The Sun Between Their Feet (33 page)

His wife, the mother, thinks: He longs so much for the old times, which he understood, that he has forgotten how one tribe harried another, he has forgotten that in this part of the country we lived in terror because of the tribes from the South. Half our lives were spent like rabbits in the kopjes, and we women used to be driven off like cattle to make wives for men of other tribes. She says nothing of what she thinks, only: ‘Yes, yes, my husband, that is very true.' She lifts more porridge from the pot and lays it on his plate, although he has hardly touched his food. Jabavu sees this; his muscles tighten and his eyes, fixed on his mother, are hungry and resentful.

The old man goes on: ‘And now it is as if a great storm is among our people. The men go to the towns and to the mines and farms, they learn bad ways, and when they return to us they are strangers, with no respect for their elders. The young women become prostitutes in the towns, they dress like white women, they will take any man for husband, regardless of the laws of relationship. And the white man uses us for servants, and there is no limit set to this time of bondage.'

Pavu has finished his porridge. He looks at his mother. She lays some porridge on his plate and pours vegetable relish over it. Now, having served the men who work, she serves the one who has not. She gives Jabavu what is left, which is not much, and scrapes out what is left of the relish.

She does not look at him. She knows of the pain, a child's pain, that sears him because she served him last. And Jabavu does not eat it, simply because he was served last. His stomach does not want it. He sits, sullenly, and listens to his father. What the old man says is true, but there is a great deal he does not say, and can never say, because he is old and belongs to the past. Jabavu looks at his brother, sees the thoughtful, frowning face, and knows that Pavu's thoughts are his own.

‘What will become of us? When I look into the future it is as if I see a night that has no end. When I hear the tales that are brought from the white man's towns my heart is dark as a valley under a raincloud. When I hear how the white man corrupts our children it is as if my head were filled with a puddle of muddy water, I cannot think of these things, they are too difficult.'

Jabavu looks at his brother and makes a small movement of his head. Pavu excuses himself politely to his father and his mother, and this politeness must be enough for both, for Jabavu says nothing at all.

The old man stretches himself on his mat in the sun for half an hour's rest before returning to the fields. The mother takes the plates and pot to wash them. The young men go out to the big tree.

‘It was heavy work without you, my brother,' are the reproachful words that Jabavu hears. He has been expecting them, but he frowns, and says: ‘I have been thinking.' He wants his brother to ask eagerly after these important and wonderful thoughts, but Pavu goes on: ‘There is half a field to finish, and it is right that you should work with us this afternoon.'

Jabavu feels that extraordinary resentment rising in him, but he manages to shut it down. He understands that it is not reasonable to expect his brother to see the importance of the pictures on the paper and words that are printed. He says: ‘I have been thinking about the white man's town.' He looks importantly at his brother, but all Pavu says is:

‘Yes, we know that it will soon be time for you to leave us.'

Jabavu is indignant that his secret thoughts should be spoken of so casually. ‘No one has said I must leave. Our father and mother speak all the time, until their jaws must ache with saying it, that good sons stay in the village.'

Pavu says gently, with a laugh: ‘Yes, they talk like all the old people, but they know that the time will come for both of us to go.'

First Jabavu frowns and stares; then he exults: ‘You will come with me!'

But Pavu lets his head droop. ‘How can I come with you?' he temporizes. ‘You are older, it is right that you should go. But our father cannot work the fields by himself. I may come later, perhaps.'

‘There are other fathers who have sons. Our father talks of the custom, but if a custom is something that happens all the time, then it is now a custom with us that young men leave the villages and go to the city.'

Pavu hesitates. His face is puckered with distress. He wants to go to the city. Yet he is afraid. He knows Jabavu will go soon, and travelling with his big, strong, clever brother will take the fear from it.

Jabavu can see it all on his face, and suddenly he feels nervous, as if a thief were abroad. He wonders if this brother dreams and plans for the white man's city as he does; and at the thought he stretches out his arms in a movement which suggests he is keeping something for himself. He feels that his own wanting is so strong that nothing less than the whole of the white man's city will be enough for him, not even some left over for his brother! But then his arms fall and he says, cunningly: ‘We will go together. We will help each other. We will not be alone in that place where travellers say a stranger may be robbed and even killed.'

He glances at Pavu, who looks as if he were listening to lovers' talk.

‘It is right for brothers to be together. A man who goes alone is like a man who goes hunting alone into dangerous country. And when we are gone, our father will not need to grow so much food, for he will not have our stomachs to fill. And when our sister marries, he will have her cattle and her lobola money …' He talks on and on, trying to keep his voice soft and persuasive, although it keeps rising on waves of passionate desire for those good things in the city. He tries to talk as a reasonable man talks of serious things, but his hands twitch and his legs will not keep still.

He is still making words while Pavu listens when the father comes out of the hut and looks across at them. Both rise and follow him to the fields. Jabavu goes because he wants to win Pavu over, for no other reason, and he talks softly to him as they wind through the trees.

There are two rough patches in the bush. Mealies grow there and between the mealies are pumpkins. The plants are straggly, the pumpkins few. Not long ago a white man came from the city in a car, and was angry when he saw these fields. He said they were farming like ignorant people, and that in other parts of the country the black people were following the advice of the white, and in consequence their crops were thick and fruitful. He said that the soil was poor because they kept too many cattle on it – but at this their ears were closed to his talk. It was well known in the villages that when the white men said they should reduce their cattle to benefit the soil, it was only because they wanted these cattle themselves. Cattle were wealth, cattle were power; it was the thought of an alien mind that one good cow is worth ten poor ones. Because of this misunderstanding over the cattle the people of this village are suspicious of everything they hear from the sons of the Government, black or white. This suspicion is a terrible burden, like a cloud on their lives. And it is being fed by every traveller from the towns. There are whispers and rumours of new leaders, new thoughts, a new anger. The young people, like Jabavu, and even Pavu, in his own
fashion, listen as if this is nothing terrible, but the old people are frightened.

When the three reach the field they are to hoe, the old man makes a joke about the advice given them by the man from the city; Pavu laughs politely, Jabavu says nothing. It is part of his impatience with his life here that the father insists on the old ways of farming. He has seen the new ways in the village five miles distant. He knows that the white man is right in what he says.

He works beside Pavu and mutters: ‘Our father is stupid. This field would grow twice as much if we did what the sons of the Government tell us.'

Pavu says gently: ‘Quiet, he will hear. Leave him to his own knowledge. An old ox follows the path to water that he learned as a calf.'

‘Ah,
shut up,'
mutters Jabavu, and he quickens his work so as to be by himself. What is the use of taking a child like this brother to the city? he is asking himself, crossly. Yet he must, for he is afraid. And he tries to make it up, to attract Pavu's attention so they may work together. And Pavu pretends not to notice, but works quietly beside the father.

Jabavu hoes as if there is a devil in him. He has finished as much as a. third more than the others when the sun goes down. The father says approvingly: ‘When you work, my son, you work as if you were fed only on meat.'

Pavu is silent. He is angry with Jabavu, but also he is waiting, half with longing, half with fear, for the moment when the sweet and dangerous talk begins again. And after the evening meal the brothers go out into the dark and stroll among the cooking fires, and Jabavu talks and talks. And so it is for a long time, a week passes and then a month. Sometimes Jabavu loses his temper and Pavu sulks. Then Jabavu comes back, making his words quiet and gentle. Sometimes Pavu says ‘Yes,' then again he says ‘No, and how can we both leave our father?' And still Jabavu the Big Mouth talks, his eyes restless and glittering, his body tense with eagerness. During this time the brothers are together
more than they have been in years. They are seen under the tree at night, walking among the huts, sitting at the hut door. There are many people who say: Jabavu is talking so that his brother may go with him.

Yet Jabavu does not know that what he is doing is clear to others, since he never thinks of the others – he sees only himself and Pavu.

There comes a day when Pavu agrees, but only if they first tell their parents; he wishes this unpleasantness to be softened by at least the forms of obedience. Jabavu will not hear of it. Why? He does not know himself, but it seems to him that this flight into the new life will be joyless unless it is stolen. Besides, he is afraid that his father's sorrow will weaken Pavu's intention. He argues. Pavu argues. Then they quarrel. For a whole week there is an ugly silence between them, broken only by intervals of violent words. And the whole village is saying: ‘Look – Pavu the good son is resisting the talk of Jabavu the Big Mouth.' The only person who does not know is the father, and this is perhaps because he does not wish to know anything so terrible.

On the seventh day Jabavu comes in the evening to Pavu and shows him a bundle which he has ready. In it is his comb, his scraps of paper with words and pictures, a piece of soap. ‘I shall go tonight,' he says to Pavu, and Pavu replies: ‘I do not believe it.' Yet he half believes it. Jabavu is fearless, and if he takes the road by himself there may never be another chance for Pavu. Pavu seats himself in the door of the hut, and his face shows the agony of his indecision. Jabavu sits near him saying, ‘And now, my brother, you must surely make up your mind, for I can wait no longer.'

It is then that the mother comes and says: ‘And so, my sons, you are going to the city?' She speaks sadly, and at the tone of her voice the younger brother wishes only to assure her that the thought of leaving the village has never entered his mind. But Jabavu shouts, angrily: ‘Yes, yes, we are leaving. We cannot live any longer in this village where there are only children and women and old men.'

The mother glances to where the father is seated with some friends at a fire by another hut. They make dark shapes against the red fire, and the flames scatter up into the blackness. It is a dark night, good for running away. She says: ‘Your father will surely die.' She thinks: He will not die, any more than the other fathers whose sons go to the towns.

Jabavu shouts: ‘And so we must be shut here in this village until we die, because of the foolishness of an old man who can see nothing in the life of the white men but what is bad.'

She says, quietly: ‘I cannot prevent you from leaving, my sons. But if you go, go now, for I can no longer bear to see you quarrelling and angry day after day.' And then, because her sorrow is filling her throat, she quickly lifts a pot and walks off with it, pretending she needs to fetch water for the cooking. But she does not go further than the first patch of deep shadow under the big tree. She stands there, looking into the dim and flickering lights that come from the many fires, and at the huts which show sharp and black, and at the far glow of stars. She is thinking of her daughter. When the girl left she, the mother, wept until she thought she would die. Yet now she is glad she left. She works for a kind white woman, who gives her dresses, and she hopes to marry the cook, who earns good money. The life of this daughter is something far beyond the life of the mother, who knows that if she were younger she, too, would go to the town. And yet she wishes to weep from misery and loneliness. She does not weep. Her throat aches because of the tears locked in it.

She looks at her two sons, who are talking fast and quiet, their heads close together.

Jabavu is saying: ‘Now, let us go. If we do not, our mother will tell our father and he will prevent us.' Pavu rises slowly to his feet. He says: ‘Ah, Jabavu, my heart is weak for this thing.'

Jabavu knows that this is the moment of final decision. He
says: ‘Now consider, our mother knows of our leaving and she is not angry, and we can send back money from the city to soften the old age of our parents.'

Pavu enters the hut, and from the thatch he takes his mouth-organ, and from the earthen shelf his hatchet. He is ready. They stand in the hut, looking fearfully at each other, Jabavu in his torn shorts, naked from the waist, Pavu in his loincloth and his vest with holes in it. They are thinking that they will be figures of fun when they reach the town. All the tales they have heard of the matsotsis who thieve and murder, the tales of the recruiting men for the mines, the stories of the women of these towns who are like no women they have ever met – these crowd into their seething heads and they cannot move. Then Jabavu says jauntily: ‘Come now, my brother. This will not carry our feet along the road.' And they leave the hut.

They do not look at the tree where their mother is standing. They walk past like big men, swinging their arms. And then they hear quick steps, their mother runs to them and says, ‘Wait, my sons.' They feel how she fumbles for their hands, and in them they feel something hard and cold. She has given them each a shilling. ‘This is for your journey. And wait – ‘ Now, in each hand is a little bundle, and they know she has cooked them food for the journey and kept it for the moment.