Authors: Nadine Gordimer
My Son's Story (22 page)
And with a sense of stretching his fingertips at something that was disappearing from his grasp, he suddenly spoke as he handed her a cup of tea he'd brought to sustain her at her task.
âWhat made you do it?â
Late at night; she looked around the room to make sure they were alone, to see if the boy, Will, was there to give her support or credenceâhe was often a presence, wearing his headphones so that the music he listened to didn't disturb her.
She took her time. It even could be Aila didn't feel obliged to answer; that, at last, the reproach she had never made would take this form. Sonny had a passing foreboding; but she spoke.
âI understood.â
He gazed at her; she seemed almost to transform into her old laconic gentleness.
âWhat did you understand that you didn't understand before, here? How could Babyâblatantly!âuse her mother like that? I can't believe it â¦I can't forgive her.âWith alarm he heard his voice hoarseâif the sphincter of tears failed, Aila would know they were not for her but because he was rejecting Baby.
His
daughter.
His
daughter.
âNothing to forgive. She did nothing.â
âThat's not true. All rightâso it was the people you met through her. She exposed you. Through her.â
(I'll cast out my daughter for you,
was passing between them in the pause.
See, I'll do that for you.)
âOf course, it's exciting, important, free, there, after the way we are here. Oh I'm sure. The compromises,
the pettiness â¦they're gone, it's war, not getting by with your white neighbours to prove a point. But if you wanted more, there's plenty to do here, we could have â¦at least â¦we could have discussed it.â
(I'll cast out my daughter for you,
was passing between them in the pause.
See, I'll do that for you.)
âOf course, it's exciting, important, free, there, after the way we are here. Oh I'm sure. The compromises,
the pettiness â¦they're gone, it's war, not getting by with your white neighbours to prove a point. But if you wanted more, there's plenty to do here, we could have â¦at least â¦we could have discussed it.â
âI don't know whether I wanted to.â
He waited.âAila. Be active, or discuss it? Apparently you could discuss it with Baby. If you say she wasn't the one to use you.â
âYou were so proud of her. Don't speak badly about her now. Don't spoil something for yourself.â
He experienced a contraction of his stomach muscles in an emotion new to him, inevitable, the nausea of remorse, that always must be experienced entirely alone; he had spoiled so much. Aila drank her tea and he saw her focus, under stiff dark lashes, shift along a line or two of her written testimony, but she turned away from it as if for the moment the words held the wrong meaning. She looked at him and then suddenly began to speak like someone telling a story.âBaby and he take the child with them everywhere, you know. And he's still so little. Meetings, partiesâhe's up at parties until one in the morning. The first time, I was really shocked, I told them it was wrong, poor little thing. I mean, you and I â¦when we went out while the children were small, someone came to sit in with them, they were at home in their own beds by eight o'clock to get a good night's rest. But one time when I arrivedâI don't remember whether that was the fourth visit or the thirdâthey told me that they took the little one with them to a party one night and when they came home they found the house had been bombed. You remember that second South African raid over the border, Baby sent a message after the bombing of a safe house, reassuring us it wasn't where they were living? Well, she did that because she didn't want youâusâto worry; and when she told
me, she made me promise not to tell you. But it
was
the house where they'd been living. If they'd left the child at home with a sitter that nightâwith someone like me â¦â
me, she made me promise not to tell you. But it
was
the house where they'd been living. If they'd left the child at home with a sitter that nightâwith someone like me â¦â
Isolation is a sensation like cold. It took him up from his hands and feet through to the core of his being. If he had nothing left but to turn against Baby, who had escaped death a second time without his knowing, what place was he in, within himself?
âThat was it?â
âI think so.â
âDifficult to follow you, Aila. You leave so much out.â
âI know.â
âYou âunderstood'.â
âYes.â
âCan't you explain? Revenge? If you've been getting a political education you should know that's not an acceptable motivation in our struggle. Some mystical experience you've gone through, or what? Understood what?â
âThe necessity for what I've done.âShe placed the outer edge of each hand, fingers extended and close together, as a frame on either side of the sheets of testimony in front of her. And she placed herself before him, to be judged by him.
If he had been the one with the right to judge her. As her husband? As a comrade? The construction he had skilfully made of his life was uninhabitable, his categories were useless, nothing fitted his need.
Needing Hannah.
His attraction to Hannah belonged to the distorted place and time in which theyâall of themâhe, Aila, Hannah, lived. With Hannah there was the sexuality of commitment; for commitment implies danger, and the blind primal instinct is to ensure the species survives in circumstances of danger, even when the individual animal dies or the plant has had its season. In this freak displacement, the
biological drive of his life, which belonged with his wife and the children he'd begotten, was diverted to his lover. He and Hannah begot no child; the revolutionary movement was to be their survivor. The excitement of their mating was for that.
Needing Hannah.
His attraction to Hannah belonged to the distorted place and time in which theyâall of themâhe, Aila, Hannah, lived. With Hannah there was the sexuality of commitment; for commitment implies danger, and the blind primal instinct is to ensure the species survives in circumstances of danger, even when the individual animal dies or the plant has had its season. In this freak displacement, the
biological drive of his life, which belonged with his wife and the children he'd begotten, was diverted to his lover. He and Hannah begot no child; the revolutionary movement was to be their survivor. The excitement of their mating was for that.
But Aila was the revolutionary, now.
Â
Â
When they drove together to the police station to report every day, the weird routine performed together seemed to him a possibility of the return to the domestic intimacy they had had, once. A strange return it would have been, but surely something from which they both began must be there, beneath whatever unimaginably changed circumstances between them. He was at home, now, as he used to be, once. The other circumstances made this possible: the cottage was abandoned; he had somehow been eased out of high position in the movement.
He made love to Aila. But then he had never stopped making love to Aila, dutifully calculating the intervals that would not arouse suspicions that he was giving himself to some other woman. The difference was that now he was coming home to her, Aila, his wife, his Aila. She gave no sign of noticing the return of passion; she co-operated wellâthat was the only way in which he could describe it to himself. And he knewânow with his greater experience of what women can feel, in loveâthat she faked her pleasure. She was thinking of something else; or she couldn't stop thinking, that was it, and if a man can't drive out everything but consciousness of ecstasy in a woman when he is inside her, he is no man. Sometimes, defying this, urging himself, he was no man, sank from her like dead flesh. She was not embarrassed about him, or for him. She gave him a pat on the hand:âDoesn't matter.â
Doesn't matter. Aila said that and he lay beside her with
his heart beating up in resentment against Hannah. He had listened entranced to the things Hannah said; they seemed to speak from the centre of life, which no-one else he had known had ever mentioned. But the centre of life wasn't there, with her, the centre of life was where the banalities are enactedâthe fuss over births, marriages, family affairs with their survival rituals of food and clothing, that were with Aila. Because of Hannah, Aila was gone. Finished off, that self that was Aila. Hannah destroyed it. Aila was gone, too, Yet she lay beside him alive. Something bigger than self saves self; that had been the youthful credo he had taught his shy bride. He listened to Aila breathing, giving a little snore, now and then, and smelt the too-sweet odour of her skin creams warmed by the rise of her body temperature in sleepâthe cloying familiarity in marriage, flee from it to the clandestine love wild and free of habitâand he longed unappeasably; nothing, nothing was there to stanch the longing for everything he had fled.
his heart beating up in resentment against Hannah. He had listened entranced to the things Hannah said; they seemed to speak from the centre of life, which no-one else he had known had ever mentioned. But the centre of life wasn't there, with her, the centre of life was where the banalities are enactedâthe fuss over births, marriages, family affairs with their survival rituals of food and clothing, that were with Aila. Because of Hannah, Aila was gone. Finished off, that self that was Aila. Hannah destroyed it. Aila was gone, too, Yet she lay beside him alive. Something bigger than self saves self; that had been the youthful credo he had taught his shy bride. He listened to Aila breathing, giving a little snore, now and then, and smelt the too-sweet odour of her skin creams warmed by the rise of her body temperature in sleepâthe cloying familiarity in marriage, flee from it to the clandestine love wild and free of habitâand he longed unappeasably; nothing, nothing was there to stanch the longing for everything he had fled.
Aila the comrade. Exhibit No. 1 in court was an RPG-7 rocket-launcher, two RPG-7 rockets, three RG-42 hand-grenades, two limpet-mines, two FM-57 land-mines, and a length of flowered curtaining material. It had been bought in the Oriental Plaza by that other Aila, who sewed curtains for her son's bedroom. Aila sat between police officers with her head up, composed, a smile and lift of eyebrows for Sonny and Will in the front row of the public gallery. Sonny had no rational control of his feelings at this period come upon his life. Daylightâthe daylight of courtrooms and police footfalls, the huddle of lawyers and the shuffle to rise in court as the judge entered the canopied benchâdazzled his solitary, night mood. But this at least was his place, the unchanging ground of struggle across the veld. With a lance of pain, pride in this woman, Aila, broke through. He scarcely noticed the sudden agitation in the boy.
Will was whispering something in his father's ear; Sonny jerked away his head irritatedly, concentrating on the process in the well of the court. His son was trying to tell him that the RPG-7 launcher and rockets were not in the cache he saw unwrapped from the curtain off-cuts in the storeroom.
Will was whispering something in his father's ear; Sonny jerked away his head irritatedly, concentrating on the process in the well of the court. His son was trying to tell him that the RPG-7 launcher and rockets were not in the cache he saw unwrapped from the curtain off-cuts in the storeroom.
There's no air in my life. The polished corridors of police stations and prisons have been the joy-rides I've been taken on with the people I love. Once when I was a schoolboy one of my father's white friends invited me to spend a Saturday with his sons at his farm.
Enkelbos,
it was called; I still remember the sign at the gate one of the sons jumped down to unhitch. They went there every weekend. They had a rubber dinghy on the dam. They had scrambler bikes and we took turns roaring round sending dust up to cloud the pollen scent of the black-trunked wattle trees that were in thick yellow bloom; it was the end of July and winter was melting on your cheeks.
Enkelbos,
it was called; I still remember the sign at the gate one of the sons jumped down to unhitch. They went there every weekend. They had a rubber dinghy on the dam. They had scrambler bikes and we took turns roaring round sending dust up to cloud the pollen scent of the black-trunked wattle trees that were in thick yellow bloom; it was the end of July and winter was melting on your cheeks.
I need air. Again the polished corridors, the company of policemen watching sullenly, the bodies of strangers shifted up for along the boney benches of the public gallery, the eagerness with which we follow the expressions of the lawyers, try to penetrate the distancing that the judge, somewhere a man inside his red robes, keeps between himself and all he sees and hears. People downcast by trouble under the lofty spacesâhow many
times have I gazed up to the fans in the ceiling, stirring the trouble round and round where no pollen scatters renewal. Staleness. All my life, since we left our old home outside the mining town, I've been breathing the dead breath of these places where life and freedom are supposed to be protected by the law.
times have I gazed up to the fans in the ceiling, stirring the trouble round and round where no pollen scatters renewal. Staleness. All my life, since we left our old home outside the mining town, I've been breathing the dead breath of these places where life and freedom are supposed to be protected by the law.
Now it's Aila there in the well of the court, and my father sitting beside me as she used to. I felt dulled, I felt like letting myself slump against the stocky old black man asleep sitting at my other side with his hands folded on his stick. Let us sleep together through justice or injustice being done,
baba,
we don't know what they'll decide is just or unjust, we don't know what will come of the judge's measured hand-movements, taking note (of what?), the lawyers exchange of document files, the Clerk of the Court so contemptuous of facing us that he doesn't realize he can be seen picking his nose, the computer operators fingering their fluffy hair-dos, the policemen creaking in and out on the balls of their feet, bobbing heads in obeisance to the judge's bench like people perfunctorily crossing themselves as they leave a church.
baba,
we don't know what they'll decide is just or unjust, we don't know what will come of the judge's measured hand-movements, taking note (of what?), the lawyers exchange of document files, the Clerk of the Court so contemptuous of facing us that he doesn't realize he can be seen picking his nose, the computer operators fingering their fluffy hair-dos, the policemen creaking in and out on the balls of their feet, bobbing heads in obeisance to the judge's bench like people perfunctorily crossing themselves as they leave a church.
The old man beside me began to breathe stertorously. I'm so conditioned to these places that I automatically cow before their authority, and I nudged to wake him before a policeman would come over and reprimand him. I did it to save him fear but he was startled anyway, and his abrupt recovery jolted me alert, too. It was as if I had dropped off during a movie and found myself recognizing, at the point at which my attention returned, a scene that contradicted an earlier one brought to mind. The exhibits were being displayed to the judge by the Prosecutor: the pineapple hand-grenades and the limpet-mines, the land-mines, yesâbut here were objects I had never seen before, strange things described as an RPG-7 rocket launcher and two rockets. There was no object like these, no RPG-7 launcher or rocket wrapped in my curtain material in our storeroom.
I almost jumped up and shouted to the judge. But my conditioning to prisons and courts kept me down. I tried to whisper to him, my father, but he, too, knows how to behave in these places if you want to get by. He shut me up. I was stifled, stifling with what I knew. I trod between the line of legs on the bench to get out. It was Pretoria, now, the Supreme Court in the Palace of Justice, not the Soweto court for blacks; that was only for her first appearance. I sat in the great entrance hall among majestic pillars with polished brass feet, under lozenges of coloured light that came steeply from stained-glass windows; their churches and their halls of justice are somehow mixed up, they see some divine authority in their laws. Everyone entering had to pass through a metal-detector arch and a body-search; I was confusedly aware of a gun pointed at meâa small black boy, whose female family were slumped, waiting, near me, was running about with a toy automatic rifle. Now a white policeman guarding the door of Court D pretended to be hit. The kid's laughter flew up the vault with the trapped swallows as he scampered round this new playmate, while I sat and saw again, over and over, the lengths of curtaining unfolded, counted the dull-looking objects one by one, the hand-grenades and limpet-mines and land-mines I recognized and I'd heard the Prosecution identify. I felt swollen, immensely important. I don't know what I thought; that I had justice inside me, it would explode among them. Their lies and trickery,
verneukery,
their dirt would fall away from Aila and set her free.
I almost jumped up and shouted to the judge. But my conditioning to prisons and courts kept me down. I tried to whisper to him, my father, but he, too, knows how to behave in these places if you want to get by. He shut me up. I was stifled, stifling with what I knew. I trod between the line of legs on the bench to get out. It was Pretoria, now, the Supreme Court in the Palace of Justice, not the Soweto court for blacks; that was only for her first appearance. I sat in the great entrance hall among majestic pillars with polished brass feet, under lozenges of coloured light that came steeply from stained-glass windows; their churches and their halls of justice are somehow mixed up, they see some divine authority in their laws. Everyone entering had to pass through a metal-detector arch and a body-search; I was confusedly aware of a gun pointed at meâa small black boy, whose female family were slumped, waiting, near me, was running about with a toy automatic rifle. Now a white policeman guarding the door of Court D pretended to be hit. The kid's laughter flew up the vault with the trapped swallows as he scampered round this new playmate, while I sat and saw again, over and over, the lengths of curtaining unfolded, counted the dull-looking objects one by one, the hand-grenades and limpet-mines and land-mines I recognized and I'd heard the Prosecution identify. I felt swollen, immensely important. I don't know what I thought; that I had justice inside me, it would explode among them. Their lies and trickery,
verneukery,
their dirt would fall away from Aila and set her free.
My father didn't come and look for me. Not until the judge took his tea-break. Through the doors of Court D I heard the shout
âOpstaan.
Rise in court' and the stir of feet and clothing and voices as people moved to come out. I felt I would choke. I stood up. Are you ill, he said. He looked as if this would be the last thing he could bear.
âOpstaan.
Rise in court' and the stir of feet and clothing and voices as people moved to come out. I felt I would choke. I stood up. Are you ill, he said. He looked as if this would be the last thing he could bear.
I haven't touched him for a long time; I clutched his arms.
âThe rockets weren't there. That launcher thing. They were never there. They planted them, like they did the other things earlier. I tell you I saw, and they weren't there.â
âThe rockets weren't there. That launcher thing. They were never there. They planted them, like they did the other things earlier. I tell you I saw, and they weren't there.â
He believed me at once but of course the lawyers questioned me. Was I sure? Was I in the storeroom all the time during the search, that morning? Wasn't I in a state of agitation, excitement, anger? Yes, all those and more, believe me, my toes were curled rigid as my fingers in my fists and my shoulders were so tense my neck ached next day as if I'd strained a muscle. But I know what I saw, I could swear to it as many times as any court askedâI wished I'd written down a list of those weapons on a bit of paper and made those bastards sign it, that day, that day!
When the lawyers were satisfied with my reliability and had come to a satisfactory assessment of my ability to stand up to cross-examination without being intimidated by the prosecution, they agreed that mine was an important piece of evidence. It brought into question the whole allegation that Aila had hidden or knowingly allowed to be hidden (you know how they put things) a cache of arms in our storeroom. In her second statement she had said she understood that what was to be stored in the storeroom was âdisused office equipment'. She had not looked into what they left there amid the junk of a family household. On my evidence, if they had stored explosive weapons there, no RPG-7 rocket was among them.
My father surged with elation, he had the grin and strength of gaze he had when Baby and I were children, held high in the air by him, and that he had had when we went to see him shut away in prison.âThey not only won't be able to prove she knew what was in the storeroom, it won't be possible for them to prove they didn't plant the lot. Not beyond reasonable doubtâcan't, once it's clear they planted the rockets. All their evidence will be totally discredited! If the police have lied on
the main charge, how can the case hold up? The judge'll have to throw the whole thing outâthere's a good chance of that!â
the main charge, how can the case hold up? The judge'll have to throw the whole thing outâthere's a good chance of that!â
We were at the lawyers' for consultation. I was at its centre for this, the only time. I was nobody's conspirator, I had found my own point of reference through my own experience. The lawyers were not as certain of the outcome as my father, but I'd become the pivot of their defence, their principal witness. I heard the aside from one of them to my father:âHe'll have to be two hundred percent sure he cannot be caught out in uncertaintyânot even in tone of voiceâon any detail, doesn't matter how small and apparently irrelevant. Because Lombard's going to play on the fact that there's special sentiment involved, a young man naturally will lie, if it's a question of family â¦after all, it's his mother.â
My motherâAilaâlistened to everything with her new intentness and did not look at me. I felt strange that she wouldn't look at me. It was as if she wanted to deny this new bond of intimacy between us. I believe I began, then, to think (but I may have known all the time?)âI began to think, very deep within myself, no-one will ever get at it, that Aila knew there were those ugly and deadly things wrapped in the material she had left over when she sewed my curtains. She knew, and she didn't want me to knowâI, who've known so much about her that others don't, heâmy fatherâdoesn't. When the men had all talked a great deal, the lawyers trying out my answers on one another, and my father, Aila and I had got up to leave, the Senior Counsel told Aila she and I had better come back for briefing with him next day. Aila emanated a stilling atmosphere; the parting jabber stopped. It was as if everyone found he had unnoticingly entered a strange house, and it was hers; she stood there.âI don't want Will to give evidence.â
Preposterous. So shocked, one of the lawyers laughed; they couldn't take her seriously: the lawyers, my father. Naturally
the poor woman was confused, they would explain to her, she would come round, they would convince her. No harm would come to the boy. No harm. A woman, after all, she was thinking of her sonâ
the poor woman was confused, they would explain to her, she would come round, they would convince her. No harm would come to the boy. No harm. A woman, after all, she was thinking of her sonâ
Mama's boy! There was a thrust of rage in me; against myself, against her. Now they were raising their voices, talking over each other, about me. Any moment someone would remember and turn to ask
And what are you going to be when you grow up?
And what are you going to be when you grow up?
I drove. She sat beside me and he behind her. I drove fast, with the slamming movements of my mood, and neither cautioned me. For once I felt in charge of them. He was leaning forward, not to be excluded from whatever she and I might say. But he would have missed nothing by being less eager. We did not speak. What I might say to her wouldn't be said before him. On the periphery of my vision I saw him squeeze her shoulder and let his hand lie a moment.
Poor Aila poor Aila
. Was he telling little wifey it's all right, she has her strong clever leader-of-the-people husband, turned up at last to talk her out of her foolish notions?
Poor Aila poor Aila
. Was he telling little wifey it's all right, she has her strong clever leader-of-the-people husband, turned up at last to talk her out of her foolish notions?
She asked me to drive by the chemist's. While she was in the shop, he sighed and fidgeted.âIt'll be all right. She's upset. It's a bit much for her to take in. Against her nature, Will.â
She came out of the shop and smiled at us, frowning in the sun, it was as if we were expected to take her photograph. He was encouraged to begin again.âIt's a matter of the truth, Aila. It's not even just a personal issue, it's not just you involved. Will has to speak the truth. That's a chance to challenge the system itself.â
I had started the engine but I let it stall with a jerk.âLet's leave all this until we get home.â
He ignored me; he was still my father.âBelieve me, Aila,
there'll be no action against him just because he's a witness. No question of complicity. No-one's going to arrest Will! Not because of this; not because he's my son or your son. It's the duty of any Defence to subpoena anyone they need. You know that, surely? But I'm not a lawyer, am I, ready to win my case at any cost ⦠He's my son. He's my son, too. Would I put him in any danger? Believe me. Would I lie to you?â
there'll be no action against him just because he's a witness. No question of complicity. No-one's going to arrest Will! Not because of this; not because he's my son or your son. It's the duty of any Defence to subpoena anyone they need. You know that, surely? But I'm not a lawyer, am I, ready to win my case at any cost ⦠He's my son. He's my son, too. Would I put him in any danger? Believe me. Would I lie to you?â
And we don't challenge him. Imagine! Neither of us bursts out laughing when he finds the nerve to ask that question. Neither of us affirms, yes, yes, and yes again. Is it all forgotten then, washed up, are the three of us survivors of his shipwreck, under his command to build a new shelter for some dream of family he wants to come back to?
I tilted my head to look at her sidelong. She licked her forefinger and rubbed at a mark on the back of her other hand. She caught me looking at her, dropped the hand and turned her head away. When she knew she had shaken off my glance she spoke to my father and to me.âIt's enough. It's enough.â
I don't know what he understood by this but I heard what she was saying. My father the famous Sonny, Baby the revolutionary exile, Aila the accomplice of Umkhonto weSizwe: they are our family's sacrifice for the people, there's no need of me, who needs someone like me? They are the heroes.
Â
Â
Nothing would change her mind. The Defence team appealed to the seasoned activist who was also the person closest to herâher husbandâhe must be the one to make her see reason and sense. Through the influence of all the years they had lived together; though the lawyers didn't say it: through love.
It's enough, she said. Enough: enough for her to bear without having the boy involved in any way. That was horribly distasteful
to her. Frightened her. She was not afraid to act courier for ruthless, shameless Baby in Lusaka and brave enough for god knows what else she had done, but she feared this. Their boy; but it was tacitly accepted, way back, that Will was
her
child, and although Sonny had Learâlike lost his, his Baby
âBest thou had's not been born, than not t'have pleas'd me better
âAila still claimed a tender unspoken priority in matters concerning the boy.
to her. Frightened her. She was not afraid to act courier for ruthless, shameless Baby in Lusaka and brave enough for god knows what else she had done, but she feared this. Their boy; but it was tacitly accepted, way back, that Will was
her
child, and although Sonny had Learâlike lost his, his Baby
âBest thou had's not been born, than not t'have pleas'd me better
âAila still claimed a tender unspoken priority in matters concerning the boy.
Through love. Sonny could argue the reason and senseânone betterâat his command the simplicity of the schoolmaster who had been her mentor and the wisdom of the veteran of the struggle. Love. Sometimes he thought the way to do it was to tell her everything, to confess Hannah, every night he had spent close to the earth in the cottage, the weekends among the orange blossom, even the perverse pleasure (how could innocent Aila understand that; how awful if she could) he took in seeing her, Aila, his wife, and Hannah in the same company. But then that would have meant telling Aila, too, how he kept Will in the know, how it had started when he bumped into the schoolboy Will when he took his blonde openly out in public, to a cinema. How would Aila forgive him that. What love could convince her after that.
But perhaps Aila could tell him why it all had to happen to him. If he confessed all, exposed all, kept nothing for himself, gave away for ever all that belonged to him in his need of Hannah. Oh Hannah. Oh schoolmaster taunted by the tags of passion he didn't understand when he read them in the little son-of-sorrow house. Oh Hannah.
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