Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
21
THE SERVICE IN the Parkwold Church was over, and the church had been too small for all who wanted to come. White people, black people, coloured people, Indians it was the first time that Jarvis and his wife had sat in a church with people who were not white. The Bishop himself had spoken, words that pained and uplifted. And the Bishop too had said that men did not understand this riddle, why a young man so full of promise was cut off in his youth, why a woman was widowed and children were orphaned, why a country was bereft of one who might have served it greatly. And the Bishop’s voice rose when he spoke of South Africa, and he spoke in a language of beauty, and Jarvis listened for a while without pain, under the spell of the words. And the Bishop said that here had been a life devoted to South Africa, of intelligence and courage, of love that cast out fear, so that the pride welled up in the heart, pride in the stranger who had been his son.
The funeral was over. The brass doors opened soundlessly, and the coffin slid soundlessly into the furnace that would reduce it to ashes. And people that he did not know shook hands with him, some speaking their sympathy in brief conventional phrases, some speaking simply of his son. The black people yes, the black people also it was the first time he had ever shaken hands with black people.
They returned to the house of the Harrisons, for the night that is supposed to be worst of all the nights that must come. For Margaret it would no doubt be so; he would not leave her again to go to bed alone. But for him it was over; he could sit quietly in Harrison’s study, and drink his whisky and smoke his pipe, and talk about any matter that Harrison wanted to talk about, even about his son. How long will you stay, Jarvis? you’re welcome to stay as long as you wish. Thank you, Harrison. I think Margaret will go back with Mary and the children, and we’ll arrange for the son of one of my neighbours to stay with them. A nice lad, just out of the Army. But I’ll stay to wind up Arthur’s affairs, at least in the preliminary stages. And what did the police say, if I may ask? They’re still waiting for the boy to recover. They have hopes that he recognized one of them. Otherwise they say it will be very difficult. The whole thing was over so quickly. They hope too that someone may have seen them getting away. They think they were frightened and excited, and wouldn’t have walked away normally. I hope to God they get them. And string ‘em all up. Pardon me, Jarvis. I know exactly what you mean.
We’re not safe, Jarvis. I don’t even know that stringing ‘em up will make us safe. Sometimes I think it’s got beyond us. I know what you mean. But myself perhaps it’s too soon to think about it.
I know what you mean. I understand I kind of understand that side of it isn’t the side you feel about the most. I might be the same. I don’t really know. I don’t really know either. But you’re right, it’s not that side of it that seems important, not yet anyway. But I realize there is another side to it.
We’ve been agitating for more police, Jarvis. There’s going to be a big meeting in Parkwold tomorrow night. The place is alive with indignation. You know, Jarvis, there’s hardly a householder in these suburbs who knows who lives in the servants quarters. I won’t have it. I tell my servants that I won’t have a stranger near the place, let alone allow him to sleep here. Our girl’s husband comes in occasionally from the place where he works, Benoni or Springs or somewhere, and she brings him in decently, and I give permission. But I’ll allow no one else. If I didn’t look out, I d have the place full of cousins and uncles and brothers, and most of ‘em up to no good. Yes, I suppose that happens in Johannesburg. And these sanitary lanes that run behind the houses. We’ve urged them to close the damned things up now that we have proper sewerage. They’re dark and dangerous, and these damned loafers use ‘em as hide-outs. God knows what’s coming to the country, I don t. I’m not a nigger-hater, Jarvis. I try to give ‘em a square deal, decent wages, and a clean room, and reasonable time off. Our servants stay with us for years. But the natives as a whole are getting out of hand. They’ve even started Trade Unions, did you know that? I didn’t know that. Well they have. They’re threatening to strike here in the Mines for ten shillings a day. They get about three shillings a shift now, and some of the mines are on the verge of closing down. They live in decent compounds some of the latest compounds I wouldn’t mind living in myself. They get good balanced food, far better than they d ever get at home, free medical attention, and God knows what. I tell you, Jarvis, if mining costs go up much more there won’t be any mines. And where will South Africa be then? And where would the natives be themselves? They d die by the thousands of starvation. Am I intruding? asked John Harrison, coming in to his father’s study. Sit down, John, said Harrison.
So the young man sat down, and his father, who was growing warm and excited, proceeded to develop his theme.
And where would the farmers be, Jarvis? Where would you sell your products, and who could afford to buy them? There wouldn’t be any subsidies. There wouldn’t be any industry either; industry depends on the mines to provide the money that will buy its products. And this Government of ours soaks the mines every year for a cool seventy per cent of the profits. And where would they be if there were no mines? Half the Afrikaners in the country would be out of work. There wouldn’t be any civil service, either. Half of them would be out of work, too. He poured out some more whisky for them both, and then resumed his subject. I tell you there wouldn’t be any South Africa at all if it weren’t for the mines. You could shut the place up, and give it back to the natives. That’s what makes me so angry when people criticize the mines. Especially the Afrikaners. They have some fool notion that the mining people are foreign to the country, and are sucking the blood out of it, ready to clear out when the goose stops laying the eggs. I’m telling you that most of the mining shares are held here in the country itself, they reour mines. I get sick and tired of all this talk. Republic! Where would we be if we ever got a republic?
Harrison, I’m going to bed. I don’t want Margaret to go to bed alone.
Old man, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I forgot myself.
There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s done me good to listen to you. I haven’t done much talking myself, it’s not because I’m not interested. I’m sure you understand. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, said Harrison humbly. I quite forgot myself. Believe me, said Jarvis, I’m sincere when I say that it’s done me good to listen to you. He looked at the two Harrisons. I’m not a man to sit and talk about death by the hour, he said.
Harrison looked at him uncomfortably. Really, really, you make it easy for me, he said. I could have wished that he was here tonight, said Jarvis, that I could have heard him argue with you. You would have enjoyed it, Mr. Jarvis, said John Harrison eagerly, responding to this natural invitation to talk about a man not long since dead. I never heard anyone argue about these things as he could. I didn’t agree with him, said Harrison, his discomfort passing, but I had a great respect for anything that he said. He was a good man, Harrison. I’m not sorry that we had him. Goodnight to you. Goodnight, Jarvis. Did you sleep last night? Did Margaret sleep? We both got some sleep. I hope you get some more tonight. Don’t forget, the house is at your service. Thank you, goodnight. John? Yes, Mr. Jarvis. Do you know the Boys Club in Gladiolus Road, Claremont? I know it well. It was our Club. Arthur’s and mine. I should like to see it. Any time that suits. I d be glad to take you, Mr. Jarvis. And Mr. Jarvis Yes, John. I just want to tell you that when father says Afrikaners he means Nationalists. Arthur was always telling him that. And father would agree too, but he just doesn’t seem able to remember.
Jarvis smiled, first at the boy, then at his father. It’s a good point, he said.
Goodnight, Harrison. Goodnight, John.
The next morning Harrison waited for his guest at the foot of the stairs. Come in to the study, he said. They went in, and Harrison closed the door behind him. The police have just telephoned, Jarvis. The boy recovered consciousness this morning. He says there were three right enough. They had their mouths and nose
After breakfast, Jarvis returned to his host’s study, and began to read his son’s manuscript. He turned first to the last page of it, and read with pain the last unfinished paragraph. This was almost the last thing that his son had done. When this was done he had been alive. Then at this moment, at this very word that hung in the air, he had got up and gone down the stairs to his death. If one could have cried then, don’t go down! If one could have cried, stop, there is danger! But there was no one to cry. No one knew then what so many knew now. But these thoughts were unprofitable; it was not his habit to dwell on what might have been but what could never be. There was no point in imagining that if one had been there, one could have prevented a thing that had happened only because it had not been prevented. It was the pain that did that, that compelled one to these unprofitable thoughts. He wanted to understand his son, not to desire what was no more accessible to desire. So he compelled himself to read the last paragraph slowly with his head, not his heart, so that he could understand it.
The truth is that our Christian civilization is riddled through and through with dilemma. We believe in the brotherhood of man, but we do not want it in South Africa. We believe that God endows men with diverse gifts, and that human life depends for its fullness on their employment and enjoyment, but we are afraid to explore this belief too deeply. We believe in help for the underdog, but we want him to stay under. And we are therefore compelled, in order to preserve our belief that we are Christian, to ascribe to Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, our own human intentions, and to say that because He created white and black, He gives the Divine Approval to any human action that is designed to keep black men from advancement. We go so far as to credit Almighty God with having created black men to hew wood and draw water for white men. We go so far as to assume that He blesses any action that is designed to prevent black men from the full employment of the gifts He gave them. Alongside of these very arguments we use others totally inconsistent, so that the accusation of repression may be refuted. We say we withhold education because the black child has not the intelligence to profit by it; we withhold opportunity to develop gifts because black people have no gifts; we justify our action by saying that it took us thousands of years to achieve our own advancement, and it would be foolish to suppose that it will take the black man any lesser time, and that therefore there is no need for hurry. We shift our ground again when a black man does achieve something remarkable, and feel deep pity for a man who is condemned to the loneliness of being remarkable, and decide that it is a Christian kindness not to let black men become remarkable. Thus even our God becomes a confused and inconsistent creature, giving gifts and denying them employment. Is it strange then that our civilization is riddled through and through with dilemma? The truth is that our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of high assurance and desperate anxiety, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions. Allow me a minute ¦. Jarvis sat, deeply moved. Whether because this was his son, whether because this was almost the last act of his son, he could not say. Whether because there was some quality in the words, that too he could not say, for he had given little time in his life to the savouring and judging of words. Whether because there was some quality in the ideas, that too he could not say, for he had given little time to the study of these particular matters. He rose and went up the stairs to his room, and was glad to find his wife not there, for here was a sequence not to be interrupted. He picked up the Abraham Lincoln and went down to the study again, and there opened the book at the Second Inaugural Address of the great president. He read it through, and felt with a sudden lifting of the spirit that here was a secret unfolding, a track picked up again. There was increasing knowledge of a stranger. He began to understand why the picture of this man was in the house of his son, and the multitude of books. He picked up the page again, but for his son, not for the words or the ideas. He looked at the words.
Allow me a minute ¦
And nothing more. Those fingers would not write any more. Allow me a minute, I hear a sound in the kitchen. Allow me a minute, while I go to my death. Allow me a thousand minutes, I am not coming back any more.
Jarvis shook it off, and put another match to his pipe, and after he had read the paper through, sat in a reverie, smoking. James.
He started. Yes, my dear, he said. You shouldn’t sit by yourself, she said.
He smiled at her. It’s not my nature to brood, he said. Then what have you been doing? Thinking. Not brooding, thinking. And reading. This is what I have been reading.
She took it, looked at it, and held it against her breast. Read it, he said quietly, it’s worth reading.
So she sat down to read it, and he watching her, knew what she would do. She turned to the last page, to the last words. Allow me a minute, and sat looking at them. She looked at him, she was going to speak, he accepted that. Pain does not go away so quickly.
23
AT THE HEAD of the Court is a high seat where the Judge sits. Down below it is a table for officers of the Court, and to the left and to the right of the table are other seats. Some of these seats form a block that is enclosed, and they are for the jury if there is a jury. In front of the table are other seats, arranged in arcs of circles, with curved tables in front of the seats, and it is there that the lawyers sit. And behind them is the dock, with a passage leading to some place that is underground, and from this place that is underground will be brought the men that are to be judged. At the back of the Court there are seats rising in tiers, those on the right for Europeans, those on the left for non-Europeans, according to the custom.
You may not smoke in this Court, you may not whisper or speak or laugh. You must dress decently, and if you are a man, you may not wear your hat unless such is your religion. This is in honour of the Judge and in honour of the King whose officer he is; and in honour of the Law behind the Judge, and in honour of the People behind the Law. When the Judge enters you will stand, and you will not sit till he is seated. When the Judge leaves you will stand, and you will not move till he has left you. This is in honour of the Judge, and of the things behind the Judge.
For to the Judge is entrusted a great duty, to judge and to pronounce sentence, even sentence of death. Because of their high office, Judges are called Honourable, and precede most other men on great occasions. And they are held in great honour by men both white and black. Because the land is a land of fear, a Judge must be without fear, so that justice may be done according to the Law; therefore a Judge must be incorruptible.
The Judge does not make the Law. It is the People that make the Law. Therefore if a Law is unjust, and if the Judge judges according to the Law, that is justice, even if it is not just.
It is the duty of a Judge to do justice, but it is only the People that can be just. Therefore if justice be not just, that is not to be laid at the door of the Judge, but at the door of the People, which means at the door of the White People, for it is the White People that make the Law.
In South Africa men are proud of their Judges, because they believe they are incorruptible. Even the black men have faith in them, though they do not always have faith in the Law. In a land of fear this incorruptibili