African Stories

by Doris Lessing

  They leave that part of the town and do a little more stealing in another, collecting another clock, some spoons and forks, and then, but by chance, a second handbag which is left on a table in a kitchen.

  And then they return to the Indian shop. There Jerry bargains with the Indian, who gives them two pounds for the various articles, and there is five pounds from the two handbags. Jerry gives Jabavu one-third of the money, but Jabavu is suddenly so angry that Jerry pretends to laugh, and says he was only joking, and gives Jabavu the half that is due to him. And then Jerry says: “It is now two o’clock in the afternoon. In these few hours we have each earned three pounds. The Indian takes the risk of selling those things that were stolen and might be recognised. We are safe. And now—what do you think of this work?”

  Jabavu says, after a pause that is a little too long, for Jerry gives him a quick, suspicious look: “I think it is very fine.” Then he says timidly: “Yet my pass for seeking work is only for fourteen days, and some of those have gone.”

  “I will show you what to do,” says Jerry, carelessly. “It is easy. Living here is very easy for those who use their heads. Also, one must know when to spend money. Also, there are other things. It is useful to have a woman who makes a friend of a policeman. With us, there are two such women. Each has a policeman. If there should be trouble, those two policemen would help us. Women are very important in this work.”

  Jabavu thinks about this, and then says quickly: “And is Betty one of the women?”

  Jerry, who has been waiting for this, says calmly: “Yes, Betty is very good for the police.” And then he says: “Do not be a big fool. With us, there is no jealousy. I do not allow it. I would not have women in the gang, since they are foolish with the work, except they are useful for the police. And I tell you now, I will have no trouble over the policeman. If Betty says to you: Tonight there is my policeman coming, then you say nothing. Otherwise . . .” And Jerry slips the half of his knife a little way from his pocket so that Jabavu may see it. Yet he remains smiling and friendly, as if it is all a joke. And Jabavu walks on in silence. For the first time he understands clearly that he is now one of the gang, that Jerry is his leader, that Betty is his woman. And this state of affairs will continue—but for how long? Is there no way of escaping? He asks, timidly: “How long has there been this gang?”

  Jerry does not reply at once. He does not trust Jabavu yet. But since that morning he has changed his mind about him, for he had planned to make Jabavu steal and then see that he got into trouble with the police in such a way that would implicate no one else, thus removing him as a danger. Yet he is so impressed with Jabavu’s quickness and cleverness at the “work” that he wishes to keep him. He thinks: After another week of our good life, when he has stolen several times and perhaps been in a fight or two, he will be too frightened to go near Mr. Mizi. He will be one of us, and in perfect safety for us all. He says: “I have been leader of this gang for two years. There are seven in the gang, two women, five men. The men do the stealing, as we have this morning. The women are friends of the police, they make a friend of anyone who might be dangerous. Also, they pick up kraal boys who come to the town and steal from them. We do not allow the women to go into the streets or shops for stealing, because they are no good. Also, we do not tell the women the business of the gang, because they talk and because they do foolish things.” Here there is a pause, and Jabavu knows that Jerry is thinking that he himself is just such a foolish thing that Betty did. But he is flattered because Jerry tells him things the women are not told. He asks: “And I would like to know other matters: supposing one of us gets caught, what would happen then?” And Jerry replies: “In the two years I have been leader not one has been caught. We are very careful. But if you are caught, then you will not speak of the others, otherwise something will happen you won’t like.” Again he slips up the haft of his knife, and again he is smiling as if it is all a joke. When Jabavu asks another question, he says: “That is enough for today. You will learn the business of the gang in good time.”

  And Jabavu, thinking about what he has been told, understands that in fact he knows very little and that Jerry does not trust him. With this, his longing for Mr. Mizi returns, and he curses himself bitterly for running away. And he thinks sadly of Mr. Mizi all the way along the road, and hardly notices where they are going.

  They have turned off to a row of houses where the coloured people live. The house they enter is full of people, children everywhere, and they go through to the back and enter a small, dirty room that is dark and smells bad. A coloured man is lying on a bed in a corner, and Jabavu can hear the breath wheezing through his chest before he is even inside the door. He rises, and in the dimness of the room Jabavu sees a stooping, lean man, yellow with sickness beyond his natural colour, his eyes peering through the whitish gum that is stuck around the lashes, his mouth open as the breath heaves in and out. And as soon as he sees Jerry he slaps Jerry on the shoulder, and Jerry slaps him, but too hard for the sickness, for he reels back, coughing and spluttering, gripping his arms across his painful chest, but he laughs as soon as he has breath. And Jabavu wonders at this terrible laughter which comes so often with these people, for what is funny about what is happening now? Surely it is ugly and fearful that this man is so sick and the room is dirty and evil, with the dirty, ragged children running and screaming along the passages outside? Jabavu is stunned with the horror of the place, but Jerry laughs some more and calls the coloured man some rude and cheerful names, and the man calls Jerry bad names and laughs. Then they look at Jabavu and Jerry says: “Here is another cookboy for you,” and at this they both rock with laughter until the man begins coughing again, and at last is exhausted and leans against the wall, his eyes shut, while his chest heaves. Then he gasps out, smiling painfully: “How much?” and Jerry begins to bargain, as Jabavu has heard him with the Indian. The coloured man, through coughing and wheezing, sticks to his point, that he wants two pounds for pretending to employ Jabavu, and that every month; but Jerry says ten shillings, and at last they agree on one pound, which Jabavu can see was understood from the first—so why these long minutes of bargaining through the ugly, hurtful coughing and smell of sickness? Then the coloured man gives Jabavu a note saying he wishes to employ him as a cook, and writes his name in Jabavu’s situpa. And then, peering close, showing his broken, dirty teeth, he wheezes out: “So you will be a good cook, hee, hee, hee . . .” And at this they go out, both young men, shutting the door behind them, and down the dim passage through the children, and so out into the fresh and lovely sunshine, which has the power of making that ugly, broken house seem quite pleasant among its bushes of hibiscus and frangipani. “That man will die soon,” says Jabavu, in a small, dispirited voice; but all he hears from Jerry is: “Well, he will last the month at least, and there are others who will do you this favour for a pound.”

  And Jabavu’s heart is so heavy with fear of the sickness and the ugliness that he thinks: I will go now, I cannot stay with these people. When Jerry tells him he must go to the Pass Office to have his employment registered, he thinks: And now I shall take this chance to run to Mr. Mizi. But Jerry has no intention of letting Jabavu have any such chance. He strolls with him to the Pass Office, on the way buying a bottle of white man’s whisky from another coloured man who does this illegal trade, and while Jabavu stands in the queue of waiting people at the Pass Office Jerry waits cheerfully, the bottle under his coat, and even chats with the policeman.

  When at last Jabavu has had his situpa examined and the business is over, he comes back to Jerry thinking: Hau, but this Jerry is brave. He fears nothing, not even talking to a policeman while he has a bottle of whisky under his coat.

  They walk together back to the Native Township, and Jerry says, laughing: “And now you have a job and are a very good boy.” Jabavu laughs too, as loudly as he can. Then Jerry says: “And so your great friend Mr. Mizi can be pleased with you. You are a worker and very respectable.” They both laugh a
gain, and Jerry gives Jabavu a quick look from his cold, narrow eyes, for he is above all not a fool, and Jabavu’s laughter is rather as if he wishes to cry. He is thinking how best to handle Jabavu when chance helps him, for Mrs. Samu crosses their path, in her white dress and white cap, on her way to the hospital, where she is on duty. She first looks at Jabavu as if she does not know him at all; then she gives him a small, cold smile, which is the most her goodness of heart can do, and is more the goodness of Mrs. Mizi’s heart, who has been saying: “Poor boy, he cannot be blamed, only pitied,” and things of that sort. Mrs. Samu has much less heart than Mrs. Mizi, but much more head, and it is hard to know which is most useful; but in this case she is thinking: Surely there are better things to worry about than a little skellum of a matsotsi? And she goes on to the hospital, thinking about a woman who has given birth to a baby who has an infection of the eyes.

  But Jabavu’s eyes are filled with tears and he longs to run after Mrs. Samu and beg for her protection. Yet how can a woman protect him against Jerry?

  Jerry begins to talk about Mrs. Samu, and in a clever way. He laughs and says what hypocrites! They talk about goodness and crime, and yet Mrs. Samu is Mr. Samu’s second wife, and Mr. Samu treated his first wife so badly she died of it, and now Mrs. Samu is nothing but a bitch who is always ready, why she even made advances to Jerry himself at a dance; he could have had her by pushing her over . . . Then Jerry goes on to Mr. Mizi and says he is a fool for trusting Mrs. Mizi, whose eyes invite everybody, and there is not a soul in the Township who does not know she sleeps with Mrs. Samu’s brother. All these men of light are the same, their women are light, and they are like a herd of baboons, no better . . . and Jerry continues to speak thus, laughing about them, until Jabavu, remembering the coldness of Mrs. Samu’s smile, halfheartedly agrees, and then he makes a rude joke about Mrs. Samu’s uniform, which is very tight across her buttocks, and suddenly the two young men are roaring with laughter and saying women are this and that. And so they return to the others, who are not in the empty store now, for it does not do to be in one place too often, but in one of the other shebeens, which is much worse than Mrs. Kambusi’s. There they spend the evening, and Jabavu again drinks sko-kiaan, but with discretion, for he fears what he will feel next day. And as he drinks he notices that Jerry also drinks no more than a mouthful, but pretends to be drunk, and is watching how Jabavu drinks. Jerry is pleased because Jabavu is sensible, yet he does not altogether like it, for it is necessary for him to think that he is the only one stronger than the others. And for the first time it comes into his head that perhaps Jabavu is a little too strong, too clever, and may be a challenge to himself some day. But all these thoughts he hides behind his narrow, cold eyes, and only watches, and late that night he speaks to Jabavu as an equal, saying how they must now see that these fools get to bed without harm. Jabavu takes Betty and two of the young men to Betty’s room, where they fall like logs across the floor, snoring off the skokiaan, and Jerry takes one girl and the other men to a place he knows, an old hut of straw on the edge of the veld.

  In the morning Jerry and Jabavu wake clear-headed, leaving the others to sleep off their sickness, and they go together to the town, where they steal very well and cleverly, another clock and two pairs of shoes and a baby’s pillow from under its head, and also, and most important, some trinkets which Jerry says are gold. When these things are taken by the Indian, he offers much money for them. Jerry says as they walk back to the Township: “And on the second day we each make five pounds . . .” and looks hard at Jabavu so that he may not miss what he means. And Jabavu today is easier about Mr. Mizi, for he admires himself for not drinking the skokiaan, and for working with Jerry so cleverly that there is no difference between them.

  That night they all go to the deserted store where they drink whisky, which is better than the skokiaan, for it does not make them sick. They play cards and eat well; and all the time Jerry watches Jabavu, and with very mixed thoughts. He sees that he does as he pleases with Betty, although never before has Betty been so humble and anxious with a man. He sees how he is careful what he drinks—and never has he seen a boy raw from the kraals learning sense so quickly with the drink. He sees how the others already, after two days, speak to Jabavu with almost the respect they have for him. And he does not like this at all. Nothing of what he is thinking does he show, and Jabavu feels more and more that Jerry is a friend. And next day they go again to the white streets and steal, and afterwards drink whisky and play cards. The next day also, and so a week passes. All that time Jerry is soft-speaking, polite, smiling; his cold, watchful eyes hooded in discretion and cunning, and Jabavu is speaking freely of what he feels. He has told of his love for Mrs. Mizi, his admiration for Mr. Mizi. He has spoken with the free confidence of a little child, and Jerry has listened, leading him on with a soft, sly word or a smile, until by the end of that week there is a strange way of speaking indeed. Jerry will say: “And about the Mizis . . .” And Jabavu will say: “Ah, they are clever, they are brave.” And Jerry will say, in a soft, polite voice: “You think that is so?” And Jabavu will say: “Ah, my friend, those are men who think only of others.” And Jerry will say: “You think so?” But in that soft, deadly, polite voice. And then he will talk a little, as if he does not care at all, about the Mizis or the Samus, how once they did this or that, and how they are cunning, and then state suddenly and with violence: “Ah, what a skellum!” or “Now that is a bitch.” And Jabavu will laugh and agree. It is as if there are two Jabavus, and one of them is brought into being by the clever tongue of Jerry. But Jabavu himself is hardly aware of it. For it may seem strange that a man can spend his time stealing and drinking and making love to a woman of the town and yet think of himself as something quite different—a man who will become a man of light, yet this is how things are with Jabavu. So confused is he, so bound up in the cycle of stealing, and then good food and drink, then more stealing, then Betty at night, that he is like a young, powerful, half-broken ox, being led to work by a string around his horns which the man hardly allows him to feel. Yet there are moments when he feels it.

  There is a day when Jerry asks casually, as if he does not mind at all: “And so you will leave us and join the men of light?” And Jabavu says, with the simplicity of a child: “Yes, that is what I wish to do.” And Jerry allows himself to laugh, and for the first time. And fear goes through Jabavu like a knife, so that he thinks: I am a fool to speak thus to Jerry. And yet in a moment Jerry is making jokes again and saying, “Those skellums,” as if he is amused at the folly of the men of light, and Jabavu laughs with him. For above all Jerry is cunning in the use of laughter with Jabavu. He leads Jabavu gently onwards, with jokes, until he becomes serious, and in one moment, and says: “And so you will leave us when you are tired of us and go to Mr. Mizi?” And the seriousness makes Jabavu’s tongue stick in his mouth, so that he says nothing. He is like the ox who has been led so softly to the edge of the field, and now there is a pressure around the base of his horns and he thinks: But surely this man cannot mean to make a fool of me? And because he does not wish to understand he stands motionless, his four feet stubborn on the earth, blinking his foolish eyes, and the man watches him thinking: In a moment there will be the fighting, when this stupid ox bellows and roars and leaps into the air, not knowing it is all useless since I am so much more clever than he is.

  Jerry, however, does not think of Jabavu quite as the man thinks of the ox. For while he is in every way more cunning and more experienced than Jabavu, yet there is something in Jabavu he cannot handle. There are moments when he wonders: Perhaps it would be better if I let this fool go to Mr. Mizi, why not? I shall threaten to kill him if he speaks of us and our work . . . Yet it is impossible, precisely because of this other Jabavu which is brought into being by the jokes. Once with the Mizis, will not Jabavu have times when he longs for the richness and excitement of the stealing and the shebeens and the women? And at those moments will he not feel the need to call the matsots
is bad names, and perhaps even tell the police? Of course he will. And what will he not be able to tell the police? The names of all the gang, and the coloured men who help them, and the Indian who helps them . . . Jerry wishes bitterly that he had put a knife into Jabavu long ago, when he first heard of him from Betty. Now he cannot, because Betty loves Jabavu, and therefore is dangerous. Ah, how Jerry wishes he had never allowed women into the work; how he wishes he could kill them both . . . Yet he never kills, unless it is really necessary and certainly not two killings at once. But his hatred for Jabavu, and more particularly Betty, grows and deepens, until it is hard for him to shut it down and appear smiling and cool and friendly.

  But he does so, and gently he leads Jabavu along the path of dangerous laughter. The jokes they make are frightening, and when Jabavu is frightened by them, he has to say: “Well, but it is a joke only.” For they speak of things which would have made him tremble only a few weeks before. First he learns to laugh at the richness of Mr. Mizi, and how this clever skellum hides money in his house and so cheats all the people who trust him. Jabavu does not believe it, but he laughs, and even goes on with the joke, saying: “What fools they are,” or “It is more profitable to run a League for the Advancement of the African People than to run a shebeen.” And when Jerry speaks of how Mrs. Mizi sleeps with everyone or how Mrs. Samu is in the movement only because of the young men whom she may meet, Jabavu says Mrs. Samu reminds him of the advertisement in the white man’s papers: Drink this and you will sleep well at night. Yet all the time Jabavu does not believe any of these things, and he sincerely admires the men of light, and wishes only to be with them.