Doris Lessing
FROM THE BLACK NOTEBOOK
Breakfast was over, it was about ten in the morning, and
we were glad to have something to fill our time until lunch. A short
way past the hotel a track turned off the main road at right angles and
wandered ruttily over the veld, following the line of an earlier
African footpath. This track led to the Roman Catholic Mission
about seven miles off in the wilderness. Sometimes the Mission car
came in for supplies; sometimes farm laborers went by in groups to
or from the Mission, which ran a large farm, but for the most part
the track was empty. All that country was high-lying sandveld, un–
dulating, broken sharply here and there by kopjes. When it rained
the soil seemed to offer resistance, not welcome. The water danced
and drummed in a fury of white drops to a height of two or three
feet over the hard soil, but an hour after the storm, it was already
dry again and the gullies and vleis were running high and noisy.
It had rained the previous night so hard that the iron roof of the
sleeping block had shaken and pounded over our heads, but now
the sun was high, the sky unclouded, and we walked beside the
tarmac over a fine crust of white sand which broke drily under our
shoes to show the dark wet underneath.
There were five of us that morning, I don't remember where the
others were. Perhaps it was a week-end when only five of us had
come down to the hotel. Paul carried the rifle, looking every inch a
sportsman and smiling at himself in this role. Jimmy was beside
him, clumsy, fattish, pale, his intelligent eyes returning always to
Paul, humble with desire, ironical with pain at his situation. I,
Willi and Maryrose came along behind. Willi carried a book.
Maryrose and I wore holiday clothes--colored dungarees and
shirts.
