The Sun Between Their Feet (39 page)

The room where he stands makes Jabavu feel cramped and restless. It is so small that there is room for one narrow bed – a bed on legs, with a space around it for walking. Some dresses hang on a nail on the wall from wooden sticks. Betty sits on the bed and looks provocatively at Jabavu. But he remains still, rolling his eyes at the low ceiling and the narrow walls, while he thinks: My fathers! But how can I live in boxes like a chicken!

Seeing his absence of mind, she says softly: ‘Perhaps you would like to eat now?' and his eyes return to her and he says: ‘Thanks, I am still very hungry.'

‘I will tell Mrs Kambusi,' she says, in a soft, meek voice that he does not altogether like, and goes out. After a little while she calls him to follow her, so he leaves the tiny room, crosses the big one, and goes through the second doorway into a room which makes him stare in admiration. It has a table with a real cloth on it, and many chairs around the table, and a big stove after the fashion of the white man. Never has Jabavu sat on a chair, but he does so now, and thinks: Soon I, too, will have such chairs for the comfort of my body.

Mrs Kambusi is busy at the stove, and wonderful smells come from the pots on it. Betty puts knives and forks on the table, and Jabavu wonders how he will dare to use them without appearing ignorant. The little boy sits opposite and gazes with big, solemn eyes, and Jabavu feel inferior even to this child, who understands chairs and forks and knives.

When the food is ready, they eat. Jabavu makes his thick fingers handle the difficult knife and fork as he sees the others do, and his discomfort is soon forgotten in his delight at this delicious new food. There is fish again, which comes all the way from the big lakes in Nyasaland, and there are vegetables
in a thick and savoury liquid, and there are sweet, soft cakes with pink sugar on them. Jabavu eats and eats until his stomach is heavy and comfortable, and then he sees that Mrs Kambusi is watching him. ‘You have been very hungry,' she observes pleasantly, speaking in his own tongue. It seems to Jabavu that he has not heard it for many months, instead of only three days, and he says gratefully: ‘Ah, my friend, you are one of my people.'

‘I was,' says Mrs Kambusi, with a smile that has a certain quality, and again discomfort fills him. There is a hardness in her, and yet the hardness is not meant as cruelty against him. Her eyes are quick and shrewd, like black sparks, and she says: ‘Now I will give you a little lesson, listen. In the villages we may enter and greet our brothers, and take hospitality from them by right of blood and kinship. This is not the case here, and every man is a stranger until he has proved himself a friend. And every woman too,' she adds, glancing at Betty.

‘This I have heard, my mother,' says Jabavu, gratefully.

‘What have I been telling you? I am not your mother. ‘

‘And yet,' says Jabavu, ‘I come to the city and who sets food before me but a woman from my own people?'

And changing to English she says, quietly: ‘You will pay for your food, also, you come here as Betty's friend and not as my friend.'

Jabavu's spirits are chilled by this coldness, and because he has no money for the food. Then he sees again the clever eyes of this woman, and knows this is meant as kindness.

Speaking in their mutual tongue she continues: ‘And now listen to me. This girl here, whose name I will not say so that she does not know we are speaking of her, has told me your story. She has told me of your meeting with the men of light in the bush at night, and how they took a liking to you and gave you the name of their friend here – I will not say the name, for the people who are friends of the girl who sits here trying to understand what we say do not like the men of light. You will understand why not when you have been in the city a little longer. But what I wish to tell you is this. It is probable that like
most boys who come newly to the city you have many fine ideas about the life, and what you will do. Yet it is a hard life, much harder than you now know. My life has been hard, and still is, though I have done very well because I use my head. And if I were given the chance to begin again, knowing what I know now, I would not lightly throw away that piece of paper with the name written on it. It means a great deal to enter that house as a friend, to be the friend of that man – remember it.'

Jabavu listens, his eyes lowered. It seems that there are two different voices speaking inside him. One says: This is a woman of great experience, do as she says, she means you well. Another says: So! Here is another busybody giving you advice; an old woman who has forgotten the excitements of being young, who wishes you to be as quiet and sleepy as herself.

She continues, leaning forward, her eyes fixed on his: ‘Now listen. When I heard you had fallen in with the men of light before you even entered the city, I asked myself what kind of good luck it was that you carry with you! And then I remembered that from their hands you had fallen into those which we now see lying on the table, twitching crossly because what we say is not understood. Your luck is very mixed, my friend. And yet it is very powerful, for many thousands of our people enter this city and know nothing of either the men of light or the men of darkness – for whom this very bad girl sitting here works – save what they hear through other mouths. But since it has fallen out that you have a choice to make, I wish to tell you, speaking now as one of your own people, and as your mother, that you are a fool if you do not leave this girl and go immediately to the house whose number you know.'

She ceases speaking, rises and says. ‘And now we shall have some tea.' She pours out cups of very strong, sweet tea, and for the first time Jabavu tastes it, and it seems very good to him. He drinks it, keeping his eyes lowered for fear of seeing the eyes of Betty. For he can feel that she is angry. Also, he does not want Mrs Kambusi to see what he is thinking, which
is that he does not want to leave Betty – later, perhaps, not at once. For now that his body is fed and rested his desire is reaching out for the girl. When they both rise he still keeps his eyes lowered, and so watches how Betty puts money on the table for the meal. But what money! It is four shillings each, and wonder fills him at these women who handle such sums so casually. And then a quick glance at Mrs Kambusi shows him that she watches him with a heavy, ironical look, as if she understands quite well everything in his mind. ‘Thank you for what you have told me,' he says, since he does not want to lose her favour; and she replies: ‘It will be time to thank me when you have profited by it,' and without looking his way again, reaches for a book, lifts her child on her knee, and so sits teaching the child from the book as the young people go out, saying goodnight.

‘What did she say to you?' asks Betty, as soon as the door is closed.

‘She gave me good advice about the city,' says Jabavu, and then says, wishing to be told about her: ‘She is a kind and clever woman.' But Betty laughs scornfully: ‘She is the biggest skellum in the city.' ‘And how is that?' he asks, startled; but she flaunts her hips a little and says: ‘You will see.' Jabavu does not believe her. They reach her room, and now Jabavu pushes her on to the bed and puts his arm around her so that his hand is on her breast.

‘And how much?' she asks, with contempt that is meant to goad him.

Jabavu sees how her eyes are heavy, and says simply: ‘You know from my own mouth that I have no money.'

She lies loosely in his arms and says laughing, to tease him: ‘I want five shillings, perhaps fifteen.'

Jabavu says, scornfully: ‘And perhaps fifteen pounds.'

‘For you no money,' she says, sighing; and Jabavu takes her for his own pleasure, allowing hers to look after itself, until he has had enough and lies sprawled across the bed, half-naked, and thinks: This is my first day in the city, and what have I not done? Truly Mrs Kambusi is right when she says I have
powerful luck with me. I have even had one of these smart town girls, and without paying. The words turn into a song.

This song moves sleepily through his mind and dies in sleep, and he wakes to find the girl sitting on the foot of the bed, looking impatiently at him and saying: ‘You sleep like a chicken with the setting of the sun.' He says, lazily: ‘I am tired with the journey from my kraal.'

‘But I am not tired,' she says lightly, and adds: ‘I shall dance tonight, if not with you, with someone else.' But Jabavu says nothing, only yawns and thinks: This girl is only a woman like any other. Now I have had her I do not care. There are many in the city.

And so after a while she says, in that sweet, humble voice: ‘I was teasing you only. Now get up, lazy boy. Do you not want to see the dancing?' She adds, cunningly: ‘And to see also how the clever Mrs Kambusi runs a shebeen.'

But by now Mrs Kambusi and what she has said seem unimportant to Jabavu. He yawns, gets off the bed, puts on his trousers, and then combs his hair. She watches him with bitterness and admiration. ‘Kraal boy,' she says, in a soft voice, ‘you have been in the city half a day, and already you behave as if you were tired of it.' This pleases him, as it was meant to do, and so he fondles her breasts a little, and then her buttocks, until she slaps him with pleasure and laughs, and so they go together into the other room. And now it is full of people sitting around the walls on the benches, while there are some men with things to make music sitting on the chairs at the end. Through the open door is the dark night, and continually more people enter.

‘So this is a shebeen?' says Jabavu, doubtfully, for it looks very respectable, and she replies: ‘You will see what it is.' The
music begins. The band is a saxophone, a guitar, a petrol tin for a drum, a trumpet, and two tins to bang together. Jabavu does not know this music. And to begin with, the people do not dance. They sit with tin mugs in their hands, and allow their limbs to move, while their heads and shoulders begin to nod and jerk as the music enters them.

Then the other door opens and Mrs Kambusi comes in. She looks the same, clean and nice in her pink dress. She carries a very big jug in her hand, and moves around from mug to extended mug, pouring in liquor from the jug and holding out her free hand for the money. A little boy follows her. It is not her own child, who is asleep in the room next door and forbidden ever to see what happens in this room. No, this is a child whom Mrs Kambusi hires from a poor family, and his work is to run out into the darkness where there is a drum of skokian buried, to bring supplies as needed, so that if the police should come it will not be found in the house, and also to take the money and put it in a safe place under the walls.

Skokian is a wicked and dangerous drink, and it is illegal. It is made quickly, in one day, and may contain many different substances. On this night it has mealie-meal, sugar, tobacco, methylated spirits, boot polish, and yeast. Some skokian queens use magic, such as the limb of a dead person, but Mrs Kambusi does not believe in magic. She makes plenty of money without it.

When she reaches Jabavu she asks in a low voice in their language: ‘And so you wish to drink?'

‘Yes, my mother,' he says humbly, ‘I wish to taste it.'

She says: ‘Never have I drunk it, though I make it every day. But I will give you some.' She pours him out half a cup instead of filling it, and Jabavu says, in the voice of his surly, hungry, angry youth: ‘I will have it full.' And she stops in the act of turning away and gives him a glare of bitter contempt. ‘You are a fool,' she says. ‘Clever people make this poison for fools to drink. And you are one of the fools.' But she pours out more skokian until it slops over, smiling so that no one may know how angry she is, and moves on up the line of seated men and
women, making jokes and laughing, while the little boy behind her holds out a tray full of sweets and nuts and fish and cakes with the sugar on top.

Betty asks, jealously: ‘What did she say to you?'

Jabavu says: ‘She gives me the drink for nothing because we come from the same district.' And it is true she has forgotten to take money from Jabavu.

‘She likes you,' says Betty, and he is pleased to see she is jealous. Well, he thinks, these clever town women are as simple as the village girls! And with this thought he gives a certain smile across the room to Mrs Kambusi, but he sees how Mrs Kambusi only looks contemptuous, and so Betty laughs at him. Jabavu leaps to his feet to hide his shame and begins to dance. He has always been a great dancer.

He dances invitingly around the girl, throwing out his legs, until she laughs and rises and joins him, and in a moment the room is full of people who wriggle and stamp and shout, and the air fills with dust and the roof shakes and even the walls seem to tremble. Soon Jabavu is thirsty and dives towards his mug on the bench. He takes a big mouthful – and it is as if fire entered him. He coughs and chokes while Betty laughs. ‘Kraal boy,' she says, but in a soft, admiring voice. And Jabavu, taunted, lifts the mug and drains it, and it sinks through him, lighting his limbs and belly and brain with madness. And now Jabavu really dances, first like a bull, standing over the girl with his head lowered and shoulders hunched forward, sniffing at her breasts while she shakes them at him, and then like a cock, on the tips of his toes with his arms held out, lifting his knees and scraping his heels, and all the time the girl wriggles and shakes in front of him, her hips writhing, her breasts shaking, the sweat trickling down her. And soon Jabavu grabs her, swings her through the dancers into the other room, and there he flings her on the bed. Afterwards they return and continue to dance.