|
The Bridegroom 2
simply did not think at all about what the girl would do while
he was out on the road; and as for the girl, until it was over,
nothing could exist for her but the wedding, with her two little'
sisters in pink walking behind her, and her dress that she
didn't recognise herself in, being made at the dressmaker's,
and the cake that was ordered with a tiny china bride and
groom in evening dress, on the top.
He looked at the scored table, and the rim of the open jam
tin, and the salt cellar with a piece of brown paper tied neatly
over the broken top, and said to Piet, 'You must do everything
nice when the missus comes.'
'Baas?'
They looked at each other and it was not really necessary to
say anything.
'You must make the table properly and do everything clean.'
'Always I make everything clean. Why you say now I must
make clean ...'
The young man bent his head over his food, dismissing him.
While he ate his mind went automatically over the changes
that would have to be made for the girl. He was not used to
visualizing situations, but to dealing with what existed. It was
like a lesson learned by rote; he knew the totality of what was
needed, but if he found himself confronted by one of the
component details, he foundered: he did not recognise it or
know how to deal with it. The boys must keep out of the way.
That was the main thing. Piet would have to come to the
caravan quite a lot, to cook and clean. The boys-especially the
boys who were responsible for the maintenance of the lorries
and road-making equipment-were always coming with questions, what to do about this and that. They'd mess things up,
otherwise. He spat out a piece of gristle he could not swallow;
his mind went to something else. The women over there -- they could do the washing for the girl. They were such a raw
bunch of kaffirs, would they ever be able to do anything right?
Twenty boys and above five of their women-you couldn't
hide them under a thorn bush. They just mustn't hang around,
that's all. They must just understand that they mustn't hang
around. ' He looked round keenly through the shadow
puppets of the half-dark on the margin of his fire's light; the
voices, companionably quieter, now, intermittent over food, the echoing chut! of wood being chopped, the thin film of a
baby's wail through which all these sounded-they were on
their own side. Yet he felt an odd, rankling suspicion.
His thoughts shuttled, as he ate, in a slow and painstaking
way that he had never experienced before in his life-he was
worrying. He sucked on a tooth; Piet, Piet, that kaffir talks
such a hell of a lot. How's Piet going to stop talking, talking
every time he comes near? If he talks to her ... Man, it's sure
he'll talk; to her. He thought, in actual words, what he would
say to Piet about this; the words were like those unsayable
things that people write on walls for others to see in private
moments, but that are never spoken in their mouths.
Pet brought coffee and koeksusters and the young man did
of look at him.
But the koeksusters were delicious, crisp, sticky, and sweet,
and as he felt the familiar substance and taste on his tongue,
alternating with the hot bite of the coffee, he at once became
occupied with the pure happiness of eating as a child is fully
occupied with a bag of sweets. Koeksusters never failed to give
him this innocent, total pleasure. When first he had taken the
job of overseer to the road gang, he had had strange, restless
hours at night and on Sundays. It seemed that he was hungry.
He ate but never-felt satisfied. He walked about all the time,
like a hungry creature. One Sunday he actually set out to walk
(the Roads Department was very strict about the use of the
ten-tonner for private purposes) the fourteen miles across the
sand to the cattle-dipping post where the government cattle
officer and his wife, Afrikaners like himself and the only other
white people between the road camp and Francistown, lived
in their corrugated-iron house. By a coincidence, they had
decided to drive over and see him, that day, and they had met
him a little less than halfway, when he was already slowed and
dazed by heat. But shortly after that Piet had taken over the
cooking of his meals and the care of his person, and Piet had
even learned to make koeksusters, according to instructions
given to the young man by the cattle officer's wife. The
koeksusters, a childhood treat that he could indulge in
whenever he liked, seemed to mark his settling down; the
solitary camp became a personal way of life, with its own
Special arrangements and indulgences.
'Ou Piet! Kerel! What did you do to the koeksusters, hey?' he
called out joyously.
A shout came that meant 'Right away'. The black man
appeared, drying his hands on a rag, with the diffident,
kidding manner of someone who knows he has excelled
himself.
'Whatsa matter with the koeksusters, man?'
Piet shrugged. 'You must tell me. I don't know what's
matter.'
'Here, bring me some more, man.' The young man shoved
the empty plate at him, with a grin. And as the other went off,
laughing, the young man called. 'You must always make them
like that, see?'
He liked to drink at celebrations, at weddings or Christmas,
but he wasn't a man who drank his brandy every day. He
would have two brandies on a Saturday afternoon, when the
week's work was over, and for the rest of the time, the bottle
that he brought from Francistown when he went to collect
stores lay in the chest in his tent. But on this last night he got
up from the fire on impulse and went over to the tent to fetch
the bottle (one thing he didn't do, he didn't expect a kaffir to
handle his drink for him; it was too much of a temptation to put
in their way). He brought a glass with him, too, one of a set of
six made of tinted imitation cut glass, and he poured himself a
tot and stretched out his legs where he could feel the warmth
of the fire through the soles of his boots. The nights were not
cold, until the wind came up at two or three in the morning,
but there was a clarifying chill to the air; now and then a figure
came over from the black men's camp to put another log on the
fire whose flames had dropped and become blue. The young
man felt inside himself a similar low incandescence; he poured
himself another brandy. The long yelping of the jackals
prowled the sky without, like the wind about a house; there
was no house, but the sounds beyond the light his fire tremblingly inflated into the dark
-- that jumble of meaningless
voices, crying babies, coughs, and hawking -- had built walls
to enclose and a roof to shelter. He was exposed, turning
naked to space on the sphere of the world as the speck that is a
fly plastered on the window of an aeroplane, but he was not
aware of it.
To be
continued |
