Whites Read Online Free Page B

Whites
Book: Whites Read Online Free
Author: Norman Rush
Tags: General Fiction
Pages:
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bounding down the hallways, footsteps, rattling door handles one after another just to see if they’re unlocked, by chance. Then comes a shout that the train is going, and
pum pum pum
, everybody pelts back and all aboard. Every night of the week without fail—set your watch to it. Life in the metropolis of Shangule.”
    Tess began complaining to Nan about stealing. “The stealing is getting terrible, really.”
    “I know they steal,” Nan said. “I think I should steal, too, in their place. No, I mean this, Tess. I heard a story. Two American Peace Corps women staying in a rondavel in Serowe. Middle of the night. They hear sounds. They’re locked in tight, all right, but they hear someone fooling atthe door and windows. ‘Go away!’ they say. ‘Who is it?’ There is silence, and then a voice says, ‘We are thieves, let us in.’ That somehow is so typical. I don’t think they are really cruel. Wait.” She edged forward, signaling Tess to say nothing. She sat back.
    “Gareth is still on about crime. It’s coming up a sermon—how criminal, how worthless the Batswana are. How slow they are. ‘They move like clouds,’ he likes to say. They are so insanitary and so forth and so on ad nauseam world without end. It wears me right out. Not that I wasn’t that way. I was worse, at first. I was just a maniac when food fell on the floor and one of the children picked it up to eat, because the help are barefoot—What is it?”
    Tess was pressing a palm to her middle and frowning. She put a finger to her lips and slid closer to Nan. In a low voice, she said, “I’m ovulating. I get a stitch over here when it starts. Or on the other side.”
    “You mean without fail? So you always know where you are?”
    “All my life.”
    “Aren’t you lucky!” Nan said. Her eyes reddened, and she turned to look out the window on her side.
    They had been passing through a long stretch of burned-over land. The bleakness oppressed them. The women began estimating how far it was to Lobatse, their destination. Tom corrected them. “Ladies, you are too low by half. It’s three hours from here to the pavement, with the worst driving yet to come—the deep sand near Pala, the Trench. Then on the bitumen it’s an hour and a half to Lobatse, the Cumberland Hotel, a lager, fillet chasseur, a bathe, and good night all and thank you very much.”
    He offered the water bottle. Tess drank from it, but Nan said no. She explained to Tess, “In truth, I am parched, butI don’t want to make Gareth pull up for my comfort more than I have to—especially near Pala. There we must have momentum.” Tess set the bottle on the seat next to her.
    “Just look at this country,” Nan said. “Red rock wilderness. It makes one sad, really.”
    Tess made a sympathetic face.
    They began tacking. Here the road was braided around dry sinks and sharp rock outcrops. The women looked commiseration at one another. The vehicle ran close to the bank on some curves. Brush scraped the windows.
    The driving eased, finally. The men were murmuring about the road mess in Botswana. They were cynical. Nan sat forward, straining to hear. Contractors were using shoddy materials. Service trenches were subsiding through lack of proper compaction. Heavy equipment was being dragged across fresh tarmac without rollers. There were too few bell-mouths.
    Nan interrupted. “Do I understand you to be saying that all the trouble with the new roads is
not
just the Botswana government people but, aha!, bad workmanship by outsiders—whites, isn’t it?—from South Africa and from Europe?”
    “Well, to an extent, yes,” Gareth said.
    “Well, if you know about this, why don’t you inform government? I’m sure they’d be grateful.”
    “They don’t want to hear it.”
    “Oh, do they not? How do you know? Have you tried?”
    “One can’t just go and point a finger. They don’t want to hear this. We are not road engineers, are we now?”
    “No, but you are
engineers
.
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