talk to me, Tutte?
He does, but you have to be quiet to hear Him, my mind is only quiet when I pray or I work. He turns up his long fingers and wiggles all of them like an insect on its back and Rively giggles. When my fingers are talking for me in my work then my heart is quiet, and my head, and thatâs when I sometimes can hear Him whispering. Itâs written that itâs this whisper of God that sustains the world. Whispering underneath everything, always the whispering, because if it ever stopped the world would go out like a light.
Tutte, I want to hear Him whisper
. You will, my beautiful girl. You only have to have a good heart and to do what you love to do with a good heart, thatâs all you need in this world.
Mame clicks her tongue, almost angry, to get Isaac to look away from the window. She settles down behind her plate and they all start eating; only Tutte murmurs the blessings first, only Rively hesitates, watching him. âGeshmuck number vun, Tutte says, after swallowing. Delicious number one: a line from an old joke about a fat woman on Muizenberg beach that Isaacâs never understood. Mame seems not to have heard and keeps on looking at Isaac. She starts to talk about the Clevers and the Stupids. The Stupids who live like pack mules, poor and hopeless, the Clevers who rise in the world like Mr. Jackman who started with one cart here on Beit Street and now owns the biggest department shop in all Africa, a whole block there in town, anyone can walk and see it. The Clevers like the men who own the gold mines. Mr. Barney Barnato was a poor Jew who came to Africa with nothing but dust in his pockets, and then there was Sammy Marks and the Joels and the Beits, Mr. Hersov and the giant Mr. Oppenheimer. Now they are the richest men in the world. Every diamond on earth is under their thumbs, and most of the gold.
Yes, says Tutte, smiling, but tell me, do they eat as well as we do? Not like this. And how many pairs of shoes can they wear at once? How many beds do they sleep in? How happy are their children?
Mame clicks her tongue, irritated. For a Clever, she says, anything is possible but for a Stupid life is misery.
When she talks this way Isaac knows sheâll start to talk about a house again soon, that they need a house, up in the northern suburbs, a private house of their own, of the familyâs; but she surprises him. She is smiling her clawed-down halfsmile and tapping the serving spoon on the dish of mashed potatoes. Now Isaac, she says in that warm deep loving voice, you tell us, if one person gets rid of a dirty animal that makes diseases and costs to feed, that makes a stinking mess that must be cleaned all day, that can
bite children
God forbid, then is that person not a Clever? And if someone else must take in the animal and get sick from the diseases and have to clean up the messes and pay for the food for the animal, then is that person not a Stupid?
âNu, zog mir, she says. Zog mir der richtike emes.
So tell me. Tell me the real truth.
âJa hey Isaac, says Rively. You tell us.
Isaac twists a face at his sister but after a while he knows that Mame is right. He stops looking to the window. He wants to be like Mr. Jackman who is a Clever and if Mr. Jackman wouldnât keep a dog, as his Mame keeps saying, then he wonât want one either. Her logic, too, is as watertight as the lavender hull of a Union Castle liner: the dog brings expenses and trouble and you canât do anything with it, like get milk from a cow (like the beautiful cow called Baideluh that Tutte always talks about that they had backhome). You have to be a Clever. Today heâs done like a Stupid.
The dog starts crying outside, a rising woowoo that breaks at its peak then settles back to mounting whimpers.
Do you see? says Mame. Do you see what problems he is making already?
Â
When supper is over he and his mother go out to the dog. It is clear she has a plan for it, her movements brisk.
He does, but you have to be quiet to hear Him, my mind is only quiet when I pray or I work. He turns up his long fingers and wiggles all of them like an insect on its back and Rively giggles. When my fingers are talking for me in my work then my heart is quiet, and my head, and thatâs when I sometimes can hear Him whispering. Itâs written that itâs this whisper of God that sustains the world. Whispering underneath everything, always the whispering, because if it ever stopped the world would go out like a light.
Tutte, I want to hear Him whisper
. You will, my beautiful girl. You only have to have a good heart and to do what you love to do with a good heart, thatâs all you need in this world.
Mame clicks her tongue, almost angry, to get Isaac to look away from the window. She settles down behind her plate and they all start eating; only Tutte murmurs the blessings first, only Rively hesitates, watching him. âGeshmuck number vun, Tutte says, after swallowing. Delicious number one: a line from an old joke about a fat woman on Muizenberg beach that Isaacâs never understood. Mame seems not to have heard and keeps on looking at Isaac. She starts to talk about the Clevers and the Stupids. The Stupids who live like pack mules, poor and hopeless, the Clevers who rise in the world like Mr. Jackman who started with one cart here on Beit Street and now owns the biggest department shop in all Africa, a whole block there in town, anyone can walk and see it. The Clevers like the men who own the gold mines. Mr. Barney Barnato was a poor Jew who came to Africa with nothing but dust in his pockets, and then there was Sammy Marks and the Joels and the Beits, Mr. Hersov and the giant Mr. Oppenheimer. Now they are the richest men in the world. Every diamond on earth is under their thumbs, and most of the gold.
Yes, says Tutte, smiling, but tell me, do they eat as well as we do? Not like this. And how many pairs of shoes can they wear at once? How many beds do they sleep in? How happy are their children?
Mame clicks her tongue, irritated. For a Clever, she says, anything is possible but for a Stupid life is misery.
When she talks this way Isaac knows sheâll start to talk about a house again soon, that they need a house, up in the northern suburbs, a private house of their own, of the familyâs; but she surprises him. She is smiling her clawed-down halfsmile and tapping the serving spoon on the dish of mashed potatoes. Now Isaac, she says in that warm deep loving voice, you tell us, if one person gets rid of a dirty animal that makes diseases and costs to feed, that makes a stinking mess that must be cleaned all day, that can
bite children
God forbid, then is that person not a Clever? And if someone else must take in the animal and get sick from the diseases and have to clean up the messes and pay for the food for the animal, then is that person not a Stupid?
âNu, zog mir, she says. Zog mir der richtike emes.
So tell me. Tell me the real truth.
âJa hey Isaac, says Rively. You tell us.
Isaac twists a face at his sister but after a while he knows that Mame is right. He stops looking to the window. He wants to be like Mr. Jackman who is a Clever and if Mr. Jackman wouldnât keep a dog, as his Mame keeps saying, then he wonât want one either. Her logic, too, is as watertight as the lavender hull of a Union Castle liner: the dog brings expenses and trouble and you canât do anything with it, like get milk from a cow (like the beautiful cow called Baideluh that Tutte always talks about that they had backhome). You have to be a Clever. Today heâs done like a Stupid.
The dog starts crying outside, a rising woowoo that breaks at its peak then settles back to mounting whimpers.
Do you see? says Mame. Do you see what problems he is making already?
Â
When supper is over he and his mother go out to the dog. It is clear she has a plan for it, her movements brisk.
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