The Sun Between Their Feet (45 page)

Then Jerry takes a big basket, which has a few fresh vegetables in it, and they leave the back room, but this time through the door into the street. Jabavu asks who the Indian is, but Jerry says, curtly, that he is an Indian who helps them in their work, which tells Jabavu nothing. They walk up through the area of kaffir shops and Indian stores, and Jabavu looks marvelling at Jerry, who seems to be quite different, like a rather simple country boy, with a fresh and open face. Only his eyes are still the same, quick, cunning, narrow. They come to a street of white people's houses, and Jerry and Jabavu go to a back door and call out that they have vegetables for sale. A voice shouts at them to go away. Jerry glances quickly around: there is a table on the back veranda with a pretty cloth on it, and he whisks it off, rolls it so fast that Jabavu can scarcely see his fingers move, and it vanishes under the vegetables. The two walk slowly away, just like respectable vegetable sellers. And in the next house, the white woman buys a cabbage, and while she is fetching money from inside, Jerry takes, through an open window, a clock and an ashtray, and these are hidden under the vegetables. In the next house there is nothing to te stolen, for the woman is sitting on her back veranda knitting where she may see everything, but in the next there is another cloth.

Then there is a moment which makes Jabavu feel very bad, though to Jerry it is a matter for great laughter: a policeman asks them what they carry in the basket, but Jerry tells him a long, sad story, very confused, about how they are for the
first time in the city and cannot find their way, and so the policeman is very kind and helps them with good advice.

When Jerry has finished laughing at the policeman, he says: ‘And now we will do something hard, everything we have done so far has been work for children.' Jabavu says he does not want to get into trouble, but Jerry says he will kill Jabavu if he does not do as he is told. And this troubles Jabavu for he never knows, when Jerry laughs and speaks in such a way, whether he means it or not. One minute he thinks: Jerry is making a joke; the next he is trembling. Yet there are moments, when they make jokes together, when he feels Jerry likes him – altogether, he is more confused about Jerry than about anyone he has known. One may say: Betty is like this or that, Mr Mizi is like this, but about Jerry there is something difficult, shadowy, and even in the moments when Jabavu cannot help liking him.

They go into a shop for white people. It is a small shop, very crowded. There is a white man serving behind the counter, and he is busy all the time. There are several women waiting to buy. One of them has a baby in a carriage and she has put her handbag at the foot of this carriage. Jerry glances at the bag and then at Jabavu, who knows quite well what is meant. His heart goes cold, but Jerry's eyes are so frightening that he knows he must take it.

The woman is talking to a friend, and swinging the carriage a little way forwards, a little back, while the baby sleeps. Jabavu feels a cold wetness running down his back, his knees are soft. But he waits for when the white man has turned to reach something down from a shelf and the woman is laughing with her friend, and he nips the bag quickly out and walks through the door with it. There Jerry takes it and slips it under the vegetables. ‘Do not run,' says Jerry, quietly. His eyes are darting everywhere, though his face is calm. They walk quickly around a corner and go into another shop. In this shop they steal nothing, but buy sixpence worth of salt. Afterwards Jerry says to Jabavu, and with real admiration: ‘You are very good at this work. Betty told the truth. I have
seen no one before who is so good so soon after beginning.' And Jabavu cannot help feeling proud, for Jerry is not one who gives praise easily.

They leave that part of the town and do a little more stealing in another, collecting another clock, some spoons and forks, and then, but by chance, a second handbag which is left on a table in the kitchen.

And then they return to the Indian shop. There Jerry bargains with the Indian, who gives them two pounds for the various articles, and there is five pounds from the two handbags. Jerry gives Jabavu one-third of the money, but Jabavu is suddenly so angry that Jerry pretends to laugh, and says he was only joking, and gives Jabavu the half that is due to him. And then Jerry says: ‘It is now two o'clock in the afternoon. In these few hours we have each earned three pounds. The Indian takes the risk of selling those things that were stolen and might be recognized. We are safe. And now – what do you think of this work?'

Jabavu says, after a pause that is a little too long, for Jerry gives him a quick, suspicious look: ‘I think it is very fine.' Then he says timidly: ‘Yet my pass for seeking work is only for fourteen days, and some of those have gone.'

‘I will show you what to do,' says Jerry, carelessly. ‘It is easy. Living here is very easy for those who use their heads. Also, one must know when to spend money. Also, there are other things. It is useful to have a woman who makes a friend of each policeman. With us, there are two such women. Each has a policeman. If there should be trouble, those two policemen would help us. Women are very important in this work.'

Jabavu thinks about this, and then says quickly: ‘And is Betty one of the women?'

Jerry, who has been waiting for this, says calmly: ‘Yes, Betty is very good for the police.' And then he says: ‘Do not be a big fool. With us, there is no jealousy. I do not allow it. I would not have women in the gang, since they are foolish with the work, except they are useful for the police. And I tell
you now, I will have no trouble over the policeman. If Betty says to you: Tonight there is my policeman coming, then you say nothing. Otherwise …' And Jerry slips the half of his knife a little way from his pocket so that Jabavu may see it. Yet he remains smiling and friendly, as if it is all a joke. And Jabavu walks on in silence. For the first time he understands clearly that he is now one of the gang, that Jerry is his leader, that Betty is his woman. And this state of affairs will continue – but for how long? Is there no way of escaping? He asks, timidly: ‘How long has there been this gang?'

Jerry does not reply at once. He does not trust Jabavu yet. But since that morning he has changed his mind about him, for he had planned to make Jabavu steal and then see that he got into trouble with the police in such a way that would implicate no one else, thus removing him as a danger. Yet he is so impressed with Jabavu's quickness and cleverness at the ‘work' that he wishes to keep him. He thinks: After another week of our good life, when he has stolen several times and perhaps been in a fight or two, he will be too frightened to go near Mr Mizi. He will be one of us, and in perfect safety for us all. He says: ‘I have been leader of this gang for two years. There are seven in the gang, two women, five men. The men do the stealing, as we have this morning. The women are friends of the police, they make a friend of anyone who might be dangerous. Also they pick up kraal boys who come to the town and steal from them. We do not allow the women to go into the streets or shops for stealing, because they are no good. Also, we do not tell the women the business of the gang, because they talk and because they do foolish things.' Here there is a pause, and Jabavu knows that Jerry is thinking that he himself is doing just such a foolish thing that Betty did. But he is flattered because Jerry tells him things the women are not told. He asks: ‘And I would like to know other matters: supposing one of us gets caught, what would happen then?' And Jerry replies: ‘In the two years I have been leader not one has been caught. We are very careful. But if you are caught, then you will not speak of the others,
otherwise something will happen you won't like.' Again he slips up the haft of his knife, and again he is smiling as if it is all a joke. When Jabavu asks another question, he says: ‘That is enough for today. You will learn the business of the gang in good time.'

And Jabavu, thinking about what he has been told, understands that in fact he knows very little and that Jerry does not trust him. With this, his longing for Mr Mizi returns, and he curses himself bitterly for running away. And he thinks sadly of Mr Mizi all the way along the road, and hardly notices where they are going.

They have turned off to a row of houses where the coloured people live. The house they enter is full of people, children everywhere, and they go through to the back and enter a small, dirty room that is dark and smells bad. A coloured man is lying on a bed in a corner, and Jabavu can hear the breath wheezing through his chest before he is even inside the door. He rises, and in the dimness of the room Jabavu sees a stooping, lean man, yellow with sickness beyond his natural colour, his eyes peering through the whitish gum that is stuck around the lashes, his mouth open as the breath heaves in and out. And as soon as he sees Jerry he slaps Jerry on the shoulder, and Jerry slaps him, but too hard for the sickness, for he reels back coughing and spluttering, gripping his arms across his painful chest, but he laughs as soon as he has breath. And Jabavu wonders at this terrible laughter which comes so often with these people, for what is funny about what is happening now? Surely it is ugly and fearful that this man is so sick and the room is dirty and evil, with the dirty, ragged children running and screaming along the passages outside? Jabavu is stunned with the horror of the place, but Jerry laughs some more and calls the coloured man some rude and cheerful names, and the man calls Jerry bad names and laughs. Then they look at Jabavu and Jerry says: ‘Here is another cookboy for you,' and at this they both rock with laughter until the man begins coughing again, and at last is exhausted and leans against the wall, his eyes shut,
while his chest heaves. Then he gasps out, smiling painfully: ‘How much?' and Jerry begins to bargain, as Jabavu has heard him with the Indian. The coloured man, through coughing and wheezing, sticks to his point, that he wants two pounds for pretending to employ Jabavu, and that every month; but Jerry says ten shillings, and at last they agree on one pound, which Jabavu can see was understood from the first – so why these long minutes of bargaining through the ugly, hurtful coughing and smell of sickness? Then the coloured man gives Jabavu a note saying he wishes to employ him as a cook, and writes his name in Jabavu's situpa. And then, peering close, showing his broken, dirty teeth, he wheezes out: ‘So you will be a good cook, hee, hee, hee …' And at this they go out, both young men, shutting the door behind them, and down the dim passage through the children, and so out into the fresh and lovely sunshine, which has the power of making that ugly, broken house seem quite pleasant among its bushes of hibiscus and frangipani. ‘That man will die soon,' says Jabavu, in a small dispirited voice; but all he hears from Jerry is: ‘Well, he will last the month at least, and there are others who will do you this favour for a pound.'

And Jabavu's heart is so heavy with fear of the sickness and the ugliness that he thinks: I will go now, I cannot stay with these people. When Jerry tells him he must go to the Pass Office to have his employment registered, he thinks: And now I shall take this chance to run to Mr Mizi. But Jerry has no intention of letting Jabavu have any such chance. He strolls with him to the Pass Office, on the way buying a bottle of white man's whisky from another coloured man who does this illegal trade, and while Jabavu stands in the queue of waiting people at the Pass Office Jerry waits cheerfully, the bottle under his coat, and even chats with the policeman.

When at last Jabavu has had his situpa examined and the business is over, he comes back to Jerry thinking: Hau, but this Jerry is brave. He fears nothing, not even talking to a policeman while he has a bottle of whisky under his coat.

They walk together back to the Native Township, and Jerry says, laughingly: ‘And now you have a job and are a very good boy.' Jabavu laughs too, as loudly as he can. Then Jerry says: ‘And so your great friend Mr Mizi can be pleased with you. You are a worker and very respectable.' They both laugh again, and Jerry gives Jabavu a quick look from his cold, narrow eyes, for he is above all not a fool, and Jabavu's laughter is rather as if he wishes to cry. He is thinking how best to handle Jabavu when chance helps him, for Mrs Samu crosses their path, in her white dress and white cap, on her way to the hospital, where she is on duty. She first looks at Jabavu as if she does not know him at all; then she gives him a small, cold smile, which is the most her goodness of heart can do, and is more the goodness of Mrs Mizi's heart, who has been saying: ‘Poor boy, he cannot be blamed, only pitied,' and things of that sort. Mrs Samu has much less heart than Mrs Mizi, but much more head, and it is hard to know which is most useful; but in this case she is thinking: Surely there are better things to worry about than a little skellum of a matsotsi? And she goes on to the hospital, thinking about a woman who has given birth to a baby who has an infection of the eyes.

But Jabavu's eyes are filled with tears and he longs to run after Mrs Samu and beg for her protection. Yet how can a woman protect him against Jerry?

Jerry begins to talk about Mrs Samu, and in a clever way. He laughs and says what hypocrites! They talk about goodness and crime, and yet Mrs Samu is Mr Samu's second wife, and Mr Samu treated his first wife so badly she died of it, and now Mrs Samu is nothing but a bitch who is always ready, why she even made advances to Jerry himself at a dance; he could have had her by pushing her over … Then Jerry goes on to Mr Mizi and says he is a fool for trusting Mrs Mizi, whose eyes invite everybody, and there is not a soul in the Township who does not know she sleeps with Mrs Samu's brother. All these men of light are the same, their women are light, and they are like a herd of baboons, no
better … and Jerry continues to speak thus, laughing about them, until Jabavu, remembering the coldness of Mrs Samu's smile, half-heartedly agrees, and then he makes a rude joke about Mrs Samu's uniform, which is very tight across her buttocks, and suddenly the two young men are roaring with laughter and saying women are this and that. And so they return to the others, who are not in the empty store now, for it does not do to be in one place too often, but in one of the other shebeens, which is much worse than Mrs Kambusi's. There they spend the evening, and Jabavu again drinks skokian, but with discretion, for he fears what he will feel next day. And as he drinks he notices that Jerry also drinks no more than a mouthful, but pretends to be drunk, and is watching how Jabavu drinks. Jerry is pleased because Jabavu is sensible, yet he does not altogether like it, for it is necessary for him to think that he is the only one stronger than the others. And for the first time it comes into his head that perhaps Jabavu is a little too strong, too clever, and may be a challenge to himself some day. But all these thoughts he hides behind his narrow, cold eyes, and only watches, and late that night he speaks to Jabavu as an equal, saying how they must now see that these fools get to bed without harm. Jabavu takes Betty and two of the young men to Betty's room, where they fall like logs across the floor, snoring off the skokian, and Jerry takes one girl and the other men to a place he knows, an old hut of straw on the edge of the veld.