Authors: Nadine Gordimer
Loot (15 page)
Norma was more than competent. There didn't need to be any snide justification cited for her appointment: she simply fulfilled every principle of the new order of fitness for public life and responsibility, even the professional scepticism of the newspaper editorials granted her highly intelligent use of experience gained in various sectors, and if she was not black, at least she qualified for that other, the gender principle industry as well as Government was expected to follow: she was a woman appointee. Often she was the Company board's choice to be negotiator on joint projects with the Government. That would be one of the occasions when her photograph would appear in the newspapers. When representatives of the World Bank or the Group of 8 visited the country official invitations came to her and her partner (secretaries had been instructed to avoid gender forms of address which stereotype the concept of a couple, there are dignitaries linked together as two men or two women). So sometimes Arthur was in the photograph, too, if half-hidden between other heads. At such gatherings there was always, naturally, the Minister or Minister's Deputy from Norma's old days who had put her on the list the important visitors should meet, be aware of. A consciousness that might be recalled some time, useful to the comrade become colleague, in her advancement.
The house with the Cape Dutch gable continued to keep up; the furniture that already had been changed since the basic stuff that was all they could afford when they moved in was replaced by something more comfortable and of better quality. Arthur caught his Norma looking about her, shifting in a chair, and it was as if he read it, said it for her. And for himself.âShouldn't we look for one of those leather seating units you can move around, compose the way you like, you know, more places for people to group in.âJournalists came to interview Norma, TV crews were often there to film the encounter for overseas series seeking the opinions of prominent people outside Government but active in the progress of the country. There had also grown up the tradition, following that of other people living in their kind of suburb, of giving a quasi-official party on some private occasionâbirthday or wedding anniversary. Norma would call in an Indian caterer, old comrade who had made his particular way to thrive in new circumstances.
âI love the feel of leather.âShe seemed already to be arranging the units, this way or that, in their livingroom. They decided it was not worth the trouble to advertise furniture for sale and have people coming to view. The Cape Dutch gable was hardly the place for yard sales. They donated the old stuff to a shelter for the homeless aged Welfare told her about; a van came to take it away, there was a grateful letter from the trustees of the place, it was somehow nice to think that the acquisition of an indoor setting adequate to the distinction of the gabled facade of their life at this stage also benefitted others who had the misfortune to have descended to the nadir.
It was shortly after the new furniture had been put in place (how he and she enjoyed themselves trying out the combinations,
a mating dance, with her pleasure at the smooth cling of the leather to her bare legs when he and she collapsed on the seats!) that the accident happened. She was driving from a late meeting. At the sharp turn off the main road that led to the quickest, familiar way to the Cape Dutch gable, a car came from somewhereâa blind blunder into her. Her car was flung away with the whole passenger side punched to a crumple. The impact was as if an invisible blow in the face but she was unhurt. And so was the driver of the other car. There followed the usual procedures, that Arthur took care of. Police report, wreck towed away, insurance claimed; his line. It was clear Norma was not at fault; but maybe neither was the other driver. The traffic lights were not functioning at the crossroads he came from; if anyone was culpable it was the city traffic department. One of the deficiencies of ordinary capacity in administration, now; the fascistracists everywhere, anywhere, were always more efficient than the free.
a mating dance, with her pleasure at the smooth cling of the leather to her bare legs when he and she collapsed on the seats!) that the accident happened. She was driving from a late meeting. At the sharp turn off the main road that led to the quickest, familiar way to the Cape Dutch gable, a car came from somewhereâa blind blunder into her. Her car was flung away with the whole passenger side punched to a crumple. The impact was as if an invisible blow in the face but she was unhurt. And so was the driver of the other car. There followed the usual procedures, that Arthur took care of. Police report, wreck towed away, insurance claimed; his line. It was clear Norma was not at fault; but maybe neither was the other driver. The traffic lights were not functioning at the crossroads he came from; if anyone was culpable it was the city traffic department. One of the deficiencies of ordinary capacity in administration, now; the fascistracists everywhere, anywhere, were always more efficient than the free.
She had a company car but it was being serviced that particular day and the car she was driving was their own, the family oneâArthur too, in his slow but satisfactory advance to Assistant General Manager had his company car. It's a man's affair, buying a car. A woman chooses the colour and has a preference for the profile, as the vehicles stand patient for acquisition in ballroom-showrooms, but the man looks under the hood and has a criterion of safety features and local availability of spares, to be met. Arthur visited dealers and brought home brochures. They studied them together, flipping with an admiring detachment past the ultimate luxury models but agreeing that they didn't want another station wagon, they had moved out of the utility class, the boys were old enough now not to climb on the
seats and household supplies were delivered, not loaded and lugged from a supermarket. The decision was made for the latest good model in an upper price range (as the salesman placed it in his hierarchy) but not excessively high. So long as it had automatic transmission and the other requirements Arthur tried out on his test drive, the car was the right one to glide through the Open Sesame gates as one of the appropriate complements to what had been made, what was being made, of the home behind the gable. Norma wanted the colour to be blue; only black or red was on the dealer's floor, but a blue model would be available in a few days.
seats and household supplies were delivered, not loaded and lugged from a supermarket. The decision was made for the latest good model in an upper price range (as the salesman placed it in his hierarchy) but not excessively high. So long as it had automatic transmission and the other requirements Arthur tried out on his test drive, the car was the right one to glide through the Open Sesame gates as one of the appropriate complements to what had been made, what was being made, of the home behind the gable. Norma wanted the colour to be blue; only black or red was on the dealer's floor, but a blue model would be available in a few days.
âHave you ordered it?âThe question was her greeting as she flung down her briefcase and brushed his cheek as if he were a handkerchief passing her lips.âBecause if you have, get on to the man and cancel. You haven't signed anything, no? We can get a wonderful deal.âShe named one of the great foreign luxury cars whose photographs they had flipped through in brochures. A co-director knew the right dealer well and she would meet him next day. Yes, she was aware of the fortune a car like that cost, but she had been promisedâabsolutelyâthere'd be a sizeable discount. And almost nothing in cash on the spot. The colleague could assure anybody of her position in one of the two largest construction firms in the country, payments no problem. The dealers know it's good for their business to have prominent people choosing their make of luxury vehicle.
âCan you imagine yourself driving one of those!âAs if he were a little boy with a dream to be fulfilled. Norma hugged him.
Later, after a happy, noisy meal with the boysâoften their mother wasn't there, she had business engagementsâand the
children had gone to bed, she smiled her jaunty grimace-way from the old days.âWhy shouldn't we take advantage of connections, like everybody else.â
children had gone to bed, she smiled her jaunty grimace-way from the old days.âWhy shouldn't we take advantage of connections, like everybody else.â
The car was delivered. It was not blue but silvery and had the pedigreed scent of real leather seats, a console like that of the array of controls before the pilot of a plane. It was so long that it only just cleared the lowering of the roll-down doors in the garage. She was right, Arthur enjoyed driving the family on trips; when it was not in use, the pedigreed in its stable, it was another, an exalted attribute to the life being created in the house with the Cape Dutch gable Norma had chosen unerringly, that one look.
A year or more passed and Brett, the younger son, satisfactorily found a place along with his brother at the best of private schools. On the newspaper posters that couldn't be read as the Assistant Manager of an insurance company was urged along by rush hour traffic, but whose headlines filled the wait at red lights, news from the world was often ousted by terse assertions of local corruption. Corruption in central government departments, regional, provincial structures, privatisation projects, land redistribution, mining or fishing rights, airline mergersâland, sea and airâthe very air that was being circulated by the vehicle's airconditioning. When he got home he read in the newspaper details of whatever the accusations and evidence were; and heard the assertions and denials on the radio, saw, with Norma over wine, the faces of those involved who consented to appear on TV to exonerate themselves in defence. Often the faces were those of official spokespersons rather than the individual him- or herself. It was so repetitive that it became if not boringâsome of the names were fascinatingly unexpectedâaccepted,
if within critical unease: a climate, a season. Living in it; not of it.
if within critical unease: a climate, a season. Living in it; not of it.
There was an evening unlike their evenings together with wine and television news. Norma switched off image and sound in mid-sentence. She sat with both hands round her glass looking into it.
Norma was not one for bad moods?
âNothing. Problems at work.â
He mentioned a colleague of hers she had once spoken of as careless. She clicked her tongue in dismissal.
He waited, Norma always knew what she wanted to say and when. Timing was part of her efficiency, he admired how it had worked for her in her advancement.
âThere's an investigation started into the finances of the Company. The Government tenders we won last year.â
âBut it all went well. You were satisfied? The projects were completed according to specification and so onâI mean, the Company's not some little outfit taking on what it can't deliver. â
âIt's the awarding of tenders. Who won the tender against others.â
Then it was flashed by on the newspaper posters in rush hour traffic, the latest scandal. CONSTRUCTION BECOMES CORRUPTION. He still believed it would be the members of the Board who would be investigated, and indicted if it were proved that bribery was involved in the awarding of contracts to the Company, though he was troubled about what this would mean for Norma's career. Muddy water splashes, anyone in insurance cases that come to Court knows that.
A weekly paper that relied on sensational exposé for its circulation published names and details of company corruption and NormaâNorma's name was among them. The pedigreed car she had bought at a âdiscount', it is alleged (a newspaper has to be careful even if it has somehow found proof of a fact) was in recognition of the favour of putting in a good word to the ear of one of the members of the old comrades' bond in the Government department calling for tenders. The holidays Arthur had understood were complement to business trips or were paid for as her yearly bonus as a Directorâthese were her share of bribes between the Company and various tender boards' members with whomâwasn't that time honourably dead and buriedâshe had dossed down Underground.
The billiard table, the birthday present of the mini billiard table! That's where it started! If only he had realised then. And all the other achievements in his part of her advancement, the creation of the home for it behind the Cape Dutch gableâall carried out with the money in their joint bank account swelled by her. Directors in every kind of company award themselves bonuses when a company thrives, what was there to doubt in that?
Don't bother about anything it's routine business expenses.
Don't bother about anything it's routine business expenses.
Arthur, for his part, through the insurance company knew good lawyers and engaged one to defend Norma in Court. The man insisted that he had obtained the best that could be expected: a heavy fine and suspended sentence, while two of the senior directors even lost their case on appeal to a higher Court and went to prison. Her background as a white who had suffered to bring about a just society, and the fact that she was female, the lawyer lectured, were the only mitigating factors in her favour.
âYour wife is a gullible woman. Or so the judge has chosen to believe.âAnd even if this had saved Norma, Arthur felt angry at the insult to her intelligence, all she had been and was. And there was bewilderment in him, at his anger: would he rather accept that his Norma was deviously dishonest?
âYour wife is a gullible woman. Or so the judge has chosen to believe.âAnd even if this had saved Norma, Arthur felt angry at the insult to her intelligence, all she had been and was. And there was bewilderment in him, at his anger: would he rather accept that his Norma was deviously dishonest?
It all happens just at the time when the architect has presented plans for extensions to the house that will not impinge upon or spoil the profile of the Cape Dutch gable against the sky. The boys have had lessons and are fine swimmers by now, there is a plan for a free-form pool and patio with change-room and bar with refrigerator.
They sold the house with the Cape Dutch gable, these things not accomplished, the home being made of it not fully achieved. The estate agent told them the property market was in decline; the Cape Dutch gable went at too low a price. It changed ownership several times in a decade.
âAorist: Denotes past action without indicating completion, continuation.'
Arthur: some years not long after, must have died; as the moment of that part of the process is termed.
Arthur: some years not long after, must have died; as the moment of that part of the process is termed.
âMany times man lives and dies,
Between his two eternities
That of race and that of soul.'
Between his two eternities
That of race and that of soul.'
We were very excited when they told us about the new house. We knew there was something going on, the parents don't like to tell until something's sure because kids ask so many questions. But since my father's had his new big job, an office and everything
in what's called Regional Administrationâwhatever that isâhe talks with his friends, when they drink beer at our old place, about rebuilding and clearing away street people and so onâour mother's been greeting him with other long talk we catch a few words of as we run in and out from playing in the street.
in what's called Regional Administrationâwhatever that isâhe talks with his friends, when they drink beer at our old place, about rebuilding and clearing away street people and so onâour mother's been greeting him with other long talk we catch a few words of as we run in and out from playing in the street.
Then they told us, my sisters and me, we are leaving Naledi township, our grandmother's house where we were born, and our grandmother's coming with us to live in a suburb. That's a place where whites live. Now anyone can live there. It's not the same suburb where the Catholic school is our father drove us to on his way to his office in the city every morning; the school also used to be for whites, but now any child can go there, my mother says, long as the parents can pay high fees. The township school is a dirty place and the teachers are lazy, she says. You can't learn English properly there, and there's no hope of a good position like our father's, when you grow up, if you can't speak proper English, it's the language of the world, she says.
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