Cry, The Beloved Country Part 11

I told them I had not seen him since Sat.u.r.day, umfundisi.

And why did they want him? cried k.u.malo in torment.

She drew back frightened. I do not know, she said.

And why did you not ask? he cried.

The tears filled her eyes. I was afraid, she said.

Did no one ask?

The women were about. Maybe one of them asked.

What women? said Msimangu. Show us the women.

So she showed them the women, but they too did not know.

They would not tell me, said a woman.

Msimangu turned privately to her. Did it seem heavy? he asked.

It seemed heavy, umfundisi. What is the trouble? she asked.

We do not know.

The world is full of trouble, she said.

He went to the taxi, and k.u.malo followed him. And the girl ran after them, as one runs who is with child.

They told me I must let them know if he comes.

Her eyes were full of trouble. What shall I do? she said.

That is what you ought to do, said Msimangu. And you will let us know also. Wait, you must go to the Superintendent's office and ask him to telephone to the Mission House in Sophiatown. I shall write the number here for you. 49-3041.

I shall do it, umfundisi.

Tell me, did the police say where they would go?

They did not say, umfundisi. But I heard them say,die spoor loop dood , the trail runs dead.

Stay well, my child.

Go well, umfundisi. She turned to say go well to the other, but he was already in the taxi, bowed over his stick.

How much is your charge, my friend? asks Msimangu.

Two pounds and ten shillings, umfundisi.

k.u.malo feels with shaking hands for his purse.

I should like to help you in this, says Msimangu. It would be my joy to help you. You are kind, says k.u.malo trembling, but no one must pay but me. And he draws the notes from the dwindling store.

You are trembling, my friend.

I am cold, very cold.

Msimangu looks up at the cloudless sky, from which the sun of Africa is pouring down upon the earth. Come to my room, he says. We shall have a fire and make you warm again.

13.

IT WAS A silent journey to Ezenzeleni, and though Msimangu tried to converse with his friend during the walk from the station to the place of the blind, the older man was little inclined for speech, and showed little interest in anything about him.

What will you do while I am here? asked Msimangu.

I should like to sit in one of these places that you told me of, and perhaps when you are finished you will show me round this Ezenzeleni.

You shall do what you will.

You must not be disappointed in me.

I understand everything. There is no need to talk of it again.

So he introduced k.u.malo to the European Superintendent, who called him Mr. k.u.malo, which is not the custom. And Msimangu must have spoken privately to the Superintendent, for they did not worry him to come with them; instead the Superintendent led him to the place where the ground fell away, and told him they would call him when it was time for food.

For some hours he sat there in the sun, and whether it was the warmth of it, or the sight of the wide plain beneath stretching away to blue and distant mountains, or the mere pa.s.sage of time, or the divine providence for the soul that is distressed, he could not say; but there was some rising of the spirit, some lifting of the fear.

Yes, it was true what Msimangu had said. Why fear the one thing in a great city where there were thousands upon thousands of people? His son had gone astray in the great city, where so many others had gone astray before him, and where many others would go astray after him, until there was found some great secret that as yet no man had discovered. But that he should kill a man, a white man! There was nothing that he could remember, nothing, nothing at all, that could make it probable.

His thoughts turned to the girl, and to the unborn babe that would be his grandchild. Pity that he a priest should have a grandchild born in such a fashion. Yet that could be repaired. If they were married, then he could try to rebuild what had been broken. Perhaps his son and the girl would go back with him to Ndotsheni, perhaps he and his wife could give to the child what they had failed to give to their own. Yet where had they failed? What had they done, or left undone, that their son had become a thief, moving like a vagabond from place to place, living with a girl who was herself no more than a child, father of a child who would have had no name? Yet, he comforted himself, that was Johannesburg. And yet again, and the fear smote him as grievously as ever, his son had left the girl and the unborn child, left the work that the young white man had got for him, and was vagabond again. And what did vagabonds do? Did they not live without law or custom, without faith or purpose, might they not then lift their hand against any other, any man who stood between them and the pitiful gain that they were seeking?

What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust down the knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe on the living head, to cleave down between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?

With a shudder he turned from contemplation of so terrible a thing. Yet the contemplation of it rea.s.sured him. For there was nothing, nothing in all the years at Ndotsheni, nothing in all the years of the boyhood of his son, that could make it possible for him to do so terrible a deed. Yes, Msimangu was right. It was the suspense, the not-knowing, that made him fear this one thing, in a great city where there were thousands upon thousands of people.

He turned with relief to the thought of rebuilding, to the home that they would fashion, he and his wife, in the evening of their lives, for Gertrude and her son, and for his son and the girl and the child. After seeing Johannesburg he would return with a deeper understanding to Ndotsheni. Yes, and with a greater humility, for had his own sister not been a prost.i.tute? And his son a thief? And might not he himself be grandfather to a child that would have no name? This he thought without bitterness, though with pain. One could go back knowing better the things that one fought against, knowing better the kind of thing that one must build. He would go back with a new and quickened interest in the school, not as a place where children learned to read and write and count only, but as a place where they must be prepared for life in any place to which they might go. Oh for education for his people, for schools up and down the land, where something might be built that would serve them when they went away to the towns, something that would take the place of the tribal law and custom. For a moment he was caught up in a vision, as man so often is when he sits in a place of ashes and destruction.

Yes - it was true, then. He had admitted it to himself. The tribe was broken, and would be mended no more. He bowed his head. It was as though a man borne upward into the air felt suddenly that the wings of miracle dropped away from him, so that he looked down upon the earth, sick with fear and apprehension. The tribe was broken, and would be mended no more. The tribe that had nurtured him, and his father and his father's father, was broken. For the men were away, and the young men and the girls were away, and the maize hardly reached to the height of a man.

There is food for us, my brother.

Already?

You have been here a long time.

I did not know it.

And what have you found?

Nothing.

Nothing?

No, nothing. Only more fear and more pain. There is nothing in the world but fear and pain.

My brother....

What is it?

I hesitate to speak to you.

You have a right to speak. More right than any.

Then I say that it is time to turn. This is madness, that is bad enough. But it is also sin, which is worse. I speak to you as a priest.

k.u.malo bowed his head. You are right, father, he said. I must sit here no longer.

It was a wonderful place, this Ezenzeleni. For here the blind, that dragged out their days in a world they could not see, here they had eyes given to them. Here they made things that he for all his sight could never make. Baskets stout and strong, in osiers of different colours, and these osiers ran through one another by some magic that he did not understand, coming together in patterns, the red with the red, the blue with the blue, under the seeing and sightless hands. He talked with the people, and the blind eyes glowed with something that could only have been fire in the soul. It was white men who did this work of mercy, and some of them spoke English and some spoke Afrikaans. Yes, those who spoke English and those who spoke Afrikaans came together to open the eyes of black men that were blind.

His friend Msimangu would preach this afternoon, in the chapel that he had seen. But because they were not all of one church here, there was no altar with a cross upon it, but the cross was in the wall itself, two open clefts that had been left open and not filled in by the bricks. And Msimangu would not wear the vestments that he would wear at Sophiatown; those he would wear early the next morning, when he ministered to his own people.

Msimangu opened the book, and read to them first from the book. And k.u.malo had not known that his friend had such a voice. For the voice was of gold, and the voice had love for the words it was reading. The voice shook and beat and trembled, not as the voice of an old man shakes and beats and trembles, nor as a leaf shakes and beats and trembles, but as a deep bell when it is struck. For it was not only a voice of gold, but it was the voice of a man whose heart was golden, reading from a book of golden words. And the people were silent, and k.u.malo was silent, for when are three such things found in one place together?

I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles To open the blind eyes to bring out the prisoners from the prison And them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

And the voice rose, and the Zulu tongue was lifted and transfigured, and the man too was lifted, as is one who comes to something that is greater than any of us. And the people were silent, for were they not the people of the blind eyes? And k.u.malo was silent, knowing the blind man for whom Msimangu was reading these words: And I will bring the blind by a way they knew not I will lead them in paths that they have not known.

I will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight.

These things I will do unto them and not forsake them.

Yes, he speaks to me, there is no doubt of it. He says we are not forsaken. For while I wonder for what we live and struggle and die, for while I wonder what keeps us living and struggling, men are sent to minister to the blind, white men are sent to minister to the black blind. Who gives, at this one hour, a friend to make darkness light before me? Who gives, at this one hour, wisdom to one so young, for the comfort of one so old? Who gives to me compa.s.sion for a girl my son has left?

Yes, he speaks to me, in such quiet and such simple words. We are grateful for the saints, he says, who lift up the heart in the days of our distress. Would we do less? For do we less, there are no saints to lift up any heart. If Christ be Christ he says, true Lord of Heaven, true Lord of Men, what is there that we would not do no matter what our suffering may be?

I hear you, my brother. There is no word I do not hear.

He is finishing. I can hear it in his voice. One can know that what is said, is said, is rounded, finished, it is perfection. He opens the book and reads again. He reads to me: Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard that the everlasting G.o.d, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary?

And the voice rises again, and the Zulu tongue is lifted and transfigured, and the man too is lifted....

Even the youths shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint.

The people sigh, and k.u.malo sighs, as though this is a great word that has been spoken. And indeed this Msimangu is known as a preacher. It is good for the Government, they say in Johannesburg, that Msimangu preaches of a world not made by hands, for he touches people at the hearts, and sends them marching to heaven instead of to Pretoria. And there are white people who marvel and say, what words to come from the son of a barbarian people, who not long since plundered and slaughtered, in thousands and tens of thousands, under the most terrible chief of all.

Yet he is despised by some, for this golden voice that could raise a nation, speaks always thus. For this place of suffering, from which men might escape if some such voice could bind them all together, is for him no continuing city. They say he preaches of a world not made by hands, while in the streets about him men suffer and struggle and die. They ask what folly it is that can so seize upon a man, what folly is it that seizes upon so many of their people, making the hungry patient, the suffering content, the dying at peace? And how fools listen to him, silent, enrapt, sighing when he is done, feeding their empty bellies on his empty words.

k.u.malo goes to him.

Brother, I am recovered.

Msimangu's face lights up, but he talks humbly, there is no pride or false constraint.

I have tried every way to touch you, he says, but I could not come near. So give thanks and be satisfied.

14.

ON THE DAY of their return from Ezenzeleni, k.u.malo ate his midday meal at the Mission, and returned to Mrs. Lithebe's to play with Gertrude's son. There was great bargaining going on, for Mrs. Lithebe had found a buyer for Gertrude's table and chairs, and for the pots and pans. Everything was sold for three pounds, which was not a bad sum for a table that was badly marked and discoloured, with what he did not ask. And the chairs too were weak, so that one had to sit carefully upon them. Indeed the price was paid for the pots and pans, which were of the stuff called aluminum. Now the black people do not buy such pots and pans, but his sister said that they were the gift of a friend, and into that too he did not enquire.

With the money she intended to buy some shoes, and a coat against the rain that was now beginning to fall; and this he approved, for her old coat and shoes went ill with the red dress and the white turban that he had bought for her.

When the last thing had been loaded, and the money paid, and the lorry had gone, he would have played with the small boy, but he saw, with the fear catching at him suddenly with a physical pain, Msimangu and the young white man walking up the street towards the house. With the habit born of experience, he forced himself to go to the gate, and noted with dread their set faces and the low tones in which they spoke.

Good afternoon, umfundisi. Is there a place where we can talk? asked the young man.

Come to my room, he said, hardly trusting to his voice.

In the room he shut the door, and stood not looking at them.

I have heard what you fear, said the young man. It is true.

And k.u.malo stood bowed, and could not look at them. He sat down in his chair and fixed his eyes upon the floor.

Well, what does one say now? Does one put an arm about the shoulders, touch a hand maybe? As though they did not know, Msimangu and the young man talked in low voices, as one talks in a room where someone is dead.

The young man shrugged his shoulders. This will be bad for the reformatory, he said more loudly, even indifferently.

And k.u.malo nodded his head, not once, nor twice, but three or four times, as though he too would say, Yes, it will be bad for the reformatory.

Yes, said the young man, it will be bad for us. They will say we let him out too soon. Of course, he said, there is one thing. The other two were not reformatory boys. But it was he who fired the shot.

My friend, said Msimangu, in as ordinary a voice as he could find, one of the two others is the son of your brother.

And so k.u.malo nodded his head again, one, two, three, four times. And when that was finished, he began again, as though he too was saying, one of the two others is the son of my brother.