Too Late the Phalarope

  Ah, but I did not mean to tell you that. But then perhaps I did, for I had the warning on that night. Yet it was really in my mind to show you my brother in his house; for some said he was a hard and loveless man, and would ride down any that stood in his way, without pity or mercy. But I tell you it was not true.

  Then I went to the kitchen and when I came back I said to my nephew, old Isak wants to see you.

  — I’ll go, he said.

  And I heard great talking there in the kitchen while I was in the pantry. It reminded me of the days in the kitchen on the farm Buitenverwagting, when he was a boy. Isak and Lena were asking after Nella and the children and they still called him kleinbasie, which is small master, though it is a strange name now for so tall a man.

  Old Isak said to me, there’s a woman asking to see you, and I told him to bring her in. And it was the girl Stephanie. She stood there smiling and frowning, and would look up and look down, and played with her hands. And I asked her what she wanted.

  — I’ve come to tell the baas, she said, I’m working.

  — Where, Stephanie?

  — For Baas Willemse, she said.

  — That’s good, I said.

  And I said to her, why do you come to tell me?

  Her smiling and her frowning went at once, and she stopped playing with her hands.

  She said to me earnestly, so that the baas can tell the Government.

  — That’s Baas Grobler’s work, I said.

  But she said, sweeping it aside, I came to the baas. And I said, why?

  At that moment I was alone there with the girl, and she said to me in a low voice, because the baas would do it for me.

  And the mad sickness came over me, that God knows I do not want, that God knows I fear and hate. And I did not say to her in a voice of every day, do not be foolish. I did not even say to her, how can you know such a thing? I said to her, quiet and trembling, how did you know? And she raised her head and smiled, not quite submissive nor quite bold. Then in an instant the smile was gone, and she said to me, not any longer with that fierceness with which once she said it, but servile and whining, it’s my only child, it’s my only child. Therefore I knew that someone else was there; and I was angry and afraid too, not so much because of the boldness of the look, as of the poor pretence that followed it. So I did not turn, but I said to her warningly, and what about the liquor?

  — I shall never be caught again, she said.

  — You thought that before.

  — The baas does not understand, she said. I will never make it again.

  — And the child?

  — It is with me here, in the location.

  — Good, I said. And listen …

  — Yes, baas.

  — I shall tell Baas Grobler that you are working.

  She thanked me and went out, and then only did I turn and look at my aunt Sophie. But she did not look at me.

  No, I did not look at him. How could I look at him? For now suddenly, and it unwanted, I had found what I had searched for all these years, and it was more dark and terrible than anything I had feared. The heart was stopped in me, and I could not look at him at all. And I prayed to the Lord God on my knees, half an hour, an hour maybe. And I prayed in my bed, and could not sleep for what I thought and prayed. Then I slept, and woke when the clock struck three, and reproached myself that I had made so much of the bold look of a girl; and having reproached, I prayed again. Though the night was cold I got out and prayed on my knees, as though I might better reach the ears of God in Heaven. When I slept again I do not know, but the birds were twittering in the trees. And when I woke again, I prayed again, and thought I was a fool, for thinking the unthinkable. For what had I seen but an idle girl look boldly at a man? And had I not heard him say, in the voice of his authority, what about the liquor? And had the girl not changed, from boldness to whining, just because she knew that I was in the Welfare Society, that threatened to take her child? So I comforted myself, with the thought that my love had made me mad. Yet I was not really comforted, because I am a watcher, and knew that no such girl might look in such a way at such a man. So I went from comfort to fear the whole day long, knowing and not knowing, and if I knew, not knowing what to do. Yet what made me most to fear was not what I had seen, but because I remembered he had said, I am angry that I was born.

  SO THE GIRL STEPHANIE went to work for Coenraad Willemse. She came from the location at six in the morning and went back to it at eight of night, and he paid her forty shillings a month, which is less than you get for breaking the law and making beer. And some woman said to Mevrou Willemse, I hear you have Stephanie now, and this woman laughed, and made Mevrou Willemse feel a fool and simple. For white and black live in separate worlds, and how many would know about the girl Stephanie, and her breakings of the law and her goings to prison? And how many would know about her nameless child? Indeed I should not have known myself if we had not started the Women’s Welfare Society.

  So Mevrou Willemse told her husband of the woman who had laughed because of the girl Stephanie and he, not wishing to be more of a fool, went privately to some friend who knew about such things, and asked him who was the girl Stephanie, and his friend told him about the liquor and the prison and the child. And the Willemses were angry that they had to lose the girl, for she worked like a slave for her forty shillings, and she was better than any girl they had had before; for the Willemses had a new servant every few weeks, not like ourselves, who have had Isak and Lena all their lives, because my brother is just and his wife gentle. But Mevrou Willemse had a tongue that was sharp and cruel, and she could follow a girl all over the house, from room to room, and nag at her with spite for some trifling thing; and she would make her pay from her forty shillings for some broken cup, and never show her any sign of love.

  And the Willemses were angry with the girl too, that she should come into their holy home, and bring with her such deceit and sin. But most of all they were angry because some silly woman laughed. Therefore they put her on the street, and paid her only for the days that she had worked, which is against the law; but it is a safe thing to do in Venterspan, where the black people are humble and obedient, and do not know the tricks of justice.

  And that night my nephew was busy with his stamps, and the black boy Johannes that worked in the kitchen had gone to bed, when there came the knock on the kitchen door. And he opened it, and there was the girl Stephanie. And the whole town was still and dark, but for the sound that the wind makes in the trees.

  So i said to her, and my voice was trembling; what do you want? And she looked about her, and then she suddenly came past me into the kitchen. And I shut the door

  — Baas, she said.

  — Yes.

  — Baas, I have lost the work:

  — Why?

  — They sent me away.

  — Why?

  — They found out. About the prison. And the child.

  And I said to her desperately, why do you not go to Baas Grobler?

  — I came to the Baas, she said.

  Then she smiled at me, and the mad sickness that I hate and fear came over me, and she knew it, it being one of the things that she understands. I should have said to her, this is not my work. I should have said to her, go to Baas Grobler again. I should have said to her, let them take your child, and send you to prison, let them throw you into the street, let them hang you by the neck until you are dead, but do not come to my home, nor smile at me, nor think there can be anything between you and me. For this law is the greatest and holiest of all the laws, and if you break it and are discovered, for you it is nothing but another breaking of the law. But if I break it and am discovered, the whole world will be broken.

  — Then she said to me, where are the mistress and the children?

  And I, knowing that she knew, said unwillingly, they’re away.

  — That’s a pity, she said.

  Then suddenly I said to her, wait.

  I went up to my room, and t
here in the pocket of my uniform I found two notes and some silver. And I looked at the beds in the room, Nella’s and mine, and the two small beds for my children. And I knelt down at my bed, and I said, o God wees my genadig, o Jesus Christus wees my genadig. Then I came down with the notes and the silver.

  — Take this, I said, so that you will not need to make more liquor. And go again and look for a job.

  — I’ll go tomorrow, she said.

  She put out her two hands to take the money and was full of thanks.

  —I’ll go to every house in the town, she said. And when I have a job I’ll let the baas know.

  And I said to her in a low voice, do not come any more to this house.

  But I did not say it as I should have said it. I must have said it differently, though God be my witness I did not mean it. For she said to me, when I am working, I go home at eight o’clock, past the place where the baas saw me running.

  I made no answer to that, but stood half away from her, looking at the stove. And when she saw that I made no answer, she said, goodnight Baas. And I said, Goodnight Stephanie. And she opened the door quietly and was gone.

  Then I went back to the stamps but I could not put my mind to them. For God forgive me, my mind was on the girl, half with madness, and half with apprehension that she could think she could come to my house. And a great longing came over me for Nella and the children, and for their love and for the noise in the house, and for the touch of them, and for their safety. Perhaps I could have told her that night that I had been tempted and resisted; yet perhaps I could not. How I wondered at myself, that I who shrank from any dirty joke, and was so fussy about my body and clothes, especially my shirts and handkerchiefs, should be tempted by such a thing, for I notice always a man’s and woman’s nails, and I shudder when a man clears his throat and spits, and pulls a dirty handkerchief from his pocket. I could never sleep on a soiled pillow, and it was painful to me to go into one of the lavatories that they seem to have in every garage and service station that I ever saw, full of oil and muck and papers. I have annoyed Nella more than once, by asking for a clean tablecloth when the coffee or the beetroot had been spilled on the old. She might argue about the coffee, and I give in; but never about the beetroot, knowing that I would rather take my food to the study and eat there alone. If I stayed in a hotel, I was always constrained like any country boy, and would take patiently just what they would do or not do, or give or not give, and walk about delicately as even the waiters had more right than I. I remember yet in Johannesburg, when they gave me the dirty tablecloth that I sat there with the anger climbing up my throat, till I could endure it no longer, and I stood up and said in a cold and toneless voice, must I sit here with this filth? Then when they saw my great height, suddenly I who walked there delicately was treated like a king and feared, and they rushed about me and put things right that I had not noticed at all, and something of my father came into me and I laughed at them in my heart, and something of my mother came into me, and I was ashamed.

  As I sat there my mind went back suddenly, ten, no, eleven years, to Stellenbosch. I could see the very room where we were sitting, five or six of us students. Moffie de Bruyn’s room with the old Vierkleur on the wall and the picture of President Kruger. We were talking of South Africa, as we always talked when it was not football or psychology or religion. We were talking of colour and race, and whether such feelings were born in us or made; and Moffie told us the story of the accident in Cape Town, how the car crashed into the telephone box, and how he had gone rushing to help, and just when he got there the door of the car opened and a woman fell backwards into his arms. It nearly knocked him over, but he was able to hold her, and let her gently to the ground. And all the time the light was going off and on in the telephone box. And just when the light went on, he saw it was a Malay woman that he had in his arms, full of jewels and rings and blood. And he could not hold her any more; he let her go in horror, not even gently, he said, and even though a crowd was there. And without a word he pushed through the crowd and went on his way. For the touch of such a person was abhorrent to him, he said, and he did not think it was learned; he thought it was deep down in him, a part of his very nature. And many Afrikaners are the same.

  Why Moffie’s story should come back to me then I do not know, for I cannot remember that I had ever thought of it all these eleven years. But it came back to me now, and I thought of him, and of all those like him, with a deep envy, and a longing too, that I could have been like that myself.

  How we laughed at Moffie’s story, partly because of the way he told it, and partly, I suppose, because we were laughing at ourselves. I do not think we were laughing at the Malay woman, nor at the way he let her fall to the ground. And I suppose there was some shame in it too. But I would take the shame, and I would be like that myself, if I could; for to have such a horror is to be safe. Therefore I envied him.

  THEN SUDDENLY he decided to go to Kappie and to tell him these strange things, knowing that Kappie understood the ways of the world and did not judge. And suddenly it seemed easy to him, for these were human things, and they happened in men, and one should be able to talk about them. And they would talk about them, without horror or judgment, quietly and smoking, and it would be easy to say to Kappie, you know, Kappie, I am like that myself. And it troubles me, so that I am full of black angers and moods, and that is why I hold back within myself, and men are afraid of me, and will not tell me a story in a bar. And Kappie, what do I do? In God’s name, what do I do?

  When he reached the store, he was nervous and constrained. He went to the room at the back, where Kappie lived alone, with his stamps and his great stinkwood cabinet full of all the records of all the music in the world, and the small stove with the kettle and the cups, and the small bird that was his friend and sang to him all the day. He was nervous because he had never been at such an hour before. And you cannot say to a man, I am come to talk to you of this and that, and when we are ready, I shall tell you of the deep misery of my life, and you must help me, you must help me in God’s name, before I am destroyed, and you must find some magic for me, you must tell me something in God’s name, you must make some plan for me because I have never told such things to a man before. You must make some rule, that I can follow, something known only to you and me, and I will obey, you need not worry that I shall not obey, only to be safe, to have a rule before I am destroyed, for God’s mercy’s sake.

  He knocked at the door, and Kappie opened it to him. And when he saw the lieutenant he was full of pleasure, and asked him in, and put him into his own chair.

  — Kappie, I’m sick of the empty house, and I’m wanting to see some stamps.

  And Kappie told me that his lips trembled when he said, I’m wanting to see some stamps, so that Kappie knew that he wanted something deeper than any stamps. So they looked at Kappie’s South African stamps, of the old Cape of Good Hope and Natal and the old Republics, and strange stamps that they used in the waggon days, and stamps of the republics of Stellaland and Goshen that are now forgotten, and stamps where something was left out or something put in or something printed upside down or sideways, and the greater the foolishness the more you pay for the stamp. Then they made coffee on the stove, and Kappie played the Tchaikowsky Concerto, that is to me one of the greatest pieces of music that any human soul has ever imagined, and where such sounds come from, and how they come into the mind of a man that once was a child sucking at a nipple with sobs and tears, God knows, I do not know. And Kappie put out the light, as he always does for such music, and they sat there with only the glow from the stove, and he watched the lieutenant, not staring at him at all, but watching as I watch, with no one knowing. And he told me that the Concerto was great music, but no greater than the trouble of the lieutenant’s soul, that they matched each other there in the dark so that the music sounded to him as it had never sounded before, with new deepness and sorrow.

  And when the Concerto was finished, the lieutenant stood up
and said, Kappie, I must go home.

  — You’ll come again, lieutenant?

  — Yes, Kappie, I’ll come again. I’ve enjoyed it. Then Kappie said, you can come every night if you wish. What could be better, stamps and coffee and music and your company?

  And the lieutenant could not answer him, and Kappie did not put on the light, and they went to the door, and the lieutenant said to him, not looking at him, Goodnight, Kappie, in a strange voice not his own, and he said none of the things that men or women say when they part, about the beauty or coldness of the night, or the first frost that has already come to the high parts of the grass country. He said nothing at all, but went without another word, and it was a strange ending to an evening already strange.

  And Kappie went back to his room and shut the door, and stood at the door. Then he walked a pace or two, and stood again. Then he walked again to his chair, and sat down on the edge of it, looking at the floor. But he could think only of two things, and one was Nella, and the other was money trouble. But something told him that it was neither, but some tragic trouble of the soul; and the Jews understand about the soul.

  Ah, if he could have told. For where would he have found a man more true and faithful? And where would he have found a man who would better have understood and would not have shrunk from him? And yet he could not tell.

  And as I write here I read it again, the very paper is in front of me—