I could say anything to him and it is a relief to know that it does not matter in the slightest how I deliver my lie, for he does not know me, doesn’t know any of us, and will not recognise me the next day.
I uncap my pen and read through Retief’s dictated lecture. His pigeon head bobs up and down in empathy with the bowed heads of students before him as he pecks at his words in clipped English. The novel, he says, is about Fate. Alarmingly simple, but not quite how it strikes me, although I cannot offer an alternative. The truth is that I do not always understand the complicated language, though of course I got the gist of the story, the interesting bits where things happen. But even then, I cannot be sure of what actually happens in The Chase.
Wessex spreads like a well-used map before me, worn and dim along the fold-lines, the lush Frome Valley and the hills so picture-green where Persephone skips sprinkling daisies and buttercups from her clutched apron, caring not two hoots about the ones that fall face down destined to die. The scuffed green strip is The Chase where God knows what happened. Seduced, my notes say. Can you be seduced by someone you hate? Can trees gnarled with age whisper ancient ecstasies and waves of darkness upon dark lap until the flesh melts? I do, of course, not know of these matters, but shudder for Tess.
Beyond these pale buildings gleaming ghostly in the young spring light there is a fringe of respectably tall Port Jackson and bluegum trees that marks the clearing of university buildings from the surrounding bush. These raggle-taggle sentinels stand to tin-soldierly attention and behind them the bush stretches for miles across the Cape Flats. Bushes, I imagine, that send out wayward limbs to weave into the tangled undergrowth, for I have never left the concrete paths of this campus. Even summer couples may step out arm in arm to flaunt their love under the fluffy yellow flower of the Port Jackson, but never, surely, do they venture beyond. Somewhere beyond the administration block where today the flag flies half mast, they say there is a station where the train stops four times daily on the way to and from the Cape Flats. Skollie boys sit all day long on the deserted platform, for there is no ticket office, and dangle their legs above the rails while they puff at their dagga pils. But even from this height there is no visible path winding through the bush. The handful of students who use the train must daily beat like pioneers a path through the undergrowth.
Along the top of my page enclosing the essay title, ‘Fate in Tess,’ I have now drawn an infantile line of train carriages. I cannot start writing. I have always been able to distinguish good from bad but the story confuses me and the lecture notes offer no help.
Murder is a sin which should outrage all decent and civilised people.
The library is beginning to fill up and a boy I vaguely recognise as a Science student passes twice, darting resentful looks at me. No doubt I am in the seat that he has come to think of as his very own. Perhaps I should leave. Perhaps he can’t work for being in a strange seat.
Through the window I watch James in his canary-yellow jersey, his jacket tucked under his arm, trotting to the Arts block for the English lecture. I shall get the notes from him. James is a good friend; he is not like other boys. It is the distant sound of the nine o’clock siren that makes my courage fountain and the opening sentence spill on to the page in fluent English: ‘Before we can assess the role of fate in the novel we must consider the question of whether Tess is guilty or not, whether she has erred in losing her virginity, deceiving her husband and killing her lover.’
Exhausted by my bold effort I can go no further. Outside, the pathways are deserted. English I students are by now seated in their row, shoulders hunched over Retief’s dictation. The surly boy walks past me once again with a large volume under his arm. The hatred in his lingering look is unmistakable. I pack up my things hurriedly and before I reach the door the boy leaps up from his exposed seat at a central table and lurches indecently into the carrell so that I blush for the warm imprint of my buttocks which has not yet risen from the thin upholstery. It should be more comfortable on the first floor where I usually work amongst familiar faces, but by the time I reach the bottom of the stairs a reckless thirst propels me out, right out of the library towards the cafeteria where Tamieta’s coffee pots croon on the hot plate.
She mutters, ‘It’s not ready,’ and clatters the lids of her pots and turns on a fierce jet of water so that Charlie jumps out of the spray and shouts, ‘Jeez-like Auntie man, that’s mos not necessary man.’
He tilts his face for the gracious acceptance of an apology but Tamieta’s head remains bent over the sink. He cannot bear the silence and by way of introduction hums an ironic tune.
‘That ou in there,’ pointing at the door that leads into the lecturers dining room, ‘that ou said just now that Verwoerd was the architect of this place,’ Charlie offers.
‘It’s because you listen to other people’s conversations that you forget the orders hey. You’ll never get on in this canteen business if you don’t keep your head. Never mind the artitex; clever people’s talk got nothing to do with you,’ Tamieta retorts.
Charlie laughs scornfully. He discards the professional advice because he will not believe that a speaker could fail to be flattered by an eavesdropper. So that recognising the root of the error he will not mind being brought curry instead of bredie. Besides, he, Charlie, had only got an order wrong once, several weeks ago.
‘I know you don’t need architects in the platteland. Not if you build your houses out of sticks and mud, but here in Cape Town there are special big-shot people who make drawings and plan out the buildings.’ He speaks slowly, with pedagogical patience. ‘So that’s what I mean; the Prime Minister got even more important things to do and a lecturer should know better. That ou must be from the Theology School over there’, driving a thumb in the wrong direction. ‘Those moffies know buggerall there.’
Tamieta’s fingers are greedy beaks pecking into the pastry bowl and she fixes her eyes on the miracle of merging resistant fat and flour. She will not be provoked by this blasphemous Slams who has just confirmed her doubts about the etymology of his ‘Jeez-like.’ They know nothing of God and yes it is her Christian duty to defend her God, but this Charlie is beyond the pale. The Old Man will have to look after himself today. She adds the liquid slowly, absorbed by the wonder of turning her ingredients into an entirely new substance. But it will not last. Her melktert to rival all tarts, perfectly round and risen, will melt in so many mouths, and that will be the end of it.
‘. just reading the Bible all day long makes them stupid, those preacher chaps from the platteland. ’ Charlie’s voice weaves through her thoughts. This boy will not stop until she speaks out against his irreverence and Tamieta sighs, weary with the demands of God. Even the bonuses have strings attached. What, for instance, is the point of having a Sabbath when you have to work like a slave all Saturday in order to prepare for the day of rest? When she first started in service with Ounooi van Graan, my word how she had to work. All the vegetables peeled the night before, the mutton half roasted in the pot and the sousboontjies all but cooked. And now in her own home in Bosheuwel, working all Saturday afternoon to make Sunday the day of rest. Oh what would she give to spread out the chores and do the ironing on Sundays. Instead she has to keep a watchful eye on Beatrice whose hands itch for her knitting needles. She feels for the child as they sit after the service and the special Sunday dinner wondering what to do so that she would yawn and shut her eyes and pray for strength to hold out against the child’s desire to make something durable. For knitting on a Sunday pierces God directly in the eyes. It is her sacred duty to keep that child out of the roasting fires of hell for, not being her own, she is doubly responsible.