The Sun Between Their Feet (46 page)

In the morning Jerry and Jabavu wake clear-headed, leaving the others to sleep off their sickness, and they go together to the town, where they steal very well and cleverly, another clock and two pairs of shoes and a baby's pillow from under its head, and also, and most important, some trinkets which Jerry says are gold. When these things are taken by the Indian, he offers much money for them. Jerry says as they walk back to the Township: ‘And on the second day we each make five pounds …' and looks hard at Jabavu so that he may not miss what he means. And Jabavu today is easier about Mr Mizi, for he admires himself for not drinking the
skokian, and for working with Jerry so cleverly that there is no difference between them.

That night they all go to the deserted store where they drink whisky, which is better than the skokian, for it does not make them sick. They play cards and eat well; and all the time Jerry watches Jabavu, and with very mixed thoughts. He sees that he does as he pleases with Betty, although never before has Betty been so humble and anxious with a man. He sees how he is careful what he drinks – and never has he seen a boy raw from the kraals learning sense so quickly with the drink. He sees how the others already, after two days, speak to Jabavu with almost the respect they have for him. And he does not like this at all. Nothing of what he is thinking does he show, and Jabavu feels more and more that Jerry is a friend. And next day they go again to the white streets and steal, and afterwards drink whisky and play cards. The next day also, and so a week passes. All that time Jerry is soft-speaking, polite, smiling; his cold, watchful eyes hooded in discretion and cunning; and Jabavu is speaking freely of what he feels. He has told of his love for Mrs Mizi, his admiration for Mr Mizi. He has spoken with the free confidence of a little child, and Jerry has listened, leading him on with a soft, sly word or a smile, until by the end of that week there is a strange way of speaking indeed. Jerry will say: ‘And about the Mizis …' And Jabavu will say: ‘Ah, they are clever, they are brave.' And Jerry will say, in a soft, polite voice: ‘You think that is so?' And Jabavu will say: ‘Ah, my friend, those are men who think only of others.' And Jerry will say: ‘You think so?' But in that soft, deadly, polite voice. And then he will talk a little, as if he does not care at all, about the Mizis or the Samus, how once they did this or that, and how they are cunning, and then state suddenly and with violence: ‘Ah, what a skellum!' or ‘Now that is a bitch.' And Jabavu will laugh and agree. It is as if there are two Jabavus, and one of them is brought into being by the clever tongue of Jerry. But Jabavu himself is hardly aware of it. For it may seem strange that a man can spend his time stealing and drinking and
making love to a woman of the town and yet think of himself as something quite different – a man who will become a man of light, yet this is how things are with Jabavu. So confused is he, so bound up in the cycle of stealing, and then good food and drink, then more stealing, then Betty at night, that he is like a young, powerful, half-broken ox, being led to work by a string around his horns which the man hardly allows him to feel. Yet there are moments when he feels it.

There is a day when Jerry asks casually, as if he does not mind at all: ‘And so you will leave us and join the men of light?' And Jabavu says, with the simplicity of a child: ‘Yes, that is what I wish to do.' And Jerry allows himself to laugh, and for the first time. And fear goes through Jabavu like a knife, so that he thinks: I am a fool to speak thus to Jerry. And yet in a moment Jerry is making jokes again and saying, ‘Those skellums,' as if he is amused at the folly of the men of light, and Jabavu laughs with him. For above all Jerry is cunning in the use of laughter with Jabavu. He leads Jabavu gently onwards, with jokes, until he becomes serious, and in one moment, and says: ‘And so you will leave us when you are tired of us and go to Mr Mizi?' And the seriousness makes Jabavu's tongue stick in his mouth, so that he says nothing. He is like the ox who has been led so softly to the edge of the field, and now there is a pressure around the base of his horns and he thinks: But surely this man cannot mean to make a fool of me? And because he does not wish to understand he stands motionless, his four feet stubborn on the earth, blinking his foolish eyes, and the man watches him, thinking: In a moment there will be the fighting, when this stupid ox bellows and roars and leaps into the air, not knowing it is all useless since I am so much more clever than he is.

Jerry, however, does not think of Jabavu quite as the man thinks of the ox. For while he is in every way more cunning and more experienced than Jabavu, yet there is something in Jabavu he cannot handle. There are moments when he wonders: Perhaps it would be better if I let this fool go to Mr
Mizi, why not? I shall threaten to kill him if he speaks of us and our work … Yet it is impossible, precisely because of this other Jabavu which is brought into being by the jokes. Once with the Mizis, will not Jabavu have times when he longs for the richness and excitement of the stealing and the shebeens and the women? And at those moments will he not feel the need to call the matsotsis bad names, and perhaps even tell the police? The names of all the gang, and the coloured men who help them, and the Indian who helps them … Jerry wishes bitterly that he had put a knife into Jabavu long ago, when he first heard of him from Betty. Now he cannot, because Betty loves Jabavu, and therefore is dangerous. Ah, how Jerry wishes he could kill them both … Yet he never kills unless it is really necessary and certainly not two killings at once. But his hatred for Jabavu, and more particularly Betty, grows and deepens, until it is hard for him to shut it down and appear smiling and cool and friendly.

But he does so, and gently he leads Jabavu along the path of dangerous laughter. The jokes they make are frightening, and when Jabavu is frightened by them, he has to say: ‘Well, but it is a joke only.' For they speak of things which would have made him tremble only a few weeks before. First he learns to laugh at the richness of Mr Mizi, and how this clever skellum hides money in his house and so cheats all the people who trust him. Jabavu does not believe it, but he laughs, and even goes on with the joke saying: ‘What fools they are,' or ‘It is more profitable to run a League for the Advancement of the African People than to run a shebeen.' And when Jerry speaks of how Mrs Mizi sleeps with everyone or how Mrs Samu is in the movement only because of the young men whom she may meet, Jabavu says Mrs Samu reminds him of the advertisement in the white man's papers: Drink this and you will sleep well at night. Yet all the time Jabavu does not believe any of these things, and he sincerely admires the men of light, and wishes only to be with them.

Later Jerry tightens the leash and says: ‘One day the men of
light will be killed because they are such skellums,' and he makes a joke about such a killing. It takes a few days before Jabavu is ready to laugh, but at last it seems unimportant and a joke only, and he laughs. And then Jerry speaks of Betty and says how once he killed a woman who had become dangerous, and he laughs and says a stupid woman is as bad as a dangerous one, and it would be a good idea to kill Betty. Many days pass before Jabavu laughs, and this is because the idea of Betty being dead makes his heart leap with joy. For Betty has become a burden on his nights so that he dreads them. All night she will wake him, saying: ‘And now marry me and we will run away to another town,' or ‘Let us kill Jerry, and you may be leader of this gang,' or ‘Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?' – and Jabavu thinks of the women of the old kind who do not talk of love day and night: women with dignity; but at last he laughs. The two young men laugh together, reeling across the road, sometimes, as they speak of Betty, and of women and how they are this and that, until things have changed to that Jabavu laughs easily when Jerry speaks of killing Betty, or any other member of the gang, and they speak with contempt of the others, how they are fools and not clever in the work, and the only two with any sense are Jerry and Jabavu.

Yet underneath the friendship both are very frightened, and both know that something must happen soon, and they watch each other, sideways, and hate each other, and Jabavu thinks all the time of how he may run to Mr Mizi, while Jerry dreams at night of the police and prison, and often of killing, Jabavu mostly, but Betty too, for his dislike of Betty is becoming like a fever. Sometimes, when he sees how Betty rubs her body against Jabavu, or kisses him, like the cinema, and in front of the others, and how she never takes her eyes away from Jabavu, his hand goes secretly to the knife and fingers it, itching with the need to kill.

The gang itself is confused, for it is as if they have two leaders. Betty stays always beside Jabavu, and her deference towards him influences the others. Also, Jerry has owed his
leadership to the fact that he is always clearheaded, never drunk, stronger than anyone else. But now he is not stronger than Jabavu. It is as if some fast-working yeast of dissolution were in the gang, and Jerry names this yeast Mr Mizi.

There comes a day when he decides to get rid of Jabavu finally one way or the other, although he is so clever with the stealing.

First he speaks persuasively of the mines in Johannesburg, saying how good the life is there, and how much money for people like themselves. But Jabavu listens indifferently, saying: ‘Yes,' and ‘Is that so?' For why should a man make the dangerous and difficult journey south to the richness of the City of Gold when life is rich where he is? So Jerry drops that plan and tries another. It is a dangerous one, and he knows it. He wishes to make a last attempt to weaken Jabavu by skokian. And for six nights he leads them to the shebeens, although usually he discourages his gang from drinking the bad stuff because it muffles their will and their thinking. On the first night things are as usual, the rest drink, but Jerry and Jabavu do not. On the second it is the same. On the third, Jerry challenges Jabavu to a contest and Jabavu first refuses, then consents. For he has reached a state of mind which he by no means understands – it is as if he is ceasing to care what happens. So Jabavu and Jerry drink, and it is Jerry who succumbs first. He wakes on the fourth afternoon to find his gang playing cards, while Jabavu sits against a wall, staring at nothing, already recovered. And now Jerry is filled with hatred against Jabavu such as he has never known before. For Jabavu's sake he has drunk himself stupid, so that he has lain for hours weak and out of his mind, even while his gang play cards and probably laugh at him. It is as if Jabavu is now the leader and not himself. As for Jabavu, his unhappiness has reached a point where something very strange is happening to him. It is as if very slowly he, the real Jabavu, is moving away from the thief and the skellum who drinks and steals, and watches with calm interest, not caring. He thinks there is no hope for him now. Never can he return to Mr Mizi; never
can he be a man of light. There is no future. And so he stares at himself and waits, while a dark grey cloud of misery settles on him.

Jerry comes to him, concealing what he is thinking, and sits by him and congratulates him on having a stronger head. He flatters Jabavu, and then makes jokes at the expense of the others which they cannot hear. Jabavu assents without interest. Then he begins calling Betty names, and then all women names, for it is in these moments, when they are hating women, that they are most nearly good friends. Jabavu joins in the game, indifferently at first, and then with more will. And soon they are laughing together, and Jerry congratulates himself on his cunning. Betty does not like this, and comes to them, and is pushed aside by both, and returns to the others, filled with bitterness, calling them names. And Jerry says how Betty is a dangerous woman, and then tells how once before he killed a girl in the gang who fell in love with a policeman she was supposed to be keeping sweet and friendly. He tells Jabavu this partly to frighten him, partly to see how he will react now at the thought of Betty being killed. And into Jabavu's mind again flickers the thought how pleasant if Betty were no longer there, always boring him with her demands and her complaints, but he pushes it away. And when Jerry sees him frown he swiftly changes the joke into that other about how funny it would be to rob Mr Mizi. Jabavu sits silent, and for the first time he begins to understand about laughter and jokes, how it is that people laugh most at what they fear, and how a joke is sometimes more like a plan for what will some day be the truth. And he thinks: Perhaps all this time Jerry really was planning to kill, and even to rob Mr Mizi? And the thought of his own foolishness is so terrible that the misery, which has lifted in the moment of comradeship with Jerry, returns, and he leans silent against the wall, and nothing matters. But this is better for Jerry than he knows, for when he suggests they go to the shebeens, Jabavu rises at once. On that fourth night Jabavu drinks skokian and for the first time willingly, and with
pleasure, since he came to the Township and drank it at Mrs Kamhusi's. Jerry does not drink, but watches, and he feels an immense relief. Now, he thinks, Jabavu will take to skokian like the others, and that will make him weak like the others, and Jerry will lead him like the rest.

On the fifth day Jabavu sleeps till late, and wakes as it grows dark, and finds that the others are already talking about going to the shebeen. But the sickness in him rises at the thought and he says he will not go to the shebeen, but will stay while the others go. And with this he turns his face to the wall, and although Jerry jokes with him and cajoles and jokes, he does not move. But Jerry cannot tell the others that he wishes them to go to the shebeen only for the sake of Jabavu, and so he has to go with them, cursing and bitter, for Jabavu remains in the disused store. So the next day is the sixth, and by now the gang are sodden and sick and stupid with the skokian, and Jerry can hardly control them. And Jabavu is bored and calm and sits in his place against the wall, looking at his thoughts, which must be so sad and dark, for his face is heavy with them. Jerry thinks: It was in such a mood that he agreed to drink the night before last, and woos Jabavu to drink again, and Jabavu does. That is the sixth night. Jabavu gets drunk as before, with the others, while Jerry does not. And on the seventh day Jerry thinks: Now this will be the last. If Jabavu does not come willingly to the shebeen tonight, I will give up this plan and try another.