In a Free State (24 page)

‘Have you read this?’ He lifted the book: it was by Naomi Jacob: Linda couldn’t read the title. ‘It’s very good about the mentality of the Hun. Don’t show me the menu,’ he said to the boy. ‘I wrote it. I’ll have the soup. Used to get them here. Those package tours from Frankfurt. Had to drop them.’

You mean they dropped you, Bobby thought.

‘They would eat up your profits,’ the colonel said. ‘Literally eat them up. We used to do a buffet for them. Terrible idea. Never offer the Hun a buffet. He isn’t happy until he’s eaten every last scrap. He believes the new ham on the buffet is for him alone. There used to be a stampede. I saw two women fight. No, no; clear away the buffet as soon as you see the Hun coming. Meet the horde at the door and say, “It’s strictly fixed portions today, gentlemen.” ’

‘They are tremendous eaters,’ Linda said.

‘Like the Belgians. Now there’s a crowd. We used to get lots of them here from the other side. The only thing you can say for the Belgian is that he knows a good bottle of burgundy. Little of that sort of thing here now, though. Of course a lot of this’ – he waved at the wire-netted windows, at the darkness, at the lake – ‘a lot of this is their doing. They thought they would just come from little Belgium and start living the good life right away. No work. Nothing like that. Just the good life. There was this woman just before the troubles, she said to me, “But it’s our estate. The king gave it to us.” You should see what they got up to over there. Mansions, palaces, swimming pools. You should have seen. There’s these two tribes among them –’

‘The Flemings and the Walloons,’ Linda said.

‘They sound the opposite of what they should be. The Walloons should be the fat ones, but they are rather thin and refined. The Flemings should be thin, but they are fat. Ever seen a party of Flemings at the trough? They would order dinner for ten o’clock and get here at seven. At
seven
. They would start drinking. Just to make themselves hungry. By eight they would be hungry and nibbling at everything and getting the boys to run back and forth with more and more savouries. You’ve got to watch the savouries when the Belgians are around. And they would keep on drinking and drinking, getting themselves hungrier and hungrier. The food’s in here, the boys are waiting. But they said ten, and they’re not coming in until ten. Until ten o’clock they’re just building up their
appetites. Quarrelling, shouting, playing cards. Children screaming. Everybody shouting at the boys for more savouries. There would be pandemonium in that bar, from one little Fleming family party. Then at ten they would come in and eat solidly for an hour and a half. Grunting and snorting together. Mother, father, child. Everyone a little ball of fat. That was the sort of example they were setting. You can’t blame the Africans. The Africans have eyes. They can see. The African’s very funny that way. You can drive him hard for weeks on end. But one day he’ll gallop away with you.’

There was a crash in the kitchen, and a burst of high-pitched chatter. One voice rose quickly to a squeal which sounded like laughter; and then all the voices in the kitchen squealed together.

The colonel became abstracted; he was no longer looking directly at Linda. The Israelis talked softly. The tall boy came to clear away Bobby and Linda’s plates and left a little of his stink behind.

‘You saw that chap in the evening dress?’ the colonel asked.

Bobby frowned. Linda was about to smile, but she saw that the colonel was not smiling.

‘He’s been coming here for a month or so. Ever since he picked up those clothes. I don’t know who he is.’

Linda said, ‘He was awfully polite.’

‘Oh yes, all very polite. But he comes to put me in my place, you know. Isn’t that so, Timothy?’

The tall boy stood still and raised his head. ‘Sir?’

‘He would like to kill me, wouldn’t he?’

Timothy remained still, the tray in his hands, and tried to look serious. He said nothing. He relaxed only when the colonel went back to his food.

‘One day they’ll gallop away with you,’ the colonel said.

With quick, long strides Timothy went to the kitchen. Afresh voice was added to the squeals there; and then, the voice abruptly
withdrawn, an aggrieved squealing going on, Timothy came out again, still brisk, still serious, and went to the table of the Israelis.

‘I remember how we’d train men for Salonika, India, and places like that,’ the colonel said. ‘Sometimes we had to strap them to the horses.
Ah-wa-wa!
You’d hear them bawling at the other end of the ground. Some of them would develop rashes an inch thick. But we’d make riders out of them. We’d get them off to Salonika, India, or wherever it was.’ He looked directly at Linda again. ‘These names must sound strange to you. I suppose the name of this place will sound strange soon.’

The squealing in the kitchen died down.

The colonel became abstracted again, busy with his food.

A tall, slender African, dark-brown, not black, came out into the dining-room from the kitchen. He moved lightly, like an athlete. He nodded and smiled at the Israelis, at Bobby and Linda, and went to the colonel’s table. The mobility and openness of his face made him look less like an African than a West Indian or American mulatto. He wore simple clothes with much style. His well-tailored khaki trousers were clean and ironed; the collar of his grey shirt was clean and firm. His cream-coloured pullover suggested the sportsman, the tennis-player or the cricketer. There was a parting in his hair, and his brown shoes shone.

He stood before the colonel and waited to be seen.

Then he said, ‘I come to say good night, sir.’ His accent had echoes of the colonel’s accent.

‘Yes, Peter. You’re off. We heard the crash and we heard you squeal. Where to this time?’

‘I go cinema, sir.’ The pidgin was a surprise.

‘You’ve seen our local bug-house?’ the colonel asked Linda. ‘I suppose that will close down when the army goes. If the army goes.’

The Israelis didn’t hear.

‘And what are you going to see, Peter?’

The question confused Peter. He continued to look at the colonel. His face held a half-smile and then went African-blank.

He said, ‘I can’t remember, sir.’

‘That’s the African for you,’ the colonel said. The words were spoken at Linda but not addressed to her.

Peter waited. But the colonel was occupied with his food. Peter became composed again; the half-smile returned to his face.

He said at last, ‘I go, sir?’

The colonel nodded without looking up.

Peter moved away with his light athlete’s step. His leather heels sounded on the floor of the bar, the verandah. As soon as they touched the concrete steps, the colonel slammed a sauce bottle down and shouted, ‘
Peter!
’

Bobby jumped. Timothy held his face straight as though he had just been slapped. Even the Israelis looked up. It was silent in the dining-room, the bar, the kitchen.

Then, as lightly as his leather heels permitted, Peter came back to the dining-room and stood before the colonel’s table.

The colonel said, ‘Give me the keys for the Volkswagen, Peter.’

‘Keys in office, sir.’

‘That’s a foolish thing to say, Peter. If the keys were in the office, I wouldn’t be asking you for them now, would I?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So it’s a foolish thing to say.’

‘Foolish thing, sir.’

‘So you are very foolish.’

Peter was silent.

‘Peter?’

‘Foolish thing, sir.’

‘Don’t say it with so much pride, Peter. If you are foolish, you are foolish and you do foolish things. No witchdoctor is going to cure that.’

Peter no longer glanced about the room; his eyes were fixed
on the colonel. His bony shoulders were hunched; he appeared to stoop.

‘Oh, he looks so fine,’ the colonel said, as though speaking to Linda again; but he wasn’t looking at her. ‘So polished.’ He held out his open palm and raised it up and down. ‘Pass by the door of his quarters, and it’s all you can do to keep yourself from being sick.’

In his thin face Peter’s eyes had begun to stare and shine. His mouth was loose.

‘Give me the keys, Peter.’

‘Keys in Volkswagen, sir.’

Bobby pushed his plate aside. Linda kicked him below the table. He settled back. The colonel saw. He looked away from Peter to the floor near Bobby’s feet, and he seemed to grow abstracted.

He made a gesture with his index finger. ‘How wide is the hotel lot, Peter?’

‘One hundred and fifty feet, sir.’

‘And deep?’

‘Two hundred feet.’

‘And in those thirty thousand square feet
I
am in charge. I don’t care what happens outside. I am in charge here. If you don’t like what I do you can get out. Get out at once.’

Bobby pressed a finger on the tablecloth and picked up a crumb.

‘What do you think of me, Peter?’

‘I like you, sir.’

‘He likes me. Peter likes me.’

‘You take me in when I was small. You give me job, you give me quarters. You look after my children.’

‘He has fourteen. He’s living with three of those animals right now. So polished. So nice. So well-spoken. You wouldn’t believe he doesn’t even know how to hold a pen in those hands. You wouldn’t believe the filth he comes out of. But you like dirt, don’t you, Peter? You like going in to some black hole to eat filth and dance naked. You will steal and lie to do that, won’t you?’

‘I like the quarters, sir.’

‘While I live you will stay there. You won’t move in here, Peter. I don’t want you to bank on that. If I die you will starve, Peter. You will go back to bush.’

‘That is true, sir.’

‘And you like me. I am good to you. But I haven’t been good to you. In this room we’ve had people talking about exterminating you. Don’t you remember?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘You’re a liar.’

‘I like you, sir.’

‘What about the boy who was locked in the refrigerator?’

‘That was somewhere else.’

‘So you remember that.’

‘I never talk about these things, sir.’

‘The whippings? There was a lot of that. What about the crops you weren’t allowed to grow? You remember that? You say you like me?’

‘I hate you, sir.’

‘Of course you hate me, and I know you hate me. Last week you killed that South African. Old, helpless. Didn’t you? Lived here for twenty years. Married one of your women.’

‘Thief kill him, sir.’

‘That’s what they always say, Peter. But we know who killed him. It was someone who hated him.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Do you remember when your woman was sick, Peter?’

‘You know about that, sir.’

‘Tell me again.’

Peter’s staring eyes were inflamed, moist with tears of irritation. His half-open mouth was collapsed, the upper part of his face taut.

‘It’s a story you always tell,’ the colonel said. ‘People always listen.’

Timothy was leaning against one of the square pillars in the middle of the room, head back, slightly to one side, looking on.

‘My wife was sick,’ Peter said. He stopped, choked with irritation.

‘You had three others. Go on.’

‘She cry every night in the quarters.’

‘Black with filth and stink.’

‘One night she was very sick. I get car and take her to hospital. They say no. Hospital for Eu’peans only. Huts for natives. Indian doctor take her. Too late, sir. She die.’

‘And you went out the next day and got other women and sent them to the forest to chop wood. And they loaded up the wood on their backs and came back to you in the evening. It’s a good story, especially for visitors.’

‘I never talk about these things, sir.’

‘Who do you hate more? The Indian or me?’

‘I hate the Indian.’

‘You are ungrateful. Who do you hate more? The Indian or me?’

‘I will always hate you, sir.’

‘Don’t you forget it. Your hate will keep me alive. One night, Peter, you will knock on my door –’

‘No, sir.’

‘You will be wearing a raincoat or you will have a jacket. You will be holding your elbows close to your side –’

‘No, sir. No, sir.’ Peter was closing and opening his eyes.

‘I won’t behave like the South African, Peter. When you say, “Good evening, sir,” I won’t say, “Why, it’s Peter, my own boy. Come in, Peter. Have some tea. How are you? How’s your family?” There’ll be no cups of tea. I won’t behave like that. I’ll be waiting. I’ll say, “It’s Peter. Peter hates me.” And you won’t come past that door. I’ll kill you. I’ll shoot you dead.’

Peter opened his eyes and looked at the top of the colonel’s head.

‘This is how I swear my oath,’ the colonel said. ‘Under these lights, in the open, before witnesses. Tell your friends.’

For some time Peter stood looking at the top of the colonel’s head. His mouth closed, became firm again; there were no tears in his inflamed eyes. He put his hand in the pocket of his khaki trousers and took out a key-ring with two keys. He was going to place it on the table, but the colonel held out his hand and Peter put the keys in the colonel’s palm. There was nothing more to keep him; and with a step as light and springy and athletic as before he walked through the dining-room to the kitchen.

The colonel didn’t look at anyone in the room. He took up a glass of water, but his hands trembled and he put the glass down. His face went pale.

Timothy left the pillar and made himself busy.

When the colonel recovered, and colour came back to his face, he looked at Linda and said, ‘It’s their big night. They’ve been building up to it all week. Mister Peter was going to turn up in the hotel Volkswagen. A lot of them believe he’s already taken over. Oh, out there he’s quite a politician, Mister Peter. Well, that’s his problem. Isn’t it, Timothy?’ He had stopped trembling; he smiled at Timothy.

Timothy smiled back, in relief.

There was chatter in the kitchen again. A high-pitched voice began to squeal, and there was laughter.

‘Do you hear him?’ the colonel said to Linda.

Taking a fork to her mouth, she nodded.

‘That’s Peter, although you wouldn’t believe it. Do you know what they’re saying? It sounds as though they’re having the most fantastic argument, but they’re saying
nothing
. They’re like the birds when it comes to chattering. You should hear Timothy here when he gets going.’