5-6 September 1938

Sept 5

[/P] I go down after breakfast & walk - steward – 6 trips but does not mind it.  Mathu [sic: T.C. Mehta] calls me up to a game of bridge - We sit corner – Watson comes along to the writing table.  A huge form of reality which makes the whites restless - He does not seem to mind them.  After writing he sits to my right & listens to music of the ship orchestra.  

It is lunch time - After lunch I visit Abr. [Abraham].  He invites me to sit on his bed — we talk — He reminds me not to marry a white woman — In his case his people would cast him out of society at CapeTown.  I am puzzled whether people will come all over asking me to marry them in France — The Naidoos come in — We talk of Art [.] They press me to tell them what I would express as the dominant note of character in say Naidoo — I think an illegitimate question — like you are singer “Sing then” [.] But they insist - I illustrate my sense of the beautiful as harmony with the environment and truth [.]  I tell them Swaziland shocks me for its maladjustment to birth and reality - It is ugly to me.  I showed them “Mother and Child” — Abr. [Abraham] talks very brilliantly — He says it is so hopeless it looks dead and the child is alive [.]  To that degree is the utter helplessness of the Mother to satisfy the claims of the child she has brought to the world — He asks if I can marry a woman like that as wife — I say no it would be too overwhelming for me — I want a pretty woman to excite me sexually as a wife — Mother and Child would paralyse me sexually — Then A [Abraham] wonders of to call love etc [.]  Naidoo brings N. in to take part in conversation but N. evades it stupidly and gos [sic: goes] away.

The steward has prepared a bath for me at 5.  I go to bath - After the bath I go aft for air - I stand & gaze at the water & seagulls.  

A white man [,] a little fellow with his front teeth missing — He leans over the rails by my side + asks what I am thinking about - Just looking at the water.  He starts straight away to tell me of his impressions of SA [South Africa].  “They treat you like pigs [illegible]”.  How they can do it beats me — They can afford to go to church and preach what they cannot practice — They speak of shooting all the Natives when they depend on black cheap labour for their very existence — They pay for it by their 300,000 poor whites.”  I was ashamed to tell my friends I was leaving their beautiful country.  So I told them I was going to Cape Town — Oh (they said) you will work with Coloureds down there. Coloureds mind you — to say nothing of Natives — Oh you will never get back to that hell — Try never to.  Go to France and become naturalised — He told me how to make a living [,] one could put on a turban and hawk cheap silks and dolls etc & avoid the British India — London.  Go to Canada or Any British colony.  I do not know what will be the end of it.  They never will forgive the British the defeats of Boer War — He is sorry for my friends back but they will never know what I will know to be treated like a white man and a human being —

He tells me the rest of passengers will melt out and talk as they forget SA and become their real selves — 

He tells me of his experience of seeing porpoises and their characteristic method of skimming over the waves [sketch of porpoise and 2 waves] big fish — He tried to show me a flying fish but it was too dark.  He was the first white man who seemed to me to that human openness and honesty in simplicity [.]  He was not trying dominate over me as is the usual case with Europeans of my experience — My first white human being — In cotton cap and woven oilskin overcoat.  I go down to dinner very happy.  

After dinner go to upper smoking-room - We look for a corner to make our own [,] play bridge. 

[Sept 6]

Morning [.] N. says he longs and misses friends in S. Africa – (hums a hymn).  Says SA a very beautiful country [,] I tell him I don’t think so and that I slunk away without making a fuss – that the usual thing is for Africans going abroad to make farewell parties with intention of taking money from widows with the tale of going to return to leaders of nation – I point out Dr S who swindled the Swazi Nation [present day Eswatini, formerly Swaziland] – N disagrees bitterly and pointlessly that I got my facts badly because Dr S would not now be living in Swaziland if that had been the case - I point out that he was struck off the Lawyers Roll for swindling a tribe anyway – He [illegible] and almost sulks - We to breakfast and at breakfast I remark on the stupidity of using French words on the menu card & say I never know what is coming - N says it’s alright - I ask if understands the names of the dishes – He says “yes”.  “Lucky fellow” I return.  Watson smiles.

After breakfast W [Watson] & I go for a walk on lower deck [.]  I tell him how I can’t stand the bluff and the airs of N.  How he irritates me.  The type we have to stand in SA – the better type never get the chance.  W [Watson] tells me was informed in C.T. [Cape Town] J. was a traitor - I commend him for grasping the essentials of SA problem so quickly.  He tells of Dr W. 

I tell him he too has had adapt himself to SA conditions [.]  The Stokers in the meantime change shifts – machine-men crushed to fit to the machines below [,] their faces besmeared with oil & grease [,] eyes glaring through dirt very striking - We return to the Smoking room + play bridge.

Isa Cam [sic: Isa Cameron] comes along with the social books & gives album of her works in SA [.]  We stop game and look through — The work at first strikes me as good, too good to be product of S Africa with prejudices & if not with no fight.  She looks elderly & soulless — I am impressed with the work.  Photo of statue in wood, the instep unAfrican and whole of conception foreign — But I feel she is on way to truth but will not fight her way through - She returns with S. Worker and ask if I am the Sculptor on board - I am polite and say Madame to her.  She wishes to see my work.  I tell her it is [in the] cabin — I ask how it could be arranged [,] confused and say something about going down to see it at some time.  I feel she cannot do it.

Dinner - N does not speak — Programmes for Sports & games during the voyage — Watson and I go down & I tell Watson N is mere false alarm who will get a nasty blow of disillusion sooner or later — He agrees with me — I tell him of cabin incident in morning & of the pass system in SA [.][1]  He is shocked by some of the information.  He tells N told him he lived in Johannesburg for months but never accosted to produce a pass — I am infuriated & I ask W to come & see N’s book [,] The Bantu in the City by R. Philips [Ray E. Phillips, “The Bantu in the City: A Study of Cultural Adjustment on the Witwatersrand”, 1938].  I show him chapter on Pass offences & that in 1936, 34,000 Africans imprisoned for passes.  I show him all my own passes & how for 5 months at Benoni I daren’t be seen  in the streets for fear of arrest — During passport waiting — Nazism par excellance.

The Indian group come in - We speak of the painter-artist.  They rub it into me for madaming her.  Abr [Abraham] says I should not lower myself so much.  Naidoo says the group is just a set of barbarians to be ignored.  We hang around the black cabins.

After supper there is a flannel dance but Mathu [Mehta] and I go to the top deck and sit on deck chairs - Mahta [Mehta] wants to know my attitude to dancing modern jazz.  I tell him it is all meaningless to me [.]  He says it’s a step towards sex – I ask why if they want sex, they don’t be frank about it & have it.  It is indirect expression [,] he says [.]  I tell him that except for my art I regarded all as play - I was not responsible for the mess into which things had got to - If all went to hell I would not mind – religion, organisation, sport, all equal - The organisation of ship just a game few forced to do it against their wills [,] if with their wills they just enjoyed doing it but claim no future - He wondered if Gool [Goolam Gool] had influenced me – ([illegible] intelligence, no depth) [.]  He remarks that he feels he cannot ask somebody not to do something he himself wd [sic: would] like to do – or even not do – e.g. finger in the nose – what fundamental Standards were there.  He hated reformers to be wiped out.  Saw an officer neat walking the deck [.]  I pointed out that officer looked certain of his standpoint but wd [sic: would] crumpled when subjected to reason - Eng. [sic: English] characteristic to select a few essentials for preservation of life & order and stick to these conservatively through thick and thin as conventions - Castrate any one who did not conform – When things go awry – well! -

We walk towards the men’s quarters — They sit on the deck and play their own band—to me more attractive and realistic and truthful than painted dolls of first class & Tourist snobs [.]  They try this tune and then the other just at will as the feeling comes — searching for satisfaction & open about it — They play Sarie Marie [sic: Sarie Marais[2] ] [.]  It wakes in me painful recollections of S Africa — We turn back to Tourist dancing maniacs — The young Jewish fellow in his element— a few pale slender girls [,] sour expressions + artificial smiles as if they enjoyed the dance — I know they don’t - Upper deck we find the Ind [sic: Indian] Group — Just had beer and S. Naidoo philosophising about pointlessness of existence.  I remark about a [word missing] committing suicide — He says whether suicide is no suicide what does matter — I have a beer and we go down to sleep — I hear strains of God Save the King as I go down —