’s existence.

  There was a shout from the back of the building: ‘Theresa!’ Charlie glanced around, then dived hastily into his room. The girl, left alone, gazed at the dark door into which Charlie had vanished, sighed, and blinked gently at the sunlight. A second shout: ‘Theresa, are you going to be all day with that washing?’

  She tucked the flower among the stiff quills of hair on her head and bent to the basin that stood in the dust. The washing flapped and billowed all around her, so that the small, wiry form appeared to be wrestling with the big, ungainly sheets. Charlie ducked out of his door and ran quickly up the hedge, out of sight of Mrs Black. He stopped, watching Theresa, who was still fighting with the washing. He whistled, she ignored him. He whistled again, changing key; the long note dissolved into a dance tune, and he sauntered deliberately up the hedge, weight shifting from hip to hip with each step. It was almost a dance: the buttocks sharply protruding and then withdrawn inwards after the prancing, lifting knees. The girl stood motionless, gazing at him, tantalized. She glanced quickly over her shoulder at the building, then ran across the yard to Charlie. The two of them, safe for the moment beside the hedge, looked guiltily for possible spies. They saw Marina behind her curtain – an earnest English face, apparently wrestling with some severe moral problem. But she was a friend. Had she not saved Charlie from the police? Besides, she immediately vanished.

  Hidden behind the curtain, Marina saw the couple face each other, smiling. Then the girl tossed her head and turned away. She picked a second flower from the hedge, held it to her lips, and began swinging lightly from the waist, sending Charlie provocative glances over her shoulder that were half disdain and half invitation. To Marina it was as if a mischievous black urchin was playing the part of a coquette; but Charlie was watching with a broad and appreciative smile. He followed her, strolling in an assured and masterful way, and she went before him into his room. The door closed.

  Marina discovered herself to be furious. Really the whole thing was preposterous!

  ‘Philip,’ she said energetically that night, ‘we should do something.’

  ‘What?’ asked Philip, practically. Marina could not think of a sensible answer. Philip gave a short lecture on the problems of the indigenous African peoples who were half-way between the tribal society and modern industrialization. The thing, of course, should be tackled at its root. Since he was a soil expert, the root, to him, was a sensible organization of the land. (If he had been a churchman, the root would have been a correct attitude to whichever God he happened to represent; if an authority on money, a mere adjustment of currency would have provided the solution – there is very little comfort from experts these days.) To Philip, it was all as clear as daylight. These people had no idea at all how to farm. They must give up this old attitude of theirs, based on the days when the tribe worked out one piece of ground and moved on to the next; they must learn to conserve their soil and, above all, to regard cattle, not as a sort of spiritual currency, but as an organic part of farm-work. (The word organic occurred very frequently in these lectures by Philip.) Once these things were done, everything else would follow …

  ‘But in the meantime, Philip, it is quite possible that something may happen to Theresa, and she can’t be more than fifteen, if that …’

  Philip looked a little dazed as he adjusted himself from the level on which he had been thinking to the level of Theresa: women always think so personally! He said, rather stiffly: ‘Well, old girl, in periods of transition, what can one expect?’

  What one might expect did in fact occur, and quite soon. One of those long ripples of gossip and delighted indignation passed from one end to the other of 138 Cecil John Rhodes Vista. Mrs Black’s Theresa had got herself into trouble; these girls had no morals; no better than savages; besides, she was a thief. She was wearing clothes that had not been given her by Mrs Black. Marina paid a formal visit to Mrs Black in order to say that she had given Theresa various dresses. The air was not at all cleared. No one cared to what degree Theresa had been corrupted, or by whom. The feeling was: if not Theresa, then someone else. Acts of theft, adultery, and so on were necessary to preserve the proper balance between black and white; the balance was upset, not by Theresa, who played her allotted part, but by Marina, who insisted on introducing these Fabian scruples into a clear-cut situation.

  Mrs Black was polite, grudging, distrustful. She said: ‘Well, if you’ve given her the dresses, then it’s all right.’ She added: ‘But it doesn’t alter what she’s done, does it now?’ Marina could make no reply. The white women of the building continued to gossip and pass judgement for some days: one must, after all, talk about something. It was odd, however, that Mrs Black made no move at all to sack Theresa, that immoral person, who continued to look after the children with her usual good-natured efficiency, in order that Mrs Black might have time to gossip and drink tea.

  So Marina, who had already made plans to rescue Theresa when she was flung out of her job. found that no rescue was necessary. From time to time Mrs Black overflowed into reproaches, and lectures about sin. Theresa wept like the child she was, her fists stuck into her eyes. Five minutes afterwards she was helping Mrs Black bath the baby, or flirting with Charlie in the yard.

  For the principals of this scandal seemed the least concerned about it. The days passed, and at last Marina said to Charlie: ‘Well, and what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Madam?’ said Charlie. He really did not know what she meant.

  ‘About Theresa,’ said Marina sternly.

  ‘Theresa she going to have a baby,’ said Charlie, trying to look penitent. but succeeding only in looking proud.

  ‘It’s all very well,’ said Marina. Charlie continued to sweep the veranda, smiling to himself. ‘But Charlie …’ began Marina again.

  ‘Madam?’ said Charlie, resting on his broom and waiting for her to go on.

  ‘You can’t just let things go on, and what will happen to the child when it is born?’

  His face puckered, he sighed, and finally he went on sweeping. rather slower than before.

  Suddenly Marina stamped her foot and said: ‘Charlie, this really won’t do!’ She was really furious.

  ‘Madam!’ said Charlie reproachfully.

  ‘Everybody has a good time,’ said Marina. ‘You and Theresa enjoy yourselves, all these females have a lovely time, gossiping, and the only thing no one ever thinks about is the baby.’ After a pause, when he did not reply, she went on: ‘I suppose you and Theresa think it’s quite all right for the baby to be born here, and then you two, and the baby, and February, and all the rest of your friends who have nowhere to go, will all live together in that room. It really is shocking, Charlie.’

  Charlie shrugged as if to say: ‘Well, what do you suggest?’

  ‘Can’t Theresa go and live with her father?’

  Charlie’s face tightened into a scowl. �
�Theresa’s father, he no good. Theresa must work, earn money for father.’

  ‘I see.’ Charlie waited; he seemed to be waiting for Marina to solve this problem for him; his attitude said: I have unbounded trust and confidence in you.

  ‘Are any of the other men working here married?’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘Where are their wives?’

  ‘At home.’ This meant, in their kraals, in the native reserves. But Marina had not meant the properly married wives who usually stayed with the clan, and were visited by their men perhaps one month in a year, or in two years. She meant women like Theresa, who lived in town.

  ‘Now listen, Charlie. Do be sensible. What happens to girls like Theresa when they have babies. Where do they live?’

  He shrugged again, meaning: they live as they can, and is it my fault the white people don’t let us have our families with us when they work? Suddenly he said grudgingly: ‘The nannie next door, she has her baby, she works.’

  ‘Where is her baby?’

  Charlie jerked his head over at the servants’ quarters of the next house.

  ‘Does the baas know she has her baby there?’

  He looked away, uncomfortably. ‘Well, and what happens when the police find out?’

  He gave her a look which she understood. ‘Who is the father of that baby?’

  He looked away; there was an uncomfortable silence; and then he quickly began sweeping the veranda again.

  ‘Charlie!’ said Marina, outraged. His body had become defensive, sullen; his face was angry. She said energetically: ‘You should marry Theresa. You can’t go on doing this sort of thing.’

  ‘I have a wife in my kraal,’ he said.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you having two wives, is there?’

  Charlie pointed out that he had not yet finished paying for his first wife.

  Marina thought for a moment. ‘Theresa’s a Christian, isn’t she? She was educated at the mission.’ Charlie shrugged. ‘If you marry Theresa Christian-fashion, you needn’t pay lobola, need you?’

  Charlie said: ‘The Christians only like one wife. And Theresa’s father, he wants lobola.’

  Marina found herself delighted. At any rate he had tried to marry Theresa, and this was evidence of proper feeling. The fact that whether the position was legalized or not the baby’s future was still uncertain, did not at once strike her. She was carried away by moral approval. ‘Well, Charlie, that’s much better,’ she said warmly.

  He gave her a rather puzzled look and shrugged again.

  ‘How much lobola does Theresa’s father want for her?’

  ‘Plenty. He wants ten cattle.’

  ‘What nonsense!’ exclaimed Marina energetically. ‘Where does he suppose you are going to find cattle, working in town, and where’s he going to keep them?’

  This seemed to annoy Charlie, ‘In my kraal, I have fine cattle,’ he pointed out. ‘I have six fine oxes.’ He swept, for a while, in silence. ‘Theresa’s father, he mad, he mad old man. I tell him I must give three oxes this year for my own wife. Where do I find ten oxes for Theresa?’

  It appeared that Charlie, no more than Theresa’s father, found nothing absurd about this desire for cattle on the part of an old man living in the town location. Involuntarily she looked over her shoulder as if Philip might be listening: this conversation would have plunged him into irritated despair. Luckily he was away on one of his trips, and was at this moment almost certain to be exhorting the Africans, in some distant reserve, to abandon this irrational attitude to ‘fine oxes’ which in fact were bound to be nothing but skin and bone, and churning whole tracts of country to dust.

  ‘Why don’t you offer Theresa’s father some money?’ she suggested, glancing down at Charlie’s garters which were, this morning, of cherry-coloured silk.

  ‘He wants cattle, not money. He wants Theresa not to marry, he wants her to work for him.’ Charlie rapidly finished sweeping the veranda and moved off, with relief, tucking the broom under his arm, with an apologetic smile which said: I know you mean well, but I’m glad to end this conversation.

  But Marina was not at all inclined to drop the thing. She interviewed Theresa who, amid floods of tears, said: Yes, she wanted to marry Charlie, but her father wanted too much lobola. The problem was quite simple to her, merely a question of lobola; Charlie’s other wife did not concern her; nor did she, apparently, share Charlie’s view that a proper wife in the kraal was one thing, while the women of the town were another.

  Marina said: ‘Shall I come down to the location and talk to your father?’

  Theresa hung her head shyly, allowed the last big tears to roll glistening down her cheeks and go splashing to the dust. ‘Yes, madam,’ she said gratefully.

  Marina returned to Charlie and said she would interview the old man. He appeared restive at this suggestion. ‘I’ll advance you some of your wages and you can pay for Theresa in instalments,’ she said. He glanced down at his fine shirt, his gay socks, and sighed. If he were going to spend years of life paying five shillings a month, which was all he could afford, for Theresa, then his life as a dandy was over.

  Marina said crossly: ‘Yes, it’s all very well, but you can’t have it both ways.’

  He said hastily: ‘I’ll go down and see the father of Theresa, madam. I go soon.’

  ‘I think you’d better,’ she said sternly.

  When she told Philip this story he became vigorously indignant. It presented in little, he said, the whole problem of this society. The Government couldn’t see an inch in front of its nose. In the first place, by allowing the lobola system to continue, this emotional attitude towards cattle was perpetuated. In the second, by making no proper arrangements for these men to have their families in the towns it made the existence of prostitutes like Theresa inevitable.

  ‘Theresa isn’t a prostitute,’ said Marina indignantly, ‘it isn’t her fault.’

  ‘Of course it isn’t her fault, that’s what I’m saying. But she will be a prostitute, it’s inevitable. When Charlie’s fed up with her she’ll find herself another man and have a child or two by him, and so on …’

  ‘You talk about Theresa as if she were a vital statistic,’ said Marina, and Philip shrugged. That shrug expressed an attitude of mind which Marina would very soon find herself sharing, but she did not yet know that. She was still very worried about Theresa, and after some days she asked Charlie: ‘Well, and did you see Theresa’s father? What did he say?’

  ‘He wants cattle.’

  ‘Well, he can’t have cattle.’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie, brightening. ‘My own wife, she cost six cattles. I paid three last year. I pay three more this year, when I go home.’

  ‘When are you going home?’

  ‘When Mrs Skinner comes back. She no good. Not like you, madam, you are my father and mother,’ he said, giving her his touching, grateful smile.

  ‘And what will happen to Theresa?’

  ‘She stay here.’ After a long, troubled silence, he said: ‘She my town wife. I come back to Theresa.’ This idea seemed to cheer him up.

  And it seemed he was genuinely fond of the girl. Looking out of the kitchen window, Marina could see the pair of them, during lulls in the work, seated side by side on the big log under the tree – charming! A charming picture! ‘It’s all very well …’ said Marina to herself, uneasily.

  Some mornings later she found Charlie in the front room, under the picture, and looking at it this time, not with reverent admiration, but rather nervously. As she came in he quickly returned to his work, but Marina could see he wanted to say something to her.

  ‘Madam …’

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘This picture costs plenty money?’

  ‘I suppose it did, once.’

  ‘Cattles cost plenty money, madam.’

  ‘Yes, so they do, Charlie.’

  ‘If you sell this picture, how much?’

  ‘But it is Mrs Skinnner’s pict
ure.’

  His body drooped with disappointment. ‘Yes, madam,’ he said politely, turning away.

  ‘But wait, Charlie – what do you want the picture for?’

  ‘It’s all right, madam.’ He was going out of the room.

  ‘Stop a moment – why do you want it? You do want it, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, his face lit with pleasure. He clasped his hands tight, looking at it. ‘Oh, yes, yes, madam!’

  ‘What would you do with it? Keep it in your room?’

  ‘I give it to Theresa’s father.’

  ‘Wha-a-a-t?’ said Marina. Slowly she absorbed this idea. ‘I see,’ she said. And then, after a pause: ‘I see …’ She looked at his hopeful face, thought of Mrs Skinner, and said suddenly, filled with an undeniably spiteful delight: ‘I’ll give it to you, Charlie.’

  ‘Madam!’ exclaimed Charlie. He even gave a couple of involuntary little steps, like a dance. ‘Madam, thank you, thank you.’

  She was as pleased as he. For a moment they stood smiling delightedly at each other. ‘I’ll tell Mrs Skinner that I broke it,’ she said. He went to the picture and lifted his hands gently to the great carved frame. ‘You must be careful not to break it before you get it to her father.’ He was staggering as he lifted it down. ‘Wait!’ said Marina suddenly. Checking himself, he stood politely: she saw he expected her to change her mind and take back the gift. ‘You can’t carry that great thing all the way to the location. I’ll take it for you in the car!’

  ‘Madam,’ he said. ‘Madam …’ Then, looking helplessly around him for something, someone he could share his joy with, he said: ‘I’ll tell Theresa now …’ And he ran from the room like a schoolboy.

  Marina went to Mrs Black and asked that Theresa might have the afternoon off. ‘She had her afternoon off yesterday,’ said that lady sharply.