Silence from Jabavu. Then Mr Tennent thinks: Why should I comfort this boy as if he were innocent? The police tell me they know him to have been involved with all kinds of wickedness, even if they cannot prove it. He changes his voice and says, sternly: ‘I am not saying the fact that you were known to be a member of a gang will not influence your sentence. You will have to pay the penalty for breaking the law. It is thought you may get a year in prison …’
He stops, for he can see that if he said ten years it would be the same to Jabavu. He remains silent for some time, thinking, for he has a choice to make which is not easy. That morning Mr Mizi came to his house and asked him if he intended to visit the prison. When he said Yes, Mr Mizi asked him if he would take a letter to Jabavu. Now, it is against the rules to take letters to prisoners. Mr Tennent has never broken the law. Also, he dislikes Mr Mizi because he dislikes all politics and politicians. He thinks Mr Mizi is nothing but a loud-voiced, phrase-making demagogue out for power and self-glory. Yet he cannot disapprove of Mr Mizi entirely, who asks nothing for his people but what he, Mr Tennent, sincerely believes to be just. At first he refused to take the letter, then he stiffly said Yes, he would try … The letter is in his pocket now.
At last he takes the letter from his pocket and says: ‘I have a letter for you.’ Jabavu still does not move.
‘You have friends waiting to help you,’ he says, loudly, trying to make his words pierce Jabavu’s apathy. Jabavu lifts his eyes. After a long pause he says: ‘What friends?’
It gives Mr Tennent a shock to hear his voice, after such a silence. ‘It is from Mr Mizi,’ he says stiffly.
Jabavu snatches it, scrambles up and stands under the light that falls from the small, high window. He tears off the envelope, and it falls to the floor. Mr Tennent picks it up and says: ‘I’m not really supposed to give you letters,’ and understands that his voice sounds angry. And this is unjust, for it is his own responsibility that he agreed. He does not like injustice, and he controls his voice and says: ‘Read it quickly and then give it back to me. That is what Mr Mizi asked.’
Jabavu is staring at the letter. It begins: ‘My son …’ And at this the tears begin to roll down his cheeks. And Mr Tennent is embarrassed and put out, and he thinks: ‘Now we are going to have one of these unpleasant displays, I suppose.’ Then he chides himself again for lacking Christian charity, and turns his back so as not to be offended by Jabavu’s tears. Also it is necessary to watch the door in case the warder should come in too soon.
Jabavu reads:
I wish to tell you that I believe you told the truth when you said you came unwillingly to my house, and that you wished to warn us. What I do not understand is what you expected us to do then. For certain members of the gang have come to me saying that you told them you expected me to find you employment and look after you. They came to me thinking I would then defend them to the police. This I shall not do. I have no time for criminals. If I do not understand this case, neither does anyone else. For a whole week the police have been interviewing these people and their accomplices, and very little can be proved, except that the brain was the man Jerry, and that he used some kind of pressure on you. They appear to be afraid of him, and also of you, for it seems to me there are things you might tell the police if you wished.
And now you must try to understand what I am going to say, I am writing only because Mrs Mizi persuaded me to write. I tell you honestly I have no sympathy with you …
And here Jabavu lets the paper fall, and the coldness begins to creep around his heart. But Mr Tennent, tense and nervous at the door, says: ‘Quickly, Jabavu. Read it quickly.’
And so Jabavu continues to read, and slowly the coldness dissolves, leaving behind it a feeling he does not understand, but it is not a bad feeling.
Mrs Mizi tells me I think too much from the head and too little from the heart. She says you are nothing but a child. This may be so, but you do not behave like a child, and so I shall speak to you as a man and expect you to act like one. Mrs Mizi wishes me to go to the Court and say we know you, and that you were led astray by evil companions, and that you are good at heart. Mrs Mizi uses words like good and evil with ease, and perhaps it is because of his mission education, but as for me, I distrust them, and I shall leave them to the Reverend Mr Tennent, who I hope will bring you this letter.
I know only this, that you are very intelligent and gifted and that you could make good use of your gifts if you wanted. I know also that until now you have acted as if the world owes you a good time for nothing. But we are living in a very difficult time, when there is much suffering, and I can see no reason why you should be different from everyone else. Now, I shall have to come to Court as a witness, because it was my house that was broken into. But I shall not say I knew you before, save casually, as I know hundreds of people – and this is true, Jabavu …
Once again the paper drops, and a feeling of resentment surges through Jabavu. For harder than any other will be this lesson for Jabavu, that he is one of many others and not something special and apart from them.
He hears Mr Tennent’s urgent voice: ‘Go on, Jabavu, you can think about it afterwards.’ And he continues:
Our opponents take every opportunity to blacken us and our movement, and they would be delighted if I said I was a friend of a man whom everyone knows is a criminal even if they cannot prove it. So far, and with great effort, I have kept a very good character with the police as an ordinary citizen. They know I do not thieve or lie or cheat. I am what they call respectable. I do not propose to change this for your sake. Also in my capacity as leader of our people, I have a bad character, so if I spoke for you, it would have a double meaning for the police. Already they have been asking questions which make it clear that they think you are one of us, have been working with us, and I have denied it absolutely. Also, it is true that you have not.
And now, my son, like my wife, Mrs Mizi, you will think I am a hard man, but you must remember I speak for hundreds of people, who trust me, and I cannot harm them for the sake of one very foolish boy. When you are in Court I will speak sternly, and I will not look at you. Also, I shall leave Mrs Mizi at home, for I fear her goodness of heart. You will be in prison for perhaps a year, and your sentence will be shortened if you behave well. It will be a hard time for you. You will be with other criminals who may tempt you to return to the life, you will do very hard work, and you will have bad food. But if there are opportunities for study, take them. Do not attract attention to yourself in any way. Do not speak of me. When you come out of prison come to see me, but secretly, and I will help you, not because of what you are, but because your respect for me was respect for what I stand for, which is bigger than either of us. While you are in prison, think of the hundreds and thousands of our people who are in prison in Africa, voluntarily, for the sake of freedom and justice, in that way you will not be alone, for in a difficult and round-about way I believe you to be one of them.
I greet you on behalf of myself and Mrs Mizi and our son, and Mr Samu and Mrs Samu, and others who are waiting to trust you. But this time, Jabavu, you must trust us. We greet you …
Jabavu lets the paper drop and stands staring. The word that has meant most to him of all the many words written hastily on that paper is We. We, says Jabavu. We, Us. Peace flows into him.
For in the tribe and the kraal, the life of his fathers was built on the word we. Yet it was never for him. And between then and now has been a harsh and ugly time when there was only the word I, I, I – as cruel and sharp as a knife. The word we has been offered to him again, accepting all his goodness and his badness, demanding everything he can offer. We, thinks Jabavu, We … And for the first time that hunger in him, which has raged like a beast all his life, wells up, unrefused, and streams gently into the word We.
There are steps outside clattering on the stone.
Mr Tennent says: ‘Give me the letter.’ Jabavu hands it to him and it slides quickly into Mr Tennent’s pocket. ‘I will g
ive it back to Mr Mizi and say you have read it.’
‘Tell him I have read it with all my understanding, and that I thank him and will do what he says and he may trust me. Tell him I am no longer a child, but a man, and that his judgement is just, and it is right I should be punished.’
Mr Tennent looks in surprise at Jabavu and thinks, bitterly, that he, the man of God, is a failure; that an intemperate and godless agitator may talk of justice and of good and evil, and reach Jabavu where he is afraid to use these terms. But he says, with scrupulous kindness: ‘I shall visit you in prison, Jabavu. But do not tell the warder or the police I brought you that letter.’
Jabavu thanks him and says: ‘You are kind, sir.’
Mr Tennent smiles his dry, doubting smile, and goes out, and the warder locks the door.
Jabavu seats himself on the floor, his legs stretched out. He no longer sees the grey walls of the cell, he does not even think of the Court or of the prison afterwards.
We, says Jabavu over and over again, We. And it is as if in his empty hands are the warm hands of brothers.
Bibliographical Note
This second volume of Doris Lessing’s Collected African Stories was published in hardcover by Michael Joseph in 1973. Of these, ‘The Black Madonna’, The Trinket Box’, ‘The Pig’, ‘Traitors’, and ‘Hunger’ appeared in African Stories (Michael Joseph, 1964), ‘Hunger’ originally appearing in Five (Michael Joseph, 1953). ‘The Story of Two Dogs’, ‘The Sun Between Their Feet’, ‘A Letter From Home’ and ‘The New Man’ appeared in the 1963 MacGibbon & Kee collection, A Man and Two Women; ‘The Story of a Non-Marrying Man’ in the collection of that name (Cape 1972) together with ‘Spies I Have Known’; and the rest of the stories in The Habit of Loving (MacGibbon & Kee, 1957).
These stories have also appeared previously in paperback in the following editions. ‘The Black Madonna’, ‘The Trinket Box’, ‘The Pig’ and Traitors’ have appeared in The Black Madonna; the short novel ‘Hunger’ is also in Five; the stories ‘A Letter From Home’, ‘The Sun Between Their Feet’, ‘The Story of Two Dogs’ and ‘The New Man’ have been published as part of the collection A Man and Two Women. All the remaining stories except ‘Spies I Have Known’ and ‘A Story of a Non-Marrying Man’ are included in The Habit of Loving.
About the Author
DORIS LESSING, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007, is one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of recent decades. A Companion of Honour and a Companion of Literature, she has been awarded the David Cohen Memorial Prize for British Literature, Spain’s Prince of Asturias Prize, the International Catalunya Award and the S.T. Dupont Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime’s Distinguished Service to Literature, as well as a host of other international awards. She lives in north London.
By the same author
NOVELS
The Grass is Singing
The Golden Notebook
Briefing for a Descent into Hell
The Summer Before the Dark
Memoirs of a Survivor
Diary of a Good Neighbour
If the Old Could …
The Good Terrorist
The Fifth Child
Playing the Game
(illustrated by Charlie Adlard)
Love, Again
Mara and Dann
The Fifth Child
Ben, in the World
The Sweetest Dream
The Story of General Dann and Mara’s
Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog
The Cleft
‘Canopus in Argos: Archives’ series
Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta
The Marriages Between Zones
Three, Four, and Five
The Sirian Experiments
The Making of the Representative for
Planet 8
Documents Relating to the Sentimental
Agents in the Volyen Empire
‘Children a/Violence’ novel-sequence
Martha Quest
A Proper Marriage
A Ripple from the Storm
Landlocked
The Four-Gated City
OPERAS
The Marriages Between Zones Three,
Four and Five (Music by Philip Glass)
The Making of the representative for
Planet 8 (Music by Philip Glass)
SHORT STORIES
Five
The Habit of Loving
A Man and Two Women
The Story of a Non-Marrying Man
and Other Stories
Winter in July
The Black Madonna
This Was the Old Chiefs Country
(Collected African Stories, Vol. I)
The Sun Between Their Feet
(Collected African Stories, Vol. 2)
To Room Nineteen
(Collected Stories, Vol. I)
The Temptation of Jack Orkney
(Collected Storie s, Vol. 2)
London Observed
The Old Age of El Magnifico
Particularly Cats
Rufus the Survivor
On Cats
The Grandmothers
POETRY
Fourteen Poems
DRAMA
Each His Own Wilderness
Play with a Tiger
The Singing Door
NON-FICTION
In Pursuit of the English
Going Home
A Small Personal Voice
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
The Wind Blows Away Our Words
African Laughter
Time Bites
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Under My Skin : Volume I
Walking in the Shade : Volume 2
Read on
Have You Read?
A selection of other books by Doris Lessing
The Grass is Singing
The Golden Notebook
The Good Terrorist
Love, Again
The Fifth Child
The Grass is Singing:
Chapter 1
MURDER MYSTERY
By Special Correspondent
Mary Turner, wife of Richard Turner, a farmer at Ngesi, was found murdered on the front verandah of their homestead yesterday morning. The houseboy, who has been arrested, has confessed to the crime. No motive has been discovered.
It is thought he was in search of valuables.
The newspaper did not say much. People all over the country must have glanced at the paragraph with its sensational heading and felt a little spurt of anger mingled with what was almost satisfaction, as if some belief had been confirmed, as if something had happened which could only have been expected. When natives steal, murder or rape, that is the feeling white people have.
And then they turned the page to something else.
But the people in ‘the district’ who knew the Turners, either by sight, or from gossiping about them for so many years, did not turn the page so quickly. Many must have snipped out the paragraph, put it among old letters, or between the pages of a book, keeping it perhaps as an omen or a warning, glancing at the yellowing piece of paper with closed, secretive faces. For they did not discuss the murder; that was the most extraordinary thing about it. It was as if they had a sixth sense which told them everything there was to be known, although the three people in a position to explain the facts said nothing. The murder was simply not discussed. ‘A bad business,’ someone would remark; and the faces of the people round about would put on that reserved and guarded look. ‘A very bad business,’ came the reply – and that was the end of it. There was, it seemed, a tacit agreement that the Turner case should not be given undue publicity by gossip. Yet it was a farming district, where those isolated white families met only very occasionally, hungry for contact with their own kind, to talk and discuss and pull to pieces, all speaking at once, making the most of an hour or so’s companionship before returning to their farms where they saw only their own faces and the faces of their blac
k servants for weeks on end. Normally that murder would have been discussed for months; people would have been positively grateful for something to talk about.
To an outsider it would seem perhaps as if the energetic Charlie Slatter had travelled from farm to farm over the district telling people to keep quiet; but that was something that would have never have occurred to him. The steps he took (and he made not one mistake) were taken apparently instinctively and without conscious planning. The most interesting thing about the whole affair was this silent, unconscious agreement. Everyone behaved like a flock of birds who communicate – or so it seems – by means of a kind of telepathy.
Long before the murder marked them out, people spoke of the Turners in the hard, careless voices reserved for misfits, outlaws and the self-exiled. The Turners were disliked, though few of their neighbours had ever met them, or even seen them in the distance. Yet what was there to dislike? They simply ‘kept themselves to themselves’; that was all. They were never seen at district dances, or fêtes, or gymkhanas. They must have had something to be ashamed of; that was the feeling. It was not right to seclude themselves like that; it was a slap in the face of everyone else; what had they got to be so stuck-up about? What, indeed! Living the way they did! That little box of a house – it was forgivable as a temporary dwelling, but not to live in permanently. Why, some natives (though not many, thank heavens) had houses as good; and it would give them a bad impression to see white people living in such a way.
And then it was that someone used the phrase ‘poor whites’. It caused disquiet. There was no great money-cleavage in those days (that was before the era of the tobacco barons), but there was certainly a race division. The small community of Afrikaners had their own lives, and the Britishers ignored them. ‘Poor whites’ were Afrikaners, never British. But the person who said the Turners were poor whites stuck to it defiantly. What was the difference? What was a poor white? It was the way one lived, a question of standards. All the Turners needed were a drove of children to make them poor whites.
The Sun Between Their Feet Page 39