No Time Like the Present: A Novel

by Gordimer, Nadine

  In the years that followed European settlement the indigenous population declined significantly as a result of increased mortality. In 1967 the Australian Constitution was changed to recognise the indigenous for inclusion in the national census. (So earlier figures must be guess estimates?)

  RECONCILIATION. Six years into the twenty-first century that population had increased by 11 per cent to 450,000 out of the country’s total 21 million. In 1992 in the High Court of Australia, Eddie Mabo was the first Indigenous person to have native title rights to land recognised on behalf of Indigenous people. The Mabo decision led to the establishment of the Native Title Act 1993 which recognises native land ownership throughout Australia. In 2008 the Australian Prime Minister apologised to the Indigenous people for the ‘Stolen Generation’: the Indigenous children who between 1910 and 1970 were forcibly removed from their families, inflicting profound suffering and loss in Indigenous Australians. Education, health, housing. Fewer Indigenous students attend and finish school than non-Indigenous Australians…overcrowding is associated with poor health outcomes, 2004–5 health survey found 27 per cent of Indigenous were living in overcrowded conditions.

  White South Africans didn’t apologise to black South Africans for the abuse suffered by blacks from whites, seventeenth century to apartheid’s final perfection of the means. Didn’t apologise for anything—didn’t have to, they were dealt with in the retribution that counts most—their last regime finished off by the Struggle.

  Humans lived in Australia 60,000 years ago.

  The San, humans living in what is now South Africa 200,000 years ago, joined by the Khoi Iron Age people from the north of the African continent; these also have managed to survive under whites that saw them as hardly human—some must have done so by clandestine breeding with other blacks, the whites’ Malay slaves—and even the whites? They got the vote along with everyone else in 1994. They now have radio stations broadcasting in what has survived of their own languages. They live wretchedly degraded in poverty, the freedom transformation of the country to which they belong more than any others in the population.

  So it’s not emigration. What’s left behind? It’s not another country, if you’re an aborigine, over there.

  At home in their living room, he has the information at hand to show her. She’s worked late at the Centre, it has taken on a case against mining companies which have for years dismissed with token or no compensation workers who contract asbestos poisoning and develop TB due to conditions breathed in underground.

  She gives it back in the gesture for later.

  —Not going well?—The case, he’s aware, has been lost in two lower courts, now it is for the Constitution height.

  Doesn’t seem to have accepted the question. She’s telling him something, nothing to do with the day’s work.—I stopped by the supermarket for grapes Sindi wants and one of the men who hawk brooms in the street came up to me, now, as I was leaving. I gave the usual sorry, don’t need, and he said Headmaster Gumede’s daughter, I know you—recognised me from home, even my name. He’s one of Baba’s schoolboys but he hasn’t found a job since he finished school two years ago. Come out of Baba’s school really literate, numerate…all he can do to feed himself is try to sell straw brooms he says Zimbabwe refugee women make.—

  She has an aspect of being unreachable. How say to her, give her the other handout, the man’s one of thousands. But this is one of Baba’s charges, educated by Baba for the new opportunities. She’s describing exactly how the man approached, the mask of the beggar’s confronting face that comes with the calling as that of the preacher or the judge comes with theirs. What he is seeing is that what she, Jabu, is experiencing is guilt. Why? She’s guilty of belonging to the new black class that is not out on the streets. Not a cadre along with a Home-Boy whom Baba hasn’t been able to give freedom as he gave it to her to pursue. Guilty of false pretences.

  That’s what this country is doing to its people. Guilt for the better life for all not being delivered by themselves. If you stay put long enough perhaps that will just go away, away, a court case not heard. Only Jabu giving judgement on herself.

  So long as she lives here.

  He’s taking cuttings from newspapers and printouts from Internet not only on Australia; about here and now. She doesn’t ask for explanation of this, she has it in herself—surely he’s also realised it has no purpose. He is in negotiations with universities Over There.

  Unless—will we still follow. What happens, is going to happen not just to our own we’ve left, Baba KwaZulu; and even his Reed family he isn’t close to. The transformation; it is going to come now. The date of the national election this year is soon to be announced, already there are the promises from those hoping to stand for parliament. Shifting alliances of politicians’ bargaining, power patterns; the new kind of Struggle. What changes are coming, inevitable. At the Justice Centre, it’s the judiciary in debate.

  —Too many white backsides seated on the Bench and too few blacks, that’s the first contention—

  —Judgments affecting government ministers and high-rank public servants influenced in their favour by government—

  —Hold on—perceived to be, ay—

  —And if there is—must be—democratic balance in proper proportion to the black majority—that’s going to change pardons for pals—

  —Conclusion. Don’t clean up connivances, call corruption what it is.—One of the advocates from whom she has learned so much has the right to reproach her.

  —What’s the future of the Judicial Commission? Who’ll survive. Will the Commission continue to be the independent body to appoint judges, with the president-whoever-he-is—The colleague is interrupted—What d’you mean, whoever—(someone barks a laugh, they all know it will be Zuma.)—The President putting up his chosen four along with rubber-stamping the Commission’s choices—won’t he simply disband the J.C., make all appointees to the Branch himself.—

  —Himself! Zuma he’s been on the wrong side of the law. So that’s his qualification for knowledge of who is and who’s not fit to be a judge.—At once names of some come up who’ll understand the obligation to keep the President’s men out of jail. She brings this insider disquiet back to the Suburb, the bedroom night talks, and to exchanges with the comrades whose concerns these are going to be. He has for her a cutting from the night’s newspaper in his hand, not yet added to the storage box he’s keeping on the shelf the Australian immigration ones fell from. Nine million illiterates out of a population of 48 million. That’s a figure to sleep on before you begin to think about her KwaZulu Home-Boy wandering the street with straw brooms hitched against his shoulders.

  Neither is surprised, but although he’s Assistant Professor at a university, the lawyer is even less surprised than he.—That was one of my first functions when I was a junior. I sat for hours with witnesses reading aloud to them, explaining the meaning of the terms, words. Many couldn’t read for themselves. They were able to write their own name painfully. I used to think the pen was like a handle they couldn’t get a hold on—it was awful, so embarrassing for them and for me, black like them—Paused and drew first finger and thumb down either corner from her fine full lips to her chin.—If I’d been white it’d have been natural I know everything they didn’t.—Another moment.—Wonder how it would be for Sindi and Gary Elias, they’re both, on the look of them.—

  At least, there are apparently other Africans, blacks emigrated, accepted for migration. It’s an aspect that hasn’t surfaced, is Australia what she’s applying this thought to, rather than concentrating on witnesses in the defence of Constitutional rights in court. Australia’s become an element of the normal life. How they, Down Under, see beings who are both black-and-white, though not white-and-aboriginal, of course. And—of course—there’s Obama, since last year, how he’s to be seen, that may help identity in the world.

  At the Vice Chancellor’s meeting when the university opened for the first term of the New Year, comrad
e Lesego from African Studies was a commanding speaker. The matriculation results: only 62 per cent of ‘learners’ had passes. No improvement. But his voice rose with his hands as he reminded that 69 per cent of students enrolled at the university during the past year were black and over half were women. There was the stir of applause his volume and gesture expected.

  Another hand flagged rather than held up—academics are not ‘learners’ seeking attention to speak in school. Here it is again.—Those among the sixty-two per cent making application to the university this year—it’s on entry standards differentiated between higher school results required for whites and Indians than lower qualifications for blacks. Look at the consequences for those of us who’re going to teach them at undergraduate level.—

  But it was not the time or occasion for Lesego to take up, disinter the situation. The term must begin positively. When he with Steve and a few other colleagues went to their pub for a beer, he used his same decisive rousing as he lifted his glass.—Eish, here’s to more and longer bridging hours! Bigger intake this year!—Foam slopped over the lip of the glass and made the prospect of heavy responsibility, flippant.

  Would he be there to do whatever could be, had to be, done?

  Looked as if it would be Melbourne not Adelaide. The ‘remuneration’—compound term—offered a good level of academic status as well as excellent salary and housing allowance, settling-in benefits. Enquiries about the legal profession were misunderstood: Jabu wasn’t an academic, it was not an expectation of some lectureship for her, in the deal. He had made some enquiries, nevertheless, not mentioning this to her, for the law department here among his colleagues to give information on the legal profession in that far, other country.

  Sometimes had the sense that Australia…it was the return, a recurrence of the time of the conference in England: something existing, in him, not revealed, beneath the practicalities exchanges discussions with her—Jabu, there beside him within touch, as the woman with a version of a man’s name was at the mill. A subconscious deception of his own woman. Subliminal, not memory; some sort of constant in the flaws of being.

  Promises. Promises.

  No election date yet. But election manifestos budding: or shedding leaves already. Newspaper cuttings. The thirteenth day of the year’s first month report the African National Congress promises to rescue South Africa from global recession. Cut unemployment to less than 15 per cent by 2014.

  Over with Jake at the Mkizes’ watching a cabinet minister on TV. ‘Change and continuity’ (contradiction?) to reassure investors fearing shift to the left—but faster change (at the same time) assuring the poorest 50 per cent of the population that mantra ‘service delivery’, water, electricity, refuse removal, will be accelerated. Almost half the country’s ‘learners’ dropped out of school last year. The number of university students who failed to graduate was high. A major renewal of the education system, 15,000 ‘trainers’ (not teachers?) to strengthen performance of schools on maths, science, technology and language development (literacy?). Ensure teachers are in class on time.

  Jake waggles one leg across the other.—No slipping off to the shebeen to get babelas.—

  Denials. Denials.

  Shed by a split in the Party, one of its most popular Struggle leaders, Mosiuoa Terror Lekota is lost defected from the ANC to lead a new party, Congress of the People, with its smart double-meaning acronym COPE. COPE calls for scrapping of the policy of Affirmative Action by which blacks must be employed when black and white are applicants for the same post, the criterion uncertain whether their qualifications are equal.

  Gone dark.

  Peter snaps off the voice and the wide-mouthed image.—Affirmative Action, it’s simply more jobs for cousins, in-laws to join the black elite—our Brothers—that’s joined the white elite.—

  A columnist writes as if speaking for the one who is snipping the cutting. ‘The National Prosecuting Authority, government and leadership of the ANC, should take notice—the endless power games the different parties are playing: prosecute or not Zuma.’

  She doesn’t need to read it.—It’s time for him to defend himself in court, he’s forgotten he said that’s what he wanted—he should stop his legal stalling tactics. Corruption, racketeering, tax evasions should be put to Zuma in the High Court on a date to be set for next week. Look, if the opposing parties aren’t ready for a trial now, never will be. Zuma probably will want the Supreme Court judgment against him tested in the Constitutional Court. Let that arbiter of human rights decide once and for all whether there’s any reason to believe the conspiracy theory that the Zuma camp says charges are purely the vendetta against him, rivalry in the ANC itself to keep him out of becoming President.—

  Next week? But there’s the real alternative…delay, delay. Once he’s President, cannot be charged. It’ll all go away.

  Gary Elias and Sindiswa see many kinds of mass celebration that exists for them only on the screen; but it’s even bigger than the international football one with Maradona playing. The footage of who knows how many cameras can’t encompass the size, the whole.

  A commentator has made himself heard.

  —Eighty thousand people, that must be a guess not an estimate.—But to their children the sight and sound of such is familiar; while to the parents it’s some sort of consequence—of a different kind, of the protest crowds defying apartheid laws, police guns and arrest. It is Jacob Zuma’s launch of the ANC’s election manifesto. The date of the election still not given but in the air; and the triumphal joyousness as if the result has already been won. ‘Awuleth’ mashini wami’ Zuma sings, the chorus that soars with him is exaltation both of himself and the people themselves.

  The cohesion, mass transformation of what are individuals can be uplifting or an assault. The effect of whether you are down there at one with the mass in their purpose, or reject it. Gary begins to dance along Zuma-style, back-jacking from the knee, enjoying himself. Sindiswa with some schoolbook in her lap looks distracted and goes off to the family computer.

  Comrades are not accustomed to being onlookers. He gestures—enough!—the control in hand. She frowns no, stoical. If they’re not there, they’re part of the Party constituency, share responsibility for it as they did in action. There are going to be plenty of other gatherings of the Party in its election campaign, and not all a pop praise song.

  She assumes the Mkizes, Jake and Isa, will be coming with Steve and her to the one in the city. Jake’s low voice—is it poor reception on a cell phone.—I don’t want to hear him sing, I want to hear him in court.—Isa is laughing in the background and her message passed on, of course they’ll be there…

  It’s what was a depot for tramcars way back when the city had tramways—for Whites Only. Must have been long before this distinction was named apartheid, that term that’s even used—comrade Jake, not a Jew, often insists, to characterise mistakenly the situation between Israelis and Palestinians. Nothing to do with the justice of returning the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Palestine. Both peoples with ancient claims of origin to the same territory, whereas we whites in South Africa have no such claim, no common origin with local aborigines—unless you accept the palaeoanthropologist discovery of the origin of all hominids in The Cradle of Man, the site in this African country.

  A huge skeleton shed is crowded to standing crush at the entrance. Way is made for the mixed group, either in amused recognition of the novelty among them or as a small sign of reconciliation that’s supposed to exist. A woman buffeted, answers Isa’s apology.—Welcome, my sister—this electioneering event is in one of the ‘safe’ areas of the country, confident of Party votes. ‘Kill for Zuma!’—some youths have declared—Isa looks about, quoting in mumble. Jake prods her along by the elbow:—Well, suppose Zuma’s ‘Bring Me My Machine Gun’ is heard as permission.—

  —See any AKs.—Peter is gazing around from where the comrades from the Suburb have found a bench and people in possession have shifted to make cramped s
pace. There’s nothing to signify in appearances, anyone who isn’t too fat is like the Suburbans, in jeans; there are the usual hair constructions, more spiky than Jabu’s, some Afro-bushes dyed redhead, nose-rings and shackling ear-baubles. Isa’s appreciative of political participation.—That’s how we are…you can’t tell which is pop group and which is Youth League showing signals of having outgrown wisdom from Party leaders—

  —Heritage isn’t a grand old pile out of which nothing new must come.—

  —Stevie—Blessing, head on side.—Shame, they mustn’t rubbish it.—

  —Mandela and Tambo, the young ones, changed Luthuli’s ANC, the great man for the reality of his time—for what they’d say, ‘knocking on the back door’—youth came up, eh, and brought the Party to Umkhonto.—

  —That’s it! That’s it! We need a youth group, wild to keep us awake, know it’s now—a luta continua—but it’s a new one at home and globalised, Internet, blog.—Peter repeats in a mix of isiZulu and isiXhosa, for the benefit of the sharers on the bench he hears speaking in their tongues.

  —So we’ve got to take up the AK to fight a free and fair election?—He hasn’t waited for Peter to finish the translation amid the delighted attention of the beneficiaries.

  His own vehemence registered by Isa; he’s aware of the questioning blankness turned on him: her usually expressive face.

  Zuma has not come to address this gathering. Kgalema Motlanthe, interim President of the country since Thabo Mbeki was dismissed, is up there. Jabu, just loud enough to be heard—He was under pressure to appoint an inquiry into the arms deals.—

  Motlanthe repeats Party promises, he doesn’t charm, sing or dance. Speeches have had their place, electioneering is taken over by the crowd. A man has heaved to the vacated stage a bulbous street-shiny successor to the cowhide drum and stretches a crane of arm to haul beside him a small boy clutched round an example of the old kind. The man performs, with all fury of a star preacher, angry hysteria of victory to bring about an event to come, and turns a gasp for breath into command for the boy to lift his child’s head too big for the body, and flail tiny hands expertly over his drum. Out of the battle-song chorus of the crowd all the women have risen and are wending widely round and round, up and down, they are the breasts and belly foremost of an anti-privatisation movement’s expectation, government takeover of the mines, gold, platinum, uranium, coal. The stark echo of the tram shelter becomes itself their voice.