The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer Page A

doesn’t hear it) once more. And again. It dies finally in the form of a thread of dark smoke that rises straight to the ceiling.
    He drew her tongue into his mouth as he would suck the flame of a match up into his cigar. Perhaps she deliberately used half-burned candles, knowing they would always last exactly the duration of one meal for two people - the interplay of conversation with more guests would extend the time taken, of course.
    Under the net weighted with beads, Alina has today, as usual, set out tomato sauce, marmalade, honey, mustard, uncertain what category of meal it is that he eats when he comes here. The variety assembled goes further than that: it expresses the mystery of eating habits, unimaginable choices of food not open to her. There is also a jar of pickled onions he bought the other weekend from one of those roadside lorries that sell home produce and handcrafts, fireside pouffes made of off-cuts of fake leather, stuffed cotton toys. It is true, lately he quite often eats at the farm, and at odd times - he may work through lunch and then, on impulse, leave the office at three and pick up provisions whose nature is determined by whatever shop’s convenient, on the way. There are no lunch parties down at the river. Not since before he was in Japan. The willows have moulted entirely and the grass, grazed down to earth, anyway, has a layered, slippery covering of narrow brown leaves. Dead, and buried, down there - the summer. Whenever he thinks of bringing some friends out from town ... it would amount to the same old crowd, the good friend of fifteen years and her set, the daughter who was the playmate of his son. On the farm it is the time for conservation - buildings to be repaired, fire-breaks cleared, he must go round all the fences with Jacobus. The sort of jobs they’ll never think to do unless you push them to it. A place must be kept up. His energy rises in inverse proportion to winter slackness: sitting there warming themselves against the wall of the kraal, while the weekly bags of mealie meal are sure to be doled out and their poor little devils trail to the pump for water. Jacobus reports that there has been frost already: he has him up on the roof of the shed, hammering down a dog-eared sheet of galvanized iron, sniffing raucously, drawing mucus back into his running nose as he will all winter. On the fences they work together, as they do, from time to time; it is the only way to get the job done properly. Jacobus calls out some reproach, in their language, to chase away the children who are hanging around, not really noisily, just scuffling and stiffling giggles, and, of course, coughing all over the place. — Here, wait! — There seem to be more of them every time he comes out. He has got rid of the two- and one-cent pieces in his pocket and they are happy.
    Yes, happy. His hand comes into contact, in the pocket, with the letter addressed in a schoolboy hand that he has not opened.
    — Why you don’t ask that master what he do? Why he break that light in the back? Is long time now, then he going to say somebody else you break you pick-up —
    The letter crepitates against the lining of the pocket with every movement of the right thigh. - You worry about what you do to the tractor, using it like a location taxi. —
    — Me! — But the wire is held steady, no fool; presence of mind, that one.
    - Yes, you know what I’m talking about. -
    The job is finished in the silence of wire squeaking under strain round the new creosoted posts, twanging like broken guitar strings when released.
    — The India he’s speak about me. — He’s been working it out.
    — I don’t go to the Indians to talk about my farm. But I know what goes on. Remember that. And if you come and tell me next time the tractor’s broken —
    He hasn’t got an answer to that one. But when he and Solomon and the youngster, the one who affects fancy headgear, are clearing up the roll of barbed wire and the unused