Rage - Smith Wilbur - Страница 22

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She had not known how to dress, though she imagined that he would not approve of slacks. So she had chosen a long loose skirt made of cheap but colourful trade print that she had purchased in Swaziland, and with it wore a simple green cotton blouse with sandals on her feet.

Again, she had not been sure whether she should wear make-up, and she had compromised with a pale pink lipstick and just a touch of mascara. She thought she looked well enough in the mirror of the women's room at the airport as she combed her dense chestnut curls, but was suddenly stricken by the thought that he would find her pale skin insipid and unattractive.

Now standing alone in the sunshine, she was once again attacked by doubts and that terrible sense of inadequacy. If Marcus had been there, she would have begged him to drive her back to the airport, but he had disappeared and so she summoned up all her courage and walked slowly around the side of the whitewashed house.

She paused at the corner and looked down the long covered verandah. Moses Gama was sitting at a table at the far end with his back to her. The table was piled with books and writing materials.

He was wearing a casual white shirt with open neck that contrasted with the marvelous anthracite of his skin. His head was bowed and he was writing rapidly on a block of notepaper.

Timidly she stepped up on to the verandah and although her approach was noiseless, he sensed her presence and turned abruptly when she was half-way down the verandah. He did not smile, but she thought she saw pleasure inhis gaze as he stood up and came to meet her. He did not attempt to embrace her, or kiss her, and she was pleased, for it confirmed his differentness. Instead he led her to the second chair placed beside his table, and seated her in it.

'Are you well?" he asked. 'Are your children well?" The innate African courtesy, always the enquiry and then the offer of refreshment, 'Let me give you a cup of tea." He poured from the tray already set on his cluttered desk, and she sipped with pleasure.

'Thank you for coming,' he said.

'I came as soon as I received your message from Molly, as I promised I would." 'Will you always keep your promises to me?" 'Always,' she answered with simple sincerity, and he studied her face.

'Yes,' he nodded. 'I think you will." She could hold his gaze no longer, for it seemed to sear her soul and lay it bare. She looked down at the table top, at the closely written sheets of his handwriting.

'A manifesto,' he said, following her gaze. 'A blueprint for the future." He selected half a dozen sheets and handed them to her. She set aside her tea cup and took them from his hand, shivering slightly as their fingers touched. His skin was cool - that was one of the things that she remembered.

She read the sheets, her attention becoming fastened upon them more firmly the more she read, and when she finished them, she lifted her eyes to his face again.

'You have a poetry in your choice of words that makes the truth shine more luminously,' she whispered.

They sat on the cool verandah, while outside the brilliant highveld sun threw shadows black and crisp as paper cut-outs beneath the trees and the noonday swooned in the heat, and they talked.

There were no trivialities in their discussion, everything he said was thrilling and cogent, and he seemed to inspire her for her replies and' her own observations she knew were measured and lucid and she saw she had aroused and held his interest. She no longer was aware of her small vanities of dress and cosmetics, all that mattered now were the words that they exchanged and the cocoon they wove out of them. With a start she realized that the day had slipped away unnoticed and the short African twilight was upon them. Marcus came to fetch her and show her to her sparsely furnished bedroom.

'We will leave for the museum in twenty minutes,' he told her.

In the lecture theatre of the Transvaal museum the three of them sat near the back. There were half a dozen other blacks in the crowded audience, but Marcus sat between the two of them. A black man beside a white woman would have excited interest, and certain hostility. Tara found it difficult to concentrate on the eminent pro lessor's address, and though she glanced in his direction only once or twice, it was Moses Gama who occupied all her thoughts.

Back at Puck's Hill they sat late in the cavernous kitchen, while Marcus hovered over the Ago stove, joining in their conversation while he produced a meal that even in her preoccupation Tara realized was as good as anything that had ever come out of the kitchens of Weltevreden.

It was after midnight when Marcus stood up abruptly.

'I will see you in the morning,' he said, and the look he gave Tara was once again spiced with venom. She could not understand how she had offended him, but soon it did not matter for Moses took her hand.

'Come,' he said softly, and she thought her legs might not support her weight.

Long afterwards she lay pressed to him, her body bathed in sweat and her nerves still spasming and twitching uncontrollably.

'Never,' she whispered, when she could speak again. 'I have never known anyone like you. You teach me things about myself that I never suspected. You are a magician, Moses Gama. How do you know so much about a woman?" He chuckled softly. 'You know we are entitled to many wives. If a man cannot keep them all happy at the same time, then his life becomes a torment. He has to learn." 'Do you have many wives?" she asked.

'Not yet,' he answered. 'But one day --' 'I will hate every one of them." 'You disappoint me,' he said. 'Sexual jealousy is a silly European emotion. If I were to detect it in you, I would despise you." 'Please,' she said quietly, 'never despise me." 'Then never give me reason, woman,' he commanded, and she knew she was his to command.

She realized that the first day and night with him, spent alone and uninterrupted, was exceptional. She realized also that he must have set the time aside for her, and it must have been difficult to do so for there were others, hundreds of others, demanding his attention.

He was like one of the ancient African kings holding tribal court on the verandah of the old house. There were always men and women waiting patiently under the bluegum trees in the yard for their turn to speak to him. They were of all types and ages, from simple uneducated folk newly arrived from the reserves in the country to sophisticated lawyers and businessmen in dark suits arriving at Puck's Hill in their own automobiles.

They had one thing in common only - the deference and respec they showed Moses Gama. Some of them clapped their hands in th traditional greeting and called him Babo or Nkosi, father or lord others shook his hand in the European manner, but Moses greeted each of them in their own dialect. 'He must speak twenty languages,' Tara wondered.

Mostly he allowed Tara to sit quietly beside his table and he explained her presence with a quiet word. 'She is a friend - you may speak." However, twice he asked her to leave while he spoke to his more important visitors and once when a great black bull of a man, bald and scarred and gap-toothed, arrived in a shiny new Ford sedan, he excused them.

'This is Hendrick Tabaka, my brother,' he said, and the two of them left the verandah and strolled side by side in the sunlit garden just out of earshot of where Tara sat.

What she saw during those days impressed her immensely and confirmed her feelings of reverence for this man. Everything he did, every word he uttered marked him as different, and the respect and adulation showered upon him by his fellow Africans proved that they also recognized that he was the giant of the future.

Tara felt awed that he had selected her for special attention, and yet already saddened by the certain knowledge that she could never have for herself alone any part of him. He belonged to his people, and she must be grateful for the precious grains of his time which she could glean for herself.

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