A Blade of Grass (23 page)

Märit rushes into the shed, and there are bloody feathers everywhere. Frantically she searches through the hay, her only thought for the chicks, her hands touching old droppings, the smooth surface of eggs, but no chicks.

Outside again she searches at the back of the shed, and there she sees the hole at the bottom of the fence, and the dug-up earth where some animal has come in. And here she finds a few puffs of yellow down, and here is the body of Dik-Dik, limp, torn, his head almost severed from his neck.

Märit recoils from the devastation. Every single chicken has been killed. Butchered. The bodies have been scattered everywhere by some ferocious presence that passed amongst the hens, ripping and clawing and slashing at random.

Märit staggers away from the carnage and the guts and the smell of death. And on the breeze a small tuft of yellow down drifts past her and then is gone. She clutches her hands over her eyes and wails, and the sound that breaks from her mouth is the same inarticulate cry of grief that came from Michael’s damaged mouth.

When Tembi arrives, still in her nightdress, her brown face goes ash gray at the sight of the destruction. Clutching her arms against her body as if the day has suddenly turned cold, she sinks to her knees.

“I don’t understand this,” Tembi moans. “This wasn’t done out of hunger. It couldn’t have been. What animal could have done this? What evil? I don’t understand why everything has to be killed.” She grabs a handful of soil in her fists and flings it away from her. “I hate this country!”

M
ÄRIT DIGS
the pit in the earth while Tembi shovels together the carcasses and loads them into a wheelbarrow. Both women tie scarves across their lower faces because now, as the sun becomes hotter, the odor of putrefaction is a stench. When the remains of the chickens have been tipped into the pit Märit begins to shovel soil over the carcasses.

“This won’t work,” Tembi tells her. “Animals will come and dig it up. Hyenas, jackals. We must burn it.”

“There is gasoline in the tractor shed. I’ll fetch it.”

She walks past Michael on her way to the shed, and he does not even look up, but sits slumped against the tree with his head hanging.

“Michael?” she says gently.

He raises his head and looks at her with dull eyes that show no glimpse of recognition.

She fetches the can of gasoline and brings it back to the pit. Tembi douses the chicken carcasses, then sets the can back at a safe distance. “Do you have matches?”

Tembi coils together some strands of dry grass, then lights it and tosses the burning coil into the pit.

The gasoline ignites with a bright orange whoosh, and the women shield their faces from the sudden heat. A pall of smoke rises quickly into the air, carrying with it the singed smell of burning feathers. The smoke is white, and then it is black, and the smell now is of burning flesh. Märit presses her scarf tighter against her face, suppressing the urge to gag.

When the flames die and the smoke dissipates, the women spread soil over the charred embers, and then they carry soil in the wheelbarrow back to the coop and sprinkle it over the dark bloodstains that are everywhere on the ground.

“We should burn this too,” Tembi says, her voice grim. “The whole shed and everything. I don’t want to see it here every day and think about the evil.”

Märit pours what remains of the gasoline onto the wooden boards of the shed and trickles a trail out to the gate of the coop. Then she fashions a coil of grass as Tembi had done and sets it alight before tossing it onto the ground.

A tongue of fire darts up and races towards the shed, then licks up the side of the dry boards, and the flame consumes them. A dull thump blows out from the interior of the shed as one wall collapses inwards and the hay inside sparks alight. Tembi and Märit stand some distance away, in silence, until the shed has collapsed, and the smoke drifts away, and only charred timber is left.

All day Michael does not stir from his place under the tree. Not even the fire seems to have grasped his attention. When the women have been to the
house, and washed and changed their clothes, and Tembi brings Michael a mug of tea and a bowl of porridge, he does not acknowledge her.

“Michael, you must eat something.” Tembi touches him gently on the shoulder, raises his chin with her fingers, but she sees in his eyes that he is distant from her. “We will get some more chickens. And a rooster. A beautiful rooster, just like Dik-Dik.”

But the distance in his eyes does not lessen. Tembi sits down next to him. She wants to see his smile, and hear the small melody from his music box again. And even though her heart is heavy she tries to find words to comfort the stricken man.

“Sometimes things like this happen, Michael. Sometimes wild animals will come after the stock on a farm. The wild animals get hungry too.”

Michael shakes his head adamantly. Tembi wonders what evil he has witnessed before, and she wonders if here on the farm Michael had believed that he had found a haven from evil. She too wants to believe the farm is a haven, and she knows that Märit does also. But there is so much death on this soil.

She puts her hand on Michael’s shoulder again. “We will buy some more chickens, and a fine rooster. I promise you that we will do that, Michael. And then we can build a new chicken coop, with a strong fence.” But the distance is in his eyes and she has the feeling that he is not listening to her.

Michael does not stir from his place under the tree. Not when porridge and tea are brought for him, nor when Märit goes to sit with him.

Tembi watches from the window. “I’m worried about Michael. He won’t eat, he won’t move. And when he looks at me his eyes are in some other place. Those chickens were his family, Dik-Dik was his brother, and now he has lost them. His loss is greater than ours.”

Märit slumps back into her chair. “Oh, Tembi, sometimes it all seems so hopeless. We’re not strong enough for this place. I don’t know how to help Michael. I don’t even know how to help myself. We are running short of food—without the chickens it’s going to be worse—we have no electricity now.”

“We have the garden, we have maize that is almost ripe, there is fruit in
the trees, we have water to drink. Even if it seems hopeless, this is our place.”

Märit tries a wan smile. “You always have hope, Tembi. You know more about suffering than I do, yet you always have hope. Without you here I would die. I feel that I will never leave this farm. I will die instead.”

“Don’t speak such nonsense. You think too much. Go and see to Michael. Maybe he will listen to you. Try to make him eat something.”

Michael still sits slumped against the tree, his hands lying limp on either side of his body. A trail of ants has found the bowl of porridge, and Märit tries to brush them away but then gives up. What can she say to him that will ease his loss? She cannot find the words to convince even herself to hope.

She reaches for his music box and plucks out a few notes, then places the instrument on Michael’s lap. “Will you make some music for me, Michael?” But his hands remain limp in the dust.

He remains sitting in place all through the day and into the evening. The women bring food and tea periodically, and talk to him, but the food remains untouched except by the ants. When darkness approaches they both urge him to come into the house. But he seems unaware of them now.

“Michael, you cannot sleep out here. You will be cold. It’s not safe.” Tembi tugs at his arm. “Please, come to the house.”

“He doesn’t know us any longer,” Märit says. She returns to the house and fetches blankets to drape over his shoulders. When darkness falls the women stand on the veranda of the house, looking out to the shadows that gradually obscure the sick and grieving man.

Märit brings a paraffin lamp and places it on the veranda. “I’ll leave it here in the night. That way he will see it and know we are here.”

I
N THE MORNING
when Tembi wakes she is immediately struck by the quality of the silence. No crowing from Dik-Dik, no clucking of chickens, no chug from the generator, no twanging music from Michael’s music box. Michael is gone. The silence tells her.

On the veranda the paraffin lamp has long since burned out. She walks down to the place where Michael sat all the previous day and night. She sees only the pair of old boots under the tree. And a single palm print outlined in the dust, as if he had placed his hand there when he rose at last. Tembi does not go to the kraal to look for him, or to any other place on the farm. The silence tells her that he is gone. Only the boots remain. He came with nothing and he has left with nothing.

S
OMETIMES
M
ÄRIT WALKS
in the cool air of the morning, with the breeze moving the blades of the windmill and the doves cooing in the eucalyptus trees and the rows of maize plants green in the sunlight and the distant mountains violet against the blue sky, and for a moment she forgets.

She stands at the bottom of the veranda steps and takes in the view. The landscape, so pure, the whisper of the breeze, the echo of birdsong.

She forgets the deaths that have marked this place called Kudufontein, or Lebone, or Duiwelskop, or nothing at all. She forgets the death of Grace, the death of Ben, the death of the stranger who was shot from the air, the death of the chickens. She forgets that Michael wanders out there in the wilderness.

But then she remembers, and the veil of sorrow descends. Then Märit is convinced that this farm is the last place on earth, that the rest of the world has been destroyed, and that destruction is lurking just beyond the horizon, in the brooding silence, knocking at the doors of Kudufontein. And then there will be no place left on earth.

If not for Tembi, Märit thinks, she would fade into the void that lies beyond the farm and give herself up to the silence. It would be so easy to give up, to cease the struggle, to let the veil descend. Only Tembi anchors Märit now. Tembi with her bright and optimistic smile, her courage to face obstacles, her brown skin that is a mixture of the veldt grasses and the dark soil so that she sometimes seems created from the veldt. I could fade into the pale light, Märit thinks, and I could disappear, because I am made from something insubstantial. But Tembi is made from the soil, she is this land.

When Tembi joins Märit on the veranda, and looks to see what Märit gazes upon so far away, and sees the distance in her eyes, she asks, “What are you looking at? What do you see?”

“Nothing. I’m looking at nothing.”

“We must harvest the mealies. They are ready. And we must pick the fruit. Otherwise, the birds will eat it all.”

“Won’t it go rotten anyway?”

“Not if we dry it. You can do that with fruit. But first you have to take out the pits, and slice the flesh, and set it out in the sun. A lot of work.”

“And what will we do with all the maize cobs?”

“Set them in the shed to dry. And then we can grind the ears to make meal, and then we will have mealie porridge. A lot of work!”

Tembi puts her hand on Märit’s shoulder. Then Märit shakes off her thoughts, and smiles, and resolves to be courageous too, like Tembi. “I’m daydreaming. Is it time to go back to work?”

The women work through the morning. The work is hard and tedious, and it makes the hands ache, the skin rub and crack. The maize cobs are pulled from the tall plants and piled in small heaps down the center of the rows. There is no talking, because talking is an effort. Sweat collects and chafes where cloth meets skin. The breeze rasps like a hoarse whisper through the dry leaves of the maize and it whispers the song of the earth—that all must labor, that all must struggle.

The women take turns loading the cobs into the wheelbarrow and wheeling the harvest to a shed, where the pile on the floor grows ever larger.

“Maybe we have enough now,” Märit says after returning from one of these trips to the shed.

Tembi studies the remaining rows of maize and shakes her head. “I told you it would be a lot of work. And we still have to peel them—otherwise, they will rot.”

“But will we ever need this much?”

“We must harvest everything.”

Märit sighs and bends again to her work.

The harvest takes two days of steady, repetitive labor that leaves both women aching in their bodies. Then there is the shucking of the dry outer
husks, which is even harder on the hands, so that at night Märit complains about her chafed skin.

Tembi fetches a bottle of lotion from the bathroom. “Sit here,” she commands, pointing to a chair. By the dim glow of candlelight she kneels before Märit, taking her hands in her own and gently massaging the lotion into Märit’s skin.

When Tembi looks up she sees the glisten of tears in Märit’s eyes. “Why are you sad?”

“No, I’m happy, Tembi. I’m happy, because you are such a good person, and you are here.”

“And I am happy if you are happy.”

“This farm should be yours, Tembi. You should be the one sitting in this chair, not me.”

“It is our farm, together. And your hands are stronger every day. You are stronger. Not so much the weak woman who first came to this farm.”

“Was I weak? Yes, I suppose I was. I’m stronger now. From all this struggle.”

Tembi shrugs. “That is the way of the world. Struggle.”

Märit sits up and clasps Tembi’s hands. “Let’s take tomorrow off! No work for a day.”

“But we must pick the fruit. The birds will eat it if we don’t.”

“How much can they eat in one day? We need a day off. We’ll have a picnic and go swimming in the river! Can we?”

Tembi laughs. “Why ask me? You can do what you like. If you want to swim, we will swim.”

I
N SOME PLACES
the river is green, the color of bottle-glass. In other places it is coffee-colored, like Tembi’s skin. Sometimes it is clear enough to see the pebbles and sand beneath the surface, and sometimes it is an opaque mirror, reflecting the sky and the trees.

Where Märit and Tembi have come, upstream from the house, the river flows amongst low flat rocks that lead out from the bank, and in between the rocks are pools of varying depth. Here the river makes a bend in its course, and on the opposite bank the rocks rise steeply, forming a wall of
stone that is spotted with bushes and low trees that rise to screen the sky. The place is sheltered, calm, concealed.

Tembi is perched on the edge of a rock, dropping bits of leaf into the eddies, where they swirl in a circular motion before shooting off downstream. Märit reclines nearby with her face turned up to the hot sun, dabbing her toes in the water.

Tembi watches a blade of grass arrow into the current. She imagines herself tiny, small enough to sit on it, as if it were a boat. She imagines the boat traveling down canyons, through villages and towns, even through the cities, coming at last into a lagoon that spills out to the ocean. She imagines a yellow beach and crashing waves and ships offshore.

“I wonder where this river goes,” Tembi says.

“Down to the sea,” Märit murmurs. “Like all the rivers.”

This single blade of grass, a strand plucked idly in passing, will float down this single river, and join a larger river where other streams flow into it. There, Tembi imagines, they will become one river, and plunge into the sea, all becoming one.

“I want to visit the sea one day. It’s my dream.”

“Yes,” Märit answers. “I loved it there. I think I had my happiest moments by the sea.”

“Tell me about it. Tell me what it was like.”

Märit sits up and props her chin on her knees. “Ben and I went there, just after we married, for our honeymoon.”

“To Durban?”

“Near Durban. The place was called Mussel Sands. We stayed in a small hotel. We always had our breakfast in bed—it was brought up on a tray—then we would go out and walk along the beach for hours. I loved the sound of the waves, and the smell in the air, the fresh, salty smell.”

“Did you swim?”

“All the time. I wasn’t a very good swimmer at first; the waves frightened me a bit—they could get quite big at times. But I felt safe with Ben. I would hang onto his back as he waded into the breakers, and he showed me how to duck under the big ones and how to ride over the tops of the swell before it broke. I loved it when a wave took me and carried me up as if I had no weight at all. It was like flying. Just for that minute when I was
on the crest of the breaker, speeding towards the beach, it felt like flying, weightless and free.”

She stares down at her toes, flat on the rock, remembering.

Tembi says, “I want to go to the ocean one day. I want to fly in the waves. But I cannot swim.”

“No? Well, then, I will teach you.” She springs to her feet. “Come on.”

“But I have no bathing suit.”

“We’ll swim naked.”

“Yes?”

Märit looks around. “Who could possibly see us?” She unfastens her sarong and lets it drop at her feet. Then she slips off her underwear and wades into the nearest pool. She splashes water up at Tembi. “Come on!”

After a quick glance around, Tembi follows suit and scampers into the pool, quickly dropping down so that the water rises to her shoulders.

“Over here,” Märit tells her, moving into the deeper stream. “Give me your hands.”

Tembi grasps Märit’s fingers.

“The first thing is to kick, like a frog, just keep kicking, that’s it.” Märit moves them both a little closer to the center of the river, feeling the current now. “Keep your head up. Now you have to use your arms.”

“Don’t let me go!”

“I’ve got your waist. Now, use your arms as if you were parting the long grass, and kick at the same time.” She releases her hold on Tembi’s waist and lets her move away. “You’re swimming!”

Tembi’s head dips below the water and she surfaces spluttering, casting an anxious eye around for Märit. “Keep your chin up,” Märit calls.

With a determined expression Tembi strokes into the current purposefully. She feels the strength of the water under her, and she matches it with her own strength, pushing against it upstream.

For a moment the struggle is equal, then the current spins Tembi around so that she is facing downstream. She is weightless, she is a feather. But the river is strong. It pulls her with a will of its own, and there is nothing below her feet as the impersonal power grabs her body. Her head drops below the surface and her eyes see the green depths.

“Märit!” she cries.

“I’m here, I’m here.” Märit’s hands catch her, stronger than the river, taking her to safety.

When she has caught her breath, spread-eagled on the rocks, Tembi says, “I wasn’t frightened.”

Märit stretches out next to her. “No. You’re brave.”

“I was a little bit frightened. Next time I will beat the river.”

They lie naked, letting the sun dry their bodies. Tembi rolls over onto her stomach and rests her head on her folded arms so that she can look at Märit. “Tell me some more about when you were married. What is it like to live with a man, to sleep with him next to you every night, to wake next to him in the morning?”

“You feel safe. I never slept so well as I did next to Ben. His chest was broad and strong and warm, and when he held me I slept like a little girl.”

“Is that what it is like to be married, you feel like a girl?”

Märit laughs. “No, there is more to it than that.”

Tembi moves her arm so that her eyes are hidden. “Tell me about the other part. Tell me about the other things.”

“Often you feel like a girl, but then there are the times that a man makes you feel like a woman. In a special way.”

“You mean loving—when he is loving you in bed?” Tembi’s voice is shy, her face hidden.

“A man’s body is like your own in so many ways, but where he is different his body is something wonderful. And the difference gives you pleasure. Such sweet pleasure to touch him.”

She falls silent.

“And he loved you?”

“I suppose he did. Although I don’t think he knew anything more about love than I did. Perhaps we might have grown to love each other in a better way if he had lived.”

Tembi asks no more. Finally, she says, “I want to be married someday too. I want to swim in the ocean. I want to have a man. I want to know these things too.”

“You will, Tembi. You will. It will be sweet for you. And it will also be bitter sometimes.”

Tembi shifts position onto her back and closes her eyes, lapsing into silence.

Märit leans on one elbow and lets her eyes move over Tembi’s body with frank curiosity. She has never seen Tembi naked, or any black woman. How much a part of the rocks and the sun Tembi seems, her breasts and stomach as smooth and rounded as the stone, the pubic patch of tight curls only a tone or two darker than the surrounding skin.

Märit touches her own hair, which is growing out unevenly, and looks down at her light-colored body, so pale, so naked, the triangle between her thighs so visible and obvious. I look better clothed, she thinks, and Tembi is better naked.

“Tembi?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you think we will be able to continue living here? How much longer can we go on?”

Tembi opens her eyes, unclouded with doubt. “We can live here forever if we want to.”

“I don’t know if I am strong enough. I don’t mean in my body, but in my heart.”

“You have to be strong, Märit. For my sake. I need you also.”

Märit leans over and clasps Tembi’s hand. “Do you? Do you really? You don’t know how much it means to me to hear you say that. I have nothing to hold me to this life otherwise.”

Tembi raises herself and leans to splash water onto her feet and then wipes her face. Where her wet hand has rested on the hot rock, the perfect shape of a palm and fingers is delineated on the stone. Märit watches as the imprint begins to evaporate and fade, then quickly places her own hand over the outline. She feels the mixture of coolness and warmth emanating from the rock, as if from a body.

Tembi looks down at Märit’s hand where it covers the palm print on the stone. “Without you, I too would be lost in this place.”