July's People by Nadine Gordimer Read Free Book Online Page B

Gina when resentful.
    —There’s nothing significant there—don’t go fishing. Not at this stage—please. I couldn’t take it now. Whites in the pass offices and labour bureaux who used to have to deal with blacks all the time across the counter—speaking an African language was simply a qualification, so far as they were concerned, that’s all. Something you had to have to get the job.—
    —What are you lecturing about?—But he hadn’t noticed he had spoken of back there in the past tense.
    —I just don’t want to go into a whole spiel, whether we’ve been deluding ourselves … If it’s been lies, it’s been lies.—
    —Pragmatism not ‘significance’: that’s what I’m talking about. Fanagalo would have made more sense than ballet.—
    The shift boss Jim spoke the bastard black lingua franca of the mines, whose vocabulary was limited to orders given by whites and responses made by blacks. An old story that she had been ashamed—when she married her liberal young husband—of a father who had talked to his ‘boys’ in a dialect educated blacks who’d never been down a shaft in their lives regarded as an insult to their culture; now he, the husband, was to be submitted to her being ashamed of that shame. —If we’d gone five years ago, you’d have told me we’d run away. We’ve stayed and lived the best we could. We stuck it out—He was slowly rotating his head on his neck, as if stiffness were a noose: god knows, look at us now …
    —No— caught out. —She would not let go; the rope might have been in her hand. —It’s like when you would tell a story showing your importance or erudition and get caught out. Mmmh? Everybody listening: ‘I was on the judging committee’—the architects’ international award that time, when you went to Buenos Aires. Mentioning the famous names you were included among—just to claim your status without doing it in so many words. ‘Most of us couldn’t speak Spanish so the discussions were carried on in French’—showing that you must be able to speak French, as this was no problem for you. ‘We each nominated our candidates, then we presented the laudatory argument for our choice’ … I listened to you, every time. I heard you. And when someone asked who your candidates were, you couldn’t answer. Couldn’t remember! Had to fluff. Because what really happened was you simply enjoyed the importance of being there, being a judge, you just supported the candidates somebody else chose. And so you gave that away, too. You were caught out. Come on. I saw it and so did everybody. Come on … —
    —I never believed it. But it’s true, you’re jealous. My god. D’you know what this reminds me of? The time I was living with Masha, we were in the middle of having dinner at her parents’ flat and she said to me when her mother got up a moment to fetch bread from the kitchen, I must tell you I’m in love with Jan (I don’t remember his other name, a Pole); I slept with him this afternoon. At the table. Her father sitting there, but he was deaf.—He glanced at the wrangling, oblivious children. Giggled shockingly a moment; the corner of her mouth cringed at the spectacle. He held his voice rigid and violent. —You women are such bloody cowards—oh yes, physical courage, sticking it out in the bottom of the bakkie, that’s something else. But you choose your moments. By Christ you do. When it comes to ‘frankness’.—
    —It all looks ridiculous. That’s all.—Her voice came from where she had her back to him now, sitting with arms around her knees on the mud floor in the doorway, seeing the forest smudge away in darkness that stepped closer in every interval of her attention.
    —What d’you bloody want to do? Conjure up Superman (he tossed open his hand at the children, who watched the serial at home) to bear them away? I know I gave him the fucking keys.—
    —Why don’t you admit we were mad to run. Why can’t you. —He felt her