The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer

Author:Nadine Gordimer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781101571064
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2011-11-14T10:00:00+00:00

— I want to plant another hundred trees along here this summer. —

He has his thumbs hooked in the diagonal front pockets of the jeans and he picks his way easily through puddles made in the road by the irrigation jets. — What kind? —

Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk : the long, wavering squirts jerk round, changing direction under their own pressure; tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk.

A decision is made. The answer’s going to be unexpected, with the shadow of the fast-growing eucalyptus ahead. - Oaks. -

You don’t plant oaks for yourself but for those who come after.

But that is not our subject, apparently. The response that comes is a question. — You’re not going to Plet? —

Arms, staggering flailing arms, flowing sleeves of water; one trails suddenly over their faces, so that they smile at one another under the caress. Forced by irrigation the lucerne is green and thick, it’s as if summer were already here.

— I am not. I’m going to plant trees. Let the others catch the big fish and booze at the Christmas parties. -

What is it you want me to say now?

A-hah - you were thinking of going to the cottage at the sea, maybe, you could have had a good time this year, that’s true, soon seventeen, all those daughters of friends grown up just your age. But that means in January you’ll go into the army, that’s where you’ll be when the party’s over. What is it you want me to say? If you’re waiting for me to broach that subject, you’re mistaken - yet he doesn’t say anything, he speaks but he doesn’t say anything, he won’t bring it up himself.

At the compound sleeping women lie on the ground beside the ash-heap rolled like corpses in new blankets, right over their heads, brightly checked and fringed. There’s no child to be seen and their dogs seem to be shut away for once. — Looks more like the morning after, to me. But they probably walked all night to get here. —

He’s jogged ahead a bit; he turns — Oh the picnic place was burnt! —

— It’s all recovering now, you should’ve seen it a couple of weeks ago. —

There’s just time to go down there; it’ll take the best part of an hour to get to the airport. He’s fallen behind again. Down to the third pasture through the gate, and he closes it after them, struggling to get the hoop of wire back over the ant-eaten post with the goaded air of an action performed too many times without question. Why Namibia? The great thing was once Spain. You are not the first. It’s always been like that. Yes, it’s all been thought, what you’re thinking, a thousand times before. They went to fight in Greece, club-footed poet and the well-meaning romantic muddlers or freaks. They went off to Spain and lost the good cause and as a result today, despite the great loss to the country because a gipsy and her professor wouldn’t dream of going there any

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.