Landlocked (18 page)

The old man lifted his thin hand. Martha stopped. ‘There was no need for the troops, no need at all, it was a provocation,’ he said.

She waited, but he gulped in air and sat, eyes closed. Then he lowered his hand. She went on:

‘Outside the Rand Club, which symbolized the luxury and callousness of the capitalists, small crowds gathered. A number of the more stupid club members stood on the balcony and jeered at the people, snapping their fingers at them. The situation became ugly. A few stones were thrown, and an attack was made on the club entrance. The street was cleared by Dragoons. The crowd raided a bread-cart and pelted the troopers with loaves…’

The deep, hoarse breathing changed—Johnny’s mouth stretched—Mrs Van began laughing in sympathy, and the roomful of people laughed with her. One or two people sat with demonstratively serious faces, however.

‘It was the funniest thing…’ said Johnny. Mrs Van, laughing, leaned over to wipe the water that soaked down papery cheeks, and Martha waited, smiling. Then Johnny’s face fell back into the strained lines of his fight for breath, and they were all able to stop laughing.

‘After patrolling the streets for some time, the Dragoons were ordered to dismount. They formed a square on the corner of Loveday and Commissioner Street and began to pour volleys into the crowd. Scores fell, killed or wounded. From the windows and roof of the Rand Club, a number of unscrupulous members joined in the firing and accounted for a number of casualties.’

A young man sitting on the floor raised his hand like a child in class. He was one of the men who had refused to laugh in sympathy with Johnny.

‘What year was this, Mr Lindsay?’ Martha looked at Johnny who shook his head and pointed at Martha.

‘1913,’ said Martha for him.

‘July,’ said Johnny, in a difficult whisper. ‘If there had not been a war next year, we’d have beaten them, we’d have had socialism in South Africa.’

No one commented. They all looked at the questioner, but it seemed he had nothing more to say. Martha went on:

‘The fury and dismay of the crowd knew no bounds. Only a few carried hip-pocket pistols, as was common on the Rand at the time, and they tried to fire back ineffectually. But the great majority were peacefully inclined and unarmed, and many had nothing to do with the industrial struggle. A dramatic…’

Again the young man raised his hand. ‘Excuse me, please. But I am not clear. This was a white crowd you say?’

For a moment no one answered. It was becoming clear that this youth was trying to make difficulties.

Johnny heaved in breath: ‘Chamber of Mines against the white workers. Chamber of Mines instructed by Smuts and Botha.’

Martha waited, looked at Johnny, looked at the young man, who, having made his point, sat in frowning silence.

‘A dramatic and tragic interlude which recoiled heavily on the heads of the Government was the death of the young Afrikaner miner Labuschagne. Stepping from the pavement into the middle of the street, Labuschagne shouted: “Stop shooting women and children, you bastards. Shoot a man!” At the same time he tore open his shirt to bare his chest. From point blank range, a trooper deliberately shot him through the heart.’

All over the room the men shook their heads and clicked their tongues. There were murmurs of ‘Shame’.

Johnny suddenly sat straight up, and leaned forward, sucking in air, supporting himself on two trembling arms. Mrs Van leaned over him.

No one moved, though. After a few minutes, Johnny lay back again, very white.

‘I think,’ said Mr Matushi, who sat at the foot of the bed, ‘that we should let our friend rest.’

But Johnny agitatedly lifted his hand. ‘Go on’, came his hoarse whisper.

Mr Matushi remarked: ‘It is important for us all that we should know these things, even though it was a battle between white men.’

The way he said this, delivered to some neutral point in the crowd—not to the young man who had raised his hand—which made it even worse, caused Mrs Van, Martha, and Athen, to look at each other.

Now the young man did again raise his hand. He said: ‘And where were the black miners during this struggle? I understand that every year at that time 8,000 Africans were killed in accidents?’

Tongues clicked again, but it was being understood that this was some kind of deliberately provoked showdown.

Mr Matushi said: ‘Gentlemen, we agreed we should hear a history of South Africa in recent times. But we all know that the big fights on the Rand were white miners against their Government.’

‘And when do we enter the picture, Mrs Van?’ asked a young man who had not spoken yet.

‘Well, here you are,’ said Mrs Van with a firm nod. ‘And what are you going to do about it?’

Some people laughed. But most were silent. There was a strong tension in the room. Meanwhile, Johnny lay back on his pillows, quite still.

The second young man said to Mrs Van: ‘Is it true that you expect us, the Africans, should behave like the bad things we have just heard? I must say this, Mrs Van der Bylt, I do not have it in my heart that one of us should kill a man like this Labuschagne.’

Mrs Van observed him carefully, to find out if he meant to be provocative. But his face expressed only earnest sorrow. She asked: ‘What is your name?’

‘And what has my name got to do with it?’

‘You know mine,’ she observed.

Now that there was a situation, an unmistakable atmosphere, Mrs Van put down her knitting, folded her hands in her lap, and sat looking alertly around, missing nothing. Thus, she was formidable.

Mr Matushi sat very upright, his hands on his knees. He suddenly said: ‘Gentlemen, I am ashamed, I am truly ashamed.’

Athen said: ‘I think we should stop the meeting. Our friend is too ill for such things.’

Johnny seemed asleep: he certainly was not with them.

People got up from all over the room, unfolding their legs from under them, stretching, coughing, shivering. Mr Matushi went to Mrs Van, held her hand in both of his and said: ‘I must say this to you—we are truly grateful for this series of instructive lectures.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said various voices. But not many.

‘I take it,’ said Mrs Van pleasantly, ‘that some of you consider these talks not useful?’

‘No.’ And ‘That is not true,’ from voices on the veranda.

Another voice from the veranda said loudly: ‘People who call themselves our friends. But they can only talk of the white people.’

‘Shame!’ said Mr Matushi firmly, to the veranda.

Athen said: ‘Comrades, when the guns of the capitalists point at strikers, it is the same whether the strikers have black skins or white skins.’

For a moment, silence. Then the voice said from the veranda: ‘Oh, quite the same! And also when the white men earn many times as much money as the black men.’ A loud laugh, in which a great many people joined. Then the sounds of feet departing across hardened dust.

A few men came to shake Mrs Van’s hand, and Mr Matushi said: ‘I can promise you that some of us at least find these talks useful and I for one will be here next week.’

He leaned over Johnny to say goodbye. Johnny’s eyes were now open. Mr Matushi laid his hand on the sick man’s shoulder, pulled a fold of blanket up to mark his desire to help, then went, nodding and smiling.

‘It would seem,’ observed Mrs Van, ‘that our study group is in difficulties.’ Then she bent over Johnny. Athen touched Martha’s arm, and they said good night, quietly, and went out into the street. It was about seven in the evening. All the buildings were lit, every window, every doorway filled with faces. Men stood in groups on the dusky verandas. A strong smell of sour water mingled with gusts of fresh grass from a corner lot.

‘We’re late,’ said Martha. They were off to a party, which had been arranged because Athen had suggested that Maisie should be invited one evening. ‘Something gay, Martha, not boring. To show her a decent life is not boring.’

Asked what he had in mind, he suggested dancing.

‘But Athen, I am sure Maisie is asked to dance a dozen times a week.’

‘But not with people like you, Martha. Ask her. I want you to do this.’

Martha saw that Athen wanted this, not for Maisie’s sake, but for his own.

Eventually it was decided that a party of Athen and Maisie, Anton and Millicent, Martha and Thomas, should go dancing, in order, ostensibly, to give Maisie a lesson in wholesome enjoyment. They were all going to a hotel several miles out of town. Athen already had on his beautiful suit. But Martha wasn’t dressed yet.

‘Well,’ said Martha, ‘if we all stayed here much longer we’d find ourselves arranging meetings so that they didn’t upset our sundowner parties.’

Athen walked beside her, silent.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Did you say that because of something in my character?’

Martha understood that he was still tormented about his suit. They had joked that Athen was a dandy, saying that they imagined him as an austere monk, solitary, but emerging from his cell to tend the vices of other people as gently as if they were wounds. Then he would return to a small, white room where he would turn the pages of an old book and very slowly sip the monastery liqueur. This joke had reached Athen, and he had suffered over it. He recognized
his character in it, he said. Yes, he accepted it as real comradely criticism.

‘Look, Athen,’ she said, hurried and even off-hand because of her affection for him, and because she was conscious of futility, brother to incongruity, the pleasures of which she could not prevent herself from looking forward to—the six that evening!—what a collection of people, how ridiculous, how absurd! And how enjoyable. ‘Look, Athen, you’re taking it all much too seriously. Every time you start, I think you can’t really mean it.’ The face he raised to her, sombre with feeling, made her words ridiculous, but she said, with an uncomfortable laugh: ‘Can’t you see how absurd it is to be so unhappy because you’ve spent a few pounds on a suit?’

He said nothing so they continued up the pavement side by side. So now of course he was thinking about it—and probably would for days. She was filled with irritation, also with remorse—he was going any day now, and that would be that. Athen and Martha—they had known each other three years; they were friends; she trusted him; she could not think of him without warmth. That was love, wasn’t it?

Last night she had dreamed badly. She was on a high, dry, rocky place and around it washed long, shoreless seas. Across this sea, which she could not reach, no matter how much she leaned and stretched out her hands, sailed people she had known. All these people she knew. Among them was Athen. And, as she noted when she woke up, Thomas.

Martha and Athen had arrived at Maisie’s bar, which had groups of young men lounging outside it, waiting for something to interest them. They held glasses in their hands, and some of them were tight.

‘Pick Maisie up and come to our place, right?’ said Martha.

But he said: ‘No, wait, Martha, I must say something.’

‘Oh, no, no, Athen,’ she protested, ‘no!’

He looked at her seriously.

‘Athen, you’ve demanded a light-hearted evening. For the Lord’s sake then, let’s have one.’

He remained serious. She began to laugh—but with
discomfort. The lounging youths were all absorbed in this scene and making comments on it.

‘Martha, why are you laughing?’

‘Because I simply will
not
be serious, just for once.’

‘When you said that, Martha, I was thinking: well, she’s right, what does it matter if for a few months in his life a poor man from Greece lives like a rich man? Of course it does not. But Martha…’ He took her hand, and one of the young men let out a shrill whistle. ‘I tell you, for the last few months everything has been wrong with me. When the war ended, I told myself, now comrade, you must have a wide view. Your country is still at war. But it is a small country and not important. But if they would only send me home, that’s what’s wrong with me.’

‘Well, I’m glad they are keeping you here.’

‘Then you’re not a real friend, Martha, because with every day I get further from myself.’

‘Better than being killed,’ said Martha, obstinate.

‘No, Martha, it is not.’

Apparently the little man’s intensity had the power to subdue anyone: the group of young men watched, probably even listened, in silence. He had dropped her hand, now he took it again and came a step nearer. ‘Tell me, Martha, have you thought at all—have you thought about this war?’

‘Obviously not, when you ask like that!’

‘No, I can see you do not think. That is the most terrible thing of all—people are not thinking any longer. The newspapers, books—everything. And now you say the same.’

She said nothing. He held her hand and looked close into her face. ‘The last five years, Martha, I tell you I can’t grasp it. I lie awake at night and I repeat just small things. I say: “There are two million people in Europe now without homes.” People like you and me, Martha. I keep trying to imagine it.’

One of the young men said, or rather suggested, in an amiable, interested way: ‘That’s right, give it stick, Romeo!’

‘We are corrupted people, Martha.’

A window above the bar shot up, light spilled over the pavement, over Athen and Martha, who were lit as if on a stage.

Martha moved out of the light, pulling Athen by the hand, and the group of youths said: ‘Ai, ai, ai!’ and made raspberries. Athen, of course, was quite oblivious of the bar and the men outside it.

‘It’s not possible for us to understand,’ he said. ‘I tell you, if one dead person lay here on the pavement, well, we could not take that in, not what it meant. But suddenly human beings have to understand—in the last five years millions and millions of people have been killed. I read yesterday, it’s forty-four millions. The human race killed forty millions of its own people—you hear me, Martha? I leave four millions and what difference does it make?’

Maisie’s head appeared in the lighted window. ‘Hey, Matty, is that you? Athen—both of you come up, I’m not dressed.’

One of the young men said: ‘Some people have it laid on.’

Athen said: ‘You must think about it, you must think. We do not think enough about what these things mean.’