Whites

by Norman Rush

  “Bit ancient times by now, isn’t it?” Gareth said angrily.

  “So sorry,” Nan said.

  They saw a woman standing at the edge of a strip of cultivated land, a mealie patch. A baby was bound to her back with a blanket.

  Nan resumed, in the same projecting voice, “And these blankets, let me just mention. These blankets they tie their children to them with. One sees the babies in the hot season and they are sweating and drenched. And I know from the sisters that quite a lot of them get pneumonia and die of it, when they shouldn’t. Why, do you think? I say because of acrylics. That’s all they can get nowadays. The acrylics don’t breathe. Of course, in the old times they used skins, or if they bought blankets they were wool. But we bring them marvelous cheap acrylics, make them very cheap and drive out the wool, and their children are perishing. Try to buy a wool blanket today at any price in this part of the world.”

  Gareth half faced the back. “Might I ask where you have the least proof of that? You don’t know a bloody thing about it. We can’t set a foot right if we’re white, can we? Regular litany with you, Nan. You’re becoming tiresome!”

  “Could you possibly just carry on driving and not overturning? Let the women talk, Gareth. No, I have no proof, sorry. Now watch him start racing.”

  Tom and Gareth began talking about crime. They agreed that the situation was getting out of hand.

  Tom said, “You know, they have some of those road-contract chaps billeted in the Shangule Hotel to this day, the housing they promised is still not ready. Well, I talked to one of them. Well, you know how the hotel is, just by the railroad station. Train comes in twelve at night and stops for five minutes. So what happens? Every night at twelve—pum pum pum, you have these villains bounding down the hallways, footsteps, rattling door handles one after another just to see if they’re unlocked, by chance. Then comes a shout that the train is going, and pum pum pum, everybody pelts back and all aboard. Every night of the week without fail—set your watch to it. Life in the metropolis of Shangule.”

  Tess began complaining to Nan about stealing. “The stealing is getting terrible, really.”

  “I know they steal,” Nan said. “I think I should steal, too, in their place. No, I mean this, Tess. I heard a story. Two American Peace Corps women staying in a rondavel in Serowe. Middle of the night. They hear sounds. They’re locked in tight, all right, but they hear someone fooling at the door and windows. ‘Go away!’ they say. ‘Who is it?’ There is silence, and then a voice says, ‘We are thieves, let us in.’ That somehow is so typical. I don’t think they are really cruel. Wait.” She edged forward, signaling Tess to say nothing. She sat back.

  “Gareth is still on about crime. It’s coming up a sermon—how criminal, how worthless the Batswana are. How slow they are. ‘They move like clouds,’ he likes to say. They are so insanitary and so forth and so on ad nauseam world without end. It wears me right out. Not that I wasn’t that way. I was worse, at first. I was just a maniac when food fell on the floor and one of the children picked it up to eat, because the help are barefoot—What is it?”

  Tess was pressing a palm to her middle and frowning. She put a finger to her lips and slid closer to Nan. In a low voice, she said, “I’m ovulating. I get a stitch over here when it starts. Or on the other side.”

  “You mean without fail? So you always know where you are?”

  “All my life.”

  “Aren’t you lucky!” Nan said. Her eyes reddened, and she turned to look out the window on her side.

  They had been passing through a long stretch of burned-over land. The bleakness oppressed them. The women began estimating how far it was to Lobatse, their destination. Tom corrected them. “Ladies, you are too low by half. It’s three hours from here to the pavement, with the worst driving yet to come—the deep sand near Pala, the Trench. Then on the bitumen it’s an hour and a half to Lobatse, the Cumberland Hotel, a lager, fillet chasseur, a bathe, and good night all and thank you very much.”

  He offered the water bottle. Tess drank from it, but Nan said no. She explained to Tess, “In truth, I am parched, but I don’t want to make Gareth pull up for my comfort more than I have to—especially near Pala. There we must have momentum.” Tess set the bottle on the seat next to her.

  “Just look at this country,” Nan said. “Red rock wilderness. It makes one sad, really.”

  Tess made a sympathetic face.

  They began tacking. Here the road was braided around dry sinks and sharp rock outcrops. The women looked commiseration at one another. The vehicle ran close to the bank on some curves. Brush scraped the windows.

  The driving eased, finally. The men were murmuring about the road mess in Botswana. They were cynical. Nan sat forward, straining to hear. Contractors were using shoddy materials. Service trenches were subsiding through lack of proper compaction. Heavy equipment was being dragged across fresh tarmac without rollers. There were too few bell-mouths.

  Nan interrupted. “Do I understand you to be saying that all the trouble with the new roads is not just the Botswana government people but, aha!, bad workmanship by outsiders—whites, isn’t it?—from South Africa and from Europe?”

  “Well, to an extent, yes,” Gareth said.

  “Well, if you know about this, why don’t you inform government? I’m sure they’d be grateful.”

  “They don’t want to hear it.”

  “Oh, do they not? How do you know? Have you tried?”

  “One can’t just go and point a finger. They don’t want to hear this. We are not road engineers, are we now?”

  “No, but you are engineers. Mine engineers, but you know something about materials, and you seem to know quite a lot about roads, too, as it seems. So why not tell government?”

  Tom said, “Waste of breath. You may believe that. You listen to your husband.”

  “They don’t want to hear it,” Gareth said again, more firmly.

  “But then a letter. Anonymous. Or write the Daily News. They print letters.”

  Both men laughed, then said, “Not likely,” in unison, which made them laugh again.

  Nan raised her voice. “Why don’t you go to, oh, anyone, then? Go to the High Commission instead of just sitting there laughing at the sheer folly of ever, ever, ever trying seriously to help these poor wretches get something they pay for! You won’t even try! Because even if there are pirates you won’t do it. Tess, this is what I am ill with. Just this.”

  Gareth spoke in an even, ominous tone. “You are exciting yourself. We’ll not have it. There is nasty driving coming and you are doing this. Tess, can you assist? We are not alone in this vehicle, Nan.”

  “Oh, you don’t like what I say—what a surprise! You don’t care for the people here, and there is an end of it. The smallest thing I propose is always senseless, madness—I must put it from me. Like the tins the workmen boil up their mealie pap in for breakfast and tea, No. 10 size. They are just boiling the lead from the seams straight into their food. Now, it cannot be sound. I spoke to the sisters, and they said, ‘Good heavens, are they?’ Tess, not even will he get a proper three-leg pot or two for his own men. That would interfere.”

  “You are making a row!” Gareth shouted.

  Nan said, still loud, “Yes. Talking of rows, Tess, listen. Last week, blazing rage. For what? First, you know all the beef this country sends abroad. All right, they don’t eat much beef. Certainly the poor hardly see it unless the chief has something to celebrate. No, the beef is kept to multiply, and then, when they need cash, it goes straight to the abattoir and then straightaway into tins and to Europe—England. Because grass-fed beef makes up perfectly into baby food, Tess. Now, what drove him to rage was this mad idea of mine: Why can’t government just save aside some portion of the tinned baby food and provide it to mothers free through clinics—why not?”

  Gareth broke in. “I’ll tell you why, because the mothers would eat it, wouldn’t they?”

  “Oh, Gareth! You shame me! Yes, all right.
Some would. But a lot would get to the babies. The mothers are hungry, too. And the babies go straight from the breast to mealie pap, starch. And it kills a lot of them—indirectly—Tess.”

  “Mealie has protein,” Gareth said.

  “Ah, but so little! And one can just look at the size of the people. The men are small. Answer me why the meat must go only to the fair babies of Europe.”

  “You know my answer.”

  “Well, state it for Tess and Tom, or just for Tess, then—by now they are fascinated.”

  “It is not our part! That would be the dole, and the government are dead set they will not have that, and quite right. Now enough!”

  “And that’s all you truly see?”

  “All there is, isn’t it? Ah.” They had reached the last high point before the Pala stretch. The men were relieved.

  “The Trench!” Tom said. “There it is.”

  Tess said softly to Nan, “We must be still.”

  Very softly, Nan said, “You know I don’t hate him, Tess, do you?”

  Tess patted Nan’s shoulder.

  The last of the sun was in their eyes as they descended. Gareth came down into the deep sand with good speed. The long ascent began well. The trick was to stay precisely in the spoors cut by the last vehicle preceding. There were hazards to avoid, the worst being the loose meshes of brush, like nests, which had earlier been packed into soft places in the track by drivers who had gotten stuck. Gareth scanned the road far ahead. There was right-of-way for only one vehicle. If two vehicles met, one would have to climb up into the side drifts or reverse to the last spot wide enough to permit clearance. Gareth was taut.

  The road was below the level of the land. The banks at this point ran even with their shoulders. Nan looked to the rear. The dust plume they were churning up extended as far back as she could see—solid, like a wall. For some time, no one spoke.

  They saw something in the middle distance ahead—a figure, and then figures, on the right bank, motioning. Grim, Gareth said, “Na lifti.”

  Nan said, “Nobody is saying give lifts, Gareth. We are quite presentably full up. No fear.”

  The figures grew closer.

  “It’s bushies!” Tom said.

  “No, it’s too far south—can’t be,” Gareth said.

  “No, it is, it is—it’s bushies,” Tom said. “They must be clear over from the pan. It must be the drought. I hear the pan is dried up. God, that is a distance to come. Dear God above. It is. There’s a string of them. Want us to stop.”

  “Well, good luck,” Gareth said.

  “Bushmen—Basarwa,” Nan said. “But only women.”

  “Hard to tell,” Tom said, trying to be light.

  Tess said, “Oh, pity—they must want to trade ostrich shells or that beadwork. They want tobacco or salt or anything. Sugar. Too bad. They just give it away if you have what they want. Oh, too bad. I have some lovely things. Oh, pity we can’t stop and see. Well, that is life.”

  The banks were lower here. They drew even with the Basarwa—two young girls and an older woman with an infant caught against her front in a leather sling, all gesturing urgently.

  Tess said, “They look so Chinese—they are all cheekbones; look at it.”

  The women were close to the road. Two of them were holding out pots or cans. The girls were waving the vessels up and down, stiffly, frantically. The mother dropped into an odd posture, like kneeling prayer, but clapping her hands under her chin. They made a tableau. The Rover approached. The women were dressed in skins and rags. They were thin. Nan stared. Arms and legs were like sticks. Their hair seemed to grow in dots on their skulls. One girl appeared to be wearing a kind of cap, but it was a huge scab, Nan saw. All were smiling unnaturally at the vehicle as it passed slowly. They were calling out. Nan opened her window. It was impossible to understand anything.

  “Will you slow, Gareth?” Nan asked. “I can’t hear them.”

  Gareth said nothing.

  The faces did look Oriental, except for the hair. The mother got up. The whole group began to trot alongside.

  Nan opened the window fully and put her head out. Tess pulled at her.

  “Can we not slow, Gareth?” Nan asked urgently.

  “They’re trading,” Gareth answered.

  “No,” Nan said. “They’re saying ‘metse.’ That’s it. We must stop, Gare. I have it clear.”

  Tess said, “What on earth is metse? I don’t have any.”

  “Water, Tess. They want water. I have never heard of this. They don’t do this. Look, they’re keeping up. This is too desperate. We must stop. We have the outer tank. It’s full of water. We must stop. Gare, I am pleading! I am faint. You must stop. Stop this. We have the external tank. You must attend. They are all running. One of the girls, Gare—a scab condition. They are smiling at us, begging. Gare, if you love me, please stop!”

  “They can run for miles, they say,” Tess said.

  “That is the men, Tess—when they hunt.”

  “Right. They blow poison darts, and that weakens the animal or rhino or what all, and then they just run after it until it drops. Days, sometimes, it takes. They can run.”

  “Tess, be still. Look at them.”

  The Basarwa were reaching to touch or catch hold of the vehicle.

  “Gare,” Nan said. “What do you say? Please, my heart, we must stop!” She put her hands on his shoulders. He tensed and bucked violently to reject her touch.

  Gareth said, “There is no chance. We are in sand, Nan. We could be all night. No!” He was increasing speed.

  “Then, Gare,” she said, “if we stick, all right, we could put brush down—I would help. I would help. Please, Gare. The mother is running. Their mother is running. We won’t stick. Help can turn up. They are skin and bone!” She appealed to Tess. “They are skin and bone. We are making them run.”

  Again Nan put her head out the window. The Land-Rover was drawing away. Nan could hear the dire breathing of the runners.

  “No stopping, I say,” Tom said.

  Nan ducked back in. “Tom, this is our vehicle!” she said, shouting.

  “You shall be civil to Tom,” Gareth said, in his most menacing voice.

  Nan saw one of the girls drop to the ground, spent.

  “One of the girls has fallen.”

  “Nan, we are picking up dust. You will close up. Close the window.”

  Gareth was right. There was dust in the air. “Hear, hear!” Tess said. She had taken out a bandanna and was holding it bunched near her mouth.

  Nan closed the window and sat back, making herself look forward, her face agonized.

  “They are still at the side, Gareth,” Nan said. “Gare, at the window you can see them, two of them. Gare, please look. Oh, help!”

  Nan opened the window again. She looked back. The second girl had fallen. Only the mother, still carrying the baby, was still pursuing, her face wild. She would soon fall.

  “The mother is still running, Gareth. She is straining, with that baby. I wish you would look. You are destroying me. We must stop!”

  The mother was heaving with effort. It was too much. She threw her arms up and fell on her back, protecting the infant she was carrying.

  The Land-Rover ground onward. Nan looked to the rear. The women were lost. She covered her face with her hands. Then she lowered her hands and seized the water bottle from Tess, who was holding it. She shoved her window open and hurled the bottle out onto the bank. She lunged toward the front, grasping for anything else she could find to throw out of the vehicle. The men shouted. Tom grappled with her. Tess shrank into her corner. Tom turned and got on his knees in his seat and seized Nan by the shoulders. He pressed her back. He held her. Gareth was trembling with fury.

  “She has pitched out the water bottle, Gareth,” Tom said.

  With a roaring cry that frightened them all, Gareth drove his foot down on the brake. The Rover slewed and stopped. The engine died. Tom released Nan.

  They sat in silence,
tilted, mastering themselves. Nan was the first to speak. “Why have we stopped, Gareth?” she whispered.

  Gareth was contained. “One of us must collect the bottle. Simple enough.”

  For a moment they were in darkness, enclosed in the dust of their passage as the wind came up sharply behind them. Nothing could be done until it was clear again. They waited.

  Tom moved to get out. But Gareth caught Tom’s wrist and pulled him roughly back. “One of us must collect the bottle,” Gareth said again.

  THIEVING

  As from 1978, God chose me for a thief. Could I, a boy, withstand Him? If God marks you, you must fall, always.

  Why must God choose out one Mokgalagadi who is poor and who in all times past loved all things of God and B.V.M.? I was very much in churches. I was foremost in singing of hymns, praising God most highly. My name of Paul is found in Scripture. To me, God hates all thieves. And if Lord Jesus may forgive a thief at times, always it is just because this thief is vowing he shall steal no more. What book is my greatest treasure, if not St. Joseph Daily Missal?

  As well, I am Mokgalagadi, of a tribe that in all ages of time is misfortunate and despised in Botswana and always made to be enslaved and mocked, and having any treasures taken from it, never taking them from others. Only Basarwa are less than we to the prideful Bamangwato and Bakwena, our masters. At Tsane I never took items from my mother as children do. Always I was truthful. I only sought to prosper with good English-speaking. My tutor was Sister Honoria at St. Boniface Mission, godsent to me. But she was taken out from Tsane to aid others.

  I came to my fate by an egg, at Lobatse, at Boiteko School. A cooked egg came to be found in my bed. At Boiteko, we few Bakgalagadi were ill treated by Bamalete and Coloured boys at times, myself the most. It was because I am tall, and fast in my English. I was first in Geography by far. To this day I state Headmaster Sebina and the bursar Chibaya made a crime ring, with hiding of sports fees and claiming of a cashbox stolen, with, then, Sebina found as owner of a new van for hire. They feared inspectors coming. So that if some boys could be shown out as thieves for taking food and cooked eggs from the kitchen, those boys could be given all blame, and so forward with more crimes! They said Here is Paul Ojang who is late on fees and with no relations to aid him in the Board of Trust, and he is a boarder from far-distant Tsane, from where he cannot be heard again. So a miracle passed and an egg was found to walk. Still today I can cry at this wrong done to me.