Whatever the holiday was dubbed, those white South Africans who did not gather to pray for their civilization in churches, or to listen at rallies to political speeches on the subject, traditionally went picnicking. So did many blacks, if they could find some place where they were allowed upon the grass — riversides, lakes and resorts were reserved for whites; it was only this year, as a consequence of the formation of the organization, Umkhonto we Sizwe, announced by Mandela and so troubling to Pauline, that the spear of Dingane’s resistance had been taken up by blacks to mark the day as his and theirs.
If it hadn’t been Dingaan’s Day and if the first bombings in Johannesburg had not been reported to have taken place that very day, the psychiatrist’s wife would not have been able to claim with the certainty of historical confirmation that she actually had met and could even recognize the girl subsumed beneath the woman’s face in newspaper photographs seen many years later. The picnic itself was like many other picnics. The psychiatrist was newly qualified, in junior partnership, and not yet prosperous; the young couple had twin babies, lived in a small flat, and got out into the fresh air every Sunday. Hillela was with them on that picnic because she was now working as his receptionist; her third job — count can be kept at least that far. She had come to the consulting rooms he shared with his senior, peddling The World Atlas and Encyclopaedia of Modern Knowledge on ten per cent commission. The receptionist turned her away and she was taking advantage of the privacy of the corridor outside the rooms to eat a hamburger she had brought into the building, when the psychiatrist came out and punched all the lift buttons in turn. His impatience had no effect, and while he was waiting she looked for somewhere to put down her hamburger, could not, and so approached him with sample Volume 1 of the encyclopaedia and a half-eaten bun in her hands. They both laughed. He refused the bargain offer of the encyclopaedia and sympathetically told the girl nobody really ever wanted to buy that sort of thing; in fact, he explained, going down in the lift with her, the fraudulent offer of encapsulated knowledge was a survival of post First World War aspirations, long before television provided popular culture among the poor in Europe, England particularly, when unemployment rose and people hoped to survive by ‘bettering themselves’. —It’s pretty heavy to lug around, anyway. — That was all the young sales-woman knew. He asked if she wouldn’t prefer some other job? She was swallowing the last of her hamburger but — with a hand over her mouth — eyes that attracted attention with their dark opacity signalled eagerly. Fortunately practical Pauline had made sure all three children had learned to type. And of course, on those visits to Olga Hillela had learned to drive a car; it wasn’t necessary to add to her qualifications by saying she had no licence. The psychiatrist did not need a driver, but he told her to see the receptionist about a vacancy at his rooms. She dumped the sample encyclopaedia on a bench at a city bus stop. Somewhere in forgotten records her name appears, written off to the percentage of bad debts the publishing company expected from those who answered their advertisement: ‘Would you like to earn up to R500 a week in your spare time?’
Because she had first approached him with an encyclopaedia and a hamburger with a big bite taken out of it, the professionally-regulated contact of learned doctor and unskilled employee had an element of shared amusement that held good through working days. He asked her if she was Jewish, too. — I suppose so. — Her reply amused him, once again; he felt the same about his Jewishness — at least he thought he did. But there was the occupational habit of asking gentle, insistent questions. — Why do you ‘suppose’?—My father was Portuguese. — He did not yet have the experienced insight to recognize a fantasy instantly. — It doesn’t necessarily follow. There are Portuguese Jews. What did he do? — Even if she had been found traipsing around hawking educational ‘lines’, it was evident in her style and the way she spoke that the girl was from the educated middle-class. — He was a dancer. — Oh, that’s interesting? — Not surprising that this — how had he described her to his wife? — ‘striking-looking kid’—should have a strain of artistic heredity.
— A dancing-partner in a nightclub.—
Now he laughed; she laughed; he did not exactly believe her but respected what he interpreted as a surprisingly mature way of reminding that a humble receptionist’s private life was her own business. He suspected some history of running away from home, some chosen displacement, here; she was clearly of his and his young wife’s milieu, so he suggested out of kindness that she join them on a picnic one day. She brought a guitar along, with charming innocent assurance that she could contribute something to the enjoyment of the outing, and his wife, seated under the willows with a baby tugging each breast sideways, was delighted with her. No girlish friendship developed, however; although his wife asked him to many times, he never brought them together again. He sent his junior receptionist out for hamburgers, as the kind of service her position was expected to fulfil, and then shared them with her in his consulting room while everyone else was out for lunch. On the picnic, first names had been adopted, though she understood without having to be told that he must never be addressed as ‘Ben’ before the receptionist or patients. In his room they sat together on the couch he kept as barbers keep a painted pole — he preferred to have his patients upright across the desk from him in a comfortable chair of contemporary design. She amused him greatly with her comments on patients. — They all sit in the waitingroom trying to look as if they’re not there.—
— That’s it. They don’t want to be there. They’re all people on the run from something.—
She smiled, unconvinced, her mouth full again. A healthy appetite. — I knew someone on the run, laughing and joking all the time. He wanted beer and music.—
— On the run from what? — He did not deal with criminal cases.
— Security police. And he got away, safely over the border. We knew he had because he sent such a ridiculous letter — he asked for a pair of brown lace-up shoes, size twelve, and then signed the letter, your loving sister Violet!—
— Asked whom?—
— I can’t tell you. Well, you’re used to secrets. — It was her job. to take each patient’s file from the office cabinets and, preceding the patient silently into the doctor’s room, place it before him.
He left off using a medicated toothpick to warn her, in collusion, smiling. — You’re not supposed to read them, you know.—
— But Ben, I’d never believe anyone would have the thoughts they have!—
— You’re a naughty girl. You know that?—
He insisted that she use toothpicks, too, to take care of her pretty teeth which were marred by only one misalignment. He often drove her, after work, to her room in the second commune she had joined. None of the other occupants would have recognized him, or cared, if they did. All brought men or girls home for a night or as long as an attraction lasted. After a few afternoon rides, he asked if he could see her room. She invited him in without fuss. But she would not make love. Was it because it would be her first time? Ah no — sexual knowingness proclaimed itself in her laugh, from the very day she approached him with the bun and the book, in the unselfconscious ease with which she was at home with her body in a way that none of his patients, poor things, were, squeezing her soft breasts past the hard metal filing cabinets, swivelling her little behind as she bent to pick up the pen that wouldn’t stay efficiently clipped to the pocket of her white coat.