The Sun Between Their Feet (47 page)

On that seventh day Jerry is truly desperate, though it does not show on his face. There he sits against the wall, while his hands deal out the cards and gather them in, and his eyes watch those cards as if nothing else interested them. Yet from time to time they glance quickly at Jabavu, who is sitting, without moving, opposite him. The others are still not conscious, but are lying on the floor, groaning and complaining in thick voices.

Betty is lying close by Jerry, in a loose, disgusting heap, and he looks at her and hates her. He is full of hate. He is thinking that two months ago he was running the most profitable gang
in the Township, there was no danger, the police were controlled sufficiently, there seemed no reason why it should not all go on for a long time. Yet all at once Betty takes a liking to this jabavu, and now it is at an end, the gang restless, Jabavu dreaming of Mr Mizi, and nothing is clear or certain.

It is Betty's fault – he hates her. It is jabavu's fault – ah, how he hates Jabavu! It is Mr Mizi's fault – if he could he would kill Mr Mizi, for truly he hates Mr Mizi more than anyone in the world. But to kill Mr Mizi would be foolish – for that matter, to kill anyone is foolish, unless there is need for it. He must not kill needlessly. But his mind is filled with thoughts of killing, and he keeps looking at Betty, rolling drunkenly by him, and wishing he could kill her for starting all this trouble, and as the cards go flick! flick! flick! each sharp small noise seems to him like the sound of a knife.

Then all at once Jerry takes a tight hold of himself and says: I am crazy. What is this? Never in all my life have I done a thing without thought or cause, and now I sit here without a plan, waiting for something to happen – this man Jabavu has surely made me mad!

He looks across at Jabavu and asks, pleasantly: ‘Will you come to the shebeen tonight for some fun, hey?'

But Jabavu says: ‘No, I shall not go. That is four times I have drunk the skokian and now what I say is true. I shall never drink it again.'

Jerry shrugs, and lets his eyes drop. So! he thinks. Well, that has failed. Yet it succeeded in the past. But if it has failed, then I must now think and decide what to do – there must be a way, there is always a way. But what? Then he thinks: Well, and why do I sit here? Before there was just such a matter, when things got too difficult, but that was in another town, and I left that town and came here. It is easy. I can go south to another city. There are always fools, and always work for people like myself. And then, just as this plan is becoming welcome in his mind, he is stung by a foolish vanity: And so I should leave this city, where I have contacts, and know sufficient police, and have an organization,
simply because of this fool Jabavu? I shall not.

And so he sits, dealing the cards, while these thoughts go through his mind, and his face shows nothing, and his anger and fear and spiteful vanity seethe inside him. Something will happen, he thinks. Something. Wait.

He waits, and soon it grows dark. Through the dirty window-panes comes a flare of reddish light from the sunset which makes blotches and pools of dark red on the floor. Jerry looks at it. Blood, he thinks, and an immense longing fills him. Without thinking, he slides up his knife a little, lovingly fingering the haft of it. He sees that Jabavu is looking at him, and suddenly Jabavu shudders. An immense satisfaction fills Jerry. Ah, how he loves that shudder. He slides up the knife a little further and says: ‘You have not yet learned to be afraid of this as you should.' Jabavu looks at the knife, then at Jerry, then drops his eyes. ‘I am afraid,' says Jabavu, simply, and Jerry lets the knife slide back. For a moment the thought slides into him: This is nothing but madness. Then it goes again.

Jerry's own feet are now lying in a pool of reddish light from the window, and he quickly moves them back, rises, takes candles from the top of the wall where they lie hidden, sticks them in their grease on the packing-cases, and lights them. The reddish light has gone. Now the room is lit by the warm yellow glow of candles, showing packing-cases, bottles stacked in corners, the huddled bodies of the drunken, and sheets of spider web across the rafters. It is the familiar scene of companionship in drink and gambling, and the violent longing to kill sinks inside Jerry. Again he thinks: I must make a plan, not wait for something to happen. And then, one after another, the bodies move, groaning, and sit up, holding their heads. Then they begin to laugh weakly. When Betty heaves herself up from the floor she sees she is some way from Jabavu, and she crawls back to him and falls across his knees, but he quietly pushes her aside. And this sight, for some reason, fills Jerry with irritation. But he suppresses it and thinks: I must make these stupid fools
sensible, and wait until they have come out of the skokian, and then: Then I shall make a plan.

He fills a large tin with fresh tea from the kettle that boils on the fire he has made on the floor, and gives mugs of it to everyone, including Jabavu, who simply sets it down without touching it. This annoys Jerry, but he says nothing. The others drink, and it helps their sickness, and they sit up, still holding their heads.

‘I want to go to the shebeen,' says Betty, rocking sideways, back and forth. ‘I want to go to the shebeen.' And the others, taking up her voice without thought, say: ‘Yes, yes, the shebeen.' Jerry whips round, glaring at them. Then he holds down his irritation. And as easily as the desire came into them, it goes. They forget about the shebeen, and drink their tea. Jerry makes more, even stronger, and refills their mugs. They drink. Jabavu watches this scene as if it were a long way from him. He remarks, in a quiet voice: ‘Tea is not strong enough to silence the anger of the skokian. I know. The times I have drunk it, it was as if my body wanted to fall to pieces. Yet they have drunk it each night for a week.' Jerry stands near Jabavu, and his face is twitching. Into him has come again that violent need to kill; and yet again he stops it. He thinks: Better if I leave all these fools now … But this sensible thought is drowned by a flood of rising vanity. He thinks:
I
can make them do what I want. Always they do as I say.

He says calmly: ‘Better if you each take a piece of bread and eat it.' In a low voice to Jabavu he says: ‘Shut up. If you speak again I will kill you.' Jabavu makes that indifferent movement of his shoulders and continues to watch. There is a blank look in the darkness of his eyes that frightens Jerry.

Betty staggers to her feet and walks, knees rocking, to the wall where a mirror is hanging on a nail. But before she gets there she says: ‘I want to go to the shebeen.' Again the others repeat the words, and they rise, planting their feet firmly so as not to fall down.

Jerry shouts: ‘Shut up. You will not go to the shebeen tonight.'

Betty laughs, in a high, weak way, and says: ‘Yes, the shebeen. Yes, yes, I want that badly, to go to the shebeen …' The words having started to make themselves, they are likely to continue, and Jerry takes her by her shoulders and shakes her. ‘Shut up,' he says. ‘Did you hear what I said?'

And Betty laughs, and sways, and puts her arms around him and says: ‘Nice Jerry, handsome Jerry, oh, please, Jerry …' She is speaking in a voice like a child trying to get its way. Jerry, who has stood rigid under her touch, eyes fixed and black with anger, shakes her again and flings her off. She goes staggering backwards till she reaches the other wall, and there she sprawls, laughing and laughing, till she straightens again and goes staggering forward towards Jerry, and the others see what she is doing, and it seems very funny to them and they go with her, so that in a moment Jerry is surrounded by them, and they put their arms around his neck and pat his shoulders, and all say, in high, childish voices, laughing as if laughter in them is a kind of spring, bubbling up and up and forcing its way out of their lips: ‘Nice Jerry, yes, handsome, please, clever Jerry.'

And Jerry snaps out: ‘Shut up. Get back. I'll kill you all …'

His voice surprises them into silence for one moment. It is high, jerky, crazy. And his face twitches and his lips quiver. They stand there around him, looking at him, then at each other, blinking their eyes so that the cloud of skokian may clear, then all move back and sit down, save Betty, who stands in front of him. Her mouth stretched in such a way across her face that it might be either laughter or the sound of weeping that will come from it, but it is laughter again, and with a high, cackling sound, just like a hen, she rocks forward, and for the third time her arms go around Jerry and she begins pressing her body against his. Jerry stands quite still. The others, watching, see nothing but that Betty is hugging and squeezing him, with her body and her arms, while she laughs and laughs. Then she stops laughing and
her hands loosen and then fall and swing by her side. Jerry holds her with his hand across her back. They set up a yell of laughter because it seems to them very funny. Betty is making some sort of funny joke, and so they must laugh.

But Jerry, in a flush of anger and hatred such as he has never known before, has slipped his knife into Betty, and the movement gave him such joy as he has not felt in all his life. And so he stands, holding Betty, while for a moment he does not think at all. And then the madness of anger and joy vanishes and he thinks: I am truly mad. To kill a person, and for nothing, and in anger … He stands holding her, trying to make a plan quickly, and then he sees how Jabavu, just beside him on the floor, is looking up, blinking his eyes in slow wonder, and at once the plan comes to him. He allows himself to stagger a little, as it Betty's weight is too much, then he falls sideways, with Betty, across Jabavu, and there he makes a scuffling movement and rolls away.

Jabavu, feeling a warm wetness come from Betty, thinks: He has killed her and now he will say I killed her. He stands up slowly, and Jerry shouts: ‘Jabavu has killed her, look, he has killed Betty because he was jealous.'

Jabavu does not speak. The thought in his mind is one that shocks him. It is an immense relief that Betty is dead. He had not known how tired he was of this woman, how she weighed on him, knowing that he would never be able to shake her off. And now she lies dead in front of him.

‘I did not kill her,' he says. ‘I did not.'

The others are standing and staring, like so many chickens. Jerry is shouting: ‘That skellum – he has killed Betty.'

Then Jabavu says: ‘But I did not.'

Their eyes go first to Jerry, and they believe him, then they go to Jabavu, and they believe him.

Jerry stops saying it. He understands they are too stupid to hold any thoughts in their heads longer than a moment.

He seats himself on a packing-case and looks at Betty, while he thinks fast and hard.

Jabavu, after a long, long silence while he looks at Betty,
seats himself on another. A feeling of despair is growing so strong in him that his limbs will hardly move. He thinks: And now there is nothing left. Jerry will say I killed her; there is no one who will believe me. And – but here is that terrible thought – I was pleased he killed her. Pleased. I am pleased now. And from here his mind goes darkly into the knowledge: It is just. It is a punishment. And he sits there, passive, while his hands dangle loosely and his eyes go blank.

Slowly the others seat themselves on the floor, huddling together for comfort in this killing they do not understand. All they know is that Betty is dead, and their goggling, empty eyes are fixed on Jerry, waiting for him to do something.

And Jerry, after sorting out his various plans, lets his tense body ease, and tries to put quietness and confidence into his eyes. First he must get rid of the body. Then it will be time to think of the next thing.

He turns to Jabavu and says, in a light, friendly voice: ‘Help me put this stupid girl outside into the grass.'

Jabavu does not move. Jerry repeats the words, and still Jabavu is motionless. Jerry gets up, stands in front of him, and orders him. Jabavu slowly lifts his eyes and then shakes his head.

And now Jerry comes close to Jabavu, his back to the others, and in his hand he holds his knife, and this knife he presses very lightly against Jabavu. ‘Do you think I'm afraid to kill you too?' he asks, so low only Jabavu can hear. The others cannot see the knife, only that Jerry and Jabavu are thinking how to dispose of Betty. They begin to cry a little, whimpering.

Jabavu shakes his head again. Then he looks down, feeling the pressure of the knife. Its point is at his flesh, he can feel a slight cold stinging. And into his mind comes the angry thought: He is cutting my smart coat. His eyes narrow, and he says furiously: ‘You are cutting my coat.'

He's mad, thinks Jerry, but it is the moment of weakness that he knows and understands. And now, using every scrap of his will, he narrows his eyes, stares down into
Jabavu's empty eyes, and says: ‘Come now, and do as I say.'

And Jabavu slowly rises and, at a sign from Jerry, lifts Betty's feet. Jerry takes the shoulders. They carry her to the door, and then Jerry says, shouting loudly so that it will be strong enough to get inside the fog of drink: ‘Put out the candles.' No one moves. Then Jerry shouts again, and the young man who sleeps at night with Jerry gets up and slowly pinches out the candles. The room is now all darkness and there is a whimper of fear, but Jerry says: ‘You will not light the candles. Otherwise the police will get you. I am coming back.' The whimper stops. They can hear hard, frightened breathing, but no one moves. And now they move from the blackness of the room to the blackness of the night. Jerry puts down the body and locks the door, and then goes to the window and wedges it with stones. Then he comes back and lifts the shoulders of the body. It is very heavy and it rolls between their gripping hands. Jerry says not a word, and Jabavu is also silent. They carry her a long way, through grass and bushes, never on the paths, and throw her at last into a deep ditch just behind one of the shebeens. She will not be found until morning, and then it will be the people who have been drinking in the shebeen who will be suspected, not Jerry or Jabavu. Then they run very quickly back to the disused store, and as they enter they hear the others wailing and keening in their terror of the darkness and their muddled understanding. A window-pane has been smashed where someone tried to get out, but the wedged stones held the frame. They are crowded in a bunch against the wall, with no sense or courage in them. Jerry lights the candles and says: ‘Shut up!' He shouts it again, and they are quiet. ‘Sit down!' he shouts, and they sit. He also sits against the wall, takes up his cards, and pretends to play.