In a Free State Part 11

' "So' you been troubled," ' Linda mimicked. 'I feel there must be a curfew, don't you? I know we are white and neutral, but I'm beginning to wonder whether we shouldn't be "racing" in the other direction. We don't seem to have too much company.'

He was in fact racing, half acting out, after the peculiar excitement of the roadblock, a make-believe of danger and escape on the empty African road, lined now on one side with the tall, bare, candelabra-like branches of sisal: the rain almost gone, the clouds high, the light s.h.i.+fting, the rolling land streaked with luminous green, bright colour going on and off on the distant mountains.

He looked at the petrol gauge and said, 'We'll stop at Esher and fill up with petrol.'

'At the time of the Asian boycott everybody in the compound always kept their tanks full, ready to dash off at any moment of day or night to the border.'

'My dear,' Bobby said, 'such excitement. Daily mentions on the BBC, signing on for the airlift at the High Commission, laying in tins.'

'I laid in my tins.'

Linda was showing the effect of the lunch and the Riesling and the drive. Her face was white and strained, dark below the eyes, and the tan on her prominent temples looked like stains, yellow below brown.

She said, abruptly, 'I love this dramatic light, don't you? And the sisal. It all looks so empty until you start seeing those little brown huts. You feel that nothing has ever happened here.' Her voice was going mystical; she was listening to herself speak; Bobby could tell now. 'No one will ever know what has happened here.'

He said, 'Some of us know what happened here.'

'Twenty or thirty people were killed during the Asian boycott. And it wasn't only those Danish dairy experts who were made to double up and down in the sun. I wonder if these things that don't get into the papers or on the radio are reported in some special place, in some little black book. Or big black book.'

Bobby thought: she is not concerned; she is concerned about other things; she is only trying, for no reason, to undermine me, and to transfer her mood to me. Thinking this, he found that his own excitement had gone, that he was waiting to be irritated by her.

'You weren't here for the earthquake,' Linda said. 'I'd just come. The houseboy came to me in the morning with tears in his eyes and said that his family lived in one of the villages that had been destroyed. I took him to the police station, to see whether they had a list of casualties. They didn't, and everybody was very rude. I tried every day for a week. There was no list, and even the houseboy stopped worrying. Nothing in the "Two-Minute Silence". Nothing on the radio. Everybody had just forgotten about it. Was there an earthquake? Did it matter? Perhaps all those people hadn't died, and it didn't matter if they had. Perhaps the houseboy was just trying to make himself interesting. Perhaps nothing that happens here is more interesting than any other thing that happens. Perhaps in a place like this there isn't any news. Sammy Kisenyi can put out the Lord's Prayer every day and call it the news.'

Bobby thought he detected one of Martin's bitter mots. But he only said, 'If you put it like that, perhaps there isn't news anywhere.'

'I don't want to argue. I believe you know what I mean.'

'We'll stop at Esher for petrol.'

She said, in half-apology, 'I have a slight head.'

She took her bag from the floor and put it on her knees, looked at her face in her hand mirror and said, 'Good Lord.' Briskly, as though banis.h.i.+ng the mood, she made up her face; without weariness, she rearranged her hair and retied her scarf, her arms still young, the short sleeves of her s.h.i.+rt opening to show the mole in her shaved armpit. Then she put on her dark gla.s.ses, sat back in her seat and looked quite composed.

Bobby was hating her.

ESH, the milestones had been promising every two miles, E S H. And now at last the board of English design: it might have been imported from England said ESHER. But there was still only wilderness.

Then old pine trees grew behind wire fences; tractor-marked dirt tracks met the highway in flurries of melting mud. And it was wilderness again. The hills rose in humps on one side; the highway twisted. A washed-out board gave insufficient warning of a level-crossing; the car was jolted. Tall eucalyptus trees made an open, dripping grove, tattered bark on straight trunks; and, against the great mountains in the distance, the rising hills showed a mixture of fenced pastures, hummocked open land, eucalyptus windbreaks, old forest patches: an unfinished landscape, a scratching in the continent.

The verges widened; a few tarnished villas were set in large gardens. There was a roundabout, its garden still maintained, and the highway entered the town. Cross-streets, each with a new black-and-white board bearing the name of a minister in the capital, could be seen to end in mud after two or three hundred yards. The town had been built to grow. It hadn't grown. It remained a collection of old tin-and-timber buildings, its pioneer flimsiness pointed by the small new bank building, the motor car and tractor showroom. The mud-splashed police barracks, low white concrete sheds flat to the ground, already looked like the hutments of the African quarter in the capital.

The filling station Bobby turned into belonged to an oil company that had come to the country after independence. A tall yellow-and-black board announced the amenities in bold international symbols. But one of the symbols, the telephone, had been partly covered over with a square of brown paper; and another symbol, the crossed knife and fork, had been crossed out, apparently by a finger dipped in engine oil. Along the lower edge of the yellow board, as on the white walls of the office, were the marks of oily fingers and sometimes whole hands that had tried to wipe or roll themselves clean. The covered part of the asphalted yard was black with oil; the exposed part, still wet after the rain, was iridescent.

Four Africans in old blue dungarees that looked like cast-offs watched the car come in. When Bobby stopped outside the covered area and sounded his horn, all four Africans started; but then, looking at one another, all four hesitated. One of the Africans was very small; his dungarees dropped low at the crotch and were thick with turn-ups at the ankles.

'I'll go and risk the Ladies',' Linda said.

She walked with fussy little steps, keeping her head down. Her trousers were baggy below the knee and there was a long blot of perspiration on her s.h.i.+rt between the shoulder blades.

The small African and another African came to the car, the small African kicking out at every step, fighting the enc.u.mbrance of his dungarees. The small African carried a bucket, a sponge and a metal-handled cleaner. Silently he began to clean the car windows.

Linda came back. 'The place is locked.'

The big African dipped into his pocket and held out a greasy Yale key between a greasy thumb and forefinger. Linda took the key without comment and walked away briskly again.

Oil, petrol, water, battery, tyres: Bobby anxiously superintended and encouraged the big African. He used his simple friendly voice and he laughed a lot. The African was too preoccupied to respond. When Linda came back, Bobby went silent. Self-possessed, hard to read behind her dark gla.s.ses, she stood at the edge of the asphalted yard, looking across the road to the hills and the mountains.

At last Bobby paid, and he and Linda got back in the car. While they waited for change they were aware of the small African, the cleaner, darkening one window, then another. Linda's forehead began to twitch; she sighed. The big African came with the change. If she sighs again like that, Bobby thought, I'll give her a piece of my mind. The African counted out the change coin by coin into Bobby's hand. It was too much; it was more than Bobby had given.

'It's pathetic,' Linda whispered.

The small African moved from Linda's window to Linda's side of the windscreen. He pulled back the wiper in an alarming way and began to clean, his face level with Linda's and just a few inches away. He frowned, doing his work, making a point of not looking at her.

She looked down at her lap and whispered, 'It's pathetic.'

If she uses that word again, Bobby thought, I'll hit her. He was counting back the excess change into the patient cupped palm of the big African, and he was deliberately counting in his friendly simple voice. He paid out the last coin, which included a tip, and smiled at the African. The big African went away, and the small African came round with his bucket to Bobby's side of the windscreen.

Linda said, 'Look what this one's been doing.'

Bobby looked at Linda's side of the windscreen. Then he looked at the small African. The African was using a double-edged cleaner, one edge made of rubber, one edge made of sponge; but both sponge and rubber had perished, and he was rubbing the central bar of metal on the windscreen. He had left a complicated trail of deep scratches on the windows all around the car. Scratching away now, not looking at Bobby, he frowned, to show his intentness.

Bobby saw the fineness of the African's features, the special, dead blackness of the skin, and recognized him as a man of the king's tribe. Bobby was at once deeply angry. The African, aware of Bobby's scrutiny, frowned harder.

'What on earth do you think you're doing?'

Bobby pushed the door open so violently that the African was. .h.i.t and thrown off balance.

The African recovered and scrambled away from the car. He said, 'What?' and opened his mouth to say more. But then he just looked at Bobby with shocked, liquid eyes, the disintegrating large sponge in his left hand, the metal-handled cleaner still in his right.

'Look at what you've done,' Bobby shouted. 'You've ruined my windscreen. You've ruined all my windows. You've knocked several hundred s.h.i.+llings off the resale value. Who's going to give me that? You?'

'Insurance,' the African said. And again he seemed about to say something else; but the words didn't come.

'Oh yes, you are very clever. Like all your people. You always know. Insurance? I want it back from you.'

Bobby took a step towards the African. The African stepped back, awkward in his dungarees.

The three other Africans stood still, in their dingy blue dungarees, one next to the door of the office, against the white wall, one in front of the yellow board, one beside the petrol pump.

'I'm going to have you sacked,' Bobby said. 'Sent back to your people. Who's the manager here?'

The African standing against the white office wall raised his hand. He was the man with whom Bobby had dealt, the man who had given the change. He hesitated, then he came towards Bobby. He stood a few feet away, held his hands behind his back and said, 'Manager.'

Company policy, clearly; but Bobby doubted whether this manager had it in his power to recruit and sack.

'I'll be dropping a note to your head office,' Bobby said. He took out an envelope and ballpoint pen from the pocket of his native s.h.i.+rt. 'Who's your superior? Who your boss-man?'

'Dis' sup'indant. Ind-ian.'

'The old Asian trick of remote control. He come here today, your district superintendent?'

'Today no. Home. He live there.' The manager waved towards that part of the town Bobby had just driven through.

'Oh yes, they're all hiding today. Give me his address. Boss-man, where he live?' And while he scribbled on the envelope, with such impatience that he almost immediately stopped writing words and then, deliberately, was just making marks, he said, 'These people shouldn't be employed. They and their king have had it all their own way for too long. But their little games are over now. Look at my windscreen.'

The manager looked, leaning to one side to show that he looked.

The small African had begun to relax within his dungarees. He was looking down penitentially at the oily yard, still holding his sponge and cleaner, his little mouth set.

Bobby resented this inattention. He said, 'This is something for the police.'

The African looked up, his eyes wide with terror. Again he opened his mouth to talk but said nothing. Then, making a gesture as if he was ready to throw aside the tools of his trade, the sponge and the metal-handled cleaner, he turned and began to walk, kicking out in his dungarees, to the edge of the yard.

'I'm a government officer!' Bobby shouted.

The African halted and turned, 'Sir.'

'How dare you turn your back on me while I'm addressing you?'

Native s.h.i.+rt swinging, crooking his right arm, pulling back his open palm, Bobby advanced on the small African.

The African was making no effort to dodge the blow. There was only expectation in his glittering eyes.

The other three Africans stood where they were, one in front of the yellow board, one next to the pump, the manager near the car.

'Bobby,' Linda said, through the half-open car door. Her voice was neutral, without reproof; she spoke his name as though she had known him a long time.

'How dare you turn your back on me?'

'Bobby.' She had opened the car door and was preparing to get out.

All four Africans stood just where they were as, yellow native s.h.i.+rt dancing, Bobby bustled back to the car. And they remained where they were while Bobby started the car and drove down to the edge of the yard. There he stopped.

'That d.a.m.ned address,' Bobby said. 'Where did I put it?' He acted out an angry search for the envelope on which he had written nothing.

'I think we can forget that,' Linda said.

'Oh no.'

'Drop a note to head office, as you said. I don't think we should go chasing any address that man has given.'

He still searched.

Very quickly, then, with a revving of the engine, a burst of blue smoke and a squeal of tyres, he turned left, heading out of the town, giving up the district superintendent.

The four Africans stood where they were.

'The humiliation,' he said, restless in his seat.

Linda said nothing.

The town was quickly past: three or four big concrete sheds and a foundry among the empty overgrown lots of an 'industrial estate', a stretch of b.u.mpy dual-carriageway, washed-out h.o.a.rdings with their close-to-Caucasian pictures of laughing Africans, the highway again, and then on a hillside rows and rows of unpainted wooden huts, relics of a failed colonial plantation.

'The humiliation.'

Rainclouds darkened the far hills to the right, and the mountains in the distance were hidden. But to the left, where the land was open, the sky was still high, and when the sun struck through the clouds the wet road glistened and the fenced pasture-land was the freshest green.

Suddenly Bobby braked, but with care, without skidding, and pulled in at the side of the road. The road was empty; the manoeuvre was safe. The left wheels sank in soft gra.s.s and mud; but he had kept the right wheels on the tar. He bent over the steering-wheel and knocked his forehead lightly against it. Raising his head, resting his right elbow on the wheel, he jammed his palm against his mouth, held his forehead and looked down, and jammed his palm against his mouth again.

'Oh, my G.o.d,' he said. 'How awful.'

Clouds raced in the sky. The fields darkened and lit up. Now it was like dusk; now it was afternoon.

'Awful,' he said, hitting his mouth with the heel of his palm. 'Awful.'

He held the wheel with both hands and leaned right over it, the sleeves of the native s.h.i.+rt riding down his arms, pink from the day's exposure.

Linda said nothing. She didn't turn to look. Her dark gla.s.ses gave nothing away.

Bobby looked up. 'I know the king's people,' he said. 'He probably is a Christian. He goes to church every Sunday. He keeps his clothes very clean. He washes and irons his own two s.h.i.+rts very carefully. His wife does a little teaching in the school in their village in the Collectorate. He reads. He had that foolish little paperback in the back pocket of those dungarees.' Bobby was thinking of his own houseboy, who was also small and fine-featured and of the king's tribe: a churchgoer and a reader of devout or educational primers in the second, moneyless half of the month, a drinker in the first half, often tortured by hangovers, light and silent then, with an additional quality of delicacy. Bobby said softly, 'G.o.d.' Then, leaning again on the steering-wheel, he made himself think of the bar of the New Shrops.h.i.+re. 'G.o.d. G.o.d.' He looked up. 'G.o.d.' But now his voice had changed. 'G.o.d, how beautiful.' He was speaking of the play of sunlight in the green field.

At last Linda responded. She turned to look at the field.

Bobby said, 'And now I've destroyed his pathetic little dignity.'

'I don't think so,' Linda said. She saw the tears in Bobby's eyes, and her manner altered. 'I don't think he even knew what it was all about. And anyway they needed a ticking off. It certainly hasn't done them any harm. You should have seen that lavatory. You know, I believe I still have that key.'

'Perhaps I should go back.'

'Whatever for? That would really frighten them. They might even send for the police.'

'I'll probably burst into tears.' His eyes, already clearing up, had just brimmed over. He smiled.

'I doubt it. I think it might get you angry all over again if you went back and found them laughing all over the place.'

'I'll go back.'

'I've been through this so often with my houseboys. You lose a dozen tins of powdered milk, and you tick them off. There is the most terrible scene, and you start walking about your own house on tiptoe. You expect suicide at least, but in the quarters they are having a high old time. They've called in all their friends and they are killing themselves with laughter.'

'We misinterpret their laughter,' Bobby said, his hand playing with the gear lever.

'That may well be. It's embarra.s.sment or disapproval or something like that. Sammy Kisenyi was telling me. And some European probably told him. But I feel that some of it is good old-fas.h.i.+oned laughter.'

Bobby turned on the ignition.