Paulineâ
He laughed. âOlga-and-Pauline, howâs it possible to imagine such a creature!â
âSheâs a sister.â
âWell, yes. I donât remember her, either.â
âSasha, would you say I look Portuguese?â
âHow does Portuguese look? Like a market gardener?â
âMy short nose and these (touching cheekbones), my eyes and this kind of hair that isnât brown or black; the way it grows from my foreheadâlook.â
He took her head in his hands and jerked it this way and that.
âYes, you look Portugueseâno, more like an Eskimo, thatâs it, or a Shangaan or a Lapp or aâ
âI donât look like you, any of you, do I.â
âBut why Portuguese?â
âShe had a Portuguese lover.â
âBut you were already born, two years old, you ass.â
âShe couldâve been there before.â
âDid they ever say anything?â
âThey only tell us what they think we ought to know.â
âAnd your father?â
âThey wouldnât tell Len, would they?â
Sasha still had her head between his hands. âSo youâre not my cousin after all.â
âOf course we are. You dope. Sheâs still Paulineâs sister.â
He let go her head and rolled back on the floor. Slowly he began to play with her toes again. He spoke as if they had not been alone together all evening, and now were. âMaybe Iâll also be on the run. As soon as I leave school next year, I could be called up in the ballot for the army.â
âYouâll have to go.â
He rested his cheek on her feet. She put out a hand and stroked his hair, practising caresses newly learned. He moved in refusal, rubbing soft unshaven stubble against her insteps: âNo.â
âYes, youâll have to go.â
âI donât understand them. They send me to school with black kids, and then they tell me it canât be helped: the law says Iâvegot to go into the army and learn to kill blacks. Thatâs what the armyâs really going to be for, soon. They talk all the time about unjust laws. Heâs up there in court defending blacks. And Iâll have to fight them one day. Youâre bloody lucky youâre a girl, Hillela.â
She drew away her feet and swivelling slowly round, lay down, her chin to his forehead, his forehead to her chin, close. Sasha, Carole and Hillela sometimes tussled all three together in half-aggressive, giggling play that broke up the familiar perspective from which human beings usually confront one another. She righted herself, eye to eye, mouth to mouth. The knowledge that they were cousins came up into their eyes, between them; she, his cousin, kissed him first, and slowly the knowledge disappeared in rills of feeling. It washed away as the light empty shells at the Bay were turned over and over by films of water and drawn away under the surf. He touched her breasts a little; he had noticed, living with her as a sister, that her breasts were deep and large under the token family modesty of flimsy pyjama top or bath towel tucked round under the arms. She slid the delicious shock of her strange sisterly hand down under his belt; her fingertips nibbled softly at him and, busy at her real mouth, he longed to be swallowed by herâitâthe pure sensation she had become to him: for them to be not cousin, brother, sister, but the mysterious state incarnate in her. After a while they were Sasha and Hillela again; or almost. Light under the bedroom door showed Hillela was still up, preparing her books for the new term, when the parents came home; locked in the bathroom, Sasha had buried, with pants thrust to the bottom of the linen basket, his sweet wet relief from the manhood of guns and warring. Tenderness was forgotten: like any other misdeed undetected by adults.
Forgotten and repeated, as anything that manages to escape judgment may be repeated when the
He laughed. âOlga-and-Pauline, howâs it possible to imagine such a creature!â
âSheâs a sister.â
âWell, yes. I donât remember her, either.â
âSasha, would you say I look Portuguese?â
âHow does Portuguese look? Like a market gardener?â
âMy short nose and these (touching cheekbones), my eyes and this kind of hair that isnât brown or black; the way it grows from my foreheadâlook.â
He took her head in his hands and jerked it this way and that.
âYes, you look Portugueseâno, more like an Eskimo, thatâs it, or a Shangaan or a Lapp or aâ
âI donât look like you, any of you, do I.â
âBut why Portuguese?â
âShe had a Portuguese lover.â
âBut you were already born, two years old, you ass.â
âShe couldâve been there before.â
âDid they ever say anything?â
âThey only tell us what they think we ought to know.â
âAnd your father?â
âThey wouldnât tell Len, would they?â
Sasha still had her head between his hands. âSo youâre not my cousin after all.â
âOf course we are. You dope. Sheâs still Paulineâs sister.â
He let go her head and rolled back on the floor. Slowly he began to play with her toes again. He spoke as if they had not been alone together all evening, and now were. âMaybe Iâll also be on the run. As soon as I leave school next year, I could be called up in the ballot for the army.â
âYouâll have to go.â
He rested his cheek on her feet. She put out a hand and stroked his hair, practising caresses newly learned. He moved in refusal, rubbing soft unshaven stubble against her insteps: âNo.â
âYes, youâll have to go.â
âI donât understand them. They send me to school with black kids, and then they tell me it canât be helped: the law says Iâvegot to go into the army and learn to kill blacks. Thatâs what the armyâs really going to be for, soon. They talk all the time about unjust laws. Heâs up there in court defending blacks. And Iâll have to fight them one day. Youâre bloody lucky youâre a girl, Hillela.â
She drew away her feet and swivelling slowly round, lay down, her chin to his forehead, his forehead to her chin, close. Sasha, Carole and Hillela sometimes tussled all three together in half-aggressive, giggling play that broke up the familiar perspective from which human beings usually confront one another. She righted herself, eye to eye, mouth to mouth. The knowledge that they were cousins came up into their eyes, between them; she, his cousin, kissed him first, and slowly the knowledge disappeared in rills of feeling. It washed away as the light empty shells at the Bay were turned over and over by films of water and drawn away under the surf. He touched her breasts a little; he had noticed, living with her as a sister, that her breasts were deep and large under the token family modesty of flimsy pyjama top or bath towel tucked round under the arms. She slid the delicious shock of her strange sisterly hand down under his belt; her fingertips nibbled softly at him and, busy at her real mouth, he longed to be swallowed by herâitâthe pure sensation she had become to him: for them to be not cousin, brother, sister, but the mysterious state incarnate in her. After a while they were Sasha and Hillela again; or almost. Light under the bedroom door showed Hillela was still up, preparing her books for the new term, when the parents came home; locked in the bathroom, Sasha had buried, with pants thrust to the bottom of the linen basket, his sweet wet relief from the manhood of guns and warring. Tenderness was forgotten: like any other misdeed undetected by adults.
Forgotten and repeated, as anything that manages to escape judgment may be repeated when the
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