The Sun Between Their Feet

by Doris Lessing

  The first part of this speech Jabavu has understood very well, for he has often heard it before. So does his father speak, so all the travellers who come from the city. He was born with such words in his ears. But now they are becoming difficult. In a different tone does the voice of Mr Samu continue, his hand is lifting and falling, he says trade union, organization, politics, committee, reaction, progress, society, patience, education. And as each new and heavy word enters Jabavu’s mind he grabs at it, clutches it, examines it, tried to understand – and by that time a dozen such words have flown past his ears, and he is lost in bewilderment. He looks dazedly at Mr Samu, who is leaning forward, that hand rising and falling, his steady, intent eyes fixed on his own, and it seems to him that those eyes sink into him, searching for his secret thoughts. He turns his own away, for he wishes them to remain secret. In the kraal I was always hungry, always waiting for when I would reach the plenty of the white man’s town. All my life my body has been speaking with the voices of hunger: I want, I want, I want. I want excitement and clothes and food, such as the fish and buns I have eaten tonight; I want a bicycle and the women of the town; I want, I want … And if I listen to these clever people, straight away my life will be bound to theirs, and it will not be dancing and music and clothes and food, but work, work, work, and trouble, danger and fear. For Jabavu has only just understood that these people travel so, at night, through the bush on foot, because they are going to another town with books, which speak of such matters as committees and organization, and these books are not liked by the police.

  These clever people, rich people, good people, with clothes on their bodies and nice food in their bellies, travel like village natives on foot – the hunger in Jabavu rises and says in a loud voice: No, not for Jabavu.

  Mr Samu sees his face and stops. Mrs Samu says, pleasantly: ‘My husband is so used to making speeches that he cannot stop himself.’ The three laugh, and Jabavu laughs with them. Then Mr Samu says it is very late and they should sleep. But first he writes on a piece of paper and gives it to Jabavu, saying: ‘I have written here the name of a friend of mine, Mr Mizi, who will help you when you reach the city. He will be very impressed when you tell him you learned to read and write all by yourself in the kraal.’ Jabavu thanks him and puts the paper in his bundle, and then they all four lie around the fire to sleep. The others have blankets. Jabavu is cold, and the flesh of his chest and back is tight with shivering. Even his bones seem to shiver. The lids of his eyes, weighted with sleep, fly open in protest at the cold. He puts more wood on the fire and then looks at the shape of the woman huddled under her blanket. He suddenly desires her. That’s a silly woman, he thinks. She needs a man like me, not a man who talks only. But he does not believe in this thought, and when the woman moves he hastily turns his eyes away in case she sees what is in them and is angry. He looks at the brown suitcase on the other side of the fire, lying on the grass. The metal clasp glints and glimmers in the flickering red glow. It dazzles Jabavu. His lids sink. He is asleep. He dreams.

  Jabavu is a policeman in a fine uniform with bright brass buttons. He walks down the road swinging a whip. He sees the three ahead of him, the woman carrying the suitcase. He runs after them, catches the woman by the shoulder and says: ‘So, you have stolen that suitcase. Open it, let me see what is inside.’ She is very frightened. The other two men have run away. She opens the suitcase. Inside are buns and fish, and a big black book with the name Jabavu written on it. Jabavu says: ‘You have stolen my book. You are a thief.’ He takes her to the Native Commissioner who punishes her.

  Jabavu wakes. The fire has sunk low, a heap of grey with red glimmering beneath. The clasp on the suitcase no longer shines. Jabavu crawls on his belly through the grass until he reaches the suitcase. He lays a hand on it, looks around. No one has moved. He lifts it, rises soundlessly to his feet and steals away down the path into the dark. Then he runs. But he does not run far. He stops, for it is very dark and he is afraid of the dark. He asks himself suddenly: Jabavu, why have you stolen this case? They are good people who wish only to help you and they gave you food when you were sick with hunger. But his hand tightens on the case as if it spoke a different language. He stands motionless in the dark, his whole being clamorous with desire for the suitcase, while small, frightened thoughts go through his mind. It will be four or five hours before the sun comes, and all that time he will be alone in the bush. He shivers with terror. Soon his body is clenched in cold and fear. He wishes he still lies beside the fire, he wishes he had never touched the case. Kneeling in the dark, his knees painful on rough grass, he opens the case and feels inside it. There are soft, damp shapes of food, and the hard shapes of books. It is too dark to see, he can only feel. For a long time he kneels there. Then he fastens the case and creeps back until he can see the faint glow of the fire and three bodies quite still. He moves like a wild cat across the ground, lays the case down where it was, and then lies down himself. ‘Jabavu is not a thief,’ he says, proudly, ‘Jabavu is a good boy.’ He sleeps and dreams, but he does not know what he dreams, and wakes suddenly, alert, as if there were an enemy close by. A grey light is struggling through the trees, showing a heap of grey ashes and the three sleepers. Jabavu’s body is aching with cold, and his skin is rough like soil. He slowly rises, remains poised for a moment in the attitude of a runner about to take the first great leap. The hunger in him is now saying: ‘Get away Jabavu, quickly, before you too become like these, and live in terror of the police.’ He springs away through the bushes with big, flying leaps, and the dew soaks him in clinging cold. He runs until he has reached the road, which is deserted because it is so early. Then, when the first cars and lorries come, much later, he moves a little way into the bush beside the road, and so travels out of sight. Today he will reach the city. Each time he climbs a rise he looks for it: surely it must appear, a bright dream of richness over the hill! And towards the middle of the morning he sees a house. Then another house. The houses continue, scattered, at small distances, for half an hour’s walking. Then he climbs a rise, and down the other side of it he sees – but Jabavu stands still and his mouth falls open.

  Ah, but it is beautiful, how beautiful is the city of the white man! Look how the houses run in patterns, the smooth grey streets making patterns between them like the marks of a clever finger. See how the houses rise, white and coloured, the sun shining on them so they dazzle. And see how big they are, why, the house of the Greek is the house of a dog compared with them. Here the houses rise as if three or four were on top of each other, and gardens lie around each with flowers of red and purple and gold, and in the gardens are stretches of water, gleaming dark, and on the water flowers are floating. And see how this city stretches down the valley and even up the other side! Jabavu walks on, his feet putting themselves down one after the other with no help from his eyes, so that he goes straying this way and that until there is a shriek of warning from a car, and once again he leaps aside and stands staring, but now there is no dust, only smooth, warm asphalt. He walks on slowly, down the slope, up the other side, and then he reaches the top of the next rise, and now he stands for a long time. For the houses continue as far as he can see in front of him, and also to either side. There is no end to the houses. A new feeling has come into him. He does not say he is afraid, but his stomach is heavy and cold. He thinks of the village, and Jabavu, who has longed for so many years for just this moment, believing he has no part in the village, now hears it saying softly to him: Jabavu, Jabavu, I made you, you belong to me, what will you do in this great and bewildering city that must surely be greater than every other city? For by now he has forgotten that this is nothing compared with Johannesburg and other cities in the South, or rather, he does not dare to remember it, it is too frightening.

  The houses are now of different kinds, some big, some flimsy as the house of the Greek. There are different kinds of white men says Jabavu’s brain slowly, but it is a hard idea to absorb all at once. He has thought of them, until no
w, as all equally rich, powerful, clever.

  Jabavu says to his feet: Now walk on, walk. But his feet do not obey him. He stands there while his eyes move over the streets of houses, and they are the eyes of a small child. And then there is a slurring sound, wheels of rubber slowing, and beside him is an African policeman on a bicycle. He rests one foot on the road and looks at Jabavu. He looks at the old, torn trousers and at the unhappy face. He says, kindly: ‘Have you lost your way?’ He speaks in English.

  At first Jabavu says no, because even at this moment it goes against the grain not to know everything. Then he says sullenly: ‘Yes, I do not know where to go.’

  ‘And you are looking for work?’

  ‘Yes, son of the Government, I seek work.’ He speaks in his own language; the policeman, who is from another district, does not understand, and Jabavu speaks again in English.

  ‘Then you must go to the office for passes and get a pass to seek work.’

  ‘And where is this office?’

  The policeman gets off his bicycle and, taking Jabavu’s arm, speaks to him a long time, thus: ‘Now you must go straight on for half a mile, and then where the five roads meet turn left, and then turn again and go straight on and …’ Jabavu listens and nods and says Yes and Thank you, and the policeman bicycles away and Jabavu stands helplessly, for he has not understood. And then he walks on, and he does not know whether his legs tremble from fear or from hunger. When he met the policeman, the sun came from behind on his back, and when his legs stop of their own accord, from weakness, the sun is overhead. The houses are all around him, and white women sit on the verandas with their children, and black men work in the gardens, and he sees more in the sanitary lanes talking and laughing. Sometimes he understands what they say, and sometimes not. For in this city are people from Nyasaland and from Northern Rhodesia and from the country of the Portuguese, and not one word of their speech does he know, and he fears them. But when he hears his own tongue he knows that these people point at his torn trousers and his bundle, and laugh, saying: ‘Look at the raw boy from the kraal.’

  He stands where two streets cross, looking this way and that way. He has no idea where the policeman told him to go. He walks on a little, then sees a bicycle leaning against a tree. There is a basket at the back, and in it are loaves of bread and buns, such as he has eaten the night before. He looks at them, while his mouth fills with water. Suddenly his hand reaches out and takes a bun. He looks around. No one has seen. He puts the bun in his pocket and moves away. When he has left that street behind, he takes it out and walks along eating the bun. But when it is finished his stomach seems to say: What, one small bun after being empty all morning! Better that you give me nothing!

  Jabavu walks on, looking for another basket on a bicycle. Several times he turns up a street after one that looks the same but it is not. It is a long time before he finds out what he wants. And now it is not easy as before. Then his hand went out by itself and took the bun, while now his mind is warning him: Be careful, Jabavu, careful! He is standing near the basket, looking around, when a white woman in her garden shouts at him over the hedge, and he runs until he has turned a corner and is in another street. There he leans against a tree, trembling. It is a narrow street, full of trees, quiet and shady. He can see no one. Then a nanny comes out of a house with her arms full of clothes, and she hangs them on a line, looking over the hedge at Jabavu. ‘Hi, kraal boy, what do you want?’ she shouts at him, laughing; ‘look at the stupid kraal boy.’ ‘I am not a kraal boy,’ he says, sullenly, and she says: ‘Look at your trousers – ohhhhh, what can I see there!’ and she goes inside, looking scornful. Jabavu remains leaning against a tree, looking at his trousers. It is true that they are nearly falling off him. But they are still decent.

  There is nothing to be seen. The street seems empty. Jabavu looks at the clothes hanging on the line. There are many: dresses, shirts, trousers, vests. He thinks: That girl was cheeky … he is shocked at what she said. Again he clasps his elbows, crouching, around his hips to cover his trousers. His eyes are on the clothes – then Jabavu has leaped over the hedge and is tugging at a pair of trousers. They will not come off the line, there is a little wooden stick holding them. He pulls, the stick falls off, he holds the trousers. They are hot and smooth, they have just been ironed. He pulls at a yellow shirt, the cloth tears under the wooden peg, but it comes free, and in a moment he has leaped back over the hedge and is running. At the turn of the street he glances back; the garden is quiet and empty, it appears no one has seen him. Jabavu walks soberly along the street, feeling the fine warm cloth of the shirt and trousers. His heart is beating, first like a small chicken tottering as it comes out of the shell, then, as it strengthens, like a strong wind banging against a wall. The violence of his heart exhausts Jabavu and he leans against a tree to rest. A policeman comes slowly past on a bicycle. He looks at Jabavu. Then he looks again, makes a wide circle and comes to rest beside him. Jabavu says nothing, he only stares.

  ‘Where did you get those clothes?’ asks the policeman.

  Jabavu’s brain whirls and from his mouth come words: ‘I carry them for my master.’

  The policeman looks at Jabavu’s torn shorts and his bundle. ‘Where does your master live?’ he asks cunningly. Jabavu points ahead. The policeman looks where Jabavu is pointing and then at Jabavu’s face. ‘What is the number of your master’s house?’

  Again Jabavu’s brain faints and comes to life. ‘Number three,’ he says.

  ‘And what is the name of the street?’

  And now nothing comes from Jabavu’s tongue. The policeman is getting off his bicycle in order to look at Jabavu’s papers, when suddenly there is a commotion in the street which Jabavu has come from. The theft has been discovered. There are voices scolding, high and shrill, it is the white mistress telling the nanny to fetch the missing clothes, the nanny is crying, and there is the word police repeated many times. The policeman hesitates, looks at Jabavu, looks back at the other street, and then Jabavu remembers the recruiter. He butts his head into the policeman’s stomach, the bicycle falls over on top of him, and Jabavu leaps away and into a sanitary lane, vaults over a rubtish bin, then another, darts across the garden which is empty, then over another which is not, so that people start up and stare at him, then over into another sanitary lane and comes to rest between a rubbish bin and the wall of a lavatory. There he quickly pulls off his shorts, pulls on the trousers. They are long, grey, of fine stuff such as he has never seen. He pulls on the yellow shirt, but it is difficult, since he has never worn one, and it gets caught around the arms before he discovers the right hole in which to put his head. He stuffs the shirt, which is too small for him, inside the trousers, which are a little too long, thinking sadly of the hole in the shirt, which is due entirely to his ignorance about those little wooden pegs. He quickly pushes the torn shorts under the lid of a rubbish bin and walks up the sanitary lane, careful not to run, although his feet are itching to run. He walks until that part of the city is well left behind, and then he thinks: Now I am safe, with so many people, no one will notice grey trousers and a yellow shirt. He remembers how the policeman looked at the bundle, and he puts the soap and comb into his pockets together with the papers, and stuffs the rag of the bundle under the low branches of a hedge. And now he is thinking: I came to this city only this morning and already I have grey trousers like a white man, and a yellow shirt, and I have eaten a bun. I have not spent the shilling my mother gave me. Truly it is possible to live well in the white man’s town! And he lovingly handles the hard shape of the shilling. At this moment, for no reason that he understands, comes into his head a memory of the three he met last night, and suddenly Jabavu is muttering: Skellums! Bad people! Damn, hell, bloody. For these are words he knows of the white people’s swearing, and he thinks them very wicked. He says them again and again, till he feels like a big man, and not like the little boy at whom his mother used to look, saying sorrowfully: ‘Ah, Jabavu, my Big Mouth, what white ma
n’s devil has got into you!’

  Jabavu swaggers himself into such a condition of pride that when a policeman stops him and asks for his pass, Jabavu cannot at once stop swaggering, but says haughtily: ‘I am Jabavu.’

  ‘So you are Jabavu,’ said the policeman, at once getting in front of him. ‘So, my fine, clever boy. And who is Jabavu and where is his pass?’

  The madness of pride sinks in Jabavu, and he says humbly: ‘I have no pass yet. I have come to seek work.’

  But the policeman looks more suspicious than ever. Jabavu wears very fine clothes, although there is one small rent in the shirt, and he speaks good English. How then can he have just arrived from the kraals? So he looks at Jabavu’s situpa, which is the paper that every African native must carry all the time, and he reads: Native Jabavu. District so and so. Kraal so and so. Registration Certificate No. XO8910312. He copies this down in a little book, and gives the situpa to Jabavu saying: ‘Now I shall tell you the way to the Pass Office, and if by this time tomorrow you have no pass to seek work, then there will be big trouble for you.’ He goes away.