A Ripple From the Storm (35 page)

Then the pamphlets were not libellous but accurate?

‘It is a question of principle,’ said Jack. ‘Besides, a court case will give publicity to the socialist view on India.’ He emphasized the word socialist, looking around at these executive committee members of a socialist party.

Danie du Toit wished to know what Brother Jack’s constituents thought of his attitude. He had never in his life met a railway worker with Brother Jack’s ideas, and he did not believe the railway workers in Brother Jack’s constituency were different from those in his own.

Jack retorted that he had paid a visit to his constituency the night before, and seen as many of the railway workers as was possible in the time, and found them ‘once the principles were explained’ in agreement that he had the right to express any views he held.

And had Brother Jack called a public meeting?

No, said Jack, he had not, for the good reason that it was not possible to convene a meeting at a day’s notice.

Danie du Toit repeated his disapproval of Brother Jack’s action. Jack repeated his defiance. Johnny Lindsay and Piet reaffirmed their principles, and once again the meeting became a free-for-all on brotherhood, freedom and racial equality. In the midst of this Mr Matushi and his two friends left, for the reason they always had to leave meetings early: it was after curfew time and they had no passes to be out late.

When they had gone the argument became suddenly very free, Mr McFarline’s side expressing with vigour their conviction that the Kaffirs, the blacks, the natives were savage and childish, and quite unready for political organization; while the ‘Red’ faction argued against them.

At twelve o’clock the meeting ended from sheer exhaustion. Nothing had been settled save that a Congress would endeavour to reconcile obviously irreconcilable opponents.

New currents of ill-feeling had been sprung. For instance, Mr McFarline, all suavity gone, had been heard to remark to his faction that if Mrs Van were the last woman alive in the world he couldn’t bring himself to f—her. Mrs Van had heard this, as she had been meant to, and had given Mr McFarline a look of such contempt that he had raised his voice as he departed along the rain-wet verandas to insist: ‘As far as I am concerned there’s not a woman in the world who’s not a woman for me, old or young, black or white, but Mrs Van’s without c—or t—for me and that’s the truth.’

Mrs Van, attempting to smile at this, had burst into tears with annoyance. Jack and Johnny had gone to her, cosseting her, helping her with her papers and the business of putting things away.

Further, Danie du Toit on leaving the office had said to Jack: ‘You’ve stabbed us in the back, brother, you’ve done us a bad turn with all this loving-our-heathen-brethren stuff. If the Party fails at the next election it’s your doing and remember that.’

To which Jack had retorted that if the Party had no principles it did not deserve to get in, but Danie du Toit had already left.

Finally, one of Mr McFarline’s block of members of Parliament who had been watching Marjorie’s persistent shiftings and changings of position (she was nearing the end of her pregnancy) had said to her: ‘Well, if it’s communism to expect a woman who should be in bed to sit up at meetings till all hours in all this smoke and bad air, then communism is not for me.’

To which Marjorie had replied with a statement of the rights of women, but he interrupted with: ‘Well, I wouldn’t have my wife behaving so,’ and moved off fast, so he did not hear her irritated: ‘I’d be surprised if you ever let your wife open her mouth in public – petty dictator, that’s what you

Marjorie dropped Martha off at the flat, saying with the grim humour that had completely swallowed all the impulsive charm they had once known her for: ‘As far as I can see when we get socialism we’ll have to fight another revolution against men – lot of hidebound reactionaries, that’s what they are! Colin told me today he didn’t believe in women working after marriage – lucky for him he never mentioned it before!’

As for Martha she was too tired to answer. She was thinking that Anton had still to be faced before she could sleep. He had not spoken a single word to her since their quarrel.

Chapter Four

The case of Dobie versus Johnson was set down in the High Court for eleven that Saturday morning. The famous Congress was due to start at three, 150 miles away, in G—. This meant that Jack and his supporters must drive like maniacs to be at the Congress in time.

At eleven the case of Van Rensburg versus Welty was still in progress; and the token representatives of the ‘Reds’ – Martha, Jack and Mrs Van, could scarcely find room on benches packed with Afrikaans fanners and their wives who had come to see the final round in the long battle over the boundary fence. Mr Robinson was lawyer for the Van Rensbergs and Martha knew there would be no glorious climax of finality that day; Mr Van, briefed by Mr Robinson as Counsel, had found some obscure law which would keep the pot boiling for possibly several months. These comfortable, solid country people, their faces sharpened and shrewd with the enjoyment of the law, were looking puzzled. And with good reason: Martha knew that Mr Robinson was puzzled himself: he had exclaimed the day before that he hoped Mr Van knew what he was doing, but for his part he was fed up with the whole business – meanwhile the fees were filling page after page of the ledgers. Half a dozen cases, offshoots of the great central case, were in progress. A Welty had assaulted a Van Rensberg in a bar; a Van Rensberg wife had insulted a Welty aunt. A Van Rensberg girl had fallen in love with a Welty boy, and they had run away together. They had been brought back, and since the girl was a minor, the Van Rensberg parents were suing the Weltys for abduction. The young couple were both present that morning, eyeing each other from where they sat well guarded by relatives: the two factions, despite the press on the benches, kept twelve inches of distance from each other, into which frosty no-man’s-land Martha, Jack and Mr Van were able to fit themselves.

Meanwhile, the lawyers and the counsels were swapping clauses and sub-clauses and the English judge, his wig rather crooked over his pale, handsome humorous face, occasionally allowed himself an impartial and appreciative nod, as if saying: ‘Well played, sir.’

Mr Van’s clever handling of the obscure sub-clause won him a postponement of the case until next week, by which time he expected to have proof that the Weltys, on the moral ground that the Van Rensbergs had burned out their grazing, had been running their cattle on the Van Rensberg land. Martha noted that Mr Van, usually so legal and lean, was animated by enjoyment: the Afrikaans lilt was strong in his voice, and the almost English dryness of his personality had vanished because of his absorption in the case. He kept allowing his eyes to meet those of his audience, as if expecting them to share his relish. They did share it; or would have done if they could have understood the complications of the battle. Van Rensberg versus Welty came to an end, or rather a suspension, and as the two factions jostled out of the Court, individual members on opposing sides could be seen commiserating with each other because they had lost a morning’s work on their respective farms and would have to come up to town again next week.

For five minutes the courtroom was empty. It was a high room, on whose glossy, dark-wood-panelled sides moved gleams of light, the reflections of people moving to their places. It was a silent room in the heart of the building, and not even the drone and the roar of the aeroplanes from the camp could be heard.

Mr Van moved from one side of the Court to the other, thus marking the fact that he was now Counsel for the Defence. Martha and Jack refrained from looking at Mrs Van whle he did so. They knew she felt it keenly that he had undertaken to defend her dearest friend’s opponent. Yet she had never, out of loyalty to her husband, made any criticism of him. She had merely remarked, in a voice stiff with the effort of restraint, her eyes averted, that ‘Mr Van has never agreed with me that there are cases he should not accept.’

For a month now, anonymous letters, letters to the newspaper, editorials, anonymous leaflets, had been describing Jack Dobie as a traitor to the British and even as ‘A gift to the Nazis’. Through all this he had kept his stubborn sharp little chin high, had refused to answer his critics, and had spent his time preparing statistics and facts about British rule in India. He had called three meetings in his constituency to explain his position to the railway workers. That they were not satisfied was proved by the fact that when the Court refilled after the Afrikaner farmers had filed out, there was a bloc of eight railway workers who had made the journey from U—to see how their Parliamentary representative would comport himself. There were also three men from the Trades Council, of whom Piet was one, elected for the sake of fair play, since he was known to support Jack, to balance the other two, who did not. The right wing of the Social Democratic Party had sent half a dozen observers. All thse people were impatient to leave for the Congress.

Jack had insisted on conducting his own case, on the grounds that he wasn’t going to have those damned lawyers wriggling out of the political facts into a mesh of red tape.

He left Martha and Mrs Van with a cocky, grim little grimace, and stood across the Court opposite to Mr Van who was formal in his wig and his black forked robes.

He took up the stance of a man about to address a public meeting. While he waited for the preliminary formalities to be done with, he reassured himself that he remembered the main facts of his argument by consulting his notes. They were the notes he had used for his address to the Progressive Club and for the meetings with his constituents, and as soon as the Judge nodded at him he proceeded to make the same speech, with, however, rather more statistics than usual. The Judge rested his cheek on his hand and gazed down the Court. The lawyers for the opposing sides exchanged glances of professional disapproval at this amateurishness which was disgracing their smooth machinery. Mr Van confidently made notes and bided his time. He interrupted jack ten minutes after he had begun his speech with: ‘Am I to take it that you are resting your case on the poverty of the Indian people after three hundred years of British rule?’ To which Jack replied energetically that he was; whereupon Mr Van sat down again and continued to make notes. He had supplied himself with three witnesses: a Major, retired from the British Indian Army; a businessman who had operated from Calcutta for several years; and the widow of an Indian Civil Service District Officer, now living on her pension in a large house in the suburbs which she had named Simla Nights. This lady, in appearance like a newly washed Sealyham, with fluffy white hair under which fierce but faded eyes peeped out; and the Major, who was red-faced and puffy, were exactly what one expected them to be, and made extremely angry by every word that Jack Dobie said, exchanging energetic nods of disapproval and mutters of Shame! Disgrace! and so on. The businessman, however, was a mild, bowed, grey person, known to be an authority on the Upanishads. He had offered to address the Progressive Club on the subject. He showed no signs of wishing to be associated with his fellow-witnesses, moved as far as he could away from their duet of puffs and grunts, and visibly approved when the Judge silenced them with a benevolent but urgent stare. Mr Van, thus prompted, whispered to his two witnesses who fell indignantly silent.

Meanwhile, Jack continued his oration. The listening trade unionists, obviously stretched by a dozen conflicting loyalties, were shifting about and frowning and whispering. The Defence lawyer and Counsel waited and fingered their documents. The printer, who was being sued, a choleric little tradesman furious at having to waste his time thus, kept glancing about him suspiciously at the panoply and fancy-dress of the High Court and openly marvelled that all this could have anything to do with his newly established modest printing firm which aimed at nothing more ambitious than to make enough to send his two children to University at the Cape.

Suddenly the Judge raised his voice to inquire how long Mr Dobie intended to speak. ‘Until I’ve made my case,’ said Jack.

‘Ah,’ said the Judge and allowed his cheek to return to rest against his palm.

A moment later Jack brought in the abolishment of illiteracy in the Soviet Union; whereupon the Judge raised himself to remark in an absent, almost dreamy tone, that he did not see what the Soviet Union had to do with India.

Jack, ready for this, raised his voice to claim that in his view it was perfectly relevant to compare the thirty years of Soviet rule over backward peoples with the British rule in India.

‘I’m afraid,’ drawled the Judge, ‘that I cannot agree.’

At this the whole tone of the case changed. The Left, delighted, sat up and took notice. The Defence, lawyers and laymen, nodded vigorous agreement with the Judge.

‘I must insist,’ said Jack. ‘I want to make the point that it is possible for backwardness to be abolished in a country if there is a will to abolish it.’

The Judge, without removing his interested gaze from the far end of the room, interrupted with: ‘My dear sir, I must absolutely forbid you to make Soviet propaganda in this Court.’ He added: ‘Or for that matter any sort of propaganda.’

‘Are you suggesting that I have been making propaganda?’ demanded Jack. His eyes encountered Mrs Van’s. They exchanged what might have been described as suppressed winks. Jack took it for granted he would lose the case, and regarded this as an opportunity to make propaganda for the cause. He therefore simultaneously felt indignation because he was stopped from making propaganda, amusement that he was able to make it here, and contempt for the arguments of the Defence – a sort of complicated relish, delight, and loathing of the whole proceeding, all of which was expressed, against his will, in his face and which of course annoyed his trade union critics as much as it was annoying the Defence. An irritable and gloomy impatience was being infused into the atmosphere: it was after twelve, Jack had been speaking for half an hour; at least half of the spectators wanted to leave for the Congress.

‘In that case,’ said Jack, ‘I shall rest my case.’ He did so, crossing one leg over the other, and pointing his sharp chin Judgewards. He had in any case finished his speech, but it was generally appreciated that he had chosen a good moment to sit down, giving an impression of being suppressed and silenced.

Now Mr Van began cross-examining the widow of the District Officer. Mottled with anger and with heat, she said that she had lived for forty years in India and that the relations between Indians and British were perfect, and that speaking for herself she had always kept her servants for years. ‘My Ayah was my closest friend,’ she exclaimed belligerently, ‘and my husband always used to say …’ The Judge gave something like a yawn and Mr Van hastened to interrupt. Martha imagined for a moment that perhaps Mr Van had undertaken to defend this case only to use his skill to make the Defence seem ridiculous, but she saw from Mrs Van’s face, which was severe and sorrowful, that she was wrong.

The good widow answered half a dozen questions from Mr Van from which it emerged that she always wrote to her Ayah at Christmas, that she had paid her cook ‘very fair wages for those days’ and that she had paid to send his eldest son to school ‘because they are quite improvident, and if we hadn’t educated them they would all be completely illiterate’. Also, in her opinion the climate of India was responsible for its poverty, because its inhabitants lacked energy, and the heat during the monsoon was impossible to imagine ‘and the poor things couldn’t get to the hills the way we did’.

She was thanked courteously by Mr Van who, it seemed, was pleased with her. He then called the businessman, who offered smiles of fellow-feeling across the Court to Jack, as if to say: Let the best man win.

In his opinion the conditions of poverty in India ‘which no one in their senses would deny’ were irrelevant, because true culture did not depend upon money, and as an authority upon the Upanishads – ‘purely on an amateur level of course’ he could say that India was probably the most cultured and spiritual nation in the world. (At this point the widow and the Major nearly died with indignation.) As a lover of India for nearly fifty years – he was happy to say he had been born in it, he could only say in reply to Counsel that while he had every sympathy with Mr Dobie’s point of view, it took no account of the most important question of all: Was it or was it not harder for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle? (Here he again smiled tolerantly at Jack as if to say: I have no real desire to make you appear like a gross materialist, but I am afraid Truth leaves me no alternative.)

Mr Van dismissed his second witness with the same politeness and called his third, the Major, on whom he obviously set great store.

The Major exploded into the witness-box like a bursting shell, and had to be called to order by the Judge at the end of the first sentence.

‘I must remind the witness that this is a court of law,’ he remarked, without taking his gaze off the far wall, or removing his tired cheek from his hand.

‘Well, that damned fellow has been making speeches for an hour,’ said the Major.

‘I dare say,’ said the Judge. ‘I dare say. But I do so hope that you aren’t going to.’

Mr Van leaned over to whisper to his witness, who said loudly: ‘Oh very well, damn it, but I’m going to have my say.’

He said that as everyone knew who ‘understood anything whatsoever about India’ the cause of poverty in that continent ‘was obvious to the meanest intelligence’. It was that the women spent all their money on jewellery. If they had the sense to invest it, instead of hanging it in their noses or wrapping it around their arms or their necks, they could accumulate capital and …

Here Jack remarked, grinning, that the annual average income was a few shillings a year.

The trade unionists had started to smile. A friendly current of feeling had set in between Jack and them, on account of this natural enemy of them both: the fat, red-faced, vowel-twisting damn-you-all major.

Martha and Mrs Van were both shaking with laughter.

The Judge smiled, very gravely, at the wall.