Roots of Outrage. John Davis Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ nothing wrong in giving these so-called black homelands self-government – provided, as Luke says – ’ he touched his son’s head – ‘it’s supervised and done gradually, because the poor old black man has no experience of democracy – but the towering sin of Dr Verwoerd’s new-look apartheid is that it says to the poor black man: Thou shalt live and vote in thy inadequate homeland. Thou shalt only come out of it to work in if I need you and give you a Pass. Thou shalt live in impermanence in locations and squatter shacks. Thou shalt not have thy women and children living with you. Thou shalt have no political or social rights in my nice white South Africa where thou workest. Thou shalt return to your black homeland when I’ve had enough of your cheap labour. Thou shalt, thou shalt thou SHALT …’

      George glared around the table, then said wearily to his wife: ‘Oh, Verwoerd’s vision is a fine one, on paper. But the arithmetic proves it’s a recipe for black pain, and poverty, and conflict. Rebellion.’ He sighed. ‘I tell him at every opportunity in Parliament.’

      Mrs Mahoney shifted and said: ‘Darling, I’m all for the underdog. But I don’t consider that saying a black can’t be my next-door neighbour and keep his cattle in his backyard is exactly making him an underdog – he’s got his own territory, his own customs, and I have mine. I respect him but I do not want him as my neighbour.’

      Luke said: ‘Mother, you’ve got five of them as neighbours already, in your backyard.’

      ‘Servants are entirely different. And talking about that, I don’t mind in the least you helping Justin with his homework, dear, but I won’t have him starting political discussions in my kitchen about the Russians coming, please?’

      Jill said: ‘Well, Miss Rousseau says the Russians are already here.’

      ‘And she’s right,’ George said.

      ‘Who’s Miss Rousseau?’ Aunt Sheila asked.

      ‘Our new history teacher,’ Jill said, ‘and she’s brilliant.’ She added with a giggle: ‘And Luke’s in love with her!’

      ‘I am not!’ Luke glared. ‘I only said all the guys think … have got a crush on her!’

      ‘Except you?’ his father grinned.

      That was another thing Luke and Justin had in common: their enthusiasm for girls. That year both of them had their first sexual experience. Justin had been through the Abakweta ceremony, living alone in a grass hut for six weeks, daubed in white clay and wearing a grass skirt and mask before emerging on the appointed day to be circumcised in cold blood with a spear: he was now a man, eligible to buy a wife when he could afford the cattle to pay lobola, the bridal price. Justin had lain with women. ‘Is it nice?’ Mahoney asked, agog. ‘Ooooh,’ Justin said.

      Luke had been circumcised as an infant but his customs forbade him to lie with a woman yet; Luke’s earliest memories seemed to be of having a persistent erection he was incapable of doing anything about, and he was desperately determined to do something about it in his final year at school. Oooh is what Luke felt climbing the stairs behind the girls in their short gym skirts – if you contrived to be at the bottom of the stairs as they were approaching the top you could see right up to their bloomers. Oooh is what he felt sitting in class waiting for the girls to reveal a bit more thigh (‘beef’ it was called). Oooh is what he felt when he was allowed to grope his girlfriend of the moment but never allowed to take his cock out for a bit of reciprocity. Ooooooh is what he felt as Miss Rousseau unfolded the dramas of history with her creamy smiles, her breasts thrusting against her sporty blouse as she stretched to jot her ‘lampposts’ on the blackboard, her skirt riding a little higher up her lovely legs – for Miss Rousseau was also the girls’ gym mistress and came to school in short athletic skirts.

      Luke wasn’t in love with Miss Rousseau as his sister teased – not yet – he was only madly in lust with her. All the boys were, and the girls idolised her: ‘She’s such fun!’ And she didn’t have a boyfriend! Oh, she had all the young men in town after her but there seemed to be none with brains enough to hold Miss Rousseau’s interest. ‘She says she’s very hard to please,’ Jill reported with the breathless smugness of one privy to royal confidences – ‘and she says we must all be when we grow up. None of these men are capable of having an interesting discussion, she says, she expects a real man to hold meaningful conversations, not just play sport, she says. She wants her mind wooed, she says …’

      Her mind wooed … Miss Rousseau was very sporty and played a dashing game of hockey (you could often see right up to her bloomers as she dashed) and she loved watching rugby. Luke wasn’t really a rugger-bugger but he played so hard that year to impress Miss Rousseau that he made it to the first team. And on Fridays after school when he and Justin fetched his parents’ horses for the weekend from the country stables he rode the long way round into town in order to pass the girls’ hostel (that veritable cornucopia of beef bums and tits) because Miss Rousseau sat on the verandah marking books in the afternoons – in the desperate hopes of impressing her with a meaningful conversation about horses. But no such luck; she gave him a cheery wave, that’s all. He read in bed late into the night (with a hard-on) surrounded by history books, trying to dredge up obscure points to discuss with the wonderful Miss Rousseau, to have meaningful conversations about with the divine Miss Rousseau. (It wasn’t easy concentrating on all that heavy-duty history with all those hard-ons.) But it didn’t work. When he did manage to put one of his obscure points to her there was no discussion because Miss Rousseau knew all the answers and all he ended up saying was, ‘I see, Miss Rousseau. Thank you, Miss Rousseau.’ And there was no privacy for a meaningful conversation because he could only catch her in the school corridors. And she wasn’t interested in fuckin’ horses. So how the hell could a real man get to discuss anything? And then, one night, he thought of those family journals his great great grandfather Ernest had started, and all the obscure points therein.

      But of course! What historian wouldn’t be interested in those rare journals? Their obscure detail was a goldmine for meaningful conversations. Burning the midnight oil, he feverishly dredged up a stockpile of obscure points before he made his move to grab the divine Miss Rousseau’s interest. And it worked.

      ‘What an interesting detail, Luke – I’ll have to look it up in Theal.’

      ‘I’ve checked Theal, Miss Rousseau, and he doesn’t say anything about it. Nor does Walker, Miss Rousseau.’

      ‘Where did you get your hands on Theal? He’s not in this town’s library.’

      ‘My father’s got the whole set of Theal histories, Miss Rousseau.’

      ‘I see. How lucky you are, even I don’t have the whole set. But where exactly did you get this detail, Luke – your great grandfather’s diary, you say?’

      ‘My great great grandfather’s journals, Miss Rousseau.’ (Stop saying Miss Rousseau every sentence!) ‘He was on the Great Trek and fought at Blood River. His son, and his grandson, fought in the Boer War, and they kept the journals going. My father kept them up, starting with World War I.’ He shrugged airily. ‘And, of course, I’ll keep them up, Miss Rousseau.’

      ‘Fascinating …’ Miss Rousseau said.

      He blurted: ‘You can look at them any time you like, Miss Rousseau,’(Oh you tit …)

      ‘Oh wow – will you ask your father’s permission?’

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