A Blade of Grass

by Lewis Desoto

  “Get out!” Märit screams. He flinches, and this gives her courage to advance on him. “Get out! Right now! You are not to come back into this house.”

  He retreats through the door and onto the veranda, then turns upon her. “You think you can make me leave? You? A woman? How?” His eyes move down her body in a mocking glance.

  Märit backs away into the living room, then rushes to the little office. She pulls open the desk drawer and reaches to the very back, where a key for the tall cupboard hangs on a hook. Her fingers scrabble at the keyhole. She jerks the cupboard open and lifts the shotgun out. With a quick movement she folds the barrels down, sees that the gun is not loaded, and reaches for the box of cartridges on the top shelf. She inserts a cartridge into each barrel, then, just as Ben had shown her, moves the safety catch to the off position with her thumb.

  Pointing the gun in front of her Märit advances through the room and out to the veranda. Joshua is standing a few yards away from the steps with his back to her and his hands on his hips, surveying the farm.

  “You will leave this farm today,” Märit says. “By sundown. Your employment here is finished.”

  Joshua does not even turn around.

  “Do you understand?” Märit demands. “You are nothing on this farm anymore.”

  In reply, Joshua leans to one side and ejects a stream of saliva onto the ground.

  Märit raises the shotgun and fires.

  AS TEMBI reaches the back door and is about to mount the steps, the sudden bang of a gunshot rocks the air. A second later the faint echo returns from the hills. Tembi stops in her tracks, turning towards the echo, not sure from where the shot has come. Then a second shot crashes from the front of the house.

  The first thing Tembi sees is Märit standing on the veranda with a shotgun in her hands and an expression of grim determination on her face. Strands of white smoke hang in the air, tainting it with the burned smell of gunpowder.

  “What happened?” Tembi cries. “Are you hurt?”

  Märit motions with the gun barrel. A few yards from the veranda Joshua lies face down on the ground. “He was in the house, in my bedroom.”

  “You’ve killed him?” Tembi exclaims.

  At the sound of her voice Joshua rolls over, then sits up and pats himself all over. Gingerly he rises to his feet, testing his limbs.

  Forming her words clearly and slowly, Märit says, “By the time the sun is below the trees I want you off this land. Next time I won’t shoot over your head.”

  Joshua glowers at the two women.

  “Go!” Märit orders, waving him off with the gun.

  THAT EVENING, as the sky darkens to a navy blue and the sun is nothing but red streaks over the hills, the women hear a banging at the front door.

  “It’s him!” Tembi cries, jumping up from her chair.

  “Hold the gun,” Märit orders, pointing to the shotgun that stands near the door, loaded and ready. She waits until Tembi has positioned herself before opening the door.

  Joshua is there, looming in the doorway.

  “My pay,” he demands with one hand extended.

  Märit has the envelope ready. She has already calculated his wages. Joshua grasps the envelope and takes a moment to count the money, then he slips it into his pocket and steps away. “Today you pay me,” he mutters. “But tomorrow I will pay you. Both of you!”

  Märit slams the door shut and slides the bolt home, then leans against the wood, listening as his feet descend the steps.

  “I’m afraid of him,” Tembi says.

  Märit takes the gun from Tembi’s trembling hands. “Don’t worry. He won’t be back.”

  THE NEXT MORNING Märit sets out on her usual round of the farm. Immediately she notices that every glance is directed at her with curiosity and anxiety. The workers move with an air of indecision, as if they are unsure what to do.

  Märit seeks out Bodule, one of the men whom she has marked out as being capable, and the one who would have been her choice as foreman if it were not for Joshua’s prior claim.

  “Bodule, I must talk to you,” she says, beckoning him away from his companions.

  “Yes, Missus Laurens.” He removes his hat and stands patiently.

  “I have told Joshua to leave.”

  “This is true, Missus. You have told him.”

  “He was in the house, stealing. That is why.”

  “Yes, Missus. That is a bad thing, stealing.”

  “Can you take over as bossboy?”

  “I can do that, Missus. Yes.”

  “I don’t want anything to change on the farm just because Joshua has left. In fact, things should be better now.”

  Bodule nods his head sagely.

  “Well,” Märit says when Bodule makes no move to leave. “Back to work, then.”

  Bodule looks down at his hat. He takes a breath. “Missus, I must tell you.”

  “Yes, Bodule?”

  “There has been some other stealing. The cattle.”

  She mistakes his meaning and answers, “The cattle? Have they been into the mealies?”

  “The cattle have been stolen, Missus. Come, I will show you.” Bodule puts on his hat and leads the way.

  The grass in the upper pasture has been trodden down into a path leading to the fence. The wire has been cut and peeled back.

  “Somebody with a truck,” Bodule explains. “They have come in the night and cut the wire and taken cattle away.”

  Shocked, Märit stares at the cut wire. “But didn’t anybody hear them? How could this happen?” She turns on him angrily. “You must have heard something.”

  Bodule looks down and shakes his head. The anger leaves Märit as rapidly as it came. With a shiver of apprehension she remembers the burned-out farm on the ridge into Klipspring. Even if the workers heard something they would have been too afraid to venture out.

  “This means ruin.” Unsteady on her feet, she sinks down to her haunches. Then she looks up at Bodule. “Did Joshua do this?”

  Bodule raises his shoulders helplessly. “We are close to the border here, Missus. There are bad people coming at night sometimes.”

  “We are all ruined. Without cattle there is nothing here. Just maize. And nobody wants to buy maize.”

  Bodule clears his throat in an obvious manner.

  “Was there something else, Bodule?”

  “Some strangers, Missus. This morning two men arrived and asked for shelter.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They say they are going to Johannesburg. They are walking to Johannesburg.”

  Märit ponders the news a moment. “Do you think they had something to do with the stealing of the cattle?”

  He spreads his hands in bafflement.

  “Are the men still here, Bodule?”

  “Yes, Missus. You wish to speak to them?”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “No. But they must not stay on the farm. Especially if they don’t have their papers in order. I will have to call the police about this theft. You must tell them to leave.”

  “I will tell them to leave, Missus.”

  Märit walks back to the house with her head low, feeling the ominous presence of some malevolent force that has singled out this farm. She telephones the police. The man who answers tells her matter-of-factly that she should not hold out any hope for recovering the cattle. Then he asks questions about recent visitors to the farm, and the number of workers who live there—questions which seem irrelevant to her. The policeman tells her that the theft will be investigated. She has the feeling that he does not care. When she hangs up the phone she feels friendless and isolated from the world.

  35

  IN THE DRY, hard place where the garden lies hidden, Tembi brings her bucket of water. The earth must drink, the plants must drink. As she walks around the side of the koppie to the secret place that is hidden by rocks and scrub, her heart lifts in anticipation of seeing the flowers that grow. She sets the bucket down and flexes her arm to remov
e the ache in the muscles and clambers over the rocks—and the gladness in her heart is removed in one swift blow.

  The flowers are gone.

  She pushes aside the barrier of scrub, heedless of the thorns that rake her arms. The plants are there, yes—all is not lost—but where are the flowers? Has some animal found its way into the enclosure? Her hands reach in among the leaves, gently parting the vines, and her fingers touch the unfamiliar shape of small round objects, smooth to her careful touch. She bends lower to the ground, her heart beating, and in wonderment touches the new fruits that have sprouted. Small, green, flecked with yellow. The new life, strong and healthy.

  She feels the trembling in the soil under her hands, she hears the pulse and beat of life in the air. The tremor in the air is loud, coming in quick surges that seem to push the air forward, and the vibration becomes a beat, then a steady mechanical shudder.

  Tembi looks up to the sky.

  In the fields where the cattle used to graze, the small boys also look up to the sky.

  The women who bend to clear the weeds from the rows of maize straighten their backs and lift their heads and look up to the sky.

  The men who pull the strands of wire tight as they repair a fence let the strands go slack in their fingers and look up to the sky.

  The finches in the willows beside the river dart deeper into the screen of branches, and the doves in the bluegum trees beside the farmhouse flutter and wheel in confusion.

  All look up to the sky, to the metallic roar hurtling towards the farm.

  Sweeping low over the koppie, three squat helicopters drop down out of the sky. Three dark machines, the color of mud, squat, bristling, hard-shelled like swollen locusts. The sky shakes with their metallic clatter. One helicopter hovers above the house while another banks and circles over the kraal. The third makes a fast, sweeping pass down to the river and back, bristling with aerials and gun barrels, like some menacing giant insect.

  The doves wheel and flutter in panic over the roof of the farmhouse. In the fields the small boys shake their willow switches at the helicopters and shout up through the grind and groan of the engines.

  From the kraal a figure breaks from the entrance to a hut and runs in the direction of the river, through the orchard towards the screen of willow trees on the banks of the river. He runs quickly, desperate in his flight.

  One of the machines tilts up and dives in pursuit like an angry insect, rotors whining. As it arcs over the koppie, almost on its side, Tembi looks up and sees the men in the open door of the helicopter, helmeted, goggled, arms pointing at the fleeing figure—the insect men inside the belly of the locust. The blades of the machine hack at the air, the smell of fuel is a rain from the sky, a gun barrel sweeps back and forth as the helicopter plummets upon the figure in the long grass.

  The guns speak, and their words are the rapid chatter of steel against flesh. A man stumbles, then runs on. Now the running figure is in the last patch of empty ground before the shelter of the riverbank, and the machine swoops down, spitting flames. The running man falls, flung to the ground as if by an invisible fist, his feet and his hands and his face broken by the bullets that spit down from the machine.

  Tembi crouches in her small acre of the world, an acre that spans only the distance between her two spread hands. She crouches against the hot wind of sand and pebbles whipping across the soil, and the smell of machine fuel everywhere, and the voice of the bullets. She crouches with her body hunched over her green seedlings.

  MÄRIT IS AT THE DESK in her office with the accounts ledger spread open, her mind fixed on the financial future of the farm. How will she handle the finances alone? How can the farm survive without the cattle? She has telephoned the police in Klipspring about the theft of the cattle, and they have promised to investigate, but nothing has happened. Losing the cattle will mean that there is no future income for the farm. The mealies and the fruit, when ripe and harvested, will bring next to nothing. There are too many other farms with the same crops.

  A faint tremor passes through her body, then the pencils in the jar on her desk begin to rattle. A boom and shudder shakes the house. Märit pushes her chair back and rushes to the window. Is it a storm? An earthquake?

  But the sky is clear except for the high haze of cloud. A sound like hail falling on a tin roof rattles above, just as a dark shape flies over the house.

  As Märit runs out to the veranda, a machine swoops low across the pasture, spitting little tongues of flame that make a chattering noise, like hail striking iron. A second machine is hovering just above the kraal. And now a third helicopter descends, larger than the others, and settles itself heavily near the house, the long blades spinning dangerously close to the trees. Before it has even touched the ground, uniformed men bearing weapons are spilling from the helicopter. Some scatter towards the kraal, while others make for the house.

  Märit is stunned speechless. Everything is happening so quickly.

  It is war, she thinks. But war is outside her knowledge except as pictures in magazines, old newsreels from another time, stories from elsewhere. This is different—the noise and the stench of the machines, the shouting, the purposeful and urgent men in khaki uniforms spreading across the gardens, and everywhere the ugly weapons, some even pointed at her now. She stands in a stillness at the center of this vortex, detached from this sudden tornado of activity, and her mind cannot grasp what she sees.

  But it is war—for what other word is there to describe the violence that has descended so swiftly from the sky?

  Tembi appears, running towards the house from the direction of the kraal. In her hand she carries a red plastic pail, and Märit’s mind focuses on this one detail, as if in a dream, wondering why Tembi carries a pail, wondering why it is a red pail and not some other color.

  The soldiers see Tembi, and one of them shouts and runs to intercept her, grasping her arm roughly as she passes. Tembi stumbles, dropping the pail, then manages to free herself. But with a curse the soldier is quickly upon her, and this time he jerks her to the ground.

  “Leave her alone!” Märit screams. She leaps off the porch and races across the driveway. But before she can reach the struggling Tembi, other hands grab her, pin her arms tight against her side; a rifle barrel digs into her back.

  “Let me go!” But the arms squeeze tighter, lifting her slightly off the ground, pressing the breath out of her lungs.

  “Genoeg! Verlos haar.” A sharp voice of command. Enough. Leave her.

  The arms let Märit go. Tembi scrambles to her feet and runs to Märit’s side.

  A man emerges from amongst the soldiers in the khaki uniforms with their weapons and radios and equipment—a man in a light blue safari suit and dark sunglasses. The soldiers draw back, making way for him. He walks unhurriedly towards Märit, and a step or two behind him is a young soldier with a bulky radio on his back, the long aerial waving in the air, a mutter of voices and static emanating from the radio.

  The man removes his sunglasses, revealing pale eyes, but Märit has already recognized him—Gideon Schoon.

  “Mevrou Laurens.” He nods. He takes in her appearance and shakes his head, his lip curling in disapproval.

  “This is outrageous!” Märit’s fright comes out in a surge of anger, her voice trembling. “What is the meaning of this? What are you doing to my farm?”

  “Forgive the manner of our arrival, Mevrou, but it is necessary.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s necessary?”

  Schoon withdraws a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolds it.

  “Under Section Four of the Emergency Measures Act, I am here to conduct an antiterrorist action. Specifically, to locate and arrest any subversive elements that represent a threat to the state.”

  “Terrorists? For God’s sake, this is a farm. What terrorists? Do you mean us? This is absurd.”

  Schoon refolds the paper and fastens it back into his breast pocket.

  “I have information, M
evrou Laurens, that certain individuals, who have no legal status in this country, are being harbored on this farm. Certain individuals whom we consider to be engaged in criminal activity prejudicial to the stability of the state.”

  “Your information is wrong. You’re talking rubbish. I want you off my farm!”

  “I think it would be in your best interest to cooperate with us, Mevrou.” Schoon permits himself a little smile, but his voice is hard underneath the elaborate politeness of tone.

  Märit remembers the way Eloise Pretorius spoke to her outside Patel’s store in Klipspring, the same veiled politeness, the same threat.

  “It is not in my interest,” she retorts. “There are no criminals or terrorists here, unless you’re referring to me. Is the way I live now an illegal act?”

  “This document,” Schoon says bluntly, tapping his pocket, “empowers me, should I so wish, to arrest every individual on this farm, Mevrou. Yourself included. So let’s have no more of your nonsense.” He is impatient now. “With your permission, Mevrou, we will have a look around.” He turns to the soldiers, directing them to begin their search. “Ondersoek die huis. Kyk wat is daar. Search the house!”

  They push past Märit and up the steps of the veranda. Märit half raises a hand in protest, then lets it fall. They are too many, they are too strong. And this is what soldiers are for—to subdue those weaker than themselves.

  “You won’t find anyone in the house,” Märit tells Schoon. “Only Tembi and I live here.”

  “For the moment I am not concerned with you or your meid.” The radio carried by the young soldier crackles a burst of words. The soldier listens a moment, then says something to Schoon, who snaps his fingers at Märit and Tembi. “Come with me, please,” he says, striding off.

  One of the other soldiers takes Tembi by the arm.

  “Take your hands off her,” Märit snaps at him. “She doesn’t need your assistance.”

  As they follow Schoon, Tembi whispers to Märit, “What do they want?”

  “There’s nothing for them here. Don’t worry.”