Going Home - Doris May Lessing [56]
‘Now, listen, if I were your enemy, if I wanted to kill you, then I would sell that car to you for £100. For inside one year, the car would be dead and you would owe not £100 but £200, £100 to me and £100 to the garage for repairs. And you would have nothing.’
‘But I would have the money I had earned from the vegetables.’
‘When I go into Salisbury, all along the roadside there are dead cars lying, the dead cars that foolish natives have bought from bad white men who know the cars are nearly dead. And the Nkoos Pezulu’ (The Chief Above—God) ‘only knows what happens to these foolish natives.’
‘Baas, the Nkoos Pezulu may not know, but I know.’
‘How is it, then?’
‘They have made money out of the cars before they die and so they can buy another car.’
‘Sometimes they have made money and sometimes not. If not, then they owe the money.’ A long silence. ‘You would owe me the money if the car dies. And is that good?’ The young man looks straight at my friend and waits. ‘But now this is very serious, a very bad thing that I should hear you talk like this. You talk like these bad and foolish white men who have no sense.’
‘But how can such a thing be, baas?’
‘Do you know what goes on at the station? The butcher, the store, the garage—they tell me they are owed thousands of pounds. All the tobacco farmers owe them thousands of pounds. That is credit. That is what you are asking me for. It is a bad thing. And the Nkoos Pezulu only knows what will come of it.’
‘Baas, I do not see that the Nkoos Pezulu is involved in this matter. The storekeepers know that the farmers will get money from the bank on the very day that the tobacco is sold. And that it why they get credit.’
‘This credit is a very dangerous thing. It is money that is not there.’
‘Yes, the money is there. It is still growing in the earth, where the tobacco is. Where my vegetables are.’
‘You do not understand this question of credit and money.’
‘It seems to me that I understand it well.’
‘But if there is a slump, what will happen to the farmers?’
‘Then they may sell some of their land, for they have so much, or the Land Bank will give them credit.’
‘But I am not the Land Bank. I am a man, only.’
‘But now I grow my lettuce, I grow my tomatoes. And because I have no lorry I cannot take them into the village to sell them, and so they go bad.’
‘So now I will explain to you where you do wrong. It is because you grow vegetables like lettuces and tomatoes. You must grow potatoes or onions that do not go bad in a few days. Then you must put the potatoes in a hut and keep them and sell them a little bit by little bit.’
‘But the Mkiwa do not pay so much money for potatoes as they do for the vegetables like lettuces and tomatoes. On my small bit of earth—no, that is not for potatoes. Potatoes are for big farmers, with plenty of land. I would make no profit.’
‘But I cannot lend you the money.’
‘Then, baas, there is nothing further I want to say.’
“Morning, James.’
“Morning, baas, go well.’
We went back to the house.
‘That boy has a hard life. The trouble with him is that he is always wanting to make some more money. Of course, we cannot blame them for wanting to make money when we are all so money-minded.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘He is a very good worker. He can do all kinds of work. He came to me and said he wanted some more money. He earned £6 a month. I said I knew he deserved to earn more, but I could not pay more. I have a certain amount set aside for wages and that’s that. But I said if he liked I would give him a couple of acres of soil and he could grow vegetables and make up the extra.’
‘But surely that is against the Land Apportionment Act?’
‘What? Oh, don’t be silly. And besides, the Native Commissioner knows all about it and about this native. He is a native with a record. When he came to me he told me, fair and square, that he had been in prison for forging a cheque. I talked it over with him, and it was perfectly obvious he had had no idea what a cheque was. He thought it was a kind of magic device by which