Cry, The Beloved Country Part 9

He too is sorry for this end to your work, said Msimangu in Afrikaans.

Yes, it is my work, but it is his son. He turned to k.u.malo and spoke in English. Let us not give up all hope, he said. It has happened sometimes that a boy is arrested, or is injured and taken to hospital, and we do not know. Do not give up hope, umfundisi. I will not give up the search.

They watched him drive away. He is a good man, said k.u.malo. Come, let us walk.

But Msimangu did not move. I am ashamed to walk with you, he said. His face was twisted, like that of a man much distressed.

k.u.malo looked at him astonished.

I ask your forgiveness for my ugly words, said Msimangu.

You mean about the search?

You understood, then?

Yes, I understood.

You are quick to understand.

I am old, and have learnt something. You are forgiven.

Sometimes I think I am not fit to be a priest. I could tell you - It is no matter. You have said you are a weak and selfish man, but G.o.d put his hands upon you. It is true, it seems.

Huh, you comfort me.

But I have something to ask of you.

Msimangu looked at him, searching his face, and then he said, it is agreed.

What is agreed?

That I should take you again to see this girl.

You are clever too, it seems.

Huh, it is not good that only one should be clever.

Yet they were not really in the mood for jesting. They walked along the hot road to Orlando, and both fell silent, each no doubt with many things in mind.

11.

I HAVE BEEN thinking, said Msimangu, as they were sitting in the train that would take them back to Sophiatown, that it is time for you to rest for a while.

k.u.malo looked at him. How can I rest? he said.

I know what you mean. I know you are anxious, but the young man at the reformatory will do better at this searching than you or I could do. Now this is Tuesday; the day after tomorrow I must go to Ezenzeleni, which is the place of our blind, to hold a service for them, and to attend to our own people. And that night I shall sleep there, and return the day after. I shall telephone to the superintendent, and ask if you may come with me. While I work, you can rest. It is a fine place there; there is a chapel there, and the ground falls away from one's feet to the valley below. It will lift your spirits to see what the white people are doing for our blind. Then we can return strengthened for what is still before us.

What about your work, my friend?

I have spoken to my superiors about the work. They are agreed that I must help you till the young man is found.

They are indeed kind. Good, we shall go then.

It was a pleasant evening at the Mission House. Father Vincent, the rosy-cheeked priest, was there, and they talked about the place where k.u.malo lived and worked. And the white man in his turn spoke about his own country, about the hedges and the fields, and Westminster Abbey, and the great cathedrals up and down the land. Yet even this pleasure was not to be entire, for one of the white priests came in from the city with theEvening Star , and showed them the bold black lines. MURDER IN PARKWOLD. WELL-KNOWN CITY ENGINEER SHOT DEAD. a.s.sAILANTS THOUGHT TO BE NATIVES.

This is a terrible loss for South Africa, said the white priest. For this Arthur Jarvis was a courageous young man, and a great fighter for justice. And it is a terrible loss for the Church too. He was one of the finest of all our young laymen.

Jarvis? It is indeed a terrible thing, said Msimangu. He was the President of the African Boys' Club, here in Claremont, in Gladiolus Street.

Perhaps you might have known him, said Father Vincent to k.u.malo. It says that he was the only child of Mr. James Jarvis, of High Place, Carisbrooke.

I know the father, said k.u.malo sorrowfully. I mean I know him well by sight and name, but we have never spoken. His farm is in the hills above Ndotsheni, and he sometimes rode past our church. But I did not know the son.

He was silent, then he said, yet I remember, there was a small bright boy, and he too sometimes rode on his horse past the church. A small bright boy, I remember, though I do not remember it well.

And he was silent again, for who is not silent when someone is dead, who was a small bright boy?

Shall I read this? said Father Vincent: At 1:30P.M . today Mr. Arthur Jarvis, of Plantation Road, Parkwold, was shot dead in his house by an intruder, thought to be a native. It appears that Mrs. Jarvis and her two children were away for a short holiday, and that Mr. Jarvis had telephoned his partners to say that he would be staying at home with a slight cold. It would seem that a native, probably with two accomplices, entered by the kitchen, thinking no doubt that there would be no one in the house. The native servant in the kitchen was knocked unconscious, and it would appear that Mr. Jarvis heard the disturbance and came down to investigate. He was shot dead at short range in the pa.s.sageway leading from the stairs into the kitchen. There were no signs of any struggle.

Three native youths were seen lounging in Plantation Road shortly before the tragedy occurred, and a strong force of detectives was immediately sent to the scene. Exhaustive inquiries are being made, and the plantations on Parkwold Ridge are being combed. The native servant, Richard Mpiring, is lying unconscious in the Non-European Hospital, and it is hoped that when he regains consciousness he will be able to furnish the police with important information. His condition is serious however.

The sound of the shot was heard by a neighbour, Mr. Michael Clarke, who investigated promptly and made the tragic discovery. The police were on the scene within a few minutes. On the table by the bed of the murdered man was found an unfinished ma.n.u.script on "The Truth about Native Crime," and it would appear that he was engaged in writing it when he got up to go to his death. The bowl of a pipe on the table was found still to be warm.

Mr. Jarvis leaves a widow, a nine-year-old son, and a five-year-old daughter. He was the only son of Mr. James Jarvis, of High Place Farm, Carisbrooke, Natal, and a partner in the city engineering firm of Davis, van der Walt and Jarvis. The dead man was well known for his interest in social problems, and for his efforts for the welfare of the non-European sections of the community.

There is not much talking now. A silence falls upon them all. This is no time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country. Sadness and fear and hate, how they well up in the heart and mind, whenever one opens the pages of these messengers of doom. Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his heart.

k.u.malo rose. I shall go to my room, he said. Goodnight to you all.

I shall walk with you, my friend.

They walked to the gate of the little house of Mrs. Lithebe. k.u.malo lifted to his friend a face that was full of suffering.

This thing, he said. This thing. Here in my heart there is nothing but fear. Fear, fear, fear.

I understand. Yet it is nevertheless foolish to fear that one thing in this great city, with its thousands and thousands of people.

It is not a question of wisdom and foolishness. It is just fear.

The day after tomorrow we go to Ezenzeleni. Perhaps you will find something there.

No doubt, no doubt. Anything but what I most desire.

Come and pray.

There is no prayer left in me. I am dumb here inside. I have no words at all.

Goodnight, my brother.

Goodnight.

Msimangu watched him go up the little path. He looked very old. He himself turned and walked back to the Mission. There are times, no doubt, when G.o.d seems no more to be about the world.

12.

HAVE NO DOUBT it is fear in the land. For what can men do when so many have grown lawless? Who can enjoy the lovely land, who can enjoy the seventy years, and the sun that pours down on the earth, when there is fear in the heart? Who can walk quietly in the shadow of the jacarandas, when their beauty is grown to danger? Who can lie peacefully abed, while the darkness holds some secret? What lovers can lie sweetly under the stars, when menace grows with the measure of their seclusion?

There are voices crying what must be done, a hundred, a thousand voices. But what do they help if one seeks for counsel, for one cries this, and one cries that, and another cries something that is neither this nor that.

It's a crying scandal, ladies and gentlemen, that we get so few police. This suburb pays more in taxes than most of the suburbs of Johannesburg, and what do we get for it? A third-cla.s.s police station, with one man on the beat, and one at the telephone. This is the second outrage of its kind in six months, and we must demand more protection.

(Applause).

Mr. McLaren, will you read us your resolution?

I say we shall always have native crime to fear until the native people of this country have worthy purposes to inspire them and worthy goals to work for. For it is only because they see neither purpose nor goal that they turn to drink and crime and prost.i.tution. Which do we prefer, a law-abiding, industrious and purposeful native people, or a lawless, idle and purposeless people? The truth is that we do not know, for we fear them both. And so long as we vacillate, so long will we pay dearly for the dubious pleasure of not having to make up our minds. And the answer does not lie, except temporarily, in more police and more protection. (Applause).

And you think, Mr. de Villiers, that increased schooling facilities would cause a decrease in juvenile delinquency amongst native children?

I am sure of it, Mr. Chairman.

Have you the figures for the percentage of children at school, Mr. de Villiers?

In Johannesburg, Mr. Chairman, not more than four out of ten are at school. But of those four not even one will reach his sixth standard. Six are being educated in the streets.

May I ask Mr. de Villiers a question, Mr. Chairman?

By all means, Mr. Scott.

Who do you think should pay for this schooling, Mr. de Villiers?

We should pay for it. If we wait till native parents can pay for it, we will pay more heavily in other ways.

Don't you think, Mr. de Villiers, that more schooling simply means cleverer criminals?

I am sure that is not true.

Let me give you a case. I had a boy working for me who had pa.s.sed Standard Six. Perfect gentleman, bow-tie, hat to the side, and the latest socks. I treated him well and paid him well. Now do you know, Mr. de Villiers, that this self-same scoundrel....

They should enforce the pa.s.s laws, Jackson.

But I tell you the pa.s.s laws don't work.

They'd work if they were enforced.

But I tell you they're unenforceable. Do you know that we send one hundred thousand natives every year to prison, where they mix with real criminals?

That's not quite true, Jackson. I know they're trying road camps, and farm-labour, and several other things.

Well, perhaps you know. But it doesn't alter my argument at all, that the pa.s.s laws are unenforceable. You can send 'em to road-camps or farms or anywhere else you d.a.m.n well please, but you can't tell me it's a healthy thing even to convict one hundred thousand people.

What would you do then?

Well now you're asking. I don't know what I'd do. But I just know the pa.s.s laws don't work.

We went to the Zoo Lake, my dear. But it's quite impossible. I really don't see why they can't have separate days for natives.

I just don't go there any more on a Sunday, my dear. We take John and Penelope on some other day. But I like to be fair. Where can these poor creatures go?

Why can't they make recreation places for them?

When they wanted to make a recreation centre on part of the Hillside Golf Course, there was such a fuss that they had to drop it.

But my dear, it would have been impossible. The noise would have been incredible.

So they stay on the pavements and hang about the corners. And believe me, the noise is just as incredible there too. But that needn't worry you where you live.

Don't be catty, my dear. Why can't they put up big recreation centres somewhere, and let them all go free on the buses?

Where, for example?

You do persist, my dear. Why not in the City?

And how long will it take them to get there? And how long to get back? How many hours do you give your servants off on a Sunday?

Oh, it's too hot to argue. Get your racquet, my dear, they're calling us. Look, it's Mrs. Harvey and Thelma. You've got to play like a demon, do you hear?

And some cry for the cutting up of South Africa without delay into separate areas, where white can live without black, and black without white, where black can farm their own land and mine their own minerals and administer their own laws. And others cry away with the compound system, that brings men to the towns without their wives and children, and breaks up the tribe and the house and the man, and they ask for the establishment of villages for the labourers in mines and industry.

And the churches cry too. The English-speaking churches cry for more education, and more opportunity, and for a removal of the restrictions on native labour and enterprise. And the Afrikaans-speaking churches want to see the native people given opportunity to develop along their own lines, and remind their own people that the decay of family religion, where the servants took part in family devotions, has contributed in part to the moral decay of the native people. But there is to be no equality in church or state.

Yes, there are a hundred, and a thousand voices crying. But what does one do, when one cries this thing, and one cries another? Who knows how we shall fashion a land of peace where black outnumbers white so greatly? Some say that the earth has bounty enough for all, and that more for one does not mean less for another, that the advance of one does not mean the decline of another. They say that poor-paid labour means a poor nation, and that better-paid labour means greater markets and greater scope for industry and manufacture. And others say that this is a danger, for better-paid labour will not only buy more but will also read more, think more, ask more, and will not be content to be forever voiceless and inferior.

Who knows how we shall fashion such a land? For we fear not only the loss of our possessions, but the loss of our superiority and the loss of our whiteness. Some say it is true that crime is bad, but would this not be worse? Is it not better to hold what we have, and to pay the price of it with fear? And others say, can such fear be endured? For is it not this fear that drives men to ponder these things at all?

We do not know, we do not know. We shall live from day to day, and put more locks on the doors, and get a fine fierce dog when the fine fierce b.i.t.c.h next door has pups, and hold on to our handbags more tenaciously; and the beauty of the trees by night, and the raptures of lovers under the stars, these things we shall forego. We shall forego the coming home drunken through the midnight streets, and the evening walk over the star-lit veld. We shall be careful, and knock this off our lives, and knock that off our lives, and hedge ourselves about with safety and precaution. And our lives will shrink, but they shall be the lives of superior beings; and we shall live with fear, but at least it will not be a fear of the unknown. And the conscience shall be thrust down; the light of life shall not be extinguished, but be put under a bushel, to be preserved for a generation that will live by it again, in some day not yet come; and how it will come, and when it will come, we shall not think about at all.