Jump and Other Stories

Marais Van der Vyver, a White landowner, accidently shoots one of his Black farmhands, Lucas. Marais reasons that gun accidents happen every day, but he also fears the political repercussions, knowing the story will be used by anti-apartheid activists. Marais tells the press he’ll take care of Lucas’s family and insists the two held no animosity: “He was my friend, I always took him hunting with me” (112). The police open an investigation to ensure there was no foul play. Marais takes Lucas’s body to a police captain, who offers him brandy. Marais weeps for his fallen friend, and the police captain feels embarrassed to see Marais cry over a Black man.

Marais recounts the events leading up to Lucas’s death. His regular hunting rifle was being prepared, so Marais took his late father’s, assuming it was unloaded, and placed it in the passenger seat of his truck. He picked up Lucas, who jumped in the backseat, the rifle pointing at his head. Marais hit a pothole and the gun, loaded, went off, shooting Lucas in the head and killing him.

Marais buys Lucas an expensive coffin. During the funeral, Lucas’s family mourns, as does Marais, but they do not acknowledge each other. Marais sees Lucas’s son, who is far too young to comprehend what has happened. Marais knows most White families wouldn’t bring a small child to a funeral: “Blacks expose small children to everything, they don’t protect them from the sight of fear and pain the way whites do theirs” (115). The ceremony continues, and Marais reflects on his final moments with Lucas. They were excited to be hunting together. He remembers approaching Lucas’s body and carrying his bloodied corpse. Unbeknownst to anyone besides Marais, Lucas was Marais’s son.

A Scandinavian man, Nils, works at a science institute with his wife, Teresa, who is Black. Nils comes home one evening and learns Teresa’s family, including her aging mother, have been arrested by the police for their association with revolutionaries. Teresa knows her brother, Robbie, is active in political revolution, but he wonders why her mother needed to be arrested, too. Teresa resents her mother for her meekness and acceptance of the poverty they grew up in, but she is still distraught at the thought of her mother in prison. Nils, a devoted partner, listens to Teresa intently. He offers her a sleeping pill, but she refuses, having always abstained from narcotics and alcohol: “he had always privately thought this came subconsciously from her background, where people of one colour were submitted to the will of those of another” (127). Nils tells their coworkers about the incident, and they act sympathetically. Underneath their kindness, however, he senses they thought this would happen to Nils because he married a Black woman.

Teresa learns her family is being detained under Section 29—a law that bars them from having access to lawyers and relatives. Teresa worries, fearful her mother’s health will decline in prison. She consults a civil rights attorney, Fatima, and pursues all legal avenues she can. To Nils’s surprise, Teresa seeks help from people she normally disagrees with ideologically and politically. Trying to free her family dominates Teresa’s life, and she starts sleeping at different houses out of fear of being arrested, too. The couple becomes emotionally and physically disconnected. As Teresa’s actions become more mysterious to Nils, he worries she’s having an affair.

Nils comes home one evening after work and finds a note on the fridge from Teresa. She’ll be away for a few days. Nils drinks whiskey and takes sleeping pills to cope with his anxiety and paranoia but sleeps uneasily. Several days pass, and Teresa returns home. She’s happy again. Her mother has been smuggled out. She avoided telling Nils what was happening out of fear he’d try to stop her. Seeing his wife again, Nils intuits his wife isn’t having an affair. Still, she left him for her family: “He saw it was true that she had left him, but it was for them, that house, the dark family of which he was not a member, her country to which he did not belong” (140).

A man on a plane observes a mother with her two children, a newborn baby and a 13-year-old son. The mother and son’s beauty strikes the man, but he notes the baby looks different from them. The family departs in the middle of Africa, where an attempted coup occurred recently. The man stays on the flight and can only imagine what their lives are like. The point of view shifts to the 13-year-old boy. His family is from Europe. His father, an economic attaché, is currently stationed in Africa. The boy traveled with his mother to Europe so she could have her baby at a better hospital. The boy always wanted siblings growing up, but around the time his mother finally gets pregnant, he notices a silent tension between his parents. They hardly speak, and they stop going to the beach together, something they always did as a family.

The father travels constantly for work, and he leaves again. The boy and his mother return to the beach. The boy sees his mother’s bare breasts and notices they’re growing with her pregnancy. He listens to the baby kicking in her belly. They share a happy moment, but the boy still feels the absence of his father. The image of his mother’s breasts causes the boy to have sporadic sexual dreams. Other times, he dreams that his newborn sibling is in a fishbowl and he is the sole person to care for it.

The mother gives birth. Her son is the first person to see the baby: “I ran ahead and I was there before anyone—nurses don’t count, it’s not theirs” (148). The mother and son notice that the baby has black hair and doesn’t look like them. Days later, they take the plane back to Africa. The boy remains attentive and helpful throughout the flight. When they land, his father approaches them. The boy feels joy but also doesn’t look directly at his dad. Meanwhile, the father dwells on an affair he had and the tension it caused in his marriage. He regrets that his wife became pregnant during that same time, when their relationship had no passion or joy, but the affair is over now. The father believes the new baby will make the family whole again. He approaches his family at the tarmac, elated, but notices that his son now regards his mother and sibling as if they are his own wife and child.