Jump and Other Stories (25 page)

I am up with the clouds. The sun behind me is changing the colours of the sky and the clouds are changing themselves, slowly, slowly. Some are pink, some are white, swelling like bubbles. Underneath is a bar of grey, not enough to make rain. It gets longer and darker, it grows a thin snout and long body and then the end of it is a tail. There's a huge grey rat moving across the sky, eating the sky.

The child remembered the photo; she said
That's not him.
I'm sitting here where I came often when he was on the Island. I came to get away from the others, to wait by myself.

I'm watching the rat, it's losing itself, its shape, eating the sky, and I'm waiting. Waiting for him to come back.

Waiting.

I'm waiting to come back home.

Nadine Gordimer's many novels include
The Lying Days
(her first novel),
The Conservationist,
joint winner of the Booker Prize,
Burger's Daughter, July's Children, A Guest of Honour, A World of Strangers, My Son's Story, None to Accompany Me, The House Gun
and, most recently,
The Pickup.
Her collections of short stories include
Something Out There, Jump
and her most recent work,
Loot.
In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. She lives in South Africa.

By the Same Author

NOVELS
The Lying Days / A World of Strangers / Occasion for Loving
The Late Bourgeois World / A Guest of Honour
The Conservationist / Burger's Daughter / July's People
A Sport of Nature / My Son's Story / None to Accompany Me
The House Gun / The Pickup / Get a Life / No Time Like the Present

STORY COLLECTIONS
The Soft Voice of the Serpent / Six Feet of the Country
Friday's Footprint / Not for Publication
Livingstone's Companions
A Soldier's Embrace / Something Out There
Jump / Loot / Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black / Life Times

ESSAYS
The Black Interpreters / On the Mines (
with David Goldblatt
)
Lifetimes under Apartheid (
with David Goldblatt
)
The Essential Gesture — Writing, Politics and Places (
edited by Stephen Clingman
)
Writing and Being
Living in Hope and History: Notes from Our Century
Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1954–2008

EDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR
Telling Tales

First published in Great Britain 1991
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 1990 by Felix Licensing B.V.

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British
Library

ISBN: 9781408832639

A signed first edition of this book has been privately printed
by the Franklin Library.

Thanks to the magazines where the following stories first
appeared, some of them in slightly different form: “Jump” and
“The Moment Before the Gun Went Off” in
Harper's
“Comrades” in
Interview;
“The Ultimate Safari,” “Some Are
Born to Sweet Delight,” “Spoils,” and “What Were You
Dreaming?” in
Granta;
“Teraloyna” in the
Boston Globe;
“My
Father Leaves Home,” “Home,” and “Amnesty” in
The New
Yorker;
“A Find” and “Once Upon a Time” in
Salmagundi;
“A
Journey” in
Playboy;
“Keeping Fit” in Mirabella; and “Safe
Houses” in
Grand Street.

Visit
www.bloomsbury.com
to find out more about our authors and their books. You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can
sign up for newsletters
to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers.