Martha Quest. Doris Lessing

last a lifetime, why is everything else so shoddy?’

      At the station, Mrs Quest descended at Socrates’ with her shopping lists, and Mr Quest drove off to the garage. Martha lagged on the veranda until her mother had forgotten her in her eager talk with the other women at the counter, and then walked quickly to the belt of trees which hid the kaffir store. It was a large square brick erection, with a simple pillared veranda. Martha went through the usual crowd of native women with their babies on their backs, pushed aside the coloured bead curtain at the door, and was inside the store. It had a counter down the centre, and on it were jars of bright sweets, and rolls of cotton goods. There were sacks of grain and sugar around the walls, bicycles, cans of paraffin, monkey nuts. Over the counter, cheap beads, strips of biltong, mouth organs and glass bangles dangled and swung together. The smell was of sweat and cheap dyes and dust, and Martha sniffed it with pleasure.

      Old Mr Cohen nodded at her, with a distance in his manner, and, having asked politely after her parents, who owed him fifty pounds, waited for an order.

      ‘Is Solly in?’ she asked rather too politely.

      The old man allowed his eyebrows to lift, before replying, ‘He’s in, for anyone who wants to see him.’

      ‘I would like to see him,’ she said, almost stammering.

      ‘You used to know the way,’ he said laconically, and nodded at the closed flap of the counter, under which she had ducked as a child. She had expected him to lift it for her now; clumsily, she tried to move it, while he watched her. Then, taking his time, he lifted it, and moved aside so that she might go through.

      She found herself saying, ‘You’re mistaken, I didn’t mean …’

      His eyes snapped around at her, and he said sarcastically, ‘Didn’t mean what?’ He at once turned away to serve a native child, who was so red with dust from the road that his black skin had a rusty look, some acid-green sweets from a jar.

      Martha walked into the back room, and found the Cohen boys reading, one in each of the two big easy chairs, which she privately thought in unpleasant taste, as was the whole room, which was very small, and crowded with glossy furniture and bright china ornaments; there was an effect of expensive ostentation, like the display window of a furniture store. And in this ugly and tasteless room sat Solly and Joss, the intellectuals, reading (as she took care to see) Plato and Balzac, in expensive editions.

      After a startled look at her, they looked at each other, and after a long pause Solly remarked, ‘Look who’s here!’ while Joss returned, ‘Well, well!’ and they both waited, with blandly sarcastic faces, for her to speak.

      She said, ‘I’ve brought back a book of yours,’ and held it out.

      Solly said, ‘My grateful thanks,’ extended a hand, and took it.

      Joss was pretending to read, and this annoyed her; for, as Mrs Van Rensberg had suggested, he had once been her particular friend. But it was also a relief, and she said, rather flirtatiously, to Solly, ‘May I sit down?’ and sat forthwith.

      ‘She’s got to be quite a smart girl, h’m?’ said Solly to Joss, as the boys openly and rudely examined her.

      As a result of her quarrels with Mrs Quest, she was now making her own clothes. Also, she had starved herself into a fashionable thinness which, since she was plump by nature, was not to everyone’s taste. Apparently not to the Cohen boys’, for they continued, as if she were not present:

      ‘Yellow suits her, doesn’t it, Solly?’

      ‘Yes, Joss and that cute little slit down the front of the dress, too.’

      ‘But too thin, too thin, Solly, it comes of giving up that rich and unhealthy Jewish food.’

      ‘But better thin and pure, Joss, than fat and gross and contaminated by –’

      ‘Oh, shut up,’ she said, in discomfort; and they raised their eyebrows and shook their heads and sighed. ‘I know you think …’ she began, and once again found it hard to continue.

      ‘Think what?’ they demanded, almost together, and with precisely the keen, sarcastic intonation their father had used.

      ‘It isn’t so,’ she stammered, sincerely, looking at them in appeal; and for a moment thought she was forgiven, for Joss’s tone was quite gentle as he began: ‘Poor Matty, did your mummy forbid you to come and see us, then?’

      The shock of the words, after the deceptively gentle tone, which reached her nerves before the sense, caused her eyes to fill with tears. She said, ‘No, of course she didn’t.’

      ‘Mystery,’ said Joss, beginning the game again, nodding at Solly; who sighed exaggeratedly and said, ‘We’re not to know, dear, dear.’

      Suddenly Martha said not at all as she had intended, but with a mixture of embarrassment and coyness, ‘Mrs Van Rensberg was gossiping.’ She glanced at Joss, whose dark face slowly coloured; and he looked at her with a dislike that cut her.

      ‘Mrs Van Rensberg was gossiping,’ said Solly to Joss; and before the exchange could continue, she cut in: ‘Yes, and I suppose it was silly, but I couldn’t – take it.’ The defiant conclusion ended on a shortened breath; this interview was not as she had imagined.

      ‘She couldn’t take it,’ sighed Joss to Solly.

      ‘She couldn’t take it,’ Solly sighed back; and with the same movement, they picked up their books, and began to read.

      She remained where she was, her eyes pleading with their averted faces, trying to subdue the flood of colour she could feel tingling to the roots of her hair, and when, after a long silence, Solly remarked in a detached voice, ‘She couldn’t take us, but she’s still here,’ Martha got up, saying angrily, ‘I’ve apologized, you’re making a mistake. Why do you have to be so thin-skinned?’ She went to the door.

      Behind her back, they began laughing, a loud and unpleasant laughter. ‘She’s cut us dead for two years, and she says we’re thin-skinned.’

      ‘I didn’t cut you – why must you talk about me as if I weren’t here?’ she said, and stumbled out, past Mr Cohen. She found the flap of the counter down, and had to wait, speechless, for him to lift it, for she was on the verge of crying.

      He looked at her with what she thought was a tinge of kindliness; but he opened the flap, nodded quietly, and said, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Quest.’

      ‘Thank you,’ she said, with the effect of pleading, and walked back up the dusty path to the village, as the bead curtain swung and rattled into stillness behind her.

      She walked over the railway tracks, which gleamed brightly in the hot sunlight, to the garage, where Mr Quest was in absorbed conversation with Mr Parry. He was repeating urgently, ‘Yes there’s going to be a war, it’s all very well for you people …’

      Mr Parry was saying, ‘Yes, Captain Quest. No, Captain Quest.’ In the village, the war title was used, though Mr Quest refused it, saying it was not fair to the regular soldier. Martha used to argue with him reasonably, thus: ‘Are you suggesting that it is only the peace-time soldier who deserves his title? Do you mean that if civilians get conscripted and killed it’s on a different level from …’ and so on and so on – ah, how exasperating are the rational adolescents! For Mr Quest gave his irritable shrug of aversion and repeated, ‘I don’t like being Captain, it’s not fair when I haven’t been in the Army for so long.’ What Martha thought privately was, How odd that a man who thinks about nothing but war should dislike being Captain; and at this point, the real one, was of course never mentioned during those reasonable discussions.

      Mr Parry was listening nervously to Mr Quest, while his eyes anxiously followed his native assistant, who was dragging an inner tube through the hot dust. At last he could not bear it, saying, ‘Excuse me, but …’ he darted forward and shouted at the native, ‘Look you, Gideon, how many times have I told you …’ He grabbed the tyre from the man’s hand, and took it