But a human being, she, she, cannot simply exist; she is a hurricane, every thought bending and crossing its coherence inside her, nothing will let her be, not for a moment. Every emotion, every thought, is invaded by another. Shame, guilt, fear, dismay, anger, blame, resentment at the whole world and what it is — and names come up, names — for the sight of him as he is going to be. Again. Living in a dirty hovel, a high-rise one or a shed behind a garage, what’s the difference, with Christ knows what others of the wrong colours, poor devils like himself (as he used to say), cleaning American shit — she has seen the slums of those cities, the empty lots of that ravaged new world, detritus of degradation — doing the jobs that real people, white Americans, won’t do themselves. At least in her home, that city of the backward continent, lying under a car’s guts was a better human grade. And then the assault comes at her: in your city? Your country? All real people by law now, but who still does the shit work, neither Nigel Ackroyd Summers nor his daughter Julie. And even the ‘better human grade’ was denied the grease-monkey there, he was kicked out of that better grade, wasn’t he, right out; of your country.
And again: America, America. The great and terrible USA. Australia, New Zealand — that would have been something better? Anywhere would be. America. The harshest country in the world. The highest buildings to reach up to in corporate positions (there he is, one of the poor devils, the beloved one, climbing a home-made rope ladder up forty storeys); and to jump off from head-first. That’s where the world is. He thinks I don’t know; he doesn’t know. He is standing before her, conjured up by her rage against all that threatens him, waits for him: so young, his slender hands hanging ready for anything, at his sides, his defiant elegance — that silk scarf round his neck with its strong tendons, the black hair down his breast and again round his testicles and proud penis she sees beneath his clothes whenever she looks at him, the black eyes that never reveal what’s going on behind that face she discovered comes from his mother, as the traits of an ancient Greek, Egyptian or Nubian image may be rediscovered in far-removed living descendants.
But there is no-one. Nothing imprinted on the desert. It is always; and what is thudding inside her like a road-worker’s stamp in a street is now.
She is at one with the woman, his mother, to whom she should have been able to run, at one with the woman with whom she could not exchange, did not have, the right words for what she now shared with her. Only she herself, who had discovered him disguised as a grease-monkey — not the father, not Maryam, not anyone at all in the family where people were so close to one another — only she and the mother could experience the apprehension of, the rejection of what every emigration, this emigration, was ready to subject the son to. But the mother was at prayer; his mother had prayer. She should not be interrupted. Even if one were to have had the words in the right language.
The dog went silently away. She sat on until the tumult slowly cleared within her, disentangled. The sands of the desert dissolve conflict; there is space, space for at least one clear thought to come: arrived at.
When she came back to the house the prayer rug had been folded away. Mother and son were together in their privacy on her sofa. He looked up and signalled — come. Where he sat, he put an arm round her waist; Where have you been? A walk. Fresh air is good if it is not too hot, the mother said to her, speaking slowly so that she would understand. They looked at one another for a moment; she thought his mother knew — if not where she had been — where experiences were taking her.
They retired to their lean-to together — that was the formal feeling of it before the following eyes of the mother. He had her by the hand, it was a gesture more for his mother than for her: as if to say, my foreign wife is with me, I am not alone.
She dumped herself on the bed that had complained so much under the weight of love-making.
I’ll write to Archie. My Uncle.
Chapter 40
Dear Archie,
You won’t be too surprised to hear from me, and you’ll know that it probably means I’m coming to you — for something. Because you’ve always been the one I could ask. This time it’s money. Ibrahim has been granted a visa for America. It was never a problem to get one for me, but it has taken months and endless hassle to arrange for him. He’s been turned down by every other country he’s tried. I still don’t know how he’s done it — better not ask! You’ll understand that, after his experience in S.A.
So we have the green light for the USA. But my dollars have run out. We couldn’t have and wouldn’t have expected his family to keep us. His earnings here (work he’s had as a favour from a relative) and the small sums I’ve been able to add by having the nerve to teach English, are not enough to pay our airfares and give us a breather when we get there. Could I ask, I am asking, could you possibly, somehow, let me have the equivalent of about 5,000 dollars? I know exchange control regulations may make this difficult, but any currency you could arrange to come to me from your contacts anywhere, would be fine. Ibrahim has a friend at a bank in the capital who will take care of the draft and get us the proper rate of exchange at this end. I am enclosing a sheet with all details of the bank for the transfer, however you can do it.
Dear Archie, I would hope to pay back some time. I wanted to write to you, anyway, not long ago, about the possibility of a pre-inheritance from the Trust you know was set up — but that’s no doubt something complex that would take time, and we really have to have cash right now. So to be honest, I won’t be able to meet the debt too soon because we don’t know what our situation will be in the USA. But eventually, I’ll write again for your advice on how I could perhaps draw on that Trust. I suppose in America I could most likely get the same kind of work I used to do. I could contact the principals there, of the people I worked for in Johannesburg, it’s an international spider, legs down all over the place. If they make some sort of in-house request to employ me apparently a work permit won’t be a problem. For the moment, Ibrahim’s been granted one, I’m just the wife he’s supposed to provide for while she sits and watches TV.
Archie, I don’t know how to say how grateful we’ll both be to you.
You know I can’t ask my father.
With much love, as it’s always been,
Julie
Chapter 41
It came to her from herself with reproach, only now: she had assumed, in her outrage at the preposterous charge against Archie, that it had not been, could not be pursued; must have been dropped before evidence of his life-long professional reputation. Only now; so in the emotional conflation of what had happened, all at once, to him and (in her hand) the two airline tickets to take her and her lover out of the country, she had not written to him as she meant to do! Hadn’t written although in all her adventures round the world she was free to roam she carried in her address book, on Archie’s insistence — just in case — his fax and telephone numbers at his consulting rooms and at home.
Ibrahim had talked to her about calling, but she was reluctant, and no point in pressing her now that she had come forth with the solution for them; he sensed it was better to let her achieve it in her own way; she seemed to shrink from some emotional complication in speaking to this uncle of hers. They went together to the capital to a friend-of-a-friend who was in the import business and sent the letter by fax.