African Stories

by Doris Lessing

  Jabavu is staring at the letter. It begins: “My son . . .” And at this the tears begin to roll down his cheeks. And Mr. Tennent is embarrassed and put out, and he thinks: “Now we are going to have one of these unpleasant displays, I suppose.” Then he chides himself again for lacking Christian charity, and turns his back so as not to be offended by Jabavu’s tears. Also it is necessary to watch the door in case the warder should come in too soon.

  Jabavu reads:

  I wish to tell you that I believe you told the truth when you said you came unwillingly to my house, and that you wished to warn us. What I do not understand is what you expected us to do then. For certain members of the gang have come to me saying that you told them you expected me to find you employment and look after you. They came to me thinking I would then defend them to the police. This I shall not do. I have no time for criminals. If I do not understand this case, neither does anyone else. For a whole week the police have been interviewing these people and their accomplices, and very little can be proved, except that the brain was the man Jerry, and that he used some kind of pressure on you. They appear to be afraid of him, and also of you, for it seems to me there are things you might tell the police if you wished.

  And now you must try to understand what I am going to say. I am writing only because Mrs. Mizi persuaded me to write. I tell you honestly I have no sympathy with you . . .

  And here Jabavu lets the paper fall, and the coldness begins to creep around his heart. But Mr. Tennent, tense and nervous at the door, says: “Quickly, Jabavu. Read it quickly.”

  And so Jabavu continues to read, and slowly the coldness dissolves, leaving behind it a feeling he does not understand, but it is not a bad feeling.

  Mrs. Mizi tell me I think too much from the head and too little from the heart. She says you are nothing but a child. This may be so, but you do not behave like a child, and so I shall speak to you as a man and expect you to act like one. Mrs. Mizi wishes me to go to the Court and say we know you, and that you were led astray by evil companions, and that you are good at heart. Mrs. Mizi uses words like good and evil with ease, and perhaps it is because of her mission education, but as for me, I distrust them, and I shall leave them to the Reverend Mr. Tennent, who I hope will bring you this letter.

  I know only this, that you are very intelligent and gifted and that you could make good use of your gifts if you wanted. I know also that until now you have acted as if the world owes you a good time for nothing. But we are living in a very difficult time, when there is much suffering, and I can see no reason why you should be different from everyone else. Now, I shall have to come to Court as a witness, because it was my house that was broken into. But I shall not say I knew you before, save casually, as I know hundreds of people—and this is true, Jabavu . . .

  Once again the paper drops, and a feeling of resentment surges through Jabavu. For harder than any other will be this lesson for Jabavu, that he is one of many others and not something special and apart from them.

  He hears Mr. Tennent’s urgent voice: “Go on, Jabavu, you can think about it afterwards.” And he continues:

  Our opponents take every opportunity to blacken us and our movement, and they would be delighted if I said I was a friend of a man whom everyone knows is a criminal even if they cannot prove it. So far, and with great effort, I have kept a very good character with the police as an ordinary citizen. They know I do not thieve or lie or cheat. I am what they call respectable. I do not propose to change this for your sake. Also, in my capacity as leader of our people, I have a bad character, so if I spoke for you, it would have a double meaning for the police. Already they have been asking questions which make it clear that they think you are one of us, have been working with us, and I have denied it absolutely. Also, it is true that you have not.

  And now, my son, like my wife, Mrs. Mizi, you will think I am a hard man, but you must remember I speak for hundreds of people, who trust me, and I cannot harm them for the sake of one very foolish boy. When you are in Court I will speak sternly, and I will not look at you. Also, I shall leave Mrs. Mizi at home, for I fear her goodness of heart. You will be in prison for perhaps a year, and your sentence will be shortened if you behave well. It will be a hard time for you. You will be with other criminals who may tempt you to return to the life, you will do very hard work, and you will have bad food. But if there are opportunities for study, take them. Do not attract attention to yourself in any way. Do not speak of me. When you come out of prison come to see me, but secretly, and I will help you, not because of what you are, but because your respect for me was a respect for what I stand for, which is bigger than either of us. While you are in prison, think of the hundreds and thousands of our people who are in prison in Africa, voluntarily, for the sake of freedom and justice, in that way you will not be alone, for in a difficult and round-about way I believe you to be one of them.

  I greet you on behalf of myself and Mrs. Mizi and our son, and Mr. Samu and Mrs. Samu, and others who are waiting to trust you. But this time, Jabavu, you must trust us. We greet you . . .

  Jabavu lets the paper drop and stands staring. The word that has meant most to him of all the many words written hastily on that paper is We. We, says Jabavu. We, Us. Peace flows into him.

  For in the tribe and the kraal, the life of his fathers was built on the word We. Yet it was never for him. And between then and now has been a harsh and ugly time when there was only the word I, I, I—as cruel and sharp as a knife. The word We has been offered to him again, accepting all his goodness and his badness, demanding everything he can offer. We, thinks Jabavu, We . . . And for the first time that hunger in him, which has raged like a beast all his life, swells up, unrefused, and streams gently into the word We.

  There are steps outside clattering on the stone.

  Mr. Tennent says: “Give me the letter.” Jabavu hands it to him and it slides quickly into Mr. Tennent’s pocket. “I will give it back to Mr. Mizi and say you have read it.”

  “Tell him I have read it with all my understanding, and that I thank him and will do what he says and he may trust me. Tell him I am no longer a child, but a man, and that his judgment is just, and it is right I should be punished.”

  Mr. Tennent looks in surprise at Jabavu and thinks, bitterly, that he, the man of God, is a failure; that an intemperate and godless agitator may talk of justice, and of good and evil, and reach Jabavu where he is afraid to use these terms. But he says, with scrupulous kindness: “I shall visit you in prison, Jabavu. But do not tell the warder or the police I brought you that letter.”

  Jabavu thanks him and says: “You are kind, sir.”

  Mr. Tennent smiles his dry, doubting smile, and goes out, and the warder locks the door.

  Jabavu seats himself on the floor, his legs stretched out. He no longer sees the grey walls of the cell, he does not even think of the Court or of the prison afterwards.

  We, says Jabavu over and over again, We. And it is as if in his empty hands are the warm hands of brothers.

  The Words He Said

  ON THE morning of the braavleis, Dad kept saying to Moira, as if he thought it was a joke, “Moy, it’s going to rain.” First she did not hear him, then she turned her head slowly and deliberately and looked at him so that he remembered what she had said the day before; and he got red in the face and went indoors, out of her way. The day before he had said to her, speaking to me, “What’s Moy got into her head? Is the braavleis for her engagement or what?”

  It was because Moira spent all morning cooking her lemon cake for the braavleis, and she went over to Sam the butcher’s to order the best ribs of beef and best rump steak.

  All the cold season she was not cooking, she was not helping Mom in the house at all, she was not taking an interest in life; and Dad was saying to Mom: “Oh, get the girl to town or something; don’t let her moon about here. Who does she think she is?”

  Mom just said, quiet and calm, the way she was with Dad when they did not agree: “Oh, le
t her alone, Dickson.” When Mom and Dad were agreeing, they called each other Mom and Dad; when they were against each other, it was Marion and Dickson. And that is how it was for the whole of the dry season, and Moira was pale and mooney and would not talk to me. It was no fun for me, I can tell you.

  “What’s this for?” Dad said once about halfway through the season, when Moira stayed in bed three days and Mom let her. “Has he said anything to her or hasn’t he?”

  Mom just said: “She’s sick, Dickson.”

  But I could see what he said had gone into her, because I was in our bedroom when Mom came to Moira.

  Mom sat down on the bed, but at the bottom of it, and she was worried. “Listen, girl,” said Mom, “I don’t want to interfere, I don’t want to do that, but what did Greg say?” Moira was not properly in bed, but in her old pink dressing-gown that used to be Mom’s, and she was lying under the quilt. She lay there, not reading or anything, watching out of the window over at the big water tanks across the railway lines. Her face looked bad, and she said: “Oh, leave me alone, Mom.”

  Mom said: “Listen, dear, just let me say something. You don’t have to follow what I say, do you?”

  But Moira said nothing.

  “Sometimes boys say a thing, and they don’t mean it the way we think. They feel they have to say it. It’s not they don’t mean it, but they mean it different.”

  “He didn’t say anything at all,” said Moira. “Why should he?”

  “Why don’t you go into town and stay with Auntie Nora awhile? You can come back for the holidays when Greg comes back.”

  “Oh, let me alone,” said Moira, and she began to cry. That was the first time she cried. At least, in front of Mom. I used to hear her cry at night when she thought I was asleep.

  Mom’s face was tight and patient, and she put her hand on Moira’s shoulder, and she was worried I could see. I was sitting on my bed pretending to do my stamps, and she looked over at me and seemed to be thinking hard.

  “He didn’t say anything, Mom,” I said. “But I know what happened.”

  Moira jerked her head up and she said: “Get that kid away from me.”

  They could not get me away from Moira because there were only two bedrooms, and I always slept with Moira. But she would not speak to me that night at all; and Mom said to me, “Little pitchers have big ears.”

  It was the last year’s braavleis it happened. Moira was not keen on Greg then; I know for a fact because she was sweet on Jordan. Greg was mostly at the Cape in college; but he came back for the first time in a year, and I saw him looking at Moira. She was pretty then, because she had finished school and spent all her time making herself pretty. She was eighteen, and her hair was wavy because the rains had started. Greg was on the other side of the bonfire, and he came walking around it through the sparks and the white smoke, and up to Moira. Moira smiled out of politeness, because she wanted Jordan to sit by her, and she was afraid he wouldn’t if he saw her occupied by Greg.

  “Moira Hughes?” he said. Moira smiled, and he said: “I wouldn’t have known you.”

  “Go on,” I said, “you’ve known us always.”

  They did not hear me. They were just looking. It was peculiar. I knew it was one of the peculiar moments of life because my skin was tingling all over, and that is how I always know.

  Because of how she was looking at him, I looked at him too, but I did not think he was handsome. The holidays before, when I was sweet on Greg Jackson, I naturally thought he was handsome, but now he was just ordinary. He was very thin, always, and his hair was ginger, and his freckles were thick, because naturally the sun is no good for people with white skin and freckles.

  But he wasn’t bad, particularly because he was in his sensible mood. Since he went to college he had two moods, one noisy and sarcastic; and then Moira used to say, all lofty and superior: “Medical students are always rowdy. It stands to reason because of the hard life they have afterwards.” His other mood was when he was quiet and grown-up; and some of the gang didn’t like it, because he was better than us—he was the only one of the gang to go to university at the Cape.

  After they had finished looking, he just sat down in the grass in the place Moira was keeping for Jordan, and Moira did not once look around for Jordan. They did not say anything else, just went on sitting, and when the big dance began, with everyone holding hands around the bonfire, they stood at one side watching.

  That was all that happened at the braavleis, and that was all the words he said. Next day Greg went on a shooting trip with his father, who was the man at the garage. They went right up the Zambesi valley, and Greg did not come back to our station during those holidays or the holidays after.

  I knew Moira was thinking of a letter, because she bought some of Croxley’s best blue at the store, and she always went herself to the post office on mail-days. But there was no letter. But after that she said to Jordan, “No thanks, I don’t feel like it,” when he asked her to go into town to the pictures.

  She did not take any notice of any of the gang after that, though before she was leader of the gang, even over the boys.

  That was when she stopped being pretty again; she looked as she did before she left school and was working hard at her studies. She was too thin; the curl went out of her hair, and she didn’t bother to curl it, either.

  All that dry season she did nothing and hardly spoke and did not sing, and I knew it was because of that minute when Greg and she looked at each other—that was all; and when I thought of it, I could feel the cold-hot down my back.

  Well, on the day before the braavleis, as I said, Moira was on the verandah, and she had on her the dress she wore last year to the braavleis. Greg had come back for the holidays the night before; we knew he had, because his mother said so when Mom met her at the store. But he did not come to our house. I did not like to see Moira’s face, but I had to keep on looking at it—it was so sad, and her eyes were sore. Mom kissed her, putting both her arms around her, but Moira gave a hitch of her shoulders like a horse with a fly bothering it.

  Mom sighed, and then I saw Dad looking at her, and the look they gave each other was most peculiar; it made me feel very peculiar again. And then Moira started in on the lemon cake, and went to the butcher’s, and that was when Dad said that about the braavleis being for the engagement. Moira looked at him, with her eyes all black and sad, and said: “Why have you got it in for me, Dad? What have I done?”

  Dad said: “Greg’s not going to marry you. Now he’s got to college, and going to be a doctor, he won’t be after you.”

  Moira was smiling, her lips small and angry.

  Mom said: “Why, Dickson, Moira’s got her diploma and she’s educated. What’s got into your head?”

  Dad said: “I’m telling you, that’s all.”

  Moira said, very grown-up and quiet: “Why are you trying to spoil it for me, Dad? I haven’t said anything about marrying, have I? And what have I done to you, anyway?”

  Dad didn’t like that. He went red and he laughed, but he didn’t like it. And he was quiet, for a bit at least.

  After lunch, when she’d finished with the cakes, she was sitting on the verandah when Jordan went past across to the store, and she called out: “Hi, Jordan, come and talk to me.”

  Now I know for a fact that Jordan wasn’t sweet on Moira any more. He was sweet on Beth from the store, because I know for a fact he kissed her at the last station dance; I saw him. And he shouted out, “Thanks, Moy, but I’m on my way.”

  “Oh, please yourself then,” said Moira, friendly and nice, but I knew she was cross, because she was set on it.

  Anyway, he came in, and I’ve never seen Moira so nice to anyone, not even when she was sweet on him, and certainly never to Greg. Well, Jordan was embarrassed, because Moira was not pretty that season and all the station was saying she had gone off. She took Jordan into the kitchen to see the lemon cake and dough all folded, ready for the sausage rolls, and she said, slow and surprised
, “But we haven’t enough bread for the sandwiches, Mom. What are you thinking of?”

  Mom said, quick and cross, because she was proud of her kitchen, “What do you mean? No one’s going to eat sandwiches with all that meat you’ve ordered. And it’ll be stale by tomorrow.”

  “I think we need more bread,” said Moira. And she said to me in the same voice, slow and lazy, “Just run over to the Jacksons’ and see if they can let us have some bread.”

  At this I didn’t say anything, and Mom did not say anything either, and it was lucky Dad didn’t hear. I looked at Mom, and she made no sign; so I went out across the railway lines to the garage. At the back of the garage was the Jacksons’ house, and there was Greg Jackson reading a book about the body because he was going to be a doctor.

  “Mom says,” I said, “can you let us have some bread for the braavleis?”

  He put down the book and said, “Oh, hullo, Betty.”

  “Hullo,” I said.

  “But the store will be open tomorrow,” he said. “Isn’t the braavleis tomorrow?”

  “It’s Sunday tomorrow,” I said.

  “But the store’s open now.”

  “We want some stale bread,” I said. “Moy’s making some stuffing for the chicken; our bread’s all fresh.”

  “Mom’s at the store,” he said, “but help yourself.”

  So I went into the pantry and got half a stale loaf, and came out and said, “Thanks,” and walked past him.

  He said, “Don’t mention it.” Then, when I was nearly gone, he said, “And how’s Moy?” And I said, “Fine, thanks, but I haven’t seen much of her this vacation because she’s busy with Jordan.” And I went away, and I could feel my back tingling; and sure enough there he was coming up behind me. And then he was beside me, and my side was tingling.