The Transaction

By Vincent Gray

Raghavee Srivastava the niece of Uncle Raju who happened to be a prominent member of the Communist Party was the daughter of an Indian rural shopkeeper. The shop was located on the edge of the national road connecting Johannesburg to Durban. Her friend Martin Marshall, a white boy, lived on a small farm across the road from the shop. They had been friends since childhood. In race-obsessed apartheid South Africa it was indeed rare that genuine friendships between white and black or white and Indian could ever become established. Eventually, Martin inherited the farm following the death of his great grandparents. Tragedy struck the Srivastava family. On the night that their shop burnt down Raghavee's father died of a heart attack. When her mother and siblings decided to relocate to Newcastle in Natal, Raghavee moved in with Martin. She became his housekeeper. Their arrest and trial became headline news mainly because she happened to be the niece of Uncle Raju Srivastava. Right up until their arrest they slept in separate rooms. In response to Martin’s kindness and generosity, she tried to initiate a transactional arrangement where she would provide Martin with sexual services in exchange for being looked after by Martin. Martin was paying for all her living expenses, including her studies. She liked him, but did not love him, and so felt obliged to pay for her keep and her university studies towards a law degree, in the only way she could, and according to what she thought would be a fair transaction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vincent Gray
• Release date: Mar 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005014735

Vincent Gray

As a son of a miner, I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I grew up in the East Rand mining town of Boksburg. I matriculated from Boksburg High School. After high school, I was conscripted into the South African Defence Force for compulsory national military service when I was 17 years old. After my military service, I went to the University of the Witwatersrand. After graduating with a BSc honours degree I worked for a short period for the Department of Agriculture in Potchefstroom as an agronomist. As an obligatory member of the South African Citizen Miltary Force, I was called up to do 3-month camps on the 'Border' which was the theatre of the so-called counter-insurgency 'Bush War'. In between postgraduate university studies I also worked as a wage clerk on the South African Railways and as a travelling chemical sales rep. In my career as an academic, I was a molecular biologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, where I lectured courses in microbiology, molecular biology, biotechnology and evolutionary biology. On the research side, I was involved in genomics, and plant and microbial biotechnology. I also conducted research into the genomics of strange and weird animals known as entomopathogenic nematodes. I retired in 2019, however, I am currently an honorary professor at the University of the Witwaterand and I also work as a research writing consultant for the University of Johannesburg.

Book preview

The Transaction

By

Vincent Gray

Smashwords 2022

This short story is a new edition of the book originally called ‘Uncle Raju’s Headstrong Niece’. It was decided to rename the book ‘The Transaction’ because the story is centred on a transaction.

Copyright© 2022 Vincent Gray

This book is a work of fiction. All the characters developed in this novel are fictional creations of the writer’s imagination and are not modelled on any real persons. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Dedicated to my wife Melodie and my daughter Ruth

Author Biography

As a son of a miner, the author was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He grew up in the East Rand mining town of Boksburg during the 1960s and matriculated from Boksburg High School. After high school, he was conscripted into the South African Defence Force (SADF) for compulsory national military service at the age of seventeen. On completion of his military service he studied courses in Zoology, Botany and Microbiology at the University of the Witwatersrand. After graduating with a BSc honours degree he worked for a short period for the Department of Agriculture in Potchefstroom as an agronomist. Following the initial conscription into military service in the SADF, like all other white South African males of his generation, he was then drafted into one of the many South African Citizen Military Regiments. During the 1970s he was called up as a citizen-soldier to do three-month military camps on the 'Border' which was the operational theatre of the so-called counter insurgency 'Bush War' during the Apartheid years. Before and in between university studies he also worked as a wage clerk on the South African Railways and as a travelling chemical sales representative. The author is now a retired professor whose career as an academic in the Biological Sciences has spanned a period of thirty-three years mainly at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Before retirement, he lectured and carried out research in the field of molecular biology with a special interest in the molecular basis of evolution. He continues to pursue his interest in evolutionary biology. Other interests which the author pursues includes radical theology, philosophy and literature.

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The two versions of the same story as told by Martin and Raghavee

1

Raghavee: When Martin Marshall was still an infant, barely a few days old his teenage mother dropped him off at the doorstep of the kitchen. She left him with his great grandparents. Yes, his great grandparents. His mother was their granddaughter. At the time of his abandonment, I was not yet born. I am two years younger than Martin. I have known him my whole life. I know his whole history, or I thought at least that I knew everything that one could possibly know about him until he phoned me. He said he was phoning from a call box at the Waterkloof Airforce Base where he was doing his compulsory twelve months national military service. I did not even know where he had been stationed for his military service or what kind of military service he was doing. In my own mind, in my own Universe, he was the last person on earth that I would have expected a phone call from. Well, I don’t exactly get many phone calls. To be honest, I don’t get any phone calls from boys. Anyway, I was not allowed to get phone calls from boys. Martin was the only boy that I had social contact with outside school hours and now he was the first and only boy ever to have phoned me. He phoned me from the air force base late on a Saturday afternoon just before we were going to close the shop. It was really strange. He had no reason to phone. It was not supposed to happen, not ever. At the time, I was a sixteen-year-old