The covenant - James A. Michener [572]
When the dust settled and it seemed probable that no last rocks would tumble down from the new ceiling, Jonathan Nxumalo and Roger Coetzee would creep back into the tunnel and start calculating how long it would take for the ore to be hauled away from the stope face to the breaker and then to the refinery. It was hard work, dust-filled and exciting, and the men deep below developed respect for each other's capacities. Of course, when they left the danger area to go aloft, their lives changed radically. Coetzee could jump into his car and drive where he wished; Nxumalo was restricted to the compound, where all needs were provided by the company.
He was not exactly a prisoner. During any eighteen-month contract, workers were allowed into Johannesburg six times, but only in a group, with some white like Coetzee holding the passes of thirty-six workmen. Should one want to break away from the ensemble, he could risk it, but he would then find himself with no pass, and since spot checks for pass inspection were quite common, sooner or later he would be detected and packed off to jail.
Several times, however, Jonathan did receive, through Coetzee's intervention, a special pass allowing him to visit a Vrymeer friend who, with sheer duplicity, had contrived to land a job in Johannesburg without proper papers. 'What I did,' he confided, 'was to grab on to this white family that had to have help. They protected me.' He added, 'Of course, since we're both breaking the law they pay me less than proper wages. But I don't complain.'
'You like Johannesburg?' Jonathan asked.
'Good food. Work not too hard. And look at these clothes.'
Jonathan was so enticed by city life that he tried on other visits to find an illegal job, to no avail. During the final moments of one leave he pleaded for more information as to how he should proceed, and his friend asked, 'You know anybody important might help you get a pass?'
'My father works for Detleef van Doorn.'
'You crazy? He's the one behind these laws. He's no friend. He's your worst enemy.'
Back at the mine, Jonathan asked Coetzee if he could help, but he said firmly, 'You're a mine worker now. You'll never be able to change because we need you.' And when Jonathan inquired at the pass office about getting an endorsement that would enable him to work in Johannesburg, the official snapped, 'You have mine papers. You'll never have anything else.'
Since he was sentenced to the underground, as it were, he decided to strive for the best job possible, but here again he was forestalled: 'You're qualified for drilling. Wasteful to try you anywhere else.'
Back in his quarters, Jonathan talked with men from Malawi and Vwarda: 'I'm going to apply for a job like Coetzee's. I know all he knows, or any of the other white bosses who work our deep shafts.' But in cautious Fanakalo the black workers warned him not even to whisper such a possibility: 'That job whites only. No matter how stupid, they smarter than you. No black ever be boss.'
Coetzee must have suspected Jonathan's concern, for one day as they crept out of the tunnel he volunteered: 'You could do my work, Nxumalo, but the law is rigid. No black must ever hold a job in which he might give orders to a white.' Before Jonathan could comment he reminded him of the Golden Reef work rules, which stipulated that dynamite placers had to be white. No black could ever aspire to that job, for the intelligence required to tamp dynamite into a hole drilled by a black was entirely beyond the capacity of non-whites. The fact that black workmen throughout the rest of the world easily performed that function was ignored; in South Africa they could never learn enough to do it properly.
Sometimes the white bosses didn't do it properly, either. One terribly hot and dust-choked day Roger Coetzee placed his dynamite carelessly, and Jonathan Nxumalo started to point