The Lion Seeker (37 page)

—Don't catch a nappy rash, says Hugo. It's under the control. There's no twist here. We sailing apples, boy. I just made a few consolidations for our capital. Had to kite a few cheques around, that's all. Close up a few accounts here and there. Everything's fluent. We capitalized.

—Why didn't you bladey tell me? I had wages to give today.

—It's minor doings, Tiger. You leave it to Blezzy. Minor doings. I'll sort it with Silas this week.

—Tomorrow. First fuckun thing, oright.

—Calm yourself, Tiger, leave it to Blezzy. Matter of fact, you can relax on this for the next week also. Better let me sort the wages with Silas direct till end of the month.

—Why?

—That's when we get our new accounts all opened and that. August.

—Fine.

—Ukay?

—
Fine
.

—Good then.

Just as Isaac is about to hang up, Bleznik says,—Hey boyki, one other thing, I need a little flavour from you.

—Whatzit?

—Listen, that Citroën, I'm ganna need it back hey.

—Need it
back
.

—That's right.

—Why?

—Boychik, you knew it was always temporary. Had to go back sometime. That's now.

—Can't you organize me another one?

—Ja, f'course, f'course. Just not right away hey.

Isaac doesn't say a thing, scrubbing with his knuckles at his cheekbone. Then: —Hugo, man, what is going on?

—What you mean going on?

—You telling me wages. Now the Citroën too.

—Tiger, slow down. One's got nothing to do the other. The Citroën was always ganna come due. I'll get you a better car, nil worries. Anyway what kind a questioning is this? Getting all hitzik with me. Listen, tomorrow just leave the keys on my desk. Ukay?

Isaac squeezes the receiver hard.

—Ukay?

—Ja. Sure.

—By the by, how'd it go with the ring?

Isaac sniffs. —I haven't yet.

—No worries, Tiger, she's ganna love it. You shine up hey. Have a little patience. Know what they say, be patient or you ganna turn into one.

 

So his idea for the marriage proposal comes to him at first out of necessity. Since he won't have a car he'll take her on a nice long walk instead. Go to The Wilds, which is a big fancy park out Houghton way, newly opened to the public, full of ponds and waterfalls, lots of rocks and koppies to sit on and watch the sunset. Even though it's still July the winter weather in the daytime hasn't been overly cool, they can have a comfortable late afternoon picnic, a bottle of champagne, a nice soft blanket under their arses. Makes him think of how it was that time with cousin Avrom, the warm feeling from the rock and the feeling of opening possibilities that Avrom's words gave to him. Same thing for them as a couple and their future together.

He's only ever seen one wedding that he can remember, at the big domed shul on Wolmarans Street. The man wore a top hat and the women all had giant floppy hats angled at forty-five degrees. They tied cans to the back of the car. It makes him nervous to think of a wedding with her people: all that formality too much for him to even contemplate. But take it one step at a time hey, just get engaged for now. Put this ring on her finger. Plenty of time after to get ready for the wedding and she'll help you with all that larney jazz . . . 

These are the vibrating thoughts he has to keep to himself when he takes the bus out to Parktown to see Yvonne Linhurst on the Wednesday, wondering if the special excitement in his heart shows as some kind of unnatural glow on his skin. Led by her, they sneak down to the servants' quarters and she gets Isaac to whistle that special way. There's an answering flutter and they sneak back to their place in the small courtyard in the back, their private window bench. When Moses comes to keep guard, hurrying, there is something small in his hand. He asks them if everything is all right. Yvonne talks to him as if he is a White, trying to chat; it makes Isaac feel suddenly sad, for he can see the worry in the gardenboy's face. Her talk makes him think he's done something wrong, he doesn't understand what they want from him, he keeps saying he will bring them beer. Christ, she should just let him be the servant that he is, she's upsetting him with this matey-matey business, what is she trying to do with it?

—We don't need anything, it's okay Moses, she is saying. Just want to ask, are you having a happy day?

—Happi day? His smile so rigid. His eyes keep going to Isaac and back to her.

—I hope so, she says. You should be happy every day. Everyone should be.

—If the good Lord wants it, medem, he says, so will be.

There's an awkward lull. Then Yvonne says,—What's that you're busy with there, Moses?

He has his hands behind his back and shakes his head.

—Leave him, says Isaac.

But she's curious. —No, what is it? What's that?

Finally he shows them his palm. It's fixings for a cigarette he had been rolling when they came for him, but it's not with tobacco, he's got finely chopped-up green leaves instead, bits of stem and seed in it. Yvonne dips her head, wrinkles her nose. —Ohh what is it?

—It's duchu, says Isaac.

—No! She looks at Moses. Is it? Is it really, Moses?

Moses nods. —Yuh, yuh. Is good one.

She asks him to roll the cigarette and he lights it. The vegetable tang makes her nose wrinkle. He smokes some and his eyes glaze with moist pleasure. He offers it to Isaac, who shakes his head, annoyed by the cheekiness of the gesture, as if he'd ever put kaffir spit in his mouth.

—Ja this is the stuff, he tells Yvonne again, trying to sound like an expert though he's never smoked any, he's just familiar with the scent from here and there, places like the Yards (what were the Yards), certain street corners, Blacks sitting in a circle on the concrete at work.

She wants to know isn't it true that it makes you crazy in the head.

Moses shakes his head emphatically. Then she is looking at Isaac, saying to Moses can he give them some so that they can try it, together, there in the garden?

—Yvonne, don't.

But Moses is already excited, jumping back, telling them to wait, he will get, he will buy a whole bag. They must just wait for him there, sitting nice. Yvonne stops him, insists that they have to pay. Isaac gives him a pound note, which he says is too-too much, but Isaac doesn't have any change.

After he runs off, Isaac tells her he isn't going to smoke that stuff.

—Why not?

—Ach no man, it's—

—What?

—Nothing.

—Don't be a scaredy.

He sits on the ledge, hitching his pants up higher on his thighs, sitting back with crossed arms. He was going to say that duchu is low stuff, for Blacks and Coloureds, but he's learned not to go there, to set her off for no reason. He thinks he'll puff but won't inhale, make her feel better; and after she has some, who knows, maybe it will relax her to the point that his hand can swim freely under those panties. Out here in this open air maybe he'll be able to show her his thing, let her have a careful look at its hard length, maybe touch it or pop it in her sweet wet mouth, Jesus, imagine . . . Such pictures give him a pleasant stiffy hidden under the folds of his work pants as he sits back lazily on the ledge. When she sits down next to him he kisses her with a lunging leonine hunger that makes her squeak.

At first she feels a little rigid against him but he keeps on kissing and she starts to melt, to shudder. Cloud shadows move over their skins; bird calls dapple the still air. Sometimes he opens his eyes and other times they are shut and the feeling of kissing her is like driving very fast over a rising and dipping road in some country space of light and wind. Tasting into each other, the wetheat of entwinement, obliteration.

By unthinking degrees he pulls her over him to straddle one thigh and they grind together and he squeezes her hard then harder, his hands dipping low on her sturdy frame to cup the firm buttocks and then to scoop under the skirt. He can feel the hot pad of her sex where the thighs split and how it works small circles against his leg. He moves the panties aside and strokes till she gasps. One finger finds her and gently curls. She freezes but does nothing to stop him. He waits, then goes on slowly, into the mysterious unfolding, the budded resistance opening with such exquisite reluctance for the first time. He waits again, feeling her start to move against him, then he begins to love her with his hand, in determined patience, kissing and loving, until there comes a moment where he feels her breaths jerking in her, hoarse and shallow, and she starts to shake and a sweet drenching graces his palm. She has buried her face in his shoulder and she bucks against him, but at the very last she grips his wrist and pulls his hand and sits up and stops, gripping hard, keeping him still while her trembling subsides.

—What is it?

—No. I.

She sinks back and he wants to kiss her but she tells him no, just hold me. So he contents himself and pulls her in close, his hands stroking her back. —Why'd you stop?

—I don't know.

—No why? Tell me.

—Scared.

—Scared?

—I've never . . . 

He laughs softly into her thick hair, the scent of her citrus shampoo and of her beneath, much richer. He loves the way the flesh puddles just a tiny little bit under the line of her jaw, and he nips at it now. —You will, he says. You will with me.

—I don't know. It was. I don't know if I could.

—Of course you will, he says. It's nature.

She doesn't say anything for a while and he thinks about why she would be scared, what's to be scared of? Maybe it's because she doesn't want to give in to him all the way, to lose herself with him doing it to her, in control of her. Then she jerks away.

—What? Whatzit?

—Oh my God, what happened to Moses?

—Moses?

She stands up and starts pulling her skirt down into place, telling him to look away while she performs certain other adjustments. He'd forgotten all about the duchu and the pound note he gave him. Now it comes to him maybe the randy devil was watching them again, like that first time in the garage. Shit, but he wishes she could just be more bladey sensible sometimes on this Black thing.

—Where you going?

—Find him, obviously.

—Find him where? Aw jeez. Wait.

He has to jog a little to catch up with her, already sneaking fast down the path.

 

There is no answering whistle at the servants' quarters. Isaac hides while Yvonne goes in to ask if anyone's seen him. She does the same inside the big house. From upstairs, they look down into the front garden, but they don't see him.

—He prolly smoked himself into a complete dwaal, Isaac tells her. Prolly asleep under a tree somewhere.

To be in a dwaal is to be in a dreamwalking haze, and he'll drift in on his own when he's sober again but, no, she insists on going to look for him now. He checks his watch, tells her he'll have to be heading back to work soon.

She thinks the Citroën is parked outside. —Let's go to your car, she says.

—What for?

—To go look for him.

—That's dumb. We don't even know where to start.

Her face hardens.

—Oright, oright, he says. We can check if you like. But I came on the bus today.

So they sneak down in the usual way, out through the garage, and walk down the long driveway to Gilder Lane. As they walk downhill he tries to hold her hand but she doesn't respond. They have crossed the road to the park side. Yvonne screams: a long syllable of a sound he's never heard come out of her before. She's already running across the street. He goes after her, shouting her name. Then he sees it also, on the pavement behind the parked cars.

She gets there first. Isaac looks back downhill and the smear of blood goes all the way down to the corner. Moses is belly down, dragging himself with one hand and the other tucked under himself. Grass roots are under his fingernails. The mineral smell of blood hovers so that Isaac is afraid to turn him over.

Yvonne has fallen to her knees and is holding his head in both hands. Isaac leans down to hear Moses saying,— . . . The man, he stab for me.

Yvonne starts to cry. —Why, why?

—Not to give. The change. Steal for money. I not let him go.

Yvonne's shoulders are shaking, her eyes wet. —Oh Moses man Moses you should have just given him the money! The bloody money, a pound! Oh my God.

That makes him arch his head up to shake it. As if what she's said is insane. —Never, never. Is
your
money . . . 

When they roll him over gently, they find the stab wound is low on the right side, the shirt soaked through there and when they peel it up the wound shows as a tiny bright mouth, a puncture, not a slash. The liver, Isaac thinks. The blood that leaches out is plum dark.

Yvonne sprints back to telephone for an ambulance while Isaac waits with him, this mortally bleeding gardenboy. —It's oright, Moses, he says now and then. Moses closes his eyes and moans in his breath. Isaac is thinking how he mustn't get blood on his work clothes, he's thinking he's going to be late back for work. And what he keeps feeling are spikes of anger: because he doesn't want to feel sorry for this Black, this Black is not his problem, he doesn't want to get
involved
.

Meanwhile Moses keeps moaning and apologizing and the truth is he's not a bad one, he was being loyal, like Silas. He pats the poor bastard's shoulder. —Be ukay hey Moses. Be fine.

Yvonne comes back and he waits with her. It takes forever for the ambulance to show and when it does it turns out to be a White ambulance. They drive away with Yvonne screaming at them. She runs back to the house and eventually gets a Black taxi to come, to take Moses out to Orlando township where he's from. By the time the taxi arrives he is unconscious, lolling. Yvonne sobbing so hard Isaac fears she'll hurt herself, that she'll physically tear something in her chest.