Anna thought: oh, the barefaced cheek of the man! She had done as Ralph told her, she had said nothing, but now she was not going to consult Ralph, she was going to sack Enock that afternoon and be done with him. Her patience was at an end. Felicia had been a good girl, she was careful with the babies, it was against their interests to have her upset.
She called to Enock from the back stoep. He sauntered toward her with his corner-boy’s gait. Salome stood by, swollen with self-righteousness.
Anna looked out over her parched, devastated garden: “Enock, what has happened to Felicia’s skirt?”
Enock’s lip curled. “Ask that woman,” he said, barely indicating Salome with his eyes.
“You skelm,” Salome said, furious. “God will strike you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Anna said. “Salome does not steal.”
“Sugar,” Enock suggested.
Anna conceded it. “Maybe.” Her eyes traveled sideways to Salome. “I don’t mind sugar, or anything within reason. But it is you who steal clothes and sell them, Enock. It is a bad thing to steal from my husband, bad enough, but it is worse to steal a skirt from Felicia, who is poorer than you are.”
“I did not see this skirt,” Enock said.
“Rubbish,” Anna said. “That’s rubbish, Enock, and you know it.”
And into the sentence she put contempt; what she meant to say was, Enock, I don’t hate you, I just despise you, you’re in my way and I want to clear you out, and get something better.
The man looked straight at her, into her face. Their eyes locked. She tried to face him down, and was determined to do it. The moment drew itself out. A voice inside her said, it is ridiculous, that you should engage in a battle of wills—you who have everything, you who have an education, a husband, twin babies, you who have God’s love—with this poor wanderer, this gardener, this man with no home. A further voice said, it is ridiculous in itself, this battle of the gaze, perhaps it is some convention that we have in Europe, yet how does he know of it? Perhaps all people know it, perhaps animals even. And perhaps, thought Anna, it is one of the battles that I am equipped to fight..
So it proved. Enock, his mouth moving around words unspoken, dropped his gaze and turned, his head down, and moved hunch-shouldered toward his own quarters.
There was a silence. Anna looked down at her dusty sandals, as if her eyes were worn out from the effort. Salome spoke, taking her own time, and her voice had a sick gladness in it. “Oh, Mrs. Eldred, oh, madam. You know it is a thing you must not say, you must not say to a person, you are rubbish.”
“What?” Anna said. She looked up again. “I didn’t say that. I didn’t say he was rubbish. I said his excuses were rubbish.”
“It is the same,” Salome said complacently.
Anna felt a quiver of doubt inside. There were, she knew, these forbidden phrases in every language; phrases that seemed harmless in themselves, but contained some deadly insult. Uncertainly, she asked, “I’ve said something bad?”
Salome nodded. “Enock will go away now,” she said.
“Good,” Anna said. “That is what I want. I don’t like to sack him, you understand? But if he goes because I have spoken the truth, I can hardly be responsible for that. We can have another gardener now. One of the people who lives in the huts may come.” She heard her strange, stilted speech, but didn’t regard it. That was how she talked these days.
That morning would always stay in her mind. It was many months since rain had fallen. There were bush fires on the hills, ringing the village and the settlements near by. They smouldered, sometimes flared: at night you could see them moving slowly, like an affliction in the blood.
It was just as Salome had predicted; Enock was gone by nightfall. His room had been cleared, and there was nothing left of him but his distinctive footprints dragged through the dust. Anna found them next morning on the cement steps of the back stoep, outside the kitchen. Perhaps he had come to make amends, to plead his case? If so he had thought better of it, and turned away, and vanished into the bush. By afternoon they had engaged another gardener from among the visitors, and the whitewashed room was occupied. Enock had taken the curtains with him, and Anna sat down at her sewing machine to make another pair.
She brooded while she worked: so much unpleasantness, over so little. She was reluctant to have perpetrated even the smallest injustice, though she tended to be practical in these matters; to be brisk about other people’s squabbles, as schoolteachers are. Nothing would ever be taught or learned, if you stopped the lesson every two minutes, to hold a court of inquiry:
Yes, quite likely, Ralph said, when she put it to him. He seemed to have grown tired suddenly. Or tired of this situation, anyway. “You were right,” he said. “We should have sacked Enock long ago. Anyway, he’s out of our hair now. Not that you have much,” he said to his son. He lifted Matthew above his head. “Up to the roof,” he said. “Up to the roof and up to the moon. What a big strong boy! But when will you get a head of hair like your sister?” Kit watched from her cot, a finger in her mouth, her face dubious. “Up to the moon,” Ralph said. “Up to the moon, baby. And down again.”
Next day Salome said, “Storms tonight, madam. The weather is corning up.”
It was August now, and not warm; there were clouds blowing over the hills. “Good,” Anna said. “We need the rain.”
Let it be a good storm, she thought, one that fills the water tanks. I don’t mind tomorrow’s cold and the damp, even tomorrow’s snakes, as long as we have water to see us through the winter.
Early in the afternoon, just after school was over, Potluck came in from the garden—plodding, poor dog, as if his feet were lead. It was not like him; usually he bounded and bounced. “What is it, Potluck?” He staggered toward Anna, falling against her legs. “What’s the matter, chicken?” His great butter-colored head drooped, nuzzling her shin. Then suddenly his body contorted. He seemed to shiver all over, in a violent spasm or fit; then his ribs arched, and he began to vomit.
