A YOUNG MAN met them at the airport.
Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis?
Yes.
I’m John Harrison, Mary’s brother. I don’t think you remember me. I was only a youngster when you saw me last. Let me carry your things. I’ve a car here for you.
As they walked to the control building, the young man said, I needn’t tell you how grieved we are, Mr. Jarvis. Arthur was the finest man I ever knew. In the car he spoke to them again. Mary and the children are at my mother s, and we’re expecting you both to stay with us. How is Mary? She’s suffering from the shock, Mr. Jarvis, but she’s very brave. And the children? They’ve taken it very badly, Mr. Jarvis. And that has given Mary something to occupy herself.
They did not speak again. Jarvis held his wife’s hand, but they all were silent with their own thoughts, until they drove through the gates of a suburban house, and came to a stop before a lighted porch. A young woman came out at the sound of the car, and embraced Mrs. Jarvis, and they wept together. Then she turned to Jarvis, and they embraced each other. This first meeting over, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison came out also, and after they had welcomed one another, and after the proper words had been spoken, they all went into the house. Harrison turned to Jarvis. Would you like a drink? he asked. It would be welcome. Come to my study, then.
And now, said Harrison, you must do as you wish. If there’s anything we can do, you’ve only to ask us. If you would wish to go to the mortuary at once, John will go with you. Or you can go tomorrow morning if you wish. The police would like to see you, but they won’t worry you tonight.
I’ll ask my wife, Harrison. You know, we’ve hardly spoken of it yet. I’ll go to her, don’t you worry to come. I’ll wait for you here.
He found his wife and his daughter-in-law hand in hand, tip-toeing out of the room where his grandchildren were sleeping. He spoke to her, and she wept again and sobbed against him. Now, she said. He went back to Harrison, and swallowed his drink, and then he and his wife and their daughter-in-law went out to the car, where John Harrison was waiting for them.
While they were driving to the Police Laboratories, John Harrison told Jarvis all that he knew about the crime, how the police were waiting for the house-boy to recover consciousness, and how they had combed the plantations on Parkwold Ridge. And he told him too of the paper that Arthur Jarvis had been writing just before he was killed, on The Truth About Native Crime. I d like to see it, said Jarvis. We’ll get it for you tomorrow, Mr. Jarvis. My son and I didn’t see eye to eye on the native question, John. In fact, he and I got quite heated about it on more than one occasion. But I d like to see what he wrote. My father and I don’t see eye to eye on the native question either, Mr. Jarvis. You know, Mr. Jarvis, there was no one in South Africa who thought so deeply about it, and no one who thought so clearly, as Arthur did. And what else is there to think deeply and clearly about in South Africa, he used to say. So they came to the Laboratories, and John Harrison stayed in the car, while the others went to do the hard thing that had to be done. And they came out silent but for the weeping of the two women, and drove back as silently to the house, where Mary’s father opened the door to them. Another drink, Jarvis. Or do you want to go to bed? Margaret, do you want me to come up with you? No, my dear, stay and have your drink. Goodnight then, my dear. Goodnight, James.
He kissed her, and she clung to him for a moment. And thank you for all your help, she said. The tears came again into her eyes, and into his too for that matter. He watched her climb the stairs with their daughter-in-law, and when the door closed on them, he and Harrison turned to go to the study. It’s always worse for the mother, Jarvis. Yes.
He pondered over it, and said then, I was very fond of my son, he said. I was never ashamed of having him.
They settled down to their drinks, and Harrison told him that the murder had shocked the people of Parkwold, and how the messages had poured into the house. Messages from every conceivable place, every kind of person, he said. By the way, Jarvis, we arranged the funeral provisionally for tomorrow afternoon, after a service in the Parkwold Church. Three o’clock the service will be. Jarvis nodded. Thank you, he said. And we kept all the messages for you. From the Bishop, and the Acting Prime Minister, and the Mayor, and from dozens of others. And from native organizations too, something called the Daughters of Africa, and a whole lot of others that I can’t remember. And from coloured people, and Indians, and Jews. Jarvis felt a sad pride rising in him. He was clever, he said. That came from his mother. He was that right enough you must hear John on it. But people liked him too, all sorts of people. You know he spoke Afrikaans like an Afrikaner? I knew he had learnt it. It’s a lingo I know nothing about, thank God. But he thought he ought to know it, so he took lessons in it, and went to an Afrikaner farm. He spoke Zulu as you know, but he was talking of learning Sesuto. You know these native M.P.’s they have well, there was talk of getting him to stand at the next election. I didn’t know that. Yes, he was always speaking here and there. You know the kind of thing. Native Crime, and more Native Schools, and he kicked up a hell of a dust in the papers about the conditions at the non-European Hospital. And you know he was hot about the native compound system in the Mines, and wanted the Chamber to come out one hundred per cent for settled labour you know, wife and family to come with the man.
Jarvis filled his pipe slowly, and listened to this tale of his son, to this tale of a stranger.
Hathaway of the Chamber of Mines spoke to me about it, said Harrison. Asked me if I wouldn’t warn the lad to pipe down a bit, because his firm did a lot of business with the Mines. So I spoke to him, told him I knew he felt deeply about these things, but asked him to go slow a bit. Told him there was Mary to consider, and the children. I didn’t speak on behalf of Mary, you understand? I don’t poke my nose into young people’s business. I understand.
I’ve spoken to Mary, he said to me. She and I agree that it’s more important to speak the truth than to make money.
Harrison laughed at that, but cut himself short, remembering the sadness of the occasion. My son John was there, he said, looking at Arthur as though he were God Almighty. So what could I say?
They smoked in silence awhile. I asked him, said Harrison, about his partners. After all their job was to sell machinery to the Mines. I’ve discussed it with my partners, he said to me, and if there’s any trouble, I’ve told them I’ll get out. And what would you do? I asked him. What won’t I do? he said. His face was sort of excited. Well, what could I say more?
Jarvis did not answer. For this boy of his had gone journeying in strange waters, further than his parents had known. Or perhaps his mother knew. It would not surprise him if his mother knew. But he himself had never done such journeying, and there was nothing he could say. Am I tiring you, Jarvis? Or is there perhaps something else you d like to talk about? Or go to bed, perhaps? Harrison, you’re doing me more good by talking.
Well, that’s how it was. He and I didn’t talk much about these things. It’s not my line of country. I try to treat a native decently, but he’s not my food and drink. And to tell you the truth, these crimes put me off. I tell you, Jarvis, we’re scared stiff at the moment in Johannesburg. Of crime? Yes, of native crime. There are too many of these murders and robberies and brutal attacks. I tell you we don’t go to bed at night without barricading the house. It was at the Phillipsons, three doors down, that a gang of these roughs broke in; they knocked old Phillipson unconscious, and beat up his wife. It was lucky the girls were out at a dance, or one doesn’t know what might have happened. I asked Arthur about that, but he reckoned we were to blame somehow. Can’t say I always followed him, but he had a kind of sincerity. You sort of felt that if you had the time you could get some sort of sense out of it. There’s one thing I don’t get the sense of, said Jarvis. Why this should have happened ¦. You mean ¦to him, of all people? Yes. That’s one of the first things that we said. Here he was, day in and day out, on a kind of mission. And it was he who was killed. Mind
you, said Jarvis, coming to a point. Mind you, it’s happened before. I mean, that missionaries were killed.
Harrison made no answer, and they smoked their pipes silently. A missionary, thought Jarvis, and thought how strange it was that he had called his son a missionary. For he had never thought much of missionaries. True, the church made a lot of it, and there were special appeals to which he had given, but one did that kind of thing without believing much in missionaries. There was a mission near him, at Ndotsheni. But it was a sad place as he remembered it. A dirty old wood-and-iron church, patched and forlorn, and a dirty old parson, in a barren valley where the grass hardly grew. A dirty old school where he had heard them reciting, parrot-fashion, on the one or two occasions that he had ridden past there, reciting things that could mean little to them. Bed, Jarvis? Or another drink? Bed, I think. Did you say the police were coming? They’re coming at nine. And I d like to see the house. I thought that you would. They’ll take you there. Good, then I’ll go to bed. Will you say goodnight to your wife for me? I’ll do that. You know your room? And breakfast? Eight-thirty? Eight-thirty. Goodnight, Harrison. And many thanks for your kindnesses. No thanks are needed. Nothing is too much trouble. Goodnight, Jarvis, and I hope you and Margaret will get some sleep.
Jarvis walked up the stairs, and went into the room. He walked in quietly, and closed the door, and did not put on the light. The moon was shining through the windows, and he stood there looking out on the world. All that he had heard went quietly through his mind. His wife turned in the bed, and said, James. My dear. What were you thinking, my dear?
He was silent, searching for an answer. Of it all, he said. I thought you would never come.
He went to her quickly, and she caught at his hands. We were talking of the boy, he said. All that he did, and tried to do. All the people that are grieved. Tell me, my dear.
And so he told her in low tones all he had heard. She marvelled a little, for her husband was a quiet silent man, not given to much talking. But tonight he told her all that Harrison had told him. It makes me proud, she whispered. But you always knew he was like that. Yes, I knew. I knew too that he was a decent man, he said. But you were always nearer to him than I was. It’s easier for a mother, James. I suppose so. But I wish now that I d known more of him. You see, the things that he did, I’ve never had much to do with that sort of thing. Nor I either, James. His life was quite different from ours. It was a good life by all accounts.
He sat, she lay, in silence, with their thoughts and their memories and their grief. Although his life was different, he said, you understood it. Yes, James. I’m sorry I didn’t understand it.
Then he said in a whisper, I didn’t know it would ever be so important to understand it. My dear, my dear. Her arms went about him, and she wept. And he continued to whisper, There’s one thing I don’t understand, why it should have happened to him.
She lay there thinking of it, the pain was deep, deep and ineluctable. She tightened her arms about him. James, let’s try to sleep, she said.
20
JARVIS SAT IN the chair of his son, and his wife and Mary left him to return to the Harrisons. Books, books, books, more books than he had ever seen in a house! On the table papers, letters and more books. Mr. Jarvis, will you speak at the Parkwold Methodist Guild? Mr. Jarvis, will you speak at the Anglican Young People’s Association in Sophiatown? Mr. Jarvis, will you speak in a symposium at the University? No, Mr. Jarvis would be unable to speak at any of these. Mr. Jarvis, you are invited to the Annual Meeting of the Society of Jews and Christians. Mr. Jarvis, you and your wife are invited to the wedding of Sarajini, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Singh. Mr. Jarvis, you and your wife are invited to a Toc H Guest Night in Van Wyk’s Valley. No, Mr. Jarvis would be unable to accept these kind invitations.
On the walls between the books there were four pictures, of Christ crucified, and Abraham Lincoln, and the white gabled house of Vergelegen, and a painting of leafless willows by a river in a wintry veld.
He rose from the chair to look at the books. Here were hundreds of books, all about Abraham Lincoln. He had not known that so many books had been written about any one man. One bookcase was full of them. And another was full of books about South Africa, Sarah Gertrude Millin’s Life of Rhodes, and her book about Smuts, and Engelenburg’s Life of Louis Botha, and books on South African race problems, and books on South African birds, and the Kruger Park, and innumerable others. Another bookcase was full of Afrikaans books but the titles conveyed nothing to him. And here were books about religion and Soviet Russia, and crime and criminals, and books of poems. He looked for Shakespeare, and here was Shakespeare too.
He went back to the chair, and looked long at the pictures of Christ crucified, and Abraham Lincoln, and Vergelegen, and the willows by the river. Then he drew some pieces of paper towards him.
The first was a letter to his son from the secretary of the Claremont African Boys Club, Gladiolus Street, Claremont, regretting that Mr. Jarvis had not been able to attend the Annual Meeting of the Club, and informing him he had again been elected as President. And the letter concluded, with quaintness of phrase I am compelled by the Annual meeting to congratulate you with this matter, and to express considerable thanks to you for all the time you have been spending with us, and for the presents you have been giving the Club. How this Club would be arranged without your participation, would be a mystery to many minds amongst us. It is on these accounts that we desire to elect you again to the Presidency. I am asking an apology for this writing-paper, but our Club writing-paper is lost owing to unforeseen circumstances.
I am,
Your obedient servant,
WASHINGTON LEFIFI.
The other papers were in his son’s handwriting. They were obviously part of some larger whole, for the first line was the latter end of a sentence, and the last line was a sentence unfinished. He looked for the rest of it, but finding nothing, settled down to read what he had: was permissible. What we did when we came to South Africa was permissible. It was permissible to develop our great resources with the aid of what labour we could find. It was permissible to use unskilled men for unskilled work. But it is not permissible to keep men unskilled for the sake of unskilled work. It was permissible when we discovered gold to bring labour to the mines. It was permissible to build compounds and to keep women and children away from the towns. It was permissible as an experiment, in the light of what we knew. But in the light of what we know now, with certain exceptions, it is no longer permissible. It is not permissible for us to go on destroying family life when we know that we are destroying it.
It is permissible to develop any resources if the labour is forthcoming. But it is not permissible to develop any resources if they can be developed only at the cost of the labour. It is not permissible to mine any gold, or manufacture any product, or cultivate any land, if such mining and manufacture and cultivation depend for their success on a policy of keeping labour poor. It is not permissible to add to one’s possessions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation. It might have been permissible in the early days of our country, before we became aware of its cost, in the disintegration of native community life, in the deterioration of native family life, in poverty, slums and crime. But now that the cost is known, it is no longer permissible.
It was permissible to leave native education to those who wanted to develop it. It was permissible to doubt its benefits. But it is no longer permissible in the light of what we know. Partly because it made possible industrial development, and partly because it happened in spite of us, there is now a large urbanized native population. Now society has always, for reasons of self-interest if for no other, educated its children so that they grow up law-abiding, with socialized aims and purposes. There is no other way that it can be done. Yet we continue to leave the education of our native urban society to those few Europeans who feel strongly about it
, and to deny opportunities and money for its expansion. That is not permissible. For reasons of self-interest alone, it is dangerous.
It was permissible to allow the destruction of a tribal system that impeded the growth of the country. It was permissible to believe that its destruction was inevitable. But it is not permissible to watch its destruction, and to replace it by nothing, or by so little, that a whole people deteriorates, physically and morally.
The old tribal system was, for all its violence and savagery, for all its superstition and witchcraft, a moral system. Our natives today produce criminals and prostitutes and drunkards, not because it is their nature to do so, but because their simple system of order and tradition and convention has been destroyed. It was destroyed by the impact of our own civilization. Our civilization has therefore an inescapable duty to set up another system of order and tradition and convention.
It is true that we hoped to preserve the tribal system by a policy of segregation. That was permissible. But we never did it thoroughly or honestly. We set aside one-tenth of the land for four-fifths of the people. Thus we made it inevitable, and some say we did it knowingly, that labour would come to the towns. We are caught in the toils of our own selfishness. No one wishes to make the problem seem smaller than it is. No one wishes to make its solution seem easy. No one wishes to make light of the fears that beset us. But whether we be fearful or no, we shall never, because we are a Christian people, be able to evade the moral issues.
It is time
And there the manuscript and the page ended. Jarvis, who had become absorbed in the reading, searched again amongst the papers on the table, but he could find nothing to show that anything more than this had been written. He lit his pipe, and pulling the papers toward him, began to read them again. After he had finished them the second time, he sat smoking his pipe and was lost in thought. Then he got up from his chair and went and stood in front of the Lincoln bookcase, and looked up at the picture of the man who had exercised such an influence over his son. He looked at the hundreds of books, and slid aside the glass panel and took one of them out. Then he returned to his chair, and began to turn over its pages, One of the chapters was headed The Famous Speech at Gettysburg, apparently a speech that was a failure, but that had since become one of the great speeches of the world. He turned over the preliminary pages till he came to the speech, and read it through carefully. That done, he smoked again, lost in a deep abstraction. After some time he rose and replaced the book in the case, and shut the case. Then he opened the case again, and slipped the book into his pocket, and shut the case. He looked at his watch, knocked out his pipe in the fireplace, put on his hat, took up his stick. He walked slowly down the stairs, and opened the door into the fatal passage. He took off his hat and looked down at the dark stain on the floor. Unasked, unwanted, the picture of the small boy came into his mind, the small boy at High Place, the small boy with the wooden guns. Unseeing he walked along the passage and out of the door through which death had come so suddenly. The policeman saluted him, and he answered him with words that meant nothing, that made no sense at all. He put on his hat, and walked to the gate. Undecided he looked up and down the road. Then with an effort he began to walk. With a sigh the policeman relaxed.