She stares at him, uncomprehending, surprised and afraid. Her mouth—always her mouth!—opens, wider; her eyes—unblinking—pierce into his, her breath catches and quickly, like a suddenly-burst subterranean stream, they fill up, overflow; the corners of her mouth twist from the flanks of the nostrils as if she is going to sneeze, and slowly—ever so slowly—she sinks, breaking down like a rotten house into a mess of uncontrolled silent tears. There is no sobbing at all, Garabha notes. All is clear, quietly flowing tears, like water poured on top of the head flowing into the earth.

  The smile deepening in him, he watches his mother cleanse herself.

  Slowly and clearly, their past life—their relationship—flows with her tears before him. Yes. Long back, he wouldn’t have dared look into her eyes. And he wouldn’t have stayed this long with her. It always ended somewhat short of its destination: with his angrily walking out and her screams and heart-rending sobs. Yes. Long ago he would have felt his fingers itching for the drum. But all that is past. Right now he doesn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. There is no point in trying to prove himself, asserting himself by defiance. That’s a weapon he doesn’t need now.

  Another strange thing: this woman sitting opposite (or below?) him—his mother? This one is a stranger. The other one had always been covered in a sort of mist so that all he had felt of her was her formidable presence. This one is clear, smaller than that other one, a little thin too, where that one seemed to have no constant figure. This one—haunted, hunted, confused—has suffered, still suffers, and her age tells on her. And the other one? It wasn’t clear. She looked like all mothers anywhere: harsh and spiteful, over-worried about their children—smothering them with what they call love, always taking out on their children what they receive from their husbands. And Garabha feels that it’s his father who has brought this early senility to his mother, although he can hardly recall any time he has seen his father raise his hand to her since Betty’s birth. He just feels it is so—the inevitable result of their husband-and-wife friction. They have worn each other out.

  He smiles at his mother.

  She looks into the fire and says: ‘Where are you going from here?’

  ‘I don’t think I will go anywhere till Lucifer leaves.’

  She sighs. Quietly she reaches for the teapot beside the fire, pours out a cup for him and holds it out to him.

  ‘I am afraid you will have to take it without milk. I am still waiting for your father who has gone to milk the cows.’

  Without a word, Garabha accepts the tea.

  She takes a basket from a shelf behind her.

  ‘Want any salted nuts?’

  ‘No. The tea is enough. I have just been eating pumpkin in Old Mandisa’s.’

  He is taking the tea just to please her, and of course it doesn’t agree with him. After two mouthfuls he goes out and is sick for a long time.

  When there appears to be nothing more coming out of his belly, feeling a little dizzy and very light and wobbly, he goes back into the kitchen to rinse his mouth with cold water.

  ‘Tea still refuses you?’ his mother asks him, feeling a little guilty that she should have forgotten.

  Garabha nods his head.

  ‘Take the nuts, then. Settle your stomach.’

  ‘No. I think I will just leave the inside empty for a little while.’

  ‘I had forgotten that you don’t like tea.’

  ‘That’s all right, Mother.’

  A little silence, then: ‘I am going in to see Lucifer.’

  Garabha leaves, and his mother looks after him, saying nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Approaching Lucifer’s room, Garabha sees his father and little brothers coming from milking the cows. His heart beats faster. He stops, undecided. See his father first or—? Then quickly, his mind made up, he is knocking on Lucifer’s door.

  The sight of his father has undermined his confidence a little and now, with Lucifer delaying to open the door, he feels the old outsider guilt. He stands there, knocking without any answer, his manhood attacked by the blare of the radio and Lucifer’s cicada-screech-like whistling above the noise of the radio.

  Once more he knocks, louder this time.

  ‘I said come in!’

  Realizing—and remembering—how important it is to Lucifer not to be disturbed in whatever he is doing, Garabha hesitates, then quickly opens the door to forestall any further words from his brother.

  And the first thing that happens to Garabha is that his brother doesn’t even turn his head to look at him. He is lying in bed, reading a book and smoking a cigarette. Garabha wonders whether their father knows that Lucifer smokes. He himself is careful not to show any surprise.

  ‘Am I not disturbing?’ Garabha says, still standing as if he is about to leave the room again.

  Lucifer doesn’t turn to look at him but says: ‘Oh, it’s you. I thought it was Betty.’ Routine. What he has been taught as the appropriate reaction to such situations.

  However, Garabha advances towards the bed, towards his brother, is about to—then remembers not to—stretch his hand in greeting. And because he had forgotten this, his hand—although it hasn’t moved from its place straight down his right thigh—seems in his mind to be still stretched in the empty space between him and his brother—longer and heavier than normal.

  He waits for Lucifer to make the first move. He has been disappointed before and he won’t presume. He feels that hollow yearning to touch something, but there isn’t anything to touch.

  Now Lucifer looks at him, stretches out a lifeless hand, eyes half-closed from the cigarette smoke. Grateful for the connection with something, Garabha takes the proffered hand, trying hard not to flinch from that superior survey and the disinterested smile.

  ‘How are you?’ Garabha says sincerely, but because Lucifer seems not to hear it, he begins to feel a kind of strain in his voice. He is standing in front of his brother, looking at but not seeing him, his hand groping for the chair which is so far behind him that he is forced to turn round and really see where it is. And this too, gives him an over-dramatized sense of his lack of confidence in his brother’s presence.

  He uneasily seats himself on the edge of the chair, puts his hands between his thighs, a cramp developing in his stomach muscles.

  Lucifer stubs out his cigarette, turns over a page or two, dog-ears the page he has been reading and says: ‘I am all right. And you?’

  ‘Fine—’ Garabha stops himself in time from asking the usual banal: ‘How is job?’ Already he can taste the falseness of it. So he waits for Lucifer to commit himself. It’s much easier here to answer questions than trying to fill in the emptiness with unasked-for talk. This decision releases him from that sense of older-brother obligation he always feels with Lucifer.

  So, inch by inch, Garabha settles back into the chair. And one by one, his muscles relax. He is looking at Lucifer intently, without being aware of really looking at him.

  And this staring—so it seems to Lucifer who is waiting resignedly for Garabha to start his drunken tales of village brawls—throws the burden on to Lucifer. He can feel the silence cracking with the stretching. He casts Garabha a glance and Garabha returns it with a steady gaze. Lucifer looks away. What can I talk about with him? What does he know? He opens the book, tries to read, but the print looks white. He shuts it again, turns to Garabha and asks: ‘When did you arrive?’

  ‘Early this morning.’

  ‘Have you had anything to eat yet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence. Lucifer looks at his watch. He never had a watch before, Garabha remembers, it must be new. And sensing that he is meant to comment on it, Garabha remains quiet, amused.

  Getting no reaction out of Garabha, Lucifer remembers that this was a game they used to play when they were still children: showing off. He feels disgusted with himself for stooping so low, and annoyed with Garabha for remaining so superiorly unmoved as if he is saying: Don’t be so childish.

  Quietly Garabha says: ‘It’s rather late to be still in bed, isn’t it?’

  Lucifer feels attacked, but he will play along: with a quick thrust of his legs he pushes the blankets off him and swings his legs over on to the floor.

  Garabha suffers once more at the sight of Lucifer in pyjamas. Always different pyjamas. These ones with bright red flower designs on a grey-bluish background. For some strange reason, Garabha finds himself thinking of those things women wear under their dresses. The sight of Lucifer in pyjamas disgusts and saddens him at the same time.

  Hurriedly Lucifer puts his clothes on. Garabha sadly notices how he faces away from him, holding up his pants by bending his knees in that uncomfortable animal position that reminds Garabha of relieving oneself in tall grass in the rain.

  ‘Any job yet?’ Lucifer asks now turning to Garabha, buckling his belt.

  Garabha shakes his head. There are jobs to be had in the village but one doesn’t mention—with any self-pride—manure-carting and stumping to people who work in the city. A job is synonymous with the city here.

  ‘Still afraid of cars in the city, eh?’

  Garabha smiles tolerantly and tries to humour his brother.

  ‘Yes. I am still terribly frightened of the cars in the city.’

  Lucifer gives a short laugh and says: ‘You will get used to them, you know.’

  ‘I am sure I shall. Needs some training, though… And when are you going?’

  ‘Going—where?’

  ‘I hear you are going overseas—’

  ‘Oh, that. In a fortnight’s time. But I am leaving this place tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. Tomorrow.’

  The way Lucifer stresses that word ‘tomorrow’ creates another, more urgent and frightening word in Garabha’s head. Death. And all of a sudden he wants to embrace Lucifer. But he remains seated. He manages to stammer: ‘I shall—miss—you.’ And then he is ashamed of his saying it because it brings no response from Lucifer who suddenly picks up his book and moves towards the door, saying: ‘I am going in to see what they are up to in the kitchen.’

  Garabha doesn’t say a thing. He remains seated in the room for some time, staring at nothing, an itch developing in his hands and in his guts just where the navel is.

  After a long time, he stands up and goes out, closing the door behind him. He goes straight to the Old Man’s shed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Old Man senses something wrong in Garabha as soon as the latter sits down.

  ‘Well,’ he says. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Just as usual.’

  ‘Well, that tells me nothing.’

  ‘I mean there is nothing wrong with him. He is all right. We don’t talk much.’

  ‘But at least you have a general idea of what he thinks about?’

  ‘Oh, it is the usual thing with him, Sekuru. A lofty mountain, you know. And I only a fly in his milk.’

  ‘So.’

  ‘Yes, Sekuru.’

  Silence, then: ‘Education, they call it.’

  ‘I don’t know, Sekuru.’

  ‘No one knows but that’s what it is. Even without his doing anything you can call wrong—you just feel it in him. He is wrong somehow. A kind of keep-your-distance attitude.’ Pause. ‘I was hoping you might find out what it is and drive it out of him.’

  ‘I don’t know what it is, Sekuru. Let alone drive it out of him. As you say, it’s only a feeling. It’s as if he were inside an invisible wall and you can’t get to him. Nothing seems as simple as it was before.’

  The Old Man looks hard at him. There is a slight tic in his cheek as if the flesh is going to fold up to show those wrinkles and cracks and hollows again, but quickly it settles back and almost cheerfully, the Old Man waves his hand.

  ‘You have got your drum, at least.’

  But Garabha’s thoughts are wandering now.

  ‘What do you think I should do?’ he asks.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I mean, at least, I am his elder brother. There must be something—a word, say—to show him I—’

  The Old Man waves him quiet.

  ‘You only think you are his brother. He doesn’t think so.’

  ‘But that’s the way it should be. I am his brother and I must show him that I—’

  ‘There isn’t a thing you can show him. He doesn’t think you can show him anything at all.’

  ‘But surely, Sekuru, you understand, don’t you? You have even told me that even beating is allowed in such cases—remember?’

  ‘Not in his case, now. Beat him for what? Not showing respect to you? Not talking to you? What would you want to beat him for? Has he stolen anything? Has he said anything bad to you? The trouble is that he does nothing wrong. It’s not anything in his hand, but in his heart. And how can you take that out without destroying him? No, Garabha. Forget it and forget him. He is no longer ours.’

  ‘But they all expect me—as the eldest son in the family—’

  Tongoona interrupts them.

  ‘Who in his right mind can expect anything from you?’ he says.

  Garabha looks at the Old Man for help but the Old Man is looking away in the distance. He feels he must apologize for his presence here and leave. He says lamely: ‘How are you, Father?’

  Tongoona snorts and says: ‘If you knew that I am your father you wouldn’t take this long to say your greetings.’

  Garabha looks at the Old Man. The Old Man is still looking away.

  Tongoona says: ‘You needn’t gape at him like that. He isn’t going to help you.’

  But the Old Man unexpectedly speaks: ‘At least he has said good morning to his father, unlike some people—no need to mention names—who think they were not born at all but dropped out of heaven already full-grown—beard and all.’

  Tongoona snorts again and addresses Garabha:

  ‘What did you come here for?’

  ‘To see Lucifer.’

  ‘And who is Lucifer to you—tell me?’

  ‘Ai, Tongoona can’t you ever—for just once—leave him alone?’ the Old Man says.

  ‘And if I leave him alone there is going to be another father to tell him what to do?’

  ‘He will be all right. He is all right.’

  ‘All right, my shit!’

  ‘And you use that language in front of me because I am no longer your father?’

  ‘I have told you again and again that the only advice that you can give at your age is to your belly.’

  The Old Man firmly grips his adze and raises it into the air. Softly he says: ‘Say that again—or didn’t it come out of your mouth?’

  Tongoona ignores his father and says: ‘You can go, Garabha. I don’t want to see you here, ever again. Go back to where you know your real father and mother are. Come on! Go!’

  Garabha starts to his feet but the Old Man holds him down, saying: ‘You are a very fine father, aren’t you? Is there anyone else in the whole world who has got it hanging in a bunch between his legs except you? Who else has fathered children except you? Who knows the pains of childbirth but you? Is that it? Is that the way you see it? Talking to the boy like that in my face! Because I am not your father and what you know about everything came from your mother? To you I am just another fool doing you out of your food? I sit here all day long doing nothing but telling the boy to disobey you? Is that the way you see it? Well, go on. Talk to him. Talk to him and tomorrow he is going to bring you a daughter-in-law and he will get a job in the city and all your troubles and misery will just vanish as if they had never existed. Go on! Talk to him! You! Your mouth should have been made longer than your mother’s—for extra talking power! Talk to him all day, all night, for a hundred years—and make him change—because you have been told that it’s talking that brings about change. You! There he is, talk to him, Father of Millions!’

  And with one violent raking of his throat, the Old Man drags up all the clogged dirt in him and deposits it into the fire.

  All throughout this tirade, his voice hasn’t risen above the merest whisper, but in the following silence Garabha and Tongoona feel as if they are waiting for the crash of thunder.

  Not quite believing that the Old Man is through, both of them raise their heads at the same time, and—though they fight hard to avoid it—their eyes meet. Garabha quickly returns his to the ground between his feet. Tongoona, who has been crouching all through this, rises and shuffles away clumsily, as if he were learning to walk.

  There follows a silence like the aftermath of a storm.

  Then after clearing his throat once more, and turning to his work, the Old Man says: ‘There is a mealie-cob there by the wall. Why don’t you roast a few grains?’

  Garabha shakes his head. They are silent.

  Garabha accepts the silence gratefully. It is a silence he always enjoys with the Old Man, more so today because of the preceding noise. In this silence, the Old Man seems to go very far away. Garabha watches him closely and he feels his own thoughts settling down.

  The Old Man welcomes the silence with a sigh. That was too much unnecessary talk, that, he feels. Since when—if you don’t have the potential to change in you—since when have words changed anything? That was just too much useless talk. Anyway, it needed saying. He hasn’t said anything he wouldn’t have said anywhere, any day, given the same circumstances that provoked it. It was necessary too, in another way. He can now rest for a long time without feeling the need to attend to his thoughts.

  But the silence is short-lived.

  From the kitchen now comes the sharp crack-tinkling-ting of a breaking cup and the sharp childish voice of Shad:

  ‘I want! I want!’

  Then Tongoona’s harsh voice: ‘Shut up or you are going outside this very minute!’

  And Raina’s conciliatory: ‘Elders first, Shad. Wait for your turn.’

  But now Kizito joins in and then Garabha and the Old Man hear the crack of Tongoona’s whip on the boys’ backs.

 

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