The Sun Between Their Feet (50 page)

At the name Mizi, Jabavu stirs slightly, then remains still.

‘Jerry will be charged with organizing the robbery, for carrying a knife, and for being in the city without proper employment. The police suspect he has been involved in many other things, but nothing can be proved. He will get a fairly heavy sentence – that is to say, he will if he is caught. They think he is on his way to Johannesburg. When they catch him he will be put in prison. They have also caught a coloured man who has been giving Africans, you among them, false employment. But this man is very ill in hospital and not expected to live. As regards the other members of the gang, the police will charge them with being without proper employment, but that is all. There has been such a cloud of
lies and counter-charges that it has been a very difficult case for the police. But you must remember it is your first offence and you are very young, and things will not go badly for you.'

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 give 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.

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.

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.

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