“Hey,” said Tsumalo. “Your mother will want to know where you are.”
Joshua smiled at him. “I will bring you blankets and food tonight. Don’t worry. I will look after you.” And he ran off down the path, heart thudding with excitement.
But when Joshua got back to the house, there was trouble. “Where have you been?” shouted his mother, grabbing him by the arm. It hurt. Her face was all twisted up as if she was in pain. He had never seen her look like this.
“Mama, Mama,” he said, “don’t worry, I’m fine, I was just . . . I was just”— and he was going to say that he was clearing the filter basket, but she saw his hesitation and pounced on it.
“Where were you? Where?”
She hadn’t been able to find him. There had been talk of the police wagon cruising the streets looking for a fugitive.
“I thought —” she said.
She hadn’t known what to think.
So he told her. He told her that the man whom the police were hunting was in their garden, in the old broken-down hut behind the poplar trees. That he was injured. That Joshua had taken food to him.
“No!” she cried, crushing her fist to her mouth. “He cannot stay! It will end badly for us. For all of us.”
She crossed to the sink, washed her hands, and dried them. She peered into the kettle’s shiny surface and wiped her eyes. She straightened her doek. And when she was ready, she took his hand and said, “Take me to him.”
Down the garden path they went, past Goodman’s shed, which was painted green and had a camp chair outside by the neat row of outdoor brooms and rakes, each suspended on their hooks. Through the gap in the hedge, on down to the overgrown part of the yard where the compost heap was, and where the path was overarched by a tangle of wild, dusky pink bougainvillea, and to the row of poplars, and behind them, to the old shed.
As they approached, Tsumalo emerged, his head festooned with cobwebs that he was attempting to brush out of his eyes. He froze as he saw them.
“What are you doing?” Joshua had never heard his mother speak like that to anyone. She seemed different this afternoon.
The smile vanished. He put his hands out in a placatory gesture. “I do not mean to bring you trouble. The boy said —”
“The boy?” Beauty sounded scornful. “You mean to say that you are taking your instructions from a boy?”
Joshua was shocked. He drew away from his mother.
Tsumalo did not look at him. He said again, “I do not mean to bring you trouble. But I would beg you —”
“Do not beg me,” she cut in.
Tsumalo said again, “I beg you for shelter. I promise you I won’t stay long. If they find me, I will swear no one knew I was here.”
“And they will believe you?” But Beauty’s tone had softened imperceptibly, and Joshua knew that by now she had overlooked his height and his commanding presence and seen, as he had, the bruises, the injuries, the swollen leg, the ragged clothing, the bare feet.
Both of them paused for a moment, looking at each other, and into Joshua’s mind came irresistibly the sentences from the Bible that he had heard in Sunday school, back home: “For I hungered, and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me in . . .”
And as if she herself had heard these words, Joshua’s mother dropped her gaze to the ground at her feet.
“You can stay. But you are not to leave the shed; the boy will bring you food.”
She crossed the few paces between them, took Tsumalo’s left hand in hers, and ran practiced fingers gently over the swellings, grazes, and bruises on his arms; her fingers hovered near the cuts on his lip and beside his swollen eye.
“Joshua, run quick now and get a basin with hot water and some towels, and the Dettol.” She did not look at him. “Make sure the Madam doesn’t see you.”
It was unbearably hot, and the top of the stable door was open to the night. Every now and then, a brown shiny rose beetle flew into the room at great speed, buzzing and banging against the walls and the bare lightbulb that hung from the ceiling before whizzing out again into the dark.
Across the dirt yard, a light was on in the kitchen; Mrs. Malherbe was making herself a cup of tea. In the corner of the big room, he knew, was a pantry, with shelves packed to the ceiling with biscuits and tea and rusks and flour and sugar and jam and preserves; there were also a fat-bellied fridge and a huge chest freezer, into which the Madam would lean on Saturdays to pull out a lamb roast to defrost for Sunday.
There was a big fireplace, though there was never a fire in it — fires were reserved for the living room — and there was plenty of room to slide around the polished red-tiled floor in his socks, if the Malherbes were out.
“Mama, why is Tsumalo in trouble?” Joshua was sitting on the bed with his exercise book balanced on his knee, frowning at the letters he was carefully forming.
Beauty looked up and stopped the knitting machine for a moment. “It is very difficult to explain,” she said.
She didn’t want to, he could see.
“Why did they hurt him like that?” he asked.
It had upset him to see how Tsumalo had winced silently as his mother had sponged the wounds and dressed them with the scarlet Mercurochrome, which was all he could find in the downstairs bathroom cabinet, and which somehow made them look much worse.
She had made him take his shirt off, and they had both gasped at what it revealed: a burn mark the size of a hand, blistered and suppurating, on his back.
His mother’s face had set like stone, and her mouth had gone into the hard straight line that told him she was angry.
“I will need a proper dressing for this,” she had said quietly.
The back of Beauty’s hand had once looked like that, when the iron had slipped out of her grasp. She had screamed, and Mrs. Malherbe had run in from the living room and taken her straight to the hospital.
Joshua ran for the big first-aid kit under the kitchen sink. When he got back, gasping for breath, he could see that his mother had been crying. Her eyes were red. She and Tsumalo were speaking quietly, but stopped when they saw him.
When she had finished dressing the wound, she stood and gently fed the shirt back over his head as he sat on the camp stool and put his arms through the sleeves as if he were a child. “Now the leg,” she said. Quickly she knelt and cut the ragged trouser leg. Joshua saw that Tsumalo’s leg was swollen and bruised from thigh to calf. Beauty frowned at it and looked up at the man sitting awkwardly on the camp stool. “Do you think it is broken?”
“I had to jump,” he said. “It was a long way down. I fell when I landed. I can put my weight on it, but it hurts.”
“Then you cannot go from here. You will have to rest your leg until it is better.”
She stood slowly and looked down at him.
“I will send the boy with food and clothing,” she said formally.
“Thank you, sister. Hamba kahle. Go well,” he said.
Joshua half raised his hand in a salute and turned to follow his mother. He didn’t feel like speaking. He could sense her anger, but he knew it was not for him. He wanted to catch her up and hold her hand, but he somehow knew she would shake it off.
At suppertime he took Tsumalo a plate of tamatie-bredie, lamb stewed with tomatoes, on a big pile of mashed potatoes and spinach; an old walking stick he found under the stairs; and, over his arm, neatly ironed and darned, some trousers and a shirt of Mr. Malherbe’s that had been put aside to be thrown out. His mother had always taken these clothes, made them good, and put them to one side for any of her relatives who might need them.
“Waste not, want not,” she said as she packed them away, something Mrs. Malherbe always declared whenever she decided they would have leftovers for supper.
As he went back along the path, he considered how he could keep the shed hidden. He would make the path look unused by pulling fallen branches across it; he would pull down strands of the bougainvillea. But as
he got to the gap in the hedge, he had a better idea: behind the new shed, he found an old wheelbarrow with a broken wheel and tipped it up, as if it had just been propped against the hedge to get it out of the way.
He stepped back and looked. Now there was no gap. Or you couldn’t see it, anyway.
He went on his way, pleased with himself. Of course Goodman would notice; but Joshua would explain it to him. Joshua knew he would be happy to help a brother.
He remembered the baby frog and went to look for it. It was back in the filter basket, clinging to the side, its little chest pumping with the effort of breathing through the chemical fumes. He picked it out gently and found a big cardboard box. He could make a little pool out of a bowl and put leaves in it.
The little frog shook in his hands, terrified. Joshua paused for a moment. It might not be good for it to be kept in a box. He decided to keep it in there until he could take it across to the common and release it into the pond.
The trouble was that the frogs thought the swimming pool was a beautiful blue pond. But once they jumped into it, they found it was toxic and couldn’t get out. Then the filter system drew them in, and they ended up in the filter basket, dead or dying.
He thought of Tsumalo, who had escaped, and wondered how long he would stay, and whether the police would come and find him.
Not if he could help it.
Mama . . .” Joshua was sitting at the kitchen table, kicking the metal legs, drinking milk out of a tin mug. A question was forming in his brain, but he hadn’t quite decided what it was when she gave him a sharp kick on the shin, whisked the mug out of his hands, and leaped to her feet.
Mr. Malherbe walked in. Joshua kept his eyes fixed on the floor. He was breathing fast. Had he conjured him up? He’d been thinking about him, had been about to ask his mother . . . and he wasn’t supposed to be in here . . .
He felt himself being raised off his seat like a puppy, by the scruff of the neck, his shirt bunched and choking. Mr. Malherbe’s breath was hot on his ear.
“What is this boy doing in here? Drinking our milk? Eating our food? What have I told you, Beauty?”
“I’m sorry, Master. I’m sorry.” Her voice was light with fright.
The man moved to the door, his grip tightening, and with one swift movement he threw Joshua into the yard, as you might throw a cat or a bowl of water.
Joshua landed silently, heavily, a choking in his throat as his knees and elbows skinned in the yellow grit.
“I don’t want to see him in here again — understand? Otherwise he goes. And that’s it.”
The kitchen door slammed. The baize door swung and swung on its heavy hinges. Joshua scrambled to his mother’s room and jumped into the bed, pulling the covers over his head.
In the kitchen, Beauty silently washed the dishes.
Upstairs, in the house, another door banged.
Presently, Joshua ran to find Tsumalo, who held him at arm’s length, looked grimly down at the grazed knees, then hugged him. They walked slowly to the far end of the yard, where the pool lay quietly limpid behind its high hedges, Tsumalo leaning on the walking stick. They sat on the steps, and he washed Joshua’s knees and elbows off with the water. It stung. The blood floated away in spiral whispers. Joshua watched, distracted; he wanted to make more of them. They went too quickly.
Tsumalo made him some hot sweet tea over the paraffin stove in the shed and watched him drink it. Only then did he speak.
“You want me to fix him?”
“Who?”
“Him.” A sullen jerk of the head toward the house, a sneer at the corner of the mouth. “Mr. High-and-Mighty.”
“No!” Joshua almost shouted. “No — you can’t.”
“Can’t I? That’s what they like to think. That we can’t. Do. Anything.” Tsumalo’s face was rigid with anger.
Joshua was silent. He looked down. This was not his Tsumalo. This was somebody else. Somebody who frightened him.
Just as Joshua moved to go back to his mother, Tsumalo put his hand out in a conciliatory gesture. “Don’t worry,” he said more gently. “I won’t.” He paused. “It’s not time. Not yet.”
After that, Joshua kept to his mother’s room until he was sure Mr. Malherbe had gone each morning. He kept out of his way when he came home, late and angry after an evening at the club, hefting his dried-up supper out of the warming oven and straight into the trash.
Then he would take a last brandy out to the chair by the pool. Joshua, sitting in the fig tree, had learned the art of silence and sat still as a leaf. Just once a fig fell, dislodged by his slipping foot, and crushed its split redness on the man’s shoulder.
He cursed and flicked it away, and Joshua held his breath until the tall, stooped figure rose and stumbled into the house.
Each afternoon Joshua was anxious that Mr. Malherbe would come back early from work, pop home for lunch, or swing by to pick up his clubs and take an afternoon off to play golf. He had never, to his knowledge, done any of these things. But Joshua devised a plan, just in case: he found he could climb the loquat tree in the front garden and stay completely hidden in its glossy dark leaves. He had a good view of the front gate and the section of road up which the silver Mercedes purred each evening, never early; often late.
In any case, every evening he could hear the car approaching, at which sound he dropped to the loamy ground and hurtled along the narrow alley at the side of the house, tripping over the tangle of nasturtiums in his haste to reach his mother’s room.
He was in the tree now, watching the sun make the gray pavement sparkle, blurring his eyes and bringing them back into focus, over and over again, until they ached.
There was a noise from the next-door garden. He looked down. A little girl was pushing a toy lawn mower back and forth, back and forth, humming to herself. “Vrrrm, vrrrm. Vrrrm, vrrrm.” She was wearing a flouncy yellow dress of the kind favored by white Madams for their daughters, until their daughters got old enough to hate them.
Joshua had a sudden desire to frighten her. She looked so cute and smug. So plump and well-fed. Phumla, who lived so far away with his grandparents, had never had a dress like that.
Before he knew he had done it, he had flung a loquat at the girl. But his aim was faulty and it landed short. She stopped pushing the lawn mower and picked up the hard yellow fruit. Then she looked at the tree. Joshua sat perfectly still.
She walked over to the corner of the lawn and looked up.
She couldn’t see him. Could she? She could. She smiled a fat little smile at him, a confident smile.
“Hello. What are you doing up there? Are you the boy Hester says is living next door? Should we have a loquat feast? I love loquats, but Mummy says I mustn’t have them. She says they give me a runny tummy!” And she laughed.
She started climbing up the wooden fence.
“No!” he said. “You mustn’t. Stay down there — I’ll throw some down.” Anything to stop her. He could see it — her mother would glance out at the lawn and find her precious angel gone. She would find she was up a tree with the black boy from next door. And he would be in trouble. Big trouble.
He began to tear the loquats off the branches, desperately, and toss them down. Then he stopped. Half of them were unripe. She would get the runs. And she would tell her mother how she’d gotten them.
Joshua stalled. “They’ll make you sick. They’re green. Wait here — I’ll get you something better.” He jumped to the ground and gathered some nasturtiums, the yellow and orange flowers thick in his hands, their sticky green stems trailing, and climbed back up.
He reached down over the fence and gave them to her. “Try these — you can suck the nectar out. They’re sweet.”
She looked skeptical. But she tried one, grimacing, and then her round face lit up under the heavy brown bangs. “They’re like fairy sweets!” She grasped them tight. “Get me some more.”
It wasn’t a request.
He climbed down again, and as he did he he
ard Hester’s voice. “Miss Anna, you must come in for your bath now.”
“O-o-o-o-o-oh,” said Anna. “But I’m busy, Hester!”
He could hear a rising whine in her voice.
“Come along now, Miss Anna.” Hester’s voice was weary.
It reminded him. He had heard Hester tell his mother: “Madam is kind, but that Miss Anna — she is like the boss of the house! Even the Master worries what Anna wants.”
His mother had said: “It’s because she was sick when she was little.” She nodded toward Joshua and dropped her voice. “And Mrs. Brown, she . . .” and he missed the rest. “So they can’t have any more . . .”
Any more what? He never found out.
It seemed that Miss Anna had decided she liked him. The next day, when he climbed the tree, she was waiting for him in the next-door garden.
“Boy!” she called imperiously. “Boy! Come down! I want to play with you!”
Not if he could help it. He slithered down the trunk as quietly as he could and tiptoed along the alley by the high wooden fence that separated the yards, but she was ahead of him. Just as he emerged into the dusty backyard, he heard a breathless giggle and saw her wide blue eye at a knothole in the fence.
Later he appealed to his mother. She shook her head and sighed. There was nothing you could do about the vagaries of white people. Even their children. He would have to live with it. Stay away from the fence. Keep his head down. Stay out of trouble.
He went down the overgrown path to find Tsumalo and gave the whistle that they used as a code. Tsumalo opened the door a crack and beckoned him in. He listened to Joshua’s story, then smiled and put his warm hand on Joshua’s head.
“You are already having trouble with the women. It is because you are so handsome. It is your own fault.”
And he said no more, just laughed and picked up his notebook as if to say, I have more important things to worry about. Grown-up things.
The World Beneath Page 3