The World Beneath

by Janice Warman

  “Hey,” he said. “Where’s your pretty dress?”

  “I hate dresses! I’m a tomboy!”

  He handed her the cloth without comment and went to get another. As he rounded the corner of the house, she called after him: “Hey, boy!”

  He turned.

  “Are you? Going to kill us all?”

  “Not if you polish that car properly!” he said. He was impressed at his own daring.

  Robert was coming down the back stairs from the stoep. “Hey, how’re you doing? How’s that car coming?” The blue eyes were blurry, Joshua could see. There was a beer in his hand. “Where’s Tsumalo?”

  “I don’t know, Master,” said Joshua, giving the little bob of respect he’d been taught.

  “Don’t call me Master!” Robert laughed. “Let no man call me Master . . .” He weaved off down the path. Joshua watched him negotiate the gate into the garden unsteadily, bottle dangling from his fingertips.

  “Why are they smashing up the schools?” asked Anna. “It’s silly.” She was folding and refolding her cloth, watching Joshua as he finished the intricacies of the wheel spokes with his cloth-wrapped finger.

  Joshua shrugged. He didn’t want to talk. Since the news about Sipho, since the radio bulletins, since Robert had returned from Guguletu, he’d felt — ragged. Torn inside. Shaky. He was angry. Those poor children! How could grown men shoot them? Didn’t they have children of their own?

  That moment when he had stood in front of the mirror seemed a lifetime ago. He had felt different then. He had felt . . . He realized Anna was looking at him, waiting for an answer.

  “How must I know!” he exploded. “How must I know!”

  “We give them schools, we give them books, and this is how they repay us,” she said in a singsong voice. She had obviously heard her parents talking. “But where would they be without us?”

  She gave him a sly look. “Is that what you think?”

  He rubbed furiously at the shining wheel, not looking at her.

  “I must go in now,” he said. “The car is finished. I have other work to do.”

  And he held out his hand for her cloth.

  Normally, she would have said, “Can I help you?” Normally, she would have said, “Oh, please let me. Pleeease,” and turned down her mouth, and her face would have flushed dark red. Normally, she would have trailed behind him, whining.

  Today she handed him the cloth and went.

  Joshua sat on the filtration tank, kicking his heels. He did not know what to do. He’d cleaned the pool. He did not have any other jobs left. His mother, he knew, had gone to visit her friend Hester at Anna’s house. Although she was only next door, he couldn’t go there.

  Anna could come here as much as she liked. But then, she could go anywhere, he thought. She went to school every day. She could go to the beach. She could go to the shops. She could ride that smart new bike of hers up and down the road. She could go to the top of Table Mountain. She could sit on those benches that said SLEGS BLANKES. WHITES ONLY. She could ride on any bus she chose. Only she’d be driven in her father’s big black Jaguar with the leaping silver cat on the front of the hood.

  And when she was grown up? She would have a choice. She could be a white Madam like Mrs. Malherbe — only younger, he couldn’t imagine her that old — and have white brats like the Websters across the road, and run her finger along the mantelpiece and say to her maid, “What’s this? I pay you to keep the house clean.” Or she could go to university and be a doctor. She could go overseas. She could do anything.

  And him? What could he do? He could just about read, thanks to his mother and Tsumalo. He might, if he was lucky, go back to school one day. Then, when he was grown up, he might get a job in the mines, like Sipho. Or be a gardener like Goodman.

  If he was unlucky, he would end up as a bergie, sleeping rough on the mountain, drinking purple meths, the cheapest alcohol there was. Which would kill him, eventually.

  He jumped off the tank and headed up the path toward Tsumalo’s shed. He was angry.

  He saw Robert coming down the path toward him, Robert with his blue eyes and his wide grin and his curly hair, looking more unsteady now, but even friendlier.

  Joshua turned his face the other way and ran straight past. He had to talk to Tsumalo.

  When he got to the shed, Tsumalo was staring out the window. He was smoking, something Joshua had never seen him do.

  “Tsumalo! I have to talk to you! Why have the riots happened? What is going on?”

  “Hey,” said Tsumalo. It was a very small cigarette, hand-rolled.

  “Tsumalo! Why did they kill all those children?”

  But the man was in a strange mood. “It is all going according to plan,” he said tersely. “They won’t be in power for much longer. The people will rise up.”

  He didn’t want to talk; Joshua lay stretched beside him on the bed, Tsumalo’s arm around him.

  “That Robert,” said Tsumalo. “What a man. He’s going to make me famous.”

  “Famous?” asked Joshua, puzzled.

  “Yeah. He’s done an interview with me. And it’s going to be in the Guardian.”

  “What do you mean, the guardian?” asked Joshua.

  Tsumalo sighed. “It’s a great newspaper in England.” And he looked again out the little window, with its flowered curtain and the view of the emaciated poplar trees moving back and forth, back and forth.

  “In England,” repeated Joshua. England was overseas, he knew that. And in England they wanted South Africa to come right. They thought it was unfair that there were no votes for black people. That much he had learned from Tsumalo.

  He pondered for a moment. Before Tsumalo came, he had not even known what a vote was.

  “So — that’s good, right?”

  Tsumalo laughed. “Do you know — they have written on the walls of our city about me? I am already famous. Hey . . .” And he looked away again, drawing on the spliff.

  “I know,” said Joshua. “ ‘Viva Ngenge,’” he repeated. “‘Tsumalo is King.’ They think you are in Maputo. Where is Maputo?” he asked. “Is it near England?”

  Tsumalo laughed out loud and hugged him hard. “Hey,” he said into his ear. “You are better than a son, you know that?”

  Joshua felt a small squeeze of anxiety in his stomach. If he was like a son, then Tsumalo was like a father. And this father too might disappear.

  “Hey,” said Tsumalo. “Don’t hug me so hard. That hurts.”

  He rubbed his thumb across the boy’s cheeks. “Now off you go back to your mother. Or she will be worried.”

  Joshua nodded mutely and ran. It was almost suppertime.

  Although he was hungry, his tummy felt as if it had gone into a knot, and he could not eat, though it was roast chicken, his favorite.

  Would Tsumalo go away like his father? Or rather, not like his father; he had spent time with Tsumalo, and he had never really known his father.

  His father had another wife, his mother had told him, a city wife. He never sent money for Joshua and his brothers and sister. That’s why his mother had to leave them — all except Joshua — with her own parents, in the Ciskei, and come to Cape Town to earn a living. She had to earn enough to send money back for their keep, for their school fees, for their uniforms, for their books.

  That was why she had the knitting machine. With it, she made jerseys in the evenings for other people’s children. She could earn more money that way.

  Mrs. Malherbe, she told him, bought many of them to give as gifts to her nieces and nephews, for their little children.

  Beauty had found a box of them in the attic one day. And when she told the Madam, the Madam had said quickly, “Oh, Beauty, they have grown out of them now. Do you think you can sell them? It would be a pity to waste them.”

  Beauty did not believe the Madam. “She must have forgotten to send them,” she told Joshua, a frown creasing her forehead.

  “But it was very kind of her to buy them fr
om me. And to give them back. Now I can sell them to my friends.”

  So Mrs. Malherbe wasn’t so bad, then. Joshua wondered why she was so sharp with Beauty. Perhaps it was because she was unhappy.

  After supper, he said he would wash up. He wanted to cuddle with Betsy in his secret place. He hadn’t been there for a while, and he wanted a little solitude. He needed to think.

  When Joshua went upstairs, Beauty was already asleep. She had one hand curled under her cheek. She looked peaceful; almost happy. He slipped in beside her.

  This room was so comfortable. It was cold in the mornings, but the asbestos heater soon warmed it up. There was a thick rug on the floor. There was even a hand basin in the corner. The blankets and sheets in here smelled cleaner too; they weren’t musty and damp. There was no peeling plaster and no smell of paraffin, no scratching of mice behind the walls.

  Oh, the mice. In his mother’s room, they had woken once and found the bag of sugar nibbled at the corner. All the white sugar had run out onto the floor, and there were little mouse tracks in it. And tiny strings of mouse poo, like black beads. After that, they got a tin for the sugar.

  They still had to use the maid’s bathroom, though. It was in the corner of the courtyard, behind the clotheslines. It was always freezing in there, and the hot water, piped across from the main house, was lukewarm by the time it dribbled into the rust-stained bath.

  It was the same bath that they washed Betsy in.

  The rain began, thrumming against the windows, rushing through the gutters, and to its comforting sound, he fell asleep.

  There was something wrong. He could feel it as soon as he woke. Beauty still breathed quietly beside him, hand under her cheek, her wide mouth curved up at the corners.

  The streetlight shone in. The rain had stopped, and the house was quiet.

  He held his breath. The kitchen was below them; he thought he could hear a chair leg shift on the linoleum. And then a murmur, a voice. No: two voices.

  He padded down the stairs. At the baize door, he hesitated: he was too short to see through its porthole. He crept into the dining room; it had a door into the back hall. This he opened a crack. Betsy woke and looked at him; he put his hand up, telling her to stay where she was. She put her head down on her paws again, looking up at him from her wrinkly, red-rimmed eyes.

  He strained to hear. The voices belonged to Mrs. Malherbe and, although it seemed incredible, to Tsumalo. What could he possibly say to her? What could she say to him? Why hadn’t she called the police? Then he heard a third voice. Of course. Robert.

  “I know it looks bad, Ma,” he said. “But it’s the safest place for him. Nobody is looking for him here. And it’s only till they come for him in a couple of days. Then he’ll be leaving the country, and you’ll never see him again.”

  “You know very well how I feel,” came Mrs. Malherbe’s dry voice. “You have your right to your beliefs. But what about me? If he’s discovered here — despite what you say . . . And what about Gordon? If Gordon —” Mrs. Malherbe had sounded weary to the core; now she sounded fearful. “Oh, Robert!”

  “I will leave.” Tsumalo’s deeper voice. “I will go. I do not mean to bring trouble to your house.”

  “No!” It was Robert. “It would be suicide. Ma, you don’t realize. If they get him, they’ll kill him. But not before they’ve tortured him. I can’t put it clearer than that.”

  Mrs. Malherbe sighed and was silent. “Well, then, he can’t go. Can he?” she said finally. “Mr. Ngenge, you may stay. But you must move into the house. It will be safer. We have a box room. It’s hardly luxurious, but Mr. Malherbe has never set foot in it.”

  “There is a bed.” Joshua could hear her push the chair back and get to her feet. “Robert will give you some sheets from the cupboard. Beauty can look after you.” She laughed shortly. “I’m sure she does already. So my big grocery bill isn’t just because the boy is growing so fast; it’s because of our extra guest.”

  There were footsteps toward the door, and Joshua shrank back. “Robert, I am going to bed. Good night, Mr. Ngenge. Please excuse me.”

  “Good night, Madam. Thank you, Madam.”

  Joshua shut the door as quietly as he could and crouched in the dark as Mrs. Malherbe went through the baize door, down the corridor, and slowly up the stairs.

  As soon as he heard her door close, he ran lightly up to the spare room, the brass carpet rods cold beneath his toes.

  Beauty stirred as he got back into the bed. He lay as still as he could, hardly breathing, thinking he would never sleep again.

  In the morning, the sky was clean and the clouds were high and bright. Puddles stood on the driveway, torn fig branches lay on the paving, and the pool was full of leaves.

  Joshua stood, surveying the damage. Normally the pool was drained and covered in the winter; somehow, things had slipped this year. There were shutters that needed repairing; the upstairs veranda was leaking. The leaves should have been cleared away by now. The lawn, he saw, was long, and its edges weren’t as neat as usual. Goodman had had trouble getting in to work. There were bad days and good days in the townships; when there were riots, the buses didn’t run. And in any case, when the police were in Guguletu, Goodman didn’t like to leave his wife and children on their own. When he did come, he was preoccupied. He stood talking with Beauty, drinking his tea at the kitchen door, the rake propped carelessly against the back steps just where Mrs. Malherbe might fall over it.

  Joshua looked up at Table Mountain. Scraps of mist hung over its flat edge in wisps: the tablecloth of cloud it was named for. The north wind must be blowing hard up there; its raw edges were rattling the hedges and whipping the curtains at Mrs. Malherbe’s window.

  He should get back inside. He would leave the pool for later. There were fewer frogs now that the weather was colder. He had released his little frog on the common one evening by the pond, hoping it wouldn’t try to come back across the road and get squashed.

  Then there was a sound in the road that he knew. The horn sounded loud in the morning air as Mr. Malherbe’s car pulled up at the iron gates. He ran to open them.

  He looked up and saw Mrs. Malherbe’s face at the window, a white flash; then she was gone.

  Joshua ran for cover.

  The trouble didn’t start straightaway. Mr. Malherbe was tired. He dumped his suitcase in the hall, took a shower, and went to bed. He had had difficulty getting home from the airport. There were armored personnel carriers on the road (“tanks,” said Tsumalo), and a stone had clipped the Mercedes’s silver wing.

  No, it started later, when Mr. Malherbe woke for supper. Only it was eight o’clock already, and supper had been ready since seven.

  Mrs. Malherbe and Robert had eaten; Robert had gone out.

  Mr. Malherbe started by dumping his supper in the trash. Then he went rummaging in the fridge for bacon and eggs. Beauty was still washing up. She kept her head down and her hands in the sink.

  “Why is there no beer?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Master,” she said, looking down and away. She knew the best thing was never to look at whites if you could help it. She had told Joshua this. Don’t meet their eyes, she had said. They don’t like it.

  “I said, why is there no beer?” He stepped closer.

  Beauty wasn’t in charge of buying the beer or storing the beer, and she certainly never drank any of it. She didn’t know what to do, so she kept washing up. She knew the beer had been drunk by Robert, and that he had given one or two to Tsumalo, but she had no intention of saying so.

  The next thing she knew, Mr. Malherbe had ripped the washcloth out of her hand, spun her around, and was holding her chin up so she had to look at him.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you, damn you!” he shouted. “WHY — IS — THERE — NO — BEER?”

  Beauty continued to avoid looking at him, afraid of what he might see in her eyes. And that might make him even angrier.

  “The beers are finished, Master,�
�� she said finally. After all, no one had known he was coming home. He wasn’t due back till Friday. Mrs. Malherbe would have gone shopping before then. In any case, they had all had their minds on other things. That was another thing she couldn’t tell him.

  “WHO — HAS — DRUNK — THEM, THEN?”

  Beauty stood by the sink, her chin held in his firm grip. She looked relieved to see Mrs. Malherbe come in.

  But this was a mistake too. Mr. Malherbe was not normally mollified by Mrs. Malherbe. If anything, she seemed to aggravate him.

  “Gordon!” said Mrs. Malherbe. “What are you doing!” Uncharacteristically, she said, “Leave the washing up, Beauty, I’ll do it later. You go to your room.”

  Mr. Malherbe let Beauty go. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Malherbe knew that Joshua was in his hidey-hole, arms around Betsy’s ample neck, face hidden in her fur. He had heard everything; he heard what followed.

  It seemed that Mrs. Malherbe was in a difficult mood herself. This too was unusual. She was normally careful around her husband.

  He could hear her frying bacon, and then breaking eggs into the pan. As they hissed in the fat, she raised her voice to be heard above the noise.

  “So, was it a good trip?” She didn’t sound very friendly.

  Mr. Malherbe grunted. Silence.

  “How’s Charlene?”

  A longer silence, then, “What on earth do you mean?”

  “I just mean, how’s Charlene?”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “I mean, is she well? Did you have a good trip? I mean, how’s Charlene since you saw her last? I mean, did you enjoy staying with her — again — instead of at the hotel, where they have never heard of you?”

  Somebody — Mrs. Malherbe? — put the pan down with a bang.

  There was an odd silence, as if something was happening; what, Joshua couldn’t say. It was a kind of stifled silence, as if there was a struggle going on. Should he come out? But what could he do?

  He stayed where he was. He held Betsy so hard that she squeaked, and then, horrified, let her go. He felt his nose prickle and the tears start. He was tingling all over. He could not bear it; to stay in here while the Master did whatever he was doing to her. To do nothing.