David's Story

by Zoe Wicomb

  The box is lined with white satin. It has three small depressions in which sit snugly three unremarkable looking stones, one of which is slightly yellower than the rest. As if he has not seen them before, Thomas stares transfixed at the stones while David stares at him.

  Beauty, durability, and rarity: such are the three cardinal virtues of a perfect gemstone, says Thomas in a new voice.

  David imagines that he has heard these words before, or that he is expected to recognise them. Perhaps they are simply meant to make him unsure.

  You wouldn’t believe it, Thomas reverently lowers the voice, but these little beauties are diamonds. And they could be all yours. We need to replace a key figure in the business and this is where you come in, a respectable, well-trained person of proven skill who can get in and out of the country unnoticed.

  Well, David stalls, it’s a great honour, really a great honour, I appreciate your trust in me, but you seem to have got the wrong guy. I’m a teacher you know, in a high school; I do a little work for the UDF, here and there, that I must admit, but I’ve never left the country; I don’t have the skills and experience you speak of. Must have got me mixed up with someone else.

  Thomas laughs. Oh, no sir, we’ve got the right guy alright. We know everything there is to know about you—

  In that case, David interrupts, you will know that I’m not interested in diamonds or in making money, certainly not in the IDB business.

  But this, Mr. Dirkse, is the time of all-change. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to gather stones together—that’s what the Bible says. No, it’s time that you start thinking of number one. Have a good look, man, here, touch it. You’ve given your best years to the struggle and now there’s nothing left. Prepare for the future, line your pockets ’cause you deserve it. It’s no good just working and working yourself into a ball of barbed wire—for what, for the kaffirs to kick you in the arse when they got no more use for you?

  Is that word in the script? They won’t find it funny, you know, hearing you calling them kaffirs, David ventures.

  He is rewarded by a give away tick followed by a hurried smile.

  Look, man, that’s—that’s cool. Don’t you worry yourself about that kind of thing.

  No, David says, it’s you I’m worrying about. Give me your hand, Thomas. I need to read for myself whether you’re the sort of person I could trust.

  He studies the brown palm for some time, studies the way the nicotine stains darken towards the fingertips, the crisscross of the dark lines that cut into the paler skin. Then he frowns and pushes the palm away in mock horror.

  Ah ha, he says, what a giveaway. Now here it is plainly written, these lines running so closely together, in parallel, and here at the very edge crossing over. What a messy business; I don’t wonder you get confused about who I am, about who you’re working for. No, man, Thomas, you’re too mixed up for me. Sorry, can’t do business with a guy who works for Boer and black, who doesn’t know friend from foe.

  No, wait, says Thomas, this is a delicate matter; we need to keep our heads about this. Tell you what, let’s start again, think it through soberly over a drink. Double scotch for me, let’s get two double scotches. Go on, ring for service.

  While they wait, David takes a stone out of its nest. It is a dull, greasy looking thing, but Thomas, the eager salesman, explains, Don’t be fooled by the way it looks. Take it from me, it’s the genuine article alright.

  Of course, David agrees, most probably from river gravels. And you know the most beautiful thing about a diamond is its internal structure. Turning it this way and that, he lectures: The key thing is the unit cell with its three-dimensional unit of pattern, which determines the structure of the whole stone. A motif that is repeated over and over again in perfect symmetry, absolutely regular, dependable—that’s where its beauty lies, inside, beyond what the eye can see. Nothing to do with the shiny baubles that women, queens, hang around their heads.

  Bravo, my friend, bravo. Thomas claps his hands delightedly. See, this stuff is in your blood, man, comes out of our ancestor’s soil. It’s our heritage; it’s your rightful heritage, your Griqua birthright.

  He shuts the box and slips it into his pocket when a knock sounds on the door.

  It is the headwaiter himself who enters with the drinks. He nods politely at Thomas and fusses over the setting out of pretty coasters with flaming aloes on a background of grey rock. The ice tinkles into the glasses, sparkles in the amber liquor.

  Like jewels, David remarks, holding up his glass at the bald man, like picture-story diamonds.

  The waiter, keeping a professional distance, smiles politely, asks him to sign for the drinks, but David refers him to Thomas.

  Included in the budget, I’m sure, he laughs. Or claim it as expenses. Twice over, and he winks roguishly at Thomas, who obliges by emptying his pockets of silver coins.

  As the bald man reaches the door he calls him back. Our friend, Mr. Stewart, is a cheapskate, doesn’t think it necessary to give you a tip, hey.

  He fishes in his pocket, then tosses an excessively generous ten rand note, roughly wrapped around the lined hit list, into the tray. The man leaves without a word, without looking at the tray.

  Do you know what the ancients called the diamond? David smiles at his visitor. Adamas. Hard, unconquerable, ad-a-man-tine, he pronounces. You might as well learn a new word, get something out of our tea party. And now, Thomas Stewart, I would like you to take your stones and go.

  Thomas wriggles theatrically in his chair, Listen my friend—But he leaps to his feet when he looks into the gun that David has whipped out of he does not know which pocket.

  Move, voetsek, get the fuck out. Go and claim your expenses from all your paymasters, and no more friendly visits.

  CAPE TOWN 1991

  And so it would seem that David has not kept his word. He had promised to ring on Sunday but it is midnight, the children have long been in bed, and still no word from him. Sally walks through the house, from room to room, straightening her skirt, patting her hair in place, before turning on each light. She does not feel the textured fabric under her hands, the resistant silk of relaxed hair, the ribbed plastic of the light switch; her movements are mechanical. She has no notion of having dragged the panty hose off her hair some time ago.

  And so, as Sally circles the kitchen table, it is confirmed: Carried away by the woman, he has forgotten entirely about her, about his family. If he were prevented by business, someone would have got a message to her. Thus she must settle down to accept and endure. Like the disciplined cadre that she once trained to be, she knows that there are no further questions to be asked, knows that she must keep still, keep silent, that it is simply a matter of transferring the codes of the Movement to her marriage, for the two can never be separated, certainly not now that they are being so wantonly mixed up in the Crown Hotel in Kokstad. So she does not go to bed, but from time to time prowls through the house, checks the room where the children chatter in their dreams and her mother snores, pats herself once more into presentability before turning on another light, opening another door. Waiting.

  It will not be long, she says to herself. By the time the cold morning light creeps up on her, she is able to view herself from a distance, look with pity and contempt at the woman who in the small hours sat hunched in her kitchen with a cup of coffee grown cold and salty with tears. And now she feels pride at the repaired face in the morning mirror, the lipstick she has taken to wearing at all times, her red badge of courage, as she takes the children to school. She will not let herself down, just as she will not telephone.

  Ouma Sarie, who has allowed herself an extra few days of holiday, says that it is a mistake, that lipstick. Makes her look cheap, and there is no need at all to be appearing like that in front of the children’s teachers. Pink is not so bad, or even a touch of orange at a pinch, but red, well, that surely is what whores wear; red is no colour for a respectable, married woman. Especially with her husband away.
And since her husband is always away there is no need for her to even keep such a thing as a red lipstick. Concentrating on her speech, Ouma stirs the pot of beans and trotter bredie absent-mindedly, not reaching the bottom, which carries on burning as she purses her lips to explain how she has never worn lipstick, never ever, never mind a red one; that Sally’s father, Joop, would not allow such a thing in the house, but she supposes the world is changing, although—if you ask her—rather unevenly, too fast in some ways and not fast enough in others. Not that anyone asks an old woman’s opinion any more. Look at the electricity pylons within walking distance of her home whizzing their way to the white town, yet making no left turn to her steek-my-weg township behind the ridge, and only then, as Sally sniff-sniffs at the acrid smell of burning, does she see that her wooden spoon has not been reaching the base of the pot. The trotter jelly is quite stuck, just like the stubborn goats they once were, stuck to the bottom of the pot and really, as the smell of burnt food wafts up, she worries that Sally will shout at her, for she has to admit that the dish is ruined and the stainless steel AMC pot no doubt finished as well. How Sally had fretted for that set of expensive pots. There’s no decent coloured house, Mama, without AMC pots, she joked, but the girl’s heart was set on it, and she who had not then heard of these new-fangled things, pots that could fry without fat—she’d heard the name as ANC pots, and thought it was just another way of saying the forbidden ANC, ANC, all day long as you went about your business in the kitchen. Sally has shouted at her before for scouring her precious pot with steel wool as if pots weren’t meant to be scoured. But there you are, funny how things turn about, that she should fear her daughter’s anger—no, that’s how it works nowadays in this topsy-turvy world, where children have taken over and there’s no respect for old people anymore.

  But Sally is not angry; Sally does not shout. Instead, she hugs her dry-eyed, bemused children and comforts them, cooing that everything is alright, that it doesn’t matter, that the waste doesn’t matter, that the top wouldn’t taste too bad. All the time rocking them to her breast. So that Ouma knows that all is not well. That that damned David has brought trouble and heartache as she always knew he would. Which gives her the courage, although she prides herself on not meddling, understands that they are still involved in secret politics business even in these days of change-about and can only hope that Sally will keep her head—but now she just has to ask who it was on the telephone, especially since the child seemed to say nothing at all, just hmm, hmm, hmm, as if anyone needs a telephone for that kind of talk.

  David, Sally says. Just a hurried call ’cause things are not going according to plan. He’ll be delayed for another day or so, I think.

  But I want to speak to Daddy, the boy frets; I have to tell Daddy … to tell Daddy … and working himself up into a sob, rushes headlong into the curtains where he can wrap up his rage, and where the dust, making him sneeze, brings snot and floods of self-pitying tears.

  It was, Sally supposes, one of the comrades who telephoned. Someone she does not know, who said that David has not come to Umtata as planned, that the caller had been expecting him, had been waiting. Had David come home instead? He supposed something important was holding him up in Kokstad. Kokstad, and he chuckled cheerfully, was the sort of place you can’t get away from. She was not to worry. No need to telephone; he, the caller, would be in touch shortly.

  Sally did not ask his name or why it had taken him so long to get in touch. The unfamiliar voice echoes in her ears, There’s no need to worry, no need to telephone. As if she needs such an instruction.

  Telephones and faxes and everything these days, it’s all change for our people, all these new ideas, Ouma nags, but what the donkey does it bring? Might as well write a letter, if you just want to tell people things and not ask them anything or not want to hear what their story is. If they already know you’re okay, know everything about you, so you just have to say hmm, hmm, hmm, then there’s no need to use a telephone, hey, no need to speak to you at all. Telephones, she snorts, that wasn’t even a conversation; did he not even have time to ask for your news at home?

  Sally will not be drawn. She stares at the child, who sobs wildly. Ouma has just the thing in her bag to comfort the child. A rectangular card called Gemstones of Africa, with line drawings of an elephant, a springbok, a lion, and a monkey in each corner. Glued to the card in rows are the even-sized gemstones, ranging from the dark brown of blue tigereye—though why a brown stone should be called blue is beyond her, just the sort of nonsense you get in this country—to pale rose quartz, such a lovely colour. These are stretched across the blue outline of South Africa, which is filled in, if you take your glasses off, with fine pale blue dots. But the shape of the country, its tapering to Cape Point, means that strawberry quartz and jasper, on each side of the last row, have fallen into the sea, which is the white of the card—imagine, white for the sea. Neatly printed, on a white, dot-free strip beneath each stone, is the name of the gem. She had looked at it only last night before going to sleep, read aloud each strange name, beautiful, like words from the Bible: amethyst, carnelian, aventurine, jasper, and sodalite, even if that one does sound like the sinful sodomites. Her favourite is carnelian, a burnt orange that lets in the light, like the jars of preserved orange halves she used to make for the Logan Hotel, with some to display on her own shelves as well. Not like these new-fangled kitchens that look like hospitals, where everything is hidden away behind blind white cupboard doors. She fell asleep with the lovely word on her lips. Carnelian.

  And that is where, later on, rummaging behind the bed, she finally finds the card, which must have slipped down the side as she fell asleep. Nice, hey, she holds it out chattering to the child. She saw it in a shop window in town, she isn’t sure of the name of the shop, but one of those tourist places full of kaffir things, oops, and there she’s done it again.…

  Don’t you have any sense of decency? Sally shouts. You talk rubbish about red lipstick but you don’t mind the filth in your own head. If you want to use such words in front of my children then you go home right away and don’t come back—Mama, she adds, and just in time, too, for who can stand it being you-ed and shoved in such a disrespectful manner.

  Now the child, whose crying has stopped for a greedy moment, angrily throws down Ouma’s Gemstones of Africa. He has one already, even Chantal does; Daddy brought them each one from his trip to Namaqualand.

  Sally picks up the card, stares at its outline, at the lines that carry on beyond the borders of the Republic. Now we are part of Africa, she says, remembering the maps of her school days, when South Africa was an island. She does not remember to admonish the child, whose lips, like Ouma’s, are crossly pursed. They are bonded in their sulk.

  There is a marked change in David’s attitude towards me. He is an affectionate person: I have seen him lifting his children onto his knee while talking politics, nuzzling and petting and holding them close—a man who does not mind being called a moffie. How often he has grabbed my sleeve or even my hand in midconversation. But now, since he has returned from Kokstad, things are not the same.

  At first I think that he is simply in an irritable mood. He is cold and distant; his answers are short, terse; he doodles with a pencil on the back of an envelope as he speaks; he waves his hand to silence me as if to save his voice, as if it is too exasperating to speak to me. He has developed a peculiar system of hand signals, and seems irritated when I fail to understand.

  I gather that David wants to keep our association strictly businesslike, that he regrets it having slipped into a casual warmth. I recognise a syndrome: He has told me too much, which amounts to betrayal of his comrades, and now, disappointed in himself, transfers the feelings of self-loathing to me. Indifference may in the beginning have moved him to confide in me, but if the battery of speech has revved up our relationship, it has also generated his contempt.

  He has little time for those who have not immersed themselves in the struggle—Opportunists,
cowards, he raves. Now I watch his lip curl as he skirts about my questions: He has made himself vulnerable, and to a creature who cannot imagine the complexities of political struggle, who cannot understand that a conflictual model of the world is more than a fine phrase, that it is natural for power struggles to erupt in oppositional social units …

  I switch off when David speaks like a textbook. He is right, I have no stomach for this kind of lecture.

  You wouldn’t understand the courage and commitment and inviolability of someone like Dulcie, he says, thus placing her on a pedestal, beyond the realm of the human.

  No, I say, but neither do I understand why Dulcie, like God, must fend for herself.

  Sally thinks that David is withholding the truth from her, that there is a truth, something he refuses to let go of, something over which he cups his hand in order to keep it captive. He does not have such a grasp on the world, that is precisely the problem. The things around him, the old familiar things, this mirror, this chair or mug, these solid things, buckle and sway under his gaze, and in the moments of losing their form, he is taunted by the new, as truth upon conflicting truth wriggles into shape. Yes, this world of swaying and rocking may have been unleashed by Dulcie, but it is not of her making; it is an accident that she has crossed his path, has caused such a disturbance at this very time of liberation.

  He will not see Dulcie again. Not after he has seen his own hands tremble and settle on her shoulders. Not after he has held her there, at a distance, and allowed his eyes to mine the depths of her own, to be held by those black eyes, into which were drawn together every scrap of her—skin and bone, her hair, her voice—and only then, as he tried to withdraw his hands and his eyes, for those long seconds, only did the world, the treacherous, helter-skelter world, keep still and hold its peace.