by Solomon, Barbara H. (EDT); Rampone, W. Reginald, Jr. (EDT)
The smaller path led to the back of the house—now office. You went through a bewildering maze of little rooms, including the bathroom and toilet, before you came to the same drawing room—now office—where Chingaipe had his desk.
Chingaipe took the smaller path to the back door. He always used the back door to his office, and every morning the Higher Clerical Officer’s short but effective speech came to his mind: “Mr. Thomson has approached me about having a word with you lot in this room. Miss Prim, his secretary, has complained that, each time you clerks pass her desk by the front door in the next office, you stare at her. She doesn’t like the way you look at her. Where are your manners, you people? Have you never seen a white lady before in your lives? Why do you have to gape at her each time you walk past her desk? Imagine all six, no, seven, of you marching past with eyes on her. What do you think she feels with fourteen eyes piercing her? You should be ashamed of yourselves. From now on, all junior clerks, typists, messengers, and telephone operators must use the back door to get to this room. That’s not all. The toilet and bathroom on the other side of this room are closed to all junior staff. You’re to use the toilets in the servants’ quarters at the back of the house. I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. Is that clear to everybody? I am going to write a memo to that effect right now. Copy to Mr. Thomson, one to Miss Prim, and a third to be pinned on that notice board to remind all of you.”
Chingaipe opened the back door. It was seven o’clock. It seemed the only people around were the messengers and laborers. The rooms were so quiet. Even the girl who operated the switchboard had not yet made her appearance.
It was cooler inside. Chingaipe breathed a little easier. He passed the Executive Officer’s office. The next one was the Higher Clerical Officer’s. Both had originally been bedrooms. The drip, drip, drip was from the bathroom.
Chingaipe opened the door to the lounge—now office. It too was empty. He crossed the room to the far corner where his desk stood. He opened the window nearest to him and sat down with a sigh. He eased his feet a little out of the shoes to rest them. He dared not take them off all the way—the Higher Clerical Officer might walk in suddenly and find him in his holey socks.
He took the plastic cover off the typewriter, folded it carefully, pulled open the bottom right-hand drawer, laid it on the top of the papers there, and pushed the drawer shut. The keys stared blankly at him. He glanced at the two trays on the desk. The “IN” tray looked as full as it had been yesterday morning, the day before yesterday, last week, last month. It never seemed to be empty. The only empty one was the “OUT” tray.
Chingaipe put his hands on the desk, looked at his fingers for a brief moment, and pulled the top right-hand drawer open. He felt inside for what he wanted, and his hand came out with a razor blade. He proceeded to cut his nails slowly, piling the bits in the ashtray in front of him.
The other clerks found him sharpening a pencil, and to their enquiries about his state of health he said, without turning (he faced the window with his back to the room), “Half-half.”
He recognized the individuals behind each voice and his tone of voice reflected how he felt about each of them. The six “Half-half’s” varied slightly in their lukewarm nature. He felt rather out of place in this room. They were all products of secondary school, compared to his old Standard Three, taken twenty years ago. They must have thought him a bit odd too. Him with his slight limp, tight jacket, and baggy trousers, banging away like a thing possessed at an equally battered typewriter amidst their loud talk and sometimes lewd jokes.
Chingaipe looked up and noticed that the laborers outside had started work. That meant that the Higher Clerical Officer was coming. He opened the top file from the “IN” tray, took out a rough draft, and laid it on top. He pulled open the top left-hand drawer and took out three blank sheets of typing paper. He shut it, pulled open the drawer beneath, and counted two sheets of carbon paper, which he put between the typing paper. He shut the drawer and inserted all the sheets into the machine. He set the typewriter margins and began to type:
“Dear Sir,
With reference to your communication dated . . .”
He could not type as fast as Miss Prim. There had been a time when he could have competed with her and not come off the worse. What did she type for Mr. Thomson which he didn’t or couldn’t anyway? Her with her superior secretarial airs. She was just a wisp of a woman really. Short, thin, almost angular. Long nose, thin lips. No bosom, no buttocks, no meat. Did she really think the young African clerks had any designs upon her? They might be fresh, but they knew there was no juice from that quarter. If it had been the telephone operator . . . Now she was altogether different. The type that they really would turn and look at. Not that they had not, but they had come to grief. They were no match for her. That girl could be rude. He remembered the time he had been ready to go for the lunch break. She had preceded him into the passage with a friend. She had been speaking Yao so he could not understand, or so she had thought.
“At four o’clock, Chingaipe will knock off,” she announced. “Hurry to his wife. Mrs. Chingaipe will stop pounding maize and hurry to the kitchen. She’ll prepare food for the tired husband who is a copy typist in a big government office. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
The girl had not realized how close to the truth she had been. Chingaipe paused in his typing. Neither had she realized how it had cut him to the core to be dissected and classified as she had done. True, his wife prepared food for him as soon as he reached home after work. Only because he did not go for lunch like the Executive Officer, like Miss Prim, like Mr. Thomson, like the telephone operator and her numerous well-paid boyfriends. The other junior staff had formed the Lunch Break Union and had their meals of mgaiwa and dried fish prepared for them by one of the laborers in the servants’ quarters at the back of the house. The rest contented themselves with boiled or raw cassava and bananas down by the Post Office.
He did not go to lunch. He could not start now. He had trained his stomach not to expect such a luxury. Instead, he drank a glass of water at noon and then went in the usual direction to a definite spot under a tree in the extensive gardens. There he loosened his tie, took off his jacket and shoes, and with obvious relief lay down to sleep, ignoring the inevitable rumblings of his stomach.
The beginning of the afternoon session always found him back at his desk banging away furiously. He could go on like that the whole afternoon, the noises of the keys interrupted at intervals by the loud guffaws of laughter from the secondary school kids.
There were six of them, four boys and two girls. Chingaipe knew intuitively who was going out with whom from the occasional snatches of dialogue he caught while changing carbons or rummaging in his drawers or puzzling over the handwriting of the Higher Clerical Officer. In one of them, he had heard the kid called Mavuto talking to the older girl.
“Of course, there are different types of hair,” he had remarked loudly.
“Mine is called love hair,” she had replied, unabashed.
“I’m not talking about your wig, baby.”
They would have gone on and on like that if one of the others had not noticed how rigidly Chingaipe had sat and so told the two to shut up. Chingaipe had continued to grope about the bottom right-hand drawer, embarrassed. He did not know where the world was going to. In his day . . . In his day . . . He found what he was looking for.
True, he did not go to lunch and his wife prepared a meal for him as soon as he reached home after work. Nambewe. Up at half past five to heat the water for her husband. Up at half past five to prepare porridge for their children to eat before going to school. One of them was now at secondary school. Chingaipe hoped he would not turn into a brash, unmannered kid like Mavuto, in an office like this. He was trying to teach his children the meaning of work, determination, perseverance. Nambewe. Up at half past five to get her husband and children ready for the
day. Nambewe, washing dirty pots and plates. Cleaning. Pounding grain for flour. Nambewe in her missionary blue chirundu and nyakura, a load of firewood on her head down the mountain slopes. Nambewe, smiling tenderly at him before they went off to sleep at night. Nambewe . . .
Chingaipe brought the puncher near the typewriter. He stood up with a sheaf of papers and inserted them in the space ready to punch holes in them. He tensed the muscles of his right hand and pressed down. Crunch. There was only one hole in the papers. The other half of the puncher had broken under the force, and fell on the floor with a loud clink.
The office was very still as Chingaipe groped about the floor for the broken piece. He looked from it back to the puncher. He pulled the sheaf of papers and laid them flat on the table. He sat down again and stared at the single hole.
Nambewe. Up at half past five to . . .
Chingaipe stood up again. He picked up the puncher and the broken piece and went past the now busy young clerks ostentatiously poring over their files. He opened the door to the passage and knocked on the door marked “Higher Clerical Officer” in large letters. He entered on hearing the growl, “Come in.”
He stood in front of the huge desk littered with trays, files, notebooks, ledger cards, and looked at the man behind. The Higher Officer was in his late forties. He had sparse hair—a fact which he attempted to hide by having his hair cut very short each time he went to the barber’s. But one cannot hide a fast receding hairline. The cheap spectacles he wore glinted dully as he looked up slowly.
“Yes?”
“The puncher is broken, sir,” Chingaipe said slowly.
“The puncher is broken, sir,” mimicked the Higher Clerical Officer. “You mean ‘I broke the puncher,’ don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You junior clerks, copy typists, and messengers,” he spat out, “you can’t be trusted to do even a simple job without a catastrophe happening. What will happen to this department if equipment is broken every day?”
“I was only trying to punch holes in a few letters I had typed, sir,” Chingaipe explained.
“And you decided to break the puncher in the process?” the Higher Clerical Officer enquired. “You will have to see Mr. Thomson about this. We cannot allow this sort of thing to happen every day. I’m tired of all you junior clerks’ tricks and inefficiency on the job. I swear some of you will get the sack before month end.”
Chingaipe stood quite still as the Higher Clerical Officer’s face swam in front of him. Nambewe. Up at half past five to . . .
“You must report this personally to Mr. Thomson immediately,” the Higher Clerical Officer announced. “I cannot deal with this case myself.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chingaipe walked mechanically out of the room and down the passage, the puncher heavy in his hand. He went on, knocked, and entered Mr. Thomson’s office.
“Good afternoon, Chingaipe.”
“Good afternoon, sir,” Chingaipe stammered. “The Higher Clerical Officer told me to see you, sir. I was trying to punch holes . . .”
“And the puncher broke?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Gosh!” Mr. Thomson exclaimed. “You must be strong, Chingaipe.”
Chingaipe was silent.
“Tell the Higher Clerical Officer to make out a local purchase order for a dozen punchers.”
“Yes, sir.”
Four o’clock. Time to go home. Chingaipe opened the bottom right-hand drawer. He took out the dust cover, locked the typewriter, and covered it. He stood up to go. The “IN” tray was empty. So was the building as he left. He said a tired goodbye to the night watchman.
“Tidzaonananso mawa, achimwene.”
NADINE GORDIMER
Nadine Gordimer was born in 1923 in a small town outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. Her mother was British and her father was a Jewish emigré from Lithuania. She was educated at private schools and the University of Witwatersrand, and was a longtime activist against apartheid. She published her first short story at the age of fifteen and was introduced to the wider reading public in 1951with a story published in The New Yorker. Her narratives are rife with the politics and tension of life in South Africa. Several of her books were banned, leading to international protest. Since the end of apartheid, Gordimer has continued her active opposition to South Africa’s censorship of radio, television, and print media. Among her many novels are Occasion for Loving (1963), A Guest of Honor (1970), The Conservationist (1974), Burger’s Daughter (1979), July’s People (1981), A Sport of Nature (1987), The House Gun (1998), and No Time Like the Present (2012). She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1991 Nobel Prize for literature.
Inkalamu’s Place
(1965)
Inkalamu Williamson’s house is sinking and I don’t suppose it will last out the next few rainy seasons. The red lilies still bloom as if there were somebody there. The house was one of the wonders of our childhood and when I went back to the territory last month for the independence celebrations I thought that on my way to the bauxite mines I’d turn off the main road to look for it. Like our farm, it was miles from anywhere when I was a child, but now it’s only an hour or two away from the new capital. I was a member of a United Nations demographic commission (chosen to accompany them, I suppose, because of my old connection with the territory) and I left the big hotel in the capital after breakfast. The Peking delegation, who never spoke to any of us and never went out singly, came down with me in the lift. You could stare at them minutely, each in turn; neither they nor you were embarrassed. I walked through the cocktail terrace where the tiny flags of the nations stood on the tables from last night’s reception, and drove myself out along the all-weather road where you can safely do eighty and drive straight on, no doubt, until you come out at the top of the continent—I only think of these things this way now; when I grew up here, this road didn’t go anywhere else but home.
I had expected that a lot of the forest would have been cut down, but once outside the municipal boundary of the capital, it was just the same as always. There were no animals and few people. How secretly Africa is populated; when I got out of the car to drink coffee from my flask, I wanted to shout: Anybody there? The earth was neatly spaded back from the margins of the tar. I walked a few steps into the sunny forest, and my shoes exploded twigs and dry leaves like a plunderer. You must not start watching the big, egg-timer bodied ants: whole afternoons used to go, like that.
The new tarred road cuts off some of the bends of the old one, and when I got near the river I began to think I’d overshot the turnoff to Inkalamu’s place. But no. There it was, the long avenue of jacarandas plunging into the hilly valley, made unfamiliar because of a clearing beside the main road and a cottage and little store that never used to be there. A store built of concrete blocks, with iron bars on the windows, and a veranda: the kind of thing that the Africans, who used to have to do their buying from Indians and white people, are beginning to go in for in the territory, now. The big mango tree was still there—a homemade sign was nailed to it: KWACHA BEER ALL BRANDS CIGARETTES. There were hens, and someone whose bicycle seemed to have collapsed on its side in the heat. I said to him, “Can I go up to the house?”
He came over holding his head to one shoulder, squinting against the flies.
“Is it all right?”
He shook his head.
“Does somebody live in the house, the big house?”
“Is nobody.”
“I can go up and look?”
“You can go.”
Most of the gravel was gone off the drive. There was just a hump in the middle that scraped along the underside of the low American car. The jacarandas were enormous; it was not their blooming time. It was said that Inkalamu Williamson had made this mile-and-a-half-long avenue to his house after the style of the carriage-way
in his family estate in England; but it was more likely that, in the elevation of their social status that used to go on in people’s minds when they came out to the colonies, his memory of that road to the great house was the village boy’s game of imagining himself the owner as he trudged up on an errand. Inkalamu’s style was that of the poor boy who has found himself the situation in which he can play at being the lordly eccentric, far from aristocrats who wouldn’t so much as know he existed, and the jeers of his own kind.
I saw this now; I saw everything, now, as it had always been, and not as it had seemed to us in the time when we were children. As I came in sight of the shrubbery in front of the house, I saw that the red amaryllis, because they were indigenous anyway, continued to bloom without care or cultivation. Everything else was blurred with overgrowth. And there was the house itself: sagging under its own weight, the thatch over the dormer windows sliding towards the long grass it came from. I felt no nostalgia, only recognition.
It was a red mud house, as all our houses were then, in the early thirties, but Inkalamu had rather grandly defied the limitations of mud by building it three storeys tall, a sandcastle reproduction of a large, calendar-picture English country house, with steep thatch curving and a wide chimney at either end, and a flight of steps up to a portico. Everyone had said it would fall down on his head; it had lasted thirty years. His mango and orange trees crowded in upon it from the sides of the valley. There was the profound silence of a deserted man-made place—the silence of absence.
I tried to walk a little way into the mango grove, but year after year the crop must have been left to fall and rot, and between the rows of old trees hundreds of spindly saplings had grown up from seed, making a dark wood. I hadn’t thought of going into the house, but walked around it to look for the view down the valley to the mountains that was on the other side; the rains had washed a moat at the foot of the eroded walls and I had to steady myself by holding on to the rusty elbows of plumbing that stuck out. The house was intimately close to me, like a body. The lopsided wooden windows on the ground floor with their tin panes, the windows of the second floor with their panes of wire mesh, hung half-open like the mouths of old people asleep. I found I could not get all the way round because the bush on the valley side had grown right to the walls, and instead I tried to pull myself up and look inside. Both the mud and wattle gave way under my feet, the earth mixture crumbling and the supporting structure—branches of trees neither straightened nor dressed—that it had plastered, collapsing, hollowed by ants. The house had not fallen on Inkalamu and his black children (as the settlers had predicted) but I felt I might pull it down upon myself. Wasps hovered at my mouth and eyes, as if they, too, wanted to look inside: me. Inkalamu’s house, that could have housed at least ten people, was not enough for them.