A Sport of Nature (7 page)

Did Hillela ever realize that no door was locked in the house that night? The front and back doors, the sliding glass ones that led to the verandah where Pauline had refused what was asked of her by the woman with red hair—all were open, the way a window is left wide in the hope of enticing back a strayed cat.

In the morning the whole house was swept full of night air, the leaf-smell of dawn. Carole explained how she had tried to stay awake that night but must have slept: she opened her eyes and saw the second bed still neat and empty. Bettie was crying, the flanges of her black nose lined with rosy wet. While drinking coffee standing up in the kitchen, Pauline and Joe, with Carole listening, discussed whether or not to telephone Olga. —Oh my god—Olga … What suggestions could she have. She didn't have enough understanding to take her after that Rhodesian business, so how could she have any idea at all of how to deal with this?— Yet Pauline came back from the duty call somehow relieved, though scornful. —I told you. D'you know what she said? First she didn't know what to say … then she came up with the bright idea Hillela might have gone to Mozambique.— Joe seemed actually to be considering the supposition, so Pauline exposed it in all its uselessness. —She hasn't had a word from her mother since she was old enough to read, we haven't even an address any more, so the notion she would run away to Ruthie … really. Olga reads too many romantic novels from her ladies' book club.—

—Olga'd like to go and look for Ruthie, herself, maybe … so it's a perfectly reasonable idea for her to have.—

—Well, I happen to love Ruthie, too, but I'm capable of being a bit more intelligently objective than my sister Olga—

—She reproached you?—

—Not that … unless you read her silences. She didn't dare. But what does it matter now. Doesn't help us.—

—Carole. D'you think there's any chance Hillela might have had a notion to go to Lourenço Marques?— Joe gestured lightness; it would not be such a serious matter if her cousin had. —D'you ever get the impression she longs for her mother, or at least for some idea of her? Or might go for the adventure of it? Take the von Herz girl along?—

Well, Hillela would know how Carole had to answer her father's weighing-up of circumstantial evidence. It was only surprising when Hillela did ask her young cousin: —How?—

—I said you wouldn't go to Len or to your mother. It wouldn't be anything we would think of. So then they went on and on, whether you were unhappy, whether you didn't love us—all that stuff, I nearly passed out with embarrassment.—

But Joe was accustomed to persisting logically towards the uncovering of motivation. —If she were to be unhappy, to whom would she go?—

Carole didn't tell Hillela what she had said then: —Sasha. I think. If he were around.—

—Sasha? Really? Not you!—

—Why Sasha!—

They still suspected Carole of covering up for her cousin.

—She would. I don't know … because he's older … but he's not here. So she couldn't have.—

They did something Carole would never have thought they would do. Pauline telephoned Swaziland—to the school. Sasha was out on a cross-country run but he was allowed to telephone home when he returned half-an-hour later. Hillela? He had not heard from her. They did not write to each other—Pauline knew very well Hillela never wrote, even when she was away at Plett with Olga, she didn't write.

Had she ever spoken to him of any friends she didn't want the family to know about?—it was natural for young people, part of growing up, beginning to be independent of their parents, to have little secrets. But it would be necessary for him to betray a confidence in an emergency like this, to prevent possible harm coming to his cousin.

Pauline came from the telephone with the dread settled upon her again. —No idea where she could be. He got quite cross when I said, if she should phone him or turn up there … There's
an inter-school match today, he'll be away playing soccer at Manzini.—

Pauline went to take her Saturday-morning coaching classes as usual. She did not know what else to do? She would not help Hillela by letting down black children who travelled all the way from Soweto in their eagerness for education. Carole stayed with Joe, at home, to be there for Hillela if she came.

In the afternoon there was the slam of a car door and footsteps running up the drive; all three in the livingroom stood up ceremoniously to receive Hillela restored to them—but Sasha, Sasha was in the doorway. Sasha walked into the familiar house empty of the presence of Hillela. An amazing rage broke over them. He smashed their sensible calm like a bottle flung against a wall, and his words were the jagged pieces held before the faces of his mother, his father, Carole. —What've you done?—

He stood in the doorway apart from them, turned to Pauline. He was unshaven, a grown man, and his nose was running, a little boy's. —You bitch. What've you done? You think everything you do is the only thing. Only you know what to think, how to live. Everybody's got to be like you. Something's right because it fits in with you. If it doesn't it's stupid, it's shit. Not everybody's going to be exactly like you and dad. You
understand
what everybody needs, you never ask them. You know what blacks ought to have and you know what Hillela needs, you're so sure it's not Olga, it's not her father, it's
you …
You send me to school with blacks because that's normal, that's the way it ought to be here but isn't, it
isn't
, and
you
don't have to go into the army afterwards and kill them, only I, I have to do that, I have to do what's wrong, not you. You take Hillela in, that's the
right thing
, and now, if she's dead … (Carole wept with shock to see her brother weep.) … If you've killed her then she's done what's wrong, you've got nothing to do with it, she doesn't
fit in …
And if I get blown up or shot defending this bloody country where do I fit in? You despise Olga
for wanting to run away to Canada, but you don't have to go into the army, I do,
I do
. You don't know what happened to Hillela, no, because you're careful not to let anything happen to you—

Pauline stood still, breathing deeper and deeper, her intimacy with her son making certain the sense under the ridiculous tirade would find the vital places, known only to him and her, to wound her.

And because of Hillela, then, Joe did something inconceivable for him: he called his son a bastard. The hollow house filled with anger and pain that would never have been let loose, things were said that should never, would never be said by people like them.

Pauline tugged out one by one the crude homemade shafts that pierced her, shameless, as if exposing before her husband and almost-grown children the privacy of the body where he had begotten them and from which she had ejected them into the world. Her hair was a great wick by which she might catch alight. —Yes cheap, stupid, shit, this place, and you've been sent away so's you don't have to dirty yourself with it while you're growing up. You haven't had to listen to it from your friends at school, the way the girls have to. You haven't got to teach Alpheus to spell while he dreams about being a lawyer, the way your father has to—you know only blacks who're your equals, getting the same education you're getting. You're too high and mighty to make any compromises because you don't have to, you're a spoilt brat. There're all kinds of ways of making a spoilt brat, I see that, and—you're right—this is
my
way. I've had my way and I've done it. You're my way. We can't all live at Waterford Kamhlaba School, you know. There's the world out there—There's this place. And Joe and I have to decide every day of our lives how to live here,
whites only
, no choice about that, no phalanstery without passes and black locations, white this and black that, beach houses for Olga and the kids I teach living fourteen people in two rooms in Soweto!—

—And Alpheus in the garage.—

—Where shall I put him?
Your
room? Would you like that? Do I run an orphanage here? —What do you know about the decisions your father has to make, taking cases
pro deo
when he could be making money as a divorce lawyer for whites with wives who must have enough alimony to have their faces lifted. We do know what's cheap, what's stupid, what's
shit
. Yes. We've spent our lives finding out how to live in the midst of it, part of it, and … and behave as decently as one can … until it's changed. I do think I know what's right, even if I don't always manage to do it. And, my Christ, the last thing I want is for you to have to be exactly like me, like us. That's what I've been preparing you for since you were two bricks and a tickey … for change. But you have to think for it, work for it; and every day of the week do what you're not sure of, or despise yourself for … it's not a clean process … getting out of the shit … it's not going to be for you, either, don't think it can be, you're old enough to realize.—

—You don't have to tell me. My name's the one in the ballot. I'm going to have to go to the army.—

—Am I responsible for that?—

—Yes, because you don't have to go.—

—Stop talking nonsense, Sasha.—

—No, Joe, if that's true, then our life has been useless. Yours and mine.—

—You, you, your life. Who gives a fuck for you fishing for a pat on the back. I'm not listening, do you hear, I'm not listening—

Pauline lifted her long, blunt-nailed hand, to raise against her son or to protect herself, silver bangles from which the chasing had long worn off sliding down towards her elbow: the gesture was not concluded. There was an intrusion. The telephone rang. Hillela was speaking from a police station in Durban. She was fine. Mandy von Herz was fine. They had been recognized by the police on the North Beach. The police were being really nice, they
allowed her to phone. Joe spoke to the sergeant and arranged for the girls to be put on the train that evening.

—And him?— Hoarse Pauline presented Joe with the presence of Sasha, swollen-lipped, before them. Her voice was slurred as if she were stunned by drink. —Does the school know you're here?—

He did not answer.

His mother lifted her big head again. —And what are we going to do about that? He could be expelled. —Where do they think you are?—

—Manzini.—

—So. Joe—you decide with him how to get out of this mess. A prefect simply runs away when he's sent to a soccer match. What school can overlook that? What d'you suggest we do now? Simply walks out and hitches a lift home without a word to anyone, like any dropout, any delinquent—

Joe kept the professional manner he had adopted over the other matter, with the Durban police. —I'll phone, I'll explain.—

Pauline's great head and red-scratched cheeks faced everyone, the inhabited helmet and mask of authority. —What'll you explain?—

—He was under stress. A family matter.—

Hillela's nose is peeling and there is a bracelet made of turban shells on her right wrist. When she sees her cousin Sasha, home, reading the Sunday paper, she puts a hand over her opened mouth. —Was it your half-term—

They all hear Sasha. —No. A couple of us seniors got a chance of a lift, so they gave us a weekend.—

The house needs to recuperate from the dread Hillela left behind her, and from the emotions Sasha let loose. Pauline has made a lamb curry with accompanying chapatis, yoghurt-and-cucumber salad, bananas with coconut, and peach chutney—the
young people's favourite lunch. Joe asks what the swimming was like. Oh wonderful, though not as good as Plett. —The water was so warm we all went in on Friday night—about two in the morning!—

—Who'd you meet up with?— Carole slips into innocent schoolgirl gossip.

—No-one in particular. Mandy knows some chaps from Michael-house, it turned out it was their half-term, and they knew someone I met at Plett.—

—Who's that?—

Sasha swallows a large mouthful and turns on his sister. —Nosey.—

Hillela is smiling at Sasha, but he doesn't look at her face. She glances down at her arm as if something, a touch of light, has directed attention there. She rolls the shell bracelet off over her fist. —I brought this for you, Carole. Sasha—I would've got you something if I'd known you'd be here—

There was a time and place for Hillela to give account of herself.

Olga's Rover kept by Jethro shiny as the taps in her bathroom stood outside the gate. Olga sat in Pauline's worn livingroom with Pauline, waiting. Olga got up and hugged her; —Hillela, oh Hillela.— She was sweaty from the day at school and did not know when it would be all right to break the sweet-smelling embrace. —You want to tidy up a bit?— Olga lifted the hair at the back of the girl's head, gauging it needed an expert cut.

—There's a chicken sandwich in the kitchen, darling. Leftovers from the grand lunch I gave Olga.—

—It was a perfectly good lunch, believe me. I usually have an apple and a bit of cheese.—

—Yes, one can see that by the shape you keep. But I can't be bothered. There are too many other things to do. I'm hungry; I eat bread and peanut butter to fuel myself; I spread around the arse …—

She came back barefoot, her face washed, hair pushed behind her ears.

—Your sandwich.—

She turned and fetched it from the kitchen.

Olga kept smiling at her, frowning and smiling at once, as people do in order not to make fools of themselves in some way. Olga would leave it to Pauline: Pauline accepted with the gesture of inevitability. —It's all been passed off just as if you've been—I don't know, spending the weekend with a friend, as if it were any other time you or Carole …? But the fact is, my dear little Hillela, you gave us all a terrible twenty-four hours. Not
only us, your immediate family here where you belong, but also Olga … Olga was running around hospitals and police stations, just like us.—