Jump and Other Stories

by Nadine Gordimer

  There was no sign, but at the end of that week he knew he would not go back again. Enough. It was time. He left as he had followed her, without explanation. Using the same trail for more than a week, he might have made a path for himself by which he could be followed. He moved from where he had been staying, to be taken in at another house. This was the family of a plumber, a friend of the Movement, not quite white, but too ambiguous of pigment for classification, so that the itinerant lodger could pass for a lighter relative. One of the youngsters gave up his bed; the lodger shared the room with three other children. Every day of the trial, new evidence brought by the Prosecutor’s state witnesses involved his name. It claimed him from every newspaper, citing several aliases under which he had been active. But not ‘Harry’.

  He was making his way back to the plumber’s house one afternoon when the youngster, on roller skates, zigzagged up the street. The boy staggered to a halt, almost knocking him down, and he struck out playfully at him. But the boy was panting.—My dad says don’t come. I been waiting to tell you and my brother’s there at the other end of the street in case you take that way. Dad send us. They come this morning and went all over the house, only Auntie was there, Ma was also at work already. Looking for you. With dogs and everything. He say don’t worry for your things, he’s going to bring them where you can pick them up—he didn’t tell me nothing, not where, but that you know—

  A cold jump of fear under his pectorals. He let it pass, and concentrated on getting out of the area. He took a bus, and another bus. He went into a cinema and sat through some film about three men bringing up a baby. When he came out of the cinema’s eternal dusk, the street was dark. Somewhere to go for the night: he had to have that, to decide where to go tomorrow, which hide on the list in his mind it was possible to use again. Likely that the list was not in his mind alone; nothing on it was left that could be counted on as safe, now.

  He got out of the taxi a block away. He pressed the intercom button at the wide teak gates. There was the manservant’s accented voice on the other end.

  —It’s Mr Harry.—

  —Just push, Mr Harry.—There was a buzz.

  Her trees, the swimming-pool; he stood in the large room that was always waiting for a party to fill it. On low tables were the toys such people give each other: metal balls that (as he set them in motion with a flick) click together in illustration of some mathematical or physical principle, god knows what… Click-clack; a metronome of trivial time. She was there, in the doorway, in rumpled white trousers, barefoot, a woman who expected no one or perhaps was about to choose what she would wear for an evening out.—Hul-Io.—Raised eyebrows.

  —I had to go away unexpectedly—trouble with the foundations on one of our sites in Natal. I meant to phone—

  —But phoning’s awkward.—She recalled, but quite serenely, only half-wishing to score against him.

  —I’m not disturbing you…—

  —No, no. I’ve just been tidying up… some cupboards … I get very careless—

  When alone: so the husband wasn’t back yet.—Could I ask for a drink—I’ve had a heavy day.—

  She opened her palms, away from her body: as if he need ask; and, indeed, the servant appeared with the trolley.—I put it outside, madam?—

  Quite like coming home; the two of them settled back on the terrace, as before.—I thought it would be so nice to see you.—

  She had dropped ice in his drink and was handing it to him.—It is nice.—

  He closed his fingers round hers, on the glass.

  After they had eaten, she asked—Are you going to stay? Just for tonight.—

  They were silent a few moments, to the accompaniment of those same frogs.—I feel I’d like to very much.—It was sincere, strangely; he was aware of a tender desire for her, pushing out of mind fear that this, too, was an old trail that might be followed, and awareness that his presence was just a pause in which tomorrow’s decision must be made.—And what about you.—

  —Yes, I’d like you to. D’you want to swim—

  —Not much.—

  —Well it’s maybe a bit chilly.—

  When the servant came to clear the table she gave an order.—Ask Leah please to make up the bed in the first guest-room, will you. For Mr Harry.—

  Lying side by side on long chairs in the dark, he stroked her arm and drew back her hair from her shoulder to kiss her neck. She stood up and, taking his hand, led him indeed to that room and not her own. So that was how it was to be; he said nothing, kissed her on the forehead in acceptance that this was the appropriate way for him to be dismissed with a polite good night. But after he had got naked into bed she came in, naked, drew back the curtains and opened the windows so that the fresh night blew in upon them, and lay down beside him. Their flesh crept deliciously under the double contact of the breeze and each other’s warmth. There was great tenderness, which perhaps prompted her to remark, with languid frankness, on a contrast:—You know you were awful, that first day, the way you just thrust yourself against me. Not a touch, not a kiss.—Now between a sudden change to wild kisses he challenged her knowingly.—And you, you, you didn’t mind, ay, you showed no objection… You were not insulted! But was I really so crude—did I really… ?—

  —You certainly did. And no other man I know—

  —And any other woman would have pushed me into the swimming-pool.—

  They embraced joyously again and again; she could feel that he had not been with ‘any other woman’, wherever it was he had disappeared to after last week. In the middle of the night, each knew the other had wakened and was looking at the blur of sinking stars through the open windows. He was sure, for no logical reason, that he was safe, this night, that no one would know, ever, that he was here. She suddenly raised herself on one elbow, turning to him although she certainly could not read his face in the faint powdering of light from the sky.—Who are you?—

  But he wasn’t found out, he wasn’t run to ground. It wasn’t suspicion founded on any knowledge relevant to his real identity; she knew nothing of the clandestine world of revolution, when she walked in the streets of the dirty city among the angry, the poor and the unemployed they had ‘nothing to do’ with her—she’d said it. Who he was didn’t exist for her; he was safe. She could seek only to place him intriguingly within the alternatives she knew of—was there some financial scandal behind his anonymity, was there a marriage he was running away from—these were the calamities of her orbit. Never in her wildest imagination could she divine what he was doing, there in her bed.

  And then it struck him that this was not her bed: this time she had not taken him into the bed she shared with the husband. Not in those sheets; ah, he understood this was the sign he knew he would divine, when the time came. Clean sheets on that bed, not to be violated. The husband was coming home tomorrow. Just for tonight.

  He left early. She did not urge him to stay for breakfast on the terrace. He must get back to bath and change… She nodded as if she knew what was coming.—Before getting to the site.—She waved to him as to a friend, down there at the gates, for the eyes of the manservant and a gardener who was singing a hymn while mowing the lawn. He had made a decision, in the respite she granted him. He would take a chance of leaving the city and going to a small town where there was an old contact, dropped out of activity long ago, who might be prevailed upon to revive old loyalties and take him in.

  It was perhaps a mistake; who knows. Best safety lies in crowds. The town was too small to get lost in. After three days when the old contact reluctantly kept him in an outhouse in the company of a discarded sewing machine, stained mattresses and mouse droppings, he went out for air one early morning in his host’s jogging outfit looking exactly like all the other overweight men toiling along the streets, and was soon aware that a car was following. There was nothing to do but keep jogging; at a traffic light the car drew up beside him and two plain-clothes men ordered him to come to the police station with them. He had a fake
document with him, which he presented with the indignation of a good citizen, but at the station they had a dossier that established his identity. He was taken into custody and escorted back to Johannesburg, where he was detained in prison. He was produced at the trial for which he had been the missing accused and the press published photographs of him from their files. With and without a beard; close-cropped and curly-headed; the voracious, confident smile was the constant in these personae. His successful evasion of the police for many months made a sensational story certain to bring grudging admiration even from his enemies.

  In his cell, he wondered—an aside from his preoccupation with the trial, and the exhilaration, after all, of being once again with his comrades, the fellow accused—he wondered whether she had recognized him. But it was unlikely she would follow reports of political trials. Come to think of it, there were no newspapers to be seen around her house, that house where she thought herself safe among trees, safe from the threat of him and his kind, safe from the present.

  What Were You Dreaming?

  I’m standing here by the road long time, yesterday, day before, today. Not the same road but it’s the same—hot, hot like today. When they turn off where they’re going, I must get out again, wait again. Some of them they just pretend there’s nobody there, they don’t want to see nobody. Even go a bit faster, ja. Then they past, and I’m waiting. I combed my hair; I don’t want to look like a skollie. Don’t smile because they think you being too friendly, you think you good as them. They go and they go. Some’s got the baby’s napkin hanging over the back window to keep out this sun. Some’s not going on holiday with their kids but is alone; all alone in a big car. But they’ll never stop, the whites, if they alone. Never. Because these skollies and that kind’ve spoilt it all for us, sticking a gun in the driver’s neck, stealing his money, beating him up and taking the car. Even killing him. So it’s buggered up for us. No white wants some guy sitting behind his head. And the blacks—when they stop for you, they ask for money. They want you must pay, like for a taxi! The blacks!

  But then these whites: they stopping; I’m surprised, because it’s only two—empty in the back—and the car it’s a beautiful one. The windows are that special glass, you can’t see in if you outside, but the woman has hers down and she’s calling me over with her finger. She ask me where I’m going and I say the next place because they don’t like to have you for too far, so she say get in and lean into the back to move along her stuff that’s on the back seat to make room. Then she say, lock the door, just push that button down, we don’t want you to fall out, and it’s like she’s joking with someone she know. The man driving smiles over his shoulder and say something—I can’t hear it very well, it’s the way he talk English. So anyway I say what’s all right to say, yes master, thank you master, I’m going to Warmbad. He ask again, but man, I don’t get it—Ekskuus? Please? And she chips in—she’s a lady with grey hair and he’s a young chap—My friend’s from England, he’s asking if you’ve been waiting a long time for a lift. So I tell them—A long time? Madam! And because they white, I tell them about the blacks, how when they stop they ask you to pay. This time I understand what the young man’s saying, he say, And most whites don’t stop? And I’m careful what I say, I tell them about the blacks, how too many people spoil it for us, they robbing and killing, you can’t blame white people. Then he ask where I’m from. And she laugh and look round where I’m behind her. I see she know I’m from the Cape, although she ask me. I tell her I’m from the Cape Flats and she say she suppose I’m not born there, though, and she’s right, I’m born in Wynberg, right there in Cape Town. So she say, And they moved you out?

  Then I catch on what kind of white she is; so I tell her, yes, the government kicked us out from our place, and she say to the young man, You see?

  He want to know why I’m not in the place in the Cape Flats, why I’m so far away here. I tell them I’m working in Pietersburg. And he keep on, why? Why? What’s my job, everything, and if I don’t understand the way he speak, she chips in again all the time and ask me for him. So I tell him, panel beater. And I tell him, the pay is very low in the Cape. And then I begin to tell them lots of things, some things is real and some things I just think of, things that are going to make them like me, maybe they’ll take me all the way there to Pietersburg.

  I tell them I’m six days on the road. I not going to say I’m sick as well, I been home because I was sick—because she’s not from overseas, I suss that, she know that old story. I tell them I had to take leave because my mother’s got trouble with my brothers and sisters, we seven in the family and no father. And s’true’s God, it seem like what I’m saying. When do you ever see him except he’s drunk. And my brother is trouble, trouble, he hangs around with bad people and my other brother doesn’t help my mother. And that’s no lie, neither, how can he help when he’s doing time; but they don’t need to know that, they only get scared I’m the same kind like him, if I tell about him, assault and intent to do bodily harm. The sisters are in school and my mother’s only got the pension. Ja. I’m working there in Pietersburg and every week, madam, I swear to you, I send my pay for my mother and sisters. So then he say, Why get off here? Don’t you want us to take you to Pietersburg? And she say, of course, they going that way.

  And I tell them some more. They listening to me so nice, and I’m talking, talking. I talk about the government, because I hear she keep saying to him, telling about this law and that law. I say how it’s not fair we had to leave Wynberg and go to the Flats. I tell her we got sicknesses—she say what kind, is it unhealthy there? And I don’t have to think what, I just say it’s bad, bad, and she say to the man, As I told you. I tell about the house we had in Wynberg, but it’s not my grannie’s old house where we was all living together so long, the house I’m telling them about is more the kind of house they’ll know, they wouldn’t like to go away from, with a tiled bathroom, electric stove, everything. I tell them we spend three thousand rands fixing up that house—my uncle give us the money, that’s how we got it. He give us his savings, three thousand rands. (I don’t know why I say three; old Uncle Jimmy never have three or two or one in his life. I just say it.) And then we just kicked out. And panel beaters getting low pay there; it’s better in Pietersburg.

  He say, but I’m far from my home? And I tell her again, because she’s white but she’s a woman too, with that grey hair she’s got grown-up kids—Madam, I send my pay home every week, s’true’s God, so’s they can eat, there in the Flats. I’m saying, six days on the road. While I’m saying it, I’m thinking; then I say, look at me, I got only these clothes, I sold my things on the way, to have something to eat. Six days on the road. He’s from overseas and she isn’t one of those who say you’re a liar, doesn’t trust you—right away when I got in the car, I notice she doesn’t take her stuff over to the front like they usually do in case you pinch something of theirs. Six days on the road, and am I tired, tired! When I get to Pietersburg I must try borrow me a rand to get a taxi there to where I live. He say, Where do you live? Not in town? And she laugh, because he don’t know nothing about this place, where whites live and where we must go—but I know they both thinking and I know what they thinking; I know I’m going to get something when I get out, don’t need to worry about that. They feeling bad about me, now. Bad. Anyhow it’s God’s truth that I’m tired, tired, that’s true.

  They’ve put up her window and he’s pushed a few buttons, now it’s like in a supermarket, cool air blowing, and the windows like sunglasses: that sun can’t get me here.

  The Englishman glances over his shoulder as he drives.

  ‘Taking a nap.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s needed.’

  All through the trip he stops for everyone he sees at the roadside. Some are not hitching at all, never expecting to be given a lift anywhere, just walking in the heat outside with an empty plastic can to be filled with water or paraffin or whatever it is they buy in some country store, or standing at s
ome point between departure and destination, small children and bundles linked on either side, baby on back. She hasn’t said anything to him. He would only misunderstand if she explained why one doesn’t give lifts in this country; and if she pointed out that in spite of this, she doesn’t mind him breaking the sensible if unfortunate rule, he might misunderstand that, as well—think she was boasting of her disregard for personal safety weighed in the balance against decent concern for fellow beings.

  He persists in making polite conversation with these passengers because he doesn’t want to be patronizing; picking them up like so many objects and dropping them off again, silent, smelling of smoke from open cooking fires, sun and sweat, there behind his head. They don’t understand his Englishman’s English and if he gets an answer at all it’s a deaf man’s guess at what’s called for. Some grin with pleasure and embarrass him by showing it the way they’ve been taught is acceptable, invoking him as baas and master when they get out and give thanks. But although he doesn’t know it, being too much concerned with those names thrust into his hands like whips whose purpose is repugnant to him, has nothing to do with him, she knows each time that there is a moment of annealment in the air-conditioned hired car belonging to nobody—a moment like that on a no-man’s-land bridge in which an accord between warring countries is signed—when there is no calling of names, and all belong in each other’s presence. He doesn’t feel it because he has no wounds, neither has inflicted, nor will inflict any.

  This one standing at the roadside with his transistor radio in a plastic bag was actually thumbing a lift like a townee; his expectation marked him out. And when her companion to whom she was showing the country inevitably pulled up, she read the face at the roadside immediately: the lively, cajoling, performer’s eyes, the salmon-pinkish cheeks and nostrils, and as he jogged over smiling, the unselfconscious gap of gum between the canines.