A Blade of Grass

by Lewis Desoto

  “You can go on like before. But you will be the Missus of the farm now.”

  “Alone?” Märit opens her eyes. “How can I manage this farm on my own? Without anybody?” She imagines the long days in the now-empty house, and the long hours of the night, and no end to it. Ben is gone. The thought is terrible to her.

  “No, you can. If you want to. I can help you.”

  “You are kind, Tembi. Kinder than I deserve. But I don’t know. Maybe I should go back to the city.”

  “If you want to.”

  “I don’t know what I want.” She puts her cup aside. “Everything is broken. I don’t know what I want.” She runs her hand through her hair, clutching at it, and closes her eyes again. She sees in her mind the somber gathering at the church, the black suits, the smell of perspiration and perfume. Ben is gone. Her body trembles with the knowledge. Yesterday it was possible to live, even the funeral was possible to endure, because there was a purpose in her actions and a reason. But today there is no reason and no purpose, and tomorrow, and the days after that. They have no reason or purpose.

  Tembi gets up to clear away the lunch tray.

  “Tembi?” Märit says in a small, hesitant voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like to come and live in the house? Here, with me. You can move into the other bedroom. It can be yours.” Märit lies motionless, almost rigid, not opening her eyes.

  Tembi sets the tray down on the edge of the bed; the pity and the tenderness are in her heart as she looks down at Märit.

  “We can share,” Märit says, still with her eyes closed. Her voice quavers with an appeal, with an appeal to hope. “We can share the house.”

  Tembi stands at the foot of the bed, thoughtful, for a long while. The pity in her heart and the hope in Märit’s voice make her want to say yes. The frown across Märit’s pinched and pained brow makes her want to say yes. The quivering lip makes her want to say yes.

  But to come into this house, to live here, is that not a betrayal of her people? Will she separate herself from the rest of the workers who live in the kraal, who sleep in huts, who bathe in the washhouse and cook on the open fire?

  Yet, she is in exile already, separate from the others in a way that she cannot quite define but feels no less acutely. Because she reads, because she has more schooling, because she thinks thoughts that others scoff at or dismiss, she is already separate. Her mother is gone, her father is gone. She is alone, like Märit. And she does not want things to remain the same in her life; she wants the future to be different from the past.

  Tembi knows also that to live in this house will mean a kind of freedom and comfort, an elevation of her place in the world.

  When she bends to take the tray again, Märit opens her eyes, meeting those of Tembi with an intimate intensity.

  Will there be friendship? Tembi wonders. Without friendship there can be nothing.

  “Yes,” Tembi says. “I can be here.”

  A sigh escapes from Märit’s lips and her whole body relaxes. “Thank you, Tembi,” she whispers. “Thank you.”

  “I will go to the kraal and fetch my things. But what must I say to the others? What must I say to Joshua about the farm?”

  “You can tell them that the farm will continue. Except that I will be the Baas now.”

  Märit speaks these words, but she does not know if they are true.

  THERE IS NOT much that Tembi has in the hut where she lived with her mother—a couple of dresses, one pair of shoes, some underwear, a few books, a photograph in a cheap tin frame of her parents on the day they were married. Her mother’s belongings are in a metal trunk, which Tembi has not opened since she packed it after the funeral. She has no makeup, no creams or perfumes, only a brush, a bar of soap, a comb, a toothbrush. All her belongings fit into a single cardboard suitcase. The last item she takes is the blue bead bracelet, which she fastens around her wrist.

  Before going back to the house she makes her way down towards the river and up to the ridge where the graves are, and here she stands before the resting place of her mother.

  “Is this the right thing to do, Mother?” she asks. “What do I leave behind forever if I go to live in Märit’s house?”

  The breeze rustles softly through the willows, the doves murmur in the shade of the leaves, the water burbles over the stones.

  Tembi crouches down on her knees and places both palms flat on the ground, as if it could speak to her, and she feels the turning of the earth under her hands.

  And now there is one more thing to do before going to the house. She fetches her plastic bucket, fills it with water at the washhouse tap, and makes a circuitous path to the koppie and her garden. Every day she waters, without fail, no matter what happens, because here is the one thing that she knows—that the seeds will grow into fruit. Carefully she pours water in each of the five places where her seeds lie, and lifts a few fallen twigs and leaves. She places her hands flat against the ground, and feels here too the turning of the earth, and the earth tells her that the seeds are coming to life within the soil.

  On her way back to the house she skirts the kraal, because there are people there now, the work of the day is finished, and wives are united again with husbands, children with parents, the cooking fires are being lit, the scent of wood smoke is in the air. Tembi skirts the kraal—for what can she say to anybody now except that she is leaving something behind for something unknown?

  But Joshua is waiting for her on the path, a hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his lips. He is waiting for her, and she wonders how he knew she was coming this way. How much does he see? He raises his chin when she appears, half greeting, half summons.

  Before he can speak, Tembi says, “I have spoken with Missus Märit. Everything will stay the same on the farm. She will take the place of Baas Ben.”

  Joshua removes his cigarette and spits between his feet. He shakes his head, disbelieving. “You told her that I can manage this farm? That only I know what must be done here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “She says that is good. She is going to stay on this farm and work.”

  “Mmm! And you, you are going to look after her in the house?”

  “She has asked me.”

  “Yes, that’s good.” He studies her with a long calculating look. “Then you will come and tell me what she is thinking. And I will tell you what to say to her.”

  Tembi says nothing. Joshua jerks his chin again, a dismissal, and she goes on her way, aware of him on the path watching her, looking at her back as she walks. Tembi does not know his thoughts, but she fears them nevertheless.

  27

  TEMBI SETS HER BAGS DOWN in the hall and taps at Märit’s door. The sweet fruity smell of shampoo greets her as she enters and a dampness wafts from the direction of the bathroom at the other end of the room. Märit is sitting up in bed with her long hair combed but still wet; next to her on the night table is a glass and the bottle of peach brandy that Connie van Staden brought earlier. She has a photo album open on her lap.

  “You are awake?”

  “Yes, come in, Tembi. Is everything all right at the kraal—did you get your belongings?”

  “Yes, I have my things.”

  Märit’s eyes fall on the blue bracelet, and she looks pleased, but says nothing.

  Tembi steps farther into the room and perches on the edge of the bed, her interest piqued by the photo album.

  Märit turns a photograph outwards so that Tembi can see it. “This is on the day that Ben and I got married.”

  Tembi bends to look, seeing Ben in a dark suit, smiling, squinting slightly in the sun that falls on his face, and next to him Märit in a dress, white like almond blossoms, a bouquet of red roses in her hand. She too is smiling, but frowning at the same time, as if with conflicting emotions.

  “It seems so long ago,” Märit says, “a time from a different life. How quickly things can change. How quickly we change. I look at this perso
n in the picture and I hardly recognize her. I see someone who doesn’t know the first thing about herself.”

  “But now you know who you are.”

  “No, I don’t. I only know I’m not the same person as the one in the photograph. And that the world is no longer the same place.”

  “I have a picture too,” Tembi says, and gets up to fetch it. She returns with a small gilt frame and presents it to Märit. “My parents, also on their marriage day.”

  The young couple sit side by side in chairs in what must be a photographer’s studio, a painted backdrop of an African landscape behind them. The husband, upright, proud, in his new suit, holding a hat in one hand. And the young wife with her hand resting lightly on her husband’s forearm, her round, smooth face glowing.

  “How beautiful Grace is,” Märit says. “Were they happy together?”

  “Yes. For many years our life was good. But then—” she shrugs—“but then we had to leave the place where we lived, because the government said we must go, and the new place was no good and there was no work and so my father went to the mines in Johannesburg. And then we came here, to this farm, where my mother could work.”

  Märit shakes her head and looks down. She knows only vaguely of the events that take place when the government decides on a new policy to further its aims. These policies barely affect life for the privileged, of which she is one. How little she really knows, she realizes, of the lives of the invisible people that surround her.

  “Do you have any photos of yourself, Tembi?”

  “No. We had no camera.”

  “Well, I do, and I am going to take a lot of photos of you. You can start your own album, like this one. And I’ll show you how to work the camera so that you can take your own pictures. We’ll take lots of photos together.”

  Tembi looks up and nods, seeing not Märit, but the past, the lost past. But there will be no pictures of the past, Tembi thinks. Only memory will remind her of her mother, and her father, and the place where she was born. When the past is lost, how can the present find its way?

  Märit reaches for the glass of peach brandy. When she speaks again her breath is sweet with the aroma of fruit. “I’ve made up the bed in the spare room for you. And put out towels in the bathroom. Would you like to have a bath, Tembi? Use some of the foam bath.”

  She rises. “Yes, I can have a bath.”

  Bubbles appears magically when Tembi pours the pink liquid into the stream of water gushing from the faucet, and she is careful to measure out only one capful. Even so, she thinks she has put too much in, and she lessens the force of the stream from the tap, alarmed that the bubbles will spill out onto the floor. When she takes off her clothes, wearing only her bracelet of blue beads, and catches sight of her dark skin in the fogged-up mirror, dark in this white room, the sight is strange, seeing herself in this room, and she lights the candle that stands on the windowsill, then turns off the overhead light.

  It is like a warm river when she sinks down into the foam, like being in a shallow pool by the river, where the rocks have been warmed by the sun, and the smell is like flowers.

  She lies there listening to the soft pop of the bubbles, and then hears the gentle pattering of raindrops on the window, and soon the gentle rustling in the thatch of the roof, the sound familiar to her because in her thatched hut in the kraal the rain makes the same comforting whisper, and she is warm and safe and the gentle rain falls on the earth.

  At last she rises, wrapping herself in the fluffy towel, and opens the window a crack to allow the scented steam to escape, and the night air that wafts into the room at the same time has the sweet smell of rain and peace.

  Tembi carries the candle through to the spare bedroom, her room, and finds the crisp white sheets turned back, the soft pillows plumped up, and a clean nightdress draped across the patterned quilt. She turns off the lamp so that the light is dim as she buttons the nightdress. Then, with the candle in hand, she moves through the house, turning off the lamps, making sure the doors are bolted. When she pauses at Märit’s door to say good-night, the room is in darkness, and she moves away silently.

  But as she goes she hears a subdued sobbing, like the rain pattering on the roof, a whisper that all is not at peace here. She steps into the room, shading the candle with her palm. Märit is turned on her side, facing away, and when Tembi moves closer she sees the photograph clutched in Märit’s hand, and the shaking of her shoulders as she weeps.

  “Märit?”

  “Don’t go, Tembi,” Märit whispers. “Stay with me again tonight. I’m afraid to be alone.”

  So Tembi slips beneath the sheets on the other side of the bed and blows the candle out with a puff of breath, and Märit turns to her in the darkness, like a child, pressing her face against Tembi’s breast. Tembi slowly strokes away the tears on Märit’s cheeks, gently patting her on the back with a soothing motion, until the sobbing ceases and Märit is calmed, and Tembi feels sleep stealing over her own limbs.

  Sometime in the night Märit wakes to the sound of rain and to a sense of desolation. The quilt has slipped to the floor and she reaches down for it, shivering in the chill of the room, then pulls the quilt close around her. The rain beats against the window, the world hangs in suspension, without time, without destination, without purpose.

  If only there had been a child, then everything would be different. Her life would be different now if she had a child to love, even with what has happened. She would have someone to love. But nobody needs her now. If she were to die in the night she would slip from the world unremembered, her life unremarked in its passing. Nobody would miss her.

  She lies with the quilt pulled up around her eyes, in desolation, in weakness, and when she turns, seeking comfort, her hand touches the unfamiliar body next to her, and she remembers, and with a small cry of anguish buries her face against the softness of Tembi.

  Tembi drifts out of her slumber to feel the desperate clinging of the other woman. She strokes Märit’s back with a soothing, circular motion.

  Märit presses herself tighter against Tembi as if to bury her grief in the living flesh of another body. Her hand touches the warm skin, the soft fuzz of the hair—a stranger, but not a stranger. In the darkness they are the same.

  The rain falls on the fields and the trees and on the calm water of the river, making small circles on the surface where the drops fall. The rain falls on the hides of the cattle that stand slumbering in their enclosure, and on the coats of the wild animals that shelter on the veldt under the acacia trees. The gentle rain falls with soft sounds on the straw thatch of the roofs in the kraal.

  When Tembi wakes she dresses quickly and silently, and slips from the house without disturbing the sleeping Märit, and goes into the new morning, where the long shafts of the sun touch the cool places that still have the shadows of night lingering. And she too has the lingering of the night shadows upon her, the new morning upon her also.

  Dew is still on the ground, the moisture from blades of grass brushing her ankles as she avoids the path to the kraal and strikes off in a direction that veers around the collection of huts. A thin blue haze of smoke hangs over the kraal; the morning cooking fires are already lit. In the chicken coop, Dik-Dik the rooster is calling out to the new day.

  She would like nothing better than to settle next to the fire with a mug of hot tea as the women cook the morning porridge, talking idly while they stir the big pot and the smells rise to mingle with the wood smoke and there is that easy, lazy morning mood.

  Instead, Tembi gives the kraal a wide berth. She does not want to see anybody, to hear their questions, to feel the subtle exclusion that her presence brings. And neither does she want to meet Joshua. She walks through the dew-wet grass to the only other place where she belongs—the garden behind the koppie.

  In secret, Tembi comes with her pail of water to her garden, her refuge. A low screen of thin cloud hangs over the land, not bringing rain, but softening the sun and the heat. She sets the pai
l down and bends to scoop a little water in her hands, then dribbles it over the soil. And there, on the moist black soil, she sees five green shoots. Her heart gives a leap of joy as she falls to her knees.

  Can it be? Five green plants, so pale, so new. She brings her face close to the ground and the damp scent of the earth rises to her nostrils. Five green shoots, coming up from the earth. So small, smaller than the tip of her little finger as she strokes it across the seedlings.

  Her seeds have taken nourishment and sprouted, have come forth into life, into the brightness that shines on all living things.

  With her knees clasped against her chest for warmth, she sits on the rock that is still chilled from the night, but the sun is warm, and the yellow light falls on her garden. She raises her head and looks across the veldt, unable to see the house, yet aware that soon she must go there.

  Tembi knows that she is linked to the woman who lies sleeping in the farmhouse, linked with an as yet inexplicable bond. Her allegiance now is with Märit. And her destiny is there too, equally inexplicable and unknown.

  What must Märit be to her now, and what must she be to Märit?

  When the sun has warmed the rocks where Tembi sits, and banished the lingering shadows, and burned off the dew from the grass, when the grass lark has started singing, and the haze of smoke no longer hangs over the kraal, and the sound of a tractor starting up echoes against the koppie, Tembi at last rises—reluctantly, because only here does time wait for her, only here can she be without the world. Reluctantly she walks back towards the house, towards Märit—reluctantly, but also with expectation and not without hope.

  Part Two

  The Land

  28

  MÄRIT MOURNS.

  In the weeks following Ben’s death she seldom leaves the house. She is between two worlds—the past and the future—the present has no shape or meaning for her. Tembi prepares the meals and does the cleaning in the house. She tries to draw Märit out of the distant place she has retreated to, but Märit’s replies to her questions and comments are listless, uninterested, and her gray eyes look upon Tembi as upon a stranger. Sometimes she ventures outside, but never very far from the house, only walking for a few minutes around the garden before coming indoors again to lie on her bed. Sometimes she sits in one of the wicker chairs on the veranda for long hours, smoking cigarettes and staring into the distance. And when Tembi calls softly to her, she does not turn her head.