‘Thomas, you do not understand this business.’
‘No, baas, I do not understand. Explain it to me, baas.’
‘Your soil on the Reserve is no good.’
‘Ah, baas, that is so. Very bad land on the Reserve, not good land like you have, baas.’
‘Yes, but the land is bad land because there are too many cattle on it.’
‘Ah,
baas
! And how can there be too many cattle when the Government has made me sell my cattle so now I have only three cattle?’
‘But, Thomas, the Government has made you sell your cattle so that there won’t be too many cattle on your land.’
‘Then why cannot they graze as they always did?’
‘Thomas, it is like this.’ And my friend takes his foot off the running board, stands up, and raises his finger in admonition. ‘And now listen well, Thomas, for now I will explain the Government to you.’
‘Thank you, baas. I am listening well.’
‘When you let your cattle run all over the veld in winter looking for grass they cut the land into dust, and the cattle and the grass both get thin and no good.’
‘Yes, baas?’
‘Now you put your cattle into a house, you cut grass for them and you carry the grass to the cattle, and they do not make the soil into dust.’
‘But baas, the soil is no good, not like your soil.’
‘It is because you do not shut up your cattle.’
‘But baas, the Mkiwa do not shut up the cattle, they let the cattle run.’ (Mkiwa—the white men.)
‘The farmers that are good farmers, they shut up their cattle and feed them in the winter when the grass is no good.’
‘But if the Mkiwa do not wish to be good farmers, then they can let their cattle run, because they have plenty of land.’
‘But, Thomas, you are not using your head.’
‘Yes, baas, I am using my head well.’
‘Now, Thomas, you must do what the Government says.’
‘Yes, baas, that I understand. But the Government is shupaing me. For how can my wife, who is a woman by herself, do all the work?’
‘Then you must leave your work for Mkiwa and help your wife, otherwise the Government will say you are not a good farmer and take your land.’
‘Ah,
baas
. And how can that be?’
‘Because now the Government says all the natives must farm well.’
‘But how can I and my wife and my small children eat if I do not earn money from Mkiwa?’
‘The Government says this, Thomas—now listen well. It is a new law.’
‘I am listening well, baas.’
And now my friend stands on one foot in the dust of the road and says: ‘Now, Thomas, this one foot of mine, it is in the Reserve.’
‘Yes, baas?’
And he plants down his other foot and says: ‘Now this other foot of mine, it is in Mkiwa.’
‘Yes, baas?’
‘Now the Government says the natives must either be Reserve or they must be Mkiwa,’ and he lifts up his feet alternately, and with vigour, so that puffs of glistening pinkish dust go off into the hot sunlight. ‘Either one thing or the other. But
not
both Mkiwa and the Reserve.’
Thomas says nothing. Then: ‘That is not a good law.’
‘Yes, Thomas, it is a good law, because now you must either be a good farmer, on your land, or you must work for Mkiwa. But if you work for Mkiwa and just go home at week-ends, then you will be a bad farmer and the Government will take your land.’
‘Ah, baas!’
‘Yes, Thomas, it is so. That is the new law. It is the Native Land Husbandry Act.’
‘Thank you for explaining it to me, baas.’
The two men stood facing each other for a while. I see that there is something more to be said. After a pause, however, Thomas says: ‘May things go well with you, baas.’ And moves off.
My friend stands looking after him.
‘That’s the only boy,’ he said, ‘that I’ve ever known who can cut a hedge straight. But I sacked him for smoking dagga.
*
I wish I could get him to come back.’ A pause while Thomas, a straight, thin old man, retreats along the pavement. ‘I suppose he can cut a hedge straight because he was in the army for so long during the war.’ A pause. Thomas is walking very slowly. My friend calls: ‘Thomas!’ Thomas turns. He comes back again. ‘Baas?’
‘Thomas, you are the only boy I have ever known who can cut a hedge straight.’
‘That is so, baas.’
‘My hedges need cutting.’
Thomas says with dignity: ‘I will come to you on Sunday afternoon and cut your hedges.’
My friend hesitates. ‘I can do with a good boy, Thomas.’
Thomas says: ‘Ah, baas, but now that the Government is shupaing me, I must be with my wife in the kraal. But because you ask me I will come and cut your hedges next Sunday afternoon.’
And with this he departs.
Going back in the car my friend says, half-admiringly, half-annoyed: ‘Damn the old bastard. It’s all very well, but did you hear that? Mkiwa, Mkiwa—the white man. It used to be Mlungu, which is a term of respect, but now it is just “white man”. All the same, I don’t see how we could have him back really, even though he can cut a hedge. He can do all kinds of work, lay bricks, do metalwork and carpentry. He used to live in the compound with his wife. Then she had a still-born baby, and we had to find her another hut because she said her baby had died of witchcraft. Another baby died, and now she said she could not live on the compound at all, because the evil eye was on her. So she went back to her kraal. So Thomas took to going home every week-end. It’s 50 miles. Then he took to coming back at lunch-time on Mondays, and I didn’t say anything. Then he came back drunk. Then he started smoking dagga. I gave him fair warning. I said to him if he didn’t stop smoking dagga, I’d sack him. But he started coming back Tuesdays or even Wednesdays, drunk or sodden with dagga. So I sacked him. But for all that, he can cut a hedge. He can really work, that boy. Perhaps, if I don’t push him, I can talk him into coming back when he pitches up on Sunday.’
My friend and I have many discussions about the colour bar.
‘The trouble with you,’ he says, ‘is that you’re out of touch with our problems. You don’t understand our problems.’
‘But I was brought up in the same way as you.’
‘But you’ve been out of the country for six years and you’ve lost touch.’
‘But all my childhood these feudal baas-and-boy conversations went on; and I come back, and they are still going on.’
‘The boys I work with, they are the real natives, not those agitators you mix with.’
‘After all that’s happened,’ I said in despair, ‘you can talk about agitators! Any minute you’ll have another Kenya on your hands, and all you farmers will be heroically defending your isolated homesteads and, I may add, feeling very sorry for yourselves.’
‘I do not see,’ said he, after thought, ‘that there is anything heroic about doing your duty. And besides, it won’t happen here.’
‘Partnership will save you from it?’
‘Partnership? Oh, old Todd’s racket. Well, he’s sincere enough I expect, but the boys I work with would not know how to spell Partnership. I wish you’d understand, they’re primitive people.’
At this point a message arrived that one of the men wanted him in the workshop, so together we went to the workshop.
‘Baas,’ says a young man, ‘when you have time I wish to speak to you.’ This is not an old and dignified man like Thomas of yesterday, but a young man with a keen, sharp, intelligent face.
‘Speak.’ My friend settles down on the table, one foot propped on a chair, while the other faces him. It is a palaver.
‘It is a question of that old car you are selling.’
‘Yes?’
‘If you lent me £100 I could buy it.’
‘Why do you want to buy it?’
‘So that I can use it to take my vegetables in to the market.’
‘You earn £6 a month, and when will you pay the £100 back?’
‘From the money I earn from selling my vegetables.’
A silence. ‘And now listen well, for you are being very foolish.’
‘And how is that?’
‘That car is nearly dead. That is why I am selling it.’
‘I can mend that car.’
‘No, you cannot mend a car that is nearly dead.’
‘But, why do you not wish to sell me that car? Who, then, will you sell it to?’
‘I shall sell it to a white man who has the money to mend it.’
‘But if you lent me the £100 I should have the money.’
‘Now, listen, if I were your enemy, if I wanted to kill you, then I would sell that car to you for £100. For inside one year, the car would be dead and you would owe not £100 but £200, £100 to me and £100 to the garage for repairs. And you would have nothing.’
‘But I would have the money I had earned from the vegetables.’
‘When I go into Salisbury, all along the roadside there are dead cars lying, the dead cars that foolish natives have bought from bad white men who know the cars are nearly dead. And the Nkoos Pezulu’ (The Chief Above—God) ‘only knows what happens to these foolish natives.’
‘Baas, the Nkoos Pezulu may not know, but I know.’
‘How is it, then?’
‘They have made money out of the cars before they die and so they can buy another car.’
‘Sometimes they have made money and sometimes not. If not, then they owe the money.’ A long silence. ‘You would owe
me
the money if the car dies. And is that good?’ The young man looks straight at my friend and waits. ‘But now this is very serious, a very bad thing that I should hear you talk like this. You talk like these bad and foolish white men who have no sense.’
‘But how can such a thing be, baas?’
‘Do you know what goes on at the station? The butcher, the store, the garage—they tell me they are owed thousands of pounds. All the tobacco farmers owe them thousands of pounds. That is credit. That is what you are asking me for. It is a bad thing. And the Nkoos Pezulu only knows what will come of it.’
‘Baas, I do not see that the Nkoos Pezulu is involved in this matter. The storekeepers know that the farmers will get money from the bank on the very day that the tobacco is sold. And that it why they get credit.’
‘This credit is a very dangerous thing. It is money that is not there.’
‘Yes, the money is there. It is still growing in the earth, where the tobacco is. Where my vegetables are.’
‘You do not understand this question of credit and money.’
‘It seems to me that I understand it well.’
‘But if there is a slump, what will happen to the farmers?’
‘Then they may sell some of their land, for they have so much, or the Land Bank will give them credit.’
‘But I am not the Land Bank. I am a man, only.’
‘But now I grow my lettuce, I grow my tomatoes. And because I have no lorry I cannot take them into the village to sell them, and so they go bad.’
‘So now I will explain to you where you do wrong. It is because you grow vegetables like lettuces and tomatoes. You must grow potatoes or onions that do not go bad in a few days. Then you must put the potatoes in a hut and keep them and sell them a little bit by little bit.’
‘But the Mkiwa do not pay so much money for potatoes as they do for the vegetables like lettuces and tomatoes. On my small bit of earth—no, that is not for potatoes. Potatoes are for big farmers, with plenty of land. I would make no profit.’
‘But I cannot lend you the money.’
‘Then, baas, there is nothing further I want to say.’
“Morning, James.’
“Morning, baas, go well.’
We went back to the house.
‘That boy has a hard life. The trouble with him is that he is always wanting to make some more money. Of course, we cannot blame them for wanting to make money when we are all so money-minded.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘He is a very good worker. He can do all kinds of work. He came to me and said he wanted some more money. He earned £6 a month. I said I knew he deserved to earn more, but I could not pay more. I have a certain amount set aside for wages and that’s that. But I said if he liked I would give him a couple of acres of soil and he could grow vegetables and make up the extra.’
‘But surely that is against the Land Apportionment Act?’
‘What? Oh, don’t be silly. And besides, the Native Commissioner knows all about it and about this native. He is a native with a record. When he came to me he told me, fair and square, that he had been in prison for forging a cheque. I talked it over with him, and it was perfectly obvious he had had no idea what a cheque was. He thought it was a kind of magic device by which white men get money for nothing out of banks. Or at least, I hope so. But I took him on, and the next thing was old Smith from across the river came to say, did I know that I had a man with a prison record working for me? I said to Smith, I thought that was a dirty trick; and in our law once a man has served time, he has paid for his wrong-doing. Old Smith was upset. He meant it for the best. The next thing was, James started smoking dagga and the Lord knows what. But I talked it over with him, and found that once he was a Christian, because he was at a mission school once for a couple of years before his father’s money ran out and he had to stop his education. I got him back to going to church, and he took an oath not to drug any more. Or drink. But it didn’t last long. He could hardly stand up on a Monday morning sometimes. So I got him in front of the padre to swear a solemn oath on the Bible to give it up, and he was forgiven on condition he gave the names of his drug-ring to the Native Commissioner. So at the moment he’s in the clear. But probably not for long, because he’s heavily in debt.’
‘You could pay him another couple of pounds a month?’
‘I can’t. I’m only the manager here. I have a certain sum given me for wages. Besides, he’s lucky to find anyone who’ll take him on. Though he’s a good worker and he really works. Not like most. The trouble with these natives is they are too backward to understand the simplest things in modern life. Only yesterday I had to talk to a new lot I took on last month. There they were, loafing around. I had them up and I said to them: ‘Now look. I will explain to you this business of a contract. When I take you on, I say I will pay you £2 a month. I pay you £2 a month in return for your labour. Do you understand?”’